He left a word there.
Then he said, “Sorry about the empty cupboards. I didn’t have time—”
“That’s okay. Zed is going grocery shopping.”
“Good. He’s a good man. I hope he stays around.”
He lingered, filling his eyes with her, even while a pointed ear nudged
through his hair, one hand wavered into claw and back. “Be careful,” he
said, his voice sliding between human and howl, between now and then, so
ancient and unwieldy it might have been a slab of granite trying out a human
word.
Her eyes burned again. “Okay.”
Then she was watching the wolf slip shadowlike through the trees, giving away
nothing of itself, not even a scent to startle the grazing deer.
—
Lilith barely gave her a chance to speak when Carrie brought Hal’s note to
the tower suite and knocked on her door later that morning. She opened the
door and whirled away, phone to her ear, papers taking flight off her desk as
she passed.
“No,” she was saying. “We haven’t caught sight of them yet. I’ve never
heard of a sorceress on that part of the coast. I’ll keep some eyes on her
down there. I’m glad to hear you trimmed a few feathers out of her wings. It
was astonishing to see their faces on the news—” She came to the edge of the
carpet and turned again, a tide in full flood, until she saw Carrie and
stopped so abruptly the breeze in her wake seemed to flow past her and out the
door.
The blood ran completely out of her face. It crumpled, shadows and lines
appearing, underscoring the terror in her eyes, the sudden, overwhelming grief
over something invisible between them, roused from memory by whatever she saw
in Carrie’s face. She dropped the phone from her ear to her shoulder, held it
there like a lifeline.
As abruptly, the tide of color washed back into her face; the terror vanished
under an upwelling of rage.
“No,” she said to Carrie, chopping words like vegetables. “Tell me. You are
not. Working for Todd Stillwater.”
The voice on the phone rose in volume and jumped an octave, repeating the same
word over and over, like an angry songbird. Lilith didn’t seem to hear;
Carrie held all her attention.
Carrie said, “My father told me to give you something. A word. I don’t know
what it means. Miranda.”
For a moment, Lilith only stared at her as though she had no idea either. Her
face seemed frozen, unable to shape a thought. Slowly, her eyes changed, grew
large, flushed, glittering with what Carrie realized were unshed tears. She
dropped the phone on the floor, beginning to tremble. Carrie, suddenly
terrified, took a step toward her. But Lilith caught her balance and finally
found her voice.
“Miranda,” she said, and again, “Miranda.” The name seemed to comfort her.
The frozen, stricken face eased a little, expression melting through it. She
seemed to look through Carrie, past her into an immeasurable distance.
Then her eyes quickened, saw Carrie again.
“He said her name.”
“Yes,” Carrie whispered.
“I haven’t. Said her name. None of us has, not even Merle. Said her name. In
all these years.”
“Who—who is she?”
“Was. She was our daughter. Hal’s and mine. She fell in love with Todd
Stillwater, when he cooked for the Kingfisher Inn, so long ago. His cooking—
it made the inn famous. It was wonderful. Spellbinding. His spell bound my
daughter. His spell bound us all. Me. He fed us all so well that we were
always hungry, always happy, always wanting more. People came from all over
Wyvernhold to tie up at our dock, stay at the inn, eat Stillwater’s magic in
that magnificent old dining room that has never been used since—” She
stopped, absolutely still again, looking inward, lost to the world.
“Since?”
“Miranda.” Her eyes filled again; she turned her head, looked out over the
water. Like Carrie’s voice, her own dwindled, burrowed. “Only Merle saw.
Only Merle saw clearly. What we had all become. What Stillwater was. Is.
“He destroyed this place. Merle and Hal fought him, finally drove him out.
But the terrible battle left Hal crippled, Merle lost in his own mind half the
time. Stillwater sucked the magic out of this place, left it shattered, and us
still spellbound. We couldn’t—we couldn’t speak. That’s why he’s still
here in Chimera Bay. We could not speak. He’s safe here.”
“From what?”
“From those who drove him out of his world into this one.” She raised her
hand, brushed her eyes with her wrist. “They couldn’t stand him, either.”
“You’re speaking now.”