Evangeline buzzed in again. “M, you want out, pull the safety latch.”
“They’d come with me.” I was sort of wondering if I’d be able to sleep at night knowing what followed me everywhere. “Listen up, you two. I know you can understand me. I also know you aren’t bound to my will. I have two names. I’ll give you each one, and I promise I’ll speak it at least once every day.” I’d done my bit, finishing up curses and spellwork. You didn’t speak of a curse because it gave it power. It fed it.
I pointed to one. “You. You are Beatus.” As I said the word it shimmered, becoming brighter, and it quivered like the name had stroked it. I looked at the other. “You are Consecro.” If the thing had rolled over on its back it couldn’t have been more pleased. “You are my blessings, and from now on you go with me by my permission.” That was all I needed to do. Simple, and hopefully effective. See, the key to naming something was that it had to accept the name, and know you called it that.
Beautus and Consecro. Latin for blessing and curse. I’d chosen the names with care, because everything they did for me seemed to cut both directions. I couldn’t remove them, but I had learned about harakathin. Naming them gave them power, but it gave me power over them, as well. Giving them permission to come with me was more symbolic. What mattered was intent, and I was intent on being in control of my own life. I opened the door to the Visions Room and watched as they faded away. “Let’s go, Ari. We’ve got studying to do.”
Evangeline shook her head and leaned against the Visions Room wall. “M, this is not a good idea, and you are so good at bad ideas. Giving those things names? Giving them permission to come with you? Grimm’s gonna blow a gasket.”
“I can hear you two,” said Grimm, showing up on the mirror facing the monitor. “Feeding a curse is a terrible idea. Feeding a blessing is only mildly bad. They are connected to you, my dear, and will react violently to separation.”
I looked at Grimm. “Speaking of violence, what’s going on with the fae?”
“They are preparing for war, my dear. A war between the realms.”
“The fae and the goblins? The fae and Avalon?” I had a bad feeling about the way he said it.
“You know better than that, my dear. Their foray into the wolf village was only the beginning. I don’t know why, since you are going to ask, but the authorities are attempting to negotiate, and the police and the military are doing what they can to prepare.” There wasn’t going to be such a thing as preparing for that. I saw what happened to the wolves.
“Then there’s the matter of the prince. I wouldn’t expect you to be able to tell,” said Grimm, “but there were traces of fae magic everywhere in his apartment.”
“Tit for tat?” I asked. “Someone snags a fae child, so they grab the prince?”
“My dear, it certainly appears so. Though why they’d want Mihail I can’t say. There are half a dozen better targets in Kingdom.”
“I’d kidnap a kobold before I took Mihail.” The more Grimm explained, the less I understood, but I didn’t like the idea of keeping Ari out any later than absolutely necessary. There were things that came out to play after midnight that even I did my best to avoid. “See you round, Grimm. Evangeline, keep an eye on Liam for me.”
“Of course. He’s staying at my place.” She didn’t bother looking up.
“What?” I said, looking at her with horror.
“Calm down, M. Not like that. Your friend gets a lot of attention from the wrong crowd these days, and it’s a full-time job for me and Jess to keep him from winding up in the wrong place at the wrong time.” She walked over and gave me a hug. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep him safe for you.”
“Is he any better?”
“Nah, if anything the curse is working its way deeper into him. And where you are concerned, he’s not any better. He still can’t stand you.”
Twenty-One
I STOOD IN my living room. “Blessing, curse, come here. I need you two to stay calm while Ari does practice, okay?” I couldn’t see them, but that didn’t stop me from talking to them. I had a cat for a while. It disappeared one day while I was gone and hadn’t shown up since. I still worried every time I moved the bed that I was finally going to find it. Having a couple of blessings was like having a cat, only I didn’t have to feed them. In that regard, they were my kind of pet.
Ari touched up the circle and stepped inside. “All right. Let’s do this.”
“I bought an entire case of lightbulbs. Just in case.”
She ignored me and I felt that chill as the magic ran through the apartment, gathering about her. Now she held a globe of light in her hand without breaking a sweat.
“Consecro, Beatus, good job,” I said, hoping to keep them from a rampage. The vase on my table quivered a little but otherwise things were quiet.
Ari took a deep breath. “Be.” A fountain of light erupted in the apartment, blasting out like a wave from Ari, painting everything it touched with a rainbow of colors. It rushed back into her, collapsing and taking all the light in the apartment with it.
A pale purple glow lit in the darkness. A globe of light that hovered before her. The globe floated forth like a tiny lightning storm, stopping at the edge of the circle. I walked around it, marveling. It resembled a thundercloud, shimmering with micro-lightning. “That’s amazing, and beautiful. Hey, you okay?”
Ari looked like she was about to faint from the effort of stepping out of the circle. She stumbled, and I helped her to the recliner. “So tired. Feel like I stayed up all night. And I hurt.” One little glow bug and she was wiped out.
“What do I do with the foxfire?” It floated against the edge of the circle like a miniature cloud, lights playing across the surface as it tried to reach her.
She coughed, and her voice came out in a whisper. “Let it go.”
I stepped on the edge of the circle, and it floated out. The lights flickered and a bolt of static electricity shot out at me. My hand convulsed like I had grabbed an electric fence. “Stop it.” It shocked me again.
“I can’t,” Ari whispered, the best she could do.
That was obvious. Lying on the recliner took every bit of strength she had. The table flipped over, the pictures went flying, and the foxfire shrieked. It bled light from wounds that something raked across it. As the fire drained outward like blood, it illuminated the invisible claws and teeth of my blessings. They floated in the air, devouring it like honey-glazed ham, their teeth lit up like tiny electric swords.
Ari slept the better part of two days, and when she did get up, she looked like she had the flu.
“No running.” She shuffled to the fridge.
“Not today.” I sat with a book in my lap. “How you feel?”
“Tired, but not dead. Need to move.”
“I think we should put a hold on magic until we can figure out what it is doing to you, but if you are up for a trip, I’m thinking about going into Kingdom.”
“What do you want there?”
I held up my book. “Near modern history of the fae. Volume sixteen, but it ends over a thousand years ago. I’m hoping there’s a bookstore with the last volume. Also I need a spirit prism. Tired of not being able to see where my pets are.”