Enchanted No More

She hadn’t changed enough. Today’s events had made that painfully clear in so many ways. “You’re going with me.”

He nodded, no muscle of his face soft. “I remain your liaison.”

She shook her head, gestured to the place setting Hartha had made for him. “Then we should speak of saving Rothly.” Before she sat, Jenni extended her senses for any negative energy in her home or Mystic Circle—and discovered the area was better shielded than ever. The brownies and Aric had helped…and her neighbors were reinforcing it a bit. There also seemed to be some dryad Treefolk magic from the parklike center of the cul-de-sac. “We must go to Northumberland first.”

Aric flinched.

So he didn’t want to relive memories there, either? Too bad for both of them. After a deep breath that brought no relief, Jenni said, “I must see if Rothly left any notes about where he was going, and discover if he made any of the special tea that helps me enter the interdimension.” She let stew broth dribble from her spoon.

Frowning, Aric dipped his bread in the stew and ate, then said, “You didn’t need the tea often…before.”

He meant all of them, the Mistweavers, and when she lived with her family.

“The tea can be helpful even when one steps into the interdimension daily.” She scowled. She was talking as if there was more than one whole elemental balancer in the world. There wasn’t. There was only her. Hunching a shoulder, she shrugged the reality of the thought away, met Aric’s eyes. “I haven’t been traveling to the interdimension much.”

“Then it is all the more impressive that Mystic Circle and Denver are so well balanced with the four elemental magics,” Aric said softly.

A compliment. It made her throat tighten with longing for the past. Which she had to put behind her or doom them all with her uncontrolled emotions.

“Northumberland, eh?” Aric asked.

“Yes.”

He spooned up more stew, ate. When he met her eyes, his own were resigned. A corner of his mouth twisted. “A journey to Northumberland before a quest to save Rothly before a mission to help the whole magical community—”

“The Lightfolk,” Jenni corrected.

Aric’s gaze was stern. “The whole magical community, and benefiting humans, too. A mission you don’t want to know about.”

“After we save Rothly.” She managed a bite or two. Her mouth savored rich beef, but her stomach remained tense.

“About this Dark one—”

Hartha appeared, shook her finger at Aric’s nose, rumbled something in her own language, gestured to Jenni.

Aric nodded. “The browniefem’s right, such talk will definitely upset your digestion.”

Another bite before Jenni replied, “Her name is Hartha.”

“That I know, but she hasn’t given me leave to use it.”

Quiet sifted through the room, and the quality of it—gold from the brownies’ homey glow globes and the soft shades of summer green that Aric brought with him—soothed Jenni. As if this was a standard meal among family instead of two people ready to embark on a dangerous adventure. In that quiet lilted by Chinook’s purr, Jenni ate her entire meal. As soon as she put her spoon down, Hartha whisked the remains away with invisible speed.

Aric stood, turned slowly in the room as if testing the elemental energies, shields and threat. He nodded. “The Dark one can’t come nearer than that business district in the south.”

Jenni shivered at the recollection of what had happened there, expected Hartha to show up and reveal all the circumstances of her save. Leaving Jenni as emotionally naked as she had been physically and energy-wise when Hartha had found her earlier. But Hartha remained in the kitchen, actually making a little noise to show she wouldn’t be interfering. Jenni had to tighten a slack jaw at that. The brownies were loyal.

She stood and angled her body toward Aric’s again, but this time not in a face-off, this time her legs moved her almost in reflex to how she’d stood near him…before…but she didn’t step back.

He did.

That hurt but she mixed the pain of it with the renewed fear of the Dark one when she met Aric’s eyes, and got out the most important aspect of the attack first. “I believe he was the one who killed my family.”

CHAPTER 6

ARIC’S SUCKED BREATH CARRIED THE NOTE of a gale tossing leaves. He swept his arms in circles, vertical and horizontal, adding a layer of muffling spells, then said, “Kondrian.”

The inner, heavy plastic storm windows trembled with clicks as the air pressure changed and Jenni shivered as her fine hair rose. She whispered, “Kondrian.”

With an effort she kept her voice conversational, but scooped up the purring Chinook, liking the heavy weight of the cat. “It said it liked…um…Mistweaver essence.” Words—though not quite the sentence—that she’d used often here at home. They wouldn’t be singled out. She couldn’t stop her question. “They know who killed my family?” She’d thought the melee of the Darkfolk ambush had been chaotic. It had seemed chaotic to her, but she wasn’t a fighter. She’d thought several beings had killed her family.

“Yes,” Aric said. “I must tell King Cloudsylph this. Mystic Circle will not let the Dark one in…or rather, it would hurt him more to attack you here than it would benefit him. You are safe for tonight.” Aric looked at Hartha, who stood shifting from foot to foot, twisting her hands in her apron as tiny sparkles of brownie glitter fell to the floor. “And I think that once Jenni is gone the neighborhood will be free of any shadleech or Darkfolk activity.”

“The Dark one had shadleeches, from its ‘estate,’” Jenni said. “They seemed to be under his control.”

Aric’s brows rose and the light caught them and showed the deep green. He’d look great with a silver brow ring.

He bowed to Hartha and Pred, who stood in the dining room, arms around each other’s waists. Then Aric bowed to her. “I must leave. Since we’re heading to Northumberland first, we’ll leave at dawn. Seven hours’ time difference between here and Northumberland.”

Dawn wasn’t that early, a few minutes after 7:00 a.m., but it would be another bright and cold day here…and probably a dim and weepy afternoon in Northumberland. Not helping her dread.

She made herself smile at Hartha and Pred. They looked right, here in her living room, as if they should always stay. “You’ll be safe here.”

The brownies nodded.

Aric donned his trench and paced from dining room to living room and back, the tail of his coat lifting. He wasn’t suppressing any of his magic around her. Jenni wondered if that was a good or bad sign.

He said, “We may be able to travel to Northumberland and save Rothly without the Dark one interfering. He will be expecting you to start the mission for the Lightfolk immediately, believe that the Eight would coerce you into that.”

“Instead of just manipulating me.”

“Give your anger up at that, Jenni. Dispose of that tonight, or it will work against us and Rothly.” Harsh again. “We are not always bad. The Eight are not Darkfolk.”

“I suppose not.”

With no more than another nod he was gone out of the house, moving faster than any mortal or half mortal.

Jenni turned to the brownies. “Chinook and I are glad you are here.”

The brownies bowed together, once again flicking luck at her and murmuring a spell. Hartha glanced at Pred and said, “We prefer not having an empty house. Looking after a family.” She glanced at the front door, and Jenni felt her ears heat. The brownies knew she and Aric had been lovers and seemed to be hinting…something Jenni didn’t think she wanted.

Pred’s upper lip lifted as he stared at Chinook, still purring in Jenni’s arms. “We will take care of the feline.”

“Thank you.” Her shoulders felt stiff, there was tension in her body she hadn’t known she carried. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

“Would you like a hot toddy?” Hartha asked.

“Sure.”

Before the word was out of her mouth, a mug of chocolate laced with rum was floating before her. Trapping a small sigh in her mouth at all the magic and the loss of her human lifestyle—nothing would ever be the same—Jenni turned and let the mug bob with her to her bedroom.

She drank it, set alarms on her chiming clock and her pocket computer as if she were alone—one last attempt at normalcy—then drank the toddy and slipped into sleep.

Dreams did not come and even in sleep she was grateful.

She woke before her alarms rang and dressed in the dark. Slipping on the clothes of natural fabrics, comfortable undies with thin drawstrings instead of elastic, sewn by Hartha. More would be in the tapestry bag.

With a soft word Jenni summoned a glow globe, made her bed awkwardly around Chinook, who moved immediately to the middle. “I’m going bye-bye.” It was what she said when she stepped out for groceries, to run errands, informing Chinook she’d be the only one in the house. Not that Jenni knew how much Chinook understood.

Such innocuous words. Jenni petted Chinook, rubbing her head, as she always did. “I’ll be back.” Usually when she was going on a trip she would tell Chinook the length—five days, a week. “As soon as I can.”

She bent down and kissed Chinook between the ears. “I love you.” Always the last thing her family said to each other before going anywhere. I love you.

There was a slight shifting in the atmosphere, then Aric knocked at the front door and was admitted to her space. Jenni slipped into her wool coat, shouldered on the pack, lifted the tapestry bag and walked downstairs.

He stood in the entryway and looked up. Pain seemed to flash over his features before his expression became impassive again.

“You don’t have any bags?”

He shrugged. “We won’t be in Northumberland long today, then we’ll go to the Earth Palace where I have rooms.” He seemed to close in on himself. “Warriors travel light. Ready?” he asked. He held out a hand for her again. Another step from the mortal world into the Lightfolk and Jenni knew it. She took his warm hand.

A soft “hmm” came and Jenni turned to see Hartha and Pred standing together in the arch from the entryway to the living room.

More emotion flashed through Jenni. She wanted to bend down and hug them both, but something in their manner prevented it. So she nodded to them. “Thank you for taking care of Chinook and the house.”

“We are honored,” Hartha said in a muffled tone.

Aric opened the door and she left with him. The sound of the door shutting and the locks being flipped were metallic clicks of her old life ending.

They walked to the round park in the center of the cul-de-sac. Then he stepped into a pine not wide enough for him and pulled her after.

There was the smell of resin and the harsh caress of bark. Jenni didn’t know how the trees—and the dryad’s homes—were larger on the inside than the outside. Some sort of inner space that the Treefolk called greenspace or greenhome, just as the Mistweavers had called the misty place the interdimension.

Greenspace was still on Earth—if you considered living in the spaces between atoms as solid reality. Jenni just accepted it as magic.

So they went through the tree into the greenspace and Jenni caught a brief glimpse of a dryad’s living room. Aric angled his body and there was a whooshing sound and a feeling of rushing.

They stepped out of the ring of beeches in the patch of forest and into a gray, early afternoon. Before them was the long, low house against the hill, and Jenni’s heart lurched into her throat. Her eyes stung. She hadn’t seen her childhood home for over fifteen years. It was so dear.

For a few seconds, she couldn’t get her feet to move, she just stood and stared at the two-story house of gray stone, long side facing her and two wings on each side angled back toward the hill, forming a small courtyard in the back. A courtyard where the family spent most of their time, usually noisy with their talk and shouts.

She found wetness on her cheeks. Not tears, rain. She shivered. The day was cold and wet and she wasn’t used to the humidity of a relatively near ocean. Now she lived in the middle of a huge continent. The air wasn’t as thin as a mile high, either. Clamminess coated her skin, tightened her hair until she thought she could hear a twang as individual strands curled.

The breath she dragged in was thick and the damp seeped into her skin until she shivered again. So different than Denver, this humid cold, this dense air. How had her half-djinn mother and her half-elf father and all her brothers and sisters managed?

Because it had been home, and was in a land steeped in magic, richer and more ancient than that of Denver, a mixture of Lightfolk races who had lived there for centuries and worked magic.

Aric’s fingers touched the small of her back as she shivered again. “I’m here with you. Let’s go in.” She thought she heard him gulp, but disregarded that notion because the smooth, in-control guy that he’d become wouldn’t do something so nervous.

She was glad of his touch, the touch of a pure magical being, of a man who hadn’t been raised here, wouldn’t cherish this place more than Denver.

This wasn’t home anymore.

Her particular fire and air—and human—nature preferred where she lived now, a bustling city with towering mountains in the distance instead of huddled against a hill in a bit of forest with the ocean an hour and a half away.

Aric’s hand flattened against the small of her back and she realized she hadn’t moved, so now she did, to get away from that warmth sending sensual tendrils unfurling through her. He kept pace with her, his fingertips still in contact with her, and she wondered at it.

She stepped up to the house. Would Rothly’s silver-and-salt spell that disowned her keep her from opening the door? Or would the house spells still recognize her as family?

The door was blue-gray with a tarnished brass knocker. The tint had faded from glossy to flat. It hadn’t been repainted in a long time.

Jenni braced herself before she put her hand on the ornate brass knob that was covered in fire runes…from her mother.

More hurt, deeper hurt, welled through her.

“We need to find your brother,” Aric said.

The knob was warm under her hand and it turned easily. Jenni stepped inside her old home.

Anger slammed against her, pushing her back into a solid Aric.

Rothly’s anger, both directed at her that she dared to come into his space, and a long-term ire that pervaded the place.

Jenni panted through the constriction of her chest, striving to pull a trickle of air into her lungs. An air-and-fire spell directed at them! The spell tightened over them like a net, choking, heating, burning.

Aric shuddered behind her and she turned. He was against the closed door and she was against him. His skin had darkened, taken on a coarser texture more like bark. He was half elf, half-dryad Treefolk, he didn’t need as much air as she.

Faint steam radiated from him, the ends of his hair crisping. She hadn’t felt the fire as much as the air.

Aric was turning browner. His hair became greener, and he’d lost a sizzling inch that sent a fragrance like burning redwood needles into the air.

Rothly had tailored a spell to both of them, to his sister and his friend. Disowning all friendship, all bonds. She and Aric could die!

Jenni widened her stance, struggled to inhale. Any spell Rothly had crafted, she should be able to unravel.

Time was too short to step into the gray mist. She wasn’t prepared. She couldn’t push through Rothly’s spell to reach the older ones that the rest of her family, and she herself, had crafted.

She only had a few seconds.

So she visualized her new home—high, dry Denver, with the thin air of altitude—stripped the humidity from the air of Rothly’s spell and pulled enough in to survive. She leaned against Aric’s solid strength, twined her fingers with his and heated his cooler body to her own skin temperature, sharing the protection of her fire nature. As his temperature equalized to that of the spell, he stopped burning.

Good. She looked at the spell. It was frayed in one corner. Rothly’s magic was crippled. Jenni mentally reached for a loose thread and yanked. The net vanished.

A tremor went through Aric, starting at his feet and raising his hair, accompanied by the sound of rattling leaves. Jenni realized she was still measured against his full length, righted herself and stepped away. She made a show of looking around the living room that hadn’t changed at all as Aric settled.

Something else hit her…but not with a slam, more like a whisper that coated her, sank into her, alerting all her senses. This was not the home she remembered. Her tapestry bag fell from limp fingers.

Scent came first. The fragrance of elf and djinn and human wasn’t as rich, nor were there any individual scents of her brothers and sisters, her parents. Only Rothly, and a crippled Rothly. Anger-fear-despair sweat. The slight hint of decaying magic, the astringency of healing herbs kept as potpourri, burnt as incense, used in bath and on wounds.

He was still crippled, then. Somehow Jenni had had a lingering hope that his wounds weren’t as bad as the last time she’d seen him—on a pallet in the triage area after the ambush. That his arm and magic might have healed a bit.

She grieved and this time the sharp grief wasn’t for her lost siblings and parents, but was for her remaining brother. As she stepped through the house, she understood that she had accepted the deaths of her family. It only needed her to come back here to this empty place for her to understand that.

“It’s not the same,” Aric said. He hadn’t touched her again and she was contrary enough to wish that he still did. “It’s so quiet. I’ve never heard quiet in this place.”

Jenni kept her flinch inside. She’d been ignoring the silence, focusing more on the unwholesome feelings that writhed through the atmosphere.

“Your sisters and brothers…even your parents were always cheerfully loud.”

Jenni gritted her teeth. “That’s right.”

Aric frowned and lines she hadn’t noticed before appeared in his forehead. He was maturing. A small tremble went through her as she did a quick calculation. He was two hundred years old, his seed would be viable soon, and he’d look for a mate. She brushed the thought aside as she feathered her hand over her coat, though the last of the rain droplets had disappeared minutes ago.

“Quiet and smells funny and…it’s out of balance.” His voice had lowered and deepened on the last. He lifted his feet one at a time and the action was slow, as if he pulled invisible roots from the ground below the shabby oriental rug and the flagstones beneath.

Jenni stilled. She’d been concentrating so much on her human senses that she hadn’t noticed. But he was right. From before she’d been born, for a century before that, this land—this house—was equal in all four elemental energies. Now there were equal parts of air and fire, but earth was about a quarter less than it should be. Water was a good two-thirds less than air or fire. The very thought of it shocked her.

After a quick breath, she nodded. “Yes. I’ll fix that before we leave.” The best practice she could have to build her skill set to save Rothly. She needed three balancings at least, with rest in between. But no resting here. “I don’t want to spend the night here. This is Rothly’s home.”

Aric grunted. “Not much of one.” He turned up his hands, spreading his fingers, testing the magic and atmosphere of the place in the way of Treefolk. “Feels like he’s just existing.” Aric’s mouth turned down. He shook his head. “Full of anger and grief.” There was a pause. “Like you, though worse than yours.”

“I’m not crippled,” Jenni said.

“Not physically or magically,” Aric agreed.

Jenni stomped away from him—through the house to the kitchen. It was clean and soulless, though it appeared the same as when her mother and sisters were alive. Jenni and her mother and one of her sisters—the one with more djinn than elf nature—had loved cooking. Together. Jenni’s throat closed and she pushed through the kitchen to the pantry. Her mouth twisted as she recalled that she’d painted her own kitchen the same creamy yellow.

She stopped in the large pantry, turned to the glass-fronted cabinets on her left that were for magical ingredients—and found it full of both the makings for the special tea and the tea itself. Pounds of it, stored in large tin containers. It appeared as if Rothly had made enough for her whole family for a decade—or enough to boost his crippled magic for a vital, dangerous mission?

Her heart simply ached. The tins had been labeled with the date…no more than two and a half weeks ago. After Jenni had refused the dwarf at her door and the mission of the Lightfolk.

Thrusting that thought and guilt away, Jenni flicked her fingers to let the steam roiling within her out and banish negative emotions. She took off her backpack and flipped back the flap, then opened the cabinet. The canister was a large, squarish tin with rounded edges. She took it, pried open the top and sniffed.

A wave of dizziness engulfed her. The edges of her vision grayed and thinned to mist…. This was a prime mixture of the tea. Better than Rothly had ever made before. He’d taken more care with it. He’d had to. He was lucky even a nonmagical human could make the tea…the magic was in when the herbs were cut, how they were dried and the processing itself.

With an impatient shrug, Jenni poured the concoction into a smaller tin, plenty enough to see her through a couple of years of intense daily balancing.

She’d brew the potion to balance this place before she left, as well as filling a few travel vials for emergencies.

Aric watched from the doorway but said nothing. She glanced at him. “Maybe you could check the library.” She cleared her voice. “And Dad’s study to see if Rothly left any notes?”

Nodding, Aric left and Jenni let out a relieved breath. She didn’t think Aric had the nose or the magical sense or training to sort out the mixture of herbs, but she felt better keeping him away from the family secret.

They should have separated the moment they walked into the place. Why had he followed her to the kitchen, the heart of the house when her family had been alive? Maybe he, too, missed them.

The thought insinuated itself into her emotions and she couldn’t rid herself of it. He’d told her that he’d grieved, hadn’t he? She hadn’t allowed herself to believe him. Was she so selfish in her grief? As selfish as Rothly had been. Calming her feelings, she settled into her own balance, unfocused her eyes and murmured the proper words over the tea mixture to reinforce Rothly’s arrhythmic and limping spell. This would boost the magical properties of the herbs, keep them fresh.

When her tin was stowed in her pack, she went to see if Aric had discovered anything. As she entered the hallway bisecting the house, she comprehended that he wasn’t on the ground floor that held the library and den. He wasn’t even in the sunroom that ran the length of the back of the house. He was upstairs where the bed rooms were.

Jenni hadn’t planned on going upstairs, hadn’t wanted to. From what she’d already experienced since she’d walked into the house, she was damn sure that her bedroom wouldn’t be as she had left it.

She hesitated, but couldn’t bear to leave Aric alone with her family’s things. Slowly she took the stairs to the second floor. They creaked beneath her feet. When she turned right at the top of the landing, shadows laddered the hallway. The dim light let in by the window at the end was watery—like tears instead of rain.

The hall was full of silent squares of closed white doors, except one. The door to her parents’ room was open and Aric stood as if frozen outside it. She thought she saw a silver glinting line on his cheek.

“What are you doing here?” She’d wanted her voice to be strong, to snap, but it was barely a whisper disturbing the silence.