A Little Magic(17)

“SoHo,” he murmured. “Christ, that was nearly ten years ago.”

“You’ve done brilliant things since. I could look through your eyes when I looked at your pictures. And felt close to you.”

The thought came abruptly, stunning him. He turned her quickly to face him, stared hard into her eyes. “You didn’t have anything to do with…you haven’t made what I can do?”

“Oh, Calin, no.” She lifted her hands to cover the ones on her shoulders. “No, I promise you. It’s yours. From you. You mustn’t doubt it,” she said, sensing that he did. “I can tell you nothing that isn’t true. I’m bound by that. On my oath, everything you’ve accomplished is yours alone.”

“All right.” He rubbed his hands up and down her arms absently. “You’re shivering. Are you cold?”

“I was for a moment.” Bone-deep, harrowing. Alasdair. She cast it out, gripped his hand tightly and led him over the gentle slope of the hill. “Even as a child I would come here and stand and look out.” Content again, she leaned her head against his shoulder, scanning hill and valley, the bright flash of river, the dark shadows cast by twisted trees. “To Ireland spread out before me, green and gold. A dreaming place.”

“Ireland, or this spot?”

“Both. We’re proud of our dreamers here. I would show you Ireland, Calin. The bank where the columbine grows, the pub where a story is always waiting to be told, the narrow lane flanked close with hedges that bloom with red fuchsia. The simple Ireland.”

Tossing her hair back, she turned to him. “And more. I would show you more. The circle of stones where power sleeps, the quiet hillock where the faeries dance of an evening, the high cliff where a wizard once ruled. I would give it to you, if you’d take it.”

“And what would you take in return, Bryna?”

“That’s for you to say.” She felt the chill again. The warning. “Now I have something else to show you, Calin.” She glanced uneasily over her shoulder, toward the ruins. Shivered. “He’s close,” she whispered. “And watching. Come into the house.”

He held her back. He was beginning to see that he had run from a good many things in his life. Too many things. “Isn’t it better to face him now, be done with it?”

“You can’t choose the time. It’s already set.” She gripped his hand, pulled. “Please. Into the house.”

Reluctantly, Cal went with her. “Look, Bryna, it seems to me that a bully’s a bully whatever else he might be. The longer you duck a bully, the worse he gets. Believe me, I’ve dealt with my share.”

“Oh, aye, and had a fine bloody nose, as I remember, from one. The two of you, pounding on each other on the street corner. Like hoodlums.”

“Hey, he started it. He tried to shake me down once too often, so I…” Cal trailed off, blew out a long breath. “Whoa. Too weird. I haven’t thought about Henry Belinski in twenty years. Anyway, he may have bloodied my nose, but I broke his.”

“Oh, and you’re proud of that, are you now? Breaking the nose of an eight-year-old boy.”

“I was eight too.” He realized that she had maneuvered him neatly into the house, turned the subject, and gotten her own way. “Very clever, Bryna. I don’t see that you need magic when you can twist a conversation around like that.”

“Just a small talent.” She smiled and touched his cheek. “I was glad you broke his nose. I wanted to turn him into a toad—I had already started the charm when you dealt with it yourself.”

“A toad?” He couldn’t help it, the grin just popped out. “Really?”

“It would have been wrong. But I was only four, and such things are forgiven in the child.” Then her smile faded, and her eyes went dark. “Alasdair is no child, Calin. He wants more than to wound your pride, skin your knees. Don’t take him lightly.”

Then she stepped back, lifting both hands. I call the wind around my house to swirl. She twisted a wrist and brought the wind howling against the windows. Fists of fog against my windows curl. Deafen his ears and blind his eyes. Come aid me with this disguise. Help me guard what was trusted to me. As I will, so mote it be.

He’d stepped back from her, gaping. Fog crawled over the windows, the wind howled like wolves. The woman before him glowed like a candle, shimmering with a power he couldn’t understand. The fire she’d made out of air was nothing compared with this.

“How much am I supposed to believe? Accept?”

She lowered her hands slowly. “Only what you will. The choice will always be yours, Calin. Will you come with me and see what I would show you?”