She looked in the cauldron, frowned at the amber liquid. “What is it?”
“That’s where I could use your help. I’ve nearly done the mix, but what I add, how I proceed depends on what shape it will take.”
“What will it do?”
“Deflect. Destroy, yes, what is conjured from the dark, as it will deflect with light.”
“A shield?”
“I’m considering.” He circled the cauldron as he spoke. “A small shield—she’s agile enough to learn to use it, move with it.”
“But she wouldn’t have her hands free.”
“Also a consideration. A kind of breastplate, perhaps, but then it would be stationary, only move as she moves. She wouldn’t be able to defend herself from both front and flank, or only as she turns, and even as quick as she is . . .”
She could see Annika in a breastplate—the lithe and lovely warrior princess. “How would it work, exactly?”
“With a beam of light. The beam strikes what’s made of dark. Deflects, destroys. The shield might be—”
“Can it be two?” she interrupted.
“Two shields?”
“No, I was thinking bracelets. Like cuffs. I may not know my superheroes like Sawyer, but I know Wonder Woman.”
He laughed as Sasha brought up her arms, punched them out. “Wonder Woman. Well then, of course. She’ll have her magic bracelets, have her hands free, and be able to deflect and defend from any angle. That’s quite brilliant, fáidh.”
“Can you make them pretty? She’ll wear whatever you give her, but pretty would make her happy.”
“I can do that.” He cupped a hand under Sasha’s chin, tugged her up for a kiss. “In fact, we’ll add what will look like a design, and will add power and protection.”
He moved across the room to his books, chose one, began to flip through it. “Here. This will do well, I think.” He gestured to her.
“Is it Celtic?”
“It is, yes. My blood, and the power and protection will be imbued by me. Would you draw them? Two bracelets carrying this design. As you see them.”
“All right. Let me get a sketch pad.”
She hurried to her room and back, already imagining the cuffs. About an inch wide, she thought, slightly rounded, with a thin edging—like a tight braid.
And Bran’s Celtic symbols circling them.
“You didn’t say how they’ll clasp.”
He only smiled. “Magick. No beginning or end,” he added. “A true circle.” As he spoke, he chose a curl of wire. “Bronze. For a warrior.”
With his free hand he levitated the cauldron a few inches, flashed fire under it.
“No blade, no steel. All light. And in light the power to defend, to deflect. To destroy what comes from the dark source, to defend against what wishes to harm. The blood of the warrior.” He held up the vial, turned it over to let the three drops spill into the cauldron. “And of the magician.” Using the same knife, he used the tip on his own finger, added three drops of blood.
“Power and light bound by blood, cored by the ancients.” Now he let the wire drift into the quietly bubbling liquid. “Stirred by wind.”
He blew on his outstretched palm, and the liquid stirred.
“Sparked by fire.”
The flames rose and lapped the pot, glowing red.
“With water from both storm and sea to cure. And earth from holy ground to bless.”
Water first, spilled brilliantly blue from the bottle he chose, then earth, deeply, richly brown.
“Do you have the sketch?”
She’d drawn them, but could barely breathe now. Power thumped in the air, and the air had gone as blue as the water he’d poured. In it, he was the light, radiating it. When he turned his head to look at her, his eyes were onyx.
She held out the sketch.
He said nothing as he studied it, but nodded.
He held it high in both hands.
“Power of thee, power through me. Forge the weapons for the light, through them run the magicks bright. Blessed by thee, given by me to a warrior in this fight. With them grant her might for right. In this image form them, with our blood burn then. Spark now fire, wild and free!”
The sketch flared, flamed in his hand, and the flash that remained of it shot into the cauldron.
“As I will, so mote it be.”
He held his hands over that flash, those sparks.
“Cool now. And it is done.”
It was just a room now, in the quiet light of coming evening, with the cauldron sitting quiet on the stone pedestal.
“I can’t breathe,” she told him.
He turned quickly, the eyes that had been so wildly intense now filled with concern.
“No, I don’t mean—” She waved him off. “It’s just. Breathless. That was magnificent, and I’m breathless.”
“It’s a complex and layered business to create a tangible thing from elements and will. It takes considerable energy.”
“I could see that.”
“Does it frighten you?”
“Not when it’s you. No.”
He held out a hand. “Come, see what we’ve conjured.”
“I didn’t—”