Give Me (13 page)

“Why ever not, Bausiney?”

Bausiney again. Not Cade.
“Just don’t go, all right?”

“But tomorrow’s the big day, the actual Handover. I want to see you crown the new wyrding woman. Or whatever it is that you do.”

“Moo is going to handle it. Let’s get away, just the two of us. I’ll come for you early.” He had to keep her away from Elyse. It wasn’t a matter of
just in case
. He was starting to believe that anything could happen. “We’ll take a drive and get out of Tintagos altogether. We’ll go north and watch the mist roll out to sea.”

“I’d like that.” She relaxed a little. “Maybe we’ll see my ghost.”

Not if I can bloody well help it.

He left her at the door with no hug, no kiss. No reference to the heat that had passed between them. She didn’t seem angry. Just confused. There was nothing he could do about it now.

Back at the End, he headed up to the roof to clear his head. The full moon was crazy bright, and the outline of Glimmer Cottage was easily visible. It was dark, but he had the same feeling as before, that Elyse was watching him. Could hear him.

“Go to bed, you old witch. And forget Lilith. I won’t let you have her.”

When dawn broke he went down to the kitchen to wait for Moo. Somehow she was involved in all this. She had insisted on going to London to make sure Lilith got on the train. She’d given Lilith the hat and gloves, not for warmth but to ensure that no one saw the ring. Hell, maybe Moo gave Lilith the ring.

She came in at her usual time, fussed about, put the kettle on the gas stove, dumped Dad’s breakfast into a bowl and popped it in the microwave, rinsed out her vacuum jar. As she turned away from the sink, she saw him.

“Great gods, Cade, you scared the life out of me!” The kettle began to whistle. “What are you doing sitting in here? You look terrible.”

“I feel terrible.”

“I’ll make you some tea.”

“Moo, why did you give Lilith Evergreen that ring?”

She missed a beat, as if she had to think of an answer. “Why do you assume I gave it to her?”

“Who else would have done?”

Her jaw clenched and unclenched and clenched again. She rummaged in the cupboard, but it seemed she was just creating a delay as she formed a response. Finally she sighed and closed the door. She found a tin in her bag and set about making tea.

“I didn’t give her the ring, Cade. But it was through me that it found her.”

“Why, Moo? She doesn’t want it. Why can’t Elyse choose from the hundreds who do?”

“Why, why, why.” She poured the boiled water over the basket of leaves. “All right then. We’ll have a cup of my special tea, and I’ll tell you everything. Let me fix it for you.”

She found the milk and sugar. Moo had taught him to drink tea that way when he was a boy. He never could get with the lemon crowd. She poured out two cups and worried over the perfect blend of sugar and milk. The picture tugged at his heartstrings. He would have loved to have known his mother, of course, but Moo was the best substitute he could have asked for.

“Delicious, as usual.” He drank half the cup in a gulp.

“About five or six weeks ago when I stopped at Glimmer Cottage, I found Elyse sitting on the roof deck, staring into the woods. She wasn’t well. She asked me to make her a cup of tea, so I did. This very blend, in fact. My specialty.”

She refilled his cup, adding more sugar and milk.

“I had been thinking about my sister Beverly—your mother—and the last Handover. Thirty years, it’s been. She was beautiful, a wonderful person. Full of life. I loved her so much. I swore one day I’d get her back.”

“What are you saying, Moo? Mother died.”

“For thirty years I waited for the right moment. It came that day.”

He felt woozy. The lack of sleep was getting to him; he didn’t understand Marion.

“Elyse drank the tea and fell asleep, just as you will soon.”

What?

“I tried and tried to get that damned ring off her hand. It’s death to the wyrding woman to remove her ring. I’ll bet you didn’t know that. But my sister essentially
had
been dead those thirty years. I only wanted to see her one more time, talk to her before it was really too late.”

“What are you talking about?”

“For thirty years I catered to that witch living in Beverly’s body. I gave her what she was starved for, what she couldn’t get by means of enchantment: real human contact, companionship. I made her believe I was on her side.”

“Marion, you need help.”

“I finally got it off her hand. I meant to throw it into the fire, but Elyse woke up. Not Beverly. I had failed. And at all events, I’d only managed to pull off half the ring. I hadn’t destroyed her wyrding power, but I had damaged it. We made a bargain. She’d call the Handover. I’d help her find another body, and she’ll let me have Beverly back when the ring was made whole. She put a spell on the half I’d taken and told it to find Lily.”

“Lilith…”

“Now don’t blame me for that, Cade. I have no idea how Elyse knew about Lily or Lilith or whoever. But I’m going to see Beverly again, and I’m not going to let anybody ruin it, not even you.”

“Lilith.”

“I’m so sorry. I know you like her. But Lilith is the one.”

“I’ll stop her.” Did he say that or only think it?

“You can’t stop anything.”

He was so tired. He should have slept last night. His eyes crossed. Moo looked at him with a madwoman’s pity. He’d lay his head on the table, just for a few minutes, and get some rest. Then he’d go get Lilith.

Why did Moo look at him so strangely? Why hadn’t she touched her tea?

10
Heart of Lourdes

10th century Dumnos.

E
lyse took the pipa up to the roof and sat on the chaise chair to tune the strings. She was adrift and lost, untethered to anything or anyone. The pipa’s music was the only thing that gave her comfort. Since that horrible night when Mother died, she and Lourdes could barely stay in the same room together. Lourdes was still furious about the ring, but it was on Elyse’s hand and nothing would change that.

Elyse hadn’t spoken of the wyrd she’d accidentally cast which rendered Lourdes unable to have children. Not that Lourdes would have believed her.

She plucked the pipa strings in no particular pattern, hypersensitive to the vibrations of the notes. She imagined them as random sound drops dancing in the air, like rain drops on a pond.
Blunk, blunk, blunk.
The dissonance fit her mood.

Cacophony was the best word to describe her new power, haphazard and nonsensical, random elegant success mixed with regular disaster. So far, she’d cast a few wyrds on purpose: made a shoot of new jasmine sprout into a full vine and compounded a pouch’s worth of glamour dust that produced a vivid image. She was especially proud of the glamour dust.

Some activities enhanced her ability while others confounded it. Music was a confounder. Playing the pipa made her feel better, but it messed up her wyrds. Of course, that’s when Lourdes would ask Elyse for a demonstration of her abilities, right after a session with the instrument.

She dampened the strings and listened. Someone was coming up the stairs. Not Lourdes, from the heavy sound.

“Miss, I’ve brought you a bite, and you must finish it all.”

“Must I, Meduyl?”

Upon her mistress’s death, the housemaid had promoted herself to housekeeper and brought a younger sister from home to do the particularly hard and filthy work. Elyse and Lourdes had been too grief-stricken to care, and now the arrangement had become established by routine.

“I know for a fact you haven’t eaten today.” Meduyl’s maternal instincts had flourished under the new scheme—a nice way to put it.

“Your thoughtfulness is commendable, Meduyl.”

“It was Miss Lourdes thought of it. You can thank her—later, after you eat.”

It wasn’t like Lourdes to think of Elyse’s welfare, even when Mother was alive. Maybe she was calming down, or at least making an attempt to accept it that Elyse would be the next oracle.

“Come away out of the wind or you’ll catch your death.”

“It appears Aeolios has another headache today. A bad one.”

Meduyl ignored the comment and looked sideways at the pipa. “And put that thing down.”

Elyse sighed. There was no one now to share jokes about Aeolios with. She laid the instrument gently on the chair. “I promise you there’s no dark magic at work here. No wyrds of any kind.”

Meduyl grumbled and made a lot of noise setting out the soup and spoon she’d brought. “You can’t tell me something carrying strange signs from the edge of the world isn’t full of dark magic. I can tell by its sour notes all is not right in the thing.”

“It’s from a different place, that’s all. Those are decorations, not evil signs. It’s just different.”

Meduyl was typical among Tintagos villagers. She didn’t admit her contradictions, let alone try to understand them. She denounced magic, yet she worked at Glimmer Cottage. She was the first to claim wyrders were lazy (but not you, Miss!) and the first to line up for her own cauldron made of wyrded steel.

Elyse took a seat near the jasmine where Meduyl had dragged the small table away from the wind. It was impossible now to breathe in the fragrance without thinking of Mother. Meduyl clucked and puttered around the roof, pretending to straighten things up.

Mother, I miss you
. Elyse again considered going to the woods to look for Aubrey, despite her mother’s palpable fear of the fae king. Since learning she was half fairy, Elyse had pondered all the accepted wisdom she knew about the fae. None of it was reliable. The fae lived forever. No, merely five thousand years. They hated iron. They loved it. They couldn’t abide salt or sour bread, but cakes were good. They loved music and dancing—everyone agreed on those two. They were as likely to steal a baby as to grant a favor—but if they granted a favor, they hated to be thanked.

Elyse smiled. She understood that about
thank you
. She used to hate it when someone thanked her mother for a wyrd. King Jowan had said thank you for the Great Wyrding. What was that worth? Mother would be alive today if she’d never done the deed.

Hector whinnied in the paddock, and another horse answered.

“Who’s there, Meduyl?” Elyse looked up from her meal. “Do you recognize that horse?”

“There’s nobody,” Meduyl said nervously.

“What do you mean? Of course there is.” Elyse crossed to the other side of the roof.

“It’s Miss Lourdes.” Meduyl backed away toward the door. “She said I was to make sure you stayed on the roof.”

“That’s Galados.” Elyse leaned over the rail. A page held King Jowan’s stallion, and two knights also waited in the courtyard. “Why would the king come to Glimmer Cottage?”

“She said you needn’t be distressed.” Meduyl stood before the doorway and crossed her arms over her chest, her brows knitted together and stolid determination in her eyes. What, she meant to bar the way?

“Stay.” Elyse flicked her wrist and set a boundary around Meduyl. Yes! A clean, strong wyrd, and so soon after playing music. It would fade in a few minutes, but Elyse counted it a victory. She walked past the stunned Meduyl without a glance and made herself feather light so she’d make no noise going down the stairs.

Elyse had hoped the underlying bond of sisterly love would prove stronger than petty jealousy, but it had turned out there was no bond between her and Lourdes. With Mother gone, Lourdes had lost all exterior restraint on her power. She’d clearly formed no self-restraint. There was but one explanation for King Jowan’s visit. Lourdes had put a fetching wyrd on him. Subjects went to the king; the king did not go to his subjects.

She’d used the magics on a royal.

“So you see, Elyse can never be the oracle, sire.” Lourdes was talking to the king in the parlor. “She’s not even talented. Her wyrds are only sporadically effective. She can work all the glimmer glasses, I’ll give her that. And once in a while a little spell executes perfectly—even beautifully. If only Mother hadn’t died. I’m sure, with her guidance, Elyse could one day have been very good. But you deserve better than
could have been
in your oracle.”

“But Frona did give Elyse the ring,” King Jowan said.

Elyse had no idea how to break the fetching wyrd. She pictured the king and thought
free him
and threw in a double flutter of both wrists for good measure.

“That’s true.” Lourdes sounded sad, as if she regretted the hard things that must be said. “And if Elyse were competent, I would support the idea that Mother meant her to be the oracle. Mother must have known she was dying. She had to transfer the ring, and I wasn’t here. Elyse was the only option.”

King Jowan didn’t answer. He must be considering Lourdes’s words.

“I can’t bear to consider the other possibility,” Lourdes added.

“What are you suggesting, Lourdes?” Elyse entered the parlor. “That I took the ring? That I killed Mother?”