The Problem with Promises (8 page)

He could have scent-tested for a lie all he wanted. This woman was the mixologist of fibs. She knew exactly how to layer truth with falsehood, wicked ounce by ounce, so that all you saw was a seemingly innocuous cocktail. Smelled right. Tasted right. Felt bad in the belly.

I may have just given my first Tear to a bunch of no-good charlatans.

That insight in itself should have been enough to make me want to hit the maple syrup. But what really added to my misery was the fact that Fae-me was on high alert. Magic was being stirred, and she was acutely interested. Alive and speculating. Assessing things I could not understand with eyes far keener than mine. I could sense her working out a problem, as if it was string in her hand into which she kept tying and untying the same knot.

Was it me? Or did the air feel tighter? Thinner in oxygen?

I pulled out Merry, and cupped her in my cold hand to borrow a bit of her heat. My amulet let out a measure of energy that instantly made me feel warmer, but she didn’t make me feel calmer, the way Trowbridge did. Even when things were bad, having him in the same room made me feel … safer.

I got up, dusted off the pine slivers from my jeans, and headed for the lookout point to check on the ward status. Down by the pond, forward progress seemed stalled. The four of them were by the water’s edge, examining the little creek that fed into the pond. Cordelia’s mouth was a thin grim line, her arms folded. Their voices carried well over the water.

Natasha said, “This creek wasn’t here last time.”

“It’s always been here,” said Trowbridge flatly.

She scowled at it, then shook her head. “I can’t do it. I can’t seal a ward over a stream. It doesn’t matter if it’s only two feet deep. Magic won’t settle over moving water.”

“So I’ll get a couple of two-by-fours. Lay them flat over the stream,” said Trowbridge.

“It can’t be processed wood,” she said, shaking her head side to side. “It will interfere with the—”

“Hocus-pocus,” said Cordelia sourly.

Natasha’s jowls shook as she pursed her lips. “Our talent.”

Then she pointed over to the remains of a long dead maple. Its trunk lay split in two, half covered by vegetation on the slope of the hill. “That will do. Use them to make a bridge over the stream. But you’ll have to seal any chinks between them with mud, or the ward won’t set.”

“Mud?” Trowbridge repeated. By the light of the lamp I could see his expression. Testy, he was. Very testy. “Why can’t we just put a tarp over the logs?”

“It must be organic.”

The gas lamp highlighted Trowbridge’s sharp cheekbones. He stared at the duckweed-choked water with acute distaste.

“I’m out,” said Cordelia.

“No you’re not,” he growled, turning for the hill. “Help me with these logs.”

She straightened her cardigan. “This is a Simon Chang.”

“I’ll buy you two new tops. One in pink.” Trowbridge used his boot to flatten the burdocks that grew thick on the slope. He bent them at the base, creating a passage for Cordelia. “One in a blue to match your eyes—”

“You’ll buy me four.” She huffed as she stepped gingerly into the path he was making for her. “In fine wool. With pearl buttons. From Holt Renfrew.”

He half turned. “Can’t I pick up a few sweaters from the Bay?”

“Four,” she sniped. “From Holts.”

The witches had requisitioned one of the gas lamps and had climbed halfway up the narrow trail that led to Trowbridge’s house. A small landing of sorts had been created by a huge flat outcrop of rock.

Elizabeth put the lamp on it and shed her coat. “We will need absolute silence as we concentrate. Nothing must interrupt us, or break our focus. We are calling to elemental magic.”

Mortals playing with that stuff?

“It is powerful here,” Natasha murmured. “Stronger than I’ve felt before. If we lose control of it, it will be very bad.”

“How bad?” Cordelia turned.

“Bad,” Nastasha said baldly.

“Wonderful,” Cordelia drawled.

“Come on, Cordie.” Trowbridge gave her a little shove. “The sooner we make their damn bridge, the sooner they can enclose the pond with the ward.”

Chapter Four

Casperella was having a spook-out. There was no other word for it. The Fae ghost kept bouncing from end to end of her little home on the spit of cemetery land that overlooked the pond, for all the world resembling one of those shameful Canadian flags that had been left out all winter to become national eyesores. Taunting relics of a brighter day; tattered edges fluttering with each stiff breeze.

I rubbed my ear looking for ease.

The parameters of her final resting place were delineated by a low wall, built so long ago that whatever time and effort the original builder had invested in the careful placement of each fieldstone was now moot. The barricade had fallen sometime long ago, and now pine needles accumulated against the low imprint of the once-firm wall.

A sigh was building inside my chest.

I could go inside. Then I wouldn’t have to watch her fluttering back and forth like a demented moth.

I had mixed feelings about the Fae ghost. Two days ago, she’d stolen some of my magic. Fortified by it, she’d transformed herself from a mute, ghostly apparition to a far more substantial specter. With form came voice, which she’d used to call the Fae portal.

Yes. A damn ghost knew the song and I didn’t.

However, Casperella’s summons had set Trowbridge’s and Lexi’s homecoming into motion, as well as serving as a hell of a distraction when it looked like it was curtains for me.

Technically, I wasn’t sure if I owed her or not. She did thieve from me, but stealing isn’t really a big, black negative on my moral checklist. Perhaps that was the reason I couldn’t escape the feeling that I should tell her the Merenwyn-bound train was pulling into the station. The gates were going to be called in an hour or two. It could be her last chance to go home.

Karmawise, it seemed like a good idea.

I know I said that I’d never be Karma’s bitch again, but that doesn’t mean I’m not aware she’s there, waiting like the sister-in-law who really hates you and is just dying to see you do something that deserves a huge, public smack-down.

And—much harder to deny—I was my mother’s daughter.

Part of me is Fae.

Unless someone warned Casperella that she needed to be inside the ward boundaries being drawn at that very minute around the fairy pond, she was going to be forever locked out of her homeland. Which could have been my homeland, if Mom had married a Fae nobleman instead of a Were brewery worker.

Maybe I could encourage her to move past her walls.

Head to the light, Casperella. All will be welcome.

I held the lungful of air for one more resistant second, then let out a long, heavy, why-me exhale. Making a detour to the porch, I picked up my flashlight, and headed across the lawn for the path that led through the swath of mixed woods that delineated the Alpha’s private residence from the pack’s gathering field.

The second I stepped on it, the kid’s bite mark flared. Pain, sharp as if the little guy’s molars were crushing my skin again.

“Fae Stars!” I sucked in some breath sharply and bent over at the waist, protectively cradling my arm in the universal “damn that hurts” pain comma.

Crap. I could smell sweet peas.

Grimacing, I pulled aside the wrappings. The bite had reopened again. A bead of floral-sweet blood now decorated the deepest imprint left from the kid’s eyetooth. But even worse? The surrounding skin beyond those two oval half rings had a slight—though definite—green fluorescent glow to it.

My arm’s green. That can’t be good.

Kind of unsettling. No one wants to look down at their arm and see illumination. But there it was.
I’ve been marked.
He’d left something on me, that kid—besides a troubled conscience and a bucketload of guilt. When his teeth had pierced my skin in Threall, either some of his magic or some of Threall’s magic had seen an opportunity to find a new home.

But what was with that sudden, needle-sharp pain?

I walked to about the spot where the bite had suddenly redeveloped teeth, and then, arm out, I did a blind-man shuffle. Nothing. No crushing pressure. Not even a twinge. I took another step in the general direction of the path, and then another, and then … bingo, the bite throbbed. Acute and rather miserable pain.

I retreated and the nasty throb ratcheted down to a thrum.

Merry extended the tip of her vine to snag my jacket’s collar, then did a rather inelegant scramble to my shoulder for a better viewing point. Her body twisted this way and that, as if she was expecting a mage to come strolling out of the woods.

“I think we just walked across a line of magic, Merry.”

My amulet had a think about that, then patted me, kind of the way a mum might when she saw the line of D plusses on her kid’s report card. But the heart of her stone was tinged with orange—her color for caution.

“Yes,” said my Fae impatiently. “Magic.”

Huh. So, leylines
are
a mesh beneath the crust of the earth?

Okay then.

And now, my arm pinged—or rather, imaginary teeth ruthlessly crushed my flesh—whenever I passed one of those leylines? That was both fascinating—hey Mum, look what I can do!—and frustrating because there was no other path through to the cemetery, unless I wanted to retrace the cliffside walk that Trowbridge had done with Natasha. And to do that? Well, I’d need to use my flashlight, which would definitely highlight the fact that I wasn’t waiting patiently on the porch.

A roll of thunder. Sounding close, and yet the sky was still clear. There was no blanket of clouds drifting across the waning stars.

The path beckoned. How quickly could I nip down it? A minute if I walked fast?

I started off at a brisk trot, which quickly splintered into an anguished sprint. Twelve seconds later, I burst into the pack’s gathering field like I was going for the blue ribbon, arm raised, bite mark flickering like a glow worm.

The meadow smelled of the pack, and of fear, and of recent death. The hair stood up on the nape of my neck as I walked past the tree to which I’d been chained before Knox had plunged the knife into my chest.

The long grass at the edge of the field still struggled to bounce back from the trampling of Elizabeth’s boot heels. Some of it looked a little seared and dry, which was odd—almost as if someone had dragged a lit torch along it.

My gaze followed it all the way to—

That’s when I had one of those moments. Edison with his lightbulb. Newton with his apple. Lady Gaga the first time she saw a pair of fake, bling-studded eyelashes. There are coincidences and
coincidences.
If Elizabeth was truly following the leylines, then they were extraordinarily conveniently placed. What are the odds that these magical underground ribbons of power would just happen to coincide with a path through the woods, and more extraordinarily, the only gap in the long line of the living fence created by old cedars?

That was no natural break in the shrubbery. I’d cut the hole myself, with a hedge trimmer I’d permanently borrowed from Home Depot. Aleezahbet wasn’t following leylines.

So what was she laying a trail down of?

*   *   *

I turned off my flashlight as I entered the cemetery. I didn’t need it anymore. Ghosts are inner-lit. Between my glow-stick arm and Casperella there was enough light.

The Fae ghost hovered near the edge of the cliff, where she could monitor the witches’ progress. Judging how the tatters of her gown were weaving nastily around her, she wasn’t happy about it. I crept to one of the pine trees, and using its trunk to hide my presence, took a quick peek. Trowbridge and Cordelia had just placed one fallen log over the two-foot span, and were heading back to forage on the incline for another.

I’d better hurry.

“Pssst,” I whispered to the ghost.

She turned. Her face was a vague smear. Her hair, definitely unappealing, dark Medusa ropes that floated in a current I could not see.

I cut to the chase. “Before the sun rises, we’re going to summon the gates to Merenwyn. It will be open for a short time and then it will be closed.” I put enough finality in my tone to infer that it will never be opened again. “If you want to return home, that will be your chance to go through.” I pointed to the crumbling edge of her wall. “You’ll need to cross this wall, though, before the ward the witches are setting is complete.”

She silently regarded me.

Being mute has it drawbacks.

A quick glance toward the pond. Trowbridge, face set in a snarl, was entering the water. Expression grim, he bent over and scooped up some mud. He waded back toward the improvised bridge he was fashioning.

He’s going to need a shower after this.

“Come on, Casperella. Here’s your chance. Just go.” I gave her a little quick off-you-go wave to spur her on her way, and then when she didn’t do much more than hover in front of me, I added my tight, Starbucks-barista’s smile. The one that was shorthand for “Here’s your drug-of-choice. Now, please, go swill it elsewhere while I prepare the next addict’s drink.”

It’s uncomfortable to find yourself being studied by a ghost. And a little disquieting when the apparition decides to come closer for a better look-see. I backed up until my hip brushed a pine tree. “Well, you can make up your own mind. I’ve done my good deed for the day.”

I thought she might touch me, or worse, try to steal some of my magic again. If so, I was going to do something. Punch her. Or run. Whatever worked.

But all she did was float past me, leaking sadness and longing, until she came to the edge of her wall. There she hovered, rags flapping around her, her back turned toward the pond and potential freedom, with her gaze fixed on the cemetery.

What on earth was she so focused on? Escape was in the opposite direction.

I pivoted. The cemetery was exactly that—a
cemetery.
Past the paint-flaking staves of the rotting picket fence that served as an additional barrier to this forgotten end of the graveyard there wasn’t much out of the ordinary. We had a few trees—the oldest being at least a couple hundred years old. And the older tombstones—the first wave in a sea of them—thin and narrow, pocked with green moss now graying in the fall’s chill. Beyond those relics, we had the circular road that led in and out of the cemetery. Two Were ghosts, who usually kept to themselves. And then a whole bunch more markers—a wavering line that followed the swell of the land.