Enchanted Ever After (Mystic Circle) (19 page)

“I didn’t know there was a chamber under the park.”

“Pred started the tunneling when he moved in, and Tiro and I have helped. It’s a beautiful room and the right place for you to become Lightfolk.”

“Oh.” She wondered what size the room was.

Rock smiled. “It will hold all major elemental races, including tall elves and djinns.”

“Ah.”

“Anyway, I was to tell you that you may have the chamber to become Lightfolk in. Thank you for the chocolate.”

He sank straight into her floor and was gone.

* * *

When Kiri entered the Indian restaurant, she found both Shannon and Averill waiting. She hadn’t anticipated Averill, but supposed she should have. Hurrying over, she hugged them both, saying the first thing that came to mind. “You ever think that most of the time we’re together it’s when we’re eating?”

“You wanted to talk today and it’s lunchtime,” Averill said, holding Shannon’s chair, then Kiri’s. They’d put her between them. “So we eat.”

“Good company always demands good food,” Shannon said. “We ordered the Chicken Tikka Masala for you.”

Hard to complain, since Kiri always got Chicken Tikka Masala here and she’d already salivated when she opened the doors and smelled food.

Shannon leaned over and grabbed Kiri’s hands. “So tell us the news. Did you hear already...did you get the job?”

Kiri swallowed hard and marshaled her words for misdirection or outright lying. At least she could start with the truth. “I got the job.”

“Yay!” Shannon pumped her fist.

Averill smiled but his gaze was intent. “Did you accept the job?”

“Yes.”

“But?” he pressed.

“But they want me to go away for some in-depth training.” Kiri had decided this would be best if she had to spend time learning to be a different magical being, and if she didn’t survive the transformation, she’d leave it to Aric to come up with an accident for her friends. She’d already paid her debts, made her will and left her meager savings and her house to Shannon.

“Oh.” Shannon pouted, then poured the floral tea into each of their cups.

“Are you going to be able to stay in Denver?” Averill asked.

Kiri met his eyes. “I don’t know. But I’ll stay in touch with you.”

“But you love your house and Mystic Circle!” Shannon objected.

“I do. And I love you.” She leaned over to Shannon and kissed her, then did the same to Averill.

He smiled as the waiter came up with the food. “Life changes.”

“Yes, it does.” She relaxed her shoulders, grabbed an instant of calm serenity and lifted her handleless teacup, smiling at Shannon. “You’re having a baby. That’s a huge change. To life and to changes!”

They clinked their cups in a toast and Kiri thought she could feel the love. They ate and talked and were cheerful.

When they were ready to leave, Kiri knew she’d always remember the image of them as they stood together, the feel of them as they hugged her.

She’d returned to Mystic Circle by one-thirty, walked out to look at the koi—and saw Jenni and Lathyr and Aric sitting on the Emberdrakes’ front porch.

Watching her. Waiting for her.

Chapter 20

HER BREATH COMING
short and choppy in her chest, Kiri crossed over to meet the people of Eight Corp. Ascending the steps to the Emberdrakes’ enclosed porch kept her breathless and she struggled to look calm as she tapped on the door.

Aric and Lathyr rose. Jenni rocked in a bentwood rocker. Aric held the door open and gestured to a rattan chair. All the furniture was brand-new.

“Well?” Jenni asked.

Kiri rubbed her tongue on the roof of her mouth to give herself some spit to answer. Lathyr reached over to an unopened bottle of raspberry fizzy water on a glass-topped table, broke the top seal and handed it to her.

She could read nothing from his expression. Aric had propped himself against the wall, arms crossed, face mildly interested.

Jenni stopped and stared at Kiri, as if willing her to give Jenni the answer she wanted.

“Yes,” Kiri said. “I wish to try the transformation.”

Jenni leaped up, whooping, shot across the couple of yards and hugged Kiri. She didn’t feel anything like Shannon, but Jenni was a friend, too, Kiri hoped. A friend and mentor who’d steer her through the whole scary process.

Then Lathyr had put his arm around Kiri’s shoulders and smiled down at her, nodding. “I think you will do very well.”

She nearly sagged with relief against him. “Thank you,” she said.

No sound announced the appearance of the King of Air, Cloudsylph, as he materialized on the opposite end of the small porch.

“You have decided to become Lightfolk,” he said matter-of-factly, looking at Kiri as both Lathyr and Aric bowed to him. Jenni rose and bowed, too.

“Yes,” Kiri said. She bobbed her knees in a feeble curtsy.

The King nodded, not meeting her gaze, probably because he could ensnare her so easily. “Very good. I believe the ritual should take place as soon as possible. This evening.”

Kiri stood frozen, but Jenni jerked. “We’d planned on it for Thursday afternoon, soon after the new moon.”

“I understand,” said Cloudsylph. “But I am available tonight, and I have a ritual myself on the new moon.”

“I don’t think—” Lathyr began smoothly.

“Is Ms. Palger not ready?” Cloudsylph’s beautiful silver brows rose.

Lathyr stiffened beside Kiri. “Yes.”

“It is always best to carry through immediately on an important decision. Doubts arise later. Don’t you agree?” he asked Kiri.

She nodded. She’d had doubts, had them now, wouldn’t voice them, figured she’d better damn well not feel them.

“Any doubts must be banished before you enter the ritual dance circle,” Lathyr confirmed.

Kiri nodded again, said, “I know.”

“King Cloudsylph, we would be honored for you to take part in the circle,” Aric said, his voice slightly rough.

The Air King waved a hand. “I will return to Eight Corp until I am needed for the ritual.” He glanced at the house and the Emberdrake brownies hurried out of the brick wall.

“We will begin the ceremony before moonset and end it before sunset,” said Hartha, the female brownie.

Everyone nodded, but Kiri was clueless.

Cloudsylph vanished, and those who remained relaxed. Kiri swayed on her feet and Lathyr’s arm came back around her. Nice.

“Most Lightfolk feel moon and sun phases,” he said. “Moonset is 4:38 p.m. today and sunset is 6:38 p.m.”

“We can start the ceremony at four,” Jenni said with a questioning glance at Kiri.

A little more than two hours from now. Tension seized Kiri’s muscles, then she forced herself to relax. “All right,” Kiri said. She cleared her throat. “I’ve, uh, set all my affairs in order.”

Without a word, the brownies whisked back inside.

Kiri met Jenni’s eyes. “You’ve met—at least online—my friends Shannon and Averill Johnston. They are my heirs.”

Jenni nodded.

“I think I’ll go look at the koi,” Kiri said blankly, and went back out the door. She crossed the street without looking and stared at the pond, not even seeing the fish. She stood in a daze for a couple of minutes, then headed home.

Half an hour later, a sharp, fast rat-a-tat-tat knock came at her door. She went and looked out the peephole and saw nothing. Again. No evil in Mystic Circle...so she opened the door, to Rock, the brownie. She’d learned that the brownieman didn’t really serve Jenni and Aric Emberdrake, but Jenni’s old cat, Chinook.

He strode in quickly, but with a swagger, hopped up onto the round arm of the chair and stared pointedly at the kitchen cupboards. While she was out, Kiri had bought some miniature chocolate candy bars. She put a variety in a bowl and took it to Rock.

He grinned, his eartips quivered, then his ears rolled up and down in delight. Plunging his small hands into the bowl, he stirred the candies around, then came out with one that was dark chocolate and nuts. He ate it, paper and all.

“The Princess and her Consort and the Sir spoke with us brownies,” he said confidingly.

Jenni, Aric and Lathyr? Kiri raised her brows. “Oh?”

Rock inclined his head until his chin touched his chest, then took another miniature, crunched it down. “We checked the new community room hub and the wheel of tunnels, and all are ready.” His little chest expanded. “We are very efficient beings. If you become one of us, you will be blessed—and welcomed, of course.”

Kiri prayed she wouldn’t become a brownie.

Rock hopped down and pulled out a paper and some small bottles from his flat pockets, a neat trick. “This is from Hartha, the Emberdrake browniefem. Instructions for your cleansing and preparation for the ritual. She will send over a robe for you a half hour before the ceremony begins.”

“Thank you,” Kiri said. Her stomach squeezed tightly. She assured herself she was committed and procedures had started.

Rock’s eyes seemed to get bigger in his face. “You will love being Lightfolk.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You will see,” he said, dropping all the chocolate candy into his pockets, which again remained flat, and trooped through the wall and outside.

Kiri sat down on the chair. Doubts were natural, so were the rationalizations, pros and cons that whirred in her mind like a hamster wheel—those that had plagued her all weekend.

Rock’s head popped through the wall and she squeaked, shrank back in her chair at the sight of the disembodied head. “I forgot to tell you to look at the door to the tunnel and the chamber in your basement. It is visible now that you can see magic, and will open to your fingers.” That said, he vanished again.

A door in her basement! A tunnel! And maybe she could get a good look at the space beforehand. Visualization was always a good tool before doing something important. It might even settle her. She glanced at the clock. Less than two hours.

She went to the basement door, turned on the lights and descended the stairs, that needed cleaning, especially if any visitors would be coming to her house from a hitherto unknown tunnel. Too late now.

And there, in the west brick wall, was a lovely door that matched the style of her house, and that neither she nor her Realtor had seen before. The frame was rectangular and wood of a light walnut color, wide with grooves and small squares with rosettes on each side at the top.

The door itself looked to be a darker wood, oak maybe. It, too, was rectangular, and the knob was one of those antique brass ones with a fussy pattern and polished so each curve and angle gleamed in the dull light.

When she touched the knob, a tingle of magic fizzed up her fingers, a feeling she was familiar with from the gloves in the game. Yes, magic, and from what she now knew, balanced elemental magic. She heard her own rapid breath, realized she had an inner trembling going on.

All the times she’d been in magical places—the executive floor of Eight Corp, the Castle at the top of Mystic Circle, even Jenni and Aric Emberdrake’s house—she’d been unaware that they’d contained magic. Now she was about to walk through a door made by brownies, traverse a tunnel made by the small beings and find the place where she’d become a magical person herself...or die.

Gigantic deal.

Two good yoga breaths and she turned the handle and opened the door and blinked at the bright and cheerful pale yellow tiles that covered the corridor.

Wow. And they were pristine.

She stepped in, then decided to leave one of her shoes in the crack of the door just in case the thing might swing shut and lock her in. Taking both trainers off, she left them and padded down the hall stocking-footed. Again magic tingled, this time with every step she took.

As she proceeded, the tiles took on a deeper color, to gold, then golden brown, then brown by the time she came to the door at the end. Another deep breath and she depressed the iron latch and stepped into a large, circular chamber.

Rock was right—it was beautiful. The walls were set with panels of various stones: cream-colored marble with gold veins, brown granite; and semiprecious stones: rose quartz, malachite, turquoise, lapis lazuli. A rainbow of stones, and the largest panel was due north and made of gold.

There were nine doors, one for each house in Mystic Circle, so the room she was in was like a large hub in the middle of a wheel, with the tunnels as spokes. She vaguely recalled some wheel images/symbols in Transformation.

Naturally the floor was mosaic. A few feet in, a pattern of rainbowed tiles began. They were set in a spiral that seemed to flow with magical energy, a path that was wide enough for one person to tread, and again the opening to that spiral path was in the north. Brownies and dwarves, earth elementals and the direction associated with earth was north.

Kiri couldn’t imagine walking straight into the center of the room without following the path. So she stood, toes flexing under her, staring at the room.

The ceiling was arched and domelike and she marveled that this was all under the lovely park in the middle of Mystic Circle. That probably should have irritated her, because she liked the park so, and worried about tree roots and whatever, but instead this place augmented the feeling of serenity she got from the park. Comforting.

The door to the north opened and Lathyr walked through.

Their eyes met, and she thought she saw yearning in his, but he simply gave a half bow. He straightened but made no move to circle the room to her.

Power pulsed, and she became aware that magic cycled through her, affecting her. If she could feel it, so might every other human. If humanity on earth had no magic in and of themselves, she and others like her would transform and claim it now, and that seemed right. Making magic their own, on their own world, seemed right.

She stood straighter.

“A lovely chamber,” Lathyr said. “Equal to any I’ve seen in the minor palaces.”

Of course there’d really be Lightfolk palaces. “Where’s—” She stopped. Would he tell her, even before she became Lightfolk? As if she were a threat to them.

She shifted feet.

“Kiri,” Lathyr said, in a deep rich voice she hadn’t heard before. “You may decide against this action up to the very moment you step onto the path to dance to the center of the circle.” He waved to the very middle of the room, a ruby heart inset into the final curl.

Dancing along the path? That hadn’t been explained to her before. She swallowed and nodded.

“But once our circle closes around you, you
must
be dedicated with all your being to becoming a Lightfolk.” His hand dropped, expression got even more intense. “I believe it will be an ordeal, Kiri, and one you must survive.”

So she voiced her deepest hope. “Do you think I can become an elfem?”

Now he crossed to her, without illusion so she saw his gliding grace. He reached out as if to take her hands like he’d done so often before, but stopped.

She took his hands, enjoyed the connection between them, the magic, hoped she didn’t show her pleasure, but kept her face properly serious. “Do you think I can become an elfem?”

He hesitated.

“Truth!” she demanded.

“In truth, then, no. I think becoming an elf is something your mind wants and not your heart.”

“And my body will follow my heart.”

His expression turned granite impassive. “I think you need to have no split in mind or heart.” He cleared his throat. “I know you like control of your life.”

“Who doesn’t?” she shot back.

He inclined his head. “But I think you may need to surrender to this. Have faith in the magic in you, in the balanced power of this place, know who you are to your depths and surrender.”

She let out a long and shaky breath. “Not a fight I should win?”

“Who would you be fighting, Kiri? The magic that will conform to your deepest wishes? If so, stop this now. Yourself? You should
not
fight yourself.”

“All right. I understand.” Breathe in and out. “Do you think I might become a sprite?” And die.

His clasp firmed around her fingers. “No. I think you have too much potential magic for that. I would not let you do this if I believed you would perish.”

That was good news, and, like he said, she heard that in her ears, her brain accepted it, but she had doubts in her heart. “What kind of Lightfolk do you think my innermost me is?”

“Truly? I believe you will become mer or naiad. Water Realm called to you, Kiri.”

“Uh-huh.”

A last squeeze of her fingers and he let them go. “You have the ability to become a dwarfem, too.”

“Not a brownie?”

“I do not believe so.”

“And you’re the best expert.”

His lips twitched a grimace. “Yes. I do not have a great deal of experience with this, but I have more than anyone else.”

“More sense of potential magic.”

He kissed her cheek. “Kiri,” he said in an American accent. “You’re loaded with it. Later.”

He moved faster than she could see and was gone, and she didn’t quite know how he had vanished.

Oh, she wanted to know those secrets. How Aric and Jenni and Lathyr appeared and disappeared. What travel powers they might have. She hadn’t asked Rock, who had jabbered on about moving through the earth, a power both brownies and dwarves had, and she wasn’t sure how fast that was. But with magic everything could be fast.