Robin Owens - Enchanted Ever After

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Lathyr met Princess Jindesfarne’s eyes and inclined his head. The clouds and wind had only been a precursor. As Jenni moved away, he believed she’d be reporting to more powerful Lightfolk that minions of a great Dark one were flying over Mystic Circle.

He could feel the evil, see the gigantic stingray-like creatures as they circled and flickered against the sun. They couldn’t land, but they cast shadows that humans could uneasily sense.

It pleased his ego that the interesting Kiri Palger remained focused on him. He stood and offered his hand. “Why don’t we walk around the Circle?” This place was safe, but she was human and the others might want to use more magic that would disturb her. The park in the center of the Circle, the koi pond she liked, would be safer for her.

“You can ask me what you need to know about the project,” he coaxed. Not that he’d tell her much of the truth, but he wanted to touch her and gauge her potential for transforming into one of the Lightfolk, especially here in the Circle where magic was balanced.

The more time he spent with her, the more he liked her, though he’d made a mistake in holding her gaze. She was human and susceptible to his glamour. He wasn’t pure Waterfolk, but he was pure magic.

She stayed seated, looked around, then squared her shoulders, something he sensed showed determination. Gestures were different for the Merfolk underwater. If she’d been mer and in the ocean she’d have flipped a hand to send a push of water current aside, indicating power and the willingness to follow through. Both those qualities he thought she had, along with the most important two that he’d discovered humans needed to become Lightfolk—a flexible imagination and a high level of curiosity.

But as she didn’t rise, he deduced something held her here. “What is it?”

She flushed, a pretty habit, also not seen much below water where mers kept their body temperature steady and cool. The rush of blood to her skin was unexpectedly enticing. “I still haven’t met all of my neighbors, or interacted with them. I want to stay here.” Her fingers went to the buttoned ends of her shirtsleeves and aligned them some way that seemed right to her. “The job is really important to me, but so is my place here.”

He stared at her, blinked a couple of times to keep his eyes wet. If she turned into a dwarf or a djinn, even an elf—earth, fire, air elementals—she could possibly remain here. But if she became mer, she would have to move. What waters there were in Colorado were already claimed by naiads and naiaders.

What were the odds she’d become mer? He didn’t quite know. There had been less than twenty humans changed into magical Lightfolk and though he had recognized their potential, his guesses as to what they might become had been poor. So he dropped his hand and stepped away, disappointment cooling the blood in his veins.

Princess Jindesfarne, her husband, the Davails and several brownies had disappeared into unruly green brush in the corner of the yard and Lathyr sensed they were working magic. They didn’t seem to care that they had humans, including Kiri, in their midst, who might witness such.

A wave of balanced power pulsed under his feet, flowed through him, pushed into the sky. Princess Jindesfarne and friends sending the great Dark one’s servants away.

Sunlight became bright and hard and burning in the thin air.

Lathyr said to Kiri, “We can talk later. May we send the car for you early Thursday morning, so you and I can discuss this before the workday at seven-thirty? I will be in earlier for a meeting and we can talk after that.”

“You aren’t staying?” Kiri asked.

It was a warm autumn day and he hadn’t soaked for over twenty-four hours. His skin was drying and he also needed to breathe water and keep his bilungs damp. He’d accomplished his first goal of getting Kiri Palger to agree to the testing game, and evil had faded.

A line had appeared between her brows as she studied him—perhaps too closely. He shook his head. “I came in to Denver just a few days ago and still have not acclimated.”

Her expression cleared and she nodded. “Yes, people have trouble with the altitude.” She hesitated. “You aren’t living here on the block?”

“No, I am near—” what was the name of the park with the lake he was living in? “—near City Park.” Higher-status mers had convinced the old naiader whose lake it was to let Lathyr have a small domicile there. On sufferance, as always.

Kiri’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

He raised a brow. “Oh?”

“I just, uh, thought you’d live somewhere more sophisticated. Cherry Hills or something.”

“Eight Corp arranged my lodging. It is...sufficient.”

Now she appeared slightly offended. He tried a smile. “I am used to living near the beach.” Recently off the coast of Spain.

Kiri laughed. “Not many beaches in Denver.”

“No. I miss the ocean.” An admission he hadn’t meant to make, and not in public.

“Only natural.”

“Would you miss the mountains?” he asked.

Her smile was quick. “I suppose so. I was born here and spent time with my grandmother, and moved here four years ago, but I’d miss Mystic Circle even more.”

He nodded gravely. “It is a very special place.”

Rafe Davail, a human with a magical heritage, crossed to them with a swordsman’s swagger. “And Eight Corp doesn’t own nearly as many of the houses of Mystic Circle as it used to. I think it’s better that the homes remain in private hands.”

The man meant in human hands like his own, not owned by the Lightfolk royals of Eight Corp. “We still have the Castle,” Lathyr murmured.

“And Eight Corp owns the other bungalow across from Kiri,” Amber Davail, Rafe’s wife, who was related to a great elf, said. “Number nine.”

“Really?” Kiri said. “I didn’t know that.”

Rafe smiled easily, but Lathyr was aware that the man was blowing spume at him for some reason. “Maybe Eight Corp will let you have number nine.”

Jenni joined them again, shaking her head. “Nope, no pool.”

Lathyr dipped his head. “Yes, a pool is necessary.”

Kiri looked puzzled and Rafe laughed.

“I am weary. I must go,” Lathyr said. “I am sorry that we didn’t speak more, Kiri.”

“I’ll expect the car at 6:50 a.m. on Thursday morning,” she said.

Lathyr smiled.

Princess Jindesfarne’s husband came forward. “I’ll see you out,” Aric said. Lathyr sighed. The Treeman meant that he would take Lathyr home by way of tree. In this dry country it was faster than letting his molecules disperse into water droplets and finding a stream or cloud to take him where he needed to be. But Lathyr found traveling from tree to tree profoundly disturbing. Instead of moving as individual components, he felt solid and trees seemed to move through him. Stressful. “Thank you,” he said politely but with an underwash of resignation.

Aric laughed, jerked his head toward the park, then glanced at Jenni. “Be right back.”

She grinned. “Sure.”

Lathyr decided everyone was enjoying themselves at his expense. He was the outsider. He rippled his fingers as a land man would shrug. Nothing new. That small bit of elven air magic in his being had always made him an outsider, ensured he had no permanent home. Most mers had their own space and were territorial. Ocean-living Merfolk preferred to live in communities—as structured as any other Lightfolk setting. He’d always been on the bottom level and so had become a reluctant drifter, always an outsider.

Then Tamara Thunderock was there, and he realized that he was wrong about the residents of Mystic Circle. Everyone here believed they were outsiders but had melded together as a family, and thought he was the insider with the Lightfolk. Jenni was half-human; Aric was Earth Treefolk, not other-dimensional Lightfolk; Tamara was fully magic but half-Earth and half-Air and no doubt despised by both due to their opposite natures; Rafe and Amber were human.