“Such as?”
“No offense, but I’m done with public performances. I want this to be just me and Rabbit.”
He hesitated, then tipped his head in acknowledgement. “I can’t say I blame you. And it’s not like you can’t handle yourself with him. You’ve made that plenty clear since he got back.”
Which just went to show that she was a better actress than she thought. But all she said was, “Thanks.” Then, taking a deep breath, she added in a rush, “Next favor . . . I want to do it in the winikin’s cave.”
The cave, which was painted with the strange, ghostly animals that the winikin could call from beyond the barrier, was where she had taken Rabbit’s prized stone eccentrics, hoping to purify them of whatever evil spells they were casting on him. Instead, he had followed her, held a knife to her throat, and accused her of being the enemy.
She hadn’t set foot near the cave since that day, hadn’t ever planned to . . . but her gut said that if she wanted to move forward, she first had to go back.
Dez scowled. “That’s outside the blood-ward.”
“I don’t like it, either, but you have to admit that it makes sense. What has happened before, and all that.” She swallowed. “I need to bring this full circle, Dez.”
More, she had to do whatever the Nightkeepers needed her to do, at least for the next week and a half. And after that . . . hell, she didn’t know. Whenever she tried to picture her life after the twenty-first of December, all she got was a blank screen and some static, like her inner Cablevision was on the fritz. She didn’t have a clue what she was going to do in the aftermath.
The others had their plans—Patience and Brandt were itching to reunite with their twins, and would probably move to New England, where Jox and Hannah—the boys’ winikin and current guardians—would reopen the garden center that had long been Jox’s dream. VR game designer Nate and fashion-forward Alexis would undoubtedly go somewhere and be creative, successful and disgustingly happy; Jade and Lucius would probably fund an esoteric Mayan dig somewhere and eat weird food; Strike and Leah would get into law enforcement or private security and have a half dozen kids; and Myrinne . . . well, she didn’t have a clue what she was going to do. She didn’t have a mate, didn’t have any real skills or hobbies, didn’t have much going for her beyond the magic, and soon she might not even have that.
And she fucking refused to open up a tea shop, sell crappy crystals and illegal voodoo concoctions, pick pockets, and pass off cold reads as fortune-telling. Even if that was all she was really trained to do in the outside world.
“I don’t like it,” Dez grumbled.
“Me either,” she said, then realized he was talking about the cave. Regrouping, she added, “But if we’re going to try this, we need to give it the best chance of succeeding.” Duty first, she thought, blah, blah, blah and yadda-yadda. It was the truth, though. Now more than ever, their priorities needed to be to the war, the gods, their leader, and from there on down, with personal wants way at the bottom of the list.
Thus, the cave.
She and Dez went back and forth for a few more minutes, but in the end he agreed to her plan with a few choice expletives and a worried sigh that touched her more than it probably should have, warning her that her emotions were way too close to the surface right now, and she needed to find a way to dial them down before she met with Rabbit.
“Do you want to tell him, or should I?” Dez asked.
“Can you take care of it?”
“Consider it done.” Hell glanced down at the book, then closed it and handed it back to her with a scowl of well, hell. “Looking at this from an earth-magic angle was good thinking, by the way. Very good thinking. In fact, I’m going to have Lucius and the rest of the brain trust do a broader search along these lines and see what else they can come up with. Okay with you if they give a shout-out with any questions?”
“Of course.” The vindication helped some.
The Witch’s spells might’ve been the bastard child of voodoo, devil worship and ancient Aztec rituals, but she’d kept a few Wiccan texts on the shelves for the sake of appearances. Myr had memorized the incantations and practiced them in secret, hiding her small crystals and hoarded scents. And now, at Skywatch, the earth magic was hers alone. More, there was no blood or violence, no sacrificing or swearing away bits of her soul; there was only the peace of incense, the solidity of crystal, the supple strength of wood and a sense of connecting to something far bigger than herself that welcomed her, supported her, and asked nothing in return.
It appealed to the person she sometimes thought she would’ve been if she hadn’t wound up with the Witch. Heck, it still appealed to the person she was, despite everything.
So use it, she told herself, and felt the fear recede a little. Who knew—maybe she could find other pieces of real magic in the books she’d bought. Maybe she wouldn’t be giving all her powers to Rabbit.
Still, though, dread pinched.
“When do you want to do it?” Dez asked.
She wanted to close her eyes and block out the sympathy in his. It would still be in his voice, though, and in the air between them. “Let’s get it over with. Say, an hour? Tell him I’ll meet him at the cave.”
The king hesitated, looking like he wanted to say a whole bunch of things, but in the end settled for, “Wear your armband, park as close to the entrance as you can, and keep your panic button primed.” The newer Jeeps were fitted with transponders that could pick up her signal and bounce it to Skywatch, hopefully overcoming the reception problems that had been getting worse and worse as the zero date approached and the barrier flux increased.
“Will do. And Dez?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for always treating me like I’ve got a right to an opinion.”
Rather than the platitudes she would’ve gotten from most of the others—the ones who’d been raised by their winikin and had always been given choices—he nodded. “Street smarts recognize street smarts, Myrinne, and ambition recognizes ambition. You’ve got more than your share of both, and I’m the last guy who’s going to ding you for that.”
Her spine straightened. “Is that a warning?”
“Nope. I’m not that subtle—if I thought you were heading for trouble, I’d tell you straight out. It was an observation, nothing more.”
But as she left the royal suite, she was pretty darned sure Dez was far more subtle than he let on. In his own way he was as much of a manipulator as the Witch had been, though with far better intentions. And right now, those intentions involved protecting the Nightkeepers’ agenda—which meant her giving up the magic to Rabbit.
“I’m doing it, aren’t I?” she muttered as she headed down the hall. But that didn’t stop her from feeling the pressure of being involved in something so much bigger than herself. It dogged her as she stalked out of the royal wing and across the main kitchen, and had her turning away from her suite.
Her rooms were too quiet, too empty and at the same time too hemmed in, sparking a sense of suffocation that chased her out a side door. There, a stone-lined path flanked the garage, but she didn’t want to snag a Jeep and keep on driving today. Instead, she headed for the magic-imbued cacao grove beyond the winikin’s hall, where the air was rainforest humid, the ground soft and the trees green and fragrant.
She slipped into the grove and picked her way to the open space at its center. There, she sat cross-legged, with her hands open on her folded knees. And—for a little while, at least—she found peace in the whirring sound the leaves made in the faint breeze, and the feeling of the earth surrounding her.
“I’m trying to get it right,” she said aloud. “I’m doing my best.” Deep down inside, though, she wondered whether that was the truth. Because when she came down to it, she didn’t want to give back the magic, not one bit.