Rise of the Magi (8 page)

My stomach gave a violent twist at the hopelessness in her voice. “Even though it’s hard to see right now, I think she wants us to fix this, and that’s what we’re going to do. I need you to keep an eye on our future and tell me when it changes.”
If it changes.
I stood and offered her my hand, needing to get something done. At least we had a starting point. “Are you ready for this?”

She faced my proffered fingers—probably since I rarely offered—and slowly lifted her hand and grasped mine. “Yeah, but there’s somewhere we need to stop first. We have one more to add to our little raiding party, and you’re going to be pissed eight ways from Sunday about it.”

When she didn’t elaborate, and evaded my attempts to lock glares with her, I jerked her closer. “Who could I possibly be pissed about bringing to the Overseers? Neve?” I shook my head as I considered why that might be. “I know she’s pregnant, but she can still handle herself.”

Brígh strode away in the direction of the Court. “Oh, yeah, she’s badass, carrying or not. It’s not Neve, though.”

Keeping pace with her, I picked off a few names of women I knew from our poker games and the members of my guard, growing more frustrated at each of her ‘nope’ answers. “You’re never cryptic with me. It’s one of the things I like best about you—that you’re so non-Gallagher-like. Quit jacking around the truth and spill it. Or else.”

She blurted out a laugh. “Or else, what? Your threats are useless against me, Blondie, because I know you have a soft spot for me in that big heart of yours, even if you try to hide it from me.”

Well, shit
. She had me there.

As we arrived at the gates to the Court, she swept her arm toward it. “Just go see for yourself. And just so you know, you might as well save your breath and spare us from your rant, because she comes. I’ve seen it.” The deadly seriousness in her faded blue eyes chilled me.

My pulse limped for a moment before sprinting. “Wait … so you know what happens when we go there today?”

She shook her head, candy ringlets bouncing with the motion. “Only that the three of us go. Once we get to their domain”—her hand made a chopping motion—“nada. Vision goes grey. Bitches don’t like anyone knowing what they’re doing in there, apparently.”

I stood there for a moment, lips parted, working my brain to figure out who might be waiting inside the Court. “Why won’t you just tell—”

“Quit stalling, and go see. And don’t you dare yell at me because this isn’t my choice, and I’ve had a shitty day.” A sheepish red glow lit up her cheeks. “Not that you haven’t, but … oh, just go, wouldja? This calm before your hissy storm is making me all skittery.”

Hands gripping my hips, I shot her an indignant look. “I most certainly do not have hissy storms.”

At Brígh’s face-palm, I rushed through the gate, and said, “Fine, going, Miss Bossy Pants,” and stopped dead at the pair who stood atop the knoll in the center, gazes cast toward the spirits. Maeve’s eyes dripped a stead rhythm of tears onto her flushed cheeks. Her shock of orange hair frizzed around her pale face. Little Arianne clung to her, tiny shoulders heaving with her sobs.

“Oh, hell, no,” I said, choking on the conclusion that slapped me in the face.

“Raze was Arianne’s daddy,” Brígh whispered from behind me.

My lips seemed to have turned to stone with all of my incoherent stuttering. “But … I … that can’t be right. I’ve never seen them together. How did I not know that?”

“I said he was Arianne’s daddy, and that’s all he was to their family. He and Maeve cared for one another, but they didn’t live together.”

Judging by the grief twisting Maeve’s features, I guessed she still loved him no matter what had kept them apart. As I drew up some courage and started for them, my Light already beginning to boil blue across my skin, I said, “Okay, but I still don’t get why you want Maeve to come with us.”
I just sent Gallagher off to burn her baby’s daddy, for eff sakes.
“Haven’t I put them through enough already?”

“He hasn’t come home yet.” Maeve spoke before I had a chance to rattle an answer out of my aide. “Are you sure?” A giant tear fell out of the corner of her eye, her chin quivering until she stilled it. “Are you sure he’s … gone?”

Arianne raised her tangerine-haired head, her little pigtails sticking out either side of it, and placed her palm on her mother’s cheek. “Lila help.”

The mental jolt at my idiocy cracked me on the top of the skull. Arianne was a telepath. I’d just said—and thought of—sending Gallagher to burn her father to death. “Oh, crap, I’m so sorry,” I blurted, fighting off the sting in my eyes by sheer will alone. “My stupid mind won’t shut up, and I forget she can read me so easily now. I shouldn’t have … she heard something she shouldn’t. It’s possible he’s still out there somewhere, alive and unharmed, but …”

Instead of ripping into me as I expected—as I would have if the situations were reversed—Maeve calmed and produced a sad smile. “You’re doing the best you can; we all know that. I hope you know none of us blame you, because it’s not your fault.”

I wanted to rant and stomp and insist it
was
all my fault, but we didn’t have time for me to have an old fashioned Lilaesque-freak-out. The calm Liam had induced in me before we parted might have had something to do with me keeping my cool longer than normal. “He’ll be at peace soon,” I said. “That’s all I can promise you.”

Arianne leaned out, her little fingers reaching for me. She’d lost some of her pudginess and appeared more like a little person instead of a baby. “I help,” she said.

Brow creased, I turned to Brígh. “Tell me you didn’t mean Arianne.”

My young friend rolled her eyes and made a get-on-with-your-crazy-ass-rant gesture with her hand.

“No!” My gaze swept back to Maeve. “I will not put your daughter in danger, especially after what happened today.”

“The Overseers have a blind spot where Arianne is concerned.” Brígh took Arianne from her mother and brought her the last few steps to me. “They’ve written her off as not a threat, and nobody can read them, not Gallagher or any of the other telepaths, only …” Brígh swept her hand over the girl in her arms with dramatic flair.

“Arianne,” I whispered.

“She’s determined to do this for you.” Maeve’s mouth curved up with pride. “And once she has her mind set on doing something, there’s no deterring her. I think she admires that quality in her queen.”

I studied Arianne’s rosy cheeks, and arms still outstretched in my direction, wondering how the blue blazes I’d gained such loyalty in a child of nine months old. And how had she gotten so smart? Being able to hear everyone’s thoughts might have had something to do with her level of intelligence. How was it she could be braver than me? The girl put me to shame.

I straightened my shoulders, claimed Arianne from Brígh and plunked her squishy diaper-covered butt on my hip. As usual, Arianne’s hand went down to my belly, followed by her ear as she leaned down. Since she was a solid little thing, her weight shift threw me off balance for a moment.

“He happy.” She rubbed her hand on my stomach. “We play soon.”

Her vocabulary had grown leaps and bounds every day. Another side effect of living in multiple minds at once. “I’m sure Garret will love you to pieces, little one.” I pulled her up and wrapped my arms around her, the feel of her against me stirring things down deep in my heart. “Are you sure you want to come with us? It could be dangerous and—”

She pointed at the gate. “Go.”

Teeth clenched, I took a moment to let my voice come down so I wouldn’t yell. “I don’t think this is a good idea. You should stay with your Mo—”

Arianne twisted her body and went limp, total dead weight I couldn’t hold any better than a twenty pound wet noodle. I let her slide down to the ground, glad I didn’t drop her.

On hands and knees, she crawled with determination toward the exit, her little bum, covered in yellow leggings, wagging to and fro.

“Told ya.” Brígh snickered as she followed the stubborn kid. “If I didn’t know for sure she was Maeve’s, I’d have said she came from your stock.”

After uttering a few assurances to Maeve that I’d keep her daughter safe, I trotted to catch up with my newest sidekick. “I am not that stubborn.” I scooped Arianne off the grass and hoisted her up onto my shoulders.

The look Brígh shot me—one I’d seen often, from everyone—said I was being thick. “Pot”—she pointed to me—“meet kettle”—she moved her finger up to the one on my shoulders, who giggled and kicked her feet, knocking me off balance again. “The two of you could drive me to drink if you weren’t funny as hell—some of the time—and I didn’t like you both so much.” She snorted, talking through a grin. “Maybe I should find better friends—ones who’re easier to move than frickin’ mountain granite.”

I couldn’t contain the laugh that blasted up from my depths. The three of us snickered and carried on like we were off to Grandma’s house for a picnic instead of about to wander into the den of the big bad Overseers to blow their house in.

When I realized I didn’t have the foggiest notion where we were going, I halted in front of a purple shifter with white shutters. “Where, exactly, do these women live?” Gripping Arianne’s ankles, I scanned what I could see. “And how many are there?”

Brígh pointed down the street where the cobblestone petered off into grass and woods. “Just over that hill. Andrew’s still sleeping, but Neve and Cas are waiting there for us even though I told them not to bother. They said something about security something-or-other, even if they couldn’t come inside.”

“Neve could come if she wanted to, though, right?”

Brígh tipped her face to the side, her lips tugging down in a grimace as if I’d just told her she looked fat in her skinny jeans. “Do you
want
her to come?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer that without upsetting her more than I already had. I had sudden sympathy for Liam when I gave him that speak-carefully-or-suffer-my-wrath expression. “Um … if the guards are worried about security, and they always are, I just thought … why is that a problem, exactly?”

“Geez, you’re such a guy.” She huffed hard enough the blast sent a curl of her hair flying in her own breeze. “I just … you don’t trust me, do you?”

Oh
. “Of course I trust you. How could you even think I didn’t?”

She flipped her fingers in my direction, dismissing me as she stalked off toward the hill. “Nothing. It doesn’t matter. Just …” She glanced at me over her shoulder, showing how much I’d hurt her with whatever I’d said wrong. “I wouldn’t trust me if I was in your shoes. I kept this thing from you for a whole week.”

I gaped at her, not because she’d kept it from me for a week, but because I’d assumed it had been much longer. “Only a week? Are you sure
?” Duh, of course she was sure.
“So, something has changed recently to bring this on. Is that what you’re saying?” A few long strides took me to her side while Arianne tugged at my braid like a little cowgirl driving a horse.

Brígh released a long-suffering sigh. “As events get closer, they’re easier to see. More certain. I’m sure we’ve been on this particular path for a while, but now that it’s almost here …”

She didn’t need to finish the sentence. “The clock has started ticking toward the end.”

“Yep. Pretty much.”

“Well, that’s just craptacular.” Remembering who sat on my shoulders, I said a quick, “Sorry, little one. That’s a bad thing to say, and don’t you repeat it, got it?”
Or your mother will have my hide.

“You funny,” Arianne said, the words mixed with a giggle. A sharp inhale preceded her screeching, “Neve!” Arianne kicked harder against my chest as she leaned forward and pointed, grunting as she always did when she wanted something badly. Which, with her, seemed to be anything she set her sights on—one of a million reasons why I loved her to bits. An errant thought, a wonder if I held my future daughter in-law, haunted me before I slammed it out. I couldn’t bear to think about a future that may never happen.

Neve’s pink ponytail bobbed as she strode to us, a slight pregnant-waddle to her gait. I hoped I hadn’t started doing that yet. “I don’t like this, Lila,” she said.

“Yeah, join the club on that one, honey.” Brígh waved as Cas stepped in behind Neve.

I took the last few steps to stand on top of the hill and peeled Arianne from my shoulders. “Geez, kid, you weigh a ton. What’s your mom feeding you, anyway?”

She giggled and came to her knees beside me, her pig tails bobbing in the light breeze. “Elf tarts and pork pie. Yum!”

My stomach gave us all a little serenade at the mention of food, and Garret saw fit to stick his foot into my ribs—his version of a dinner bell. “Later. We’ll eat later.” I shifted and wiggled until he curled into his usual ball in my center.

The land sloped downward on the other side of the hill. Emerald grass spread as far left and right as I could see, edged with a thick pine forest, the branches so interwoven they appeared impassable. If I never saw another tree, I’d have been quite happy. I opened my mouth to ask where we were going when I saw it. “Is that a painting down there?”

“Yep.” Cas’ eyes never left his mate as if keeping her in his focus would ensure her safety. “Freaky isn’t it? Guy gives me the grade-A creeps.”

I squinted at the six-foot-tall, four-foot-wide image encased in a golden frame that made no sense. “What’s holding it there?”

“Nothing. It just floats.”

“Like the portal door I had to give the blood sacrifice to the first time I went to Dun Bray.” I moved a few strides closer as I cocked my head left and right at the image of grey, black and red. Horns. Flame-red eyes. “The mist seems to be moving. Tell me I’m not the only one who sees that.” Creepy-crawly sensations wandered through my hair and along my arms, inducing a gigantic urge to turn heel and run while scratching everywhere.

Brígh hugged herself, shivering. “You’re not crazy. The guy thing moves once in a while, too.”

“I feel like we shouldn’t be here.” Palms scrubbing furiously at my arms, I held my legs still so they wouldn’t carry me away.

“That’s the point. They don’t like visitors that aren’t Seers, and they’re masters at the creeptacular sh—stuff.” Brígh slapped a hand over her mouth as Arianne cranked her head up. “Oops.”