“No,” Gavin said. “Wakinyan is faster.”
* * *
By midnight, Cnoc Aine was spooky. There was comfort in numbers and the numbers were gone. Bastien, Caorann, and the elders—aside from Wakinyan—had cloaked the Coalition and departed. To where, I didn’t know. For the first time since we’d arrived, there were more humans than Fae. Wakinyan concealed Sara and Gavin as Ronnie, Candace and I grabbed our scant belongings and headed out into the darkness. Candace searched the pitch-black night for Sean—I felt him down the road, inside his cottage. As the minutes ticked away, Candace began showing signs of stress, wringing her hands and wincing.
“How much time do we have?” Ronnie asked.
“Five minutes,” I whispered.
Candace grimaced and rechecked the zipper on her duffel.
“Give me two,” he said, marching down the road.
Candace watched him, wide-eyed. “No, don’t. Thank you, but it really is his choice,” she groaned.
Ronnie kept walking, but before he got halfway, I felt Sean come out of the cottage. I touched Candace’s shoulder and smiled. She lit up like the Manhattan skyline at night. In less than a minute, Ronnie and Sean were shuffling up the narrow wall-lined road, chatting casually. Light laughter, the type you might expect between old friends, cut the silent Irish night. I was so glad Sean decided to come. I was happy for him, of course, but it was exactly what Candace needed. He was more damaged than she was, which made me uneasy, but they seemed like a perfect fit—they seemed to make each other feel better.
“Okay, so how are we really getting back to Arkansas?” Ronnie whispered when I wrapped them in Clóca.
I shrugged. “No idea.”
“You are making enough noise to wake the dead,” Wakinyan barked.
“I’m whispering,” Ronnie replied.
“Whisper more quietly…and get over here. We do not have all night.”
“Now relax,” Sara said, “You’re perfectly safe.”
I dropped the cloak when Wakinyan extended his around us.
“We’re going to take the four of you to the coast as quickly as we can. Sean and Candace with me, Ronnie and Maggie with Wakinyan. Gavin will provide protection.”
“Oh god,” Ronnie moaned.
“It’s much better on top,” I said.
Wakinyan shifted into a giant black eagle, massive talons plunging into the soft soil. Sara changed shapes. Candace whispered, “Pegasus.”
“Can I pick?” Ronnie asked.
“Yes, you have two options. You can climb on my back or we can do it like last time,” Wakinyan growled.
“Back,” Ronnie wheezed.
“Relax. It’ll be over before you know it. An airline would take eight hours, we’ll reach North America in two,” Sara reassured him.
* * *
Even though it was nighttime when we crossed over New York City, the devastation from the tsunami a week earlier was apparent—the city was almost completely dark. We covered fifteen miles of New Jersey before I saw isolated pockets of electrical power. At around four o’clock in the morning we landed in rural central Arkansas—or at least that’s where Gavin said we were—a few miles east of Russellville.
I slid off Wakinyan’s back, and stretched the tight muscles in my legs and back. “What’s wrong? Why are we stopping here?”
Wakinyan shifted back into a towering Native American, spilling Ronnie into the tall grass.
“I guess we’re done,” Ronnie said, brushing bits of dried brown grass off his clothes.
Wakinyan smirked. “Nothing is wrong. But you need to proceed by car from this point. We would have stopped further east, but the bridges over the Mississippi River are destroyed between Baton Rouge and Davenport, Iowa.”
“Car?” I didn’t understand.
“Yes. You need to make an entrance,” Sara said.
“Why? Why aren’t we slipping back unnoticed?”
“It’s part of the plan. Ozara needs to believe that you’re furious about our inability to agree on anything—she needs to believe that you’re taking matters into your own hands. That means when you encounter Alliance Fae, and you will, you must give them a warning to leave, and if they do not…”
I nodded. “Destroy them.”
“Ozara will learn of your return before noon today. When she has her human project to find the clans, Ozara will discover some of them in their territories. She may not believe it, of course, but I think she will see this as an opportunity to seek out Caorann.”
I felt clammy and on edge. “Where is Caorann?”
“She and the Sidhe have gone to ground. They haven’t passed back into our realm, but they are doing what any clan would do when faced with obliteration.”
I thought about it for a second. “So, she’s being led to believe that the clans are in disarray. I’m bait?”
“It is difficult to know what Ozara will do, what her plans involve, so she may come after you—and we considered that. But I do not think she will. I believe she has been avoiding you and will keep avoiding you. Putting you back in the Weald will cause her considerable anxiety.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t get the point of the plan.”
“She’s been reacting to every move we make like they have been scripted, and so far, we have been completely predictable. Each event has strengthened her position. The Coalition attack on the Alliance destroyed Horus and fifty-three others. Numerically, it was a victory for us, but strategically, it was a blunder. The Alliance is stronger than ever. Each clan lost members. With each death, the survivors’ devotion to Ozara grows.”
“You’re saying she knew the Coalition would attack?” Gavin asked.
“Of course she did. Why else would she keep Zarkus’ ability with Aether a secret? Why leave him back at camp when he, even with limited control of Aether, could be a huge tactical advantage. I am sure Ozara was hoping he would kill Bastien—Zarkus has not known Aether very long and he does not have Maggie’s seemingly natural gift for it—but from what I have been shown, he nearly succeeded. The loss of Bastien would have been devastating to the Coalition.”
“You’re right, Bastien was his primary target.”
“Bastien, not Caorann, is the glue that holds the Coalition together,” Sara said.
“So we drive?” I asked.
Wakinyan nodded in the moonlight. “You need to make a conspicuous entrance—do not worry, I will be along to provide air cover.”
“I’m not worried. I guess we need a car,” I said, surveying the rugged nightscape of rural Arkansas.
“Tadewi has taken care of that for us.”
That struck me as very odd. “Tadewi? You’ve planned this all along?”
“Yes.”
That doesn’t make any sense. “But how could you, you didn’t know Tse-xo-be was dead until I told you—and you left five minutes later.”
“At least as far as you know,” Wakinyan said, his face shifted into a look of fierce satisfaction.
“The rumors of my death are premature,” said a familiar voice behind me.
I spun in a half circle, searching for the source. It sounded like Tse-xo-be, but I’d seen him die. Slowly materializing as the Clóca barrier fell, Tse-xo-be stood twenty feet from me. At his side were Tadewi and Candace’s family.
“Mom! Dad!” she cried out, rushing across the field to them. Tse-xo-be walked up to me, leaving them in a ball of sobbing flesh.
“You seem confused,” he said.
“I saw…I thought I saw…”
“This,” he said, collapsing into a white ball of energy and flashing. He dropped the Clóca barrier again. “A cheap parlor trick, as humans would say. Physical eyes see what they want to see—human and Fae alike. I apologize if I caused you pain.”
Tears streamed down my face and I felt faint. “No, I’m just so happy you’re alive. It totally sucked, but I am happy.”
“Zarkus is not very good with Aether—yet. He believes me dead and so does Ozara—th
at is an advantage. It also means I must make this visit short, or else Ozara’s new human will discover the ruse.”
“Wow, I really believed…”
“I tried to make it as authentic as I could—but were it not for the residual energy of so many dead Fae, the trick would have been worthless.”
“Her parents?” I pointed.
Tse-xo-be smiled. “That took a bit more doing, but I am Earth aligned and Ozara saw fit to keep them below ground. I killed the Fae guarding them and collapsed the caverns, utterly mashing anything recognizable. For good measure, I incinerated the remains of a few animals to keep up appearances—if they bothered to inspect. They did not, of course—Ozara found a replacement quickly enough. I led your friend’s family through the mountain—twenty miles. It took a few hours, but they are safe.”
“Who knows the truth?”
“Beyond those in the field,” Wakinyan said, “Caorann, Zeus, and Bastien.”
Sean and Ronnie joined Candace and her family. Tadewi strode past them and embraced me.
“Gosh, it’s so good to see you,” I said. “Thank you for looking after my family.”
“Your family is amazing, Maggie. They’re all so strong, so caring. They are safe—you’ll be seeing them very soon.”
“I’ve been gone for less than six weeks, but it feels like a lifetime. Are you going back with us?”
“No, I just brought you these.” She held out both hands. “Your transportation. I assumed they would be your first pick—and, well, Wakinyan insisted.”
In her right hand was a small pink block, in the other, burgundy.
“The Thunderbirds,” I laughed. “Of course.”
She placed them on the ground about ten feet apart, and with a touch the dark 1965 convertible took shape. Then, like seeing an old friend, my dusk rose ’57 emerged beside it. For a brief moment, Aunt May’s crooked smile filled my mind’s eye, followed by a memory of Dad installing the hardtop two winters ago. Buoyed by having Tse-xo-be and Candace’s family safe, and knowing I’d be seeing my own in a few hours, I felt more confident than ever.
* * *
“Gavin?”
Gavin nodded, turning his warm eyes to me.
“If something happens, will you finish my journal for me?”
He frowned.
“No, I’m not saying something will happen, but if it does.”
He slowly turned his face back to the road. Behind us, the sun began lighting the morning sky as it rose, softened by a haze of thin, white clouds, above the flat-topped mountains along the east side of highway 23.
“Why are you being so quiet?”
He exhaled, but just kept staring out the windshield.
“Gavin?”
He wrung the steering wheel in his hands.
“I know, you’re afraid for me.”
“Air barrier,” he growled.
“It’s up.”
“Afraid? No, I’m petrified. I loathe not knowing what’s going on, and while I agree with Wakinyan that Ozara most likely will not challenge you, it’s speculation at best—and with you asking me to finish your journal…you’ll have to forgive me, but I’m not in the best of moods right now. If she and Zarkus come after you…”
“I know. I know.”
“Do you?”
“I don’t have much of a choice, do I? If you have a better plan, I’m listening.”
“That’s just it, without knowing what the plan is, we can’t even have an intelligent conversation about alternatives.”
“Something else is bothering you, isn’t it?”
He closed his eyes halfway through a hairpin corner. It unnerved me, even though I knew he was still paying attention.
“You haven’t learned how to master Water yet.”
“No, and it may take millennia, or longer. To date, Ra was the youngest Fae to learn Aether, and he was over four million years old. Zarkus is six million, Dagda was eighteen million, Ozara is one hundred twenty million, and Caorann is older still. It takes millions of years to learn to control the elements with enough precision to do what you can.”
“You’ve already learned three.”
“No, I haven’t. I know my alignment element well enough, and I can control Air enough to form Plasma, but I still struggle with Earth. You learned to make Quint in an afternoon. I’ve been struggling with it since before your species learned to plant seeds.”
“I know you’ll learn how to produce Aether.”
“If I survive long enough, yes. You’ve already shown me how to combine it, but Maggie, I’m no closer than I was a week ago. I don’t want you to think you can die and we’ll be together instantly. It may take a million years—there are million-year-old Fae who can only control three elements, you know. I may not learn it before my end comes—”
“You will. Caorann wants you to learn Aether—she wants you to be the Fourth.” That was a bit of an exaggeration, but I went with it.
“She thinks she’s going to die?”
“I don’t know—she gave me an uneasy feeling when we talked, but that’s beside the point. You, not them...” I pointed to the sky where I knew Wakinyan was flying on the other side of the Air barrier, “…may be the key to all of this.”
“Maggie, I’m less than a hundred and fifty thousand years old, and I’m in love with a human. The clans will not listen to me.”
“If you learn Aether, they’ll have no choice.”
He nodded, and finally gave me a little smile.
Forty-five minutes later, and just a few miles south of Turpentine Creek, Wakinyan’s voice boomed in my head. “Get ready. Five are coming—they’re Jinn and Duende Fae. They won’t back down.”
I let a nervous exhale puff out of my mouth, and I twisted around in the seat. Sara was behind the wheel of Mom’s burgundy convertible, just a few car lengths away. She nodded.
“Okay, bring it on,” I said.
TWENTY-ONE
RUINS
I felt the first, a Fire-aligned Fae, hovering just three miles away and to the west. I assumed there were more just past it. The sky was slightly overcast by clouds with white tops and gray bottoms. A storm was coming—the Jinn were about to find out how bad the weather could get in the Ozarks. I connected with the tremendous energy in the clouds and sent a bolt of lightning to its position, one just strong enough to get its attention. It blocked the charge and retreated.
“He’ll be back—it’s Konshu. He’s Jinn, Fire-aligned, once known as the moon god. He’s a hot head,” Gavin briefed me. We drove through Eureka and emerged on the west side, where the shops thinned out and the road wrapped around the mountains. It was there that I felt all six of them circle our car.
“I know you can hear me. Leave now and I won’t destroy you.” My palms were sweating and my heart raced in my chest. I had enough adrenaline coursing in my veins for three people.
“Human, it is a mistake coming—” The burst of Aether cut off his threat. He flashed just above the turnoff to Thorncrown Chapel.
“That was Safa—a Duende,” Gavin whispered.
“Like I said, get the hell out of Arkansas. I’ll count to ten.” I winced. God, I sound like my mother. “One…two…three—”
I blocked a bolt of lightning a hundred yards from my car, and bent it back toward the Fae who had created it. Then I blocked another. One of them, a second Fire-aligned Fae a half-mile to the right of Konshu, tried to connect with the gasoline in my tank. I neutralized his connection to Fire.
“Four…five…s—”
Quint flashed around the corner, carving huge chunks of pavement out of the highway. I wrestled for control. Konshu was strong, but not strong enough. By the time I counted to eight, I’d smoothed the road.
“Screw the countdown,” I barked. I caught the remaining five in Aether and dragged them through the atmosphere. One after another, I lined them up in front of the car. Konshu was first. I slammed him into the pavement so hard his death flash was immediate—like a firecracker
on the pavement. The four remaining Fae struggled in my grip. As we drove over the spot where Konshu died, I slammed another one into the pavement. She popped out, and I followed her burst of light with two more. I pulled the final Fae to the windshield as we drove down Highway 62. “Leave now or die. Tell Ozara I’m reclaiming my home—tell her she isn’t welcome back. Tell her if I catch any Alliance Fae in Arkansas, I will kill them on sight. Do you understand or do I need to get another messenger?”
The wide-eyed Water-aligned Fae nodded.
“Oh, and you might stop by the Weald first and pass the warning along—if you’d rather I do it, that’s fine. I could use the practice.”
The Fae winced when I squeezed the Aether a little tighter. Then I slung it as far to the west as I could. It careened backwards across the hilltops and out of view before I released it.
“Remind me never to make you mad,” Wakinyan said.
“Too much?” I asked.
“No. They’ll get the message,” Wakinyan said.
Gavin groaned and shook his head. I wasn’t sure whether he was upset by the brutality of what I’d just done, or by the direct challenge I’d issued to Ozara, or both. There was so much adrenaline in my body, I shook in the front seat like I had the chills.
“Are you okay?” he asked in a soft voice.
“Not sure. I’m scared and a little freaked out.”
The summer had apparently been hot and dry, as the grass was completely brown next to the road. The Weald looked bad the last time I visited, so I prepared for the worst. There were no signs of Fae the rest of the way to the front gate. Dried weeds and leaf debris from last winter had piled up around the rock wall. The power had been cut to the gate, so I reached out with my invisible hands and forced it open. Other than the dried weeds, the driveway didn’t look too bad. Eight Fae remained a mile away, somewhere near the second island.
“I’ll allow you to leave in one piece if you leave now.”
The Fae scattered, taking their natural form. Six of them disappeared across the lake. Two remained.