Chapter 19
For an uncounted space of ragged breaths, Nigel stood on his doorstep, staring into the emptiness where Luna should be. Where she had been, mere moments ago. In his arms. Right up until he opened his stupid mouth and spoke those words. Those three, foolish, dangerous words.
I love you.
Why had she broken away from him like that?
Why had she fled? Surely . . . surely his confession couldn’t have been such a shocking revelation.
Surely she knew. And surely she couldn’t be so very repelled by the idea of his love if she kissed him back like that.
He wouldn’t presume to imagine that she loved him the way he loved her, no!
Of course not. He couldn’t hope for that, didn’t deserve such miracles.
But everything about her mouth, her hands, her body, her voice, her very soul had led him to believe she must feel something for him.
“Luna,” he whispered.
A cowardly part of him wanted to flee into the shop, slam the door shut in his wake. To cast himself down on his knees and roar out his pain and frustration.
But no. He’d been a coward long enough. He had to go after her.
He had to find her, catch her, make her look at him, make her .
. . make her face him. Face what they had together, whatever it might be.
Face it and name it and either tell him to his face that she never wanted to see him again, or . . . or . . .
He couldn’t finish that thought. It was too painful. Instead, he stepped out from under the awning, heedless of his lack of an overcoat and leaving the door to the shop wide open behind him. He took several paces, staggering like a drunkard out into the street.
A figure loomed suddenly on his left.
Nigel whirled in place.
Someone came toward him, wafting through the deep shadows.
As it approached, the thaumatic streetlamps on the sidewalk flickered and popped out, as though the magic which powered them simply could not bear to coexist with the simmering malaise of dark enchantment surrounding this oncoming apparition.
The atmosphere tasted of the Dire, seethed with nightmarish strangeness and a sense of impending doom.
Nigel turned, squared his shoulders, his eyes wide and staring.
Ordinarily, his sorcerer’s eyes would see clearly enough to peer right under that low-pulled cowl and recognize the face hidden within, but the severmist in his veins cut off his magically-attuned perceptions.
But he could certainly see when this figure raised one hand and began to trace a sigil in the air.
He felt the transference of power, felt how the light stolen from the lamps was passed into the Dire and exchanged for dark, roiling energy.
He had seconds in which to react. Before it was too late.
Quick as thought, Nigel drew everything he could from that little stain on his palm—that place where the Dire droplet had lain before he shook it off. The faintest trace of energy remained, just enough to power the simple sigil he formed.
A Dire-bolt streaked up the sidewalk, straight toward him. Black, branching arms coalesced in a single, spear-like point, aimed at his heart. Nigel raised his arm, flashed his sigil. There was a crash of strange pressures in the atmosphere, a stink of Dire gone bad, an instant of struggle.
Then the bolt turned inside out and hurtled back at its maker.
The apparition uttered a singularly un-eldritch yelp of surprise.
But the severmist rose up in Nigel’s veins before he could see if his deflection paid off.
Searing pain tore through his body, and he dropped to his knees with a strangled cry.
Purple fog flooded his vision, and he toppled to one side, drifting down into a space of unconscious agony.
Through the haze of poison, he was vaguely aware of thorny canes wrapping around his legs, pulling him back through the open shop door.
It felt like it was happening to someone unrelated to his own self, however, some parallel-reality version of Nigel Grimm.
He heard a door slam, felt a body—his own?
—being dragged over tiles. A loud creak that sounded very much like the boiler room door in the back of his shop.
Then, abruptly, his senses were flooded with the aroma of ten thousand flowering blossoms in innumerable varieties. The overwhelming and yet simultaneously familiar perfume of Garden.
More dragging. More lumps and bumps as this body that seemed vaguely attached to his awareness was hauled off the hard floor of the back passage and out onto soft grass.
His blinking, bleary eyes struggled to make sense of distant stars and trailing tendrils of clouds.
It was too much, and the pain demanded more exclusive attention.
So he closed his eyes and sank back into darkness.
When he came to again, it was to a profound stench of smelly socks in his nose.
Nigel winced, gagged. Tried to turn his head to one side.
Something tickled his upper lip, and he managed to find control enough of his own limbs to raise a hand and brush whatever-it-was away.
The stink retreated for a moment, only to return with more forceful pungency, shoved right up into his nostrils.
“I’m awake!” Nigel growled, his voice thick and unfamiliar in his own ears. He waved his hand again, to very little effect, then managed to get first one eye open, followed soon by the other. He found himself face-to-face with a large oxeye daisy, pretty as a picture and reeking like moldy socks.
With a groan, Nigel rolled over, burying his face in the soft green grass of a dawn-lit, dewy lawn. Anything to block out that stink. His body shuddered once, then went still again. He was damp, sore, aching all over, and his mind was a muddle of half-formed thoughts and impressions.
But he was alive. So that had to count for something.
“Never mind?”
The croak reached him as though from a terrible distance, muffled through the haze in his head.
The next instant, however, sharp talons dug into the back of his shoulder, and a relentless beak pecked at his scalp.
“Ugh,” Nigel answered, but didn’t move to dislodge the raven.
He continued lying there, sprawled out, his face resting in the crook of one arm.
Finally, a thought worked its way through the aches and dullness: What in the name of all the gods and goddess happened last night?
A riot of strange images exploded through his memory, more conceptual than clear.
Most prominent was a vivid vision of Luna’s bare back, exposed to his lustful gaze.
This was combined with an even vaguer but intensely intoxicating sensation of her in his arms, her body pressed tight against his, her mouth smothered in his kisses while she moaned deliciously .
. . but surely that had been a dream. Right?
Another image popped into his brain: that apparition in black. Floating up the Addle Street sidewalk, drawing light from the streetlamps. Summoning Dire Matter, hurling it straight at him—
Nigel yanked his head up from his arm. Oh gods. It was real! It had actually happened! And he had used sorcery to defend himself and nearly died all over again as a result.
“Never mind?” Debbie croaked.
Managing to get his elbows under him, Nigel pushed up slowly, achingly, to his hands and knees.
Rough breaths heaved from his lungs, and his limbs shook.
A familiar pulse of wings beat around his head, and the gripping talons on his shoulder hurt but gave him a sense of grounding in this time and this space.
He shook his head and looked around at Garden.
Though daylight had returned to the sprawling grounds, it was an overcast, ominous sort of day.
Rough winds moved through the blooming trees and shrubs, and the flowers were all strangely folded up on themselves as though hiding.
“What happened?” Nigel gasped. “Did someone try to get in?”
“Never mind!” Debbie answered.
“One of the Brotherhood? Several?”
She squawked and flapped again, imperatively.
There could be no doubt about it. The Arcane Bouquet was invaded last night.
But . . . Nigel cast his gaze across Garden again.
Other than the heavy sky, everything seemed as it should.
No sign of any extreme self-defensive reactions.
Not yet at least. Nigel planted his palms hard against the earth, closed his eyes, feeling out the protection spells in place.
They were all present and accounted for: both Garden’s natural protections and the sorcery spells he’d planted years ago.
Apparently, the Brotherhood had not successfully managed to take Garden.
Opening his eyes, Nigel sat back on his heels.
To his surprise, he found himself surrounded by familiar faces.
The tiger lilies, the dahlias, the snapdragons and petunias, the ranunculus and gardenias and lisianthus and violets .
. . all the many blooms of The Arcane Bouquet.
The double-delight crouched close by, watching him from her many blooms. She’d saved his life again last night, Nigel knew beyond a doubt.
Grabbed him off the street and pulled him to safety while that other sorcerer was still recovering from his deflected attack.
And how many sorcerers had there been? Just because Nigel had only seen one didn’t mean there weren’t others. And what about . . . what about . . .
“Luna!” Nigel gasped and scrambled to his feet. The world pitched around him as darkness tunneled his vision, but he braced himself and managed to stay upright. Then he rounded on the double-delight, snarling, “Why didn’t you take her too?”
The rose shivered its canes with distress. All around Nigel, Garden darkened, and a low growl of thunder rumbled overhead.