A Glimmering Girl (28 page)

St. Mary’s was a massive construct of concrete, glass, and steel. Despite the strange looks it drew, Cade kept the bell crown on his head, though he hardly noticed the pain in his head.

Where is her room?
Again he checked the hastily jotted note in his hand to be sure he was on the right floor.

As he passed an open door he heard someone say, “Let’s put this… interesting hat in the cupboard.”

There you are.
“Not a good idea.” He entered the hospital room to find Lilith on the bed in a hospital gown, bare legs sticking out below a cotton gown.

“No, don’t,” she said

To no avail. The nurse was on a mission. “We don’t want any bad germs getting in on the action, do we?” She deftly whisked the offending hat away—and along with it Lilith’s protection against cold iron.

“Ach!” Lilith’s low growl of pain expanded to a wail, the scream punctuated by an odd zipping, ripping sound.

“Blimey,” the nurse said. “Did a bird just fly into the window?”

“I don’t think so,” Cade checked the long crack that had formed in the glass, but there was no focal point of impact.

“Hat…” Lilith squeezed his hand.

“I don’t like…” The nurse still clutched the hat, but she seemed to have forgotten all about it as a new concern consumed her face. “I’ll be right back, dear.”

Lilith glared daggers at her.

The poor woman rubbed her own forehead. “I think I’ll get an aspirin for myself while I’m at it.”

When the door closed, Cade said, “You gave her that headache, didn’t you?”

“I know she’s just doing her job. I couldn’t stop myself,” Lilith said. “My head is killing me.”

“Oh, your hat. I’ll go—”

“No, don’t. I need you more than some stupid hat.”

“Use mine.” He had to do something. He took his own hat off. “Sun and moon, that hurts.” The too-big, dark violet bell covered Lilith’s entire head and rested on the bridge of her nose. “Not working?”

“Max says tether jewels work best for the person they’re made for. Maybe it’s the same with hats.”

She grimaced and squeezed his hand. Hard.

“A contraction?” he said. “I can’t bear it.”

She laughed and grunted at the same time and held on to him, hugging his shoulder, wincing with the pain.

Christ, I’m such a git.
Lilith was the one who couldn’t bear it. Feeling his impotence, he could only whisper, “I love you.”

She seemed to relax. She raised her face to him, and he kissed her forehead. Where was that doctor?

“You left your meeting,” she said. “The Sarumens will win.”

“Nothing’s more important to me than you. Don’t you know that?” Cade told her. “You’re the love and the light of my heart. The world means nothing if I can’t share it with you.”

“Hello! Hello!” Glory popped in.

“Great.” Lilith said flatly.

“My poor darling girl!”

“You told me fae births were painless.” Lilith glared at her mother.

“They are. But you’re not in fae, are you?” The fairy reached into her hidey pouch and withdrew a gossamer scarf, so thin it looked made of a soap bubble. “Ooh!” She draped it over her head and spun up in the air. “Shiny!”

“What is that?” Something stirred inside Cade, and he reached for the fabric. He
had to
touch it… to have it.

“Oh. Right.” Glory floated over to Lilith and transferred the wondrous material to her daughter’s head.

“Ahhh…” Lilith let out the most marvelous sigh of relief. The furrow between her eyebrows smoothed and faded.

“It’s from Max,” Glory said. “He said to tell you it’s a small token of gratitude for what you did. You know, for Boadicea.”

“My head… the headache is gone.”

“Small token. Huh.” Glory pouted. “He never gives
anyone
glimmermist. Well. Except Cissa that one time. But he’ll give her anything.”

“I feel better!” Lilith certainly sounded better. She reminded Cade of Madmartigan in
Willow
.

“You shouldn’t fight so hard to keep your humanity.” Glory said. “I don’t understand you.”

“I know.” Lilith smiled weakly. “I’ve let go of hoping that you will.”

Something clicked in Cade’s brain.
This was the crux of it.
Glory didn’t understand her own daughter—as he didn’t understand his father.

None of them would ever understand each other.

It wasn’t that Morning Glory had let go of her humanity. She had never
been
human. And Dandelion had never even tried to be human.

Despite appearances, they were intrinsically, fundamentally different to each other, human and fae.

“It’s all right, Mom,” Lilith said. “It’s fine.”

His darling wife was right. As usual. It was all right. Everything was fine, as is. He had to stop being angry with Dandelion for not being human. For not being James. Gods, he missed his father—his real father—so much. James would have been so thrilled to be a granddad.

“Did you get something in your eye?” Morning Glory was staring at him quizzically.

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “But it’s better now.”

“Oh… crap!” Lilith twisted in the bed as if a knifing pain had sliced through her hip and contraction wrenched her belly the opposite direction. She screamed again as the door opened and in filed doctor, nurses, orderlies, a rolling gurney…

Everything was a muddle. The doctor wanted to do a C-section. Cade lobbied to go into the operating theater. Lilith’s hand was so small in his, so vulnerable. He couldn’t let go.

“Let go, my lord,” the nurse said. “Let her go now.”

“If it’s a boy, call him Ross,” Lilith said weakly. “If it’s a girl, Alexandra.”

“You don’t know the child’s sex?” The nurse blinked.

“There wasn’t time,” Cade said haplessly, confirming their parental incompetence.

Lilith’s gurney rolled through the doors, and the nurse stopped him from going through. “Try not to worry. We’ll take good care of them both.”

The doors swung shut.

Step after relentless step, the medical team took her away from him. His love. His light. Then the hallway was empty. For minutes? An hour? He didn't know. He couldn’t make himself move away from the windowed door. Then the nurse was in the hall, coming toward him, all judgment wiped from her face, only compassion remaining.

Lilith…

The nurse led Cade to a private waiting room. “You’ll be all right here,” she said. “No one will bother you.” There was unbearable kindness in her voice and in her soft pat on his shoulder when he sat down. “I’ll bring you a nice pot of tea.”

Tea. She and Marion would get on.

The thought of tea made Cade think of that morning at Faeview when Moo had drugged his tea to keep him away from Lilith. He’d fought for their love then, and he would again now. They were meant to be together.

He wanted to be a good person. A good
man.
To play his part in the happiness of those he loved, and in the well-being of those he was responsible for. He avoided stupidity on principle and fought the good fights with gusto.

But how could he fight this? He had no weapon against preeclampsia, or whatever the doctor had called it. To the center of his being, he felt his impotence. He closed his eyes against the world and ran his hands through his hair.

“Brother Sun, Sister Moon, please,” he whispered. “Tell me what to do.”

The door opened again.
Gods, when will it end?
He couldn’t talk with the nurse or accept her tea and sympathy. He kept his eyes shut. Maybe she’d go away.

But she said nothing. Quite out of character. He looked up and started to stand. The man near the door raised his hand, and Cade sat back in his chair—not, he didn’t think, of his own free will.

The man spread his hands, palms up, in a gesture of offering.

Cade felt something in his own hands and looked down. “Good lord. But where…?”

The man explained everything. Or it seemed he did. In the blink of an eye, Cade knew all.

And the man was gone. No one else was in the room, and when Cade looked down again at what he was holding, he couldn’t hold back the tears.

“Lilith.” Through body-wracking sobs, he kept saying her name, like a prayer, and like a plea. “Lilith…”

« Chapter 27 »
Apples of the Moon and Sun

It was a beautiful April day in Tintagos. Lord Dumnos answered the front door at Faeview himself and let his aunt in.

“Thanks, Moo,” Cade kissed his aunt’s forehead. “I really appreciate you staying with Lexi today. I can’t believe she’s only three months old. She’s growing like a… I was going to say weed, but…”

“Like a fairy?” Marion huffed a sigh. “You don’t have to spare me, dear. I’ve come to terms with it.”

“If Glory pops in, don’t let her hold the baby. She’s desperate to take Lexi to Mudcastle to show her off, but—”

“You don’t want to risk it. Don’t worry. She’ll have to kill me first.”

Cade laughed. “She’s not deadly. She’s just…”

“Fae. She wants what she wants when she wants it. And little Lady Lexi is the shiniest object of them all.”

“Could not have said it better, Moo.” She was really coming around on the fairy thing.
All would be well.
“And here are my two girls now.” Cade smiled up at Lilith coming down the stairs. Blue-eyed Lexi, with a mop of strawberry-blond curls, sat on her mother’s hip with the strength of a six-month-old.

Lilith felt fantastic. Her fae childbirth hadn’t been so painless, but recovery from it had been remarkable. Cade drove them out to Igdrasil, which had become their favorite picnic site. He’d packed their ritual Paraduxx red wine, chocolate Hobnobs, and cheese and pickle sandwiches.

He spread out the picnic blanket, and as she unpacked the basket he said, “Watch this.”

He snapped his fingers, and the wind stopped blowing over the blanket, though Igdrasil’s branches still swayed and the Lovers’ leaves still fluttered.

“Magic, I’m so glad!” Lilith said. “But… is the finger snapping required?”

“Dunno.” Cade laughed and poured the wine. “It must just be my style.”

“You’ve been irritatingly cheerful since we’ve been home.”

“Not irritatingly, I hope. And why should I not be cheerful? I’m the luckiest man in all the realms.”

“I’m still turning fae at an alarming rate.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“And you’re… well, perhaps you are turning after all, but more slowly.”

“Don’t care.” He took the tin of chocolate Hobnobs from the picnic basket and offered her one. “All will be well.”

“You’re an odd one,” Lilith said. “And I adore you.”

“Think of it,” he said. “We’re bound together through time, just you and I. There are no marauding ghosts. The high gods want us to be together. I’m filled with gratitude.”

“And I’m not afraid anymore, Cade. Not of time, not of anything. And Lexi is wonderful.”

“Alexandra Lowenwyn Beverly Glory Marion Elyse Bausiney,” Cade said. “What have we done to that poor child?”

“Everything is as it should be—I feel like a blissed-out New Age mystic:
Time flows like a river, and we’re all part of the neverending stream
.”