Demon's Cradle (Devany Miller Book 3) (22 page)

She paled and that pleased me very much.

“Ladies, there are things happening for which we need solutions. This won’t help.” Dad patted the couch beside him. I waited until Arsinua sat opposite him before I moved. “There are lots of unanswered questions,” he said, picking up his book off the coffee table. “I don’t know if this answered some of them or if I got it all wrong.” He frowned. “Writing this thing? It’d be like I’d go into an altered state. Maybe I was accessing the magic without knowing it.”

“You were on Earth,” Arsinua said, her eyes not leaving mine. I wanted to make a face at her, decided what the hell, and did it. She didn’t even twitch. “You couldn’t access magic here.”

“Maybe he could. You yourself said he was special.”

“It’s not possible.”

“Like hooking to different places on Earth isn’t possible?”

“Only for Skriven. Though, you are one, so that mystery is solved.”

Dad clapped his hands and magic blew outward, puffing back our hair with an arctic blast. “Knock it off.”

I grinned at him. “Wow.”

He looked shocked himself. “Yeah. Uh. I didn’t realize I could do that.” Then he cleared his throat. “Doesn’t matter. What matters is my daughter needs my help getting back to normal. What else?”

I shrugged. “That’s it. Well, there are a couple more things, but that’s the big one.” Now that I’d taken care of Leon and the Rider, that was. Though I hadn’t checked Liam. That would be the last step, to make sure my kid was okay. He had to be, anyway. Who else hated me like Leon?

“She’s hiding things,” Arsinua said.

I rolled my eyes. “Get over yourself. I’m still me. Losing my soul hasn’t changed that. I may not be as nice, but surely you can live with that.”

“Not as nice? Your soul is the love and wonder. It’s the tenderness and the emotion. You lost that and you don’t even realize it because you’re soulless: you can’t even comprehend what you’ve lost.”

“She won’t be soulless for long. We’ll figure that out.” He put a big hand on Arsinua’s shoulder and squeezed, his patented comfort, given in a simple gesture. “It will be all right. Faith.”

She blinked at him, an expression of hero worship washing over her. I guessed in her anger with me, she’d forgotten Dad was Bran.

I kept forgetting it too. Then something occurred to me. “Why were you crying?”

Arsinua’s lips tightened. I shifted my attention to Dad and raised my brows. He threw his hands up. “I’m not getting in the middle of this nonsense. Her tears are her business, Devany. And Devany’s lack of soul is her business, young lady,” he told Arsinua. “Now. I feel the need to go home.”

***

“Home?”

“To Midia. Yes.” His eyes darkened a moment. “It won’t be the same without your mother. But I need to go home. To see it.”

Arsinua glared at me, as if this had been my idea. “The Anforsa would execute you without questions if she found you. They wanted you dead.”

Dad grunted. “They always pick the most uptight sticks to do that job.”

I snorted. “That describes Kenda all right. She confronted me a couple days ago, wanted me to go in and register. Answer for my crimes.”

He snorted. “That’s Council talk for putting you in a cage until you rot.”

“That’s what my friend said, too.” Tytan had said he’d pushed Dad and Mom through the Rend, forward in time. “It’s been a long time since you were last there, Dad. Things will be different.”

He waved his hand, poo-pooing the idea. “I didn’t imagine it would be exactly the same. Though, from talking with Arsinua, it sounds like they are still losing their grip on the magic and fighting a losing battle.”

Arsinua, of course, took exception to that. “It’s not a losing battle. We can repair the Omphalos if we have enough power.”

“You don’t need power. You need to let things go back to the way they were. Our grip on magic was always tenuous at best, and downright criminal at worst. The Wydlings live with the magic, work with the flow of it. Their way, I think, is the better one.”

Arsinua’s lips thinned. “What about the broken ones?”

My dad’s face grew solemn. “There is evil on either side. Can you really say that our way is the better one?”

She didn’t respond.

“Dad? Do you want me to take you?”

“You can just ... take us there, anywhere I want?”

“Yes.”

He clapped his hands together. “All right then. Let’s get the children.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t want the kids to go.”

“Why not?”

“They’re human.”

“Part human. Also part Wydling and part witch.”

“Dad, they almost died last time.”

Dad’s eyebrows shot up and I realized I hadn’t told him what had happened. I explained it, briefly, and then we all pondered the implications for taking them now. “Bethy’s working magic. Liam is Dreaming. Maybe the trip woke up their magic and getting them out kept them from dying from it.”

I sighed. Remembered the domar berries as a fail safe if worse came to worse. “Fine. But at the first hint—hint!—of trouble, I’m out of there. Capiche?”

“Gotcha, kiddo.”

With the absence of unease that would have normally accompanied the thought of my kids back in Midia, I rounded Bethy and Liam up and told them the plan. Bethy’s eyes rounded but Liam broke into a smile. “I can see Sharps in the Real?”

“I can’t promise that. I don’t know where the Carnicus will be,” I said, thinking, ‘Or if she’d even welcome a visit from me.’

“Oh.”

“There’s still a lot of cool things there. And, well, you can meet a friend of mine.”

He narrowed his eyes and I wondered if he knew I meant a guy friend. Surely not.

I gathered everyone together and made the hook. The kids hesitated a long moment before stepping through.

We didn’t end up in the Dream Caves. We didn’t even make it to Odd Silver, which was strange. I’d held the caves in my head when I made the hook.

Arsinua looked like her head might explode. “We are in the Anwar!” She had a bubble around her and Bethy, who was nearest her, before I could blink.

“Yeah.”

“The wild magic will taint us,” she said furiously.

“It’ll be okay.” I studied both kids in turn, looking for signs of hook sickness. Both were fine now, but I didn’t want to take any chances. “We need some domar berries before we do anything else.” I straightened. “I don’t know why we didn’t end up ... shit.” I’d forgotten the
emiliometer
. “I need to grab something. Come on, let’s go back.”

“Devany,” my dad said, warning in his tone. I looked around. Ellison stood a hundred yards or so away, his form dark against the brilliant sun behind him.

“You didn’t succeed,” he said in the voice of the Rider. And then he stepped backward and raised his arms. Black things, like tentacles, slithered through a rip in the air behind him, framing him in evil. “In the body of this Skriven, I shall destroy this planet and the next. I can’t deny I got lucky. It’s rare to catch up a world-walker in my net. The conditions have to be just so.” The Rider distorted Ellison’s face in what I supposed was a grin. “Join me.”

I frowned. “Suck it, asshole.” Then I realized Liam was walking toward him, my son, and I grabbed for him, but Dad was there first. Liam fought him, a blank expression on his face. “Bastard,” I said, and threw power at Ellison, a blinding flash that engulfed Ellison’s form.

Bethy screamed behind me but I didn’t turn around, intent on making sure Ellison was incapacitated.

The light cleared, vanishing on tendrils of smoke that whipped into the sky. Ellison was gone but his voice wasn’t. “You won’t find me in time.”

“Why even show yourself?”

The Rider laughed and the voice echoed over my skin. “I’m particularly fond of this game. And you, Originator. I will enjoy using your son for my purposes. How much time do you have left?” Another laugh and then even the words dissipated into the breeze.

“Shit.”

“Mom?” Liam looked confused, blinking as if awoken from a dream. “What did he mean by using me?”

“There’s a parasite in your head,” I said grimly. “Or the potential for one. That’s what he meant.”

“Am I going to die?”

I shook my head and pulled him close, possessive, if not loving. “No. He is.”

***

In the end, we ended up in Banishwinds. The kids goggled over the domed houses and the tavern that looked like a slouchy witch’s hat, the path leading up to it a lolling red tongue. I didn’t let them go inside, even though I thought they’d enjoy the bar with the fairies trapped under the glass. Bars weren’t places for kids, I didn’t care what world I was on.

Though I kept a gimlet eye on them, neither Bethy nor Liam exhibited any sign of hook sickness. Had their trip through the first time cured them? Their exposure to me? I didn’t know.

My dad was almost as fun to watch as the kids, though for different reasons. The kids’ expressions were priceless each time they spotted something fantastic. Dad, though, he was like a hero come home from war. People recognized him, which blew my mind. A shopkeeper with a frog’s grin pumped Dad’s arm up and down the entire time they spoke, a woman tripped over her own feet to get close enough to giggle at him, and a group of witches stood together, whispering and staring. “How is it they know you?”

“They know of him,” Arsinua said, her mood not improved in the least. “His coming back must have broken whatever geis was laid to wipe him from their memories. And he was always most popular with the witches on the borders.” She nodded toward the far side of town, where the permanent hook was suddenly very busy. “It must have also alerted the Council to his arrival. We should go.”

“Dad, come on.”

He shook his head. “I’m going to speak with them. Let them take me into custody if they must. I fled this place when your mother and I both had a lot to lose. Now you’re grown, Travis is grown, and your mother is gone. I need to stay. Perhaps I can change things.”

“What if they hurt you?”

He scoffed. “Sweetheart, they need me, for all that they’ll be upset.”

And then I felt it, the magic he had at his command. He was powerful, certainly more powerful than Arsinua or Marantha. I didn’t even remember that much strength from Kenda, though I hadn’t stuck around long enough to truly take her measure. “I’ll come see you, check on you. Make sure you’re safe.”

He pulled me into a bear hug that popped my back. “I love you, Devany.”

“I love you too.”

“We’ll figure out the soul thing. I promise. Just give me time to see what I can do here.”

“Okay.”

“Now scoot, they’re almost here.”

I gathered my kids and formed the hook, stepping through with Arsinua trailing reluctantly behind.

We appeared in the living room and nearly scared Travis to death.

“What the ever-loving fuck?”

“You owe the swear jar.” To the kids, I said, “You guys still feeling okay?” I checked their arms despite their protests, checked their necks, their faces. I didn’t see any evidence of engorgement. It was odd. Good, but odd.

“Is Grandpa going to be okay?” Bethy asked me.

“Of course. He’s a tough guy.”

Travis cleared his throat. “Where is Dad?”

“He’s renewing old acquaintances.” I eyed my brother. If he was a product of a witch and Wydling like me, he would have no trouble surviving Midia either. Of course, he hadn’t been fiddled with and he’d been conceived and born on Earth. Would that make a difference?

Storm clouds gathered on his brow but Arsinua pulled him away, downstairs, presumably to talk bad about me in private.

“I want to go back,” Liam said, his eyes gleaming.

“Are there fairies?” Bethy asked, and I grinned. She was my daughter, all right. I remembered the first time I’d seen fairies. I’d been over the moon.

“We will and there are.”

“Who was that guy, Mom? That creepy guy?”

I huffed a breath. My well-reasoned thought of keeping the kids from everything had gone up in a puff of smoke. “He was a Skriven. Like a demon,” I said, before they could ask. Their eyes got big. “I’m one too. Only his boss.” Even bigger. If they kept widening, their eyeballs would pop right out of their heads. “He has a parasite in his head and he can get into people’s Dreams. When he does, he leaves potential. Seeds, I guess, for another parasite.” I touched Liam on the head and he cursed. I didn’t chide him. “I have less than a Midian month to fix things or the parasite will grow in your head.”

He opened his mouth, probably to ask what would happen then, and saw the answer in my eyes. Bethy did too and she threw her arms around him. “No!”

“If I’ve learned anything, it’s that there is always hope. Even if I don’t find Ellison, there’s hope. You hear me? So no giving up. We’re going to kick butt and take names, right?”

Liam awkwardly patted Bethy on the shoulder, then gave up and hugged her back. I felt removed from it, cushioned against their pain, and that meant I should be doing something. I put my arms around them and squeezed, hoping that there was a way to get my soul back. I didn’t want to miss out on this stuff, didn’t want this curiously detached feeling as I held my kids.