Eileen Wilks - Ritual Magic

To them, and not her, when she was the one who’d had all her memories stolen. It wasn’t right. They made all the decisions and didn’t tell her anything.

Not much of anything, anyway. She did know why Mr. Turner left with Lily. Someone had been killed and they were supposed to investigate. The gorgeous man who wanted her to call him Cullen, not Mr. Seaborne, had gone with them. Then Grandmother wanted to leave so she could protect the people at Mr. Turner’s house, who were in a different clan and couldn’t come here, where it was safer. The scary one—Benedict—and his girlfriend, who had a weird name Julia couldn’t remember and a ton of curly red hair, had given Grandmother a ride. As soon as they left, so did the woman with all the tattoos and the beautiful little baby, and Julia never got a chance to ask if she could hold the baby.

Julia spat one last time and rinsed her mouth with water and sighed. Everyone had important things to do and no one wanted her to do anything but go to bed. If she were really fifty-seven . . .

The bathroom door opened without anyone knocking. Julia turned and scowled—but it was Li Qin. That made Julia’s eyes widen. Li Qin was the politest person ever, and not in a fake way. It was just how she was. She breathed out courtesy the way a rose gives off scent.

Li Qin held her finger to her lips and motioned for Julia to come.

Curious and a little bit scared for no reason she could tell, Julia did. That crazy guy who sang because he couldn’t talk right was in the hall, waiting. He patted her on the shoulder. Li Qin made that shushing gesture again, and the come-along gesture, and limped to the door to Toby’s room. She had a big boot on her broken foot now, but she still needed to use one of her crutches. She opened Toby’s door.

Were they going to have a secret party? Stay up late after all, only Toby’s grandfather wasn’t supposed to know? Julia grinned and paused in the doorway.

Toby was just sitting up. He looked bleary, as if he’d been asleep, which maybe he had been because he’d had to go to bed half an hour before Julia. “What—” he started.

Li Qin hushed him.

Hardy pushed on Julia’s back, getting her to move all the way into Toby’s room. He closed the door.

Li Qin whispered, “A very bad person is coming. Hardy tells me we must leave.”

Toby whispered back, “If it’s someone bad, we have to warn my grandfather.”

Julia entered into the whispering. “How could Hardy tell you anything? He can’t talk. And how would he know?”

Li Qin smiled. “The angels speak to Hardy, and he sings their meaning. Toby, your grandfather will need our help. We must not be caught here, or we cannot help him. How do we leave without being caught?”

Angels? Li Qin thought the crazy guy listened to angels?

“Grandpa says Hardy walks with angels.” Toby gave the man a careful look as if he might be able to see angels hanging around him. He bit his lip, then nodded. “We could go out the window. The guards will hear us or smell us, but we aren’t hiding from them, are we?”

Li Qin looked at Hardy. “Hardy?”

He tilted his head. His eyes looked sleepy, not like he was worried or anything. After a moment he hummed some song Julia didn’t know.

“We wait for the bell,” Li Qin whispered.

“What bell?” Julia whispered back.

The doorbell rang. Julia jumped.

“Quickly.” Li Qin limped to the window. “Toby, you go first, please.”

WHENFriar had Lily turn onto an all-too-familiar road heading out of town, she knew where they were going. Rage swam up hot and strong. Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel, making her turn jerky.

She wasn’t the only one. “You son of a bitch,” Cullen breathed. “You knew where it was all along. You knew, and made sure we didn’t call and warn anyone.”

Lily didn’t dare take her eyes off the road, so she didn’t see exactly what happened . One second Cullen was staring at Friar. The next there was the smack of flesh on flesh and Cullen bounced back into the seat, having left it so abruptly Lily missed it.

“Cullen,” Rule said. “No.”

Cullen subsided, breathing heavily. “I didn’t swear to anything.”

“I did,” Rule said. “And you’re under my authority. You will not cause me to forswear myself. And neither,” he added in a voice dropped straight into arctic cold, “will he.”

No question who he was. Lily flexed her hands on the wheel, encouraging circulation to return. “You might as well admit it,” she told the bastard in the backseat. He was gloating. She was sure of it, though she couldn’t see his face. “The knife’s at Clanhome, isn’t it?”

“I did warn you,” the bastard in question said in a silky voice. “I said the next victim would probably be one of your people, and where else does one find your people?”

Yeah, he’d known all along where the knife was—and he’d made sure they didn’t call and warn Isen. That had been part of the goddamn deal. Lily breathed deep, trying to keep calm. She was driving. She couldn’t fling herself over the seat the way Cullen had tried to do.

“Perhaps we don’t need you now,” Rule said. “We know where we’re going.”

“Clanhome’s a big place, and time is short. Do you want to waste some of that time hunting the knife?”

“Cullen,” Rule said, “will the knife’s holder need a node for the rite?”

Cullen was silent for a long moment. “I don’t know. I don’t bloody know. I’d think they would want one, but that damn dead god managed to open gates without a node.”

“You see?” Friar sounded much too smug. “You can’t assume you can go straight to that node of yours. What if they’re using a ley line instead? Plenty of them to choose from.”

Lily wanted to grab his tongue and yank it out. She could imagine doing just that. Get a pair of pliers, grip that slimy, lying tongue with them, and rip it out, then watch him choke on his own blood and . . . and what in God’s name was she thinking?

She’d long wanted Friar dead. She could have killed him, given the chance. Right or wrong, she knew she was capable of that, but to imagine torturing him . . . that wasn’t her. Surely that wasn’t her. She shuddered and wished she knew how to pray, but the only one she remembered from her religion-averse childhood started Now I lay me down to sleep , which was no help at all.

What do you believe in?

Try. And keep trying. “Now that we know roughly where we’re going, we can start making plans,” she said in a voice that surprised her. She sounded a lot more level than she felt.

MIRIAMstood in the open French doors. Outside on what was left of the deck, five brawny men pried up the last boards. They were shirtless and lovely to watch, but she felt so . . . so impatient. Restless. As if parts of her were trying to fly away even while the rest of her stood here, watching. She couldn’t begin laying out what was needed for the ritual until the earth was bare and had been raked to remove any nails that might have fallen.

There’s time, a beloved voice said soothingly.

He was right. Of course he was right, though she glanced at her watch anyway, to see how much time. An hour and fifty minutes until the conjunction, and really, the ritual required very little prep. “I don’t know why I’m so jittery,” she said apologetically. “I can’t seem to think clearly.”

Their plans had changed after she got here. Originally, Miriam had intended to use a node that was halfway up a rocky hill, but just as she could now hear her beloved and feel his presence, he could now perceive the world through her. Yet he hadn’t sensed the node behind the house until she was almost on top of it, which had intrigued him greatly. He’d changed the location for the ritual. There was something about that node, he said, that he needed to understand. Something connected to Isen Turner . . . who she would sacrifice atop that node in an hour and fifty minutes.