covencraft 04 - dry spells (27 page)

Whether Seth didn’t know Jade was connecting to Lily at that moment or didn’t care, Jade wasn’t sure. He continued speaking as though either or both could be true. “I’ve been in this moment, trying to understand, trying to unravel a legacy of shock and trauma for
years
. What does it mean? How can it be repaired? How can I understand it? And if I cannot, how do I fix it?”

A cold sweat broke out across Jade’s upper lip, her vision doubling. She saw both the road in front of her and through Lily’s eyes. Lily was at the Coven, at Jade’s desk in Counter-Magic. It was comforting to see the mundane details of her regular life through Lily’s eyes. The computer monitors, the keyboard, the Hello Kitty USB stick, the dancing flower, random post it notes on her desk top.

Where are you?
Lily’s voice echoed in Jade’s head.

They call it the Dearth.
Jade tried to convey the immense nothingness to Lily: the vast expanse, the strangeness, the unnaturalness of the place.

You’re so upset. Why?

Jade didn’t know how to explain, didn’t know how to say Seth was upsetting her. She had spent years not speaking of what happened. Not speaking of their shared experience. How they’d been there together, both jockeying for power, both thinking they could get out if only they were in control. The horrible power struggle in their mind as they were attacked. Their shared regret and remorse - both of them thinking if they hadn’t struggled against
each other
, they would have been able to fight off their date. Instead of trying to tell Lily things she didn’t know how to articulate, Jade surrendered herself to their connection, letting Lily drift into her mind. Now, their positions were reversed. Lily looked through Jade’s eyes. Saw the expanse of the Dearth in front of her, saw the harsh light, the strange vegetation and heard Seth’s voice.

“Maybe I’ve been trying to heal the repercussions of an ordeal I can never understand,” Seth continued.

What is he talking about?

I don’t know, I don’t know, but he won’t stop.
Jade thought there was no feeling in the Dearth. No pain, no sensation. But there must be something because she felt ‘fight or flight’ playing tug of war with her insides. She was unable to do either. She exhaled sharply.

“Stop,” Lily commanded, her voice coming through Jade’s mouth.

Seth turned to look at her sharply. “Well, well, well. Is this conversation so awful, Possum, that you felt it necessary to bring in your understudy?”

“She doesn’t know what you want from her. I don’t know what you want from her.” Lily spoke the words from Jade’s mouth. Jade felt the heavy liquid from the saloon sloshing in her stomach. It sat thick in Jade’s gut, rolling around oily inside her. Lily recoiled from the sensation.

“I want to know, what hope is there? What guidance can be given?” Seth asked.

Jade flexed her hands, opening and closing her fingers. Lily’s presence sat on top of hers, like a cool cotton blanket on hot day; you didn’t think you needed it, but it sure was nice when the wind picked up. Jade felt the door handle in her grip suddenly, with no memory of having reached out to grasp the thin, metal spike.

“I still don’t know what you want.” Jade didn’t know if she was speaking or Lily. Or perhaps both of them. But the need to escape was sharp and jagged, digging at her chest and gut. The door handle was an ejection switch. She wondered if she pulled it, could she could throw herself out of the car, away from Seth.

No
. Lily’s voice was resolute in Jade’s mind.

I’ll survive. I won’t die in the Dearth. I can’t.

“There are no physical reactions in the Dearth,” Seth said conversationally, mirroring Jade’s thoughts toward Lily. His tone was conversational, as though Jade wasn’t about to throw herself out of the car. “The only reactions available to the mortal condition, to any condition, are the emotional.”

“What do you want?”

“I want you to tell me what would make you release your past. What could I do to put it to rights?”

“Nothing.” The word was out of her mouth before she knew she was going to say it. “There’s nothing you can do.” Jade pushed the words at Lily as well, feeling a selfish, resentful flare.
Stop making me think about it, stop trying to make me talk about it.
He makes me feel the same as when you push me to talk about it.

Jade felt Lily flinch, felt her shock and surprise at Jade’s words. And then she was gone, leaving Jade once more alone in her mind.

Seth sighed. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

#

“
I saw her. I was with her.”

At Lily’s words, Paris sat straighter at the table. “When?”

Lily came the rest of the way down the spiral staircase to the dungeon. “Just now, at my desk. Her desk, I mean. I saw her. In the Dearth.”

“What’s the Dearth?” Paris asked. Thankfully, they didn’t have to worry about being overheard. There was no one else in the dungeon. The library-slash-dungeon wasn’t horribly popular among witches who preferred to use spells they already knew. No one had need of deeper, more intense magic. Even Callie didn’t so much use the library as maintain it. Callie came out from her station as Lily came down the stairs, her large brown eyes focused wholly on Lily.

“It’s what they call it. The demon world, it’s called the Dearth. There’s nothing there. Just miles of nothing. It’s so strange.” Lily’s tone was borderline manic. More rambling than structured speech. Callie stepped up next to her and put her arm over Lily’s shoulder. Lily flinched and then seemed to recover herself, her lips quirking slightly at Callie in thanks as she leaned toward the smaller woman.

“What happened?”

“She’s still in the car,” Lily said as Callie led her to a chair and sat her down. “With Seth. They’re going somewhere. I don’t know, I didn’t pick up on where. But they’re traveling.”

“How did you connect with her?” Paris asked, turning his chair sideways, the grimoire forgotten as he focused on Lily.

“I didn’t. She found me. It’s always stronger from her end. Especially when she needs me.”

Paris paused at those words. “Why did she need you?”

“She - He -” Lily paused, her gaze flicking to Callie, then to Paris and then down.

“Why don’t I go see if I can find you some water?” Callie said. Though there was a fully functional bathroom and a small kitchenette in the dungeon, Callie made a production of picking up her purse and heading up the stairs, giving them privacy.

“I can see why you’re friends,” Lily said, drawing Paris’ attention from Callie’s retreating form. “And why Jade likes her so much. She’s nice.” Lily’s brow frowned. “That’s a horrible non-qualifier. Such a bland word. But she is. She’s very nice. It’s been good for Jade to have friends. She didn’t have many before. I had friends, but Jade, she always… and then afterward…” Lily swallowed and blinked, her eyes watery and slightly red.

Paris’ kept his tone steady as he spoke, though it wasn’t easy. “What did you see? In the…Dearth?” He still felt as though he was trying the word out, learning the shape of it in his mouth.

“She’s traveling with Seth.”

“And she called for you?” Paris asked. He wasn’t certain that was the case, but the way Lily had spoken earlier, had spoken of Jade needing her, made him suspect it was what happened.

Lily nodded. “He needles her. He always likes to needle her.”

“What was he needling her about?” he asked, mimicking her words.

Lily paused, her eyes darting off to the side, her mouth open. She struggled for words and he took pity on her.

“It’s all right. I don’t need to know,” Paris said, even though he felt he did. What could the demon say to Jade that would upset her? Make her so upset that she punched through space and time to find Lily?

Lily swallowed, making a loud and somewhat ugly sound in the depth of the dungeon and then she laughed, a mirthless noise. Paris stilled and kept himself focused on her, even as she pulled in on herself.

“I didn’t know it was like this. I didn’t know what it would be like to be alone. I thought I knew, but…” Fat tears escaped from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.

“What do you mean?” Paris asked, his tone low.

“When I left Jade. Before,” Lily continued. Her eyes moved from the wall where they had been blankly staring and suddenly focused on him, the green of them sharp and clear against the red tinge of her sclera. “I made her do it. I
made
her. She didn’t want to, but I asked her to and she could never say no to me. And I knew that. I knew if I asked her to end it all, she would. Because I didn’t want to be responsible. I didn’t want to be the one holding the razor and I turned my mind from the feel of it in our hand and I told her to do it. I told her if she loved me she’d do it and she did.” Lily rubbed the thumb of her left hand obsessively against her the skin of her right forearm and Paris had the sudden, sick thought that he understood what she was saying.

“You tried to kill yourself,” he whispered.

“I
did
kill myself. Or, I guess, I made her do it. I
told
her to,” Lily repeated. “I told her. It was what I wanted and she couldn’t, wouldn’t, say no to me. I made her do it. I don’t know how she survived. It was supposed to be both of us. I didn’t know it would be just me.”

“What happened?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to know, wasn’t sure it mattered, but the question left his lips anyway.

“Do you know what that’s like?” Lily asked, ignoring his question. Her eyes holding his. “To have that kind of power over someone? To know you can ask them to do something, anything, and they’ll say yes? You’re not really asking them, are you? You’re telling them. If they can’t say no, it’s not a question, is it?”

He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t understand their relationship. All he could think about was Jade. Jade’s face when she woke up in the infirmary and saw Lily for the first time since she’d appeared in the lake. Jade’s voice, saying she was sorry, she hadn’t meant to. Then Lily’s saying she never should have asked.

“You made her do it,” he repeated, his brain finally putting the pieces together. Lily had wanted to die and had asked Jade to do it. Jade hadn’t been able to tell her no.

A look of horror came over Lily’s face and her color went ash and somewhat green. “Oh my god. I’m just like him. I’m just like
him
. I made her.” She raised a hand to her mouth, covering it, as though she might vomit at any moment.

“It’s all right,” Paris said instinctively, raising a hand to rest on her knee. “It’s all right.”

Lily shook her head.

“She loves you.” Though he’d never actually heard Jade utter the words, Paris knew it to be true. Jade loved Lily. Loved her in a way he couldn’t define. Perhaps like a sister, or a friend, or something more than both those things. He didn’t know.

“If she couldn’t say no to me, and I knew that, then I’m just like him.”

“Who?” he asked. “Seth? Is Seth forcing her to do something?”

Lily shook her head and paused, gathering herself and taking a deep breath. She stared at him frankly. “You care for her, don’t you?” she asked.

Paris nodded. “Yes. I do. She’s part of my Coven.”

Lily half-rolled her eyes. “But more than that, right? The way you look at her, the way she looks at you. I know I just got here, but it’s real, isn’t it?”

He nodded, his body answering before his mind was ready to. “Yes, I believe so. No one in the Coven treats me as she does. She has no fear of me. She knows I’m powerful, but she’s powerful too.”

His whole life, everyone he met knew he was meant to be Coven Leader and treated him as such. He always felt separate and apart from people. They treated him as Coven Leader first and a person second. Jade had no notion of what it meant for him to be Coven Leader. When he was with her, he felt like she saw him first and his position second. He’d never had that before.

Lily nodded. “She likes you.” She said it lowly, quietly, as if it were a secret. “She doesn’t know what to do with it. She’s never felt for anyone the way she feels for you. Sometimes…” Lily’s eyes looked away from his and went far away. “I didn’t realize she was always like that. Even before. But she was. She didn’t feel things for people, men or women, the way I did. Although she was happy to go along with me when I felt something.” Lily’s brow furrowed, her eyes going sharp and wet again. “And maybe I broke things when I… “ She shook her head. “She never liked
him
.” Lily said the pronoun like it was a dirty word. Paris struggled to keep up with what she was saying. “And I thought it was because… I thought she was mad or jealous because I liked him and maybe she was tired of doing what I wanted, of just being a passenger in my life. Because it was always like that. No one knew her name, no one knew she existed. We went by my name, we did the things I wanted to do, and I thought… I thought maybe she was jealous.” Lily shook her head. “But she wasn’t. He was -” She swallowed. “She never liked him and I ignored her.”

“Who?”

Lily rubbed her face, spreading eye makeup everywhere. Purple and black marred her eyes, her lipstick worn and feathering. “He was just some guy. Some guy I liked. It doesn’t even matter what his name was. I thought he was a nice guy and Jade didn’t like him. But I was so tired,
so tired
of sharing everything all the time. I remembered what it was like to be alone, to be singular and I knew
we
were wrong, but I didn’t know how or why. I resented her for it.” The last part came out as a whisper. “When she told me she didn’t like him, I thought she was jealous. Jealous that I felt things for him she didn’t, she
couldn’t
. I ignored her. I said things.”

Paris was slowly putting the pieces together in his mind. Seeing the two of them - Lily and Jade - sharing everything, but being two very different women. “You wanted to be with someone and Jade didn’t like him. And unfortunately, she saw something in him you didn’t.”

Lily nodded. “He hurt us.” Paris felt his stomach clench at her words, at the stark simplicity of them and what they implied. “Maybe if I’d listened to her, it wouldn’t have happened.”