“You can’t defeat her?”
“I do not know how to defeat her, but she cannot take me, either.”
That meant I would have to. I wanted to avoid thinking about suicide for the time being, so, hoping for the best, I asked, “Zarkus?”
“He was not there.”
“Of course not. We couldn’t be that lucky. But what about Tse-xo-be? He went with you, didn’t he?”
“He is fine. After Ozara fled, he and I travelled south. Together we found your friend exactly where you’d shown Sherman in your thoughts.”
“Was Chalen there?”
“No, Chalen was gone.”
My voice cracked, “And…Doug?”
A tear leaked over her long gold lashes and appeared opalescent against the skin of her cheek. I felt numb. It registered in my brain what she was about to say, but I simply felt numb.
“I’m so sorry.”
I fought to keep from screaming and in a guttural moan, I managed, “Please help me.”
I wanted her to push me back into the dark, away from the pain, but she just sat there with tears streaming down her face.
“You have to help me,” I begged. “I can’t handle any more. It’s too much…oh god, not him, too…”
I heaved and tried to pull my hands to my eyes, but Caorann wouldn’t let go. Then it occurred to me that his father would find him the way I saw him. “His dad, please tell me you didn’t leave him like that…broken…” I cried out and rocked back, trying once again to pull away from her.
“We did not leave him that way.”
“What did you do? This is going to destroy his parents.”
Her forehead wrinkled like she just felt physical pain. “Maggie, there was nothing we could do. It was too late…”
The scene flashed back through my mind. I saw Doug. I saw them, too. His parents were in the room. I didn’t recognize the sounds coming out of my chest. Chalen had gotten to them first.
“No,” I mumbled. “This cannot be happening. All of these people can’t be dead…please let me wake up, please? Compel me…I don’t care anymore…compel me to forget seeing him like that. Please,” I begged. “Please, please.”
“I can’t,” she said, pain filling her voice.
“You have to.”
“It’s not possible. I’ve already tried.”
“What? No, please, try again.”
“Maggie, I tried for two days. I can calm you, make you sleep, but your mind cannot be altered.”
I sobbed as she pulled me close to her and wrapped her arms around me.
“I need you to pull through this and take control of your emotions.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“I know you can, and so does Doug.”
Her words slowly soaked through the pain and I realized what she was really saying.
“Did you talk to him?”
She nodded, smiling.
“Is he still…?”
She shook her head, “No. But he asked me to tell you something.”
“What?”
“He asked me to ‘tell Havana to give ‘em hell.’”
SIX
GLIMMER
I cried a lot on that mountain. I cried until I knew there simply couldn’t be any tears left. Caorann sat with me in the tall grass, silent, patient. She knew the pain. She’d been through it, too. I stared up at the pale blue sky, and watched a thin haze of clouds shifting shapes as they passed over. Clarity comes at the oddest times. I didn’t expect it so soon, but I found it.
“They used my abilities against me?”
Caorann nodded.
“Chalen was watching Doug, waiting for a sign that I was projecting. I gave it to him, you know.”
“You shouldn’t second guess yourself,” she said, her voice warm and familiar with a slight Ozark affect.
“They wanted me to see Doug dying—Ozara probably sent Chalen to do it because I hate him. They killed Sherman hoping I’d blame myself.”
“Probably. How does that make you feel?”
“Weak. Stupid.”
Caorann leaned forward slightly. “Angry?”
“Yes, but only that I didn’t recognize it.”
Caorann’s eyes narrowed. “Do you seek revenge?”
“No, honestly. I want retribution.”
Caorann’s heart-shaped lips curled into a half smile. “That’s a remarkable advance in a short time, especially given the situation.”
“Figuring out that they were playing me, well, to be brutally honest, it scares me. It scares me that my loss of control could cost others their lives, and it angers me that my…stupidity, yes, that my stupidity cost four lives. It can’t happen again. It won’t happen again.”
“They underestimate you—”
I interjected, “I gave them reason to—”
“Perhaps, but we can use that to our advantage. We will work together to discover how to defeat Ozara. We should start today, but not until you’ve consoled your friends.”
Without asking, I knew Ronnie and Candace were at the bottom of the hill in the third cottage, two down from the one we visited the last time I was there. I couldn’t sense any other Fae.
“Their families are in danger.”
“Yes,” she whispered, just above the rustling grass.
“We need to go back to the Weald.”
“We will, and that is the plan, but not until you’ve met with the other clans and convinced them that you’re prepared. They will not follow us until they trust you. Do you understand?”
My heart told me the price of delay would be paid in human lives, but I knew she was right. The Fae would not risk their existence on me unless they believed I was capable of keeping my end.
“How do we make this work?”
“It will be precarious. Unless the force we take to the Weald is great enough to ensure the Alliance will lose huge numbers, they will not hesitate to attack. Unless Ozara believes she has the upper hand, this conflict will turn into a war of attrition.”
“So we must have a powerful force, big enough to keep those who follow her on the sidelines and afraid of engaging. But to get her to commit and not draw it out until I’m an old woman, or dead, she has to believe she can win. How do we do that?”
“I have an idea, but there is something you need to do first,” she said, staring back down the hill.
“No, there is something I have to do before that.”
“What?’
“Ozara is counting on me being emotionally unstable and she knows I will be watching. I need to give her what she wants.”
“How so?’
“When I visited my family, Billy felt me. With Aether, my emotions were out of control. He knew I was there the moment I popped in. Just like Chalen knew when I found him stalking Doug.”
“But I can’t read you now, and you’re sitting next to me.”
I thought about Doug, Rachel, Dad, and Aunt May, and then I projected the raw emotion, but much more powerfully than I’d done with Chalen at the Water trial. Her eyes misted until I focused on my Mom and Mitch, and bottled the rest in my mind.
“She only needs to feel me when I want her to. She needs to believe that I’m out of control.”
“Seeing her may be more than you can handle right now.”
“That’s true,” I said, “but you told me I needed to move past my hatred of her to fully gain control of Aether. That won’t happen from half a world away.”
Caorann nodded. I projected, rage bubbling in my chest.
Fiery red hair, misleading beauty, Ozara was with Zarkus. She casually ran her fingers through her hair, pulling a lock over her collarbone. His face drained of emotion and his blue eyes locked on hers. She’d felt me and signaled him. I pressed my consciousness to her, imagining my hands around her long white neck, and then squeezing. She cleared her throat and smiled.
“Maggie, child, you were not invited here.”
“You will fail.”
She laughed softly. “I am sorry about your friend. Just so you know, Chalen went too far, but that is his nature. When he locates your family, and he will, I am terrified of what he will do to them. That, of course, is the price of betraying me.”
“I hate you.”
She smiled broadly. “Your hate is of no consequence to me, but if it is any consolation, I will tell him to make their deaths quick and painless.”
I let the rage boil. Ozara closed her eyes and inhaled like she was sniffing roses. I let the tether pull me back away from them several miles and shut the emotion off before returning to my body.
Caorann studied my face when I opened my eyes. I fought with a smirk.
“It worked. She’s smug and confident,” I said, standing. “I’m going to go see Candace and Ronnie. You can let the Fae come back now.”
* * *
Candace embraced me at the door. Her face twisted, and she lost it. I cried as well, but kept control enough not to set the cottage on fire.
“It’s…” That was all she managed.
She felt incredibly thin in my arms. Fragile even.
“Where’s Ronnie?”
She swallowed and took a few deep breaths. “He hasn’t come out of his room since Sara told us. He’s hurting real bad—they were so close.”
“I know. Do you think I should talk to him?”
She straightened her shoulders and let go of me. “You should try.”
My knock went unanswered. I called to him and he didn’t respond. For a moment, I considered opening the door by force, but then thought better of it. When Rachel died, I would have punched anyone who forced my door open. Even the Fae knew it was best to leave me alone.
“What should we do?” Candace asked.
“Leave him for the time being. He knows we’re here…he’ll come out when he’s ready.”
“Leave him? Really? Are you okay?” she whispered.
I wiped my eyes and left Ronnie’s door, plopping down on the old sofa. “I am.”
She followed me over, gingerly sitting and shaking her head.
“I know you probably expected me to be out of my mind, and I was, but we won’t win that way.”
“Win?” she asked softly. “How do we win?”
She wasn’t asking me a strategic question—it was rhetorical and completely dismissive.
“I’m sorry, I know this is—”
Her hazel eyes began to tear up and she threw her hands up. “No, don’t do this…not right now. I’m not ready to hear how we’ll come out of this with a victory. They’re killing everyone we love. How can we win this for Doug? How can we win this for your dad? And when they kill you…” she smacked the cushions of either side of her legs. “…how will any of us see this as a win?”
“Ádhamh—”
“No,” she screamed. “Ádhamh is a win for Caorann, but she’s an Aetherfae. What about the rest of us, you know, the mere mortals who have to go on seeing your face everywhere we look. I do that, you know. Everywhere we go, I see a girl with her hair and my mind immediately says: oh, look, there’s Rachel. But it’s not. Every time, it kills me a little bit more. And when it’s you…you’re my best friend, Maggie…”
Candace heaved and walked to the door, turning halfway. Her bottom lip quivered. “I’m closer to you than anyone.”
“I know, I feel the same way about you,” I said.
She tried to compose herself, and wiped at the mucus running from her nose. She grabbed her shirt in frustration and screamed, “Who gives a damn about a little snot, right?” before blowing her nose on it. “How long before they go after my parents and my brother…or his?” she pointed to Ronnie’s door.
My throat burned and constricted.
She turned to face me. Her eyes were so swollen. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” She pushed the door open, the bright early afternoon sun flaring around her silhouette. Then she disappeared down the path.
* * *
It was nearly dark before I felt Sara moving across the countryside. Within minutes, all of them seemed to be returning. Gavin was among the last.
“I guess practice is over for now?” I said.
Caorran nodded. “Yes. Are you sure one of them is providing information to Ozara?”
“Yeah,” I said, “they set us up with the Kabouter.”
Her sapphire eyes locked onto mine. “Okay, then we’ll keep what we learned to ourselves.”
“Caorann, can I ask you somethig?”
She nodded. “Yes?”
“What’s with the accent? Ever since I woke up, you been talking differently, like you were from Arkansas.”
A grin formed on her face. “It was Sara’s suggestion. She thought you’d find a small affect a little more comforting. And, I should tell you, you’re not the only one who can listen to private conversation.”
“I don’t understand.”
After laughing lightly. “At Lough Gur, you and your friends mentioned how similarly we talked.”
I felt my face blush. “You can hear through my Air barrier.”
“It took some work, but I am an Aetherfae.”
Caorann and I walked down Cnoc Aine hill and spent several hours practicing with Aether. As Caorann and I practiced, she stripped the shroud of mystery away from the substance. Aether was not some mystical energy, which is the way it had always felt before. The fifth Cardinal element wasn’t an element at all, but rather the balanced control of the four actual energies simultaneously. No stream of Aether was more powerful than another, yet it was more powerful than any of the component parts, or any combinations of them.
I learned I had been wrong about Ozara, too. When she melted Gavin’s Plasma attack on Chalen in the Seoladán two years ago, she’d done it with her mind. That was the most surprising thing about the balance I felt with Naeshura, I could take control of any individual element away from less powerful Fae. In time, I’d be able to take control away from any of them. A vision of Katarina lacerating Ozara at Caer Bran suddenly made sense, and it was an important lesson. Really old, really powerful Fae still posed a danger to me, and that was something Caorann wanted to change.
I learned to block any attack she concocted, but still could not penetrate her Aether. As with Ozara, when we concentrated too hard, the Aether seemed to meld. I knew getting past that was the secret, but how to do it, I didn’t know.
Candace hadn’t gone far—I could see her a mile down the road, pacing. She’d walked out of view and back again a dozen times.
“Maggie, how are you?” Sara asked when I entered the cottage.
I nodded and forced a smile, though it felt completely inappropriate when I did.
“Is there—”
“Yes,” I said, cutting her off. “You might go talk to Candace.”
“That’s not necessary,” Candace said from behind me. “Ronnie is the one who needs help.”
“How much?” Sara whispered.
“We’re not asking you to do that,” I said, remembering how much she hated the invasion of compelling people.
“No,” Candace said. “Just talk to him.”
“No,” Ronnie howled from behind the door.
Gavin materialized behind me and walked to the door. “Ronnie, can I talk to you? Please?”
After a long silence, the lock turned. “Only you.”
Gavin walked through the door, shooting me a sad smile before he pushed it shut. When Ronnie began wailing, Candace took my hand, kissed me on the cheek, and then turned to Sara. “Would you like to walk with me,” she said, fighting tears.
Sara moved quickly and gracefully across the floor, holding her hand out to Candace. They disappeared out the front door.
“Do you need me to stay?” Caorann asked.
“No, I’d rather be alone if you don’t mind.”
When she disappeared, I extended an Air barrier around the cottage to keep Candace from hearing him cry. It was gut wrenching.
They talked for several minutes before I l
eaned against the door. A small part of me wanted to give them privacy, but I was worried about him, so I projected inside.
“… just hurts so freaking bad. I can’t believe he’s gone.”
“I know how strong your friendship was—he was your best friend. I felt the love he had for you each and every time you were together. You always made him laugh—did you know he replayed your jokes in his head when he was feeling down?”
“Are you serious?” Ronnie asked.
“I am.”
“I’ll never have a friend like him again.”
“You will have many friends in your life, but each friendship is absolutely unique.”
“Do you know why we were so close?” Ronnie asked, his voice sounding calmer.
“Please, tell me.”
“I was fifteen when I came out. The guys at school treated me like I was diseased. My dad and I stopped talking. The only male friend I had was Doug. When other guys turned their backs, or wanted to fight, he just wanted to hang out—it didn’t matter to him. He never judged me.” Ronnie laughed. “You know, there was a time when I didn’t like myself…when I tried to hurt myself…but he saved my life, Gavin. Every day after school, when he got back from Fayetteville, he’d come over and we’d just talk, or go hiking—he did that for weeks until I got better and made him stop. He was everything—straight, smart, athletic, friendly, freaking beautiful—pick any adjective. He was the guy all the other guys wanted to be. Guys like that just aren’t friends with guys like me. I feel lost without him.”
“You’re smart, friendly, athletic, and beautiful yourself, Ronnie—you’re all of those things and many more. Maggie needs you, and so do I.”
“You?”
“Of course. Through all of this, you’ve done your best to keep everyone laughing. You do naturally what I can only compel, and I can’t compel myself.”
“You never laugh at my jokes.”
“That’s not true. I just don’t laugh out loud—Candace thought it would give you a big head.”
Ronnie turned and stared out the window. “That hateful ingrate.”