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Dimly I listened to Nancy instruct Rogue on where to cut while I watched a red-tailed hawk circle lazily over the tower. No—it was a dragon, high above Rogue’s castle.
Something gave in my body, a kind of snapping that seemed ominous. Then a baby cried. Rogue stood, the infant kicking in his large hands, her face screwed up in indignant rage.
“A girl,” I breathed and reached for her.
But, his face remote, his mind withdrawing from mine, he turned away to show Incandescence.
“You know what you have to do,” she told him.
And he handed her the baby.
Part V
Final Thesis
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Chapter 28
Death Comes to the Arch-Sorceress
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With magic the guiding force of Faerie, “fate” is not theoretical, but becomes bindinglaw.
~Big Book of Fairyland, “Rules ofMagic”
Pain exploded asDarling Hercules leaped off me onto Rogue’s back, clawing him as he’d attacked Titania for me. This time I wasn’t bound to the bed, but I might as well have been, the agony of the incision and my broken body sapping my strength, dragging me into a black well of unconsciousness.
I managed to stay conscious by drawing powerfully on Mother Earth, the cat rising up with her, offering to take my shredded flesh and put it to better purpose. I held her off for the moment, reaching out to Rogue with all my might. Incandescence held my daughter in an uncaring arm, idly backhanding Nancy who, with a scream of rage tried to grab the child.
As if in slow motion, Rogue turned his head to look at me, befuddled. The black oily whip of Titania’s control throttled his thoughts. Athena plunged the silver dagger into Nasty Tinker Bell’s slim thigh, pulling it out, neatly pirouetting out of the way and stabbing her in the kidney. As if they’d rehearsed it—maybe they had—Starling stepped up, driving the rapier through the noble fae’s throat and catching the infant up to her chest.
Outside, the dragons roared and the scorching heat of Titania’s imminent arrival seared the room.
I drew hard on every resource available, focusing it through the dome and on to the bond I shared with Rogue. The one we’d forged together through love and persistence. Weaving my magic through his, I burned away Titania’s grip.
“Save our daughter,” I commanded him. “You must. You know what to do. Leave me. Leave me to save us.”
Understanding rattled through him, saturated with regret. Sending me a burst of love that I wrapped up and tucked into my heart, his image flickered. Darling Hercules went flying as Rogue transformed into the Black Dog.
My internal cat leaped to follow, and how I held her back I didn’t know.
Except that she accepted my promise.Soon. Very soon.
Starling shrieked as the Black Dog knocked her over, seizing my daughter, still squalling, in his massive jaws.
And disappeared.
I wished with all my heart I’d done the right thing. Anything was better than giving her to Titania, wasn’t it?
As if called by my thought, Titania flashed into the room like flame catching on lighter fluid, sucking out the oxygen and replacing it with raging heat. Athena, her dagger still trapped under Incandescence’s thrashing body, scrambled away as Titania stomped her dainty foot through the other woman’s face.
“You had one job!” Titania shrieked. “And you let theseinsectsdistract you.”
She advanced on me, and Starling, her rapier shaking alarmingly, thrust herself between us. Titania sneered at her. I took the moment to call Darling Hercules to me, praying Starling would survive the blow Titania dealt her with a candy-pink twist of her pretty mouth.
Darling Hercules gave me surcease long enough to focus my thoughts. I had my wish for him ready and, for the first time, I reached voluntarily into the morass of Titania’s mind. She seethed, a cauldron of insanity, the magma of power having burned away anything that made her more than pure hunger. I rifled through her thoughts, finding the thing she didn’t expect me to look for.
