Enchanted No More

He wore a raw silk shirt the same color as his eyes, brown slacks and a long, dark brown leather trench coat.

Jenni gulped, and her heart thumped heavily in her chest. She should have anticipated Aric would arrive that way—he was half Treefolk and could travel the world through any tree.

“I knew they would send you,” she said, and the heat of her emotions dried her throat, “the kings and queens of the elements, the Eight, to convince me to go on that mission. I don’t want to see you. Go away.”

Aric rolled his shoulders, the gleam of pleasure she’d thought she’d seen in his eyes vanished. His face went impassive, then he said, “I’ve wanted to talk to you for a long time.” His voice lowered. “I hoped you would be done mourning.”

He didn’t add that it had been fifteen years. Aric was nearly immortal and she—half human and quarter djinn and quarter elf—was very long lived.

Fifteen years was like three years to a mortal. “Oh? How long do you think a person grieves for the loss of two brothers and two sisters and both parents?” She wanted the words to be sarcastic, but they also were laden with sorrow. She stiffened her spine and lengthened her stride. Aric wouldn’t accompany her to a busy human area.

He kept up with her, glanced down. “I wouldn’t know how long your grief lasts,” he said. “But I have had losses, too.” He looked away. “I am sad when I think of my lost friends. Your father, your brothers.”

She didn’t care. Sometimes she had moments when wild grief tore at her from the inside.

“You didn’t say goodbye,” Aric said.

The sentence was a blow that stopped her breath. She struggled for air. She understood, then, that though Aric might grieve as she did, he felt none of her guilt for making love instead of being with her family for their mission.

That was a wide gulf between them that she couldn’t cross, didn’t even want to think about. Didn’t want to think about that time at all, only could speak one sentence of her own to reply. “I thought Rothly throwing salt and silver at us, showing we were dead to him, was enough.” Again her voice rasped from her throat.

She turned away, ready to hurry back to her house, her home, her sanctuary. A place untouched by any magic save her own and the brownies’.

His wide, warm fingers curled around her wrist, touching her skin, and she experienced an unwelcome shock of attraction. While she was dealing with that, he said, “You could be a Lightfolk Princess, that’s what the Eight are offering you as payment for this mission.”

She snorted. “Unlikely.” Then she shrugged. “I don’t want to be a princess.” But she felt the vibration of yearning in his body, saw the ambition in his eyes. When had he become interested in Lightfolk status? He hadn’t been much before. He’d been as easygoing and laid-back as any Treefolk man she’d known. She wouldn’t ask. None of her business.

“There is nothing you can offer me that would make me help the Lightfolk. My parents—family—wanted to be accepted, like most half humans. They’re dead and I’ve made my home in the mortal world. Leave me be.” She tugged at her hand.

“It’s not just the Eight, the Lightfolk rulers. The entire magical community needs you, fast. Just for a month and a half—through March.”

“I don’t need the magical community!”

His jaw flexed. “My family needs you.”

“My family needed you and you failed them.” Her anger poured out with the words, her hair charged with her temper, lifted and nearly sizzled in the cold air.

Aric dropped her wrist, stepped back.

Ugly emotions seethed between them. Jenni couldn’t take the words back. She swallowed and pressed on. May as well lance this festering boil. “When you and I ran to the ambush at the dimensional gate, I went to my family to try to help—to balance the energies—to save them from the Darkfolk warriors. You went to the royals and fought.” Another thing she didn’t think she could forgive him for.

He paled, and replied steadily, “I knew if the Eight fell, all would fall. The loss of the greatest elemental leaders would be such a blow, cause such an imbalance, that the Lightfolk wouldn’t recover for centuries. Easy for the Darkfolk to kill us, take us over.”

Her smile was cold. “And my brother and I struggled with all the elemental energies in the interdimension. A huge mass of energies that my whole family had called, stabilizing the magic, releasing it slowly so magic would not destroy everyone. Knowing if we stepped out of the gray mist we would be attacked and killed.” She found she was grinding her teeth.

A huge shudder shook Aric. “I didn’t know.”

He would have if he’d thought about it instead of springing to help the royals. Jenni trembled, too, then cut her hand through the air. “Past is past. But the disaster was such that I have no love of the magical community, no reason to help, no wish to help.”

His nostrils flared. He set his feet as if settling into a solid balance, braced to give or take a blow. “I have news of your brother.”

Jenni flinched, caught sight of birds circling in the blue sky and realized they were talking of matters in the open where wind could take words to Lightfolk—or Darkfolk. She was glad Aric hadn’t said Rothly’s name.

Her chest tightened but dreadful hope spurted through the constriction. She hadn’t bothered Rothly since he’d disowned her on his sickbed the night of the ambush. Jenni would have known if he’d forgiven her—a lightness would have infused her spirit. He’d have come to her, or sent a message asking that she return home.

Home. Home was not in Northumberland, England, anymore, would never be there again. If she walked in the hills the shadows would flicker and she’d think her parents were there. If she walked along the shore the tide pools would reflect the images of her lost family, the endless waves of the restless ocean would carry their voices. She couldn’t live there.

She stopped, could not take another step. Trapped.

By love, as Aric had trapped her before.

This time not for him, but for her beloved brother who now hated her. Rothly had been coldly, flayingly acid to Aric, too, but maybe he’d forgiven Aric. If he had, maybe there was a chance he’d forgive her, too.

“What news of my brother?”

“Must we speak of this on the street?” Aric asked.

“I don’t want you in my house.”

He winced and only a twinge deep in her heart regretted hurting him. She’d spoken the truth after all.

His breath soughed in and it seemed as if the trees on the street bent toward him in sympathy. He straightened to his full height and Jenni got a feeling of implacability. “There’s a commercial area a few blocks down, yes?”

She blinked. That didn’t sound like the Aric she’d known, ready to mingle with full humans. “Yes.” She smiled briefly. “There’s a coffee shop. It’s very busy. I agree, we must speak of matters.” She had to know about Rothly. Aric wouldn’t lie to her.

He angled his head then waited until she came parallel to him, though she kept a good two feet from him. “Calm your djinn nature,” he said. He swept a hand before them and the bare branches of the trees shivered as if in a wind. The needles of the evergreen trees whispered against each other.

Aric lowered his voice so that his words were covered by the sound, murmuring so only Jenni’s magical hearing had her understanding him.

“Listen. There’s been plenty of change since the old Air and Fire couples went through the gate and new ones took their place.” He paused, then said even lower, “The sacrifice you and your family made to stabilize the dimensional gate was not for nothing.” His gaze was set straight ahead, his expression impassive.

Jenni’s laughter mocked. She’d been over every instant of the ambush, the fight, the frantic effort to save her family and everyone at the gathering from wildly unbalanced magic. She no longer thought the “mission” had been important. “All occurred just because two of the kings and queens had reached the height of their power and wanted to move into a dimension richer with magic than poor Earth.” She laughed again and it was dissonant.

Once more his jaw tightened, released. “The decision to open a portal to another dimension was the Eight’s, not yours or your family’s. Your family equalized all four elements so the gate could be made and stay for the time it took for two of the four couples to leave.”

“We were so flattered as halflings to be asked to help.” She shook her head. “Pleased that we could invite guests to such an important ritual and gathering.” Sarcasm. Aric had been her guest. “All the family was close to the portal, the target of the Darkfolk, and died.”

“Not you, or your brother,” Aric said.

“Has my brother’s crippled magic and arm been restored?”

Aric was silent.

Jenni hissed out a steamy breath of anger. She wanted to turn back, to hole up and hide again in her house, but she needed to know about Rothly.

She swept her senses around her, glanced over her shoulder toward the entrance to Mystic Circle. In the entire cul-de-sac and all its houses, earth was equal to fire to air to water. Her doing by just living there. The natural magic within her made it so, a comforting thought. All the strongest magic and spells worked better when all elements were equally balanced.

Aric followed her stare, his glance lingered. “Wonderful place,” he said. His gaze slid over her, then he looked forward again and began walking. “The old Kings and Queens of Air and Fire left, and new couples ascended to their rank, and change began,” Aric said smoothly, as if he was telling a tale. He hadn’t been much of one to tell stories before, preferred to listen.