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BRIAN
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AS IF I COULD EVER forget. Morgaine said that every time she’d visit us in Winston. Only no end had been in sight for a very long time.
Before I died for the rest of the world, on an autumn day twenty-five years ago, I’d been the Red Cliffs einhamir, as we call a clan’s chieftain or alpha, for more than a century. I had a wife that I adored, a grownup son, family, friends. Under my rule, Red Cliffs had flourished into a prosperous town. There had been problems here and there, some small, some not so small, but all of them solvable.
The previous year I’d spent weeks smoothing ruffled feathers. My clansman, and my friend at that, had briefly dated Rowena Vandermeer, the nineteen-year-old asanni—a wizardess. They’d broken up, but neither of them seemed devastated. Soon Hal met Violet Kincaid and fell in love with her.
Only to learn that he was about to become a father. Rowena had gotten pregnant. To make things more complicated, she was the daughter of the great friends of our clan, Gottfried and Ella Vandermeer. Hal had married her and broken Violet Kincaid’s heart.
And likely his own.
He and Rowena had very little in common, except their daughter. They both loved her fiercely.
I thought they should’ve settled in Seattle instead of Red Cliffs. Rowena had spent her entire life in the city. Her parents were there. Hal had been working in Seattle for the last ten years.
Hal wouldn’t hear of it. Their daughter had to be born and raised in Red Cliffs.
If I had had Rowena’s support, I would’ve made Hal change his mind. But the young asanni seemed eager to leave Seattle behind. She needed some breathing room. Her pregnancy had been a small-scale scandal, and she wanted to leave all that mess behind.
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THE DUST HADN’T SETTLED yet when Rowena met Seth Withali, the Copper Ridge einhamir, and fell in love with him.
He promised her everything a nineteen-year-old girl dreamed of: his love, devotion, a wonderful future. He was a good-looking man, polished and silver-tongued.
I didn’t like him, didn’t trust him. He was too autocratic to my liking; he ruled over Copper Ridge as if we were still in the eighteenth century.
Our two clans had been the closest of neighbors since we’d settled here—only twenty miles was between Red Cliffs and Copper Ridge. In fact, we were the only two clans for hundreds of miles around, but our leadership styles had always been different. Red Cliffs was open, more modern, more progressive than Copper Ridge. Our relationship had hit its lowest level during the reign of Seth’s father, Leidolf, who’d lost his mind and had to be killed. When Seth took over, things had normalized—more or less—only to take a sharp turn in the opposite direction some time later.
Some, unhappy with Seth’s hard rule, had left the town. Many lost their jobs, many farms had closed. Seth had undertaken some huge building projects—a grandiose but bizarre castle-like residence for himself, luxury houses for his closest circle.
Rowena couldn’t have known much of this, being new to Red Cliffs and our ways of life. How many times had they met? Where? No one knew. One day Rowena took Astrid and went to Copper Ridge, supposedly to see her friend. The same afternoon she called Hal to tell him she wasn’t coming back until he agreed to divorce. She wanted to marry Seth.
No one could reason with her: not Hal, not her parents, not I.
Hal said she could get a divorce only if she gave him full custody of Astrid. Rowena refused.
Hal would often go to Copper Ridge to see his daughter and over the next few months, he and Rowena came to a basic agreement about the divorce and custody.
And then one night, less than a year after Rowena had moved to Copper Ridge, someone knocked on Rowena’s parents’ door in the middle of the night, pushed a sleeping Astrid into her grandfather’s arms and vanished. We never learned who that person was. A folded piece of paper was tucked in the small pocket of Astrid’s jacket with a message written in Rowena’s hand.
Mom, Dad, I made a terrible mistake. I’m so sorry. Take my baby to Hal.
Tell him I’m not asking for his forgiveness; I know he’ll never forgive me. I ruined my life, and his, and I would’ve done anything to change it, but it’s too late. I only ask him to keep Astrid safe and away from Copper Ridge.
Please, please don’t come to Copper Ridge. None of you. I’ll get out of here as soon as I can.
R.
Gottfried and Ella Vandermeer, Rowena’s parents, had called me and Hal right away.
I knew I had to bring her home, no matter what she said. I had the formal authority to do so—she was still married to Hal, and she’d left the clan without my permission.
Then Ellida Morgaine arrived in Red Cliffs.
Ellidas were complicated beings. They were the rare female offspring of a wizard/werewolf union, quite sporadic itself. Not every such baby girl became an ellida. She had to be a firstborn female child; she had to have the ability to shapeshift, a skill that was developed around puberty. Yet, once such a child reached her full maturity, she became an ellida—the ultimate authority of her clan and its highest ranking member.
Pretty big stuff.
A werewolf clan included gwerin and gwerin y blaidd. In our old language, those meant “people” and “wolf people”, or werewolves. Gwerin was the common name for those humans who knew about us and usually lived on our territory as equal to us. They were our neighbours, friends and relatives. Marriages among us were common. In fact, they were crucial to our existence. The werewolf population was small; breeding with humans kept our blood strong and healthy. The ordinary humans, who lived outside our realm and didn’t know about us, we called just that—humans.
Not every clan had an ellida, but for those who had one, it was the greatest honor. And with good reason. Ellidas were the living embodiments of a higher principle; the symbols of the ancient alliance between wizards and wolf people. It was believed that their two bloods, so different yet so complementary, were in perfect balance. Ellidas brought prosperity and harmony to their clans and never abused the immense powers granted to them. They were above the clan’s hierarchy. Even the einhamir, otherwise the indisputable leader, would submit to the authority of his ellida.
In spite of their supreme sovereignty, ellidas seldom interfered with an einhamir’s job. Except when something big happened.
Morgaine was the ellida of Gelltydd Coch, our original clan in Wales. My father was still their einhamir. When the clan became too big, in the early eighteenth century, some families had immigrated to the States and founded Red Cliffs. Although Morgaine wasn’t our ellida and therefore not my superior, she “looked over” my clan, so to speak, until we had our own ellida.
Which was about to happen. Everyone in Red Cliffs was convinced that Astrid Mohegan, Hal and Rowena’s daughter, would one day become the Ellida of Red Cliffs.
One thing was sure: Morgaine resided in Gelltydd Coch, on a different continent and, although she visited us from time to time, her unexpected advent couldn’t mean anything good.
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THE THREE OF US MET in Hal’s house.
“You must not go to Copper Ridge,” she said to me and Hal, without any preamble.
“I have to,” I said. “I don’t know what’s going on with Rowena, but whatever it is, it’s not good. We must take her out of there. I’ll go and talk to Seth, one einhamir to another. If that doesn’t help, then we’ll take Rowena by force.”
“No, Brian. Seth is too strong. His private guard—”
“His private guard is a bunch of mannequins in fancy uniforms,” Hal said. “Seth’s always been a show-off.”
“That’s what Seth wants everyone to believe. His guard is well-trained and cruel. Mercenaries, the worst scum.” She moved her gaze between Hal and me. “Seth’s losing his mind. It’s still not obvious; people don’t know, but soon they will. He’ll end up like Leidolf.”
Hal’s face was white like paper. I cursed under my breath.
Once a great leader, Seth’s father had turned into a dangerous megalomaniac, who almost ruined Copper Ridge. “Seth had to eliminate Leidolf,” I said. “I’ll eliminate Seth if it has to be.”
Morgaine stood and walked to the window. For a moment she just stared through it, motionless and distant.
“I can gather my own small army on short notice,” I continued. “Our wizard and Tel-Urugh friends won’t refuse our call.”
Morgaine turned to face us. “We can’t bring others into this. Leave it to me. This is much more than a quarrel between two clans. If you try to bring Rowena back by force, you’ll start something you won’t be able to finish. Trust me. Red Cliffs cannot afford to lose its people.”
I shook my head. “I will not leave Rowena there.”
“What does Seth want?” Hal asked. “Why does he want Rowena? Did he really fall for her?”
“Rowena’s an asanni, he’s a blaidd,” Morgaine said softly.
Hal closed his eyes. “He wants a daughter. An ellida. Rowena ... Rowena figured that out. My god, he’ll force her to get pregnant.”
I felt as if someone had knocked the air out of my lungs. Hal moaned, holding his head between his hands.
“Ellidas are powerful forces of good, protectors of life,” I said once I was able to breathe again. “Even if he had a female child ... with Rowena, it wouldn’t work. Ellidas can’t be an instrument of evil. But she would be an instrument in his downfall. He must know that.”
“He’s not rational anymore, Brian.”
“Would that child be an ellida at all?” I asked. “She would be his firstborn daughter, but not Rowena’s.”
“Seth believes she could. We don’t know; it hasn’t happened yet.” Ellida rubbed her forehead. “No ellida will be born in Copper Ridge as long as Seth’s in power. And he won’t have a child of his own. He’s sterile, although he doesn’t know that.”
“Sterile? Seth has a five-year-old son.”
“Darius’s mother was pregnant by someone else when she married Seth. He either knew she was with child and offered to marry her so that the baby wouldn’t be born out of wedlock, or she convinced him the baby was his, only born a bit premature. I believe Seth knows the truth, but he could be the only one. Everybody else believes Darius is his blood son.”
Seth’s late wife had been an asanni, too. She’d died in some freak accident when Darius was only two.
“What happened to Darius’s father?” Hal asked. “Do you think Seth had him killed?”
Morgaine shrugged. “It’s possible. Or he just took off when he learned about the baby. Or before he learned.”
“What was he? A blaidd?”
“Yes.”
I didn’t bother to ask how she knew all this. Ellidas possessed knowledge ordinary people didn’t. I didn’t know about other ellidas—there were only a handful of them in our world—but Morgaine shared only what was necessary.
I took the piece of paper with Rowena’s message out of my pocket, unfolded it and showed it to Morgaine.
Ellida read it and passed it back to me. “I’ll bring her back. Just give me some time.”
That was a problem. I didn’t think we had time. A woman from my clan had been held in Copper Ridge against her will. She was alone and scared, without her daughter, her family, her friends.
“If we don’t do something, the wizards will,” I said. “And then things could get out of control. Once wizards get involved, some clans will take Seth’s side, even if they don’t want to, because of old alliances. Some will support wizards and only god knows what the Tel-Urughs would do. We could have a civil war again.”
The memories of the last big conflict involving all three races—wolf-people, wizards and Tel-Urughs (the powerful immortals that could be described as warm-blooded vampires), were still fresh. It happened more than seventy years ago, but time had a different meaning for us. What happened seven decades ago was considered a recent event.
“Don’t you see?” Morgaine said. “This is a no-win situation. Let me handle it. I need to talk to someone first. Give me a week or two. That’s all I’m asking for.”
Reluctantly, I agreed.
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MORGAINE HAD LEFT.
Several long and tense weeks passed, but there was no word from her. Rowena, however, sent another message. In two days, someone would bring little Darius to Red Cliffs. Once the boy was safe, she’d find a way to leave Copper Ridge.
The meeting place supposed to be at the Watchman’s, a hotel on our side of the Great Orme, the hill that lay between the two territories. I didn’t want to take a chance. My men were everywhere—in the hotel, around it, in the woods above it.
No one showed up. Something had gone wrong.
Then another message came, although not from Rowena. Seth wanted to meet Hal and me. He would let Rowena go under certain circumstances. We were supposed to come to Copper Ridge to discuss it.
I couldn’t wait for Morgaine anymore. I knew it was a trap, so I decided to gather a small but efficient group of my best fighters, wizards and Tel-Urughs, storm Copper Ridge and bring Rowena back home.
We never made it there. Before I had a chance to assemble my impromptu army, a group of ten of Seth’s mercenaries ambushed Hal and me on our way back from checking the remote ranches, deep in Red Cliffs territory.
We fought them. Took two of them down. Then another one. Then another one.
Then I’d seen Hal fall. I continued to fight. Two more down. Three.
And then there was only darkness.
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WHEN I REGAINED CONSCIOUSNESS, I was in my wolf form, in an unknown place, among unknown people.
The faint scent of Hal, also in his wolf shape, told me he was alive, too.
In their animal form, wolf-people talk telepathically. I couldn’t do that anymore. Others couldn’t hear my thoughts.
Fortunately, I could still hear them talking. That’s how I learned Ellida Morgaine and Violet Kincaid had found us, nearly dead, and brought us to Winston, a gwerin y blaidd settlement up in the Canadian North. Morgaine was friends with Winston’s einhamir, Bessim Nimmani, who offered us refuge in a heartbeat.
I was a bloody mass of shattered bones, torn skin, and bleeding flesh. I was blind in one eye and could only see murky shadows from the other.
Hal was in slightly better shape, but he didn’t have any recollections of the attack or anything that had immediately preceded it.
I remembered everything, but I couldn’t tell anyone.
Hal could communicate, but he had no memories.
Home! Take us home! I screamed in my head. Why did you bring us here? I want to die at home!
These were my only thoughts during the short minutes of consciousness. I was convinced I wouldn’t live much longer.
And then blessed darkness would consume me again.
I lingered between life and death for months. My injuries were so severe I shouldn’t have been alive, but somehow, I lived. Nobody understood how and why.
I certainly didn’t want to live. But death wouldn’t come.
Not until Ellida Morgaine arrived to Winston that could I put all the pieces together. By that time, I’d regained some of my ability to communicate telepathically. It was a random, on and off thing, but it was better than nothing.
Morgaine had been with a babe. That was why she asked me for more time. A pregnant ellida couldn’t use her powers because it could harm the baby. She had to come up with a plan for how to take Rowena out of Copper Ridge without bloodshed by using her limited powers. No shapeshifting, no translocating, no serious magic.
In the meantime, terrified and alone, Rowena had tried to escape with little Darius, Seth’s son. Seth caught them. He sent the boy out of town and promised Rowena he’d kill him if she ever left Copper Ridge.
Then he sent his killers after us.
He believed they’d succeeded—with Violet’s help, Morgaine had made the remains of two of his dead guards look like Hal and me.
You risked hurting your unborn child! I screamed at her. Was the babe okay?
She smiled and placed a hand over her flat abdomen. Her daughter had been born a few months before and she was perfectly fine; nothing had happened. The powers Morgaine had used to change our appearances hadn’t hurt her baby. Violet, a capable and strong blaidd benywaidd—a female werewolf—had helped her with the toughest part, the scents and birthmarks.
The two of them had done the switch so well no one doubted it was us.
Seth spread a rumor that it’d been Rowena’s doing—she’d plotted to get rid of the husband who refused to give her a divorce. Many believed him, in Copper Ridge and Red Cliffs alike.
Why did you want us dead? I asked Morgaine.
Only my parents knew the truth, she told me, even though it hadn’t been my question. She couldn’t tell my mother I’d died.
Why only them? Why not my wife and my son? Why am I here and not in Red Cliffs? Why do I need to stay dead?
No answer.
Take me home! Take me home, damn it! You are not the ellida of Red Cliffs! You can’t keep me here against my will!
There was a reason for everything that happened, she said.
Take us home!
We had to stay there for a while, she said. If Hal and I went back, there would be a war. And we couldn’t fight. Not in this shape. Seth didn’t want it right now, but he’d fight back if provoked. Who would lead Red Cliffs men into the battle?
James. One of the captains. We’re stronger, we know how to fight.
Perhaps, but what would be the price? Many would die. She was an ellida, she said, a protector of life, she couldn’t let that happen.
You can’t win a war without casualties!
Yes, we could. But not right now.
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OVER TIME AND BIT BY bit, we learned what Seth had planned. Realizing he might not have a child of his own, he’d wait until Astrid grew up. He’d bring her then to Copper Ridge and marry her to Darius, his son, whose mother had been a wizardess and father a blaidd. Astrid and Darius’s children would be some kind of higher beings, capable of great things, according to Seth. They’d conquer Red Cliffs first then take control over other North American clans. The children of their children should marry and produce even more superb progeny ... With them, he’d rule over our world.
A twisted genetic selection, megalomaniac’s dreams. He has to be killed. Right away! I tried to tell Morgaine on every one of her visits.
Seth was mad, but also strong, Morgaine would say, over and over again. His power had to be reduced gradually, one step at a time, until he was weak enough to be destroyed.
Take me home. Please ... Please. Red Cliffs is without a leader.
Well ...
I must go home. Red Cliffs is on the brink of war. They need me. Astrid is in hiding. Rowena is still Seth’s hostage.
Yes. She was also the only one who could, to a certain level, control his madness. To protect herself from Seth, she’d become a blaidd benywaidd. Violet had turned her. Rowena now possessed the powers of two bloods—she was an asanni and a blaidd benywaidd. She was very strong, she’d be fine. Astrid was with her grandparents, safe and protected. She’d be fine, too.
Then she said something that made my breath catch.
One day, Astrid would take Seth down. She would win a war. And Hal and I would help her.
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FOUR YEARS LATER, I could drag myself around the house and could see from one eye. Hal’s memory was back, his body had healed better than mine, but neither of us could change into a human.
I dreamed of escape; every night I was back in Red Cliffs. But I knew my broken body couldn’t make it farther than the nearby forest. The Winston einhamir could’ve sent me home; he knew it was what I wanted but he wouldn’t go against Morgaine’s decision. Besides, Hal didn’t want to go. He believed in Morgaine’s higher purpose theory.
I didn’t.
He told Violet to forget him and live her life. As if she could’ve ordered her heart to stop beating.
We didn’t see Morgaine for years. Our contact with the outside world was Violet, whose role had been crucial from the very beginning. She had smuggled Astrid from Copper Ridge. She had helped Morgaine find us and bring us to Winston. Through her small travel agency, Red Cliffs and Winston had sent money to support the Copper Ridge resistance. She’d been Rowena’s closest friend, her messenger and her only contact with the outside world. At the same time, she had to pretend to hate Rowena and publicly question Astrid’s future role as an ellida.
Hal, my once merry friend, had wrestled with guilt, self doubt, depression. My inner strength to keep on was feeding off of rage and revenge.
In a simple ceremony, we became meibion-y-clann, the “sons of the clan”—official Winstonians. We got new identities. Einhamir Bessim had named us after his two friends who’d died in WWII. I became Khalid Nouri, and Hal, Malik Arslan.
After centuries, Brian Canagan of Red Cliffs had ceased to exist. Temporarily, Morgaine tried to reassure us. I didn’t believe her.
The war between Red Cliffs and Copper Ridge had been avoided, thanks to the new Red Cliffs einhamir, James Mohegan, Hal’s brother, and my friend.
He married Eve, my wife. Soon they had a daughter, then a son.
Our son, Jack, had left Red Cliffs for good.
Astrid, then almost seven, lived in the human world as a human child with her wizard grandparents, oblivious of her future role.
I became depressed and withdrawn. Hal carried on by dreaming of revenge.
Rowena convinced Seth to bring Darius back to Copper Ridge and lived with the boy in her own quarters of the castle Seth had built, a perfect small-scale replica of the twelfth century Krak des Chevalier and a testimony to his mental state. He had long ago lost his interest in Rowena as a woman. She was a burden now, but he neither dared to kill her nor could he let her go.
Rowena wouldn’t leave even if she could, realizing she could protect Astrid better by staying close to Seth. Darius’s life also depended on her. Copper Ridge needed her. She and her circle of women had organized a steady supply of food, clothes, vaccines and prescription drugs for the impoverished children of Copper Ridge, whose number rose every day.
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SIX YEARS INTO OUR involuntary exile, I became aware that it was indeed better to stay dead to the rest of the world. I never completely recovered, but I could talk to people. I could do things.
I liked the people of Winston. Hal and I became friends with Bessim Nimmani and many others. Violet would come every now and then, my parents would visit us once a year.
Ten years passed. Then fifteen.
Astrid was approaching adulthood, but she still hadn’t gone through the initial shapeshift, which would allow her to change her form from human to blaidd benywaidd by will—the irrefutable proof she was an ellida. She studied medicine and continued living as a human girl.
Meanwhile, in Winston, a girl of twelve became the youngest ellida of our realm. Her presence brought me unexpected inner peace.
Twenty years. Twenty-two ...
Rowena and Darius were now leading the underground resistance that plotted to overthrow Seth. Red Cliffs and Winston kept sending them money to provide the necessities for the Copper Ridge population. Seth had brought the town to the verge of economic collapse.
Astrid had her first transformation, turning Seth’s attention to her. He tried to kidnap her, but she escaped. She changed her name and hid in a small town in Oregon. Two of our Tel-Urugh friends went with her to protect her.
Hal and I, still trapped in our wolf bodies, trained a group of sixty of Winston’s strongest men for the inevitable conflict with Copper Ridge.
Twenty-five years after ...
Copper Ridge had lost the fear of its crazy tyrant.
A quarter of a century after Hal and I had “died”, Astrid returned home and became the ellida of Red Cliffs. She and my son were bond mates.
Seth was still determined to bring her to Copper Ridge and marry her to his son.
Seth managed to kidnap the five-month-pregnant Astrid and bring her to Copper Ridge. My son, who had become Red Cliffs’ einhamir, attacked the town. The inside revolt against Seth, led by Darius, had broken out.
The warriors Hal and I had trained went to help. Hal and I, too, although no one recognized us. I saved Rowena from certain death; Hal protected his daughter from the same knife that almost killed her mother and Violet.
Within hours, Seth’s reign of terror was over.
“Didn’t I tell you everything would be fine in the end?” Morgaine said to us after the battle.
“Not everything is fine,” I said to her. “And if it’s not fine, it’s not the end.”
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“FINE” WOULD MEAN WAKING up beside Eve, making love to her, having more children, listening to her laugh, kissing and holding her. It would mean being with my son and Astrid, being a grandfather to their daughter, Rosie, going fishing with Hal and James. None of this was happening. Not yet.
There were still too many unanswered questions, too much pain, too much loss to cope with.
Why hadn’t Morgaine told Eve I’d survived? Had she known, Eve wouldn’t have married my friend and developed the damned bond with him. They hadn’t been bonded for twenty-odd years and then suddenly they were. Their bond had been of that rare, developing kind, I’d been told.
Eve and I didn’t need a bond to love each other. It was not possible to love more than I’d loved her. I believed with all my heart she felt the same. How could she forget that love and develop a bond with James?
“Fucking thing happens, it doesn’t develop!”
Hal, Ahmed and Azem looked up at me, startled by my angry voice.
Rowena returned to the library with her baby in her arms. Ahmed reached out to take him from her. “Brian, what do you think about our plan? Simple yet perfect, isn’t it?”
God, what had happened to the serious, quiet woman I’d met again a year ago, after almost a quarter of a century? When had she turned into this darned multitasker, who was now trying to fix my life? Would she ever go home tonight and leave me alone?
Well, life had happened, and perhaps now everything was indeed going back to normal. Maybe faster for her than for Hal and me, but still. In any case, this noisy, nosy, energetic Rowena looked very much like the teenage girl I’d known once, before her life, along with Hal’s and mine, had changed so utterly.
“Simple yet insane,” I said with a sigh. No point arguing with Rowena. She’d decided to drag me out and nothing would stop her.
I owed her that. She was the bravest woman I’d ever known, and I loved her as my own blood.
She opened her mouth to retort only to get interrupted by the ring of her cell phone. “Charlotte Fontaine,” she said to me with a smile, as if I were bosom bows with the woman. “Hi, Lottie. What happened?” She listened for a while and then her eyes widened. “Oops! Can you keep your architect away from the computer until tomorrow morning?” She glanced at her wristwatch. “Let’s say ten o’clock, your time? By then, we’ll take care of our little problem... Yes, there will be enough there to satisfy her curiosity ... Thirty-eight, forty, I’d say ... No, he's divorced.”
She looked at me and flashed another smile.
“We’ll be in touch, Lottie ... Oh, yes. He is very interested, I assure you ... Bye now.” She disconnected. “Don’t look at me like that, Brian. What should I have told her? He’s married to a woman who’s married to somebody else? Yeah, right. But guess what happened? The architect Lottie hired wanted to google you, Mr. Nouri. Can you imagine? Smart girl.”
“Smart girl?” I said, shaking my head. “Don’t get any ideas, Rowena.”
“I’m not getting any ideas, Brian,” she said with an innocent shrug. “I don’t know her.”
Not personally, but knowing Rowena, she already knew enough about the young architect to start planning to introduce me to her. “What did you mean by ‘we’ll take care of our little problem’?”
“We have to put something up about Khalid Nouri on the internet. Create our virtual persona, to make you look authentic.” She looked at me from under her lashes. “In case you decided to take on this project.”
“Do I have a choice?”
She didn’t answer. It was a rhetorical question anyway. “Lottie made the girl stay overnight,” Rowena carried on with her own agenda, “so that she can’t use her computer at home. Lily Falconer—you don’t know her—”
“Janet and Sean’s daughter?” Janet Falconer was the head of one of the twelve Red Cliffs Houses—a cluster of families loosely connected either through blood or marriage. I used to know her and Sean, her husband, well.
“Yes. They have twins, Lily and Alec. Born after you died. The only set of twins in twenty-five years. Anyhow, Lily’s a computer whiz. She’ll create your virtual persona.”
“I thought Lily was away.”
It was Azem. We all looked at him. He blinked. “Er, I met her last year, after the battle with Seth.”
Rowena threw him a suspicious look. “Well, soon after that, and out of the blue, she decided to go to Europe. She’s back now.” She turned to me. “We’ll need to tell her who you are. No way around it.”
“Whatever.”
“We told Lottie you were Ahmed’s cousin.”
“Good. We’re both men and we have dark hair,” I said.
Ahmed winked. “Our family relation gives you credibility, cousin.”
“We had to offer her a plausible explanation for your name, Mr. Nouri,” Rowena said.
“Nouri is an Arabic surname, not Turkish,” I said, still challenging her crazy concept.
“Well, too bad.” She rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on! What are the chances that Lottie’s architect speaks Arabic or Turkish? Besides, the Ottoman Empire was a conglomerate of many nations, wasn’t it? We can say your father was a Turk of Arabic heritage. There. I’ll let you know when Lily’s done so that you can google yourself and let me know what you think, okay?”
“Okay.” At least I knew what Google was. “Listen, can you bring Rosie over one of these days? I haven’t seen her for two weeks.”
My granddaughter was the only family member Hal and I had met so far. Hal’s incognito visits to Copper Ridge were because of her. Being less than one year old, Rosie, of course, didn’t have a clue who we were. She loved us, and we were both crazy about her.
“Jack and Astrid are bringing her to us the day after tomorrow. They're going to Seattle for a couple of days.”
“So, Monday morning, then?”
“Monday morning,” Rowena said and kissed my cheek.
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ONCE ALONE, I LET OUT a deep sigh and went to my bedroom. I felt the familiar tingling in my bones associated with transformation. I took off my clothes, let my human body reshape into a blaidd and ran outside.
I had several hours to decide if I was ready to come back from the dead.
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I CALLED ROWENA IN the morning, as soon as I shifted back into my human form. “Tell your friend in Rosenthal she has an investor,” I said.
I heard her exhale. “Oh! Oh, great! Thank you, Brian. Thank you so much.”
Lily had my biography ready, she added. Ahmed would transfer the money right away and I would become the owner of ArtePolis, an architectural restoration company. The Baker Block restorations would be a good way to put my life back on track. It’d give me a different perspective. I could do a lot from home, she’d said, using computer programs. Lily would teach me how.
She spoke fast, her voice high-pitched in excitement.
“Hold on,” I said, laughing. “I made my decision. I won’t change my mind if you let me speak.”
I heard her exhale. “Okay. Sorry. Tell me.”
“I can’t go to Rosenthal to oversee the project. We have to find a way around it,” I said, more at ease than I’d been in a long time. Rowena’s enthusiasm was contagious.
“You don’t need to go to Rosenthal; we have Elizabeth Chatwin there. Let her do her job, and you play a big boss and provide the money. We’ll take it easy. Step by step.”
The step-by-step approach never worked for me. When I faced a challenge, I looked for the fastest and most efficient solution. The number of people who knew my true identity was growing. I didn’t want my son and Astrid—or the woman I was still married to and the man who was her current husband, for that matter—to be the last ones to learn I’d never died.
The time for hiding was over.
“I want to meet my family, Rowena. Jack and Astrid will soon have another baby. This time I want to be there when my grandchild is born.”
“It’s about time, Brian,” she said. Then she sobbed and finally broke into tears.