CHAPTER SIX
OATHS, BIG AND SMALL
I THINK I would have recognized Carter anywhere, even in absolute darkness. Scout bounded ahead of me after snuffling him a welcome. I sat down on the stoop next to him, and he turned to look thoughtfully at me.
“I smell old forest on you.”
I lifted my arm and sniffed my sleeve. “I would have thought onion and garlic and chili powder, but okay.”
Carter raised an eyebrow. His looks wouldn’t knock the socks off a girl, being on the plain and trustworthy side, except for the scar/dimple in his chin. I could see beyond the surface, though. He was the whole package: strong, funny, heroic, thoughtful. And tall. “Hiram take you in to the family estate?”
“He did. Goldie retrieved her things and a journal for me.”
His mouth tightened a little. “I would have gone with you.”
“No need. Wasn’t a real friendly welcome but not awful either, and Goldie got what she wanted, and then she dropped the traitor bomb in their midst.” I paused before adding, “Although I would have loved it if you’d come.”
He made a sound of disbelief. “She made accusations?”
I crossed my chest. “Believe me. And Hiram isn’t happy about it, either.”
“Don’t blame him. Harpies like to stir up trouble.”
“Well, she did.”
After a long moment, as if he wanted to weigh his words, he said, “I could skim the journal for you.”
“Nope,” I told him. “I can hardly wait.”
“You might get a little dismayed by what you read.” He put his hand on my arm, warmth bleeding through the shirt and into my skin, comforting and strong. He took my hand in his and traced my outline, fingers and all, with a gentle touch. Each slight caress sent a thrill through me.
“I know. Gotta do it anyway.” I leaned into him. “I missed you.”
“Work.” He cleared his throat. “I’ve been assigned to something dangerous. For you, not me.”
Those words chased away the comfort and his stroking ceased. “Are they moving you?”
“No, but I might have to transit up and down the coast a bit.”
“Ordinary or magical research?”
He gave a short laugh. “I can’t tell you that. But I need you to be a little circumspect. Cautious.”
I felt as protective toward Carter as I could feel he did toward me. I answered, “The more I know, the less I’ll have to go find out.”
Tension instantly coursed through his body. “You can’t do that. I need to know you’re safe, and the way you’ll be safest is not to know anything about what I’m doing. This is deadly business, Tessa, and I can’t share what I know with you. I don’t want to, but it’s what is best. It’s the only way I can keep you secure.”
“Sounds like Mafia or a drug cartel.”
“Not much different, and that’s all you need to know. I’ll be around except when I can’t.”
I turned to look at him closely, lines deep about his mouth, that offset little cleft that was really a small scar of some kind, his plain yet handsome to me features, the sheer determination that sculpted his face, and the inner heat that always managed to shine through. Goldie called him a sun lion. The professor had called upon his ability to project the massive heat of a solar flare to bust open an elven gate and send our enemy through it. Yet he was human. I knew that through every nerve and bone in my body and felt it keenly as he leaned in and kissed me. Tender and yet demanding that I return it, so I did, closing my eyes and falling into the sensation. He moved his hands up to cup my face, and I encircled my arms about his waist although I couldn’t reach all the way around him. We finished one kiss and began another, a yearning one, open and deep that made my body pulse and my blood rise until finally we both pulled away reluctantly. He brushed my hair from my eyes.
Then he gently put his fingertips on my chest, on the breastbone, and I could feel a warmth flood me, a heat that went somewhere secret and stayed.
“What—”
“A bit of love. So you will always know it, and that it comes from me.”
I put my hand over his for a brief moment, and then he pulled away.
“I don’t like not being able to talk freely with you,” he told me.
“But I’ll see you. And you’ll send word if you need me?”
“I don’t know yet if that will be possible.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “No?”
“I have to be careful.”
It hurt him to say that, I could see it in his eyes, barely viewable where we sat on the back stoop, with the moon half-hidden by clouds and the porch light off, but I could still see it. I had had plans, a lot of them, and it ached that I wouldn’t be able to carry through with them, at least for now. “It won’t—it won’t be long, will it?”
“Might be.”
“How long? Six months? A year?”
“Not a year. Beyond that, I can’t tell. It’s a job that needs to be done, and I am uniquely qualified to do it.”
So it was magic, my question answered sideways, at least a magical edge needed that only he could provide. That brought all sorts of possibilities bubbling up. “Is it the Society—” but he stopped my question with his index finger across my lips. “No, and no more questions.”
I managed to say “But” and that was about all before he took me in an enormous hug and just held me close, until our heartbeats matched and my breathing became slow and easy, and even then he didn’t let me go. The heat he’d given me glowed as well, and I savored it. Not until Scout finally came trotting up and shook cold evening dew all over us, effectively a cold shower, and reminded me that there was supposed to be frost in the morning.
That passage of time he’d given me meant I might be soaking in summer heat and humidity before he could hold me like this again. I burrowed my head against his shoulder; he tightened his grip on me, and we both knew he didn’t really want to let go. I knew then, deep down, what I needed to know: I hadn’t driven him away as I had my father. He didn’t want to go. Duty demanded he be blocked from me and had dragged him off.
I didn’t tell him what Goldie had said to me because I couldn’t bear to see him torn between duty and me. It wasn’t something I could ask of him, not now, and I didn’t want to add to his worry.
To break my silence, I muttered into his body that the Society had ordered me in for an appearance. His answer, when it came, tickled my ear as his breath grazed me.
“You’ll do fine. Just don’t go in spoiling for a fight.”
“I wouldn’t!”
“Of course you would. I know you. But don’t. Try and stay open to what they might have to say and ask of you. They’re going to be curious about the stone, but you know that already. Don’t tell them you’re a sorceress. Let them figure that out. You might have other abilities we haven’t thought of, and they’re a good way to find out the depth of your power.”
“So I can’t set their asses on fire if I get angry?”
“Wouldn’t advise it.” He muffled a chortle against the side of my head. “Look, the professor has spent months trying to turn you away from the Society but he wasn’t always right on everything. You know that.”
“He did have his faults.”
“Keep an open mind. But not so open they can crack you like an egg.”
I pulled back with a “Hey!”
Carter started laughing. “Just checking to see if you’re listening.”
I thumped him lightly. “I will always listen to you!”
“I know.” His eyes glistened a little. “I’ll be around before you know it.”
I told him, “I take that as a solemn promise. And if you’re not, I’m coming to get you.”
He put his hand up. “Pinky swear?”
And so we did.
I admit it took some nerve for me to open Morty’s journal when I retired to bed. I wanted to chase away my worry for Carter, but as I sank into the first few pages, I realized that reading the inside and detailed workings of a culture I’d no idea existed most of my life wasn’t the way to do it. I paged ahead, my mind filled with secrets and pacts and cautions . . . what a precipitous life the Iron Dwarves and their other clans lived. One slip off a tightrope of existence and their whole world would fall, crashing. The modern world would rush to crush them, no matter what good intentions existed, and common sense told me the intentions would more likely be those of greed. I counted myself lucky any of them would bend enough to call me friend. Me, a disaster without any help at all. They trusted me. I’d never promised any of them I’d keep silent although the necessity to do so seemed obvious. Now.
So how was it he had faith in me? Did I keep it? Morty had failed himself and all of us in our intrepid little troop, but he had redeemed himself. Who would tell me to find redemption if I slipped? Would the others even be able to let me know what I’d done?
I closed his journal on my finger, keeping a placeholder. “Morty, wherever you are, and I refuse to believe such a strong and true soul went nowhere, had just simply ceased, and so—wherever you are, I promise to do my best to keep your secrets.” My words fell on air that reacted in no way whatsoever, as if nothing listened to me. What had I expected? That his profoundly bass voice would rumble in my ear, verifying my vow? Yeah, seriously, a little. I had hoped for some response.
And getting none, I fervently hoped that I hadn’t already broken that vow.
Reopening the journal, I read a little more, than I came across a name I knew: Potion Polly.