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