Chapter 24 #3
“And I change my menu every season. I do new things. I consult and help others open restaurants. I sell concepts. But that’s not the point.
I love the Tavern. It’s mine. I built it, every brick I touched.
Even this goddamned freezer is something I helped install.
I wanted this. As a kid, I dreamt of this.
And you? You had dreams, your own restaurants, a career like Dominique Crenn and Nancy Silverton.
So why are you still on that show? Why are you doing food festivals every month instead of using your fame to actually build something? ”
“I… I don’t know. You’re razzing on me because I’m doing food festivals and haven’t achieved the heights of Crenn? I hit on her once, you know, she’s gorgeous…”
“Deryn…” It was Victoria’s turn to look at the heavens.
“Goddess, give me strength with this child. I want you to want the things you have. I want you to love the things you do. I want you to have passion for your days. And for your nights, for that matter. You’re on every celebrity media outlet chasing every skirt in America, and sometimes outside of it.
I don’t judge, I really can’t, all things considered, but I’ve never seen any of them make you even remotely happy.
” Victoria rubbed the back of her neck. “You have this amazing gift. One perhaps greater than all your sisters. It’s the one we were all worried about the most, the one most difficult to master because of how dangerous it is.
You are so very, very special, Deryn.” Victoria took a deep breath, then went on.
“And yet you are…just going through the motions, warming up teacups, chasing the least difficult path because you…what? Don’t want more? I can’t believe that.”
Deryn hung her head. Victoria lifted her chin until they were eye to eye.
“Tell me you’re happy and I’ll never once criticize you or tease you or get mad at you again. Well, maybe not the latter, because you have a unique ability to push all my buttons. Still, tell me you’re perfectly happy the way you are with what you have, and I’ll leave this conversation behind.”
Deryn stared into the Crowhart green. Then she reached out and touched the crow’s feet around her aunt’s eye. No, Elizabeth Crowhart did not get to have those, but she’d have been just as beautiful in her old age as Victoria was. And she’d have been scolding Deryn just like this.
“I can’t,” Deryn finally said. “I can’t tell you I’m happy. And I can’t tell you that you’re wrong about any of what you said. Maybe with one exception.”
“Which was?”
“You said no woman made me ever remotely happy… Well, one did.” Deryn chewed on her lower lip.
“Ceridwen had the same question, or along the same vein, when I got here. About having had so many women, and if I would even know the one when I saw her. I did. And she made me happy, even if she wasn’t supposed to. ”
Victoria’s smile was devious.
“I happen to adore Ms. Allende, just so you know.”
Deryn realized today was the day she would just spend with her jaw on the floor.
“Oh, c’mon now, child. It’s all over your face. I am so very happy that you’re not that big of a dumbass as to not recognize who she is to you.”
Victoria shivered, and then, in true Victoria fashion, uttered the strangest thing.
“And if you have questions about her widowhood, I think her having had a wife in between there is a good sign.”
Deryn nearly fell over.
“I didn’t even consider…the dead wife.”
“Well, maybe that’s a good thing, then. I mean, look at Rhiannon, widow and yet back on the horse—”
Deryn clasped a hand over her face.
“Can we not talk about this? How do you even come up with these things?”
Victoria grinned.
“Heard a pretty little birdy told you we might be ADD? Or is it ADHD these days? I can’t keep up.”
Deryn almost felt her eyes pop out of her head.
“How do you—”
“She might not be wrong, you know, kiddo. I think I am going to look into it. I remember hearing how underdiagnosed women usually are because we simply power through everything.”
Deryn’s eyes prickled with tears. She was so proud of her aunt. Victoria winked at her, then a companionable sort of silence fell around them.
Until Victoria spoke again.
“Hiraeth.”
“Sorry?” Deryn leaned closer, thinking she must’ve misheard. She did not understand the word.
“It’s Welsh, I think.” Victoria mused. “It means a longing for home. A home that is no longer there.” Deryn flinched, and Victoria squeezed her fingers.
“After Lizzy died… We all lost our home. Yes, Crow House is standing, and Seren made it hers. Yes, my Tavern is here. So are our Dragons, but we lost a soul. Our soul. And the fact that it was taken from us makes finding it again so much more difficult.”
Victoria trailed off, hastily wiping tears that were freezing on her cheeks.
“Hiraeth.” Deryn repeated the word, tasting salty-sweet on her tongue. It fit. It fit perfectly.
Deryn sighed and burrowed deeper into her jacket. She could feel herself getting tired. A bone-deep tiredness that she had rarely experienced. A magical depletion was rare. She knew better than to ever come close to something like it. She had always been careful before.
Victoria looked at her phone.
“Forty-five minutes. Do you have a plan B?”
“A plan B, Aunty? I don’t even have a plan A.”
Victoria got up and approached the door again, banging a few times.
“Shouting is useless. Calling is impossible. The door is on hinges the size of my palm, and there are five of them. The bar is an inch thick, and the two of us can’t break it unless we have a bomb—”
Then she turned back to Deryn, who saw her calculating look.
“I thought about it. Bomb, I mean. I don’t know if I can do it, and I know for certain I wouldn’t be able to control it. We could get really hurt. In fact, if I let loose, I’ll kill us both, and you know it.”
Victoria waved her arms around herself.
“We are getting seriously hurt right now. We are getting slowly killed right now.”
Deryn approached the door, her hands burning up from how cold and tired she was. She touched the metal again, the chill of the steel piercing and unforgiving. As she took a step back, she stumbled, and Victoria caught her, keeping her upright. Her head was swimming.
“Are you all right, baby?”
Deryn nodded. Then shook her head.
“I thought so,” Victoria murmured and then laid her cool hand on Deryn’s forehead. Deryn felt not warmth, not exactly, but a current of energy, comforting, healing in a way she couldn’t explain.
“I don’t have your power, your sister’s strength, your mother’s ability. But I’m here. For anything you want to try.”
Deryn covered her aunt’s fingers with her own.
“Okay, so I don’t know if I have it in me, but I can focus my Fire on the weaker points of the door, see what that might do. Depending on how much I have left, and judging by how tired I am, I can blow this joint to pieces, or I can burn us to a crisp… You need to stand aside—”
“No.” Victoria’s hand moved to Deryn’s shoulder and stayed there. “I’ll be right here. I can’t give you much, but you will have it all anyway.”
Deryn nodded and touched the door again, closing her eyes. She could see it, her Fire set free, a dragon in flight, unstoppable, deadly, liberating. It would burn through heaven and hell at her command. It could burn through her as well.
She focused—
A sensation like a splash of water in her face from the other side jolted her. What the…
There was a thump on the door.
Victoria shushed her, though Deryn didn’t know why, since she wasn’t about to start screaming. It was useless anyway. They stood in silence, then the slamming on the door began again. Deryn slapped the metal a few times and a few answering bangs resonated.
“Is this Morse code? I don’t know fucking Morse code…”
Victoria lifted her eyes heavenward.
“Oh Goddess, help me here, what code? Who could be out there that would know the goddamn code? Deryn, I swear…”
“Okay, okay, enough with the insults. A few minutes ago, I was special and unique and—”
“Still a dumbass. Now, bang again, my fingers are numb.”
Deryn did not roll her eyes, but she was close.
She did bang again, as she was told, and then just listened, desperately trying to hear the sounds from the outside.
There was nothing. One minute passed, then another.
There were some scratches, she thought, maybe at the level of where the bar should be, but she might have hallucinated them.
Still, after five more minutes, there was nothing.
Occasional bangs, as if to say “I’m here. ” But the door remained locked.
Then Deryn felt something. Her fingertips on the door tingled at first, then her Fire was instantly squashed. It was only one second, but Deryn instantly knew.
“It’s Seren! That asshole put my Fire out. Like she did as a kid. Her Water always could do that. Cool me off right away. Not for long, of course—”
“Listen, this is not a magical dick-measuring contest.”
Deryn gave Victoria a sideways glance. “I assume the next thing you’ll say is that yours is bigger anyway? I really do not want to know any of this, pretty please.”
“Why do you think the wives of every other local man about town ends up in my bed, Deryn?” Victoria smirked.
“I repeat, OH MY GOD, why me? What have I done to be subjected to this?”
“Been born as my niece, so suffer. Now, Seren is here, does that help us?”
Deryn tried very hard to focus, but between trying to stay warm, trying to stay upright after staying warm this long, and everything else going on around her, it was difficult.
“I dunno. Maybe? If I do my thing, if I unleash the Fire, she might sense it, as I sense her. Maybe Ceridwen is with her. Then they will for sure open the circle, like she did for Rhiannon in October. What are the odds of all three of them being there?”
Victoria’s smile was proud, pleased.
“I’d say very, very high. They love you very much, Deryn. We all do.”
Deryn felt tears well in her eyes and tried her best not to let them fall. The last thing she needed was ice on her face.
“Okay, good. Let’s hope and assume they all might be there—”
And then she felt… Her. Through ice, through cold, through the thick door of the freezer, Deryn felt Paloma on the other side.
She didn’t know how she knew. But she did.
The hand she placed on the icy metal was suddenly enveloped in a warmth she had not conjured.
And no, it wasn’t magical… But it was her.
“Paloma… She’s there too.”
“Oh, child, where else would she be? It would not surprise me if she were the one who started the banging. Surprised she hasn’t yet broken this door down. Hell, surprised she hasn’t razed the entire place down to get you out of it.”
“Us, you mean?”
Victoria did not lift her eyes to the heavens. Her tone was disgust itself.
“Yes, us, whatever. My god, lesbians. Next thing, you’ll tell me that you think she likes you as a friend.”
“What was that?” Deryn was certain she had misheard her aunt.
“Never mind. Get us out of here, and I’ll explain. Or maybe she will.”
Deryn laid both hands on the door at the height of her chest, hoping that maybe Seren would feel her, and pounded once to show her position.
When she felt the Water push back at her, she knew she understood.
She swayed on her feet, Victoria’s grip on her shoulder the only thing keeping her standing at this point, and tried to focus on the door, on her Fire.
Her magic ran rampant under her skin, fighting the exhaustion and the cold. She was so damn tired.
Then she felt the circle. She could see her sisters in her mind’s eye, just outside the door, Seren’s hands on it, and Ceridwen and Rhiannon holding her, chanting. Speaking words old as language itself.
She recited them—stumbled through them, more likely, since she was certain she’d be on her knees any moment now—and then, when she knew she could stand no longer, she hit the door one more time before letting the Fire burn.