Enchanted No More

Jenni swallowed as the compliment touched her, narrowed her eyes. “Don’t think of doing any great casting here.”

Aric gave Chinook a last stroke, then carefully placed her on the sofa beside him. “I wouldn’t, and you should know that. Are you going to snipe at me all the time we’re together on this mission?”

Jenni’s nostrils flared as she inhaled. “I don’t know you. You’ve changed. I have changed. And I don’t think that my anger is unreasonable. The Lightfolk sent my crippled brother on a mission he couldn’t hope to fulfill, just to manipulate me to save him, to be in their debt and do the mission myself.” Her voice still had the roughness of fear and sleep and tears.

Aric stared at her. The light was dim, the brownies only had a couple of glow globes going, so Jenni couldn’t make out the expression in his eyes.

Finally, he inclined his head. “It’s the truth that I have changed. As we all have, since that day of the opening of the portal and the Darkfolk attack. Your anger may not be unreasonable, but it is uncontrolled.”

Well, she deserved that. “Yes. Obviously I have issues—psychological problems to work on.”

“I know the word issue, and I’m not the only one. We are trying to integrate back into the mortal world.” He gestured in the direction of downtown. “When magic and technology fuse, humans may be ready to accept us.”

“Much as that appeals, that’s not the point. The point is saving Rothly, then doing this mysterious mission for the Lightfolk,” Jenni said. She squared off against him and silence pulsed.

Hartha walked in with a tray holding two large pottery bowls of steaming stew. She put down a bowl at Jenni’s place at the dining room table. A table now clean of books, papers and laptop, and set with another mat, bread plate and silverware. She put down the second bowl there.

Frowning, Jenni said to Hartha, “You invited Aric into my home when you knew I didn’t want him here.”

“A great Dark one is after you,” Hartha said. “Safety is more important than tender feelings.”

Jenni flinched.

“You knew?” Aric asked.

Jenni didn’t look at him and said, “A recent development.”

He stood tall, his stance set but balanced, and Jenni knew that he now had more than the minimal fighter training for a Lightfolk male. Jenni’s middle brother had surprised them all in apprenticing himself to a great Lightfolk as a soldier. Her throat tightened. Stewart’s body had been covering her mother’s. He’d been the first to defend and the second to die. She’d never had the chance to say goodbye. Like all the others.

She rubbed her eyes.

Aric said, “I won’t eat the offered food and I will leave if you do not wish to discuss this now.” His soft tones backed with steel slid through her. She’d never heard such from him before that morning. She was too right, he’d changed.

She hadn’t changed enough. Today’s events had made that painfully clear in so many ways. “You’re going with me.”

He nodded, no muscle of his face soft. “I remain your liaison.”

She shook her head, gestured to the place setting Hartha had made for him. “Then we should speak of saving Rothly.” Before she sat, Jenni extended her senses for any negative energy in her home or Mystic Circle—and discovered the area was better shielded than ever. The brownies and Aric had helped…and her neighbors were reinforcing it a bit. There also seemed to be some dryad Treefolk magic from the parklike center of the cul-de-sac. “We must go to Northumberland first.”

Aric flinched.

So he didn’t want to relive memories there, either? Too bad for both of them. After a deep breath that brought no relief, Jenni said, “I must see if Rothly left any notes about where he was going, and discover if he made any of the special tea that helps me enter the interdimension.” She let stew broth dribble from her spoon.

Frowning, Aric dipped his bread in the stew and ate, then said, “You didn’t need the tea often…before.”

He meant all of them, the Mistweavers, and when she lived with her family.

“The tea can be helpful even when one steps into the interdimension daily.” She scowled. She was talking as if there was more than one whole elemental balancer in the world. There wasn’t. There was only her. Hunching a shoulder, she shrugged the reality of the thought away, met Aric’s eyes. “I haven’t been traveling to the interdimension much.”

“Then it is all the more impressive that Mystic Circle and Denver are so well balanced with the four elemental magics,” Aric said softly.

A compliment. It made her throat tighten with longing for the past. Which she had to put behind her or doom them all with her uncontrolled emotions.

“Northumberland, eh?” Aric asked.

“Yes.”

He spooned up more stew, ate. When he met her eyes, his own were resigned. A corner of his mouth twisted. “A journey to Northumberland before a quest to save Rothly before a mission to help the whole magical community—”

“The Lightfolk,” Jenni corrected.

Aric’s gaze was stern. “The whole magical community, and benefiting humans, too. A mission you don’t want to know about.”

“After we save Rothly.” She managed a bite or two. Her mouth savored rich beef, but her stomach remained tense.

“About this Dark one—”

Hartha appeared, shook her finger at Aric’s nose, rumbled something in her own language, gestured to Jenni.

Aric nodded. “The browniefem’s right, such talk will definitely upset your digestion.”

Another bite before Jenni replied, “Her name is Hartha.”

“That I know, but she hasn’t given me leave to use it.”

Quiet sifted through the room, and the quality of it—gold from the brownies’ homey glow globes and the soft shades of summer green that Aric brought with him—soothed Jenni. As if this was a standard meal among family instead of two people ready to embark on a dangerous adventure. In that quiet lilted by Chinook’s purr, Jenni ate her entire meal. As soon as she put her spoon down, Hartha whisked the remains away with invisible speed.

Aric stood, turned slowly in the room as if testing the elemental energies, shields and threat. He nodded. “The Dark one can’t come nearer than that business district in the south.”

Jenni shivered at the recollection of what had happened there, expected Hartha to show up and reveal all the circumstances of her save. Leaving Jenni as emotionally naked as she had been physically and energy-wise when Hartha had found her earlier. But Hartha remained in the kitchen, actually making a little noise to show she wouldn’t be interfering. Jenni had to tighten a slack jaw at that. The brownies were loyal.

She stood and angled her body toward Aric’s again, but this time not in a face-off, this time her legs moved her almost in reflex to how she’d stood near him…before…but she didn’t step back.

He did.

That hurt but she mixed the pain of it with the renewed fear of the Dark one when she met Aric’s eyes, and got out the most important aspect of the attack first. “I believe he was the one who killed my family.”

CHAPTER 6

ARIC’S SUCKED BREATH CARRIED THE NOTE of a gale tossing leaves. He swept his arms in circles, vertical and horizontal, adding a layer of muffling spells, then said, “Kondrian.”

The inner, heavy plastic storm windows trembled with clicks as the air pressure changed and Jenni shivered as her fine hair rose. She whispered, “Kondrian.”

With an effort she kept her voice conversational, but scooped up the purring Chinook, liking the heavy weight of the cat. “It said it liked…um…Mistweaver essence.” Words—though not quite the sentence—that she’d used often here at home. They wouldn’t be singled out. She couldn’t stop her question. “They know who killed my family?” She’d thought the melee of the Darkfolk ambush had been chaotic. It had seemed chaotic to her, but she wasn’t a fighter. She’d thought several beings had killed her family.

“Yes,” Aric said. “I must tell King Cloudsylph this. Mystic Circle will not let the Dark one in…or rather, it would hurt him more to attack you here than it would benefit him. You are safe for tonight.” Aric looked at Hartha, who stood shifting from foot to foot, twisting her hands in her apron as tiny sparkles of brownie glitter fell to the floor. “And I think that once Jenni is gone the neighborhood will be free of any shadleech or Darkfolk activity.”

“The Dark one had shadleeches, from its ‘estate,’” Jenni said. “They seemed to be under his control.”