“Jared! Jared, wake up!” There were hands on him, shaking him, rough and impatient, and Jared lunged out of the winding embrace of blankets and bedsheets, lashing out.
He almost succeeded in hitting his aunt Lillian in the face. She caught his wrist a hair’s breadth from cracking across her cheekbone.
Jared scrambled away from her, his back hitting the headboard with a thump.
“I’m sorry,” he gasped, the remnants of his nightmare clinging to him like tattered clothes around old bones. “I’m sorry, I’m so—”
Aunt Lillian kept hold of his wrist. “There’s nothing to be sorry for,” she said in her crisp voice.
Jared tried to pull his hand away. She did not let it go, and her mouth thinned and her eyes narrowed as if she was extremely unimpressed that he had made the attempt.
“I didn’t mean to—” Jared began, but she cut him off.
“You didn’t hit me,” said Aunt Lillian. “You were having a nightmare. I was the one who put myself in the way of your flailing arms. I knew what I was getting into. I have dealt with children having nightmares before.”
“Oh my God, Aunt Lillian,” said Jared, and she let him have his hand back so he could scrub it exasperatedly over his face. “You probably give children nightmares,” he added accusingly.
Aunt Lillian shrugged, as if conceding that she might have given a few children a nightmare or two in her time.
She was wearing one of Martha Wright’s voluminous white flannel nightgowns, hanging on her like a slightly fuzzy tent. Her long blond hair fell down her back like a waterfall, too baby-fine to tangle, and she should have looked like his mother. But her face was too composed for that, her mouth always firm and never vulnerable, her back held straight as if she was balancing an invisible book on her head, and her eyes met Jared’s eyes steady as a soldier’s hand holding a weapon. His mother was dead. Aunt Lillian had never been much like her.
“What were you dreaming?”
“About your husband burying me alive,” Jared said grouchily.
He felt sick a moment later, thinking of who he had been buried with, the boy Aunt Lillian had loved.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, too quickly.
“Don’t be sorry,” Aunt Lillian said. “I don’t like it when you hang your head like a whipped animal. You didn’t hit me, and you never will hit me. You would never have hit her, either.”
Jared flinched. “Her?”
“Rosalind,” Aunt Lillian said, and Jared flinched again, couldn’t stop himself even though he could hear his aunt’s voice in his ears—like a whipped animal—and see her disapproving face. “Other people hurt her,” Aunt Lillian said. “And other people hurt you. And you were both angry, and maybe you were both scared, but no matter what dark thoughts you have you didn’t hurt her. Someone else hurt her. Don’t waste time blaming yourself when you can spend time planning how to destroy our enemies.”
“Can we get that last thing embroidered on a cushion, Aunt Lillian?” Jared asked.
Aunt Lillian flicked up an eyebrow. “You can make as many bad jokes as you want, Jared. I really do not care. But stop being so ridiculous about yourself.”
She reached out and touched his face, the line of her cool hand against his scar. He had his back to the headboard already; he wasn’t sure how to get away from her without making it obvious.
“I think you believe that you might destroy anything you touch,” Aunt Lillian said. “Give yourself more credit. You’re a Lynburn. I believe that you will only destroy that which you mean to destroy.”
Rob was a Lynburn too. His mother had been a Lynburn, and she had known what rage and hate he was capable of.
“I get—really angry,” said Jared, and swallowed.
“So do I,” said Lillian. “I would kill anyone who hurt what is mine to protect. I would kill anyone who hurt you. You don’t have to be like Rob, or like the man you thought was your father. You can be like me.”
Jared paused. “Okay, Aunt Lillian,” he said in a low voice. He swallowed and let his cheek rest for an instant against her palm, then looked up at her. “Except that you’re terrible.”
Aunt Lillian put her arm around his neck and used her hold on him to pull herself across the bed, then sat on the pillow beside him.
“So you will be terrible. But that does not mean you have to be unloved, or unforgiven.”
Aunt Lillian had killed her own sorcerers without meaning to. Aunt Lillian was as much of a destructive force as Rob. Jared didn’t want to tell her that, though, and not only because he did not want to hurt her. His mother had made him believe that being a Lynburn, he was born to destroy and never to be loved. Aunt Lillian was telling him that he could be loved, even if he was the hurricane his mother had said he was born to be. He wanted to hear that more than he wanted to hear anything else. That probably meant he was terrible.
She leaned her fair head against Jared’s shoulder. Jared had no idea what he was supposed to do about that. When he put his arm around her, her shoulders felt terribly thin, but she leaned against him, so perhaps he had not got it too wrong.
“I love you,” said Aunt Lillian. “And I’m sorry you were buried alive. I hope you get over it quickly.”
She patted his arm. The door opened, the very creak of the hinges apologetic.
“I’m sorry if I’m disturbing you. I could …,” Ash said tentatively. “I could feel that you were upset.”
“You kids and your psychic bonds,” Aunt Lillian scoffed. “I had to hear him shrieking in his sleep.”
Jared would have objected to her phrasing but was aware that would earn him the patented Aunt Lillian stare, combining indifference and arrogance in the way mostly only cats could. Instead he looked at Ash, shyly edging his way into the room, the lamplight hitting his bowed golden head. He was holding on to his arm; Jared felt guilty that he’d hurt him, even though he’d seen Lillian healing him.
Jared felt other stuff too, feelings that were not his own: Ash’s swirl of confused emotion, and beyond that—beyond that a glimmer, perhaps, of someone else. Maybe it was only that he wanted to feel it so much.
It was not anything like that other link. He couldn’t talk to Ash in his head, and he was honestly deeply uncomfortable with getting Ash’s feelings all over his: it seemed as undesirable as ketchup getting mixed up with his eggs.
But he could feel how Ash felt about him. He had assumed, though he knew Ash was trying to make things between them go more smoothly, that some of the distrust and fear and anger he could sense swirling darkly in Ash like blood in water would be directed at him. But it wasn’t.
How Ash felt about him was surprisingly nice.
Jared did not know if he and Ash were really brothers. Rob and Lillian both thought Rob was Jared’s father. Jared’s mother had not been quite sure. There was no way to tell, now.
Jared supposed they could be brothers, if they both wanted to be.
“Are you all right?” Ash asked now, sidling closer to the bed. He had been meandering around it until he was on the other side. Now he sat down tentatively.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” said Jared, and jerked his head in what Ash could take as an invitation if he wanted.
Ash clambered onto the bed, which was not quite big enough for two and definitely too small for three. He sank his head down on the pillows instead of sitting against the headboard, and Aunt Lillian laid her hand on his blue-pajama-clad shoulder.
“You’re both perfectly all right,” she informed them. “And we will get Aurimere back, and our magic back, and our town back, and then we will have everything we need.”
“We have some important stuff already,” Ash offered tentatively.
Lillian frowned. “What do you mean?”
Jared surrendered himself to the strangeness of this situation, sank back onto the pillows himself with his head near Lillian’s hip, and sighed heavily to attract his aunt’s attention. “He wants to know you love him more than that stupid house.”
“It is a very nice house,” Aunt Lillian said, sounding offended. “Your ancestors are buried in the crypt of that house.”
“Sure. Okay. We’ll get our lovely creepy house back. When they bury me in that crypt, I want ‘Jared, very inbred, deeply uncomfortable about it’ on my tombstone.”
Lillian transferred her frown to Jared, but on the other side of her he heard Ash’s soft laugh, and felt the wash of feeling: comfort, relief, affection. He could recognize them all, but they were different from his own feeling of the same thing, like seeing different shades of the same color or a different garment made out of the same material.
Ash felt things in a better way than he did, he thought, but it was hard to resent him for that. Jared knew what was bound to happen between Kami and Ash. He wanted the best for her and—feeling what Ash felt for him—Jared could not find it even in his ugly heart to wish Ash ill.
Jared didn’t want to hurt Ash. In fact, he felt the urge to protect him more than he felt anything else.
He tried to project that feeling of protectiveness over to Ash, tried to soothe him enough so that Ash could sleep.
Jared levered himself up on one elbow and looked beyond Lillian, who was stroking Ash’s hair with a faintly perplexed air, as if she was not quite sure how she had come to be in this position. Ash had his face tucked against the pillow, hair a golden curve over his brow and eyes almost completely shut.
Jared could not help but wonder: Did I do that?
“Sometimes I worry you two do not have enough respect for your heritage,” Lillian said. “Your father may have betrayed us, but Aurimere is ours by right. Power has been wielded and passed down from Lynburn to Lynburn for hundreds of years. You should honor that legacy.”
Jared thought it was amazing she could say this kind of thing with a straight face. He was tired, so tired he felt almost dizzy. Aunt Lillian was unbelievable, and so was Ash, and so was the big stupid house and their big stupid legacy, and yet somehow he’d surrendered to it. He had found somewhere he did not fit but could belong anyway, and thought perhaps that meant family.
“Aunt Lillian,” said Jared. “I’ll tell you what I honor. I love you even though you are terrible, and even though I am too. Ash, I love you even though that puzzles me even more than loving Aunt Lillian, and I will probably never have anything in common with you. I’m not learning how to use the right forks or whatever, you both still annoy me, and I will always be there for you when you need me and I will never betray you. Now let me sleep.”
Jared put his head decidedly down on the pillow and shut his eyes. One of them would have to hit him with something to make him move or talk any more about his emotions.
He felt instead Ash’s happiness and Aunt Lillian’s hand, lighter than a breath of wind, touching his hair. She had touched his hair like that once before, he thought. And she might again, and again, until demonstrations of affection became something he did not notice so painfully much. It was strange and wonderful to think that one day he might even take it for granted.
He had the chance to doze for a few minutes before Ash bolted upright in bed, and Ash’s fear ran through him cold and sharp as a sword.
“Kami,” said Ash.
“Again?” asked Aunt Lillian, but neither Jared nor Ash paid her any attention.
“What’s happened?” Jared said, and tried not to sound angry that Ash knew something about her Jared did not. She was in danger and that he could only know, only help her, through Ash.
“I don’t understand,” Ash said, stumbling over his words, so they came even more slowly and Jared was even more maddened. “I thought she was safe now—”
“Safe now?” Jared repeated. “She was in trouble before?”
Ash stared at him, speechless with dismay.
“She was in trouble, and you knew, and you didn’t tell me.”
Fear and regret were dulling the edge of Ash’s panic, and that made Jared remember there was something to panic about. His stupid jealousy, the way he felt as if he had a right to her mind and her heart when he did not, when he had no right at all—that couldn’t matter. If he let himself demand any answer from Ash but one, then his selfishness was greater than any feeling he had for her.
Jared took a deep breath. “Ash,” he said, “what’s happening to Kami right now?”
It was late, and Holly felt like a complete creeper.
She’d been on the other end of this with boys, of course, where they delayed making their move and thus made her stay out later and later. Said boys never seemed to understand that hooking up—which seemed like a fun idea at eleven at night—seemed like the least appealing thing in the world at four in the morning.
She had a little more sympathy with those boys now.
Holly and Angela had been studying alone together all evening. Even though Kami hadn’t reported back on whether Angela might like-like her, it seemed the ideal time to make a move.
She’d always thought of herself as awesome at making moves, in the way girls made moves, smiling significantly and sitting close and leaning in. Actually trying to initiate a hookup was much more difficult than she had suspected. Especially if there were feelings involved, which tangled her tongue and made her shy, when at least with all other hookups she had been fairly confident about what was going on and able to at least make basic conversation.
“So nice it is for Henry to stay,” she said, a sentence that came out way more garbled than it had sounded in her head.
The more important it was to get something right, Holly suspected, the more sure she, Holly Prescott, was to mess that thing up.
Angela had agreed to stay in the Water Rising and study Aurimere books with Holly, but Holly was sure that Angie had not thought this process would last long into the night. Angie rested her elbows on the table and regarded the world with a pissed-off stare, as if she hated the night, tables, and air generally.
“What?” she asked flatly.
“Uh,” said Holly. “It’s really nice of you—and Rusty, of course; I like Rusty, who doesn’t like Rusty, he’s so likable—to let Henry stay with you. And to let me stay with you. I really appreciate it. And so does Henry. I’m sure.”
“Okay,” Angela said.
“I mean, it’s not just staying with you, of course. This is a tough time, and—and I bet Henry is grateful for the support. And of course Henry really enjoys your company.”
Angela made a slight face. Holly couldn’t interpret it, other than knowing it meant things were not going well. It was possible that Angie hated appreciation, Henry, the very sound of Holly’s voice, or all of the above.
“Okay,” Angela repeated.
She got back to turning the pages of her book. Holly felt more and more like a creeper, the kind of guy who didn’t say suggestive stuff but did insist on having a conversation, who hassled beautiful girls who obviously wanted to be left alone.
She only knew one way to do things. She didn’t know how girls were supposed to go after other girls.
And yet Angie had fancied Holly once before, and Holly hadn’t even meant to do that. Maybe the problem was that Holly was being too subtle.
“You look tired,” was Holly’s next venture.
She knew that was not the smoothest possible thing to say, but she had a plan.
“Almost constantly,” Angela replied, staring at her book and resting her fingers against her temples. “I am tired of asshole sorcerers, I am tired of having my life threatened, and I am tired in the sense that I want a nap. Yes. And your point would be?”
The temptation to say “Never mind,” and also hide behind the sofa because Angie was terrifying, was almost irresistible.
But Holly wanted to be brave, and she wanted to have this. Guys were often really persistent, and it worked: she didn’t want Angela to think Holly wasn’t trying hard enough because she didn’t like her enough.
Holly braced herself and jumped to her feet.
“Oh, I was just thinking,” she said with forced and perhaps slightly manic brightness. “You must be super tense! How about a massage?”
Before she finished speaking, she had her hands on Angela’s shoulders, so much narrower than a boy’s shoulders and almost fragile-feeling, even though she knew Angie was strong. She felt for an instant a sense of accomplishment.
Angela’s shoulders moved under her hands in a shudder of indignant recoil, like a scandalized maiden snake whose Victorian sensibilities had been deeply offended.
The movement was enough: Holly had her hands off Angela and up in surrender, but Angela spun around in her chair and wheeled on her anyway.
“What,” said Angela, and the ice in her voice chilled Holly, “do you think you are doing?”
“Sorry,” Holly muttered. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“It was right out of order, Holly,” Angela said.
She was not even standing up, but she was a tower of outrage. Angie might go around traumatizing people, but she always knew exactly what she was doing.
Holly didn’t know how to behave, had never quite known how to be friends, let alone anything more. She was the fluffy idiot her parents had always believed, the girl the other girls didn’t want to be around, not someone who knew the magic trick of being taken seriously. She was so, so stupid.
Holly knew she was blushing and was afraid she was going to cry, which would be even more humiliating.
“I was just trying to—” she got out.
“What?” Angela demanded. “What were you trying to do?”
“Never mind,” said Holly. She turned her face away and looked at the door, just before it burst open to reveal Ash Lynburn, in a T-shirt and shoes but also blue pajama bottoms.
“Come quickly,” he said. “It’s Kami.”
That was when it occurred to Holly, horribly and for the first time, that now that Ash and Jared had no magic she was one of only three sorcerers left on their side.
“I can help,” she told Ash. “I can do magic.”
Holly pushed past him. She did not want to see the hope lighting his face. She had to act, since there was nobody else to do it, but she was so scared. If she messed up, people she loved could die. And the one thing Holly was sure of about herself was that she would mess up.
Kami had gone to sleep warm and happy, Tomo sharing her pillow because she wanted to be sure he wouldn’t disturb their parents. She woke up with a combination of shouting in her head and the sound of glass breaking.
She sat up, bewildered and sick, still warm but coughing now. Her nose stung with smoke. Her vision swam and coalesced into the sight of Ash crouched on her bedroom floor, glass shards around his feet and glinting in his hair.
Kami opened her mouth to ask what was going on, and burst into another fit of painful coughing.
What’s going on? she asked, her hands moving almost of their own volition until they found Tomo’s silky hair and narrow back. Her palm flattened against the worn, much-washed material of his favorite pajamas, the one with the pattern of trains on them. Someone had broken through her bedroom window, and her little brother hadn’t even stirred.
Ash did not answer her, in her head or out loud. He staggered forward, through the broken glass and the general debris of Kami’s room, made for her bedroom door and flung it open, saying, “Ja—”
A roar answered him. An inferno waited beyond. What had been Kami’s familiar old corridor, the floorboard that squeaked, the wall that bore a painting of Kami’s that her mother had framed and hung up against her father’s wishes—because, he said, he loved her but it was truly terrible—the corridor where Tomo had kicked off his shoes today and which she had called good nights and good mornings down all her life, had become the dark hole for a glowing, growling monster. All Kami could see were shadows and consuming flames—the fire seemed to leap at Ash, and he slammed the door again.
Kami was coughing with her eyes smarting because of the smoke. She shook Tomo frantically, ignoring his groggy protests, and looked at the door. She could see the fire now, see the burning orange light around the edges of the frame, smell the smoke as it hit the door.
She had been so stupid to count on the sorcerers not recovering quickly, to believe that they would not strike back right away.
This was what came of standing against Rob: this was the retribution of the Aurimere sorcerers.
Her house was on fire, with her family inside it.