The Danger of Destiny (30 page)

“He didn't offer to share his knowledge. I bargained for it. I made him give it to me.”

“He's manipulated you into wanting it.”

“You don't know what you're talking about.
You
were not there.”

“I know he's shadowing you. Influencing your thinking.” Lexi's neck was blotchy with color. I tried another tack. “You know what I've been asking myself all afternoon? Why didn't
you
come last night, Lexi? You've already admitted that you were there at Daniel's Rock. I pleaded with you to come. Get me out of the trap. You said that you
couldn't
. Who stopped you?”

“You needed the Gatekeeper to return to Creemore. It was a good decision.”

“But it wasn't your first instinct, was it? When we were kids, no one could touch me when my twin brother was around. I had a hard time fighting my own battles. You were my self-designated protector. But this time, when I asked for help—begged for it—you sat back and sent someone else.”

“You have to stop comparing me to the boy I was.”

I thought back, trying to piece my cloudy memory of last night into a more solid picture. “You were shouting at the Old Mage. You told him that you didn't care what it cost you. You demanded that he let you take my pain.”
My twin's voice had been so urgent, so desperate.
“What did it cost you? What did you have to give up to him?”

“Just leave it, shrimp.”

“I'm going to enjoy ripping his cyreath from yours.” I leaned forward until my face was in spitting distance of my twin's. “Can you hear that, old man? I'm going to hold you to your promise! I will not release you from your vow!”

A deep, dull flush spread over Lexi's cheeks. “If I ask you to release my mage from his vow, you will.”

“Don't count on it.”

“It is my life.” Flickers of green light spat from my brother's translucent eyes, a presage of a full flare.

Frustration searched for release and found none. My head throbbed with the urge to pound my brother. I drew in a shaky breath. “Can't you see that the Mage has mined you for your weaknesses? He's preying on your desire for magic. He keeps moving the magic-carrot, and you keep following it all the way into the blue fog. Don't go there again. You'll get lost in Threall and his magic and you'll never come back.”

“I need a few more hours.” He stretched out his leg.

“Why?” I exploded. “Haven't you learned enough magic to satisfy yourself? You just told me that you know as much as the Black Mage! How much more does any man need?”

“I need to ruin Helzekiel as he's ruined me.”

Oh, Lexi. Is that how you see yourself?
My tone softened. “You're not ruined. You're just a bit dented.”

He stared at the toe of his boot for a long time, then said, “You don't know what he did to me.”

“No.” My voice was a thin whisper. “But I can guess.”

He paled and looked away.

“Come home with me,” I said. “We'll leave this world behind us.”

“You won't be going home.”

“Yes, we will. And when we do, you can start over.”

“I can't be a wolf in your mate's territory.” He shook his head. “My beast will challenge Trowbridge.”

That would be very, very bad. “You can control your wolf.”

“Not without sun potion. He's inside me. Pacing all the time. Waiting to get out again.” Lexi pulled at the sheet of moss coating the log. It came away in his hand, the size of a slice of Wonder Bread. He squeezed it, testing its density. “I only met him once—just one night—but it was long enough for me to know that he was dominant. And he's far more aggressive than I ever remember Trowbridge's father being. He wants to rule. He wants his own land, his own pack. He'll risk everything, kill anyone, to get it.”

“We'll think of something.” A very strong steel cage or a plot of land way up north far away from other people.

“Give it up, Hell.” He tried to re-place the moss. It sprung back, refusing to knit itself back into the wound he'd made. “We both know I don't belong in Creemore. I'm like one of those antiques in Sharron's Secret Treasures.” He got up, then limped to the stream. “Is that shop still there on Elizabeth Street?”

“No.”

Nodding, he tossed the sheet of moss into the stream's current. “Your world has moved on. I didn't fit much before, but now I really don't fit. Cell phones used to be the size of walkie-talkies and only the rich and stupid had them. Now everyone's got one. People watch movies on portable computers.
Portable
computers?”

“You'll get used to technology.”

“I doubt I can even remember how to read English.” He scrubbed at the bristles at his right temple, unconsciously scraping his clawed fingers over the wolf inked above his ear. “I need to
be
someone. And who would I be in your world? A drifter with no land or position. If I stay here, I can start over. Once the court witnesses the power I can wield, every person who used to hide a sneer behind a smile will tremble in my presence.”

“Lexi, the Old Mage will
never
let you use his magic independently.”

“You do not know what he will do or won't do.” A bead of sweat ran down Lexi's throat, joining the dark line around his collar.

“Then prove it. Do something your own. Produce something magical just for me.”

“I'm not a knave who performs for the satisfaction of others.”

Weariness slid over me. “I'm right on this, Lexi. He's too possessive of his skills, too vain about his status as Old Mage, mage to the Royal Court, to ever allow you to wield
his
magic as you wish. Your mage will never let you have full control.”

“Don't forget that I made the ward over Daniel's Rock.”

“With or without the old geezer's permission?” I didn't wait for an answer—I thought I knew it already. But there was a concrete test for my hypothesis.

Please, Lexi. Let me be wrong.

Merry covered territory as she ate, frequently moving higher to graze on tender shoots. It took me a moment to find her in the elder tree.

“Are you finished feeding?” I asked.

She answered by lazily untwining a golden tendril from the twig she'd entwined herself around. A food-satiated Merry is a temporarily benevolent person, though I probably had minutes before her bonhomie began to erode. I offered her my palm. She hooked my thumb and dropped gracefully onto my offered platform.

Her supple chain spilled over the edge of my hand. I stared at its swaying length for a second, thinking of all the times her golden links had warmed my neck. Once, my only friend. I couldn't have shouldered the isolation of my existence without her friendship.

I stroked her stone, and she spoke back, her amber depths turning gold-red with affection.

“Did you hear any of that?”

Her answer was a curious blip of yellow light. Feeding is a noisy business and her hunger had been pressing. She hadn't caught the conversation.

“Lexi says he's got autonomy over his actions, and that he's got almost as much power as Helzekiel. If that's true, he should know how to unbind you from the curse that's kept you captive.”

Merry's temperature rose to near blistering. Her stone pulsed purple.

“You're mad at me for waiting!” I hissed, my finger curling in pain. “I should have asked him to do this right away. Before we left the rock. But I wasn't sure if I was going to be asking a favor of the Old Mage or my brother. I'm still not sure, Merry.”

A grudging pinch.

I'd received worse from her.

“It's time for the big question, Merry,” I whispered. “Are you ready?”

The points of her golden leaves turned pricker sharp. She lifted a thin arm and pointed it to the nearby tree. Ralph had morphed into a stick figure, and he stood upright on the tree's limb, arms akimbo, his stone shining brightly in the muted shade.

“Him too?” I asked.

A blip of hot red from the center of her amber belly.

I brought both hands together. “Hop on, Ralph.”

With a marked swagger, the Royal Amulet swept his chain up and tossed it over his stick arm. Then he leaped, landing neatly on my left palm. He stalked over my life line, jumped the seam between both hands, then kept going, pushing Merry up on to the Delta of Venus below my right thumb.

I shook my head. “Ralph, no one's ever going to call you smooth.”

 

Chapter Nineteen

Lexi's brows rose when I called him.

I scanned the ground for beetles, found none, and placed the amulets on a patch of tamped earth where once—ten or twelve days ago judging from the remaining musk—a small mammal had spent the night.

Prey,
said my wolf.

Merry rose to her feet first. Ralph took a fraction longer—pausing to redistribute some of his gold so that his legs were a half inch longer than hers. The reallotment of his finite gold resources made his head proportionally smaller than Merry's, but I guess the whole point was to appear taller, not brighter.

Lexi joined me. “What is it?”

My twin needed to understand what our mother's amulet had grown to mean to me. “The first time she ever spoke to me,” I said, my gaze focused on Merry, “I was trying to smother my tears into a pillow. A leaky kid really pissed off Aunt Lou.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I was doing a really lousy job of crying quietly. I kept thinking that she was Mum's sister; she had to share some of the qualities our mum had. She didn't, but it took me some time to convince myself of that.”

I'd kept challenging her in those early days.

Merry's amber took on a definite orange cast. She remembered too.

“Anyhow. Merry must have gotten tired of my tears. She pinched me under the chin.” I rolled my eyes, shaking my head. “You've got to remember I was alone in bed and Merry had never so much as twitched an ivy leaf before. Goddess, Lexi, I sat up so fast you would have thought the headless horseman had knocked on my window.” I slanted my eyes at my brother. “Do I have that right? When Mum wore her, did Merry ever move or talk?”

Lexi thought about it. “I don't think so.”

“That's what I thought.” I shook a finger at my amulet-friend. “Your sudden animation scared the crap out of me and you know it.”

Two throbs of orange from her lion-heart.

My eyes burned. “She's not an amulet. Or a piece of jewelry. She's a person. She once had a voice, and use of her arms and legs. She had free will, and a life, and all that was stolen from her the day she was cursed to live the rest of eternity as a speck inside a hunk of amber.”

“I don't see what this has to do with us.”

“You know exactly what it has to do with us. There's only three amulets of any note in the Fae realm. Merry, Ralph, and the Gatekeeper's. It's pretty obvious to me that only a very powerful mage could have worked the spell to enchant an Asrai. If it was a garden-variety conjure every Fae from the Royal Court to a farm peasant would have an amulet. So, it takes a great mage or a great mage in training to entrap a living being.” I raised my accusing eyes to his. “Which are you? You say you have free will—you say the old goat will let you use his magic at your will. If you won't perform a party trick, then do something important, something right. Prove to me that you have magic of your own when he's not at the wheel.” I waved my hand at Merry and Ralph. “Undo the spell that holds them in this prison. Give them their freedom.”

Red flags high on Lexi's cheekbones. “It's not as easy as that.”

“Could Helzekiel do it?” I spat.

And bingo. I may not have conjuring skills to match my brother's, but I sure knew the magic words. The air fairly crackled between Lexi and me as he sank down to my level. He settled his weight on the backs of his heels and cleared his throat.

Ralph edged close to Merry, whether to protect her from any further evil or to get first in line for a stint of spell breaking I couldn't tell. But both amulet hearts—one golden, one icy blue—tilted upward toward my brother as his long hands began to move in a circle over their heads.

I leaned forward, excitement tightening my gut, as my brother's lips parted.

Do it. Release them.

I don't know how long it was supposed to take or how hard he was supposed to work for it. I could only report that Lexi tried harder than a kid with a painful stutter to get those spell-breaking words out. His throat strained; his mouth grimaced.

But he couldn't push a single syllable past his tongue.

Not for seven “Mississippis.”

On the eighth, my twin's shoulders sagged and his gaze grew unfocused and I knew that he was speaking to the wizard who lived inside him.

Merry cried out—a flash of vermilion. And Ralph's arms lengthened into sharp points—twin rapiers ready to pierce flesh.

I saw all that. Peripherally. Just like I was aware that Mouse had edged closer and the Gatekeeper had struggled to her feet. I was aware of everything and nothing. My gaze was locked on Lexi's. I was looking straight into his eyes when his soul dimmed and the hot emotion that had twisted his features into a mask of frustration began to melt away.

“Don't go,” I whispered.

I doubt he heard me, for his soul had already flown away on battered wings.

Gone.

Ralph surged forward, into the valley of death, his small swords flashing.

*   *   *

The Royal Amulet took an unexpected solo flight into the unknown as the Old Mage's countermeasure against amulet charges hit him dead-on.

The mite-sized balyfire threw sparks as it impacted with Ralph's jewel. He flew, a blue comet with a long golden tail. He met the earth face-first, then torpedoed through a heavy layer of mulch, his progress unchecked until he burrowed into a tree root. I heard the clunk and saw the thatch of compost light up as if someone had hidden a string of LED lights under it.