The Maebown

  I knew he was right, and felt intrigued at the prospect of using the secret to go fishing for an Aetherfae. “I promise, not until the time is right.”

  Billy shifted to Naeshura and plunged straight down. I tracked him until he sank out of my range. I pictured Wakinyan in my mind and whisked through the void between us.

  * * *

  “She’s still here?”

  Wakinyan whispered, “Yes. She may not leave until it is over.”

  “Yes, she will. You will have to act quickly. Get ready.”

  Before he could ask me what I was going to do, I did it. I moved away from the Ohanzee and the Olympians, piercing the barriers they’d constructed to hide themselves. Fortunately, Ozara was keen on keeping a low profile, so she didn’t have Fae patrolling. When I was miles away and in no danger of giving up Wakinyan’s position, I channeled anger and let it fester to the point that my tether began tugging me backwards. I willed myself to Ozara’s position. If she felt me coming, I was betting she’d leave to keep her plans a secret. When I drew within two miles of her, she abruptly moved to the south, covering miles in a few seconds. I caught up to her, but didn’t talk. I wanted her convinced that I was trying to spy.

  She accelerated when it was clear I was along for the ride. I zipped down to the surface of the forest canopy, and then back up to her, keeping a couple hundred yards of distance. Staying mad was easy. All I had to do was think about her and Chalen—my blood boiled. I’m sure I lit up her senses like a flashlight in a dark room. For twenty minutes I followed her. Each time she made a random direction change, every attempt to accelerate away, I reacted. When she transformed into physical form—a snowy owl—I paused, predicting she’d cloak. A second later she did. Impossible to sense her with my mind, I could still find her by projecting. I’d zoom to where she was and then lose her until I repeated the process. I could tell from her position that she was trying to return to Yellowstone unseen. Time for your close up.

  My mind moved to the edge of her Clóca barrier, just enough to make contact. I let rage seep out. It worked. She reversed direction, heading back south again. We were probably a hundred miles from Yellowstone when I sensed the change in energy. Ozara felt it, too. She shot back towards the conflagration. I was faster.

  “Ozara’s on the way back,” I projected.

  “We’re done,” Wakinyan said, as the last Ohanzee slipped under his Clóca barrier and they moved back to the east. I focused on the Fae who’d been hidden under Yellowstone. Nothing. I didn’t move. In the place where I’d felt Kapo’pi’i, I couldn’t even detect her residual energy. My allies had apparently pushed it into the magma chamber along with the rest of the Alliance Fae. Even the magma plume was smaller. It was almost as if nothing had ever happened.

  A part of me rejoiced as I caught up to Wakinyan, Zeus, and the others, but another part of me, the part that was always right, filled with foreboding. Did we just avert a catastrophe, or guarantee one?

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  CAORANN

  I didn’t sleep the rest of the night. My body ached from exhaustion and I found it difficult to think coherently, but fear forced me to keep an eye on Ozara. It turned out that she didn’t know what happened, though she did suspect I was involved. She and a hundred Alliance Fae searched the area around Yellowstone for a trace of the Fae who had been doing her bidding. Eavesdropping, I learned Ozara was frustrated by their disappearance and suspected they had been killed; but others, including Zarkus, accused Kapo’pi’i and the others of simply staging an escape. The Alliance Council ordered their deaths in an apparent effort to keep the rest of the Alliance toeing the line.

  That was good news because it confirmed that what Wakinyan had told me—and what I had prayed to be the case—that Ozara’s hold on the Alliance was tenuous, was true. That was the risk she took each time she sent an elder to its death. None of them fully trusted her, or Zarkus, but kept their allegiance because they feared Aether.

  Fighting the numbness, and perched against Gavin’s chest as the first rays of light seeped through the canopy high above us on the eastern hills, I asked Zeus and Wakinyan why Ozara had sent Fae to the Weald, including a few who were old and quite powerful. It didn’t make sense to me.

  “She has to eliminate the elders to maintain control,” Wakinyan said, in a matter-of-fact tone. “She cannot afford a coup. Killing them herself will shatter bonds with the younger Fae. Sending them on espionage missions, losing a few here and there, will eventually draw suspicion, but right now there are thousands of Fae who want nothing more than revenge on us.”

  “I know they drank the Kool-Aid, believing the Second was some kind of Fae-killing monster, but are they really so gullible that they don’t see what Ozara’s doing?”

  “For the time being, apparently,” he answered me. “That’s why we have to be careful.” He turned to Poseidon.

  “Had I not killed them, Brother, they would have returned to Ozara with evidence that you and Zeus were conspicuously absent. A dead Fae tells no tales,” Poseidon said.

  “I know, I know,” Wakinyan said through clenched teeth. “The deaths still bother me.”

  Poseidon’s azure eyes flashed. “We could discuss death, you and I, but I am afraid that conversation would be a little one-sided.”

  Wakinyan sighed and nodded, unwilling to challenge a Fae who’d lost his entire clan.

  “So what is going on in Iceland?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

  The glimmer of a thank you registered on Wakinyan’s face. “I have no idea. Tactically, at least, an eruption in Iceland serves few purposes that I can discern. Strategically, though, it must be important to her overall plan. You said there was a considerable amount of ash and debris?”

  I nodded, fighting sleep.

  Zeus cleared his throat and exchanged a quick glance with Wakinyan and Gavin. I felt Gavin nod back.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Let us toss the facts around for a few hours,” Zeus said in a surprisingly human choice of words. He smiled at me.

  “Okay,” I said through a huff. “I get it. I need sleep. I’ll do that if you promise to let me know when Billy gets back safe and sound.”

  Gavin’s baritone voice resonated through his chest so that I felt it in my body as much as I heard it. “I will wake you up. I promise.”

  * * *

  Pastel diamonds of light greeted my eyes when I reluctantly forced them open. They crawled down the uneven plaster walls of my bedroom—it was a familiar and welcomed sight that was as much a part of the Weald as the white oaks and the hickory trees. Gavin drew in a long, deep breath and slowly exhaled. My head rode his bare chest as it rose and fell. I curled my toes and pulled them closer to my body under the soft cotton sheets. Heaven, but for the hell around us.

  “Billy?”

  “I’m here.” He sat on a cedar chest, his head resting against one of the thick carved beams that sprouted from the wall a few feet above the floor and stretched to the peak of the ceiling.

  “Any trouble?”

  “You mean other than travelling a few thousand miles through solid rock? No, no trouble, but I never want to travel that way again.”

  I couldn’t keep from laughing, “Slow going?”

  “You’ve probably heard the euphemism, wading through mud?”

  “Yeah.”

  He rubbed his eyelids with his thumb and index finger. “Well, think about wading through granite and you’ll have an idea.”

  “Regardless of how long it took, I’m glad you’re safe.”

  He lifted his fingers, gray eyes staring back at me. Creases formed under his blond goatee when he smiled. “You’re being sentimental—you need more sleep.”

  “Jerk,”

  He belly laughed. “Tell me I’m wrong?”

  “He’s not,” Gavin whispered. “You’ve only been asleep two hours.”

  “I feel better. Ozara is out there doing—”

  Billy cut me off. “Doing somethi
ng that can wait until you’re rested. No arguments…Maebown.”

  “Fine,” I said before drifting back to sleep.

  * * *

  Something cold and wet, surrounded by what felt like fur, lightly brushed my cheek and nose. It was followed by something much larger, much wetter, and very warm flicking the same spot. “Oh, Justice…No,” I protested, trying to cover my face. He deftly avoided my defenses and licked again, getting my nose, wrist, and forehead. “Stop, for the love of god, stop licking.”

  I sat up and snatched his big head in a bear hug. With his tail going crazy, he collapsed into me, pressing his muzzle into my chin. I reached behind, running my hand over the wrinkled sheets hoping to make contact with Gavin’s warm skin. Nothing. “Where’d he go, boy?”

  Justice snorted an answer and pawed at my outstretched arm, dragging my hand back to his furry chest. “So, Poseidon isn’t giving you enough love? Is that why you finally came back?”

  He growl-yawned the next answer. I could only make out the whites of his eyes. “You need to see a groomer. Badly.”

  The sun cast long shadows in the garden that stretched eastward. I guessed it was about seven o’clock. Before I could dislodge the giant poodle and swing my legs to the floor, the heavy latch clicked noisily in the bedroom door and Gavin stuck his gorgeous face through the expanding crack. “Feel better?”

  “Tons.”

  Dimples formed in his cheeks, and he sauntered over the threshold and pushed the door shut behind himself. He carried a tray with sandwiches—thick hickory smoked bacon, toasted homemade bread, crisp lettuce, and juicy tomatoes. My mouth watered when the scent entered my sleep-fogged head. “Oh my gosh, that smells so good.”

  “Oh, you’re hungry?” He said with a stutter-step and carefully crafted look of surprise.

  “Famished,” I said staring at the tray, just catching the tangy aroma of the tomato soup steaming away next to the sandwiches.

  “Okay, well, I can have your mom make more…” he kept a straight face as I licked my lips and stared ravenously at the tray in his hands.

  “Funny—but you’re a vegetarian. Hand it over.”

  As I chewed the first delicious bite, he swirled his finger in the air. I cast the Air barrier and nodded, stuffing another mouthful of crispy bacon and toasted bread in my mouth.

  “When you finish, someone is here to see you.”

  “Who?” I managed.

  “Caorann.”

  I started to move the tray off my knees, but he pushed it back. “She said for you to eat first—now get to it. By the way, Candace has figured out a possible reason for Iceland.”

  I stopped chewing until he continued. “Air travel has been suspended over the north Atlantic and most of Europe.” I shook my head. “The virus has shown up in France, Belgium, Germany, Finland, and Russia,” he said. “There are reported cases in Asia and Africa, as well. Perhaps as many as ten thousand people have been infected outside of Ireland. Sara estimates that number is likely higher. And yes, there are cases in the United States and Canada as well. It’s chaotic. The world’s best health organizations are frantically trying to get ahead of this thing, but with airlines grounded, it will be very difficult, if not impossible.”

  “Do they even know what it is?”

  “Zeus and Aphrodite are traveling to Atlanta to find out. They left this morning. We should know more by tonight.”

  “Why Aphrodite?” I crammed another bite in my mouth.

  “Among other things…” Gavin rolled his eyes, “she’s a healer—nearly as talented as Sherman was.”

  I nodded and kept chewing, urging him on. Gavin hesitated. “What?” I mumbled.

  “The war we stopped in the Middle East and South China Sea?”

  “Oh god…”

  “Yeah,” he whispered.

  I shook my head when he began explaining. “After they attacked Israel, your country bombed sites in Iran and Syria yesterday. This morning it appears as though Russia has stepped in—it’s all over the news. We believe it will boil over. Given the devastation along the Mississippi and the eastern seaboard, and the immense diversion of national resources to those areas, America’s enemies see an opportunity to move.”

  I sat the tattered sandwich on the tray—my appetite had vanished. The look in his huge chocolate brown eyes told me there was little the Coalition could do now. Volcanic eruptions, an epidemic spreading across the globe, and the first volleys of what threatened to become World War Three—everything was spinning out of control. Something had to change—I had to force Ozara to come to me.

  * * *

  Shadows deepened and spread across the Weald as dusk turned to twilight and the color of everything darkened to black, all except the brilliant sapphire sky.

  “Are you ready?”

  I turned from the window and nodded. “How many know she’s here?”

  “Besides us, Wakinyan and Poseidon.”

  “This is hush-hush, I take it? Where are we meeting her?”

  “Seoladán,” he said, pointing up the hill.

  “Window?”

  “Sure.”

  Wrapping us in Clóca, I pushed the window open and followed him into the garden. By the time we made it to the top of the drive, night had settled over the Weald. The moon was slightly larger than the last time I’d seen it, two nights previous—in two more, it would be full.

  Walking up the trail to the Seoladán, I couldn’t sense Caorann, but intuition told me she was watching every step of our moonlit stroll.

  Below the glass greenhouse, I heard the fountain burbling in the temperate night air. At the bottom wall, which circled the fountain and formed a triquetra, thousands of ghostly white flowers incandesced in the soft, silvery-blue light. The lone witness to the restored moon garden, the Seoladán cottage sat darkened, just like it had been for the balance of the last half-century. I squeezed Gavin’s hand. Like so many nights I’d spent in the Ozarks, this one had a unique character and a fleeting beauty I knew I would never experience again.

  Caorann, are you here?

  No sooner had I thought the words, than I got the answer. Two ethereal silver shapes materialized inside the dark forest edge. A breath caught in my chest, escaping only after my heart sped up. Like iridescent liquid silver, the pair glided toward the white marble fountain, their reflections shimmering across the basin surface.

  “Stunning,” Gavin whispered.

  I spread Clóca in a dome, wrapped under a barrier of Air. The four of us were invisible.

  “Hello, Maggie, Gavin,” Caorann’s voice cut through the silence like wind chimes.

  “Hi,” I responded.

  “I’ll admit,” she said, drawing close enough that I could make out her features. “I understand why you wanted to return here. Ádhamh and I have been admiring your Weald for several hours.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  In Ireland, I never got close enough to Ádhamh to notice his big eyes, large mouth and other boyish features. My mind struggled to apply colors to a face where there were none.

  “You’re probably wondering why I’ve come?” she asked, with just a hint of an Ozark accent. Still trying to put me at ease.

  I smiled at the gesture and nodded.

  “I’ve come to let you know that our strategy must change—if humans are going to survive, we have to change.”

  “Zeus and Wakinyan never told me the plan in the first place,” I said.

  “We sent you here with some of Ozara’s oldest enemies—”

  “Zeus and Wakinyan?”

  “Yes, and Sinopa, Athena, but none more alluring to her than Poseidon.”

  I nodded as it clicked. “You stayed half a world away hoping that she’d confront me?”

  “Yes, but I was never more than a few minutes away, and now she knows that.”

  “How? What?”

  “Druest, the Sidhe spying on us in Ireland, he had a co-conspirator. Did you meet Morgan?”

  “No, I don??
?t think so.”

  “Morgan isn’t particularly old, he isn’t particularly powerful, and he spent the last thirty millennium not drawing any attention. Dana never suspected that his allegiance fell elsewhere. She was stunned when he slipped through the Seoladán we constructed and went to the Alliance. Of course, now Ozara knows we were setting a trap.”

  I huffed and did what I could to manage the anger I felt.

  “Try not to be frustrated—Ozara did discover the plan, but before that, she had several days to strike and did not. She is afraid of you.”

  “I don’t know why. I still don’t know how to kill her.”

  Caorann laughed. “She, apparently, isn’t willing to take the chance. Because of that, I’m guessing the secret to her demise is something she believes you will figure out. So far, you’ve figured out everything else. The odds are against her.”

  “So what’s the plan now?” Gavin asked.

  “Since she won’t come to Maggie, Maggie will go to her.”

  “That’s great, but there is a problem,” I said.

  “Her projection?” she asked.

  “Yes, she’s keeping an eye on everyone, and even if I get close, what is to keep her from changing to Naeshura and disappearing. I can’t follow her beneath the ground or under the ocean. And let’s be honest, I’m not exactly Amelia Earhart when it comes to flying.”

  “I’m surprised you know who that is,” Gavin said.

  I chuckled. “Candace told me about her.”

  Gavin nodded and smiled as Caorann cut short the history lesson. “If she is injured, even slightly, she is bound to physical form…she will be vulnerable.”

  It was Gavin’s turn to exhale loudly. “How do you injure an Aetherfae?”

  My mind flashed back to Caer Bran, when Ozara killed Katarina. “Before Katarina died, she pierced Ozara’s barrier and lacerated her face—with Air.”

  Gavin turned from me to Caorann. “How is that possible?”