a deep breath, she set down the mug, shifted her shoulders. Her house felt odd, the balance off—more air and tree…Aric was here.
She’d have to tell Aric about the Dark one.
As she stood under the shower, she let the atmosphere of her home envelop her. It was odd to feel Aric in this place that she’d made her own. Obviously the brownies had let him in, and since he was her contact with the Eight—and between the choice of the Eight and Aric, she’d choose her ex-lover—it was efficient that he was there.
She dressed. Much as she’d like to avoid the home she’d grown up in, she would have to go to Northumberland to get more tea. She was hoping that Rothly had left notes about the mission. She cringed to think of him trying to practice his craft as a cripple.
Her childhood home would haunt her, she knew that. It would hurt.
Being with Aric there would hurt her more. They’d become lovers there. Every second would remind her of her guilt.
She took a big breath, and checked the tapestry bag with wooden handles. It was full of clothing from natural fibers—hemp, wool, cotton, even silk shirts and her two cashmere sweaters. For an instant she mourned her long red trench. Her own damn fault it was gone.
From her closet shelf, she pulled down a padded cloth backpack.
Nothing that was synthetic could pass through the trees on her journey with Aric. Odd and strange and sad all the little habits that came back from when they were a couple. It would only get worse.
So she just walked down the stairs and didn’t look back.
Aric was seated on the couch in the living room. Chinook was on his lap, purring. “Beautiful cat,” he said, stroking her.
“Yes, she is,” Jenni said. “And very loving.” Her mouth pruned. “Not very discriminating, though.”
Aric’s jaw flexed. He inhaled deeply, blinked. “This place is wonderful, Jenni, very powerful.”
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.
