Read the book: «Enchanted No More»

Praise for the novels of
ROBIN D. OWENS

“A multi-faceted, fast-paced gem of a book.”

—The Best Reviews on Guardian of Honor

“This book will enchant readers who enjoy strong heroines.”

—RT Book Reviews on Sorceress of Flight

“Fans of Anne McCaffrey and Mercedes Lackey will appreciate the novel’s honorable protagonists and their lively animal companions.”

—Publishers Weekly on Protector of the Flight

“Strong characterization combined with deadly danger make this story vibrate with emotional resonance. Stay tuned as events accelerate toward the final battle.”

—RT Book Reviews on Keepers of the Flame

“A glorious end to the series.”

Wild on Books Reviews on Echoes in the Dark

Enchanted No More
Robin D. Owens

To the Word Warriors and Lisa (Crash)

Enchanted No More

Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

Acknowledgments

CHAPTER 1

A late January night, Denver

JENNI WEAVERS’S SKIN PRICKLED AS THE heaviness of ancient earth magic crossed her front boundary and marched up her sidewalk to her front porch.

A dwarf was at the door. The magical kind of dwarf, from the Lightfolk. He waited for her to acknowledge him. He could wait forever. She wasn’t budging from her second-floor office.

The doorbell rang, a fruity ripple of notes that she’d gotten used to since she’d bought the house, and had begun to actually like. She would not open the door. She’d been dodging phone calls from strange numbers for days. The doorbell sounded again. She stared out the window, nothing to see but dark, no moon tonight, and her neighbors’ windows weren’t lit. The doorbell rang a third time. And the clear phone on her desk lit up and trilled. And her cell in her bedroom warbled “The Ride of the Valkyries.” She was afraid if she answered the door the tune might become all too appropriate.

She set her teeth, turned up her computer speakers and continued typing. The final tweaks to the new little story line for the mass multiplayer online game were due tonight.

Her computer died an unnatural death.

A supernatural death.

A touch-of-fey death.

She stared at it openmouthed.

The ringing and ringing and ringing went on.

Stomping downstairs in her fuzzy slippers, she peered out the peephole and saw no one, not on the drafty covered porch or the stoop beyond. Definitely a full-blooded dwarf if she couldn’t see him.

Another bad sign.

She shouldn’t open the door, but didn’t think the dwarf would go away or her computer would come back on until she responded to all the noise.

Her cell tune changed to “Hall of the Mountain King.” She hadn’t programmed that in.

Hard raps against the door—of course he wouldn’t use the silver Hand of Fatima knocker.

Knowing she was making a mistake, she opened the door. Recognized and stared down at a dapperly dressed dwarf in a dark gray tux. Drifmar. “What part of ‘never darken my door again’ did you Lightfolk not understand?”

He smiled ingratiatingly, addressed her by her birth name. “Mistress Jindesfarne Mistweaver, we’ve found a pair of brownies who’d indenture themselves to you, despite your many cats. A token of our esteem.” He swept a hand toward two small beings—shorter and thinner than the four-foot solidly built dwarf—shivering in the late-January cold. The long tips of their furry ears folded in for warmth. Both male and female were dressed only in white shorts and sleeveless tops.

Jenni looked at the goodwill offering. They were scrawny and wrinkled. Their triangular faces and equally large and usually triangular ears and small vicious pointy teeth made them look as mean as wet cats. They wrapped their arms around themselves and leaned together.

“I don’t need household help,” she said. “I am a productive member of human society, I have a cleaning team every month.”

“You have a squirrel hole in your eaves above the door,” Drifmar, the dwarf, pointed out.

“I like the squirrel hole,” Jenni insisted. “I like the squirrels.”

The brownies perked up.

The dwarf bowed. “Mistress Jindesfarne, we have great problems.”

“Always great problems around. No.” She slammed the door.

He stuck his foot in it and the door splintered. He smiled with naturally red teeth. “Now you need the brownies.”

The brownies were looking hopeful, big brown eyes blinking at her, their thin lips turning black with cold.

Drifmar said, “You need the brownies and we need you. Let’s talk.”

“No.”

“We will make it worth your while.”

With just that sentence he ripped the scab she’d thought was a scar off the wound. Hot tears flooded her constricting throat. Her fingers trembled on the doorknob. “No. My family—my once happy, large family—talked with you fifteen years ago. Then we went on a mission to balance elemental energies while the royals opened a dimensional gate. My family died.” All except her older brother, who blamed her for the fiasco, but not more than she blamed herself.

“They saved the Kings and Queens of the Lightfolk.”

“I don’t care. The Lightfolk did not save them.” She didn’t control her magic, let her eyes go to djinn blue-flame. The brownies whipped behind the dwarf.

She got a grip on herself. It was Friday night and the sidewalks had people coming and going. Besides, losing her cool with a chief negotiator of the Lightfolk was not smart. “Most of my family is dead in the service of the Lightfolk. I have no responsibility to the Lightfolk at all.”

“Your parents taught you better.” There was a hint of a scold in his voice.

Since Jenni felt like shrieking again she kept her lips shut on words, breathed through her nose a few times, then managed to say, “Go away. Never come back.”

“You are the only one with the inherent magic to balance elements left.”

Her gut clenched. The dwarf didn’t have to remind her that her brother was crippled physically and magically. She remembered that every day and prayed for him.

She stared into Drifmar’s pale silver slit-pupil eyes. He could have no power over her, her own eyes were sheened with tears. “I am well aware of that. Go away. Never come back and if I say it three it will be.”

“Wait! We will make you a Princess of the Lightfolk, you will lack nothing for the rest of your life, your very long life. We need you for just a small job, and it’s time sensitive so the mission would be for a short time, only two months.”

Harsh laughter tore from her throat. “You can’t make a half blood a princess. Against all your rules. A small job for a great problem? I don’t believe you, and two months is eighty-four thousand, nine hundred and fifty-nine minutes more than I want to spend in Lightfolk company.” She looked down her nose. “That left you with one minute. Time’s up.”

“You’ll have power and status and money and love, whatever your heart desires.”

“I desire to be left alone by the Lightfolk.” She flicked her fingers. “Go away and that makes three!” She put her fury in it, hurled the magical geas at him, but drew on no magic around her. Not to use on such as he.

He vanished.

The brownies remained.

The male squealed, “What to do? What do we do now?”

Jenni stared at the pitiful couple. “You can come in for the night, I suppose, but just one.”

They stepped on the stone hearth, then clapped their fingers over their rolled ears and ran back to the far side of the porch. The woman looked at her reproachfully. “You have a nasty-sound scare-mouse machine.”

Jenni didn’t like the sound, either, but she’d been able to ignore it.

The man appeared interested. “You have mice. They said we would have to suffer many cats. Why do you have mice?”

Jenni sighed. “I have one old, fat, toothless calico cat.”

The brownie woman—browniefem—bustled back, stared up at Jenni with determination. “Go turn off the scare-mouse sound machine.”

Giving them a hard look, Jenni said, “You will guard this door and let no Lightfolk in.”

“We promise.” They bobbed their heads. “Please leave the door open for the warmth,” whined the man.

Jenni muttered a swear word under her breath—a human word—and tromped back to the kitchen. Sighing, she removed the sonic mouse repellers. In the summer she could live-trap the mice and relocate them, but in the winter and the bitter cold…no. If her cat, Chinook, had caught them and eaten them, that was different, that was natural. But she had too many advantages over mice to destroy them. Stupidity.

By the time she reached the entryway, the brownies were in and the door propped shut.

Chinook, always curious, descended the stairs two paws at a time. When she got three steps from the bottom she saw the brownies and her fur rose, her tail bottled and she hissed.

The male hopped into her face, bared his fangs and hissed back.

Jenni went to Chinook and picked her up. “She’s lived here for years, you’re overnight guests. As long as you’re here, you must treat Chinook with respect. She responds well to pampering.”

Before she’d petted Chinook twice the brownie couple had zoomed to the kitchen. Jenni followed.

The browniefem looked around, nose in air. “You need us. I am called Hartha and this is Pred.”

Pred grinned. “Mousies!” He disappeared into the crack between the stove and the counter.

“The cleaning team comes Monday, only three days from now,” Jenni said. The house didn’t look too bad to her.

Hartha was suddenly wearing an apron made from two of Jenni’s dish towels. That had been in a drawer. “Go sit down and I’ll make you some nice tea. You’ve had a shock.” Another sniff. “We must have the house warmer, but we will do it with magic, lower your heating bill.”

Jenni hesitated.

“We need the positions.” The woman lit the gas oven without turning the knob. She met Jenni’s eyes and her own were not pitiful but shrewd. “Those new shadleeches have nested in our home. We had to leave or they would drain our magic dry.”

Brownies were mostly magic. But Jenni didn’t want to hear their long, sad story.

Music filled the house, her computer was back on. She hoped she hadn’t lost much work.

Chinook wriggled and Jenni set her down. The cat sat and stared at the brownie. The woman went straight to the dry food container and filled the cat’s bowl. Chinook hummed in greedy pleasure.

Magic filled the atmosphere along with the lavender scent of home spells that Jenni recalled her mother using. She didn’t want to think of her family or the brownies or the dwarf. She let Chinook crunch away and went back upstairs to work.

Soon she’d turned in the leprechaun story and was in the depths of email consultation with the game developers about its debut the second week of March, only six weeks away. The scent of sweet-herb tea wafted to her nose. More memories of her mother, her five siblings, whipped through her. The browniefem set the pretty patterned cup before Jenni, twisted her hands in her apron.

So Jenni picked up the tea and sipped.

It was perfect. Just sweet enough.

Naturally. Hartha would have sensed her preferences.

The brownieman, Pred, appeared in the doorway, grinning. “There is no more mouse problem.”

Jenni let the brownies have the back storage room, messy with piled boxes, computer parts, cables, extra clothes, mailing materials, old software and broken appliances. She had a feeling it wouldn’t be untidy in the morning.

Grief and ghosts and guilt haunted her dreams.

She should have known that the arrival of the dwarf and the brownies would stir up the old trauma, but had worked that night until her vision had been fuzzed with static from looking at the screen. Then she’d fallen into bed and slept, only to watch the fight around the dimensional gate with the Darkfolk, and be too late again.

Her family had died in that fight fifteen years before. Jenni had been late to help her family magically balance energies as a portal to another dimension was opened. She’d been more interested in her new lover and loving. Hadn’t been there when the surprise ambush had occurred. A fatal mistake she was unable to fix, so she had paid the price every day since.

She would never forgive herself for her mistake.

Neither would her elder brother, the only other survivor of her family.

She awoke weeping and curled into a ball, and knew from the soft and muffled quality of the air outside her windows that snow fell in huge, thick flakes. She felt the silent coming and going of the female brownie, Hartha, but kept her back to the woman until the smell of an omelette and hot chocolate made with milk and real liquid cocoa teased her nostrils. She rolled over to see her best china on a pretty tin tray along with a linen napkin and tableware.

As she ate, Chinook hopped onto the bed, onto her lap, and purred, accepting bits of ham and cheese from the omelette. The cat was her family now, old and scruffy as she was.

Only one old cat.

As she stared out the frosted window, she accepted that the Lightfolk would not leave her alone.

They’d send others to negotiate.

They’d send him.

Her ex-lover.

CHAPTER 2

DURING THE NEXT THREE WEEKS, KNOWING the Lightfolk wanted her to go on another “time-sensitive mission” for them niggled like a sliver deep in Jenni’s skin. A splinter she could sometimes ignore, but sometimes would jar and send pain shooting through her.

She didn’t want anything to disrupt her steady life, didn’t want to recall her past or actively use her magic. She did fine living in the mortal world.

Missions for the Lightfolk were deadly.

Jenni stayed inside, hermitlike, avoiding any world beyond her computer, until she yearned for fresh air. So one bitterly cold morning when the snow had melted and the sun was high and yellow in the crystal sky, she left the house. She walked briskly from the Mystic Circle cul-de-sac toward the local business district a few blocks away, circling around the green spaces dotted with skeletal aspens and lush evergreens.

It was good to hear the slap of her leather boot soles on the clean sidewalks, to see shafts of golden sunlight bounce off window glass. The trees and grass were shades of brown, but the sky was blue and gold with sunshine and white with frost crystal clouds and she inhaled deeply of the cold, fresh air.

She was out of her house, away from the brownies’ earthy energy. They had made her life so much easier, she’d let them stay. Life might just be okay.

She’d just left Mystic Circle when she heard the sharp crack of a branch breaking. Her shoulders tensed. That sound echoed from the past…when her ex-lover wanted her to know he’d arrived. Stopping in her tracks, she turned back and looked. Aric Paramon stepped out of a huge evergreen tree.

The sight of him jolted her down to her bones. She hadn’t seen him since the evening of the ambush, the failed mission. She’d left after her brother Rothly had thrown salt and silver at her, disowning her.

Aric was as gorgeous as ever. He was a tall man, like the California redwoods he lived in, about six feet four inches to her five-eleven. His skin was ruddy-copper. The sun accented the faintest tint of green in his long black hair. The deep green of his eyes would be ascribed to contact lenses by humans. Wide shoulders tapered to a muscular torso. His mother was a dryad and his father an elf.

He wore a raw silk shirt the same color as his eyes, brown slacks and a long, dark brown leather trench coat.

Jenni gulped, and her heart thumped heavily in her chest. She should have anticipated Aric would arrive that way—he was half Treefolk and could travel the world through any tree.

“I knew they would send you,” she said, and the heat of her emotions dried her throat, “the kings and queens of the elements, the Eight, to convince me to go on that mission. I don’t want to see you. Go away.”

Aric rolled his shoulders, the gleam of pleasure she’d thought she’d seen in his eyes vanished. His face went impassive, then he said, “I’ve wanted to talk to you for a long time.” His voice lowered. “I hoped you would be done mourning.”

He didn’t add that it had been fifteen years. Aric was nearly immortal and she—half human and quarter djinn and quarter elf—was very long lived.

Fifteen years was like three years to a mortal. “Oh? How long do you think a person grieves for the loss of two brothers and two sisters and both parents?” She wanted the words to be sarcastic, but they also were laden with sorrow. She stiffened her spine and lengthened her stride. Aric wouldn’t accompany her to a busy human area.

He kept up with her, glanced down. “I wouldn’t know how long your grief lasts,” he said. “But I have had losses, too.” He looked away. “I am sad when I think of my lost friends. Your father, your brothers.”

She didn’t care. Sometimes she had moments when wild grief tore at her from the inside.

“You didn’t say goodbye,” Aric said.

The sentence was a blow that stopped her breath. She struggled for air. She understood, then, that though Aric might grieve as she did, he felt none of her guilt for making love instead of being with her family for their mission.

That was a wide gulf between them that she couldn’t cross, didn’t even want to think about. Didn’t want to think about that time at all, only could speak one sentence of her own to reply. “I thought Rothly throwing salt and silver at us, showing we were dead to him, was enough.” Again her voice rasped from her throat.

She turned away, ready to hurry back to her house, her home, her sanctuary. A place untouched by any magic save her own and the brownies’.

His wide, warm fingers curled around her wrist, touching her skin, and she experienced an unwelcome shock of attraction. While she was dealing with that, he said, “You could be a Lightfolk Princess, that’s what the Eight are offering you as payment for this mission.”

She snorted. “Unlikely.” Then she shrugged. “I don’t want to be a princess.” But she felt the vibration of yearning in his body, saw the ambition in his eyes. When had he become interested in Lightfolk status? He hadn’t been much before. He’d been as easygoing and laid-back as any Treefolk man she’d known. She wouldn’t ask. None of her business.

“There is nothing you can offer me that would make me help the Lightfolk. My parents—family—wanted to be accepted, like most half humans. They’re dead and I’ve made my home in the mortal world. Leave me be.” She tugged at her hand.

“It’s not just the Eight, the Lightfolk rulers. The entire magical community needs you, fast. Just for a month and a half—through March.”

“I don’t need the magical community!”

His jaw flexed. “My family needs you.”

“My family needed you and you failed them.” Her anger poured out with the words, her hair charged with her temper, lifted and nearly sizzled in the cold air.

Aric dropped her wrist, stepped back.

Ugly emotions seethed between them. Jenni couldn’t take the words back. She swallowed and pressed on. May as well lance this festering boil. “When you and I ran to the ambush at the dimensional gate, I went to my family to try to help—to balance the energies—to save them from the Darkfolk warriors. You went to the royals and fought.” Another thing she didn’t think she could forgive him for.

He paled, and replied steadily, “I knew if the Eight fell, all would fall. The loss of the greatest elemental leaders would be such a blow, cause such an imbalance, that the Lightfolk wouldn’t recover for centuries. Easy for the Darkfolk to kill us, take us over.”

Her smile was cold. “And my brother and I struggled with all the elemental energies in the interdimension. A huge mass of energies that my whole family had called, stabilizing the magic, releasing it slowly so magic would not destroy everyone. Knowing if we stepped out of the gray mist we would be attacked and killed.” She found she was grinding her teeth.

A huge shudder shook Aric. “I didn’t know.”

He would have if he’d thought about it instead of springing to help the royals. Jenni trembled, too, then cut her hand through the air. “Past is past. But the disaster was such that I have no love of the magical community, no reason to help, no wish to help.”

His nostrils flared. He set his feet as if settling into a solid balance, braced to give or take a blow. “I have news of your brother.”

Jenni flinched, caught sight of birds circling in the blue sky and realized they were talking of matters in the open where wind could take words to Lightfolk—or Darkfolk. She was glad Aric hadn’t said Rothly’s name.

Her chest tightened but dreadful hope spurted through the constriction. She hadn’t bothered Rothly since he’d disowned her on his sickbed the night of the ambush. Jenni would have known if he’d forgiven her—a lightness would have infused her spirit. He’d have come to her, or sent a message asking that she return home.

Home. Home was not in Northumberland, England, anymore, would never be there again. If she walked in the hills the shadows would flicker and she’d think her parents were there. If she walked along the shore the tide pools would reflect the images of her lost family, the endless waves of the restless ocean would carry their voices. She couldn’t live there.

She stopped, could not take another step. Trapped.

By love, as Aric had trapped her before.

This time not for him, but for her beloved brother who now hated her. Rothly had been coldly, flayingly acid to Aric, too, but maybe he’d forgiven Aric. If he had, maybe there was a chance he’d forgive her, too.

“What news of my brother?”

“Must we speak of this on the street?” Aric asked.

“I don’t want you in my house.”

He winced and only a twinge deep in her heart regretted hurting him. She’d spoken the truth after all.

His breath soughed in and it seemed as if the trees on the street bent toward him in sympathy. He straightened to his full height and Jenni got a feeling of implacability. “There’s a commercial area a few blocks down, yes?”

She blinked. That didn’t sound like the Aric she’d known, ready to mingle with full humans. “Yes.” She smiled briefly. “There’s a coffee shop. It’s very busy. I agree, we must speak of matters.” She had to know about Rothly. Aric wouldn’t lie to her.

He angled his head then waited until she came parallel to him, though she kept a good two feet from him. “Calm your djinn nature,” he said. He swept a hand before them and the bare branches of the trees shivered as if in a wind. The needles of the evergreen trees whispered against each other.

Aric lowered his voice so that his words were covered by the sound, murmuring so only Jenni’s magical hearing had her understanding him.

“Listen. There’s been plenty of change since the old Air and Fire couples went through the gate and new ones took their place.” He paused, then said even lower, “The sacrifice you and your family made to stabilize the dimensional gate was not for nothing.” His gaze was set straight ahead, his expression impassive.

Jenni’s laughter mocked. She’d been over every instant of the ambush, the fight, the frantic effort to save her family and everyone at the gathering from wildly unbalanced magic. She no longer thought the “mission” had been important. “All occurred just because two of the kings and queens had reached the height of their power and wanted to move into a dimension richer with magic than poor Earth.” She laughed again and it was dissonant.

Once more his jaw tightened, released. “The decision to open a portal to another dimension was the Eight’s, not yours or your family’s. Your family equalized all four elements so the gate could be made and stay for the time it took for two of the four couples to leave.”

“We were so flattered as halflings to be asked to help.” She shook her head. “Pleased that we could invite guests to such an important ritual and gathering.” Sarcasm. Aric had been her guest. “All the family was close to the portal, the target of the Darkfolk, and died.”

“Not you, or your brother,” Aric said.

“Has my brother’s crippled magic and arm been restored?”

Aric was silent.

Jenni hissed out a steamy breath of anger. She wanted to turn back, to hole up and hide again in her house, but she needed to know about Rothly.

She swept her senses around her, glanced over her shoulder toward the entrance to Mystic Circle. In the entire cul-de-sac and all its houses, earth was equal to fire to air to water. Her doing by just living there. The natural magic within her made it so, a comforting thought. All the strongest magic and spells worked better when all elements were equally balanced.

Aric followed her stare, his glance lingered. “Wonderful place,” he said. His gaze slid over her, then he looked forward again and began walking. “The old Kings and Queens of Air and Fire left, and new couples ascended to their rank, and change began,” Aric said smoothly, as if he was telling a tale. He hadn’t been much of one to tell stories before, preferred to listen.

He continued, “The new Kings and Queens of Air and Fire are progressive. More, human technology is catching up with our magical energies enough that we might be able to merge the two. Lightfolk could live easier with mortals, and mortals could stop harming Earth for their fuels.” He glanced at her. “As you know, you use a little of that in your work to develop that game you write.”

“Fairies and Dragons.” Jenni’s mouth twisted. He knew more about her than she’d thought. “Neither of which exist anymore. I just finished working on a leprechaun story line. They are gone, too.”

“And shadleeches have become.” The tone of his voice was grim and laced with hurt.

Jenni didn’t know much about shadleeches, they were a relatively recent phenomenon, appearing in the time since she’d turned her back on the Lightfolk. She knew they gnawed on magic.

They reached the coffeehouse, the Sensitive New Age Bean, and Jenni pulled the door open. Human noise and luscious scents emerged, along with warmth. Her mouth watered. She wanted to taste something hot and fiery and jolting down her throat. Espresso and cinnamon.

There was a line at the long wooden counter and she stopped at the end. The icy cold had the humans bundled up in puffy coats, scarves and hats. Jenni was wearing her red leather trench and Aric a brown one—unbuttoned and open. She hadn’t felt so inhuman in years, especially in a place she loved, and it unnerved her.

They waited in silence. Her body felt starved for the ineffable essence of standing near Aric, a purely magical being who carried elven blood, and she despaired of herself.

He wasn’t manipulating her through active control, he couldn’t do that, not as one with Treefolk blood, but he was tempting her with what she shouldn’t want and now discovered that she did—news of her brother. That would remind her of all that she’d been and lost.

But she longed for news of Rothly.

Aric leaned on the counter, absently stroking the smooth finish with his fingers, and charmed the women. He ordered hot chocolate with whipped cream and made it sound manly. Of course a male who topped six-four and was built on muscular lines would automatically make whatever he did “manly.”

When the logo-etched glass mugs were slid toward them, he casually paid and had Jenni staring. He appeared as if he knew mortal money and was accustomed to using it. Before she could comment, he lifted a glass in a half toast and she followed his gaze to the top of the bookshelves in the other room. “You kept the brownies.”

The brownie couple was there though they had been home when she’d left. They were dressed in their best colorful patchwork made from Jenni’s fabric scraps and old clothing. Small round upright hats glittering with tiny mirrors sat on their heads between their huge ears. They both had little leather slippers of bright red that Jenni thought were made from one of her old and shabby purses.

Their eyes were locked on Aric’s drink. Like every being in the Folk world, they loved chocolate. Jenni’s liquid cocoa had disappeared within hours of their arrival.

Jenni didn’t keep chocolate candy in her house. She couldn’t. The minute she touched solid chocolate, it melted, a tiny physical idiosyncrasy of her and her mother and sisters. Her lost family.

The espresso burned her throat but it wasn’t as hot or as bitter as the taste of tears she’d thought were all gone. Or the memories that Aric and the dwarf and the damn brownies stirred up.

Aric took his mug and two small paper sample cups of cocoa in his other hand. He crossed to a corner surrounded by bookcases, an alcove with a wooden table that was painted in colorful green and blue swirls. He sat sideways in the wooden-runged chair, his arm across the top, angled toward her. His perfectly “pressed” linen trousers couldn’t hide the long, thick lines of his thighs, the narrowness of his waist. His silk shirt emphasized the broadness of his shoulders, the proportional length of his arms. His expression was studious as he examined her, but a sad wistfulness was in his pretty eyes. Yes, he was beautiful. But not for her ever again.

His whisper—a sound more like the rustling of leaves than a voice—came to her. “We can talk here, no magical creatures can eavesdrop, and the brownies are loyal to you.”

Jenni stared. How could they be after only three weeks?

He gestured the “currently invisible to human eye” brownies down to the table, where they perched on two corners. Blocking the view of humans, he poured cocoa in the sample cups for the brownies. When they took the pleated paper cups, the vessels “vanished.”

“We like you, Jenni,” Hartha said after she’d taken a sip of her drink.

“Your basement and the house and the cul-de-sac are wonderful,” Pred said.

“We do not want to live anywhere else, such as in trees,” Hartha said, glancing at Aric.

“Or in a tall building with steel and fake rock, high above the ground in downtown Denver,” said Pred.

“Thank you, Hartha, Pred.” Jenni managed courtesy, but her yearning to hear about her brother slid like a fever under her skin. She stared at Aric. “What of Rothly?”

Though Aric didn’t change his casual pose, she felt tension radiating from him. He’d promised to tell her of Rothly and now had to deliver.

A dreadful anticipation seeping into her blood told her she was going to lose in this struggle with the Folk.

As she’d lost before.

Lost too much when her family had answered a previous summons. Aric was going to win.

She hunched over, curving her fingers around the heat of her glass mug, the same warmth as her hands. She looked at the dark espresso, not at Aric.

Skinny, long, four-jointed fingers were laid across her knee. Hartha had hopped from the table to stand beside Jenni, her big eyes sad. “Do not keep us if it makes you indebted to the Eight. The Treeman can arrange another place for us.”

Pred hissed and she snapped at him in words that thunked in Jenni’s ears, but she couldn’t understand.

“Rothly,” Aric breathed on a sigh. He shook his head, straightened in his chair, met her eyes. “The dwarf Drifmar made him the same offer he’d made to you. If Rothly did the mission for the Lightfolk, he’d become a Prince of the Lightfolk.”

Jenni stood. Her chair slammed on the floor. “No.” Silence for ten rapid heartbeats. “Tell me that’s not true. Rothly is crippled. Physically and magically. He can’t work any of his once natural elemental balancing magic without peril.”

“Crippled in mind and heart emotions, too,” Aric added, “not to be able to forgive.”

“Tell me that isn’t true about Drifmar.” Jenni’s strident voice overrode Aric. “Tell me you Lightfolk did not send my brother to his death.” Fury and terror dried her eyes so she experienced everything with an awful clarity—the human gazes focused on them, the trembling of the brownies, the small muscles of Aric’s hand flexing around his mug.

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Is Rothly in danger?”

Aric looked away, his jaw clenched.

Jenni’s blood heated. Could she manage to save Rothly without the help of the Lightfolk? They’d said it was time sensitive. How long would she have? Especially since she hadn’t practiced any large magic, like stepping into the interdimension, for years.

She locked gazes with Aric, his eyes looked like chips of deep green emerald…but not even as soft as emerald. Again she was facing a man she didn’t know, who had changed in fifteen years.

He had his own agenda and he—and the Lightfolk—would keep up the pressure on her.

Standing slowly, Aric said, “Your brother promised on the Mistweaver honor that the mission would be fulfilled.”

Jenni flinched, as she knew that wording had been just so. If she didn’t consider herself a Mistweaver, was really just Jenni Weavers and not Jindesfarne Mistweaver, she could walk away.

But Rothly had disavowed her, she hadn’t abandoned him.

She felt tears gush to the back of her eyes, her chin tremble. She firmed it, swallowed and watched Aric’s eyes. “You win.”

CHAPTER 3

“I DON’T WANT TO BE HERE WITH YOU,” JENNI said steadily, “or listen to you.” She didn’t sit. “But once again the Lightfolk have given me no choice, have they? They’ve endangered my brother.”

“Jenni—”

Without looking at him, she said, “Tell Drifmar and whoever else needs to know that I will take care of this ‘little mission’ with the ‘terrible problem’ for them.” Those had been Drifmar’s words. Without letting herself think, she said the words that might lead to her death. “I’ll finish what my brother tried to do. Uphold the family honor. You’ve done your job.” She’d never heard of a mission for the Lightfolk that wasn’t dangerous. “Now tell me of Rothly.”

Aric raised his brows. “You’ll commit to the whole mission? Not just try to rescue Rothly yourself?”

Jenni’s lip curled before she answered. “Would I be able to rescue Rothly myself? And would Lightfolk help me with that with no strings attached?”

Aric hesitated and she knew the answers were what she’d feared. No help at all from the Lightfolk without conditions.

“Don’t—”

“I won’t break my Word or Rothly’s Word on a contract with the Folk. I haven’t lived in the human world so long that I turned stupid.”

“You’re one of the smartest people I know,” Aric said.

“Tell me of Rothly.”

“Your brother is missing. From what we know of your family’s natural magical gift, you are not totally in this reality when you weave magic.”

Aric knew that, he’d been a friend of her brothers’ for years. How much had he told the Eight who ruled the Lightfolk? He was obviously loyal to them.

Jenni said nothing, but thought of the half step into a different reality, the gray misty place where the only colors were the elemental energies she could summon—the gold of earth, flaming red-orange of fire, frosty blue-violet of air and the rolling waves of green-blue water. Mystical as the northern lights.

Aric said, “We think Rothly is stuck in what your father called the interdimension….” He stopped as if he felt the flames of anger licking her insides, nearly causing her to lose control of her eye color. If she wasn’t careful they’d heat to the blue-white mortals found threatening.

Steam was just below her skin. She needed to cool down before it issued from her pores. A steaming woman was also a cause for concern in the human world. And why was it that a half hour with one of the Folk could make her forget all her years as a mortal?

“Then I will find him, damn you all,” she said.

“Let’s discuss this fully somewhere else,” Aric said. He gestured back toward the cul-de-sac and her house.

Jenni shot up her chin. “I’m not inviting you into my home.”

His skin darkened from light copper to dark. He stood and clamped a hand around her lower arm. “We know Rothly isn’t dead, just…caught. We can monitor him.”

She yanked her arm away and he let her go. “So you can monitor me, too? How reassuring. You go report to your people. But I get Rothly home first, before anything else.”

Aric’s fingers clenched. His gaze met hers, his eyes taking on that deep brown rim around his irises that appeared when he felt strongly. He was angry with her because she didn’t want him in her home. Well, she could care less what Aric Paramon felt for her. Keeping his gaze locked on hers, he reached into the pocket of his coat and held out a little greenish-white business card.

She stared at the human thing. He dropped his hand and it floated in midair, so she snatched it. This was her neighborhood and she wanted to continue living here. Automatically she glanced down on it. In forest-green ink it said Aric Paramon, Consultant, Eight Corp, with an address in the downtown Denver business district. In a high-rise of all places. Mind-boggling.

“I am your liaison on this matter, Jenni.” His voice lowered. “I volunteered for the mission. We go together. We live or die, together. Get used to the idea.”

Sounded like something he was repeating from TV, but the Folk didn’t watch television, didn’t move in the mortal world. Humans were sometimes good for sex, that was all. Like most full-blooded Folk he’d once had a great deal of scorn for the mortal and human. But fifteen years ago the Lightfolk hadn’t had a corporation or business cards. She had no clue what was going on.

Aric smiled a knife-edged smile. “Like I said, there have been changes in our world. Considerable changes. And I’m not the man you knew. You will be briefed by one of the royal Eight. Two p.m. Be there.”

He’d never been a man to give orders. He was half-dryad-Treefolk, half-elf. He’d been mellow as a Treeman descended from flighty dryads would be, and taken the generally optimistic nature of the elves.

Jenni shrugged all the strange things off. She wasn’t about to show ignorance—that led to manipulation. “I’ll be ready for our afternoon meeting, make sure you are, too, and that you and the royal will exactly and completely tell me the truth.” Her nostrils pinched. She didn’t trust any of the Lightfolk, especially the Eight. “Otherwise we’ll both die, and whatever terrible problem the Lightfolk have will be worse.” She glanced at Hartha. “Looks like you two will be staying to take care of the house while I’m gone.”

Hartha nodded. Pred made a small sound of glee. “We will have the whole house to ourselves!” His toes curled and he vanished in a small, excited spark of golden topaz.

“I’ll get your luggage from the basement,” Hartha said, her head tilted toward Aric, so Jenni figured he was telling her what Jenni would need for wherever she was going—besides the step into gray mist, which she would traverse alone since only she had the intrinsic magic to do so.

She turned on her heel and left him, striding out of the coffee shop into the frigid air. With gritted teeth she suppressed her emotions so steam didn’t trail her as she marched home.

As soon as she entered her house, she smelled espresso with cinnamon and Hartha was there, holding Jenni’s drink from the coffee house out to her in one of her own cups.

“You will need this,” Hartha said.

Jenni knew she would need a lot more, and not just caffeine or clothes.

She’d need all her courage, all her skill.

What she didn’t need was Aric Paramon going with her. Not a man who reminded her of her own failure. But he was her “liaison.” A disgusted sound escaped her.

She inhaled the scent of the coffee, then handed the mug back to Hartha, looked the small brownie in her big brown eyes, which were tinted with gold flecks. The tips of her ears were curled inward, defensively. “I’ll set my hand to paper giving you and Pred house-rights to stay here while I’m gone.” Jenni sucked in a breath and added, “Currently the house goes to my brother if I die. If we both perish you might as well have it. Those who live here in Mystic Circle will make it so. My next-door neighbor, Amber Sarga, will file the right papers with the human world, and the halfling Harmony Windrose will keep a sworn document for the Lightfolk.”

Hartha tipped her head back and stared at Jenni. “We might have this wonderful house in the cul-de-sac where all four elements are present and balanced!” The mug floated as she squeaked and fell to the ground to roll around in excitement, clapping her hands.

Pred joined her. “We can extend the basement tunnel and make a common room for the whole cul-de-sac!” They tumbled in brownie-joy-dance together.

A tingle along Jenni’s spine told her that the brownies had already done stuff to the basement. Not that she—or anyone in Mystic Circle—would or could have stopped them.

She kept her eyes on the blurred brownies. How much would they know of the problems and changes in the Lightfolk world? Changes so extreme to break with the many traditions that they actually were following mortal rules—the Eight had a mortal corporation. Changes that pure-blooded Folk would make a half blood like Jenni a Lightfolk Princess?

Hartha wouldn’t be in the confidence of the highest circles of the Eight, which, apparently, Aric was. A flash of anger-heat slipped through Jenni.

No reason to interrogate the brownies, not with all that must be done right now.

She had to verify Aric’s statements, look for her brother in the interdimension, a half step away from true reality. She prayed that she would be able to sense him there. Taking off her coat, she hung it on a hook by the door.

The brownies had stopped and stood before her, curtsying and bowing. “We thank you, we thank you, we thank you.”

They flicked their fingers at her and she felt herself coated with dust that sunk through her skin. Hartha said, “We bless you on your journeys and may you return safely. You gave us sanctuary and did not indenture us. We like taking care of you and this house. We are loyal.”

Pred added, “Blessings and return safely. It is not good to inherit from nonrelatives who are cut down in the midst of life and meet an untimely death.”

Jenni winced, shrugged off renewed dread and addressed Hartha. “I must use the kitchen.” She’d barely stepped into it since the brownies had come. Hartha considered it her domain. But Jenni needed the herbs that would help her transition from the reality of Earth to the gray mist of the interdimension.

If she’d practiced her craft—entered the interdimension every day—she would’ve needed very little tea, but she hadn’t. She went to the small pantry area between the kitchen and the basement stairs and reached for the red tin on the highest of the built-in shelves. The shelves were spotless, of course, and the contents had been moved around, but the tin was still there.

Ignoring Hartha, Jenni lifted the top of the tin and inhaled deeply, let the scent waft and spiral through her. Potent. Good. Despite the fact that she’d rarely used her magical gift in the last fifteen years, she was dedicated to keeping the special mixture of herbal tea for her talent ready, as her mother had emphasized.

“Do you want me to make the tea?” Hartha stood next to her, twisting her hands in the frilly bright yellow skirt of her apron she now wore over work clothes of a brown blouse and skirt.

Jenni looked down at the brownie. Of course the woman had noticed the tea, probably discerned the ingredients and the quantities of the herbs. “No, thank you, family secret.” The brownie flinched, the tops of her ears rolled tight down to the cartilage near her head.

Jenni tried a smile, the corners of her lips curved, and that was enough. “I’m the last uninjured person with Mistweaver magic, so the secret will be archived with the Lightfolk if I die, but until then I prefer it to be secret.”

Hartha vanished.

With a sigh, Jenni spooned out a teaspoon of the special mixture: the finely ground black Ceylon tea, long, thin and twisted leaves of tringle and green shoono herbs, three minuscule rare moon-crescent blossoms. She dropped the spoonful into a pottery mug made with a special clay that enhanced the power of the herbs. Then she placed the tea tin back onto the top shelf, not shoving it deep this time. She’d need it in the future.

Why had she figured she could ignore or outwit the great Lightfolk, the Eight? If she’d been practicing her craft…if she’d been practicing, surely she’d have sensed Rothly caught in the interdimension? Maybe, maybe not…but if she’d been practicing and he was there she might have been able to pull him out…if she knew where he’d stepped into the mist.

Right now, even if he were here in Denver instead of Northumberland, England, she wouldn’t have the strength to get him out, would barely have the strength to enter and leave herself. She’d let her natural magic ability to step into the gray mist atrophy. The skills it took to call up the interdimension, go in, stay in for a time, leave—those were all rusty.

She’d have to use the tea, all the mind-body-emotion preparation rituals her family had developed to successfully enter the gray mist. And that was here—in her own home, in Mystic Circle that she’d balanced. She’d be lucky to last fifteen minutes, enough to orientate herself and find him. She should be able to find him…but hadn’t searched for him for fifteen years.

He had disowned her, cut ties to her. Yet he was her brother. She should still have at least one small bond to him. She hoped.

She didn’t dare attempt to save Rothly without more practice…at least three times in the mist, balancing elements—and she’d have to rest in between times. A day would be good.

But the pressure of inner dread made her think that she wouldn’t have a day to rest between attempts.

If she didn’t get it right, have the skill and strength to pull him from the mist, she’d kill them both.

Her stomach sank as she frowned at the tea. For a quest to save her brother in the interdimension and a mission after that, she should make a fresh mixture. She gritted her teeth. A process of two weeks that couldn’t be hurried or even started when the moon was waxing instead of waning.

Unless Rothly had made a fresh batch before going on his mission. Which meant returning to her family home in Northumberland to find out.

She poured water into the mug, then set her hands around it and let the heat of her turbulent emotions bring the water to a roiling boil, counting down the necessary seconds, then stopped. As she walked to her bedroom she kept track of the time needed for the infusion. Finally, she whispered a small spell and the leaves whisked up and disintegrated, leaving a tang on the air.

She could grab a ten-minute shower using the proper soap while the tea cooled. It was always better to go to the interdimension cleansed and with clear mind and intentions.

Usually Jenni would heat her skin as she showered in cool water, or heat tub water with her own magic before she bathed. But she must conserve her personal energy. She’d need all her power to enter the interdimension and search for Rothly. If she got stuck herself she would fade away, die.

So she let hot water spatter against her and began the process that would ensure a successful trip into the mist. She thrust away the notion that Rothly was trapped. The Lightfolk could be wrong. Thinking of Rothly snared, that she might be stuck trying to save him, could lead to panic.

As a human and elf, she liked the water, her djinn part not so much. So she let the human enjoy the liquid slipping against her skin, and hummed. Then she let the elf part twirl in the shower, and sang. Then she stepped from the tub and let her djinn heritage flash her dry.

She put on a raw silk orange robe and stepped in a particular rhythm to her bedroom, closed the door. She walked around a large tapestry bag that Hartha had brought from the basement.

Jenni reached for the mug on her bedside table, saw her hand trembled. Chinook, who’d been snoozing on the bed, strolled over and rubbed against Jenni. Sucking in a deep breath, Jenni picked up the heavy cat. Chinook purred. The cat loved elemental energy.

Holding Chinook, Jenni rocked back and forth, comforting them both. “It’s just been you and me, but you know I have a brother, Rothly.” She’d cried enough tears while calling out for all her lost family.

Chinook just purred.

“I’m going into the gray mist, the interdimension. I haven’t done that for many years. But I have to go now. I think I’m the only one alive who can survive the interdimension. Because I can balance the energies. The greatest magical Folk—Light and Dark—are usually only one element…and I’m babbling. Dammit, Rothly shouldn’t have tried. He had enough Mistweaver talent to get in, but not out!”

Chinook swept a quick tongue under Jenni’s chin and she dragged in a breath. “I’ll have to be careful, not move a step in there lest I lose my way. Not stay too long or I’ll be trapped like the Lightfolk say Rothly is.” She let a nervous heat wave shudder through her. Chinook butted her head against Jenni’s arm, stroking them both.

“Yes, I know you like magical energies, especially balanced.” Jenni set Chinook back down on the bed.

“Since I haven’t done this for so long, you can be my anchor, so I don’t lose my bearings, unable to exit.” Another deep breath at the thought. With the lightest of touches, she connected to the cat’s energy, linked them, let some of hers cycle to Chinook. The cat’s purr revved.

“I won’t be gone long.” She hoped. “Just need to find out if I can sense him. I should, even if he’s at home—I mean in Northumberland. This is home now. Ready?”

Chinook sat on the bed, tail curled around her paws. Jenni snagged her mug from the bedside table, then turned to face south and began her energy cycling. She must match her own energies to the vibration of the interdimension. She drank the tea and let the magical essence of it flicker through her like tiny flames, igniting her nerves so she’d be prepared to enter the gray mist. Make sure the timing was right, longer than if she’d been practicing often. Cool her energy for two minutes. Warm for six. Then hot!

She set the empty mug aside, walked beyond the end of her bed and into the middle of the room, faced south once more. She checked that she was completely balanced magically, saw the gray mist rise before her and chanted an entrance to the interdimension open. Taking one step forward on the carpet, she also moved a half step away from the dimension of Earth and into the gray mist that was the space between the reality of Earth and other planets, other places, other Earths.

She didn’t have the talent to open a temporary portal or establish a gateway to another dimension, but she knew that there were other worlds just beyond the mist.

It was quiet here, and it felt like she stood on solid ground, but if she looked down, she wouldn’t be able to see her feet. She could see nothing but flashes and sheets and twists of the elemental, magical energies, bright against the sky like the northern lights, the aurora borealis.

The real geographical landscape had faded, the house, the mountains in the west, the skyscrapers downtown. Slowly she turned in a full circle, checking the immediate area around her. All magic was balanced, the land around her imbued with equal amounts of fire and air and earth and water. Because she, an elemental balancer, had lived here in Mystic Circle for fourteen years. Her innate power did that. Slight tendrils of the equally mixed energy steamed upward.

Narrowing her eyes, she stared toward the south and the small business district that held the coffee house, the Sensitive New Age Bean. Since it was close to her influence, the elements were more equal than those in other directions. Yet there were still more flares of earth and fire.

Farther south the blue-green of water elemental energy swirled in a pool, spiraling from the “ground” that Jenni couldn’t see, tingeing the mist with color. That denoted Sloan’s Lake several miles away. One of the reasons she’d chosen this neighborhood was to be near Sloan’s and several other minor lakes. Water in Denver was at a premium and having lakes relatively close made it easier for her to call that element.

There was a slow, slight echo of a mew and she knew Chinook was near her feet in the real world. Dear Chinook, the being closest to her in the last few years, her remaining cat. The cat who liked magical energy best.

A tingle on Jenni’s skin prompted her to turn east and she faced that way, saw huge streams of magical elemental energy near downtown. They looked as if they were directed, not the random flares of naturally occurring magic. Not balanced, though. The blue-violet of air predominated. This was Lightfolk crafting.

Her eyes widened. She’d never seen anything like that in her seventy-five years. That phenomenon hadn’t been there when she’d moved to Denver.

So this Eight Corp that the Lightfolk ran was not a small deal. Not if it was messing with the magical energies like that.

She’d allowed them to sneak up on her, hadn’t been paying attention, hadn’t known they’d established a base in Denver. Why Denver? She shivered. Chinook mewed again and Jenni tore her gaze from downtown.

She was here to find her brother. She swallowed hard.

The Lightfolk believed Rothly was lost in the gray mist of the interdimension.

How long? A person died after a period of time…Jenni wasn’t sure of the length. But she wasn’t the scholar of the family. Another reason to return to Northumberland, for information.

Since she’d never spent more than forty-five minutes in the mist, the time it took to die had seemed long to her as a youngster. Now she thought it was under three months. How long had Rothly been gone? She’d been too angry, too frightened for her brother, to ask the right questions.

Maybe she could sense him. She wouldn’t be able to see him, or move in the mist without becoming lost, but she might know.

She hoped. A lot of hoping and praying going on. As usual when involved with the great Lightfolk.

She wanted to save him more than anything else in her life.

He’d be the only other person in the mist.

She sent her energy probing through the interdimension, searching, searching. There! Somewhere, north? Northwest? Geographically she couldn’t tell…but there was a pulsing human-and-Lightfolk-elf-djinn aura… Rothly.

If she stilled enough, breathed shallowly, she could feel the faintest touch of his fractured energy against her skin.

She closed her eyes, and visualized an image from the sensations she felt. His aura was damaged—his magic didn’t envelop him evenly. It was ragged, uneven, with a couple of splintered spots.

A sound broke from her, a keening in this silent place. She couldn’t tell how far it echoed, how long.

His aura pulsed slowly, too slowly, like he was dying. Trapped in the interdimension without the magic to save himself.

How could she find him and retrieve him? Love poured from her toward him and she thought his aura throbbed slightly stronger. How aware was he? She waited but he said nothing, not mind-to-mind, not aloud.

“Rothly!” she screamed. Still nothing, not even a flinch. She thought he’d have moved, yelled, cursed if he were conscious.

She didn’t know enough about this deadly dimension, would have to research family records to save him. But she’d have to be where he was to haul him out.

Shivers ran through her. She couldn’t bear this. Bad enough that only one of her family had survived the battle. Horrible that he’d been maimed. Worst of all that he’d condemned her as she had blamed herself, bitterly lashed out and cut her guilt deep.

She couldn’t lose him. Not the very last of her family. She must save him.

Then she sensed something else around him. A flickering, fluttering blip. How could that be?

Jenni’s breath stopped as the thing, some other magical being—a shadleech?—swarmed around Rothly, blocking his aura, hung on him batlike. It was here in the interdimension. It—perhaps more than one initially—had trapped him as much as his own crippled power. The shadleech sucked away his magical energy.

Worry gnawed on her like the shadleech on Rothly. She must find out exactly when he’d entered the mist, started so ill-fated a mission. Find him!

She lifted her foot. Another mew and a tug from Chinook, Jenni’s tiny anchor, reminding her that she didn’t dare step away from the place she’d entered.

Time to leave the interdimension, search and find where Rothly had entered the gray mist. Haul him out.

Hope she could save him and not die herself.