Kim Harrison - The Witch with No Name

“Ahh, I’ll wear yours, thanks.”

My heart almost broke from happiness as she all but flopped onto a linen-covered bail of straw and I carefully used my hairpins to fix it among her elaborate braids. Ellasbeth was not happy, making no bones about her disapproval of Ray’s marrying a Rosewood baby, even if that baby had grown into a powerful demon who’d turned his thoughtful studies into researching aura mechanics. The field was relatively new and massively funded by an ever-decreasing but desperate segment of the old undead. It had never occurred to me that Ray might marry one of the kids that Trent and I had saved from Ku’Sox. Funny how things worked out.

But I think Ellasbeth’s disapproval stemmed more from the coming lack of grandbabies than from Keric’s being a demon. While elves and demons had finally learned to live together—in part because their new Goddess was a demon and she wanted it that way—the biology remained static. There’d never be a successful demon-elf pairing. The magic fought the science, and the science undermined the magic. There were some things, apparently, that even a crazy Goddess couldn’t fix.

Ray wound her fingers around themselves, fidgeting as she looked to the billowing drapes and the coming sunset. “Maybe I should’ve asked Loo to ride with me. Mom looks ticked.”

Mom meaning Ellasbeth this time, and I sighed, fixing her hair and knowing it would be the last time ever. “She’s not mad at you, she’s mad at my mom. To tell you the truth, I think Lucy likes sitting between them. If she can keep them from throwing curses at each other, then she can convince a hanging judge that the sun is black and the moon is green.”

Ray snorted, reminding me that under the finery and glam, she was the same little girl I’d spent the last twenty-seven years helping Trent and Quen raise, putting Band-Aids on cuts, making unexpected cupcakes at dawn before school, cheering from the stands in the rain, and drying tears when a boy was mean—missing her when she was with Ellasbeth. If that wasn’t being a mom, then nothing was. It had been glorious, even if Trent and I had never made it official. With Ray getting married, it felt as if a tie between us was being cut.

“I’m so glad you’re standing with my dad,” Ray rushed on, and I kept arranging her hair, knowing she needed soothing as much as that flaky horse did. “I can’t imagine Ellasbeth doing it.”

I laughed, but it sounded almost like a cry. “Me either.” I had to stop. I had to let her go. “Go on. You need to lose yourself in the woods. Keric knows where you’ll be, right?”

She stood, looking like grace given substance, breathless with action and promise coiled up in her, ready to be loosed on the world. “Yes. If you see Al, tell him if he doesn’t wear the pelt, I will turn his ears into snakes.”

I nodded, my hand trailing from her as she paced quickly to the back of the pavilion and slipped into the twilight. “Hi, Ivy!” she called, already out of my sight but heavy on my mind. “Jenks, your kids are butt-hats!”

“Yeah? Tell me something I don’t know, short stack!” Jenks shouted, and I spun to the makeshift door. Ivy? The sun was still up. I hadn’t expected her to make it until the reception when Nina could come with her.

Pulse fast, I wiped my eyes as she walked in, gray about the temples, wrinkles about her eyes, but moving as slinkily and smoothly as always. She made the fifties look good. Really good. “You made it!” I said, glancing from her to the saddle. I had to finish up and get out of here. I needed to be on the hill overlooking the glen by sunset, and it was almost that now.

Eyes glittering, Ivy pulled me into a quick, heartfelt hug. My eyes closed as the scent of vampire incense and contentment washed through me. Okay, maybe I needed some soothing, too, and I smiled as I pulled back, thinking she looked better than great. And she’d made it before sunset. I’d thought she’d be too busy.

“Rachel, you are as radiant as Ray,” she said, and Jenks hovered between us, his silver dust graying about the edges. He was due for another rejuv charm, but was resisting.

“You mean wild,” the pixy said. “Love the hair, Rache.”

I touched it, not caring that I’d ruined the elaborate upsweep by taking my cap off. It was frizzing already, and I took the last of the pins out. Trent liked it better wild anyway. Though I’d not seen or heard the Goddess since Newt had become her, Jenks said mystics still coated me from time to time as she turned her thoughts my way. I knew every time she did because my hair became impossible. It happened a lot, and maybe that’s why my life had been so perfect.

“You said you couldn’t make it until after sunset,” I said.

Ivy smiled as if knowing something I didn’t as she made kissy noises at Red and petted her soft nose. “Nina told me to leave. Apparently I was fidgeting. Getting the office excited.”

Jenks snorted, and I thanked him when he dropped a pin into my hand.

“Nina keeps them in line better than I do anyway,” Ivy said, eyes wistful. “The old ones don’t like me much. Not like before.”

I can’t imagine why. Ivy and Nina had flipped the vampiric power structure. Not a week went by without a protest or incident, but it was contained within the vampires, living and dead, and the world was content to let them figure it out.

“They just don’t know you like we know you, Ivy,” Jenks said, darting back when Ivy idly threatened to smack him. It was an old game that neither tired of.

“Nina will make the reception, won’t she?” I asked as I went to drop the saddle pad on Red. The music had shifted, both the baying of the dogs and the quintet. I was going to be late. No help for it now.

“She wouldn’t miss it.” Ivy held Red’s head as I placed the saddle, and my lace rustled as I leaned to bring the cinch up. It was good to see Ivy out of the office. Being the head of Cincy’s I.S. had taken her out of the church about the same time I’d given up trying to be two things and moved in with Trent, though to be honest it was the girls’ pouting that moved me more than Trent’s heavy sighs. But all things change, and we both loved our lives.

“ I wouldn’t miss it,” Ivy whispered as I leaned into Red for leverage to tighten her cinch. “You deserve this, and I wanted to be here to see it.”

“Yeah, it’s your big day!” Jenks said, wings clattering. “Make-it-or-break-it time!” he said, gyrating wildly. “Time to crap or get off the pot!” he added, and Ivy shot him a look to shut up.

Excuse me? My motion to cinch Red’s saddle hesitated. “I suppose,” I said. I’d miss Ray, but Trent and I had been empty nesters before when both girls had been at school.

“He means this wedding is a big step,” Ivy said, glaring at him. “The demons and the elves formally joined and their war officially ended.”

“It took me forever to convince Dali to help with the vows,” I said, glad the grumpy demon had finally agreed to it, threats and promises aside.

“Tink’s last will and testicles, you should have been there, Ivy,” Jenks said, and Red flicked her ears, threatening to snap if he got any closer. “She laid down the law. Started every other sentence with ‘Look, you,’ and had a list a mile long just to get him to come.”

“You do what you have to do,” I said, smiling. Al had been there, and I swear I’d felt Newt’s laugh in my mind. I was smart enough not to tempt fate with trying to contact the Goddess directly. Newt was gone but not dead, her spirit showing itself when elven magic spun out of control and into something unexpected and not always nice.

“Jenks . . . ,” I protested as he teased Red, but Ivy just smiled and shrugged. Seeing Ivy happy was all I’d ever wanted, and she was happy. What would happen when she died was anyone’s guess, which was probably why Ray was an expert in auratic physics and Lucy had focused on business law with a heavy slant toward vampiric living wills and trusts.