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The bonfire raged and crackled on the shore, a writhing, angry thing that echoed my mood as we approached. I’d been trying to excuse Nana Bess and Uncle Martin for not teaching me everything there was to know about Bright, but the witch light was far too important to ignore. Derrick was right, they had deliberately isolated me, but I could not fathom why.
After Father died, they’d taken me out of school, insisting it was safer if they taught me from home and I was too young and full of grief to argue. When I reached high school and insisted it was time to go back, they delivered me to a human public school, citing there wasn’t enough money for one of the private Bright schools.
At the time I’d been so pleased to be around people my own age that I didn’t look further into the matter, but now?
Now it was obvious: Bess and Martin actively hid me from Fairy.
Why? And what more were they hiding from me?
Shivering, I hugged myself and avoided a large, jutting root on the path. Weariness clung to me, but it was more than the physical. I felt as though someone had reached inside and scooped up some essential part of me. Which, I suppose, was not far from the truth. If witch lights fed off living energy, then something essential had been taken.
Would it regenerate?
This seemed like another essential question that Bess and Martin neglected to teach me, but I bit my lip before I could ask it. There was enough damning evidence against my family, I didn’t want to fuel Derrick’s curiosity further.
Still, I wished I had my phone. A few words from Bess would explain everything.
Thinking of my phone reminded me of the abduction. No doubt Mark had been the one to toss my expensive smartphone into the bay and I quelled the desire to kick the man. This brought along the reminder that there were warlock traffickers nearby and I shoved thoughts of Bess aside.
There would be time for that later.
Werewolves danced and chatted in their clusters on the beach, and I checked faces, trying to see if anyone was taking a particular interest in us. Firelight cast them all in an orange glow, but most were preoccupied with their own conversations, and I couldn’t see anyone looking at us with more than a passing nod.
Everyone was all smiles and good tidings for the bride and groom. I noticed Brock seated on a stool while a man tended wounds he’d sustained during the game. Even from a distance I could see the makings of a black eye on Brock’s face, and I wondered how they meant to fix that before the wedding.
But then, Ms. Maureen likely had a Bright healer on retainer. Expensive, but there was no way Maureen would permit the man to wed her daughter while looking like he just stepped from a brawl.
I spied Henry and Mark in two different groups mingling near the bonfire. Mark had lost some of his temper because he was grinning at a svelte woman in a trim green dress, who was smiling back at him. He was also sporting some abrasions from the game, but he seemed content, and he didn’t so much as glance at Derrick.
Henry, on the other hand, was deep in conversation with three other men, none of whom I recognized. Upon seeing us, he broke off, gave a curt nod to Derrick, and then went back to talking.
Derrick merely nodded back.
We stopped a safe distance from the fire. Heat cascaded toward us in waves, and I glanced up at the towering blaze. It licked and spat embers fourteen feet into the air, all that raging hunger speeding through the lumber at its base. I found myself relaxing as I gazed at the whirl and churn of flames, and the hum of conversation disappeared under the crackle and pop of fire.
Janice’s words prickled at me. She believed her son was still in danger. Whether or not that was the residual effects of the trauma she’d seen, of the overuse of magic burning her braincells to death, was debatable. Hadn’t she been coherent there for a moment? She recognized Derrick was grown, that indicated there was still something left of her locked inside, didn’t it?
Unable to contain my curiosity, I asked Derrick about the institution where Janice normally stayed. Surely there was a mind wizard on staff who was trying to help, after all. But Derrick shook his head and gave me a faint smile.
“Mind wizards are rare,” he said. “Most stay in Fairy and live in one of the Courts.”
Seeing my distress, he gathered my hand and squeezed it gently. There was a warmth and comfort in the gesture, and he leaned in to whisper, “It’s all right, Nora. We will figure this out.”
Caught between the desperate desire to believe him, and the growing enormity of all Bess had lied about, I fought to quell my own anxiety. I had the distinct sense that figuring this all out was going to put Bess in danger.
“Ladies and Gentlemen!” A clear, sharp voice called, and the crowd began to fall silent.
Levi Cordova stood atop a large boulder positioned near the fire. His thin frame cut a straight shadow across the ground, and he still had his cane in one hand. With the other hand, he gestured wide, beckoning in a formal manner for everyone to gather.
I straightened, realizing at last what Levi’s purpose was here. I had been right about him not being a werewolf. He was, in fact, a wizard: a historian. Of the subclasses for wizards, historians were the rarest, or so I’d been led to believe. The arcane warlocks tended to focus on life magic, on light and shadow and the body, because that was where most of the prestige could be found. Historians, as their name would suggest, focused on the history of Bright and Earthside.
Levi struck the boulder at his feet with his cane once and the fire burst from raging orange to eerie green. Light played havoc on his too-gaunt face, filling the sharp cheeks and deep-set eyes with shadow, and I was at once reminded of a gallu. Picture books illustrated the horrible creatures in nearly the same way: thin, consumed by shadow and a terrible need for life. But no matter how many people they dragged to the underworld, that life would snuff out before they could feast on it.
The fire ought to have been too loud, but his voice carried steady and clear through the crowd. “Before the nations were born, before kings and queens, when the worlds were still new and the stars had not fully settled, there was only Life and the struggle to protect it. In those days, the Bright lived amongst humans in harmony, fighting side by side, building mixed tribes that would later produce warlocks of varying power.”
Levi made a gesture with one hand and the fire swirled, then flattened. Images began to form in firelight and shadow, first a galaxy of stars and suns, then a single planet as it twirled a single orbit.
“As time wore on, borders were made. Tribes warred against one another for territory, for food, and for power.” The fire image seemed to dive into the planet, zooming in close, forming mountain ranges and river systems, lakes and oceans. I could see the makings of small huts peppering the landscape, and tiny figures of green fire toting baskets or weapons. “In Allegany, three tribes rose to prominence: the Balish, the Vornican, and the Danitesh. Of the three, the Vornican were the most feared. Savage, brutal creatures whose quest for power fast made them legends.”
