“You’re back!” said Anne, kissing Solis first on one cheek, then the other.
Solis smiled, looking more like a California surfer dude than ever. His dark blond hair curled around his head in an untidy halo, and somehow he always had just the right amount of scruffy beard—not too long or too short.
There was a chorus of hellos and welcomes, and River kissed him, too.
I kept my head down and started plowing through—Jesus, what was this? Squash casserole? Who would think of something like squash casserole? And why?
“Nastasya?” Solis’s voice made me look up, my mouth full of mush that I couldn’t bring myself to commit to, in the belief that my stomach would hate me forever and start rejecting even good food.
“Mmm,” I managed, then gave an almighty swallow. I’m sorry, stomach. “Hi.”
“How are you?”
Gosh, what a loaded question. When last he saw me, everyone had just heard Nell shriek that she’d seen Reyn and me making out.
Nell had loved Reyn. For years. Desperately. And he, being an oblivious moron, hadn’t noticed. And then Reyn and I sort of—exploded. And it made Nell crazy. Or, crazier. I had to believe she’d already had one arm in the straitjacket before I even got to River’s Edge.
Anyway, Solis had accompanied Nell to what I assumed was some kind of asylum for immortals who were completely bananas. Now he was back. And his being back made that whole disturbing, mortifying tableau spring to vivid life again.
“I’m fine,” I managed, then drank some water. Did I know enough magick to turn it into wine, I wondered. Or, better, gin? Probably not.
“Good,” he said easily, and unfolded his napkin.
“Solis,” Charles said. It was hard for Charles to look solemn, with his bright red hair, green eyes, freckles, and round, cheerful face, but he was doing a good imitation. “How is Nell?”
Yep, just put it out there, Chuck. Go on. We face things here. We aren’t afraid of emotion—
“She’s not good,” said Solis, pouring himself some water. “Pretty raving mad, actually. But in Louisette’s capable hands, and with the healers there, I think she’ll be okay. One day.”
Charles shook his head—it was a shame, such a nice girl—and then went back to his meal.
“My aunt Louisette has been able to create deep healing in people who were far more troubled than Nell,” said River. “Nell knows that we’ll be sending her our good thoughts and wishes.”
I couldn’t help glancing at Reyn quickly. His face was still, his jaw set, as he pushed food around on his plate without eating it. I wondered if he felt responsible in any way, because he hadn’t noticed that Nell was pining for him. I didn’t know.
“Oh, everyone, I’m sure you’ve realized this,” River went on, “but tomorrow is New Year’s Eve. It seems incredible that this year is almost over! We’ll be having a special circle tomorrow night, as we do each year. I hope you’ll all be there—I would love for us to welcome the new year together.”
There went my plans to head down to New York and get plastered in Times Square.
Not really. It was an amazing notion for me, but I actually had no desire to leave here, go drinking with strangers, be around lights and noise and chaos. Lights, noise, and chaos had been my companions of choice for the last century—they were probably feeling pretty left out.
Or maybe they hadn’t noticed I was gone. Maybe my pals Innocencio, Boz, Katy, Cicely, and Stratton were still giving them plenty of playtime. I’d hung out with the same friends for so long that I hadn’t noticed how useless we were all getting. I hadn’t noticed Innocencio learning magick, working on developing the power that all immortals have, in varying degrees. Then one night Incy had used his magick to break the spine of a cabbie who’d been rude to us. Actually broke his spine, paralyzing him for life. And even though he was a regular person and “the rest of his life” wouldn’t be that long, comparatively, still his world was destroyed in an instant, on a whim. And that had been a real eye-opening moment for me. To put it mildly.
I sighed and pushed my plate away, wishing I had a cheesecake stashed in my room. Individual minifridges. Another valid suggestion for River.
After dinner I checked the chore chart and amazingly had no classes, no chores, nothing to do tonight. It happened once or twice a week. Whoopee! So I headed upstairs, took a hot bath, and then curled up on my narrow bed with a book about Irish herbal cures. I know, I couldn’t help it: I would always be a madcap, frivolous party girl.
Soon I was deep into the wonder and delight of eyebright, feverfew, cowslips, and dandelions. Of course I’d been born long before there was any kind of chemical medicine, and plants had been the prime component of every household’s remedies, along with dried deer blood, spiderwebs, etc. But the addition of magickal intent changed these plants’ properties and uses. So. Much. To. Learn.
It was riveting stuff, and I’d drifted off only two or three times before I gave up and let my eyes stay closed. I wasn’t totally asleep—I still sensed the bright reading light through my eyelids, still felt semiaware of my small room and the black night outside. But I was drifting, dreaming, and then I found myself waking up in a forest. Hundreds of years ago, forests were everywhere, and to get from point A to point Anywhere Else almost always entailed going through a forest. I’m not a huge fan. The occasional tree, sure. A very small grove that I can see through to the other side, fine. But not forests. They’re dark, seem unending, are incredibly easy to get lost or confused in, and are full of noises and fluttering things and sticks cracking behind you. In my experience, they’re best avoided.
But here I was. I felt like me but could also somehow see myself, the way you can in dreams. I appeared to be pre-River, with black hair, heavy eye makeup, superskinny and pale. That had been normal for me for years. Now, in hindsight, I thought I looked like Edward Scissorhands but without the handy blades. I was immediately aware of feeling anxious and lost, making my way through the trees, pushing through thick underbrush that slowed me down. My face and arms were scratched and stinging. The ground was thickly covered with years of fallen leaves, and it felt like walking on the moon.
I was upset, getting more upset, searching for something. I didn’t know what. I just knew I had to find this thing somehow and that I would know when I found it and that time was running out. I hated being in this forest and tried to go faster, which only meant that I got more scratched. I’d long ago lost any hope of finding my way back to where I’d come from. I’d even given up on ever trying to find my way out but instead pressed on, looking, looking, feeling more tense and afraid with every step.
The light was fading, time was passing, and dread filled me as night fell. I was close to tears, hysteria—I desperately wanted a fire, a friend, help. But I couldn’t stop—something bad would happen to me if I stopped. Then—over to my left! It looked like—it was—a fire! I turned quickly and headed toward the light, the comforting scent of woodsmoke finding its way to me through the trees. I heard a voice. Was it… singing? It was singing. I pushed my way through some stabbing holly branches and then I was in a tiny clearing, and there was a fire flickering wildly inside a circle of rocks.
“Nas.” My head jerked at the voice. I looked over to see Innocencio, my best friend for a hundred years, stepping out of the darkness of the woods.
“Incy! What are you doing here?”
He smiled, looking unearthly beautiful. His eyes were so dark that I saw tiny fires reflected in them. I stared at him, feeling alarmed even as I held my hands out to the fire’s warmth.
“I’ve been waiting for you, darling,” Incy said in a voice as sweet and seductive as wine. “Come, sit down, be warm.” He gestured to a big fallen log at the edge of the clearing. I didn’t want to—everything in me was screaming, Run! But my feet took me over to the log and I sat on it. I didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to be with him, but then again, the fire was so comforting, so cozy.
“You’ve been gone t
oo long, Nasty,” Incy said. “I’ve missed you so much. We all have.” Still smiling, he gestured around, and I scanned the place for my old gang. No one was there except me and Incy, and I started to ask why.
Then I saw. The fire… there was a skull in the fire, the flames blackening and devouring bits of its peeling flesh. My mouth opened in a horrified gasp. The fire was full of bones, made of bones. I knew in a split second that this was Boz and Katy—maybe Stratton and Cicely, too. Incy had killed them all and was burning their bodies. I jumped to my feet, only to have Incy smile at me again; he had me. There was no escape. Suddenly the wretched, acrid stench of burning hair and flesh filled my nose and mouth, gagging me, making me retch. I couldn’t breathe. I tried to scream, but no sound came out. I tried to run, but my feet were literally rooted to the ground—thick, dark, vining roots covered my feet, locking me into place, and started to climb my legs.
Knock knock.
I gagged again and in the next instant bolted straight up and opened my eyes. I was gasping, wild-eyed, covered with icy sweat—in my room at River’s Edge.
Knock knock.
My hands were clenched into claws, my breathing ragged. I tried to collect myself. I felt Reyn’s energy outside my door, and within a second I was on my feet.
I took some gulping breaths, trying to calm down. “What do you want?” I asked through the door, trying to make my voice normal. I felt like I’d just jumped off a bridge, and I leaned against the door, shaking. I glanced at my bedside clock—it was almost ten. Most people would be in their rooms by now and many of them already asleep. Our days started ungodly early.
“Open the door,” came Reyn’s low voice.
“Why?”
“Just open it.” He already sounded exasperated. I was getting better.
I wasn’t afraid of him, and to convince myself of this I opened my door and stood with my arms crossed. And it was right about then that I had the blessedly normal insight that I hadn’t combed or untangled my hair after my bath and then had fallen asleep on it wet. It was probably sticking out on one side of my head in a snarled clump. Coupled with the no makeup, the pillow creases on one cheek, and the feminine, come-hither getup of fuzzy socks, long johns, scarf, and cardigan, I was pretty sure I had never presented a more compelling picture.
Reyn titled his head slightly, looking at me. “Are you okay?” he asked. “You look—”
“Is that why you woke me up?” I said. “To comment on my appearance?” It was such a relief to be doing this, sparring pointlessly with the Viking god. As opposed to, say, seeing your former best friend burning all of your other friends in the forest.
“Come with me,” Reyn said. “I want to show you something.”
Frankly, I had expected something more original. “Really?” I asked. “That’s it? That’s what you came up with?”
He frowned and of course looked even better. Reyn wasn’t a pretty boy; his features were angular, his jawline sharp, his mouth hard. His nose was a little crooked and had a bump in it from being broken who knows how many times. And he had dressed up to impress me the same way I had for him: jeans that still had bits of hay stuck to them, his beat-up work boots, a flannel shirt so frayed that the collar was about to fall off.
I wanted to eat him alive.
Forget I said that. Delayed shock.
“I’m serious,” he said, looking about as serious as someone could look. “There’s something you should see. In the barn.”
My eyes widened. “Are you kidding?”
He sighed impatiently. “This isn’t a trick. I thought you’d like to see this. It happens to be in the barn.”
The barn was where we’d had our first, searing kiss, where his mouth and hands had woken up nerve endings that I’d thought were long dead. Every time I remembered it, his hard muscles, his urgency, I had to suppress an audible whimper.
The barn was also where we’d had the sickening realization of our shared history: his father, the clan leader of rapacious raiders, had stormed my father’s castle. They’d killed everyone except me—I’d been hidden beneath my mother’s dead body. But my mother had flayed Reyn’s brother with magick, and my older brother had hacked his brother’s head off. Later, when his father and some others tried to use my mother’s amulet, they’d been incinerated. Reyn had stood there as they turned to ashes in front of him, next to him.
Anne had told me he’d been working on his anti-marauder goal for almost three hundred years. I suspected there had been more involved than writing I will not sack villages one hundred times on a chalkboard.
And he and I had made out like crazed high schoolers.
See my comment re: karma, above.
He sighed again: I was such a pain. Then he said, “Please.”
Oh, he was going to fight dirty.
I gave a heavy, obvious sigh myself and pulled jeans on over my long johns. I didn’t bother trying the laces on my sneakers, and tucked my scarf tighter around my neck as I followed Reyn down the quiet hall. I was actually thrilled to get out of my room for a while, imagining that I could still smell the slightest hint of charred skin.
Outside the air was damp and cold, turning my nose to ice. I hated how dark it got here. Ever since I could get to a city, I’d lived in cities. Thirty feet away from the house we were encased in velvet darkness that felt like a suffocating shroud. I edged closer to Reyn, somehow knowing that despite everything he would absolutely protect me from trolls or land sharks or deadly best friends or other things that went ka-chonk in the night. When we reached the barn, I practically leaped through the door into the relative warmth of the hay-scented air.
It was dim and quiet inside, with only the occasional whuffing of a horse. There were ten stalls, though only six were occupied by River’s horses. Grooming the horses and mucking out the stables were some of my least favorite chores. For various reasons.
At the end of the barn, Reyn stopped. The stall door was open, and he gestured to me to go inside. I hesitated—was this just a straightforward plan to throw me down into some hay? I hated the fact that I felt a split second of intense longing so strong that my fingers tingled, that I felt unsure of what my response would be.
Then I heard tiny noises.
One eyebrow raised, I poked my head around the stall door… and saw River sitting in the hay. She looked up at me, smiled, and put a finger to her lips.
Curled up in the hay, one of the farm dogs, Molly, growled slightly. River said something soothing to her.
I saw one, two—six tiny squirming things nuzzling up to Molly. Puppies. I knelt next to River. I’m not a dog person. Or a cat person. Or a pet person. Pets take care, require you to think about something other than yourself, and I’d quit doing that ages ago.
Still. Even I was hardwired to melt a little when confronted by fat puppies, eyes and ears closed, tiny muzzles covered with fine fuzz.
“Molly did such a good job,” said River, stroking the dog’s head. Molly closed her eyes; the bulk of her work was over.
“Good-looking dogs,” said Reyn. I’d almost forgotten he was there.
“Yes,” said River. “We mated her with another German pointer. But—I can’t explain this one.” She pointed to the smallest puppy, struggling to get out from under a larger, more vigorous sibling. River gently extracted it and arranged it at the end of the milk bar, where it wouldn’t be smushed.
Five of the puppies looked like miniature Mollys—solid brown heads, light gray bodies with just a hint of the liver-colored spots they’d develop later. But the little one seemed to be from a completely different litter. Possibly another species. It was thin and long-legged instead of cute and chunky, and maybe half the size of the biggest puppy. It was almost solid white except for large red blotches in an uneven pattern, as if someone had spilled a glass of wine on it.
“It’s the runt,” said Reyn. “Anything wrong with it? Cleft palate?”
“Not that I can see,” said River. “Poor little girl. Looks like
everyone else got the groceries in the womb.” She stroked a light finger down the puppy’s side. “Isn’t it a miracle?” she murmured. “I’m always awed, always in wonder at the miracle of life.” She seemed dreamy, almost wistful, an unexpected change from her usual brisk good humor.
Then she seemed to come back to herself and rose with smooth grace. “Such a good job, Molly,” she said again, and Molly’s tail thumped twice. “I’ll be back to check on you in a bit. Get some rest.” Thump.
I stood up and the three of us headed back out into the cold. River stayed in the kitchen to fix some broth for Molly, and Reyn and I headed back upstairs. Seeing the puppies had put me in a strange mood—I almost wished I hadn’t seen them.
“I always had battle dogs.” Reyn’s voice was quiet as we climbed the stairs. “Half wolf, or mastiffs. Kept them hungry, so they’d always be ready to attack. Send a pack of those ahead of me, then sweep in and clean up what’s left.”
He was deliberately reminding me of his savage beginnings, and anger heated my blood. I opened my mouth to say something biting, full of disdain—but then I stopped. Why would he say that? Was he trying to show me how far he had come?
“Do you miss it?” I asked. “Battle? War? Conquest?” I wasn’t being snide. For once.
We paused outside my door. The hall was barely lit by a few small nightlights low to the ground. It was still, silent—I could feel the quiet patterns of people sleeping.
The barest hints of emotions passed over Reyn’s face, with its high cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes the color of old gold. I wondered if he would lie to me.
He looked away, as if ashamed. “Yes.” He spoke so quietly that I had to lean closer to hear him. “It’s what I was taught. It’s what I do well.” He didn’t look at me.
My high horse of judgment lowered a notch.
“How long has it been?” I asked.
A quick glance, meeting my eyes, and then just as quickly slanting away. “Since I gave up leadership over my clan, three hundred and eight years. No marauding, raiding since then. But war? Battle? World War Two.”