Eileen Wilks: Death Magic

“I don’t exactly keep my Gift secret. I just don’t mention it.”

Lily gave her a wry look.

Deborah grimaced. “I guess that amounts to the same thing. Does magic run in your family?”

“On my father’s side, yes, though he isn’t Gifted himself. Why?”

“Oh, I’ve gotten interested in the genetics of it. Particularly after we found out how Ruben’s trace of sidhe blood affects him—first with that allergy problem, then by saving his life. Do you know Arjenie Fox?”

“Sure.” Arjenie was newly mate-bonded to Rule’s brother, Benedict—the only other Chosen in North America. That was a deep, dark secret, of course, but Lily had already known the woman. Arjenie was an FBI researcher.

“I was so surprised when she moved to California. But love does have its way with us, doesn’t it? She’s been helping me. Just as a favor, in her spare time,” Deborah added hastily. “She isn’t using government time or facilities.”

Lily smothered a smile. She suspected Arjenie would use any facilities she wanted. She was highly ethical, but her ethics didn’t run along the same lines as the bureaucracy’s. “Now that I know about your Gift, I’m wondering how much of this”—Lily gestured at the grounds—“you did yourself. It’s gorgeous. In my experience, most Earth-Gifted don’t like to have other people mess in their dirt.”

“I planted and tend every filthy inch,” Deborah said with the particular smugness of a gardener.

So complimenting Deborah on her looks was out. That made her freeze. But compliment her on her gardens and she lit up. “I love this one,” Lily said as they reached a round, tiered bed. “It looks like a wedding cake or a fountain of plants instead of water.” She stopped, tilting her head. Most of the plants weren’t blooming this late in the year, but . . . “Is it a white garden?”

“Oh, you must be a gardener! Yes, I love the way masses of white flowers seem to glow in the dusk. I wish you could have seen it a month ago. Even the summersweet is past its peak now, I’m afraid.”

“Summersweet?” Lily asked. “I don’t know much about your plants here, but I had the idea it was a summer bloomer. There’s that “summer” in the name.”

A dimple winked slyly in Deborah’s left cheek. “I may have persuaded it to keep blooming longer than usual.”

“Now that’s a useful trick. Not one most Earth-Gifted can do, either.”

“An elemental showed me how once.”

Lily’s eyebrows shot up. “An elemental?”

“They show up here from time to time. They’re curious about me, I think.”

“Ah.” She didn’t have to let herself be fetched, Lily decided, and she’d rather talk to Deborah than make up to Bixton’s chief of staff. “I don’t have my own garden, but my grandmother lets me muck around in her dirt. There’s nothing like destroying a few square yards of weeds to set the mind at rest.”

“Exactly. Though Bermuda grass—!” Deborah rolled her eyes. “The people who owned the place before us had planted it. After twenty years, I still find clumps I have to dig out.”

“Nasty stuff. Roots that want to contribute to Chinese agriculture. Why anyone ever thought Bermuda grass was a good idea—”

“They’d never planted a garden, that’s for sure. Talk about invasive. You have it out in California, then?”

“Oh, it’s everywhere. I’ve heard,” Lily said darkly, “it’s been found at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. What kind of grass do you have? It’s a turf grass, I can see that much, but it isn’t like any we use out in California.”

“Kentucky bluegrass. You have to mow it high, but if you do that, an established bluegrass lawn is almost weed-free.”

Twenty minutes later, Lily and Deborah were studying a sad-looking rhododendron on the eastern edge of the lawn near the woods, talking about mulch and compost and black root rot.

“. . . not much of a problem in my part of the country,” Lily was saying, “but I know good drainage is key. But if you’ve already amended the soil and given it your own special boost, then switching to a different mulch—”

A clear tenor voice broke in wryly. “I should have known.”

Deborah looked over her shoulder at her husband, that single dimple winking again. “Lily likes to garden.”

Ruben Brooks didn’t look like a man who’d recently had a heart attack . . . one that had nearly killed him and still had him on indefinite medical leave. A heart attack caused by a potion that, for reasons of timing and proximity, restricted suspects to those at FBI Headquarters. A potion administered by a traitor.

Tonight, though, Ruben looked healthy. Still on the skinny end of lean, he had a beak of a nose, messy hair, and glasses that said “geek” more than “power broker.” But he wasn’t wasted anymore. He wasn’t in a wheelchair, either. When Lily first met him last November, he’d suffered from a mysterious condition that caused progressive weakness. The condition hadn’t gone away. It was genetic and would be with him for life, but now he knew what triggered it and could avoid his triggers . . . mostly. You couldn’t avoid iron and steel altogether.

He gave her a quizzical smile. “I didn’t realize you were a gardener. You don’t have one yourself.”

“No, but like I told Deborah, I get to play in Grandmother’s dirt.” When she had time. When she was in San Diego instead of Washington.

“I’m glad you get a chance to get grubby. Lily, please try not to react visibly to what I tell you now. I’d like to have a word with you and Rule after the other guests leave. If you could linger without it being noticed . . . perhaps Deborah can show you the ficus that’s trying to take over the sunroom. You can remain inside as the others depart.”

Deborah sighed faintly. “Time, is it?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Lily smiled and nodded as if Ruben had commented on the weather, but now that he’d brought it up, she noticed that the guests had thinned out while she was talking to Deborah. Half a dozen questions jostled in her mind. She suppressed them. If Ruben felt free to tell her what was up, he would have done so. “Okay.”

He couldn’t have read her mind and she didn’t think her face gave her away, but he answered one of the questions anyway. “It’s about the war.”

VERYfew guests remained when Rule started making his way to the Brookses’ back door. It was almost time. His main feeling was relief.

The next hour or so would be difficult. He didn’t fool himself about that, but it would be hardest on Lily. First she’d be hit by Ruben’s news, then . . . well, his nadia hated it when he kept secrets from her. He’d learned that he hated it, too, and was more than ready to lay that particular burden down.

He’d had no choice. She knew him well enough to understand that.

As he continued along the path, he felt the moon rise. He smiled.

Her song was always with him, but the bulk of the Earth muffled it until her orbit and the planet’s slow turning brought her above the horizon once more. Tonight the song was quiet and pure, resonating inside him like a plucked harp string. Quiet and pure and sweet. Always it was sweet. The song and the pull would mount over the next week to the wondrous, full-throated call of full moon.

The Brookses’ land would be a lovely place to spend full-moon night, he thought as he smiled and shook his head, declining an invitation to stop and chat with a couple of slow-to-leave guests. He’d love to sample the scents around him with a keener nose. Changing here would be easy. The earth itself welcomed him in a way he usually felt only at Clanhome. The Change was a matter of Earth communing with moonsong . . . and someone here worked Earth magic regularly.