“So it all ended happily ever after.”
He frowned. “When magic is involved, there is never a happily ever after. You know that.”
And the way he said it, chills washed down my skin. He was right. I knew that. Magic could lick the happy out of a lollipop.
“There are still members of the Authority who disagree with the decision to allow magic to go public. Your father’s actions were the crack in the ice, and ever since then the Authority has been fracturing, splitting apart. If some of the factions have their way, there will be a war. The Authority will shatter.”
“And that’s bad, right?”
His lips pressed into a grim, flat line. “You have no idea.”
I dug around in my head a little, expecting a comment or reaction out of my dad, but he was silent as a shadow. If I didn’t know better, I wouldn’t think I was possessed. The last time he was this quiet was when Zay and I had been at dinner.
Interesting.
Traffic, which had been crawling, growled back up to freeway speeds. We crossed the Columbia River and within a short while were on the opposite shore in Vancouver, Washington. Zayvion turned east along the river.
“Is it far?” I asked.
“We’re almost there.”
I don’t know what I expected Maeve’s place to be like. Where would secret classes that taught the secret ways of magic be held?
Another fifteen minutes or so and Zayvion slowed and took a road south, toward the river. We crossed the railroad tracks into an abandoned industrial area, and pulled up alongside a long building with identical rows of windows that lined the upper, middle, and ground floors. It sat parallel the length of the train tracks and the river.
I could feel magic radiating like a subtle warmth from the place.
About a half dozen cars were parked along the far chain-link fence that separated this lot from a scrap metal collection site next to it. There were no parking places near the building, which was strange since there was room for several. Instead, big raised boxes and whiskey barrels of plants and flowers took the lion’s share of the parking space, green even in January, filled with sturdy bushes with red and white berries dotting twigs.
“Talk about out-of-the-way,” I said as we parked.
“Used to be right in the middle of everything,” he said. “It was a railroad boardinghouse and inn. Train used to go right through here.”
“It doesn’t anymore?”
He shook his head. “When the Flynns bought the place, they lobbied to have the spur discontinued. No real train business down here, and they didn’t want to risk that kind of attention to the well.” He unbuckled his seat belt and opened the door.
“Well?” I got out of the car. The wind and rain smelled of fir trees and river algae and the dusty grease of the rusting scrap metal next door.
Zayvion tipped his head to one side. “Can’t you feel it?”
I tucked my chin down into my coat collar and calmed my mind. I felt the air, rain that was thankfully a lot lighter, heard the call of crows on the breeze. I paid attention to the ground.
Magic beneath my skin turned and twisted, reaching out for and not quite connecting with the massive pool of magic that radiated a strange heat of its own deep, deep beneath the soil and stone under the inn. I opened my mouth and inhaled. Magic was so concentrated here, I could almost taste it, a faint, fuzzy warmth, like electricity from a thun derstorm, but sweeter, thicker on my tongue.
The well.
The cool metal taste of iron and lead that I always associated with magic, since magic was channeled through conduits of the material, was strangely absent here. Here, in this pocket between two cities, I could almost forget magic was on the grid, controlled, tamed. Here magic roiled in a deep, dreamlike rhythm just below my conscious awareness.
“Wow,” I said.
Zayvion wrapped his arm around my shoulders, a solid warmth that brought me back to my surroundings. Good thing too. I’d stopped walking and was just standing there getting wet.
“Let’s go in,” he said.
I didn’t pull away, preferring to linger against his body and soak up the heat of him.
He started toward the inn, shifting so we were shoulder to shoulder as we walked up the wooden steps to a covered porch that stretched along this side of the building and corner to continue across the front, riverside of the building.
A wooden sign next to the door read FEILE SAN FHOMHER and beneath that, WELCOME.
Zayvion lifted the door latch and pulled open the door, the old hinges giving out a mewl of metal on metal.
The scents of sage, butter, bread stuffing, and baked apples filled my nose and mouth as we entered the high ceilinged, open-raftered main room of the inn. A lunch counter to the right of the room traced a round-edged square in white marble countertop. Only a few people sat in the walnut T-backed stools around the counter, a mix of old and young, suits and jeans.
Rows of round tables filled the space between us and the lunch counter, and square tables tracked along the windows all the way to the end of the building.
A smattering of people sat at the tables. A group of gray-haired men who looked as if they didn’t have a penny between them were working their way through heaping turkey meals. At a table by the window, six teen girls chatted and laughed.And at other tables I saw executives holding business lunches, moms with shopping bags at their feet and children in high chairs, a set of couples, some construction workers, and more than a few loners, men and women, eating lunch, talking, reading papers, drinking coffee while the waitstaff—a couple girls, at the moment—connected them all through service and smiles. Several people behind the lunch counter kept busy cooking and cleaning. The overall atmosphere was a nod to the past, when transitory people gathered and socialized in the comfort of a home away from home.
“Zayvion, Allie.” The voice had a lovely Irish lilt to it, and I looked away from the tables to the woman walking across the room. Maeve wore jeans and deck shoes and a dark green sweater layered over a cream turtleneck. Her red hair was pulled back in a bun and tendrils of it fell free to curl in soft reds and gray around her face. Her eyes were green with wicked intensity, her smile welcoming, if not exactly warm.
What was it Zayvion had said at dinner? My father killed her husband? I suddenly wished I’d asked him more about that.
“Any luck?” she asked Zayvion.
He shook his head. “Still hunting.”
Maeve turned toward me. “I’m glad you made it. Let me take your coat. Then you and I can get started.”
Zayvion tensed. “You don’t want me there?”
“Not this first time. I want to see what Allie can do on her own.” She strode off, talking over her shoulder. “You can stay out here if you’d like,” she said. “I don’t think this will take long.”
I picked up the pace to keep up with her as she beelined between tables, smiling at her guests. She led me back to a wide hallway, where wall lanterns cast the wood in warm tones, then past a white wooden staircase that square-railed up and up. We strolled through a doorway into a small sitting room done up like an old-fashioned parlor.
Plush love seats and chairs big enough for two filled the room. Beside each chair was a small table. In the center of each table was a clear glass bowl, lined with lead.
Magic conducts through glass and lead, if the right glyphs are worked into both. I also noted the wallpaper that at first looked like gold and forest green flowers in a repeating pattern were actually magical glyphs. I caught Shield, Ward, and several other negating glyphs around the room before Maeve had crossed to a dark door that did little to call attention to itself.
She lifted the chain at her neck and caught up a key that she used on the door, before letting the chain fall back beneath her sweater.
“We’ll start in here, since it’s nearest the center.”
Center of what? I didn’t ask because the door distracted me. Wood, but with lead and brown glass worked into it to l
ook like the finest beveled stained glass. The lead and glass were glyphs, but so natural they looked like ribbons in the wood grain.
Holy shit, I’d never seen a magic so artfully carved. I couldn’t resist it; I dragged my fingers across the door. Magic shivered beneath my fingertips, licking at my flesh, pooling in the whorls of my fingerprint.
“You can shut the door, Allie,” Maeve said patiently.
Like a kid caught dipping into the cookie dough, I pulled my hand away and closed the door behind me.
Magic pools beneath the city naturally. There are some points where magic is the most concentrated. Wells. Spring, summer, autumn, winter. The wells are heavily guarded gathering places among the Authority. Never revealed to outsiders.
I rubbed at my forehead. My dad was back and more talkative than ever. How great was that?
With the door shut, it completed the outer spells of Illusion and Blocking, and a half dozen more I was sure I didn’t recognize. I could feel the concentration of magic in the room. It burned like a sun trapped beneath the floorboards, filling me up, scraping through me, pressing, pushing against my skin and bone. I held very still and worked hard to hold it all in.
“Did your father tell you about wells?”
“Not really.” It came out calm, not like I was clenching my teeth and trying to breathe evenly so the magic would quiet, settle, and stop shoving at me.
Maeve was across the room, hanging my coat on a simple hat rack. Unlike the parlor, this room had sparse decor. A red oriental rug took up most of the whitewashed wooden floor; the walls were polished slabs of birch jointed together with diamonds of glass and outlined with lines of lead. Pale beaded board with lines of lead and glass running through it made up the ceiling. A small brick fireplace complemented by a grill worked in something way too gothic grounded the corner.
There were no windows. Instead, an aged copper wall fountain took up the space where I’d expect a window to be, and the other window had been converted into a bookcase where hardbound books were stacked in rows. As for furnishings, they were all deep browns and reds, and easy-to-clean surfaces: a couch, four chairs, and a table with a pitcher of ice water and lemon slices next to the fireplace.
Maeve crossed the room toward the pitcher of water. “Did your father tell you anything at all about the Authority?”
“We didn’t talk much. He was gone a lot. And as soon as I was old enough, so was I.”
She poured two glasses of water, floated a lemon round in each. “I see. Then let me explain that magic naturally occurs deep within the earth.” She nodded toward the chairs, handed me a glass of water. I settled on the couch as she continued.
“I’ve always thought of it as hundreds of rivers and streams. In some places magic flows more swiftly; in others it is sluggish, or spread out and swampy. The network of conduits and lead and glass lines your father invented did wonders to mitigate and standardize the flow of magic. That made it safer for the common user to tap into it.”
I took a sip of water, and it felt good going down my throat, trailing cold all the way to my stomach. Magic eased in me a little.
She took a sip too, then set her glass on a table and folded down into one of the plush armchairs.
“Those rivers of magic split, join, knot, and pool together. A lot like those marks on your hand.”
I did a good job of not hiding my hand in my pocket, and instead nodded, like this was the most normal conversation I’d ever heard.
“The wells, and there are many of them, some weak, some incredibly strong, are where magic concentrates and regenerates. Most populated areas are within the range of at least one well. This house, this room, is over a well of magic.”
“I can tell.”
“Really? It is very carefully Blocked and Shielded.”
Should I tell her? That I felt magic all the time? That I held it within me, something no one else could do? Could I trust her?
Did I have any choice? It was either trust her or have the Authority Close me, take my memories, maybe even take my ability to use magic, though that would be a pretty trick since I had magic down to the bone.
“I—”
Killer. Betrayer. The words rushed through my mind like a winter storm. She is dangerous, devious. Do not trust her.
A headache stabbed at my eyes. A headache named Dad. I coughed to cover my gasp.
Shut up, I thought.
“I do feel magic,” I said. “Not as strongly as I’d expect, since this is over a well.”
She held very still, that green gaze roving over me like she could see beneath my skin. I resisted the urge to just get up and walk out of there.
Which was probably good, since it was probably not my urge.
“Have you experienced any residual effects since your father used your mind?” she asked in the firm tones of a doctor or schoolteacher. “Dreams, memories, thoughts?”
No, no, no, he raged.
“Yes,” I said, a little too loudly, since I was trying to drown out his voice, even though I was the only one who could hear him. Then, quieter, “I’ve experienced all those things.”
The flutter behind my eyes turned into blunt fingers trying to rub their way out of my head. It hurt, but I’d endure a lot more pain than that to get rid of my dad. Besides, I was pretty sure my father and I were at cross-purposes. We’d always been at cross-purposes. I’d long ago learned that doing the opposite of whatever he wanted me to do was generally in my best interest.
“Are you experiencing them right now?”
I have never felt my father’s raw fear before. It was just a flash, a moment. Then I could not sense him at all.
“I was,” I said. “Not right this second.”
“I need to look in your mind.” She sat forward, her hands clasped loosely at her knees.
She’d done this once before. I didn’t know why my palms were suddenly sweaty, didn’t know why my mouth was so dry.
“Like last time?” I asked, stalling.
“Exactly the same. You might feel it a little more, though. Since we are so close to the well, I will be able to look more deeply than I did before, to see if it is just residuals of your father’s thoughts and spirit, or if it is something more.”
“Okay.” I was pretty sure it was something more, like maybe his entire disembodied/reembodied spirit, but I’d leave that assessment to the expert.
Maeve placed her hand on my left wrist—the part of me closest to her.
No glyphs, no chanting. She just closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
This time, I could sense the magic rising from far below us. The magic flooded through her—something I’d never seen anyone try—then settled like a cloak or aura around her. And even though magic is fast, the way she called upon it, it was slow and I could see the white and blue shimmer of it with just my bare eyes without calling upon Sight.
She opened her eyes, shockingly silver, shadowed by shots of her normal forest green.
With magic around her, Maeve looked into me.
Magic in me flickered, burned too hot along my right arm, too cold along my left. I did not want to use it, did not want to cast magic. But like fire jumping a line, it ignited, filled me.
Maeve blinked, tipped her head to the side. “Allie?”
“It’s okay,” I said as I recited a mantra. Just the first two lines of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” over and over. “Give me a sec.”
How was I supposed to get rid of so much magic when there was so damn much magic filling the room?
Maeve stood, and I would have worried about that, but I was a little busy trying not to explode and burn the place down. I had a feeling they wouldn’t let me come back to school if I killed the teacher on the first day.
Magic burned, squeezing my bones. I bit my lip to keep from moaning and twinkle-twinkled with all my might.
Something cold and heavy dropped into my lap.
Like blowing out a candle, the magic in me went dead.
Okay, this time I moaned, not from pain, but from relief.
Maeve was standing next to me, bent a little. She studied my face. “I can’t believe it. I never thought . . .”
I blinked, looked down at the heavy thing in my lap. A rock. A plain black and gray river rock, smooth and oblong, about the size of a loaf of bread.
“Here,” she said.
I glanced up and took the ice water she offered me.
“Thanks.” I drank, and when I was done, she set the glass back on the table. “Really nice rock,” I noted.
Maeve sat on the coffee table in front of me and put one hand on my knee. “How long have you held magic inside of you?”
“You could tell?” I asked, probably stupidly.
“Not before now. I knew magic had marked you. From the outside . . .” She leaned back a little and her gaze wandered over me, her eyes still silver, but with a lot more green in them. “From the outside it does not show.” She shook her head. “Are you Shielding?”
“No. Mostly I just try not to let it burn me up.”
“But you have used it? Drawn upon the magic within you and successfully cast spells?” I couldn’t tell if she was excited or worried.
“A lot. I Hound for a living, remember? Why? Is that a problem?”
She laughed, but it came out a little shaky. “I wouldn’t call it a problem. It’s just so unheard-of. How long have you been able to carry magic?”
“All my life. Just a small bit, enough to work one minor spell. It always took a while to fill back up.”
“You were born with it?” She pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath. When she exhaled, she muttered something that involved my father’s name and a couple curse words. “No wonder he never brought you to us, never let you learn.” Maeve’s hand dropped to her lap. Her eyes were almost all green now, and she looked resigned. “You hold much more than a small amount now, don’t you?”
I nodded.
“And that changed when you received those marks on your hands? Positive”—she pointed at the wild whorl of colors up my right arm to my temple—“and negative.” She pointed to the solid black bands around each of the knuckles and the wrist of my left hand. “Classic natural representation of the give-and-take of magic. Pleasure and price.”