“How did the women buying the groceries know what to get?” Graham asked, the question brushing warm against her ear. “They only just decided to make chili.”
She turned just far enough to raise an eyebrow at him. “Do I really need to answer that?”
She could feel him thinking about it. “Actually, no.”
Watching nine aunties maneuver around a kitchen was a little like watching ballet had the corps all considered themselves principal dancers. And been armed.
No. Eight aunties.
Allie frowned and moved away from Graham’s touch to where Auntie Gwen was standing, staring into the middle distance. She’d only just changed over and sometimes the color of her eyes still took Allie by surprise. Tucking herself up by the older woman’s shoulder, Allie followed her line of sight but as far as she could tell, there was nothing there.
“You’ve been awfully quiet,” she said.
“I was just wondering…” Auntie Gwen’s dark eyes gleamed. “… what your leprechaun’s name is.”
As soon as full dark fell, the Dragon Lords began flying over again, although only Allie and the aunties could feel them.
“Testing the wards,” Auntie Jane sniffed. “I’ll say this much for my sister, if she wanted you to stay out, you stayed out.”
“Are they trying to get in at Jack, or are they making sure his father can’t?” Allie twisted up a fistful of curtain and stared up at what the lights of the city allowed of the stars.
“Don’t know, don’t care. Who’s going to Charlotte’s concert and who’s up for euchre?”
That was enough to turn Allie away from the window. “Charlie’s playing in a bar, Auntie Jane.”
“We’ve been in bars before, Alysha.” Auntie Jane sat down at the dining room table as at least half the others started pulling on jackets and shoes. “Your Auntie Ellen used to bartend at the Royal when she was younger.”
“But what if Jack’s mother shows up tonight?”
“Is she going to?” Not a rhetorical or any other type of bloody-minded question, Auntie Jane looked at her like she actually wanted an answer.
“Jack…”
“I’m asking you, Alysha Catherine. Is she going to show up tonight?”
How was she supposed to… Oh. Allie slid her awareness out through the city, allowed it to be drawn to the sacred site on the top of the hill.
“Second circle makes connections, Alysha.”
“I know that,” she murmured, finding the path Jack had created between realities.
“Of course you do,” Auntie Bea sniffed.
“Kids today.” Auntie Christie rolled her eyes with the expressiveness of much practice. “Think they know everything.”
Auntie Meredith sighed. “I don’t know why we even bother to…”
Allie pushed the aunties’ litany to the spot in her mind where muzak lived, rested her forehead against the window, and moved carefully along the path. A little further. And back one hell of a lot faster at the first brush against the edge of the burning.
The glass had warmed under her skin, so she shifted six inches left, sucking in air through her teeth at the cool touch.
“Well?”
“Not tonight.”
“Well, there you go, then. Roland, you’ll stay here. Michael, you’ll drive. Meredith, have you got the cards?”
“Allie, do you…?”
“Guess again, future-cousin-in-law.” Wearing a pair of NHL boxers and a faded Blue Rodeo T-shirt, Charlie pulled the bedroom doors closed behind her. “Allie’s settling Jack. He ate a tube of toothpaste.”
Graham frowned. He had a vague memory of one of his cousins doing the same. “That shouldn’t hurt him.”
“He ate the tube, too.”
That, his cousin hadn’t done. He leaned back against the dresser, unwilling to get any closer until he knew why she was in the bedroom. “Well, how was the gig?”
“Interesting. When Auntie Christie gets a couple of beers in her, she does a scary two-step.”
“Any sign of trouble?”
“You mean besides there being more bowlegged cowboys in the city tonight than there were yesterday? No.”
It was the expression on Charlie’s face that made Graham decide he didn’t want to know. “So, no Dragon Lords?”
“Auntie Ellen said a couple of them landed outside, but they didn’t come in.”
“Because of the aunties?”
“Or they got freaked by our kick-ass cover of ‘Roughest Neck Around.’ Hard to say. So, look at you two…” She dropped onto the end of the bed and bounced. “… all alone in this great big bed while I’m fighting the Jolly Green Giant for space. Plus, he’s a blanket hog. He’s always been a blanket hog.”
“Did you want to join us?” Graham asked. He’d thought the sarcasm had been obvious, but Charlie looked like she was actually considering it.
“After things are locked down,” she said at last.
“Things?”
“Between you and Allie.” She tucked a bare leg under her butt, and gazed up at him. “I was hoping the aunties would bring Uncle Tom, that’s Allie’s dad, out west with them. He’s a Gale by marriage; you’ve probably got some questions.”
“About marriage?” He ran a hand back through his hair. “Charlie, Allie and I are…”
“Twinned, turbo-charged souls who have miraculously found each other and now have an eternity of bliss ahead. Also, you’re really hot together. No, not about marriage, you ass, about what it means to choose a Gale—so this time, when she asks you if you understand your choice, you won’t be talking through your fucking ego.” She leaned back on her elbows, and Graham tried very hard not to look at the nipple poking Jim Cuddy in the eye. “Figured out what you want to say to her yet?”
“Do I need to say it at this point? I mean, I’m here.”
“Not at this point.” Charlie rolled her eyes. “But it’s going to come up. So, since I’m here and you and Allie are still…” She sketched the most sarcastic set of air quotes he’d ever seen and given that she had to know about the sex, he supposed he didn’t blame her. “… treading carefully, any immediate questions? Say, about the aunties?”
“The aunties…” Graham remembered everything Stanley Kalynchuk had told him about the Gale women and suppressed a shudder. From what he’d seen so far, that, at least, the sorcerer hadn’t lied to him about. “The aunties are self-explanatory.”
“True that.”
“Most of my questions…” Most of his questions, he wanted to howl at Kalynchuk. “… you can’t answer. Except… No.”
“You’re thinking that if you want to know the thing you want to know, you should ask Allie, not me, aren’t you?” She shifted to run a hand back through her hair, frowned at the single brilliant strand caught on a guitar callus and flicked it off onto the floor. “That means it’s either about Michael or David. She loves Michael, always will.”
“I’m okay with that.”
“Big of you,” Charlie snorted. “David…”
“She apologized to David.” It was all Allie had said to him during the whole meal. She’d said, I’m sorry. He’d kissed her forehead and called her an idiot.
“David’s going to have to anchor the whole first circle.”
“And that’s dangerous.”
“That wasn’t a question.”
“I’m not an idiot.”
“About what?” Allie glanced between them as she came into the bedroom and frowned. “What have you guys been talking about?”
“You.” Charlie bounced up off the bed, grabbed Allie by the shoulders of the faded Great Big Sea T-shirt she wore and kissed her soundly. Graham tried not to think about implications. Or east coast Canadian music meeting up with west. “I told him all about the spot under your right ear.”
“He found that already,” Allie snorted.
“Really? Well, did he find…” She shot a wicked glance in Graham’s direction and bent to whisper in her cousin’s ear.
Allie grinned. “No. Not yet.”
“Should I…”
“You should leave. Joe’s sharing with Michael, you and Katie are sharing with Roland.”
“I could help him find…”