Unmade (The Lynburn Legacy Book 3) (14 page)

They were almost in sight of the front door when part of the wall fell in. Kami put her arms around her mother and Jared both, spun them away from the shower of white-hot sparks. She put herself between them, thought only of protecting them, and felt as if the material of her magic was tearing and fraying all over. If it failed, they would burn together.

The brick wall was burning coals around their feet. Kami, Claire, and Jared dragged themselves over it, through the furnace of fire and finally, finally out the door.

The light of the burning Glass house shone through the black thornbushes like a star in a spiked cage. When the wind blew in the wrong direction, Holly could feel a blast of heat as if she had passed by the open door of a furnace.

She wanted to run to Kami and help her. But someone had to stand guard between the Glass house and Aurimere, had to stop the sorcerers from coming down to pick off any survivors. Holly peered into the darkness and saw a familiar face coming toward her.

“Hi, Holly.”

Ross Philips. He'd been Amber Green's boyfriend for years and years, for as long as Holly could remember. Holly had made out with him once, when they were both drunk, sitting outside in a field at one of those parties that were mostly boys and Holly, because nice girls didn't go to that sort of party. Holly had always thought it was sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy—the nice girls weren't asked, because the boys respected them. The boys chose who they respected and who they did not, and then condemned the girls for going along with their choices.

Ross had told her, that night, that he really loved his girlfriend, and even though Holly didn't love him and hadn't wanted him to love her, she'd known he was really telling her that she was unlovable—not someone to be taken seriously, one of the grubby Prescotts, desperate and scrambling and out of favor with the Lynburns in the manor.

“Stay back,” Holly called. “I'm a sorcerer, just as much as you. I'll hurt you if you come any closer.”

“I doubt that,” said Ross, and took several steps closer without even hesitating.

She didn't even mean to do it. She felt indignation rise, wanting to make a scathing comment and not knowing quite how to: the feeling burned in her chest. Fire shot from Holly's fingertips and almost took Ross's eyebrows off. He stumbled backwards in a hurry.

“You mean you doubt me,” Holly said, breathing hard and trying not to show how shocked she was. “You really shouldn't.”

“Come on, Holly,” said Ross, gently scornful despite his singed eyebrows. “I think we both know—”

Ross collapsed. Holly stared at her own hands in disbelief for a moment, then glanced up and saw Angela with a large branch.

“That you're an asshole?” Angie asked Ross's prone body. “Yeah, we're pretty clear on the subject.”

She's so mean,
Nicola Prendergast had once whispered to Holly, and Holly had nodded because she wanted Nicola to like her.
Angela Montgomery doesn't have to be so rude all the time. It wouldn't cost her anything to be nice.

Holly didn't know about that. She'd felt like being nice cost her something, even if it was just feeling a little bit lesser, every time she smiled without meaning to. Angie was smart and rude, no second thoughts tripping her tongue, able to make anyone be sorry they ever crossed her path and refusing to feel sorry about it. She could even deliver cutting repartee to an unconscious body. She was so mean, and it always made Holly smile.

Holly was a bit concerned about Ross's physical well-being, though. “Uh, I heard head trauma is actually kind of a serious thing to happen to someone. It's not like in the movies. It can cause permanent damage.”

“I heard that about burning people's houses down as well,” Angela spat, as if she was a fire herself, throwing out sparks.

Holly knew it was hard for Angie, not being able to go to Kami and help her. Lillian Lynburn had sailed in with her boys behind her, assuming she would lead, and someone had to guard the perimeter. But that didn't mean Holly wanted to kill anybody, or to let Angie kill anybody either.

She was silent, thinking of how to phrase this. She didn't know what showed on her face, but Angie drawled, “Oh, all right,” and knelt down to check Ross's pulse.

“He's alive,” she said in a voice that sounded so bored Holly might've been imagining the thread of relief running through it. “That's the best I can do for him. His evil sorcerer buds can heal him or take him to the hospital and bring him an evil magic fruit basket for all I care.”

Holly barely had time to feel relief herself, just the beginnings of it, like beginning to take a breath and then being hit again. She saw in the darkness something darker moving. She saw her parents were coming toward her.

Holly felt dumb. She should have known Rob Lynburn would send more people than Ross to do his work.

She had run between her father and Angie once before, at the great battle in the town square. Her father had backed away, lifted his hands as if in surrender, and then turned them on another of Lillian Lynburn's sorcerers, who had died later that night. Holly didn't even remember who it had been. All she remembered was kneeling down beside Angie on cobblestones that were iced by night but warm with blood, and being so thankful that Angela was all right and that her father did not put his loyalty to Rob Lynburn above his daughter.

She was the baby of the family, the youngest girl; nobody had particularly wanted her when she was born, and she had no reason to think that since she was born she had impressed anybody enough to make them change their minds. About the only thing her parents had ever said positively about her was that she was pretty, and they had been clear that being pretty did not matter.

It was so strange and horrible that now, with the night wind rushing through her hair and her blood pounding in her ears, her parents were looking at her as if they loved her. Now when she was afraid that she was going to hurt them to stop them from hurting her or those she loved, now when love was nothing but a double-edged weapon that would hurt them all worse than they already were.

“We don't want to hurt you, baby,” said Holly's mum, speaking as if she could read her mind.

“Holly, you never were that bright, but this is the outside of enough,” her dad snapped. “Do you think you have a hope of standing against Rob Lynburn and Aurimere? It's not for us to decide what the best course of action is. We know the bargain. We have all known the bargain, generation after generation.”

“So you're ready to burn down houses with children inside them because Rob Lynburn tells you what to do now, and you've decided never to think for yourselves again,” Angela shouted back. “How dare you call her stupid because she doesn't want to be herded like a sheep?”

“She's not a sorcerer,” Holly's mum whispered. “We can go through her, if Holly would just stand down—”

Angela lifted her branch, and Holly's dad lifted his hand.

Angela looked down at her branch. It was burning but not quite enough to burn her—not yet. She pursed her mouth and shrugged.

“Thanks,” she said, and lunged at Holly's dad.

Flames would devour the branch in a moment, but in this moment it was a weapon. There was the sudden sharp smell of burning fabric as Hugh Prescott's shirt caught on fire. Holly's mother darted in toward Angie, but Holly got in front of her. She was standing in front of Angie, facing down both her parents, before Angie had to drop the branch.

“I won't stand down!” Holly shouted. “
You
stand down! You have to surrender, because
I won't
!”

She saw her father's face twist in anger, as it did when any of them stepped too far out of line, gave him too much lip. She saw his arm rise and braced herself, stupidly again, as if she was about to be felled with a physical blow.

A blast of wind knocked Holly off her feet, sent her spinning through the air. Holly landed hard on the ground and rolled, jolted and sick, helpless as a doll sent tumbling down a hill.

She gasped, blood but no air in her mouth, and watched his big, heavy boots moved toward her across the earth, every footfall a thunderclap. She remembered being woken by the sound of those boots on their stone floor when it was still dark. She remembered raw, cold mornings, with her dad already in the fields, hearing her mother say that her father was out there working for them, only for them.

“Hugh, no, no!” her mother screamed, and threw herself between them, blocking Holly's view of those dirt-streaked boots. “Not my little girl!”

Angela hesitated. She had dropped the branch, but Holly knew she would have gone after him with her bare hands—except now they were all waiting, and listening. Even Holly's father seemed to be listening.

“Listen to me,” her mother said rapidly. “If we take young Ross and say that we felt we had to get him to safety, that they were ready for us—well, that's true, isn't it? What if we just left, eh? We don't need to hurt Holly. Leave it to someone else. Come on now, do.”

Holly lifted herself painfully, a long streak of pain aching across her ribs, her palms dug into the cold earth. She called through a mouthful of blood, “He killed Edmund!”

There was a pause that Holly thought might be a heedless silence, but then she heard her father say, gruff and grudging, “What?”

Holly did not lift herself up again. She spoke with her eyes turned to the ground, bitter earth between her lips. “Rob Lynburn killed Uncle Edmund. He didn't run away, he didn't want to leave Lillian, he didn't want to leave you. Rob shut up Jared with—with all that was left of him. You hated your brother for leaving you to suffer, but he didn't. He suffered. He died. Rob Lynburn killed him. He never left Sorry-in-the-Vale. He died when he was seventeen.”

“It's a lie,” her father said hoarsely.

Holly thought for a moment that she might have made a mistake: her father, when presented with what he did not want to hear or could not understand, became baffled and enraged at once. She didn't want to be hurt again, and she wouldn't let Angie be hurt. She began to lift herself up again.

She saw her mother physically turning her big husband, small hands firm on his shoulders.

“Hugh, Hugh, it doesn't matter. You never knew her to lie, did you? Holly's not a liar. She believes it if she said it. Maybe someone lied to her and—and maybe they didn't, but we can't get anything else from her. We agreed to go, didn't we? Let's go.”

A lot of family fights had ended this way, with her mother leading her father away, patting and coaxing and ending the whole scene. It was so normal, and that made it seem bizarre and awful on this burning magic night.

Holly watched their pale backs receding from her until Angie blocked the sight, her dark eyes wide with concern.

“Holly,” she said, and knelt down, pulling Holly into her lap. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

Holly did not know if Angie's carefully gentle hands meant what she wanted them to mean, or if it was just what she had thought for so long was all that was between them, simply friendship, as if she and Angela had exchanged feelings as simply as swapping each other's jewelry.

If Holly had to feel all the pain and longing, she would take the comfort. She closed her eyes and whispered, “Can someone see about a magical fruit basket?” and heard Angie yelp with bright sudden laughter. She laughed too, even though it hurt.

T
he night air was so different from the air inside that stifling house that it felt like plunging into deep cool water. Kami gasped with relief even as she turned to her mother and sank her hands into her mother's burning hair, putting the fire out, turning the trails of sparks back into long smooth tresses. Kami stroked her mother's hair lightly, before she let Claire go. She thought she understood why parents stroked hair so much: it was a gesture that said, Here you are, lovely and alive and entire.
I
did that.

“Mum!” said Ten, and Claire turned to the sound of his voice. Kami's hand dropped from her hair, and her mother caught that hands in hers and pressed it, then let go to lean down and scoop Ten into her arms as he ran to her.

“Claire,” said Dad, with the softness of deep relief.

“Jared, thank goodness you're all right,” Lillian said pointedly. “And well done for saving What's-her-name, I suppose. I would have been devastated if anything happened to her.”

Kami looked at Jared. She hadn't been able to look at him, not properly, when he was on the other side of her mother, when she'd had to think of protecting and saving them. All she'd known was that he was whole, and now he was safe. They were all safe.

She was smiling, which was probably wildly inappropriate, but he nodded at her. “You did it,” he said.

“I didn't do it alone,” said Kami. “Thanks for saving my mum.”

The corner of Jared's mouth twisted up a little, in the small smile she felt he was always trying to sneak past people without noticing. “You're welcome.”

The firelight cast his face half in light and half in shadow. There was a dark smudge along the side of his eye, across his temple: Kami had thought it was soot, but now she could see the raised skin and recognized a bruise.

She hastily lifted a hand to the spot. Jared flinched back, but she grabbed his wrist and held him still so she could heal him, and tried not to mind.

“What happened?”

“Well,” said Jared. “Your mother threw her bedside lamp at me.”

Kami looked over at her mother, who looked apologetic. She could picture the whole scene: her mother waking to fire and chaos, and finding a Lynburn's face framed against the nightmare. She was quite proud of her mother for fighting back.

“That's what happens when you insist on going around wearing a leather jacket and riding a motorcycle,” she remarked. “When you start dating a girl, parents are going to have strong words. Deliver lectures. Set curfews. Hurl projectiles.”

Jared shrugged. “About how I always expected it would go, yeah.”

The bruise was fading under her fingers, like invisible ink disappearing into a page. Unexpectedly, Kami felt her knees go out from under her.

It was in no way a romantic feeling. It reminded her of having the flu, her body simply shutting down and forcing her to fall. Distantly, she heard Jared's hoarse shout of alarm and felt his arms go around her, holding her close to his chest and keeping her on her feet.

“What's wrong with her?” he demanded.

“She doesn't have as much magic as she used to, now her sorcerer's magic has been poisoned,” Lillian's voice said dispassionately, from somewhere up in the air. “She pushed herself past her limits.”

“What if Rob's sorcerers come?” Kami asked, trying to fight back dizziness with the urgency of that thought.

“There were only a couple of them left, hanging back maintaining the fire,” Ash said. “Holly and Angela dealt with them.”

“What amazing ladies,” said Kami, her voice distant in her own ears. “I am so lucky to have them in my life. The guys in my life are okay too, I guess.”

“Could be better,” Jared contributed.

Kami nodded. “Tell Angela and Holly I'm going to need to borrow some clothes.”

All her clothes. It was stupid to feel a pang thinking of them when her whole house had burned down, but she did. She had spent a long time building her wardrobe, begging her dad to let her use his credit card and buy things from the Internet, spending a lot of time in secondhand shops. She hadn't wanted to dress like anybody else. When she was wearing one of the outfits she'd chosen, she would find herself looking in the mirror, both recognizing and approving of what she saw.

“Come on,” said Mum. “The kids need sleep. We can all go to the flat over Claire's.”

She did not add “where I've been staying since your father kicked me out.” Dad looked a little uneasy, Kami thought, but they had nowhere else to go. They should have gone before now: they had been fools to believe Rob's sorcerers would be out of commission, even for a night.

They all made their way out of the garden, down the crazy paving path and out the gate. Kami looked back over her shoulder as she went, and saw the black frame of the house, wrapped in devouring scarlet. The tree she had leaned against the window was also on fire, part of the house and thus part of its destruction. Around the house the grass stretched black as if their little house stood in the center of a black lake. Nothing was burning except their home.

Kami looked at it for a long moment, then looked away at the moonlit road ahead.

“Do you want my jacket?” Jared asked. He was taking it off as he spoke, a little awkwardly as he still had to hang onto her.

“Yes,” said Kami instantly. He drew it close around her shoulders. “Also your pin and your class ring. That's how you do dating in America, isn't it? You see, I know the ways of your people.”

“I don't really know how dating works,” Jared told her. “High school for me was mostly musical numbers. That's how it is in the States, you've seen the movies. Every time someone had an emotional dilemma or epiphany, they would burst into song, and we would all have to break out into perfectly choreographed dance sequences. It took a lot of intensive training. So many jazz squares, no time for love.”

Kami laughed, and the laughter was alchemy, a sound that disappeared in the air and yet changed the whole world. He didn't change the world for her, but he offered her the opportunity to see the world differently and she chose to take it. It had to be both of them: they could choose to change the world together.

“That's a real shame.”

“It's possible I can make up for lost time. I hear girls like bad boys. I hope that's true,” Jared said. “Because, baby, I'm bad at practically everything.”

Kami laughed enough that, still unsteady, she might have fallen if Jared had not been there to hold her up.

“I'd make a joke about falling for you,” she said. “But that's cheesy and terrible, and I've decided I don't believe in falling. I believe in something else.”

“What's that?” asked Jared.

“The opposite of falling,” Kami said, after a long time. “I did not fall. I climbed, to a place high enough that I could see clearly. Once I saw, I was certain.”

Jared did not seem to know what to say, but he walked along with her, his arm still warm around her shoulders. She told herself that it was enough.

Dad and Ten and Mum all converged on each other, Lillian seeming disgruntled to be part of the group but walking with them nonetheless.

Tomo did not join them. Kami saw that he had taken one of his violent fancies to Ash, the way he had taken to lemonade, Mr. Stearn's bulldog, and his favorite toy race car that had burned with everything else in their house. He walked happily alongside Ash, holding on to his hand, and clearly wished for nothing more.

Ash seemed alarmed to have been so firmly taken possession of by an eight-year-old. He and Tomo fell back a little, until they were walking with Jared and Kami.

“I am so sad about my underwear,” Kami announced, and Ash looked as if he regretted all of his life decisions.

“Not in front of the little boy!” he said reproachfully. “Anyway, you were saying that you would borrow clothes from Holly and Angela.”

“I'm the third tallest in my class,” Tomo informed him, with the air of one out to impress. “And I know all about underwear.”

“You heard the man,” said Kami. “Besides which, no. I cannot possibly borrow underclothes from Holly and Angela. Bras especially.”

“I know,” said Jared.

“Oh, you do, do you?” Kami inquired. “And how do you know, may I ask?”

There was a slight flush along the lines of Jared's cheekbones. “Observation.”

It was probably sad that this cheered Kami up, but Jared usually seemed so wary about her body, the physical fact of it, that the simple knowledge that he had been looking did please her. She leaned back infinitesimally closer into the warm line of his arm around her shoulders, the warm line of his body against her side.

“Kami, would you maybe stop mentioning your unmentionables,” Ash said, spoiling the moment.

“I shall not,” Kami told him. “It's a serious problem. I am, and I mean this absolutely literally, in need of support.”

I'd suspect you of going funny in the head from smoke inhalation,
said Ash,
but you always talk like this.

Kami laughed, and felt Jared's arm go tense around her shoulders, but he said nothing. Ash must have felt something, from one of them—and it was so weird, that Ash was the link between them, that Ash was between them at all—because he fell silent too, and after a little while he let Tomo drag him forward and away.

When they approached the town square, Kami's mother fell back, coming toward them over the cobbles. The stones under her feet were as dark as the stones lying underwater in a riverbed, and the shadows were combing her bronze hair. She gave Jared a look that was not hostile—Claire had never dared be openly hostile to any of the Lynburns—but wary, and more than a little afraid.

“I'll go,” said Jared, and quieter, to Kami, “If you'll be all right?”

“Always am,” Kami told him. She looked searchingly at her mother's face, then glanced up at Jared. “See you in a few, sunshine puppy,” she told him, and lifted up on the tips of her toes and pressed a kiss on his mouth. She only caught the side, a little clumsily, but felt the curl of his small smile against her lips.

“Sunshine puppy?” he asked. “You're not even trying anymore.”

“I am trying very hard,” Kami informed him. “To be ridiculous.”

She smiled at him. He didn't smile back and she didn't know why, but her mother had hold of her other hand, so she leaned into her mother and let him go.

She and her mother were quiet for a moment, leaning against each other, walking very slowly.

“I was really proud of myself earlier,” Claire said at last.

Kami leaned her head down against her mother's shoulder. “I'm really proud of you now.”

“I'm glad about that,” Mum said. “I don't know how I feel now, but I'm glad.” She stopped walking and was silent for a moment. “I loved our home,” she said very softly.

“The Lynburns gave us that house so we would serve them,” Kami said. “I loved it too, but it wasn't ours. I wasn't willing to pay the price for it, and neither were you, Mum. Not really. Not in the end.”

Mum curled her fingers around Kami's wrist, under the sleeve of Jared's leather jacket. “No. But I was willing to pay the price for you,” she said. “For you and your brothers. I would make any bargain to keep you safe.”

“I don't want to be safe,” Kami said.

“My fearless girl,” said Mum. “I always wanted to be braver. Sometimes I think that was another bargain I made, that I would be twice as afraid but you never would be.”

“I'm not brave,” Kami whispered. “I'm so afraid sometimes.”

“I'm always so afraid,” Mum whispered back.

Kami looked away from her mother's face when she heard a soft sound.

Down the narrow black street by the church, something was moving that wasn't human. The streetlamps touched brindled fur, striking silver off the ends, and lit watchful yellow eyes. Kami and her mother stood holding on to each other and watching the wolf pad toward them. It gave them a baleful look and passed by Kami, so close she could feel the thick fur brush the thin cotton material of her pajamas. The creature could have clamped its jaws down on her leg. It could have leaped at her, knocked her down, and torn out her throat.

It continued to trot steadily on, and they turned to keep it in sight. The animal crossed the stretch of cobbles to where its master stood. He was standing beneath one of the streetlights. His hair glowed the same fierce yellow as the wolf's eyes.

“You're right to be afraid, Claire,” said Rob Lynburn.

Kami summoned every drop of magic she might possibly still have left. It was like drawing down a bucket into a dry well, hearing it scrape the sides and clatter in the dust at the bottom. Her mother's fingers bit into her arm, the sharp sudden pain drawing her attention.

“Don't scream,” Mum murmured.

Kami understood. Jared and Ash had no magic; only Lillian had power, and she was not strong enough to stand against Rob with any certainty. Everyone else was helpless, and everyone else included Dad and, worse than that, Tomo and Ten. They could not put the boys at risk.

She could already feel Ash's alarm, beating at her fragile calm like a battering ram into doors of glass.

Don't come,
she said.
Don't tell anyone, don't help us. Keep going, say we're fine. Make them keep going until you have my brothers somewhere safe.

“You didn't think the house would be enough to pay for what you did?”

It appeared to be a rhetorical question. Rob did not have the air of someone looking for answers. He took a step toward them and Kami saw the new stiffness of the motion, the wince as he set down his bad foot. A smile curled Kami's mouth without her mind giving permission, and Rob's face darkened.