“Me? I remember the befores.” Soft as a challenge, those words.
A silence fell. Meaning hummed in me words sinking into the quiet, but Wizard could not quite extract it. He only knew it had immense importance to him. It dangled tantalizingly out of his reach. There were only Cassie’s eyes begging him to pick up on it. He shook his head at her. “So what should I do?”
“Pick up your weapons. Call out the allies you’ve groomed for this battle. Stop pretending that you’ve been pretending.”
She was talking in riddles. Despair washed over him. “ don’t know how. I don’t know what you mean. I don’t know what you want me to do.”
‘The I-Don’t-Know Wizard.“ There was no mockery in her voice. She leaned forward to put her hand against his cheek.
The touch of her skin against his tingled, like an exchange of electricity. It was both heady and familiar. Yet he could not recall that she had ever touched him before. He found himself leaning into it. moving his face against her hand.
“Why can’t you just tell me?” he begged in frustration, and was surprised at his own words.
“I’ve tried, in every way that I’m allowed. Don’t you think ay magic has its own rules?” A fierce edge to her voice.
That stopped him cold. “Oh. Then there’s nothing left but for it to happen. I suppose I should leave now.”
“I suppose.” Her hand fell from his face. She picked up both of his hands in hers and looked at them, as if marveling at their emptiness. A tear fell into his hand and the wet touch galvanized him.
“Don’t. Please, don’t. I never wanted to make you sad.”
“You never wanted to make me anything!” she accused suddenly in an anguished voice. She pushed suddenly into his arms and he found himself holding her. She smelled like spices, ginger and vanilla. Closing his eyes, he pulled her closer. She pressed her face into the side of his neck and her arms clung to him. Startled, he loosened his hold. She didn’t. He patted her awkwardly. Her voice came from the hollow of his shoulder, sounding below his ear. “Do you remember the first story ever told you?”
He cast his mind back. “No. There have been so many.
Wait—about a little girl in a garden“
He felt her nod. It rubbed wetness against his neck. He sighed and pulled her in close again.
“That’s all you remember of it. You don’t remember the rules she was given,” She probed hopelessly.
“Not really.” So long ago, and it had seemed like a pointless little story at the time. Her breath caught raggedly as he admitted his lack of memory. Could it have been that important to her?
“They were all about giving and taking,” he hedged. “She couldn’t take what she wanted most because it wasn’t offered to her.”
“Until it was freely offered. Not that it makes any difference now.”
“And she couldn’t offer anything…”
“She could offer…” Cassie hissed angrily.
“Right,” he amended. “She could offer, but she couldn’t give, because…”
“Because no one wanted it.” She pushed away from him abruptly, but he caught at her wrist and dragged her back down to his side.
“Because someone was too stupid to know what was being offered. And too scared to accept it. And too afraid of what might come of it if he did; afraid of himself.”
Her eyes met his, stubbornly hurt. Refusing all comfort that he offered now, too late.
“Cassie,” he said brokenly. “I never meant to refuse what you offered. I didn’t realize it. Or maybe I did, I suppose, but it was forbidden to me. I don’t do—”
“Yes, you do!” she replied fiercely. “You just refuse to enjoy it. Or to do it with me!”
“It’s not safe to be with me.”
“Nothing is safe anymore. And me time is gone.” She began untangling herself from him. The finality of her words slapped him. The feel of Cassie moving away from him was more grievous than the departure of his magic. As she rose, he clutched at her hand.
“Cassie. Come back.”
She turned to his words, her face strangely uncertain. Wistful. She looked down at him. “You don’t remember the garden at all,” she said sadly.
He was confused. “Not the whole story, but—”
“Never mind,” she said abruptly. For a long moment she stood stiffly apart from him. Colder than frozen. Then she turned to look at him, and a sudden smile flooded her face. A decision had been reached in her mind and her face mirrored it. She came back to him and he rose to take her in his arms.
She was trembling.
“Are you scared?” he asked her.
“Not as scared as you are. And it’s not you I’m scared of.”
She was right. He held her and as she put her arms around him, he felt her magic wrap them both like a mantle. Within that shelter, all was safe and right. Her breathing became slow and steady as the sea swells, calming them both. He closed his eyes. This was right.
And more than right, her magic promised. It was the pathway back to where a touching was not a hurting. It was the missing arc of the circle that took him back to an unspoiled beginning. To a garden on a summer day, with bees buzzing in honeysuckle on the garden wall.
“Cassie?” he asked, the last of his uncertainty in his voice.
“I’m right here.” she whispered. “I’ve always been right here.”
He journeyed to the heart of woman’s magic, and found it was the journey home.
THE RAINY STREETS shone under the streetlamps. The squall had passed, leaving wily an icy wind wandering the streets and alleys. He heard the final click of Cassie’s door as it closed behind him. He turned back to it, but it was already gone, fading into darkness. She had left him alone to face it, turned him out like a stray cat to take his chances with me street dogs.
He knew that she’d had to. But the night still seemed the colder after Cassie’s warmth.
At least mere was nothing about. Whatever gray Mir was, it wasn’t bold enough to strike on Cassie’s doorstep. He shivered and began to walk. He sensed the city around him, the living entity of each building he passed, me vacant windows that nonetheless watched him. He had not felt it so alive since the night Cassie had come for him through the snowstorm. Nor so ominous. It was as if he walked through a maze of spectators come to witness his execution. “Bring on the hatchetman,” he muttered to himself. He had screwed his courage to the pitch of being able to go forth and meet Mir. But he didn’t know how long it would stand up to the tension of having to seek Mir out. That wasn’t something he had prepared for.
His socks soaked up the rain water like wicks. The hem of his wizard robe and cloak dragged slightly. Soon they had absorbed a weight of mud and water that slapped unpleasantly against his ankles. He squelched along, feeling uncomfortable and slightly foolish- It was either very late or very early. Traffic was less than sparse, and the vehicles that did pass did not slow at the sight of him. He settled his wizard’s hat more firmly onto his head.
Cassie’s words replayed endlessly in his mind. and he fancied for an instant that he could still feel the warmth of her touch on his skin. She had left her scent upon him, like the colors of a high-born lady on her knight-errant. There had been a few precious moments when be had fancied himself in the garden she had mentioned. He had felt the grass and fragrant leaf mold under his palms, and a summer sun warmed his naked back. Her mouth had smiled beneath his. Never had he felt so full of a woman.
Or so clear in his mind of what he must face now. He was going to his death, Cassie’s certainty of his magic notwithstanding. He wished he had been able to make her understand before he left her. He could tell her what he had done and felt, but he couldn’t make her feel what he had. Did she think he hadn’t tried to reclaim his magic? Could she imagine that he didn’t ache for it? Gone and beyond him now. Despite her calm certainty, he was sure he knew more of Mir than she did. Mir had touched him; had already bent him to its will. He shuddered with the knowledge. It had touched him as intimately as she had. It would again.