She closed her eyes and hoped Nell and Elorie were almost finished. Marcus had finally put his heart’s roots in the soil of Fisher’s Cove. It was time to nourish them.
Chapter 23
Escape.
Marcus climbed out of the car and breathed in the tang of salt, letting the glorious emptiness wash over his soul.
Alone.
Well, except for his sidekick.
After a week trapped in Realm, they had both earned this. They had every precaution dozens of witches could devise, a car filled with every baby item ever made, and thirty minutes of freedom.
Evan had told him to go home and live. Well, this was home, the happy and the sad of it.
He walked around to the back door and bent in, grinning as Morgan blew bubbles and tried to grab his hair. “Ready to play on the beach, girl-child?”
Marcus touched Elorie’s pendant around his neck. He could get them back to Realm at any whiff of trouble. As could any of the witches standing guard all over the village. And there wasn’t going to be trouble. The day was bright and sunny, Morgan had already slept like a rock, and he’d swaddled her in twenty-five warding spells.
Just half an hour. A moment to say hello-and perhaps goodbye.
Then he’d go back to the fortress that kept his girl safe.
With quick hands, he wrapped up Morgan in Aunt Moira’s latest baby blanket creation-this one swirling shades of purple. “Come on out, munchkin. And when you learn to talk, maybe you can explain to me why the women of the world insist on matching everything to your eyes.”
All she had in answer was a particularly wet raspberry.
No matter. Hecate herself couldn’t make him admit it out loud, but the purple was growing on him.
He drew the line at glitter, however. A man had to have his standards.
Tucking Morgan in one arm, he started unloading the trunkful of supplies required for an outing at the beach. He spent two useless minutes trying to fight the umbrella out one handed-and then rolled his eyes. The entire half hour could easily be spent unpacking. He looked down at his content companion. “What do you think, baby girl-can you manage not to poop for thirty minutes or so?” He was pretty sure the diapers were at the bottom of the trunk pile.
He hoped her raspberry was an affirmative one.
Feeling strangely unburdened, Marcus settled Morgan into her pouch. “Let’s travel light, then. You want to walk or laze around in the sun?”
For once, she seemed easy with either choice, and his old and cranky legs voted for lazing. Carefully, Marcus wound through the boulder field between the car and a long stretch of sand. In his boyhood, he’d barely noticed the rocks. Now his balance was rather more precarious.
Marcus looked down at his old-man shoes. And felt an odd sense of adventure meld into his general good mood. It had been years since he’d gone barefoot.
Hell, it had probably been decades.
With considerably more effort than it had taken in his youth, Marcus danced around until his feet were naked. “Well, that was about as graceful as a bull walrus.” He peered down at his pale toes. “And those look like fish bait.” Decades-old fish bait.
His toes scrunched up-he’d forgotten how cold the rocks could be on a Nova Scotia June morning. Wimpy old fart. It was, however, a far easier task to hop across the remaining stretch of boulders.
Problem number two showed up when he took the final hop onto the sand.
The very cold, wet sand. High tide-damn. He offered Morgan a knuckle to chew on, distracted. “Looks like we have a bit of an impediment to our lazing around.” And he hadn’t escaped civilization just to have his feet turn into sand popsicles.
Morgan gave his finger a particularly good chomp. Marcus chuckled. “What are you, a baby dinosaur?” Probably not. Too much drool-her onesie was half soaked already. With a quick finger wave, he activated the portable quick-dry spell on his iPhone. Bless Aervyn and his endless fire power.
Endless fire power.
Marcus grinned. “One patch of warm, dry sand, coming up.” He pushed several buttons on his phone. Using the same spell ten times in a row wasn’t the most elegant way to solve a problem, but it was working. The sand under his toes heated nicely.
Grateful for small pleasures, Marcus pulled Morgan out of the pouch and sank down onto the now-toasty circle of beach. “Welcome to tropical paradise, baby girl.”
He chuckled as her bare toes slipped out the bottom of the blanket. “Want to feel the sand under your feet, do you?” The baby manual probably frowned on such things, but he was in far too good a mood to care.
He unwrapped her little sausage of a body and laid her down on the sand-and then winced as she promptly wiggled around in paroxysms of happiness. Dang it. Sand probably wasn’t all that easy to get out of baby hair.
Ah, well.
Feeling oddly mischievous, he picked up a handful of sand and trickled it over her feet, grinning in victory as her giggles rolled out over the sand. “Like that, do you?”
He loved watching her laugh-her entire body got into the act. And if it was laughter Evan wanted to hear, Morgan’s could melt the earth and sky. One more time, he scooped up sand in his hand…
And froze as magic exploded in front of his eyes.
Marcus grabbed the tiny, lifeless girl lying on the sand, the tornado of horror in his mind a tiny wind compared to the keening wail in his heart.
No warning. No alerts.
Not asleep. Just gone.
Frantically, he reached for his phone and the life-saving Realm transport spell-and then realized the obvious. Her soul was gone. Moving her body to Realm now would kill her.
She was so still. So cold.
Just like Evan.
The helpless, anguished fury of a small boy took over Marcus, body and soul. He sank into a heap on the sand, the babe he loved as his own curled in his arms. Not again. Oh, gods, not again.
The tortured moan that escaped his lips was all he had left. Marcus closed his eyes-and wished for the mists to take him too. Morgan would need company. The mists would be terrifying for such a tiny girl.
Don’t be a stupid-head.
Marcus’s eyes shot open, seeking. Evan?
Nothing. Empty silence.
And a tiny, insistent thread of hope stirring in his heart.
He wasn’t alone. This time, he wasn’t alone. He wasn’t a small boy with barely-born magic and a circle too far away to matter.
Marcus charged to his feet-grown men didn’t fight sitting down. Strength burning back into his limbs, he tucked Morgan into her sling against his heart. It would keep her body warm-and he needed two hands to type.
Thumbs flying, he blasted an emergency alert to every witch in virtual earshot. He needed a circle. Now.
Barely pausing to breathe, he tossed the Realm spell library, activating spells as fast as his fingers could move. A rooting spell to hold him while he went after Morgan. More heat. And cornflowers. He needed cornflowers. When some appeared in his hand, roots, dirt, and all, he could have wept. Aervyn.
And then the pendant around his neck blazed, white hot.
Help was on the way. It was time to go find his girl.
Wait! Jamie landed on the beach in front of him, breathless. “I’ll go. I’ll cast. You do point on air, just like last time. The circle’s forming in Realm right now.”
It shamed Marcus that he considered it, even for a moment. The mists still terrified him. “No. It’s mine to do.” He shuddered in a breath and wrapped his arms around the still, cold bundle on his chest. For Morgan, he could do this.
She was his.
Jamie met his eyes-witch to witch. Father to father. And saw whatever he needed to see. “We’ll have your back.” And then he was gone.