Chapter 12

12

GAbrIEL

O nce we'd finally managed to regain some of our composure, we continued walking. The shadows were getting longer, and I'd begun to keep a passive eye out for a decent spot to make camp for the night.

I still felt out of sorts around Evangeline, unable to shake the guilt of what I'd imagined the night before, but the tension had eased a little, and the conversation between us had begun to flow more freely.

"And when I got there, they had the baby all dressed up like a little doll, and they were trying to teach it to shapeshift," Evangeline was telling me. "The baby seemed to be having a pretty great time, at least. And it seems like she picked up on the lesson, too, because according to her parents, she still sprouts feathers sometimes."

"From… where?" I asked, morbidly fascinated.

"Her hair," Evangeline said. "Bluejay feathers, maybe three inches long. I've got one in my apartment somewhere."

"Bizarre. Do you think the ability will fade as she grows up?"

Evangeline shrugged, brushing a lock of hair out of her face. "No idea. Fairy magic is completely different from witch magic. Way wilder and less predictable. It's like comparing a wildfire to an oven."

"Don't sell yourself short," I said. "Your oven seems very… hot?"

Evangeline scrunched up her nose. "Yeah, okay, it was a weird metaphor. Maybe… Okay, if Cardamom's magic is like the waterfall, then mine is like a… pressure washer, I guess? Or one of those garden hoses with the nozzle that has a bunch of different settings."

There was a loud crash in the woods off to the other side of the river, and we both fell quiet. I was almost glad for the interruption since I'd slowly been losing my internal battle to suppress the part of myself that desperately wanted to point out the difference between a metaphor and a simile. Evangeline had stopped in her tracks, eyes fixed on the source of the noise.

There was another crash. Then another. Whatever it was, was getting closer quickly.

"Do you think it'll be able to cross the river?" Evangeline asked in a low, tense murmur.

"I'm not sure," I murmured back. "But it sounds big."

Evangeline nodded, sharp and businesslike, then opened her mouth to say something. I didn't get to find out what it was, though, because that was the moment the source of the crashing burst out into the open.

It was a bear. Or, to be more accurate, it had been a bear once. Its hulking shape was bony, covered in matted, patchy fur, its eyes white and glassy. The thing reeked of dark magic, and jagged purple runes covered every inch of skin where the fur had been torn away. Thankfully, it hadn't noticed us yet, but as it lurched to the edge of the water, swinging its huge head from side to side, I knew it was only a matter of time.

"Let's go ," Evangeline mouthed, pointing toward the woods on our side of the river.

I looked back at the bear and reached out with my mind as gently as I could, barely brushing against its own. As I felt the connection, I stifled a gasp. Waves of excruciating pain crashed through me. The bear was starving and half-mad with pain, and it wasn't the one in control. Something else was in its mind.

I leaned down to Evangeline, so close that my lips nearly brushed her ear. "Could you stun it?" I whispered. "Or just keep it pinned for a moment?"

Evangeline pulled back and looked at me like I'd lost my mind. Her eyes flicked over my face searchingly, and her expression softened and then resolved into one of determination. She nodded.

"Wait for my signal," I mouthed, and she nodded again. I paced a few yards away from her until I was directly across the river from the creature. The afternoon light glinted off something on its head.

I squared my shoulders and prepared to do something deeply stupid.

"Over here!" I yelled, cupping my hands around my mouth. The bear's head shot up toward me, its white eyes unblinking. "Would the cursed bear like a vampire snack? You look hungry."

The bear charged, crashing through the river, sending water spraying up into the air. It snarled, jaws dripping with purple spittle. I waited, staring it down. Then, as soon as it had made it to the bank, I yelled again.

"Evangeline, now!" I called out, sparing a moment to hope that she actually could restrain this thing.

I felt a surge of power around me. Shimmering golden light wrapped around the beast's legs, sending it crashing to the ground. It let out a bellow that no living creature should have been capable of making, its sides heaving. The strings of golden light wrapped all the way up its legs, anchoring it to the blue-gray clay of the riverbank. Its jaws snapped furiously.

"Could you muzzle it?" I called.

Evangeline twisted her hand, sending another band of light to wrap around the creature's scarred snout.

I reached out with my mind again, pushing calm into every part of the bear's mind that wasn't taken over by dark magic. I approached its massive bound form. Even without its legs under it, the thing was nearly as tall as I was. I knelt by its head, and its white eyes stared sightlessly up at me.

A small dagger made of flint was embedded in the middle of the bear's forehead. Its handle was carved bone, etched with the same runes that covered the bear's skin.

"I'll make this as quick as I can," I told the bear as Evangeline came over to stand behind me, still holding the bonds in place.

I gripped the dagger's hilt, and a shock of dark magic ran up my arm. I had to work quickly. Yanking hard, I pulled it free with a sickly squelch. The bear let out a muffled bellow of pain, thrashing against the golden ropes holding it down. The dark magic was fizzing up to my shoulder now, and I tossed the small dagger to the ground.

"Don't let it get into the river," Evangeline said. "We'll need to contain it. There are evidence bags in my left inner pocket—they'll keep the magic sealed off. You'll have to grab it yourself if you want me to keep this thing still. Quickly," she added sharply.

I sprang to my feet and reached into Evangeline's jacket. It felt shockingly intimate. I'd almost forgotten that when clothes were on a warm human body, they took on that body heat. I found the pocket after what seemed like an excruciatingly long time of fumbling, and got out one of the bags. The back of my hand brushed the curve of her breast as I pulled away.

The bear had stopped struggling, now limp and panting on the ground. I bagged the knife, and as soon as I sealed the evidence bag shut, the dark magic dissipated. The runes on the bear's skin faded to scars, and its eyes cleared. Evangeline let some of the restraints drop, keeping its ankles and jaws bound, but freeing up one of her own hands. She pulled a small blue glass bottle from a pocket and tossed it to me.

"Three drops of that on the knife wound," she said.

I knelt again, projecting a steady stream of ‘ safe, friendly, calm, free' to the bear. The liquid in the bottle was pungent and oddly gritty, but I squeezed three drops out onto the raw injury. The skin closed up immediately, and the bear's now-brown eyes shut for a moment. I could feel its relief.

"You can drop the binding," I said.

"You want me to release a bear right in front of us?" Evangeline asked, incredulous.

"It won't hurt us."

"Fuck it," she muttered and dropped the spell.

The bear blinked up at us, then shakily got to its feet.

"The knife must have been the only thing keeping it going for so long," Evangeline said softly. "It looks starved."

"It's very weak, but it should be able to make it."

The bear staggered over to the water and began to drink desperately. A few fish darted through the water just upstream, and I planted the idea in their heads that they should swim over to the bear and jump out of the water and onto the riverbank. Soon, the bear was feasting happily.

"You're going to have to explain a couple of the things you just did," Evangeline said.

"After we make camp," I said. "It's my understanding that, when on an outing like this, stories about monsters should be told around the campfire."

Evangeline muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like "drama queen". We started to leave, but the bear huffed out a breath and clambered to its feet. It padded over to us, already looking much steadier, and lowered its head, pressing its face into my chest. I ran my fingers through its wiry fur while Evangeline stared at me, wide-eyed. The bear gave a happy snort and pressed its head against Evangeline, who let out a startled little laugh.

"It's okay," I said. "It's just saying goodbye. You can pet it."

"Sure," she said, flustered. "Why not?" She scratched it gently behind one of its little round ears. It let out a pleased rumble, then turned and went back to its fish.

"That bear must have been pretty strong," Evangeline said as we kept following the path. "I've seen those cursed daggers before, and they're nasty. Looked like the big guy managed to fight it off for a long time."

"It was in a lot of pain," I said. "I don't think it would have been able to hang on for much longer."

"I'm glad it found us," Evangeline said. "And I'm glad you decided to help it. I probably wouldn't have risked it on my own."

"I might not have, either," I admitted. "But what's one measly giant cursed bear against a vampire and a powerful witch?"

We decided to camp under the canopy of a copse of large pines. A thick layer of springy moss speckled with fallen pine needles covered the ground. We'd followed the river far enough uphill that we could see the sprawling vista of the forest below us and the shape of the city in the distance, where lights were starting to turn on.

Evangeline and I began pulling our supplies out of the horrible blue bag I'd carried.

"You didn't get your tent from the same place you got your bag, did you?" she asked.

"I did, as a matter of fact," I said glumly. Given what she'd told me about the bag, I was no longer quite as optimistic about what had been sold to me as a high-end tent. I found it and set the bundle on the ground for her to inspect. "Will it also explode?"

Evangeline's eyebrows rose, and she let out a low whistle. "No. This is actually a pretty nice tent." She turned the bag over and read more of the label. "Shit, it's a really nice tent. Pretty big, too."

I found a suitable patch of ground and pulled the ribbon that was supposed to activate the enchantments worked into the tent. It expanded out from its small bundle quickly, and soon, there was a round canvas tent in front of me, maybe ten feet tall and twelve feet across.

"Fancy," Evangeline said from where she was setting up her own tent, an apparently non-magical one just big enough to fit a sleeping bag. It had been patched up several times, and one of the poles was wrapped in duct tape.

"I wanted to be comfortable," I said a touch defensively.

"Well, since your comfy tent is good to go, why don't you get us some firewood? I'll get this one set up and then put up some wards. I don't want any surprise visitors in the middle of the night," Evangeline said.

I tried not to think about the dream. I failed. "Firewood," I said. "Yes. I'll do that."

By the time I'd gotten the wood and built a fire, Evangeline had the wards in place. It was odd, being inside them. Her magic felt like a soft blanket wrapped around me. I sat by the fire, watching curiously as she made herself dinner.

"You owe me an explanation," she said as she chopped up vegetables. "How did you make the fish do that?"

I hid my wince. "Some of the more powerful vampires have certain abilities. It's very rare, but a few of us are capable of touching the minds of other creatures. You've seen me do it before. It's even rarer, but some of the vampires with that ability can also influence the minds they reach out to."

Evangeline's shoulders tightened almost imperceptibly. "I thought that was just an urban legend." Someone who hadn't been keeping an ever-growing glossary of her expressions and tones of voice might have thought she sounded casual. "But you can actually control minds."

"It isn't an urban legend," I said. "Although most of the rumors are greatly exaggerated. Many of my kind like that it makes people nervous."

"I need details."

I nodded, staring into the fire. "It works best on simpler minds. Animals are the easiest. I've been told that small children are also easy to control, but I've never done that myself."

"And adults?"

"It's possible, at least for me. The older the vampire, the more powerful, and I'm… quite old. I can do it, but the person I was doing it to would be aware of it. I'm not strong enough to make them think it's their own idea."

Evangeline's shoulders relaxed. "Can they feel it if you're just reading their minds, not trying to control them?" she asked. The caution in her voice was gone, replaced by curiosity.

"They can. It's not usually unpleasant, it just feels odd."

"Usually," Evangeline said. She put a skillet in the coals and began dropping ingredients into it. Chopped onions sizzled in melted butter, and she sprinkled salt over them.

"The vampire can choose to make it painful," I said softly as I pulled a flask from the breast pocket of my jacket and took a long pull from it. "They can convince your brain that every single one of your nerve endings is on fire."

"Jesus," Evangeline said. "That sounds horrible."

I took another swig. "It is. Trust me."

She gave me an assessing look. "You've felt it." It wasn't a question.

"I was young. Disobedient. My father made it clear that he had certain expectations for me, and that if I failed to meet them there would be consequences."

"How old were you?"

"Ten," I said. The onions had gone soft and translucent. Evangeline stirred them and added a handful of chopped mushrooms. I watched the way her hands moved in the firelight, grateful I wasn't bearing the full brunt of her focus.

"I'm sorry," she said.

I shrugged a shoulder. "It was a long time ago." I offered her the flask.

She hesitated. "Is that full of, uh…?"

"It's not blood. It's a very good brandy."

Evangeline took the flask and sipped cautiously, then made a delighted face and took a bigger sip. "Shit, that's good," she said, tilting the flask toward the firelight. The small sigils etched into it flashed red in the light. "Nice enchantment, too. Is it actually bottomless?"

"It links back to the decanter I have at home."

Evangeline took another sip and passed the flask back to me. When I drank, the lip of the bottle was warm from her lips. She added pasta to the skillet, then poured over a carton of chicken stock and let it boil.

"When my parents adopted me, I had a bunch of burns," Evangeline said. "All over my body. Marcus gave me something to take care of the scars, but they were…" She swallowed, stirring the mixture in the skillet. "Pretty bad. I've always wondered if they were from my biological parents. If that was why I was taken away from them."

"Have you ever tried to find them?" I asked, handing the flask back over.

"Of course I have," she said, taking a sip. "Finding people is one of my main skills. But I have nothing to go on. I was just left outside a hospital." She fidgeted with her necklace, watching her dinner bubble away. "I don't even know what I'd do if I found them," she admitted.

I wished I was better at comforting people. It came easily to me with animals, but now I had absolutely no idea what to say.

"I'm sorry." It didn't seem like it was anywhere near enough.

"It's fine," Evangeline said. "I mean, my adoptive parents love me, you know? They always did the best they could for me. I got to be a happy kid, even if things got weird when my magic started to show up. We still talk and everything, but there's a lot about my life they just don't understand."

I thought of the quiet disdain on my father's face whenever I approached him with a new proposal for the council, and of my mother's firm insistence on using any relationship I might have as a political move to be deployed whenever it would be most advantageous.

"I know the feeling," I said.

"I'm just glad I had Marcus," Evangeline said. The mixture in the skillet had reduced down, leaving a creamy sauce behind. She spooned it into a bowl and began to eat.

"And Marcus is your…?" I prompted, trying to quiet the jealous little creature writhing around in my stomach.

"My mentor," she said. "I was apprenticed to him, and now we work together. Well, I work, he mostly says cryptic stuff and eats my snacks."

"Oh. So, the two of you aren't involved." The little creature began to settle.

"Marcus and me?" Evangeline gaped at me. "Oh, my God, ew, absolutely the fuck not. No. He's more like my self-appointed weird uncle. Fun-weird, not creepy-weird."

"Found family, whether you want it or not?" I said, thinking of my housemates.

"Exactly," she agreed. "He's wonderful, though. Gets us both out of trouble when things go really bad. He even gave me an emergency escape," she added, holding out the pendant of her necklace. It was a smooth piece of labradorite with a gentle dip in the middle. "A portal. It's come in handy a few times."

"Thoughtful of him."

"At first, he was going to put the enchantment on a get-out-of-jail-free card," she said. "But this is way more convenient."

I frowned. "There are cards that let you get out of jail?"

"It's not—It's not actual jail," Evangeline said, sounding like she was trying not to laugh. I was surprised by how little I minded it. "Board game jail. You know what, don't worry about it."

It was still fairly early when we decided to turn in. Or, rather, when the decision was made for us by the rain. It started gently, with droplets hissing as they hit the campfire, but soon it was torrential. Evangeline's sad little tent was barely staying upright in the downpour. We scrambled to pack away our supplies and get under cover. When Evangeline unzipped the flap of her tent, water rushed out of it. She looked blankly at her soaked sleeping bag.

"Come on." I had to raise my voice over the sound of the storm. I waved her toward my tent, and she ran to it. We ducked inside, both drenched to the skin.

The inside of the yurt was warm and welcoming. The roof beams were hung with multicolored glass lanterns, and a large bed covered in blankets and furs took over the entire back half of the tent. Plush, patterned cushions were scattered across the floor, surrounding a low table that had been built around a small potbelly stove.

"Really, really nice tent," Evangeline said, looking around in amazement. "Holy shit. Is it… I mean, I don't want to intrude on your space or anything, but?—"

"You should sleep here," I said firmly. "I can sleep on the floor; I don't mind."

"I'm not going to kick you out of your bed."

"It's not a problem," I insisted. "I used to sleep in a coffin. A night sleeping on some cushions will be fine."

"Look, the bed is huge," Evangeline said. "It could probably fit four people. Six, maybe, if they really liked each other. We can share it."

"Ah," I said, praying for the earth to swallow me whole. "Yes. That seems fine." I blinked. Was I blinking too much? What was the normal amount to blink?

"Cool," she said. "Okay, I've gotta get out of these wet clothes."

I bit the inside of my cheek, hard. "I'll…" I managed. "Give you some privacy." I reached for the flap of the tent.

"What, are you afraid to be around a woman who's changing unless you have a chaperone?" Evangeline said. "You need to get changed, too. We can both just turn the other way."

"Of course. Very practical." My voice came out level and calm. I mentally congratulated myself.

Evangeline rummaged in the bottomless tote, reaching into the small bag, all the way up to her shoulder. She pulled out a bundle of clothes and passed the bag over to me. I found my own sleepwear, and we both turned our backs. I took a deep breath as I heard the rustle of Evangeline removing her clothes, trying to keep myself under control. The deep breath was a mistake. Evangeline's sweet, floral scent was strong and maddening.

I stripped out of my clothes with numb fingers, folding each piece neatly. The silk of my pajama bottoms was decadently soft, but I barely noticed it. I did spare a moment to wish I'd brought a proper shirt, but I had planned on sleeping alone. I would have to make do with my spare undershirt, which, luckily, was a fairly practical black tank.

"Are you decent?" Evangeline asked.

"Not particularly, but I'm fully dressed," I said. I heard her huff out a soft laugh, but it died suddenly in her throat.

"I didn't know you had a tattoo." Her voice sounded odd.

I turned to face her. She was wearing soft flannel pajama bottoms, and a spaghetti strap top the same deep green as her eyes.

"They're my clan markings," I said. "Heirs get them when their transformation is complete."

Evangeline looked at the spots where the lines of the magical tattoo came up over my shoulders. "Interesting," she said faintly. "I think I'm gonna turn in. Big day tomorrow."

"Of course," I said. "We should both get some rest."

Once she'd climbed into the bed, I tugged a ribbon embroidered with a lantern that hung from the edge of the ceiling, and the lights extinguished. I slid into the other side of the bed, pressed myself as close to the wall as I physically could, and prepared for the least restful night imaginable.