Praise for the novels of
ROBIN D. OWENS

“A multi-faceted, fast-paced gem of a book.”

—The Best Reviews on Guardian of Honor

“This book will enchant readers who enjoy strong heroines.”

—RT Book Reviews on Sorceress of Flight

“Fans of Anne McCaffrey and Mercedes Lackey will appreciate the novel’s honorable protagonists and their lively animal companions.”

—Publishers Weekly on Protector of the Flight

“Strong characterization combined with deadly danger make this story vibrate with emotional resonance. Stay tuned as events accelerate toward the final battle.”

—RT Book Reviews on Keepers of the Flame

“A glorious end to the series.”

Wild on Books Reviews on Echoes in the Dark

Enchanted No More
Robin D. Owens

To the Word Warriors and Lisa (Crash)

Enchanted No More

Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

Acknowledgments

CHAPTER 1

A late January night, Denver

JENNI WEAVERS’S SKIN PRICKLED AS THE heaviness of ancient earth magic crossed her front boundary and marched up her sidewalk to her front porch.

A dwarf was at the door. The magical kind of dwarf, from the Lightfolk. He waited for her to acknowledge him. He could wait forever. She wasn’t budging from her second-floor office.

The doorbell rang, a fruity ripple of notes that she’d gotten used to since she’d bought the house, and had begun to actually like. She would not open the door. She’d been dodging phone calls from strange numbers for days. The doorbell sounded again. She stared out the window, nothing to see but dark, no moon tonight, and her neighbors’ windows weren’t lit. The doorbell rang a third time. And the clear phone on her desk lit up and trilled. And her cell in her bedroom warbled “The Ride of the Valkyries.” She was afraid if she answered the door the tune might become all too appropriate.

She set her teeth, turned up her computer speakers and continued typing. The final tweaks to the new little story line for the mass multiplayer online game were due tonight.

Her computer died an unnatural death.

A supernatural death.

A touch-of-fey death.

She stared at it openmouthed.

The ringing and ringing and ringing went on.

Stomping downstairs in her fuzzy slippers, she peered out the peephole and saw no one, not on the drafty covered porch or the stoop beyond. Definitely a full-blooded dwarf if she couldn’t see him.

Another bad sign.

She shouldn’t open the door, but didn’t think the dwarf would go away or her computer would come back on until she responded to all the noise.

Her cell tune changed to “Hall of the Mountain King.” She hadn’t programmed that in.

Hard raps against the door—of course he wouldn’t use the silver Hand of Fatima knocker.

Knowing she was making a mistake, she opened the door. Recognized and stared down at a dapperly dressed dwarf in a dark gray tux. Drifmar. “What part of ‘never darken my door again’ did you Lightfolk not understand?”

He smiled ingratiatingly, addressed her by her birth name. “Mistress Jindesfarne Mistweaver, we’ve found a pair of brownies who’d indenture themselves to you, despite your many cats. A token of our esteem.” He swept a hand toward two small beings—shorter and thinner than the four-foot solidly built dwarf—shivering in the late-January cold. The long tips of their furry ears folded in for warmth. Both male and female were dressed only in white shorts and sleeveless tops.

Jenni looked at the goodwill offering. They were scrawny and wrinkled. Their triangular faces and equally large and usually triangular ears and small vicious pointy teeth made them look as mean as wet cats. They wrapped their arms around themselves and leaned together.

“I don’t need household help,” she said. “I am a productive member of human society, I have a cleaning team every month.”

“You have a squirrel hole in your eaves above the door,” Drifmar, the dwarf, pointed out.

“I like the squirrel hole,” Jenni insisted. “I like the squirrels.”

The brownies perked up.

The dwarf bowed. “Mistress Jindesfarne, we have great problems.”

“Always great problems around. No.” She slammed the door.

He stuck his foot in it and the door splintered. He smiled with naturally red teeth. “Now you need the brownies.”

The brownies were looking hopeful, big brown eyes blinking at her, their thin lips turning black with cold.

Drifmar said, “You need the brownies and we need you. Let’s talk.”

“No.”

“We will make it worth your while.”

With just that sentence he ripped the scab she’d thought was a scar off the wound. Hot tears flooded her constricting throat. Her fingers trembled on the doorknob. “No. My family—my once happy, large family—talked with you fifteen years ago. Then we went on a mission to balance elemental energies while the royals opened a dimensional gate. My family died.” All except her older brother, who blamed her for the fiasco, but not more than she blamed herself.

“They saved the Kings and Queens of the Lightfolk.”

“I don’t care. The Lightfolk did not save them.” She didn’t control her magic, let her eyes go to djinn blue-flame. The brownies whipped behind the dwarf.

She got a grip on herself. It was Friday night and the sidewalks had people coming and going. Besides, losing her cool with a chief negotiator of the Lightfolk was not smart. “Most of my family is dead in the service of the Lightfolk. I have no responsibility to the Lightfolk at all.”

“Your parents taught you better.” There was a hint of a scold in his voice.

Since Jenni felt like shrieking again she kept her lips shut on words, breathed through her nose a few times, then managed to say, “Go away. Never come back.”

“You are the only one with the inherent magic to balance elements left.”

Her gut clenched. The dwarf didn’t have to remind her that her brother was crippled physically and magically. She remembered that every day and prayed for him.

She stared into Drifmar’s pale silver slit-pupil eyes. He could have no power over her, her own eyes were sheened with tears. “I am well aware of that. Go away. Never come back and if I say it three it will be.”

“Wait! We will make you a Princess of the Lightfolk, you will lack nothing for the rest of your life, your very long life. We need you for just a small job, and it’s time sensitive so the mission would be for a short time, only two months.”

Harsh laughter tore from her throat. “You can’t make a half blood a princess. Against all your rules. A small job for a great problem? I don’t believe you, and two months is eighty-four thousand, nine hundred and fifty-nine minutes more than I want to spend in Lightfolk company.” She looked down her nose. “That left you with one minute. Time’s up.”

“You’ll have power and status and money and love, whatever your heart desires.”

“I desire to be left alone by the Lightfolk.” She flicked her fingers. “Go away and that makes three!” She put her fury in it, hurled the magical geas at him, but drew on no magic around her. Not to use on such as he.

He vanished.

The brownies remained.

The male squealed, “What to do? What do we do now?”

Jenni stared at the pitiful couple. “You can come in for the night, I suppose, but just one.”

They stepped on the stone hearth, then clapped their fingers over their rolled ears and ran back to the far side of the porch. The woman looked at her reproachfully. “You have a nasty-sound scare-mouse machine.”

Jenni didn’t like the sound, either, but she’d been able to ignore it.

The man appeared interested. “You have mice. They said we would have to suffer many cats. Why do you have mice?”

Jenni sighed. “I have one old, fat, toothless calico cat.”

The brownie woman—browniefem—bustled back, stared up at Jenni with determination. “Go turn off the scare-mouse sound machine.”

Giving them a hard look, Jenni said, “You will guard this door and let no Lightfolk in.”

“We promise.” They bobbed their heads. “Please leave the door open for the warmth,” whined the man.

Jenni muttered a swear word under her breath—a human word—and tromped back to the kitchen. Sighing, she removed the sonic mouse repellers. In the summer she could live-trap the mice and relocate them, but in the winter and the bitter cold…no. If her cat, Chinook, had caught them and eaten them, that was different, that was natural. But she had too many advantages over mice to destroy them. Stupidity.

By the time she reached the entryway, the brownies were in and the door propped shut.

Chinook, always curious, descended the stairs two paws at a time. When she got three steps from the bottom she saw the brownies and her fur rose, her tail bottled and she hissed.

The male hopped into her face, bared his fangs and hissed back.

Jenni went to Chinook and picked her up. “She’s lived here for years, you’re overnight guests. As long as you’re here, you must treat Chinook with respect. She responds well to pampering.”

Before she’d petted Chinook twice the brownie couple had zoomed to the kitchen. Jenni followed.

The browniefem looked around, nose in air. “You need us. I am called Hartha and this is Pred.”

Pred grinned. “Mousies!” He disappeared into the crack between the stove and the counter.

“The cleaning team comes Monday, only three days from now,” Jenni said. The house didn’t look too bad to her.

Hartha was suddenly wearing an apron made from two of Jenni’s dish towels. That had been in a drawer. “Go sit down and I’ll make you some nice tea. You’ve had a shock.” Another sniff. “We must have the house warmer, but we will do it with magic, lower your heating bill.”

Jenni hesitated.

“We need the positions.” The woman lit the gas oven without turning the knob. She met Jenni’s eyes and her own were not pitiful but shrewd. “Those new shadleeches have nested in our home. We had to leave or they would drain our magic dry.”

Brownies were mostly magic. But Jenni didn’t want to hear their long, sad story.

Music filled the house, her computer was back on. She hoped she hadn’t lost much work.

Chinook wriggled and Jenni set her down. The cat sat and stared at the brownie. The woman went straight to the dry food container and filled the cat’s bowl. Chinook hummed in greedy pleasure.

Magic filled the atmosphere along with the lavender scent of home spells that Jenni recalled her mother using. She didn’t want to think of her family or the brownies or the dwarf. She let Chinook crunch away and went back upstairs to work.

Soon she’d turned in the leprechaun story and was in the depths of email consultation with the game developers about its debut the second week of March, only six weeks away. The scent of sweet-herb tea wafted to her nose. More memories of her mother, her five siblings, whipped through her. The browniefem set the pretty patterned cup before Jenni, twisted her hands in her apron.

So Jenni picked up the tea and sipped.

It was perfect. Just sweet enough.

Naturally. Hartha would have sensed her preferences.

The brownieman, Pred, appeared in the doorway, grinning. “There is no more mouse problem.”

Jenni let the brownies have the back storage room, messy with piled boxes, computer parts, cables, extra clothes, mailing materials, old software and broken appliances. She had a feeling it wouldn’t be untidy in the morning.

Grief and ghosts and guilt haunted her dreams.

She should have known that the arrival of the dwarf and the brownies would stir up the old trauma, but had worked that night until her vision had been fuzzed with static from looking at the screen. Then she’d fallen into bed and slept, only to watch the fight around the dimensional gate with the Darkfolk, and be too late again.

Her family had died in that fight fifteen years before. Jenni had been late to help her family magically balance energies as a portal to another dimension was opened. She’d been more interested in her new lover and loving. Hadn’t been there when the surprise ambush had occurred. A fatal mistake she was unable to fix, so she had paid the price every day since.

She would never forgive herself for her mistake.

Neither would her elder brother, the only other survivor of her family.

She awoke weeping and curled into a ball, and knew from the soft and muffled quality of the air outside her windows that snow fell in huge, thick flakes. She felt the silent coming and going of the female brownie, Hartha, but kept her back to the woman until the smell of an omelette and hot chocolate made with milk and real liquid cocoa teased her nostrils. She rolled over to see her best china on a pretty tin tray along with a linen napkin and tableware.

As she ate, Chinook hopped onto the bed, onto her lap, and purred, accepting bits of ham and cheese from the omelette. The cat was her family now, old and scruffy as she was.

Only one old cat.

As she stared out the frosted window, she accepted that the Lightfolk would not leave her alone.

They’d send others to negotiate.

They’d send him.

Her ex-lover.

CHAPTER 2

DURING THE NEXT THREE WEEKS, KNOWING the Lightfolk wanted her to go on another “time-sensitive mission” for them niggled like a sliver deep in Jenni’s skin. A splinter she could sometimes ignore, but sometimes would jar and send pain shooting through her.

She didn’t want anything to disrupt her steady life, didn’t want to recall her past or actively use her magic. She did fine living in the mortal world.

Missions for the Lightfolk were deadly.

Jenni stayed inside, hermitlike, avoiding any world beyond her computer, until she yearned for fresh air. So one bitterly cold morning when the snow had melted and the sun was high and yellow in the crystal sky, she left the house. She walked briskly from the Mystic Circle cul-de-sac toward the local business district a few blocks away, circling around the green spaces dotted with skeletal aspens and lush evergreens.

It was good to hear the slap of her leather boot soles on the clean sidewalks, to see shafts of golden sunlight bounce off window glass. The trees and grass were shades of brown, but the sky was blue and gold with sunshine and white with frost crystal clouds and she inhaled deeply of the cold, fresh air.

She was out of her house, away from the brownies’ earthy energy. They had made her life so much easier, she’d let them stay. Life might just be okay.

She’d just left Mystic Circle when she heard the sharp crack of a branch breaking. Her shoulders tensed. That sound echoed from the past…when her ex-lover wanted her to know he’d arrived. Stopping in her tracks, she turned back and looked. Aric Paramon stepped out of a huge evergreen tree.

The sight of him jolted her down to her bones. She hadn’t seen him since the evening of the ambush, the failed mission. She’d left after her brother Rothly had thrown salt and silver at her, disowning her.

Aric was as gorgeous as ever. He was a tall man, like the California redwoods he lived in, about six feet four inches to her five-eleven. His skin was ruddy-copper. The sun accented the faintest tint of green in his long black hair. The deep green of his eyes would be ascribed to contact lenses by humans. Wide shoulders tapered to a muscular torso. His mother was a dryad and his father an elf.

He wore a raw silk shirt the same color as his eyes, brown slacks and a long, dark brown leather trench coat.

Jenni gulped, and her heart thumped heavily in her chest. She should have anticipated Aric would arrive that way—he was half Treefolk and could travel the world through any tree.

“I knew they would send you,” she said, and the heat of her emotions dried her throat, “the kings and queens of the elements, the Eight, to convince me to go on that mission. I don’t want to see you. Go away.”

Aric rolled his shoulders, the gleam of pleasure she’d thought she’d seen in his eyes vanished. His face went impassive, then he said, “I’ve wanted to talk to you for a long time.” His voice lowered. “I hoped you would be done mourning.”

He didn’t add that it had been fifteen years. Aric was nearly immortal and she—half human and quarter djinn and quarter elf—was very long lived.

Fifteen years was like three years to a mortal. “Oh? How long do you think a person grieves for the loss of two brothers and two sisters and both parents?” She wanted the words to be sarcastic, but they also were laden with sorrow. She stiffened her spine and lengthened her stride. Aric wouldn’t accompany her to a busy human area.

He kept up with her, glanced down. “I wouldn’t know how long your grief lasts,” he said. “But I have had losses, too.” He looked away. “I am sad when I think of my lost friends. Your father, your brothers.”

She didn’t care. Sometimes she had moments when wild grief tore at her from the inside.

“You didn’t say goodbye,” Aric said.

The sentence was a blow that stopped her breath. She struggled for air. She understood, then, that though Aric might grieve as she did, he felt none of her guilt for making love instead of being with her family for their mission.

That was a wide gulf between them that she couldn’t cross, didn’t even want to think about. Didn’t want to think about that time at all, only could speak one sentence of her own to reply. “I thought Rothly throwing salt and silver at us, showing we were dead to him, was enough.” Again her voice rasped from her throat.

She turned away, ready to hurry back to her house, her home, her sanctuary. A place untouched by any magic save her own and the brownies’.

His wide, warm fingers curled around her wrist, touching her skin, and she experienced an unwelcome shock of attraction. While she was dealing with that, he said, “You could be a Lightfolk Princess, that’s what the Eight are offering you as payment for this mission.”

She snorted. “Unlikely.” Then she shrugged. “I don’t want to be a princess.” But she felt the vibration of yearning in his body, saw the ambition in his eyes. When had he become interested in Lightfolk status? He hadn’t been much before. He’d been as easygoing and laid-back as any Treefolk man she’d known. She wouldn’t ask. None of her business.

“There is nothing you can offer me that would make me help the Lightfolk. My parents—family—wanted to be accepted, like most half humans. They’re dead and I’ve made my home in the mortal world. Leave me be.” She tugged at her hand.

“It’s not just the Eight, the Lightfolk rulers. The entire magical community needs you, fast. Just for a month and a half—through March.”

“I don’t need the magical community!”

His jaw flexed. “My family needs you.”

“My family needed you and you failed them.” Her anger poured out with the words, her hair charged with her temper, lifted and nearly sizzled in the cold air.

Aric dropped her wrist, stepped back.

Ugly emotions seethed between them. Jenni couldn’t take the words back. She swallowed and pressed on. May as well lance this festering boil. “When you and I ran to the ambush at the dimensional gate, I went to my family to try to help—to balance the energies—to save them from the Darkfolk warriors. You went to the royals and fought.” Another thing she didn’t think she could forgive him for.

He paled, and replied steadily, “I knew if the Eight fell, all would fall. The loss of the greatest elemental leaders would be such a blow, cause such an imbalance, that the Lightfolk wouldn’t recover for centuries. Easy for the Darkfolk to kill us, take us over.”

Her smile was cold. “And my brother and I struggled with all the elemental energies in the interdimension. A huge mass of energies that my whole family had called, stabilizing the magic, releasing it slowly so magic would not destroy everyone. Knowing if we stepped out of the gray mist we would be attacked and killed.” She found she was grinding her teeth.

A huge shudder shook Aric. “I didn’t know.”

He would have if he’d thought about it instead of springing to help the royals. Jenni trembled, too, then cut her hand through the air. “Past is past. But the disaster was such that I have no love of the magical community, no reason to help, no wish to help.”

His nostrils flared. He set his feet as if settling into a solid balance, braced to give or take a blow. “I have news of your brother.”

Jenni flinched, caught sight of birds circling in the blue sky and realized they were talking of matters in the open where wind could take words to Lightfolk—or Darkfolk. She was glad Aric hadn’t said Rothly’s name.

Her chest tightened but dreadful hope spurted through the constriction. She hadn’t bothered Rothly since he’d disowned her on his sickbed the night of the ambush. Jenni would have known if he’d forgiven her—a lightness would have infused her spirit. He’d have come to her, or sent a message asking that she return home.

Home. Home was not in Northumberland, England, anymore, would never be there again. If she walked in the hills the shadows would flicker and she’d think her parents were there. If she walked along the shore the tide pools would reflect the images of her lost family, the endless waves of the restless ocean would carry their voices. She couldn’t live there.

She stopped, could not take another step. Trapped.

By love, as Aric had trapped her before.

This time not for him, but for her beloved brother who now hated her. Rothly had been coldly, flayingly acid to Aric, too, but maybe he’d forgiven Aric. If he had, maybe there was a chance he’d forgive her, too.

“What news of my brother?”

“Must we speak of this on the street?” Aric asked.

“I don’t want you in my house.”

He winced and only a twinge deep in her heart regretted hurting him. She’d spoken the truth after all.

His breath soughed in and it seemed as if the trees on the street bent toward him in sympathy. He straightened to his full height and Jenni got a feeling of implacability. “There’s a commercial area a few blocks down, yes?”

She blinked. That didn’t sound like the Aric she’d known, ready to mingle with full humans. “Yes.” She smiled briefly. “There’s a coffee shop. It’s very busy. I agree, we must speak of matters.” She had to know about Rothly. Aric wouldn’t lie to her.

He angled his head then waited until she came parallel to him, though she kept a good two feet from him. “Calm your djinn nature,” he said. He swept a hand before them and the bare branches of the trees shivered as if in a wind. The needles of the evergreen trees whispered against each other.

Aric lowered his voice so that his words were covered by the sound, murmuring so only Jenni’s magical hearing had her understanding him.

“Listen. There’s been plenty of change since the old Air and Fire couples went through the gate and new ones took their place.” He paused, then said even lower, “The sacrifice you and your family made to stabilize the dimensional gate was not for nothing.” His gaze was set straight ahead, his expression impassive.

Jenni’s laughter mocked. She’d been over every instant of the ambush, the fight, the frantic effort to save her family and everyone at the gathering from wildly unbalanced magic. She no longer thought the “mission” had been important. “All occurred just because two of the kings and queens had reached the height of their power and wanted to move into a dimension richer with magic than poor Earth.” She laughed again and it was dissonant.

Once more his jaw tightened, released. “The decision to open a portal to another dimension was the Eight’s, not yours or your family’s. Your family equalized all four elements so the gate could be made and stay for the time it took for two of the four couples to leave.”

“We were so flattered as halflings to be asked to help.” She shook her head. “Pleased that we could invite guests to such an important ritual and gathering.” Sarcasm. Aric had been her guest. “All the family was close to the portal, the target of the Darkfolk, and died.”

“Not you, or your brother,” Aric said.

“Has my brother’s crippled magic and arm been restored?”

Aric was silent.

Jenni hissed out a steamy breath of anger. She wanted to turn back, to hole up and hide again in her house, but she needed to know about Rothly.

She swept her senses around her, glanced over her shoulder toward the entrance to Mystic Circle. In the entire cul-de-sac and all its houses, earth was equal to fire to air to water. Her doing by just living there. The natural magic within her made it so, a comforting thought. All the strongest magic and spells worked better when all elements were equally balanced.

Aric followed her stare, his glance lingered. “Wonderful place,” he said. His gaze slid over her, then he looked forward again and began walking. “The old Kings and Queens of Air and Fire left, and new couples ascended to their rank, and change began,” Aric said smoothly, as if he was telling a tale. He hadn’t been much of one to tell stories before, preferred to listen.

He continued, “The new Kings and Queens of Air and Fire are progressive. More, human technology is catching up with our magical energies enough that we might be able to merge the two. Lightfolk could live easier with mortals, and mortals could stop harming Earth for their fuels.” He glanced at her. “As you know, you use a little of that in your work to develop that game you write.”

“Fairies and Dragons.” Jenni’s mouth twisted. He knew more about her than she’d thought. “Neither of which exist anymore. I just finished working on a leprechaun story line. They are gone, too.”

“And shadleeches have become.” The tone of his voice was grim and laced with hurt.

Jenni didn’t know much about shadleeches, they were a relatively recent phenomenon, appearing in the time since she’d turned her back on the Lightfolk. She knew they gnawed on magic.

They reached the coffeehouse, the Sensitive New Age Bean, and Jenni pulled the door open. Human noise and luscious scents emerged, along with warmth. Her mouth watered. She wanted to taste something hot and fiery and jolting down her throat. Espresso and cinnamon.

There was a line at the long wooden counter and she stopped at the end. The icy cold had the humans bundled up in puffy coats, scarves and hats. Jenni was wearing her red leather trench and Aric a brown one—unbuttoned and open. She hadn’t felt so inhuman in years, especially in a place she loved, and it unnerved her.

They waited in silence. Her body felt starved for the ineffable essence of standing near Aric, a purely magical being who carried elven blood, and she despaired of herself.

He wasn’t manipulating her through active control, he couldn’t do that, not as one with Treefolk blood, but he was tempting her with what she shouldn’t want and now discovered that she did—news of her brother. That would remind her of all that she’d been and lost.

But she longed for news of Rothly.

Aric leaned on the counter, absently stroking the smooth finish with his fingers, and charmed the women. He ordered hot chocolate with whipped cream and made it sound manly. Of course a male who topped six-four and was built on muscular lines would automatically make whatever he did “manly.”

When the logo-etched glass mugs were slid toward them, he casually paid and had Jenni staring. He appeared as if he knew mortal money and was accustomed to using it. Before she could comment, he lifted a glass in a half toast and she followed his gaze to the top of the bookshelves in the other room. “You kept the brownies.”

The brownie couple was there though they had been home when she’d left. They were dressed in their best colorful patchwork made from Jenni’s fabric scraps and old clothing. Small round upright hats glittering with tiny mirrors sat on their heads between their huge ears. They both had little leather slippers of bright red that Jenni thought were made from one of her old and shabby purses.

Their eyes were locked on Aric’s drink. Like every being in the Folk world, they loved chocolate. Jenni’s liquid cocoa had disappeared within hours of their arrival.

Jenni didn’t keep chocolate candy in her house. She couldn’t. The minute she touched solid chocolate, it melted, a tiny physical idiosyncrasy of her and her mother and sisters. Her lost family.

The espresso burned her throat but it wasn’t as hot or as bitter as the taste of tears she’d thought were all gone. Or the memories that Aric and the dwarf and the damn brownies stirred up.

Aric took his mug and two small paper sample cups of cocoa in his other hand. He crossed to a corner surrounded by bookcases, an alcove with a wooden table that was painted in colorful green and blue swirls. He sat sideways in the wooden-runged chair, his arm across the top, angled toward her. His perfectly “pressed” linen trousers couldn’t hide the long, thick lines of his thighs, the narrowness of his waist. His silk shirt emphasized the broadness of his shoulders, the proportional length of his arms. His expression was studious as he examined her, but a sad wistfulness was in his pretty eyes. Yes, he was beautiful. But not for her ever again.

His whisper—a sound more like the rustling of leaves than a voice—came to her. “We can talk here, no magical creatures can eavesdrop, and the brownies are loyal to you.”

Jenni stared. How could they be after only three weeks?

He gestured the “currently invisible to human eye” brownies down to the table, where they perched on two corners. Blocking the view of humans, he poured cocoa in the sample cups for the brownies. When they took the pleated paper cups, the vessels “vanished.”

“We like you, Jenni,” Hartha said after she’d taken a sip of her drink.

“Your basement and the house and the cul-de-sac are wonderful,” Pred said.

“We do not want to live anywhere else, such as in trees,” Hartha said, glancing at Aric.

“Or in a tall building with steel and fake rock, high above the ground in downtown Denver,” said Pred.

“Thank you, Hartha, Pred.” Jenni managed courtesy, but her yearning to hear about her brother slid like a fever under her skin. She stared at Aric. “What of Rothly?”

Though Aric didn’t change his casual pose, she felt tension radiating from him. He’d promised to tell her of Rothly and now had to deliver.

A dreadful anticipation seeping into her blood told her she was going to lose in this struggle with the Folk.

As she’d lost before.

Lost too much when her family had answered a previous summons. Aric was going to win.

She hunched over, curving her fingers around the heat of her glass mug, the same warmth as her hands. She looked at the dark espresso, not at Aric.

Skinny, long, four-jointed fingers were laid across her knee. Hartha had hopped from the table to stand beside Jenni, her big eyes sad. “Do not keep us if it makes you indebted to the Eight. The Treeman can arrange another place for us.”

Pred hissed and she snapped at him in words that thunked in Jenni’s ears, but she couldn’t understand.

“Rothly,” Aric breathed on a sigh. He shook his head, straightened in his chair, met her eyes. “The dwarf Drifmar made him the same offer he’d made to you. If Rothly did the mission for the Lightfolk, he’d become a Prince of the Lightfolk.”

Jenni stood. Her chair slammed on the floor. “No.” Silence for ten rapid heartbeats. “Tell me that’s not true. Rothly is crippled. Physically and magically. He can’t work any of his once natural elemental balancing magic without peril.”

“Crippled in mind and heart emotions, too,” Aric added, “not to be able to forgive.”

“Tell me that isn’t true about Drifmar.” Jenni’s strident voice overrode Aric. “Tell me you Lightfolk did not send my brother to his death.” Fury and terror dried her eyes so she experienced everything with an awful clarity—the human gazes focused on them, the trembling of the brownies, the small muscles of Aric’s hand flexing around his mug.

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Is Rothly in danger?”

Aric looked away, his jaw clenched.

Jenni’s blood heated. Could she manage to save Rothly without the help of the Lightfolk? They’d said it was time sensitive. How long would she have? Especially since she hadn’t practiced any large magic, like stepping into the interdimension, for years.

She locked gazes with Aric, his eyes looked like chips of deep green emerald…but not even as soft as emerald. Again she was facing a man she didn’t know, who had changed in fifteen years.

He had his own agenda and he—and the Lightfolk—would keep up the pressure on her.

Standing slowly, Aric said, “Your brother promised on the Mistweaver honor that the mission would be fulfilled.”

Jenni flinched, as she knew that wording had been just so. If she didn’t consider herself a Mistweaver, was really just Jenni Weavers and not Jindesfarne Mistweaver, she could walk away.

But Rothly had disavowed her, she hadn’t abandoned him.

She felt tears gush to the back of her eyes, her chin tremble. She firmed it, swallowed and watched Aric’s eyes. “You win.”

CHAPTER 3

“I DON’T WANT TO BE HERE WITH YOU,” JENNI said steadily, “or listen to you.” She didn’t sit. “But once again the Lightfolk have given me no choice, have they? They’ve endangered my brother.”

“Jenni—”

Without looking at him, she said, “Tell Drifmar and whoever else needs to know that I will take care of this ‘little mission’ with the ‘terrible problem’ for them.” Those had been Drifmar’s words. Without letting herself think, she said the words that might lead to her death. “I’ll finish what my brother tried to do. Uphold the family honor. You’ve done your job.” She’d never heard of a mission for the Lightfolk that wasn’t dangerous. “Now tell me of Rothly.”

Aric raised his brows. “You’ll commit to the whole mission? Not just try to rescue Rothly yourself?”

Jenni’s lip curled before she answered. “Would I be able to rescue Rothly myself? And would Lightfolk help me with that with no strings attached?”

Aric hesitated and she knew the answers were what she’d feared. No help at all from the Lightfolk without conditions.

“Don’t—”

“I won’t break my Word or Rothly’s Word on a contract with the Folk. I haven’t lived in the human world so long that I turned stupid.”

“You’re one of the smartest people I know,” Aric said.

“Tell me of Rothly.”

“Your brother is missing. From what we know of your family’s natural magical gift, you are not totally in this reality when you weave magic.”

Aric knew that, he’d been a friend of her brothers’ for years. How much had he told the Eight who ruled the Lightfolk? He was obviously loyal to them.

Jenni said nothing, but thought of the half step into a different reality, the gray misty place where the only colors were the elemental energies she could summon—the gold of earth, flaming red-orange of fire, frosty blue-violet of air and the rolling waves of green-blue water. Mystical as the northern lights.

Aric said, “We think Rothly is stuck in what your father called the interdimension….” He stopped as if he felt the flames of anger licking her insides, nearly causing her to lose control of her eye color. If she wasn’t careful they’d heat to the blue-white mortals found threatening.

Steam was just below her skin. She needed to cool down before it issued from her pores. A steaming woman was also a cause for concern in the human world. And why was it that a half hour with one of the Folk could make her forget all her years as a mortal?

“Then I will find him, damn you all,” she said.

“Let’s discuss this fully somewhere else,” Aric said. He gestured back toward the cul-de-sac and her house.

Jenni shot up her chin. “I’m not inviting you into my home.”

His skin darkened from light copper to dark. He stood and clamped a hand around her lower arm. “We know Rothly isn’t dead, just…caught. We can monitor him.”

She yanked her arm away and he let her go. “So you can monitor me, too? How reassuring. You go report to your people. But I get Rothly home first, before anything else.”

Aric’s fingers clenched. His gaze met hers, his eyes taking on that deep brown rim around his irises that appeared when he felt strongly. He was angry with her because she didn’t want him in her home. Well, she could care less what Aric Paramon felt for her. Keeping his gaze locked on hers, he reached into the pocket of his coat and held out a little greenish-white business card.

She stared at the human thing. He dropped his hand and it floated in midair, so she snatched it. This was her neighborhood and she wanted to continue living here. Automatically she glanced down on it. In forest-green ink it said Aric Paramon, Consultant, Eight Corp, with an address in the downtown Denver business district. In a high-rise of all places. Mind-boggling.

“I am your liaison on this matter, Jenni.” His voice lowered. “I volunteered for the mission. We go together. We live or die, together. Get used to the idea.”

Sounded like something he was repeating from TV, but the Folk didn’t watch television, didn’t move in the mortal world. Humans were sometimes good for sex, that was all. Like most full-blooded Folk he’d once had a great deal of scorn for the mortal and human. But fifteen years ago the Lightfolk hadn’t had a corporation or business cards. She had no clue what was going on.

Aric smiled a knife-edged smile. “Like I said, there have been changes in our world. Considerable changes. And I’m not the man you knew. You will be briefed by one of the royal Eight. Two p.m. Be there.”

He’d never been a man to give orders. He was half-dryad-Treefolk, half-elf. He’d been mellow as a Treeman descended from flighty dryads would be, and taken the generally optimistic nature of the elves.

Jenni shrugged all the strange things off. She wasn’t about to show ignorance—that led to manipulation. “I’ll be ready for our afternoon meeting, make sure you are, too, and that you and the royal will exactly and completely tell me the truth.” Her nostrils pinched. She didn’t trust any of the Lightfolk, especially the Eight. “Otherwise we’ll both die, and whatever terrible problem the Lightfolk have will be worse.” She glanced at Hartha. “Looks like you two will be staying to take care of the house while I’m gone.”

Hartha nodded. Pred made a small sound of glee. “We will have the whole house to ourselves!” His toes curled and he vanished in a small, excited spark of golden topaz.

“I’ll get your luggage from the basement,” Hartha said, her head tilted toward Aric, so Jenni figured he was telling her what Jenni would need for wherever she was going—besides the step into gray mist, which she would traverse alone since only she had the intrinsic magic to do so.

She turned on her heel and left him, striding out of the coffee shop into the frigid air. With gritted teeth she suppressed her emotions so steam didn’t trail her as she marched home.

As soon as she entered her house, she smelled espresso with cinnamon and Hartha was there, holding Jenni’s drink from the coffee house out to her in one of her own cups.

“You will need this,” Hartha said.

Jenni knew she would need a lot more, and not just caffeine or clothes.

She’d need all her courage, all her skill.

What she didn’t need was Aric Paramon going with her. Not a man who reminded her of her own failure. But he was her “liaison.” A disgusted sound escaped her.

She inhaled the scent of the coffee, then handed the mug back to Hartha, looked the small brownie in her big brown eyes, which were tinted with gold flecks. The tips of her ears were curled inward, defensively. “I’ll set my hand to paper giving you and Pred house-rights to stay here while I’m gone.” Jenni sucked in a breath and added, “Currently the house goes to my brother if I die. If we both perish you might as well have it. Those who live here in Mystic Circle will make it so. My next-door neighbor, Amber Sarga, will file the right papers with the human world, and the halfling Harmony Windrose will keep a sworn document for the Lightfolk.”

Hartha tipped her head back and stared at Jenni. “We might have this wonderful house in the cul-de-sac where all four elements are present and balanced!” The mug floated as she squeaked and fell to the ground to roll around in excitement, clapping her hands.

Pred joined her. “We can extend the basement tunnel and make a common room for the whole cul-de-sac!” They tumbled in brownie-joy-dance together.

A tingle along Jenni’s spine told her that the brownies had already done stuff to the basement. Not that she—or anyone in Mystic Circle—would or could have stopped them.

She kept her eyes on the blurred brownies. How much would they know of the problems and changes in the Lightfolk world? Changes so extreme to break with the many traditions that they actually were following mortal rules—the Eight had a mortal corporation. Changes that pure-blooded Folk would make a half blood like Jenni a Lightfolk Princess?

Hartha wouldn’t be in the confidence of the highest circles of the Eight, which, apparently, Aric was. A flash of anger-heat slipped through Jenni.

No reason to interrogate the brownies, not with all that must be done right now.

She had to verify Aric’s statements, look for her brother in the interdimension, a half step away from true reality. She prayed that she would be able to sense him there. Taking off her coat, she hung it on a hook by the door.

The brownies had stopped and stood before her, curtsying and bowing. “We thank you, we thank you, we thank you.”

They flicked their fingers at her and she felt herself coated with dust that sunk through her skin. Hartha said, “We bless you on your journeys and may you return safely. You gave us sanctuary and did not indenture us. We like taking care of you and this house. We are loyal.”

Pred added, “Blessings and return safely. It is not good to inherit from nonrelatives who are cut down in the midst of life and meet an untimely death.”

Jenni winced, shrugged off renewed dread and addressed Hartha. “I must use the kitchen.” She’d barely stepped into it since the brownies had come. Hartha considered it her domain. But Jenni needed the herbs that would help her transition from the reality of Earth to the gray mist of the interdimension.

If she’d practiced her craft—entered the interdimension every day—she would’ve needed very little tea, but she hadn’t. She went to the small pantry area between the kitchen and the basement stairs and reached for the red tin on the highest of the built-in shelves. The shelves were spotless, of course, and the contents had been moved around, but the tin was still there.

Ignoring Hartha, Jenni lifted the top of the tin and inhaled deeply, let the scent waft and spiral through her. Potent. Good. Despite the fact that she’d rarely used her magical gift in the last fifteen years, she was dedicated to keeping the special mixture of herbal tea for her talent ready, as her mother had emphasized.

“Do you want me to make the tea?” Hartha stood next to her, twisting her hands in the frilly bright yellow skirt of her apron she now wore over work clothes of a brown blouse and skirt.

Jenni looked down at the brownie. Of course the woman had noticed the tea, probably discerned the ingredients and the quantities of the herbs. “No, thank you, family secret.” The brownie flinched, the tops of her ears rolled tight down to the cartilage near her head.

Jenni tried a smile, the corners of her lips curved, and that was enough. “I’m the last uninjured person with Mistweaver magic, so the secret will be archived with the Lightfolk if I die, but until then I prefer it to be secret.”

Hartha vanished.

With a sigh, Jenni spooned out a teaspoon of the special mixture: the finely ground black Ceylon tea, long, thin and twisted leaves of tringle and green shoono herbs, three minuscule rare moon-crescent blossoms. She dropped the spoonful into a pottery mug made with a special clay that enhanced the power of the herbs. Then she placed the tea tin back onto the top shelf, not shoving it deep this time. She’d need it in the future.

Why had she figured she could ignore or outwit the great Lightfolk, the Eight? If she’d been practicing her craft…if she’d been practicing, surely she’d have sensed Rothly caught in the interdimension? Maybe, maybe not…but if she’d been practicing and he was there she might have been able to pull him out…if she knew where he’d stepped into the mist.

Right now, even if he were here in Denver instead of Northumberland, England, she wouldn’t have the strength to get him out, would barely have the strength to enter and leave herself. She’d let her natural magic ability to step into the gray mist atrophy. The skills it took to call up the interdimension, go in, stay in for a time, leave—those were all rusty.

She’d have to use the tea, all the mind-body-emotion preparation rituals her family had developed to successfully enter the gray mist. And that was here—in her own home, in Mystic Circle that she’d balanced. She’d be lucky to last fifteen minutes, enough to orientate herself and find him. She should be able to find him…but hadn’t searched for him for fifteen years.

He had disowned her, cut ties to her. Yet he was her brother. She should still have at least one small bond to him. She hoped.

She didn’t dare attempt to save Rothly without more practice…at least three times in the mist, balancing elements—and she’d have to rest in between times. A day would be good.

But the pressure of inner dread made her think that she wouldn’t have a day to rest between attempts.

If she didn’t get it right, have the skill and strength to pull him from the mist, she’d kill them both.

Her stomach sank as she frowned at the tea. For a quest to save her brother in the interdimension and a mission after that, she should make a fresh mixture. She gritted her teeth. A process of two weeks that couldn’t be hurried or even started when the moon was waxing instead of waning.

Unless Rothly had made a fresh batch before going on his mission. Which meant returning to her family home in Northumberland to find out.

She poured water into the mug, then set her hands around it and let the heat of her turbulent emotions bring the water to a roiling boil, counting down the necessary seconds, then stopped. As she walked to her bedroom she kept track of the time needed for the infusion. Finally, she whispered a small spell and the leaves whisked up and disintegrated, leaving a tang on the air.

She could grab a ten-minute shower using the proper soap while the tea cooled. It was always better to go to the interdimension cleansed and with clear mind and intentions.

Usually Jenni would heat her skin as she showered in cool water, or heat tub water with her own magic before she bathed. But she must conserve her personal energy. She’d need all her power to enter the interdimension and search for Rothly. If she got stuck herself she would fade away, die.

So she let hot water spatter against her and began the process that would ensure a successful trip into the mist. She thrust away the notion that Rothly was trapped. The Lightfolk could be wrong. Thinking of Rothly snared, that she might be stuck trying to save him, could lead to panic.

As a human and elf, she liked the water, her djinn part not so much. So she let the human enjoy the liquid slipping against her skin, and hummed. Then she let the elf part twirl in the shower, and sang. Then she stepped from the tub and let her djinn heritage flash her dry.

She put on a raw silk orange robe and stepped in a particular rhythm to her bedroom, closed the door. She walked around a large tapestry bag that Hartha had brought from the basement.

Jenni reached for the mug on her bedside table, saw her hand trembled. Chinook, who’d been snoozing on the bed, strolled over and rubbed against Jenni. Sucking in a deep breath, Jenni picked up the heavy cat. Chinook purred. The cat loved elemental energy.

Holding Chinook, Jenni rocked back and forth, comforting them both. “It’s just been you and me, but you know I have a brother, Rothly.” She’d cried enough tears while calling out for all her lost family.

Chinook just purred.

“I’m going into the gray mist, the interdimension. I haven’t done that for many years. But I have to go now. I think I’m the only one alive who can survive the interdimension. Because I can balance the energies. The greatest magical Folk—Light and Dark—are usually only one element…and I’m babbling. Dammit, Rothly shouldn’t have tried. He had enough Mistweaver talent to get in, but not out!”

Chinook swept a quick tongue under Jenni’s chin and she dragged in a breath. “I’ll have to be careful, not move a step in there lest I lose my way. Not stay too long or I’ll be trapped like the Lightfolk say Rothly is.” She let a nervous heat wave shudder through her. Chinook butted her head against Jenni’s arm, stroking them both.

“Yes, I know you like magical energies, especially balanced.” Jenni set Chinook back down on the bed.

“Since I haven’t done this for so long, you can be my anchor, so I don’t lose my bearings, unable to exit.” Another deep breath at the thought. With the lightest of touches, she connected to the cat’s energy, linked them, let some of hers cycle to Chinook. The cat’s purr revved.

“I won’t be gone long.” She hoped. “Just need to find out if I can sense him. I should, even if he’s at home—I mean in Northumberland. This is home now. Ready?”

Chinook sat on the bed, tail curled around her paws. Jenni snagged her mug from the bedside table, then turned to face south and began her energy cycling. She must match her own energies to the vibration of the interdimension. She drank the tea and let the magical essence of it flicker through her like tiny flames, igniting her nerves so she’d be prepared to enter the gray mist. Make sure the timing was right, longer than if she’d been practicing often. Cool her energy for two minutes. Warm for six. Then hot!

She set the empty mug aside, walked beyond the end of her bed and into the middle of the room, faced south once more. She checked that she was completely balanced magically, saw the gray mist rise before her and chanted an entrance to the interdimension open. Taking one step forward on the carpet, she also moved a half step away from the dimension of Earth and into the gray mist that was the space between the reality of Earth and other planets, other places, other Earths.

She didn’t have the talent to open a temporary portal or establish a gateway to another dimension, but she knew that there were other worlds just beyond the mist.

It was quiet here, and it felt like she stood on solid ground, but if she looked down, she wouldn’t be able to see her feet. She could see nothing but flashes and sheets and twists of the elemental, magical energies, bright against the sky like the northern lights, the aurora borealis.

The real geographical landscape had faded, the house, the mountains in the west, the skyscrapers downtown. Slowly she turned in a full circle, checking the immediate area around her. All magic was balanced, the land around her imbued with equal amounts of fire and air and earth and water. Because she, an elemental balancer, had lived here in Mystic Circle for fourteen years. Her innate power did that. Slight tendrils of the equally mixed energy steamed upward.

Narrowing her eyes, she stared toward the south and the small business district that held the coffee house, the Sensitive New Age Bean. Since it was close to her influence, the elements were more equal than those in other directions. Yet there were still more flares of earth and fire.

Farther south the blue-green of water elemental energy swirled in a pool, spiraling from the “ground” that Jenni couldn’t see, tingeing the mist with color. That denoted Sloan’s Lake several miles away. One of the reasons she’d chosen this neighborhood was to be near Sloan’s and several other minor lakes. Water in Denver was at a premium and having lakes relatively close made it easier for her to call that element.

There was a slow, slight echo of a mew and she knew Chinook was near her feet in the real world. Dear Chinook, the being closest to her in the last few years, her remaining cat. The cat who liked magical energy best.

A tingle on Jenni’s skin prompted her to turn east and she faced that way, saw huge streams of magical elemental energy near downtown. They looked as if they were directed, not the random flares of naturally occurring magic. Not balanced, though. The blue-violet of air predominated. This was Lightfolk crafting.

Her eyes widened. She’d never seen anything like that in her seventy-five years. That phenomenon hadn’t been there when she’d moved to Denver.

So this Eight Corp that the Lightfolk ran was not a small deal. Not if it was messing with the magical energies like that.

She’d allowed them to sneak up on her, hadn’t been paying attention, hadn’t known they’d established a base in Denver. Why Denver? She shivered. Chinook mewed again and Jenni tore her gaze from downtown.

She was here to find her brother. She swallowed hard.

The Lightfolk believed Rothly was lost in the gray mist of the interdimension.

How long? A person died after a period of time…Jenni wasn’t sure of the length. But she wasn’t the scholar of the family. Another reason to return to Northumberland, for information.

Since she’d never spent more than forty-five minutes in the mist, the time it took to die had seemed long to her as a youngster. Now she thought it was under three months. How long had Rothly been gone? She’d been too angry, too frightened for her brother, to ask the right questions.

Maybe she could sense him. She wouldn’t be able to see him, or move in the mist without becoming lost, but she might know.

She hoped. A lot of hoping and praying going on. As usual when involved with the great Lightfolk.

She wanted to save him more than anything else in her life.

He’d be the only other person in the mist.

She sent her energy probing through the interdimension, searching, searching. There! Somewhere, north? Northwest? Geographically she couldn’t tell…but there was a pulsing human-and-Lightfolk-elf-djinn aura… Rothly.

If she stilled enough, breathed shallowly, she could feel the faintest touch of his fractured energy against her skin.

She closed her eyes, and visualized an image from the sensations she felt. His aura was damaged—his magic didn’t envelop him evenly. It was ragged, uneven, with a couple of splintered spots.

A sound broke from her, a keening in this silent place. She couldn’t tell how far it echoed, how long.

His aura pulsed slowly, too slowly, like he was dying. Trapped in the interdimension without the magic to save himself.

How could she find him and retrieve him? Love poured from her toward him and she thought his aura throbbed slightly stronger. How aware was he? She waited but he said nothing, not mind-to-mind, not aloud.

“Rothly!” she screamed. Still nothing, not even a flinch. She thought he’d have moved, yelled, cursed if he were conscious.

She didn’t know enough about this deadly dimension, would have to research family records to save him. But she’d have to be where he was to haul him out.

Shivers ran through her. She couldn’t bear this. Bad enough that only one of her family had survived the battle. Horrible that he’d been maimed. Worst of all that he’d condemned her as she had blamed herself, bitterly lashed out and cut her guilt deep.

She couldn’t lose him. Not the very last of her family. She must save him.

Then she sensed something else around him. A flickering, fluttering blip. How could that be?

Jenni’s breath stopped as the thing, some other magical being—a shadleech?—swarmed around Rothly, blocking his aura, hung on him batlike. It was here in the interdimension. It—perhaps more than one initially—had trapped him as much as his own crippled power. The shadleech sucked away his magical energy.

Worry gnawed on her like the shadleech on Rothly. She must find out exactly when he’d entered the mist, started so ill-fated a mission. Find him!

She lifted her foot. Another mew and a tug from Chinook, Jenni’s tiny anchor, reminding her that she didn’t dare step away from the place she’d entered.

Time to leave the interdimension, search and find where Rothly had entered the gray mist. Haul him out.

Hope she could save him and not die herself.

CHAPTER 4

JENNI DREW IN A BREATH, STICKY WITH THE strange misty atmosphere of the interdimension, said the spell to leave. Her limbs trembled and her legs gave out and she stumbled until she fell onto the soft bed. She shook not only from the exertion, but also from fear for Rothly.

Fear for herself, too. She couldn’t save Rothly herself, needed to have the help of the Lightfolk to battle the shadleeches. The last time she’d trusted the Lightfolk her whole family had died.

Chinook hopped onto the bed and settled onto her stomach and it was even harder to breathe.

There was a knock on the door.

“Come in, Hartha.” Holding Chinook, Jenni panted as she scooted up against the headboard.

The brownie woman set a laptop tray of thick and hearty stew before her. There was more herbal tea, the stuff to build up her energy.

“You weren’t gone long,” Hartha said, some curiosity in her voice. “Less than a quarter hour.”

“Long enough,” Jenni said. There was fresh bread and not from the local deli. Hartha had baked it the night before. Fresh sweet cream butter that didn’t come from the cheese shop. More and more the magical way of doing things was overtaking the human customs Jenni’d lived by for so long.

“We have thought how to repay you for all your kindnesses. We know you want a sunroom and will add one to the house when you are gone,” Hartha said.

Jenni stared, thought of all the permits, shrugged. The sunroom might very well go up overnight. When they noticed, none of her neighbors would say anything to the authorities. People with magic gravitated to Mystic Circle. Not that she’d ever spoken openly about magic or magical heritages with her neighbors. “Sure.” She cleared her throat, did a half bow. “Thank you.”

It took Jenni the rest of the morning to arrange for time off and the journey—first to save Rothly, then to complete the mission for the Lightfolk.

She told the game developers she worked for that she was going on a research trip for the next big expansion issue that they were designing and that would go live in the autumn. She also suggested the idea of including flying horses as optional mounts for players. That made the devs dither enough about the work it would take that they’d be glad she was gone.

The brownies and she discussed her mission and she drew up documents, then she inspected the house from attic to basement. The squirrel holes in the attic were gone, the eaves repaired. In the basement she found that her half crawl space was no longer “half.” There was a new and suspicious-looking polished wood door set in the wall fronting the cul-de-sac.

Jenni decided not to dress in a professional suit; instead she tried an arty look for her appointment with the Lightfolk, feeling more comfortable. Feeling like she might be able to hold her own.

She finally finished the espresso from the coffee shop just before she hopped the bus to downtown. She could transport herself magically with great effort, but she sure wouldn’t be able to handle a meeting with manipulative Lightfolk afterward and she wanted all her wits as keen as an elven blade.

As the bus wove the five miles into downtown Denver, the sky darkened from the crystalline blue of bitter cold to thick clouds of bruised gray. Humidity spread through the air with the taste of snow and Jenni shivered. Wet cold sank into her like nothing else.

She disembarked with many others in LoDo, lower downtown, at the stop for the free Sixteenth Street mall shuttle toward the business district and the Capitol.

“Got any change, lady?” Coins rattled in a paper cup. Jenni glanced at the guy, her hand dipping into her red trench-coat pocket, pulling out change. She swallowed hard. He was…grotesque, with disproportional head and limbs, growths on his face and hands, a yellowish bad-kidney tinge to his skin. The scent of stale bubblegum rose from him.

She shouldn’t stare, but couldn’t help herself. He grinned a broken-and-missing-toothed smile and Jenni’s fingers opened, dropping coins. He caught them deftly with his cup. People streamed around her.

Jindesfarne. It was less the audible sound of her name than a feeling, not quite a mental touch on her mind. Not from the homeless man before her.

She looked across the street and saw a…tall, broad-shouldered being of gray shadows watching her. Magic surrounded him so she knew no one else noticed him.

A hood obscured his features, though she thought they were fine—as fine as the most beautiful Lightfolk. Frissons slithered down her spine and she knew she wasn’t looking at an elf, but a great one of the Darkfolk. Her throat tightened. She would not answer.

You should reconsider this mission for the Lightfolk. Now that he spoke more than a word, Jenni heard rich undertones in the gorgeous voice, seduction. She was glad she couldn’t see his eyes, a gaze that would snag and seduce her into anything.

She couldn’t reconsider. She had to save her brother. No Darkfolk would understand that. They cared for nothing more than their personal plans, one and all. But her inner alarms were sounding. Don’t contradict him. Maybe, Jenni mentally projected.

The figure laughed, showing white wicked teeth. You lie.

To her horror he broke apart before her eyes, into tiny flittering beings that had comprised him. Shadleeches! Most winged away, but one came and fastened on her wrist, claws piercing her skin, hurting! Sucking her magic from her. She flung it off, stopping a cry by clamping her hand over her mouth. Her heart thumped so hard it was all she could hear. People walked by her faster.

The man had not been real, but a construct. How? Clawlike fingers clamped around her ankle. The beggar. He was the real Dark one. He’d created the other, distracted her.

She looked down into wet orbs of eyes, wrenched her gaze away. Shudders ran through her.

My shadleeches are pretty things, the great Dark one said, in that beautiful voice. His fingers tightened, grinding into her flesh and against her bone.

Fear flared and she used it, used her magic to flash heat to her ankle, burn, burn, burn!

The “beggar’s” shriek was beyond regular hearing. She was free! She stumbled, limped, saw the bronze doors of a nearby bank and rushed to them. She barreled through the doors and as they slowly shut, a glimpse revealed the Dark one’s ungainly body cloaked in an “invisible-to-mortals” illusion hanging in midair. His bulbous stomach drooped, his eyes blazed red. “Mistweaver blood is like the finest wine.” A long tongue swept his slashlike mouth. He vanished.

Inwardly quivering, she sank onto a marble bench in the bank’s atrium. His words drummed in her ears. He’d hurt her family, perhaps killed them, and he was back.

Since people were staring at her here, too, she sat stiffly, regulating her breathing from ragged panting. She studied the marks on her wrist from the shadleech. The beggar-Dark-one referred to his shadleeches. Were they all his, or only that bunch? She thought the latter. And the more she thought of him, the more power she gave him. Fear coated her mouth.

She still had the Lightfolk to deal with, had to decide how much to tell them—about a lot of things. She couldn’t afford fear. Sending adrenaline energy and a touch of fire magic to her wrist and her ankle, she let the marks fade away, scanned her body for any dark poison and found nothing except a small weakness in her magic.

It had not been a strong attack. Too many mortals around for that—since she sensed he’d wanted to gut her and feast on her blood and magic. His voice had lost the illusion of beauty, too, crackling and breaking and screeching. He might have been beautiful in all ways once, but evil magic worked on a being.

But he was a great Dark one and she was a halfling. Nothing could change that. She would need the Lightfolk to fight him. So much for the vague idea of saving her brother and refusing to consider the rest of the mission, though breaking her word could kill her and her brother just as dead.

She was truly trapped, and she’d better think smart.

Her pocket computer chimed. Half an hour before her appointment…she’d left very early. She could spare a few minutes to gather herself, sink into a little meditative trance. She had to push the attack aside or the Lightfolk would easily manipulate her at their meeting—she’d have no control over the quest to save Rothly.

So she centered herself and breathed and felt magic surrounding her. Significantly more magic in down-town Denver than there had been six months ago. Good, concentrate on that.

She left the bank and walked, stretched all her senses, let loose the extra one that gauged magic, tasted it, and knew magic rippled like minor waves from a central point.

All the stray molecules in the atmosphere of magic were being pulled to one source, then emanated from it, like a recycling pump…her nose and tongue and skin and scalp told her that the new magic emanating from that point was just a little richer than it had been.

Walking close to a concrete wall, she trailed her fingers. As she’d suspected, the building was soaking up magic. It was penetrating into the electrical system. Fascinating.

After skirting a winter-dry fountain, she crossed to the doors of one of the tallest buildings in Denver, hesitated as she put her hand on the door pull, which sparked energy against her palm. She suppressed fear that sparked with the magic—fear for her brother, for facing great Lightfolk who assigned missions that only caused her hideous loss.

But she had to save her brother and the Lightfolk had information and the quest was the price.

With one last deep breath, she entered the building and approached the security desk. There she showed her human ID that stated her birth date was fifty years later than it had been. She would be twenty-five for a while yet.

As the guard scanned her ID against the computer’s appointment list, Jenni studied the directory. Eight Corp was the only business on the thirty-second floor. The guard murmured “Good afternoon,” and indicated the correct elevator, not that she could have missed the bay. The magic was much stronger there.

During the elevator ride, she breathed in a calming rhythm, checked that her natural fire was banked. Losing control in these negotiations would be disastrous.

The door opened and Jenni stepped out onto moss. To humans it might look like a dark green sculpted rug, but it was true moss. Her toes wiggled in her shoes.

She faced a gray-blue marble wall that framed a large granite desk with a top-of-the-line computer system. Fountains bubbled somewhere near.

The female dwarf receptionist—dwarves traditionally guarded entrances—didn’t stand when Jenni swished in, the layers of her filmy, multicolored skirt rustling. But the receptionist gave her outfit a glance and frowned at the bright gold blouse Jenni wore, easily seen since her red leather trench coat was open.

The dwarfem’s wide nostrils flared, “Djinn and elf,” she stated, then, “half-breed human.”

Dwarves responded well to rudeness. Jenni showed her pointy incisors. She could be ill-mannered, too. She scanned the female with all her senses. “Full dwarf, ancient fem.” She didn’t meet the receptionist’s gaze. “And I am an elemental balancer.” A quality that no one else now in this world could claim. “Why would anyone choose a dwarf as a greeter?” She let the question hang. “Surely one of elven blood would be much better.” But pure elves wouldn’t see the job of greeting others as important.

The receptionist grunted, a sound like pebbles rolling down a rocky slope, then said, “My apologies, Jindesfarne Mistweaver.”

A full-blooded dwarfem apologizing to her. Things certainly had changed. Jenni curled her tongue to the bottom of her mouth, letting the taste of magic coat it. The best, finest kind of magic, all four elements in nearly equal measure.

Then the atmosphere changed and the tang on her tongue turned to honey. More elves had entered the suite. Odd to even think of elves in a modern office building…any of the Lightfolk.

“Djinnfem?” The receptionist was prompting a reply to her apology.

Jenni didn’t know the dwarfem’s name and the scrolled-and-engraved brass nameplate on the granite stated Mrs. Daurfin. Jenni snorted. No Lightfolk would ever put a real name out for anyone to see. Jenni narrowed her eyes but did the proper thing, naming the dwarfem’s heritage as she did so. “Apology accepted, Dwarfem of the Diamond clan.”

The receptionist narrowed her eyes, too. They became glinting slits of black between brownish curves of flesh. “Mistweaver, Desertshimmer, Cirruswisp,” she rumbled again, defining Jenni’s ancestry.

“I’m Jenni Weavers in the human world.”

“Please wait,” the dwarfem instructed, and gestured with a stubby hand to two semicircular groupings of furniture in the space between the elevator and the desk. Both were black and cushiony, one side was leather, the other looked like leather but was actually made from the hide of naugas.

Jenni was not early enough to sit down. They were making her wait. Her inner fire simmered. She heard the tiny clicks of multikeystrokes from a nearby room and tasted another wave of magic. With a smile, she headed for a corridor off the lobby. She found what appeared to be a smooth wall with a bespelled door behind the illusion. Jenni waved and the spell vanished.

“You can’t go in there,” snapped the dwarfem.

Jenni shrugged a shoulder, opened the door to ripe swearing of the minor Waterfolk kind. The room was long and narrow, painted a stark white that none of the eight Lightfolk and Treefolk workers would appreciate. There was a long counter holding eight computers, a mixture of desktops, laptops, tablets and pockets, according to the size of the beings.

Just in front of her was a naiader—a minor Waterfolk male—who was slender with a bluish tinge to his skin and natural spiky green hair. He stood next to a chair, shoulders hunched as he typed. A mug of hot chocolate made with real cocoa steamed on the desk as if he’d just gotten it.

Programming lines rolled across his screen.

Jenni stepped near him to look at the code on his monitor without him being aware, as he was so caught up in his own irritation. Orange symbols, magical symbols, lit the screen along with regular white human programming lines and mathematical formulas. She nearly choked on her tongue.

Magic.

And technology.

These Folk were writing spells on the computer to draw magic into…into what?

She frowned. She knew this spell, but it was an old and slow and limping one when they needed a big, gliding one to…store electricity? A magical and electrical battery?

Snared by the problem and the knowledge that she could flick it and fix it, she slid into the waterman’s—the naiader’s—seat, stared at his strange keyboard, memorized it, nudged his fingers away. She moved to the middle of the poorly constructed line, erased the spell he was trying to write and encoded a spell she’d developed and recorded in her spellbook a while back…with a shorter, elegant twist that came to mind. Now this spell would do what they’d intended better than the one that had been on the screen.

There was a wet sucking of breath. “Damned djinn,” the guy muttered. “Whole project is fire, electricity, why did it have to be djinn? Fluidity should be the key. Flexibility.” He squatted and bumped her hip with enough force that she had to stand or fall. He took his chair, brows down, staring at the screen. Then his fingers flew to the end of the spell as his mind engaged and he began writing code.

“I’m plenty flexible, and you’re welcome,” Jenni said.

He stuck out his lower lip. “Irritating.”

She studied the rest of the full-blooded Lightfolk in the computer room. They lounged, watching her, like a tableau of the beauty of the Folk.

There was the water naiader that she’d displaced, a Treefolk dryad with a tinge of green in her skin and her body encased in a black fake-leather catsuit, a dwarf with a heavy scowl and long beard that marked him as one of the older generations—what was he doing here? At the end was a small red fire sprite perched on the ledge of a monitor, wearing a merry grin. He-she winked at Jenni, but remained stationary.

“Jindesfarne, we did not bring you here for your computing skills,” Aric said coolly from the open doorway.

At the sight of him, Jenni felt a melting inside. That didn’t stop her hair from lifting in individual shafts as her aggravation transmuted into static electricity.

“Dampen spell!” The naiader flung his arms wide, scowled at Jenni, his face beading with drops of distress. “That’s why I hate djinn. Should know better than to release static electricity around all these computers.”

She did, but she wouldn’t apologize. “I’m excellent with computers, and I know a little something about business ergonomics, too.” She looked down at the computer counter. “This is a pitiful working space.”

The tree dryad perked up.

Aric’s brows lowered. The dwarfem receptionist, half his height but nearly as broad, joined him, tapping her foot.

“Everyone should have individual spaces,” Jenni said.

“Rounds and semiround rooms,” breathed the dryad.

Jenni cast her a sympathetic look. “Or cubes, and those of like elements grouped together, or those working on congruent inquiries—”

“Enough.” Aric glanced down at the receptionist. “Please note what Jindesfarne Mistweaver advised.”

A rock pad and a tiny chisel appeared in the dwarfem’s hands. She scritched on it, glaring at Jenni. “You’re keeping the Air King waiting,” she said, “and I’ll tell him a lot.” She showed red pointed teeth before marching back to her desk.

“Du-u-ude,” breathed the water naiader, his round eyes getting wider and more orblike, staring at her. He must be a baby…born in the last thirty years or so.

The palm-sized red fire sprite whizzed to Jenni, buried itself in her hair. “Ver-ry fun plac-s-s-se,” it hissed. “Glad to s-see you, Mis-stweaver energy balanc-ser. You s-smell fine.” It nuzzled her head, nipped her ear, took off to prance along the top of watery guy’s monitor.

Aric prompted again, “Jindesfarne.”

“The light is all wrong, too, should be tailored to each element,” Jenni said.

There was a low murmur from the workers.

“Come, Jenni,” Aric said, holding out his hand.

Jenni didn’t want to leave these kindred spirits to talk to the Air King about a mission she didn’t want to do. But that was the price to save her brother. When she recalled Rothly caught in the mist because of the eight kings and queens, anger roiled through her. She tamped down her temper, but couldn’t stop one statement. “Sounds as if Air King Cloudsylph picked up the manner of an Eight fast,” she said. “He ascended to royal fifteen years ago, right?”

“You have no idea,” murmured the dryad like the whisper of new leaves in spring. “But the changes in the Lightfolk community have been incredible.” She beamed and her pewter eyebrow rings shone in the light.

Jenni nodded to the workers, waved a jaunty hand and strode to the doorway. When she reached him, Aric stepped away, then touched her elbow to indicate direction. His fingers were warm and steady.

They strolled by the receptionist dwarf, who was standing on her granite desk, hands on hips, mouth a straight line of disapproval.

The hallway they took was all glass, showing open offices that appeared to be occupied, obviously a set stage for any human clients. But the rooms wouldn’t fool a mortal for a minute. Jenni shook her head. Maybe the Lightfolk were finally beginning to try to live—work—side by side with humans, but they weren’t doing a very good job yet. They needed to consult the half mortals among them, those who’d lived among humans, integrated into their culture.

But not her.

The sooner she rescued her brother and finished her business with these Folk and got on with her own life, the better.

Aric was wise enough to say nothing as he ushered her into a glassy corner office that was all light and grace.

The Air King sat behind a large, pale green, art deco glass desk. He might not have learned how to handle subordinates in a business setting exactly right, but he had “intimidation” down well.

He was thin and elegant and fascinatingly beautiful. The elf, Air King Cloudsylph. One of the four kings. Her mouth dried.

She hadn’t been in the presence of a full elf for fifteen years, let alone a royal. His magic washed over her and her lips trembled at the sweetness of it, the way his energy brushed away the vestige of fear from the Darkfolk, the faintest weariness from the step into the gray mist.

She avoided eyes that she knew would be ice-blue, set in an unlined heart-shaped face with a deep widow’s peak of silver hair. His hair was manelike and flowed to his shoulders, covering his pointed ears.

He wore an exquisitely built suit of pale gray silk, a white linen shirt that was only slightly paler than his skin and a light blue tie. Everything in her shuddered—he was dressed as a human and mortal. Her world tipped.

Jenni reminded herself that they needed her.

His first words emphasized how much she needed the Lightfolk. “We have the best elemental healers on call to repair whatever trauma or physical problems that your brother might have endured in our service…his service to the Lightfolk and the Eight.”

Jenni hunkered into her balance. “So there are rewards for being injured in service for the Eight. I hadn’t noticed.”

The king’s gaze went cold. “The Eight issued formal thanks and paid a rich reward to the proper Mistweaver after the incident at the dimensional portal fifteen years ago.”

Jenni inclined her head. “To Rothly, and I suppose you mean that you tried to heal or help him.” She smiled as cold a smile as she could manage. “Yet I never sensed he was complete, as I would have.” She inhaled deeply. “When I checked on him in the mist this morning, he was still crippled.”

Since she couldn’t look the elf in his eyes without being caught by his glamour, she stared at the perfectly formed pale pink elven lips. “And you must not have rewarded him so well before, since he risked his life for a title of ‘Prince of the Lightfolk.’ You tempted a maimed man and sent him to die.”

The air went still and thin, too thin to breathe.

CHAPTER 5

ARIC STEPPED NEXT TO HER, GRASPED HER hand. Bonds she’d thought were ruptured between them—mental, emotional, magical—snapped back into full being.

Do not anger the king! he warned her telepathically.

Sensations flamed through her with his touch. She couldn’t grasp Aric’s emotions, didn’t dare stop to consider them. He was right, she’d said something stupid, but she couldn’t take it back.

Aric continued his mental scolding. It was the King of Water, the merman, who sent the dwarf to you and Rothly. The and Queen of Earth, the dwarves, approved. The older couples. They did not tell the Cloudsylphs or Emberdrakes.

Great, now she knew more about the Eight’s internal politics than she’d ever wanted, and was tangled in them like in seaweed.

“I will accept an apology for that,” the king said, each word a bullet of ice.

Jenni risked a fleeting glance in his eyes. They remained light, and she thought she’d seen a flash of pain. “Then what I said was not the truth. I apologize.”

“Questioning the actions of the Eight is not wise,” Cloudsylph said with absolutely no emotion in his voice.

Jenni felt all too human, all too vulnerable. A lifting of his finger could remove all the air from the room and she would die…except that Aric’s warm hand was wrapped around hers and he could live without air for a time, and could keep her alive.

She looked out the window at the city, gray-block buildings diminishing in size to the brown-yellow plains. “Yet you seem to think that the Eight need me.”

He tapped his fingertips together. Once. Jenni thought it was a mortal gesture he was trying to mimic. “As you need us to save your brother.”

Again her chest constricted, this time from emotion. She dragged in a breath, wet her lips. “Do I?”

The elf’s brows lifted in the faintest arch. “You may be able to find your brother, but will you be in time to save him? Your father told me once that staying in the interdimension decays the life force. Can you travel through the interdimension to him?”

Jenni figured the king knew the answer was no. Her lips were now cold and she didn’t want to use energy to raise her body temperature.

After a minute-long silence, the king continued. “I didn’t think so. And you can’t tell where he is, geographically?”

“I can’t pinpoint his location.” All she knew was that Rothly was to the northwest.

“We know he is in your ‘gray mist,’ but not where in the real world he stepped into it—geographically. It is my understanding that the closer you are to where he might be in this world, the easier it will be for you to bring him from the interdimension into reality. We sense he is not alone in the interdimension, but shadleeches feast on him, draining his magic.” The king’s fingers curled in a tiny flex. “Can you separate him from his pursuers and pull him out without bringing them, too?”

A shivery breath sifted through her. The elf’s phrasing sounded as if it had come directly from one of the Mistweaver family journals, one she’d thought had been personal. How many journals did they have transcriptions of? How many of the Mistweaver secrets did the Eight know? And how many of the Eight had read them?

“Your father was my friend,” Cloudsylph said.

Jenni didn’t remember that. Didn’t recall Cloudsylph being in their lives. He was of a royal line and the Mistweavers were “mongrels.”

“I can send warriors to protect you and him,” the king said.

“A little late for that.”

For the first time he showed anger. “I was not responsible for the deaths of your family. I fought and suffered. We all suffered.”

“But you survived, became a new royal and part of the Eight. All of the Eight survived and four of the old Eight got to transfer to another, richer dimension. My family paid for your survival and that portal with their lives. You did not save them.”

“You do not know all that occurred. You were not with your family when the Darkfolk attacked. Nor did you save them.”

Jenni went up in flames. Literally.

She let the heat of her fury burn her clothes away, flash her being into fire, then smoke. She shot through the air vent, melting the grate, hurtled out of the building. There was a snow-fat dark cloud in the sky and she grabbed energy from it, drew electricity around her and became a lightning bolt. She concentrated and snapped onto the ground—

—into an icy stairwell. A rectangular concrete hole in the alley six blocks from her home, a basement access to a business.

She collapsed into a heap, so completely drained she wouldn’t be able to move for hours.

She hadn’t been smart.

And she was naked.

And a shadleech separated itself from a brick building and fluttered close.

The gray magical being-scrap bent itself. Jenni’s human sight saw a large crow tilting its head and hopping toward her. Its claws scritched on the stairwell’s concrete. The thing came close enough that she smelled old bubblegum. She shuddered. It would take only a wisp of thought for that dark thing to call others…and the great Dark one, who would feast on her.

If she got a second chance, she would work on anger management. Work on growing beyond grief and guilt.

Another hop and the shadleech’s sharp beak pierced her wrist. Hurt! Like a nail had been driven into her, pinning her. Then she felt an awful tug, as if it drew magic from the very threads of her muscles, the marrow of her bones. She thrashed in pain, but still heard the thing’s clicking noise as if disappointed in the thin trickle of her magic.

She was cold, colder than she’d been in Cloudsylph’s office. Snow and ice coated her back and butt and legs…. Focus! Use the fear, the short adrenaline rush. She reached to the earth below the concrete, to the air, for any magic. Earth energy, air, water from the ice. It began to snow.

Slowly magic coalesced inside her. The shadleech gurgled in pleasure. A race now. Could she use the magic before the shadleech drained it? She sent heat sizzling down her nerves, zapping the thing off, flung herself up to sit, stand, zombie-lurch to the stairs.

There was a door close, but no one in the basement. Another back business door was at the top of the stairs. People behind it.

“You filthy thing!” Hartha’s voice, thick with fury and loathing.

Jenni pitched forward, noodlelike arms barely breaking her fall. She cranked her head sideways, saw the brownie whipping the shadleech with her apron. It cringed, wisped to nothingness under the onslaught of earth magic, died.

“Humph.” Hartha dropped the apron, stamped on the very end of the string and the shadleech disintegrated. Snow fell faster. The browniefem flicked her fingers and glitter imbued the flakes falling on the apron with cleansing magic. Nothing would take harm from the once-cloth or the vanished shadleech.

Hartha turned and Jenni saw the survey of herself—her state of nakedness, skinned hands and knees, more-than-pale magically drained skin.

The brownie tsked, shook her head. “Translocated, did you? Those royal Lightfolk can rile a body fast.” The small woman hopped forward and grabbed Jenni’s thumbs. Then her head tilted back and her nostrils flared as she sniffed the air. Her eyes widened to huge orbs and her ears rolled against her head. “Must go. Something big and bad and Dark coming. We be safe in Mystic Circle.”

The great Dark one. Jenni hunched.

There was a brief moment of gritty blackness, then Jenni was falling down onto her very own bed in her pretty and warm coral-colored room. She flailed and flopped over onto her back. An instant later Hartha had pulled a gold silk comforter over her…covering even her head. Chinook hopped on the bed, found Jenni’s stomach and curled her substantial self on her. The blessing of the cat’s heat and energy made Jenni moan.

She’d nearly died—mostly due to her own temper, but a Dark one was on her already and the mission hadn’t even begun.

“I will bring a strengthening tonic,” Hartha said in a no-nonsense tone.

Jenni huddled, fatalistically knowing that in this moment the power in the household had shifted to Hartha. Jenni was now a person on a deadly quest and Hartha was the stable person.

A busy-mind thought to keep Jenni from actually thinking hard about what she’d done—her out-of-control temper—and the consequences of her actions, both to herself and to Rothly. No one could save him from the interdimension but her. There could even be consequences to Aric.

No, Cloudsylph wouldn’t blame Aric for Jenni’s reaction. But that elven lord would know he’d won the skirmish with Jenni. He’d kept his control and she’d lost hers. He knew her weakness. Her guilt was one hell of a hot button.

Guilt was just one of her weaknesses. Right now she felt like she was a messy heap of nothing but weaknesses. Far too emotional. She grieved for her family and was eaten by guilt. She was angry at the Lightfolk for not protecting her family and for manipulating them in the first place. She was angry at Aric for choosing to save the Eight instead of rushing to her family and saving her brothers…his friends.

Then there was the Dark one. He—it—had killed her family. It had posted a shadleech in her neighborhood to watch for her. Another reason she would need the Lightfolk, and that was as bitter as the rest.

She’d suppressed so much anger and grief and guilt. Now the emotions burst through her as if her skin crackled then iced and split and all she was left with was emotion. Thought fled.

Jenni wept, then she slept.

She awoke in dim light, with the scent of a potion that still steamed, though Hartha must have left it hours ago. A sensing of the neighborhood atmosphere told her the sun had set and it was past rush hour. People were home from their jobs.

Testing her power and energy, she knew even with Hartha’s tea she didn’t have the strength to do anything more than small magics. Not tonight, not until tomorrow. And she’d need to be more skillful—go into the mist several more times—before she could save Rothly. Her stupidity had cost her time.

Curling into a ball, she thought of the shadleech attacks and whispered a prayer that Rothly stayed unconscious until she retrieved him.

She had the night to rest, to prepare for the missions, and couldn’t afford to lie about doing nothing. Struggling to an elbow, she realized Chinook snored gently beside her. Her old cat, a cat she’d gotten as a kitten a year after she’d moved into the house, was now her only family. A cat who was in indifferent health that Jenni would be leaving to brownies who didn’t particularly like cats.

All the gloppy sentimentality in her nature swamped her as she cuddled Chinook. “I love you. I’ll miss you.”

The cat spared a lick on Jenni’s hand then grunted and slipped from Jenni’s loose grasp to walk over to the table and investigate the drink. She made a disgusted noise then thunked to the floor and waddled from the room.

Chinook would be fine when Jenni left. The brownies would take care of her.

Jenni rubbed her face. She needed another shower, this time to rehydrate herself.

Stretching aching kinks from her body, she found a tiny amount of elemental energies had dribbled into her while she had slept. Too many earth particles—the brownies must have been concerned. After she drank Hartha’s potion, she was able to equalize her own small store of energy and discovered she was ravenous. Too much magic spent wastefully.

With a deep breath, she set down the mug, shifted her shoulders. Her house felt odd, the balance off—more air and tree…Aric was here.

She’d have to tell Aric about the Dark one.

As she stood under the shower, she let the atmosphere of her home envelop her. It was odd to feel Aric in this place that she’d made her own. Obviously the brownies had let him in, and since he was her contact with the Eight—and between the choice of the Eight and Aric, she’d choose her ex-lover—it was efficient that he was there.

She dressed. Much as she’d like to avoid the home she’d grown up in, she would have to go to Northumberland to get more tea. She was hoping that Rothly had left notes about the mission. She cringed to think of him trying to practice his craft as a cripple.

Her childhood home would haunt her, she knew that. It would hurt.

Being with Aric there would hurt her more. They’d become lovers there. Every second would remind her of her guilt.

She took a big breath, and checked the tapestry bag with wooden handles. It was full of clothing from natural fibers—hemp, wool, cotton, even silk shirts and her two cashmere sweaters. For an instant she mourned her long red trench. Her own damn fault it was gone.

From her closet shelf, she pulled down a padded cloth backpack.

Nothing that was synthetic could pass through the trees on her journey with Aric. Odd and strange and sad all the little habits that came back from when they were a couple. It would only get worse.

So she just walked down the stairs and didn’t look back.

Aric was seated on the couch in the living room. Chinook was on his lap, purring. “Beautiful cat,” he said, stroking her.

“Yes, she is,” Jenni said. “And very loving.” Her mouth pruned. “Not very discriminating, though.”

Aric’s jaw flexed. He inhaled deeply, blinked. “This place is wonderful, Jenni, very powerful.”

Jenni swallowed as the compliment touched her, narrowed her eyes. “Don’t think of doing any great casting here.”

Aric gave Chinook a last stroke, then carefully placed her on the sofa beside him. “I wouldn’t, and you should know that. Are you going to snipe at me all the time we’re together on this mission?”

Jenni’s nostrils flared as she inhaled. “I don’t know you. You’ve changed. I have changed. And I don’t think that my anger is unreasonable. The Lightfolk sent my crippled brother on a mission he couldn’t hope to fulfill, just to manipulate me to save him, to be in their debt and do the mission myself.” Her voice still had the roughness of fear and sleep and tears.

Aric stared at her. The light was dim, the brownies only had a couple of glow globes going, so Jenni couldn’t make out the expression in his eyes.

Finally, he inclined his head. “It’s the truth that I have changed. As we all have, since that day of the opening of the portal and the Darkfolk attack. Your anger may not be unreasonable, but it is uncontrolled.”

Well, she deserved that. “Yes. Obviously I have issues—psychological problems to work on.”

“I know the word issue, and I’m not the only one. We are trying to integrate back into the mortal world.” He gestured in the direction of downtown. “When magic and technology fuse, humans may be ready to accept us.”

“Much as that appeals, that’s not the point. The point is saving Rothly, then doing this mysterious mission for the Lightfolk,” Jenni said. She squared off against him and silence pulsed.

Hartha walked in with a tray holding two large pottery bowls of steaming stew. She put down a bowl at Jenni’s place at the dining room table. A table now clean of books, papers and laptop, and set with another mat, bread plate and silverware. She put down the second bowl there.

Frowning, Jenni said to Hartha, “You invited Aric into my home when you knew I didn’t want him here.”

“A great Dark one is after you,” Hartha said. “Safety is more important than tender feelings.”

Jenni flinched.

“You knew?” Aric asked.

Jenni didn’t look at him and said, “A recent development.”

He stood tall, his stance set but balanced, and Jenni knew that he now had more than the minimal fighter training for a Lightfolk male. Jenni’s middle brother had surprised them all in apprenticing himself to a great Lightfolk as a soldier. Her throat tightened. Stewart’s body had been covering her mother’s. He’d been the first to defend and the second to die. She’d never had the chance to say goodbye. Like all the others.

She rubbed her eyes.

Aric said, “I won’t eat the offered food and I will leave if you do not wish to discuss this now.” His soft tones backed with steel slid through her. She’d never heard such from him before that morning. She was too right, he’d changed.

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.

“I never got to say goodbye to them, either.” Aric’s words fell stark.

Something inside Jenni just shattered, tearing her patchwork heart back into bits. A liquid cry escaped her, she staggered back and hit the wall and slid down it, dropped her pack as she curled into herself, and wept. Wept like she hadn’t since her family had died.

Before she knew it, Aric sat beside her, gathered her into his arms, next to his warm chest, holding her, shaking himself.

They were my good friends, too, all of them, and I didn’t get to say goodbye, he said mentally.

Guilt ate at Jenni in fat, greedy, bloody bites. She sobbed, but managed a coherent thought or two aimed at her former lover, who had failed, also. I was too late to save them. Finally, finally she could expose the depth of her guilt. They all left an hour and a half before the circle dance to open the portal, early, like I was supposed to do. But I stayed with you.

CHAPTER 7

ARIC SHUDDERED. “AND WE MADE LOVE AND the Lightfolk moved up the ceremony to open the portal and the Darkfolk attacked.”

“I sh-sh-should have b-been th-ere.” Jenni spoke through wet gulps.

“If you had been there—if we had been there—we would be dead, too. You would have stepped from the misty interdimension when your mother, the anchor for the great spell, was killed, just like the rest of your family. Instead we arrived after the first fighting, and you had the chance to help Rothly keep the balance of elements, contain the uneven powers so that we all didn’t perish.”

Aric paused and stroked her hair. “I thought of what you said yesterday. You were right. If you and Rothly hadn’t managed all the elemental magic your family had summoned, the portal would have collapsed. The older two couples wouldn’t have made it through to their new world. If the dimensional portal had become unstable, it would have killed many. If you Mistweavers hadn’t taken the time to dismiss the elemental energies your family had gathered, they would have killed us.” His inhalation was audible. “I reminded Cloudsylph of that after you…left.”

Some of the guilt she’d punished herself with for so long had leaked away with her tears.

Aric shifted and rubbed his chin on the top of her head and new tears welled. They’d sat like this before and it felt too damn good. His tone was softer when he continued. “Those of us fighting didn’t see you and Rothly working so hard, doing such dangerous duty in the gray mist. We didn’t think of how our lives were in your hands. The Air King realized that, so did the others of the Eight. Eight Corp has transferred five million dollars to your account.”

Jenni yelled in outrage, tried to pull away from Aric’s embrace. “You think I care about money! We didn’t do the mission for money.” She thrashed, but Aric set his large hands on her biceps and rose with her.

“No, I knew your family didn’t accept the mission for money.”

“They—we—they only wanted to be respected in the Lightfolk community. Half-breeds aren’t.”

Aric flinched. “They weren’t. Now that Eight Corp has been established and the Lightfolk are moving more into the human community, able to merge magic and technology, you are more valued, I promise you.”

“Huh.” Once again Jenni pulled away and this time Aric let her go. She pulled a tissue from a wad in her coat pocket, wiped her face and blew her nose.

A distant roll of thunder sounded through the window, a brief flash of lightning illuminated the hall. It looked just as she had remembered except it was dustier. And she’d never remembered it dim. The overhead lights had always been on, doors had remained open with cheery yellow light pouring from the rooms.

Cold and wet and dark and late winter in Northumberland—winter had always been outside the house but not inside, where warmth and laughter and family filled the rooms.

How long had Rothly lived in this dim silence? Enough to feed bitterness.

Jenni walked unsteadily toward her parents’ door, the only one open, bracing herself with every quiet footfall. One pace away, she hauled breath into her body and stepped from dark shadow into gray light, pivoted to look into the large room that should have gleamed warm wood and rosy chintz.

It was blue and gray with shadows and dust. Pain caught and strangled in her chest, along with breath and voice.

Aric put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed. Then he entered the room and marched through the thick layers of dust, his face set. When he reached the bureau against the wall and the many tarnished-silver framed photos he stood, hands fisted at his side. A fine tremor shivered up his body and pain flashed across his features. Then he scooped up two pictures, turned, scuffing gray globules of dust, and returned to the threshold where Jenni hovered, breathing shallowly.

As she’d watched him, she’d become aware of a scent…not just her mother’s fragrance of heat and perfume, but the air element that her father had mastered held his scent—and the smell of them together. Parents. Love. Home. She barely saw Aric through renewed tears.

“Here.” He handed her a frame crusty with grime, and she glanced down to see a photograph of the whole family—all her sisters and brothers and her parents. It had been taken a year before she’d lost them.

In the picture, Jenni sat cross-legged on the floor between her sisters, her arms around them, grinning cheekily. Her parents sat on a plump love seat behind them, her mother’s head tilted against her father’s shoulder, obviously both loving and beloved. Rothly lounged against the right arm of the love seat, lanky as he’d reached his final inches. Her second brother, Stewart, leaned against the left arm in a mimicking pose. Her oldest brother stood behind her parents. Lohr had looked the most like their father, the half elf. His smile was shy and proud.

Jenni clutched the picture to her chest, wailing breaths pounded her body. Again Aric was there, arm curving around her, gently moving her down the hall. They passed doors on the right and left that belonged to her siblings—rooms that Jenni was glad were closed. She yearned to open them, but knew the pain would be beyond bearing.

They stopped at the landing, and Aric pressed her to descend, but she balked.

“Come, Jenni, enough of memories. We have work to do. We must find Rothly’s notes.” Aric had tucked his photograph into a large pocket that had appeared in his coat, then vanished.

“No.” She pivoted in the circle of his arm and paced away to the door at the far end of the hall and the little room—the smallest in the house, as she’d been the youngest—and stood there. She steadied her breath and her emotions, once again groped for the mass of tissues that Hartha had put in her coat pocket. Foresightful brownie.

After cleaning herself up again, she stared at the door. “I need to do this,” she said in a cloggy voice. “H-he— Rothly—threw silver and salt at me.”

“At us, and he was wrong.” Aric laid his arm once again across her shoulders. “We did nothing to be made dead to him.”

Jenni shrugged off his arm. “I didn’t get to the ritual dancing circle to open the portal on time.”

“You didn’t get there early,” Aric corrected. “As your family did, and they didn’t call you when plans changed. We would have been on time. But the Lightfolk moved the opening of the portal up.”

There was the faintest note of cool satisfaction in his voice that reminded her that he’d been her family’s guest for the great event. He wasn’t anywhere close to being high enough status to have been invited on his own. No, he wouldn’t have been late for the dancing circle to open the portal.

Unwanted shades of memories flitted near. She didn’t intend to take a closer look at them. “They opened the portal while we were having sex.”

“While we were enjoying each other. None of that is a reason for guilt.”

Jenni blinked away sticky tears that clung to her lashes, peered at him. He sounded completely reasonable. He didn’t feel any guilt—hadn’t ever—about being in bed rolling around with her having sex when her family was being cut down by Darkfolk.

She didn’t want to think of memories, so only stared at the barrier to her old room. She couldn’t bring herself to touch the knob and open the door. Aric reached around her, twisted the knob and flung the door open. Her room was empty and painted a white as stark as clean bones.

Air whisked from the place into the hall, carrying a faint searing scent. Jenni knew in that moment that Rothly had called on his djinn fire nature to flash-incinerate everything in her room, including the bed that her grandfather had made for their mother when she was a girl. Jenni’s breath was stolen again and she rocked back. Aric’s arm curled around her waist and he drew her against his body, pulled the door shut with a slam. He inhaled a lungful of air. “Rothly burnt your things!”

“I know,” she said thinly.

“He’s your brother.”

A terrible smile formed her lips. “No. He threw silver and salt at me, disinheriting me, making me dead to him. Since he’s older than me and so the head of the family, he made me no longer a Mistweaver.”

“You will always be a Mistweaver.” Aric’s hands curved around her shoulders and he gave her a small shake. “The Air King was angry with you yesterday when you baited him, but I double-checked the official lists. You and Rothly are still both listed as Mistweavers.”

Jenni just closed her eyes, and went dizzy as Aric swung her up in his arms. He took her back to the landing and clomped down the stairs. “And you can still move into the gray mist, the interdimension, and weave elemental energies to make the land and Folk more powerful. That makes you a Mistweaver.” He set her on her feet with a little jolt, handed her pack to her. She was glad to be back in the light they’d left on the ground floor. “Let’s do what we must do and leave this sad place,” Aric ended.

Her chest hurt and breath came short from all the emotions pressing inside her—grief and anger and guilt. She slid the photo into her backpack. With even steps she walked to the center of the entryway and raised her arms above her head, called on her djinn nature and fire. She could do something else here for Rothly—more, for the memory of her parents. She could send a cleansing wind through the place and remove every particle of dust. She tapped her foot in the right rhythm, conjured the sound of finger cymbals, a thumping drumbeat began and she saw Aric tapping both hands against the sturdy wooden stair banister. “I helped your mother occasionally,” he said.

He had. As Rothly’s friend, he had come to stay now and again.

Jenni nodded at him, started the nasal chant, then began to spin. Soon the room was only a blur, as she gathered air and fire around her, then let it go with a spell and the snapping of her fingers. The fire-wind whistled from her and shot up the stairs, doors opened and closed, the whole atmosphere of the house vibrated and by the time Jenni crossed to the stairs and sat down to rest a little, it was done. The house was clean.

Aric sat beside her and it was almost companionable.

He took out the other photograph he’d chosen from the top of her parents’ dresser, leaned his arms on his knees and they both looked down at it. Another jolt through her chest into her heart.

He’d chosen the picture they’d all had taken before the mission in the elegant clothes they’d purchased for the event. Aric himself was in the picture, arm in arm with her, smiling with easy charm. He really was photogenic.

Another frisson slipped through her. She looked as if she’d been in love.

For a moment she sat frozen. Why had Aric chosen this photograph? Because he was in it? Because she was?

“I didn’t get to say goodbye to them.” His voice had the native lilt of a Treeman. He used his sleeve to clean off lingering dust. “And there was that party the night before the portal opening.” He smiled and it was beautiful and almost like an old one that she remembered. Surely he’d lost that original smile as she had most of hers. “We all got a little drunk on mead.”

She remembered. She’d stayed to the end of the music, but retired before he, knowing that he would come. They shared a room in those days. When he’d arrived later he’d been singing some Treefolk song that she couldn’t understand. They’d loved then, slept in later than they should have, and had loved again…until they’d heard screams.

Jenni rose. “Let’s see if Rothly left any sign of his exact path.” She grimaced. “Though I still think that the Eight could find him if they tried. They are, after all, the most powerful beings on Earth.”

Aric didn’t defend them. He stood, looked down at her with an inscrutable face, then moved from the stairs down the main hall and turned toward her father’s study.

She glanced upstairs, wondering if she could face the second floor again.

“I examined Rothly’s bedroom.” Aric’s words carried to her through the echoing house. “Nothing there.”

Nodding to herself, Jenni snagged her pack, then joined him.

The den was different than she remembered. The overflowing shelves were gone and Jenni understood with a shock that her father’s friends and colleagues would have wanted some of his collection. She vaguely recalled her parents joking about making wills, but hadn’t considered any legacy she might have until this moment. A grudging anger at her brother took more edge off her grief.

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