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Not understanding, I blinked up at him. “Choice?”
“Maureen and her pack are undoubtedly waiting for you and Derrick to return, but you do not have to go. You can stay here with me until we uncover the identity of the warlock who created that runestone, and then safely remove it. Or you can go back with Derrick and face the wolves.”
Derrick turned away and for several seconds I stared at the broad planes of his back. His shirt was still damp from our passage through the Middling and it clung to him in all the right ways, which was terribly distracting, all things considered. He had the build of an athlete, hard muscle on a tall frame, and for a heart stopping second, I remembered what it had been like when he caught me on the plane: warm, solid, safe. I felt the flush as it crept up my neck and tried to banish the memory.
And then I realized why the choice was being given to me and all the heat left me.
Derrick’s mother was still in danger.
“Maker help me,” I whispered. "You think Maureen will make good on her threats if I suddenly disappear."
“It’s not an easy choice, I know,” Cade said. “No one will blame you if you choose to stay behind.”
Not an easy choice, indeed.
I thought of the fury in Derrick’s face when Mark chuckled and sneered, all too happy to tell the man about the detail sent to watch over his mother. It did not escape me that no one had mentioned Derrick’s father in all this, so I had to imagine the man was out of the picture somehow, and I feared the worse. Without empathy to guide me I couldn’t be sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Derrick counted his mother as the only family he truly had.
Given his response to Lord Malcolm the night before, he was estranged from everyone else. If he lost his mother, he would be alone.
“I’ll go.” The words were out of my mouth before I realized I’d said them. Derrick looked at me again, all anguish and hope on his face, and because it hurt to see that anguish and not somehow feel it through my empathy, I turned to Cade. With a nod and a voice far more certain than it should have been I said, “I’ll go.”
Silence held the room for several seconds. Constable Cade’s expression was pained and resigned, but he shook his head and looked at Derrick. “All right,” he said and heaved a sigh. Then, to Derrick, “This is a terrible idea. But try to keep her safe.”
Chapter Ten
Passage through the Middling was easier this time. I learned that it wasn’t so much swimming as it was floating or listening. Music was the key. You had to follow it, embrace it, and not get distracted by the prickle of silt against your skin or the predators lurking out of sight. Derrick explained as much before we stepped through and alerted me to the fact that those predators I felt before were wyrms and they did, in fact, wish to eat us if we lingered long enough.
Or at least they wished to eat our magic.
According to Derrick, there were many a tale about Bright creatures falling victim to one of the wyrms in crossing. While the loss of our magic would not kill a Bright creature, it would render them mundane, and they would be spat out Earthside with nary a lick of magic left. Elves lost their ears, werewolves their ability to change, and while most lost their memory of ever being Bright, those who did remember often went insane.
These poor folk were known as the Lost and the CEB kept close tabs on each of them.
We had to stop by the manor again, using a servant entrance to avoid notice. It wouldn’t do to go about in wet clothes and announce our visit to Fairy. Luckily for me, my abductors had brought along several day dresses – apparently the Fairy way meant women went to such functions in a dress because they’d only brought one pair of pants for me. Still, I liked my dresses and picked another flower pattern – this one lilies – before going out to meet Derrick.
We walked down the drive, Derrick with his hands in his pockets. “You’re a puzzle, Miss Grayson. I cannot understand why your family didn’t teach you these things.”
I wasn’t entirely certain why Nana Bess wouldn’t have taught me about the Middling either, but it felt like a betrayal to admit that out loud. My earliest memories were full of Father, the oriental rug and the comfortable ticking of the cuckoo clock on the wall.
Mother died when I was eight of a fever, a common tale, I suppose, and Nana Bess was often in the periphery of these memories, strangely ageless. I couldn’t say when Bess arrived, only that she was there when we needed her, and that father left my schooling to the woman shortly after the funeral.
There might have been some protest on my part early on, but the memory of it was strangely distant, as though I were looking in on my life through a window.
Bess’ moon-shaped face rose in my mind, “Don’t be selfish, Nora. You know how melancholy your father is right now. Leave him to his grief.”
But I had been grieving too. Hadn’t that counted for something?
Desperately needing a change of subject, I asked. “Tell me about your mother?”
Derrick eyed me again. “You can’t avoid the questions forever, Nora. I’m a Constable. I will get to the bottom of it.”
My ankle turned on a knobby root and a stab of pain rocketed up my leg. Derrick’s hands were on my elbows an instant later, holding me upright while I hissed at my own stupidity. But he was close now, his breath on my cheek, and my heart did a traitorous flutter, shoving all thoughts of Bess away.
“What are you hiding, Nora Grayson,” he whispered.
I looked into the clear blue of his eyes and sighed. “Nothing.”
He searched my face a moment longer, and then he lifted one hand to brush his thumb across my cheek. “All right. We’ll have to ask your Nana Bess then.”
