Robin Owens - Enchanted No More

A dreadful anticipation seeping into her blood told her she was going to lose in this struggle with the Folk.

As she’d lost before.

Lost too much when her family had answered a previous summons. Aric was going to win.

She hunched over, curving her fingers around the heat of her glass mug, the same warmth as her hands. She looked at the dark espresso, not at Aric.

Skinny, long, four-jointed fingers were laid across her knee. Hartha had hopped from the table to stand beside Jenni, her big eyes sad. “Do not keep us if it makes you indebted to the Eight. The Treeman can arrange another place for us.”

Pred hissed and she snapped at him in words that thunked in Jenni’s ears, but she couldn’t understand.

“Rothly,” Aric breathed on a sigh. He shook his head, straightened in his chair, met her eyes. “The dwarf Drifmar made him the same offer he’d made to you. If Rothly did the mission for the Lightfolk, he’d become a Prince of the Lightfolk.”

Jenni stood. Her chair slammed on the floor. “No.” Silence for ten rapid heartbeats. “Tell me that’s not true. Rothly is crippled. Physically and magically. He can’t work any of his once natural elemental balancing magic without peril.”

“Crippled in mind and heart emotions, too,” Aric added, “not to be able to forgive.”

“Tell me that isn’t true about Drifmar.” Jenni’s strident voice overrode Aric. “Tell me you Lightfolk did not send my brother to his death.” Fury and terror dried her eyes so she experienced everything with an awful clarity—the human gazes focused on them, the trembling of the brownies, the small muscles of Aric’s hand flexing around his mug.

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Is Rothly in danger?”

Aric looked away, his jaw clenched.

Jenni’s blood heated. Could she manage to save Rothly without the help of the Lightfolk? They’d said it was time sensitive. How long would she have? Especially since she hadn’t practiced any large magic, like stepping into the interdimension, for years.

She locked gazes with Aric, his eyes looked like chips of deep green emerald…but not even as soft as emerald. Again she was facing a man she didn’t know, who had changed in fifteen years.

He had his own agenda and he—and the Lightfolk—would keep up the pressure on her.

Standing slowly, Aric said, “Your brother promised on the Mistweaver honor that the mission would be fulfilled.”

Jenni flinched, as she knew that wording had been just so. If she didn’t consider herself a Mistweaver, was really just Jenni Weavers and not Jindesfarne Mistweaver, she could walk away.

But Rothly had disavowed her, she hadn’t abandoned him.

She felt tears gush to the back of her eyes, her chin tremble. She firmed it, swallowed and watched Aric’s eyes. “You win.”

“I DON’T WANT TO BE HERE WITH YOU,” JENNI said steadily, “or listen to you.” She didn’t sit. “But once again the Lightfolk have given me no choice, have they? They’ve endangered my brother.”

“Jenni—”

Without looking at him, she said, “Tell Drifmar and whoever else needs to know that I will take care of this ‘little mission’ with the ‘terrible problem’ for them.” Those had been Drifmar’s words. Without letting herself think, she said the words that might lead to her death. “I’ll finish what my brother tried to do. Uphold the family honor. You’ve done your job.” She’d never heard of a mission for the Lightfolk that wasn’t dangerous. “Now tell me of Rothly.”

Aric raised his brows. “You’ll commit to the whole mission? Not just try to rescue Rothly yourself?”

Jenni’s lip curled before she answered. “Would I be able to rescue Rothly myself? And would Lightfolk help me with that with no strings attached?”

Aric hesitated and she knew the answers were what she’d feared. No help at all from the Lightfolk without conditions.

“Don’t—”

“I won’t break my Word or Rothly’s Word on a contract with the Folk. I haven’t lived in the human world so long that I turned stupid.”

“You’re one of the smartest people I know,” Aric said.

“Tell me of Rothly.”

“Your brother is missing. From what we know of your family’s natural magical gift, you are not totally in this reality when you weave magic.”

Aric knew that, he’d been a friend of her brothers’ for years. How much had he told the Eight who ruled the Lightfolk? He was obviously loyal to them.

Jenni said nothing, but thought of the half step into a different reality, the gray misty place where the only colors were the elemental energies she could summon—the gold of earth, flaming red-orange of fire, frosty blue-violet of air and the rolling waves of green-blue water. Mystical as the northern lights.

Aric said, “We think Rothly is stuck in what your father called the interdimension….” He stopped as if he felt the flames of anger licking her insides, nearly causing her to lose control of her eye color. If she wasn’t careful they’d heat to the blue-white mortals found threatening.

Steam was just below her skin. She needed to cool down before it issued from her pores. A steaming woman was also a cause for concern in the human world. And why was it that a half hour with one of the Folk could make her forget all her years as a mortal?

“Then I will find him, damn you all,” she said.

“Let’s discuss this fully somewhere else,” Aric said. He gestured back toward the cul-de-sac and her house.

Jenni shot up her chin. “I’m not inviting you into my home.”

His skin darkened from light copper to dark. He stood and clamped a hand around her lower arm. “We know Rothly isn’t dead, just…caught. We can monitor him.”

She yanked her arm away and he let her go. “So you can monitor me, too? How reassuring. You go report to your people. But I get Rothly home first, before anything else.”

Aric’s fingers clenched. His gaze met hers, his eyes taking on that deep brown rim around his irises that appeared when he felt strongly. He was angry with her because she didn’t want him in her home. Well, she could care less what Aric Paramon felt for her. Keeping his gaze locked on hers, he reached into the pocket of his coat and held out a little greenish-white business card.

She stared at the human thing. He dropped his hand and it floated in midair, so she snatched it. This was her neighborhood and she wanted to continue living here. Automatically she glanced down on it. In forest-green ink it said Aric Paramon, Consultant, Eight Corp, with an address in the downtown Denver business district. In a high-rise of all places. Mind-boggling.

“I am your liaison on this matter, Jenni.” His voice lowered. “I volunteered for the mission. We go together. We live or die, together. Get used to the idea.”

Sounded like something he was repeating from TV, but the Folk didn’t watch television, didn’t move in the mortal world. Humans were sometimes good for sex, that was all. Like most full-blooded Folk he’d once had a great deal of scorn for the mortal and human. But fifteen years ago the Lightfolk hadn’t had a corporation or business cards. She had no clue what was going on.

Aric smiled a knife-edged smile. “Like I said, there have been changes in our world. Considerable changes. And I’m not the man you knew. You will be briefed by one of the royal Eight. Two p.m. Be there.”

He’d never been a man to give orders. He was half-dryad-Treefolk, half-elf. He’d been mellow as a Treeman descended from flighty dryads would be, and taken the generally optimistic nature of the elves.

Jenni shrugged all the strange things off. She wasn’t about to show ignorance—that led to manipulation. “I’ll be ready for our afternoon meeting, make sure you are, too, and that you and the royal will exactly and completely tell me the truth.” Her nostrils pinched. She didn’t trust any of the Lightfolk, especially the Eight. “Otherwise we’ll both die, and whatever terrible problem the Lightfolk have will be worse.” She glanced at Hartha. “Looks like you two will be staying to take care of the house while I’m gone.”