Chapter 9
NINE
It was slow going, the snow thick and heavy, with ice underneath.
Fortunately, because she didn’t know Corvus, she had no idea I was leading her in a giant circle.
Not a chance I was taking her anywhere near my family cemetery and risk finding Giles there.
I had to try and talk to my land before I faced him.
“Is there no more direct route?” she asked for what had to be the seventh time.
“Corvus has no roads on it and sits beside a nature preserve,” I reminded her. “If you had walked the space you inhabit, you would know that.”
She muttered something under her breath.
“Did you say something?”
“Only that if you are trying to trick me, you will die first.”
“Would you divulge something?”
“If I must.”
“Are you a witch or something else?”
“What else would I be?”
“You said you’re a practitioner of the dark arts, but I don’t know any witches who characterize their craft that way.”
She was quiet.
“What could it hurt to say?”
“As though it matters if I tell someone as lowly as you.”
“That’s right.”
“I am an enchantress,” she said like that should have been evident, “and you should know this—an enchantress uses seduction and sex magic as part of her craft.”
As far as I knew, being an enchantress had no correlation to any of that, but arguing with her was a waste of time. Still, I could now write it all down correctly in my journal. “The enchantress Ilara has a nice ring to it,” I assured her.
“Yes, it does,” she agreed right before we stepped out from behind a copse of birch trees and she could see where we were going.
There, built back from the road, was a little stone cottage that had smoke coming from the chimney.
“You lied to me!” she roared, and it was scary how fast she lifted her head, chanted in a language I didn’t know, curled her hands into fists, and enormous wolves materialized, one instant not there, the next charging toward me.
Wolves in the nothingness of the snow-blanketed land looked even scarier than normal because they stood out so vividly.
And they weren’t timber wolves or ancient dire wolves, nothing natural alive now or extinct, but instead something she was able to call to her.
Even faewolves were not as terrifying as these.
Just the size, like a moose, was enough to give me nightmares for a month.
I could not outrun them; my only choice was to shift and fly.
As always, I thought fly, and after a near miss where one of them leaped after me, I was in the air, circling above the wolves and Ilara. I counted to make sure there were six and no more, then flew home.
This was still 1799—the road was the same, and no homes to the left and right of mine had been reformed—but from my vantage point I could clearly see the greenhouse Lorne had built attached to the sunroom I grew up with.
As I got closer, hoping, asking to be blessed, the greenhouse door opened, and Lorne stepped out into the snow.
I dropped fast, and even as I saw the wolves churning through the snow to reach the same spot, the fear was gone because Lorne was there.
He was right outside the glass door, waiting for me with a blanket.
When I hit him, slamming hard against his chest, propelling us inside, he clutched me tight, hugging me with both arms, before letting go and shutting the door.
If it wasn’t so horrifying, it would have been funny to see giant wolves with enormous razor-sharp teeth and foot-long claws hit the side of the greenhouse and slowly slide to the ground.
As Ilara was guiding them, probably seeing through their eyes, she had thought the glass would shatter, the wood would splinter, and her wolves would crash into the greenhouse, destroying it easily and slaughtering me and Lorne.
What she didn’t understand was that the magic of Corvus made all of it out of the original stone with added iron.
The glass appeared to be glass… but was not.
If she’d thought about it, she would have known that hours ago it was a mansion.
But she was incensed with rage, so most likely forgot.
“Are they,” he began, hugging me to him, warming me up, “knocked—oh, no, they’re all up.”
I didn’t care about Ilara or her wolves, Lorne was my singular priority. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”
Immediate scowl from him. “Of course I’m safe,” he rasped, his voice gravelly. “I’m not the one who led a psychotic witch on a nature hike!”
“She’s an enchantress,” I corrected him.
It took a second, and then he yelled. “What?”
I could not have kept from smiling if my life depended on it, and nuzzled my face into the hollow of his throat so he wouldn’t be able to see.
“Ilara had a knife—I know that because Constance came to tell me while I was helping people out of the basement. She had a whole crowd of servants with her, ready to go with me to find you.”
“That’s so nice of her.” I sighed, reveling in the heat rolling off him, pressing against him as he hugged me. “She barely knows me.”
“I sent all the servants home, but did you happen to catch Constance’s last name, Xan? Did it ever come up?”
I leaned back so I could see him. “No. Why?”
His smile was warm. “It’s Astor.”
My mouth dropped open.
“She’s your best friend Amanda’s ancestor—however many times removed. It only makes sense that she would gravitate to you, and you to her.”
I was utterly stunned.
Lorne took that opportunity to get me moving, walking me into the living room where, in front of our blazing fireplace, was a stack of my clothes.
“How did you know?”
“How did I know that you might need to fly to get away from a witch?” Both brows lifted. “Are you kidding?”
“You’re very smug right now.” I dropped the blanket and got dressed. “But I would rather have clothes on when Giles gets here.”
“Why wouldn’t he just leave?” Lorne asked, sounding a bit broken and weary. “Our home rejected him and his magic, and by changing Corvus, it isn’t Corvus anymore and can’t sustain him. Why would he stay?”
“To kill us,” I said flatly, pulling on a long-sleeve T-shirt, then an ancient hoodie of Lorne’s that he knew I loved and would bring me comfort. “There’s magic in this, you know.”
“Be more specific,” he teased me.
“This hoodie of yours, when I wear it, being reminded of you makes me feel better,” I said with a sigh. “It’s like when Amanda has to fight with people, she wears that white button-up cardigan with the navy trim. It’s her ass-kicking sweater and infuses her with power.”
Slow smile that fired his eyes. “I think she’s always ready to tangle with anyone at any time, but I get your meaning.”
“You chose this special, even in a rush.”
“I did,” he agreed. “Plus, I like seeing you in my clothes.”
Socks being last, I then rushed over to him as something slammed against the front door, startling me. “Your girlfriend wants in.”
“Oh, you’re funny,” he grumbled, hugging me.
“I want you to know that I didn’t voluntarily leave the spot where you told me to stay.”
“I was worried you were following me in when Argos showed up at my side, but then when I didn’t see you, I got scared.”
“I’m sure you were even more concerned when Constance explained what happened.”
“Not concerned, terrified. And I was, yes.”
The wolves rammed the door, clawed at the window, and tried using their teeth on the frame to no avail.
“Her wolves are terrifying,” I said, gazing out the window and seeing one of them on the porch, close, staring into the cottage with murderous intent. It made me shiver despite knowing it couldn’t get in.
“Those are not wolves. They look more like hyenas or something like that, but they’re misshapen, which is even creepier,” he said, sounding almost angry. “And how the hell are they on the porch? I thought that wasn’t possible anymore.”
“I suspect that with the cottage only newly restored, it’s still locking its protections back in place. I mean, think about it—everything was moved.”
“And Corvus is still broken.”
“There is that,” I said, my voice wobbling.
“What’s wrong, other than the obvious?”
“For some reason, I keep imagining you waking up here, in this altered time, all alone without me. I know what it was like for me. I was so scared.”
“I woke up outside,” he told me, taking my hand and walking to the window that another creature had just left. “You did too, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“It was strange to be in the snow, and I would have been freaked out, and still was a bit, not gonna lie, but then there was a fox and—”
“A fox?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“There was a fox with me as well.”
“So your goddess was looking out for me, you think?”
“I do. She said you helped one of hers. What exactly happened?”
He explained about the vixen and her kits—she was running, but the little ones couldn’t follow fast enough, so he scooped up all three of the pups and followed her through the snow until they reached the cemetery.
“I know it’s weird, but seeing all the familiar headstones was somehow really comforting. ”
“Yes,” I said softly, understanding the feeling.
“Knowing that the rift is still there, can’t be moved, can’t be erased, and the same with the graves, it…
It’s like a connection, right? Even with what he’s done, the plants and animals he’s killed, the innocent people’s lives that he’s impacted, he can’t erase everything.
There’s history that’s not conforming because it can’t.
It’s not possible. Like our wedding rings,” he said, holding up his hand. “Through everything, there they are.”
“That’s all so important, and it’s good to be reminded. You’re a very smart man.”
He waggled his brows. “I tell you that all the time.”
But he didn’t, instead letting his actions speak for him most of the time. When he did give voice to his words; they were always helpful.
Suddenly I could barely breathe, and the lump in my throat made it impossible to converse.
“Like I told you before, I knew you were alive,” he rumbled, his voice ragged and low. “I could feel it in my chest, and now, no matter what Giles wants, between me and you, we’ll save our land. I mean, c’mon, we’ve already got our home back.”
“You’re brilliant,” I let him know. “I need you to come outside with me, but you’ll need your rifle with the iron bullets.”
“You think the iron will kill her conjured creatures?”
“I certainly hope so, but even if they don’t die, you’ll slow them down.”
“And Giles?”
“He’ll have to deal with me and the land.”
“But the land’s broken.”
“It’s more that it’s lost, I think…so I need to do that reminding you were talking about.”
“Now? In winter? Do you think you can?”
“There’s no choice,” I assured him. “I’m the guardian. If I don’t try, there’s no one else.”
He nodded.
“Will you help me?”
The squint, like I was nuts, was better and more comforting than any words.