Chapter 135: Priorities
I refused to let it stand there. I think Dad knew it because he was waiting for me just on the other side of the door and reached for me too late. I felt his fingers slide over my arm as I stormed into the house.
She wanted wild? I'd give her wild.
I found Mom in the basement, naturally. She spun on me as I marched down the stairs and confronted her.
"This is stupid," I said. "If you would up the search for Demetrius and the Chosen so I could get my demon back, I could just help you instead of being banished like some bad six year old."
"We have been looking." The tightness around her eyes told me she was being honest, but still felt guilty. In other words she'd been looking, all right, just not with any amount of focus.
I wanted to tear my hair out.
"It's been six weeks." I struggled to keep my temper and the bitterness from my voice. That kind of attitude only ever started a fight and I needed her on my side. "You're a powerful witch. It can't be that hard."
Yeah, okay. So I didn't take my own advice.
An atomic storm swirled behind her blue eyes. "You're not the only issue at stake here, Sydlynn," she said through tightly clenched teeth.
"I know," I grated back, my whole body shaking, hands aching from being clenched into fists at my sides. "But if you let me, maybe I could be part of the solution."
"I told you to stay out of it." A flicker of power traced around her hair, flashing through amber, white, blue and green. Visible even to me. Which meant she must have been really losing it.
"What about when you find Demetrius?" I had little hope of that, especially after what Sunny said.
"The coven will take care of it." Her face was totally closed.
This was too much. And getting me nowhere. I had to act smarter, but it was hard through the haze of my frustration and hurt. Still, I'd learned what ticked her off and what made her crumble over the years, and I wasn't above manipulating my mother to get what I needed.
"Why won't you help me?" I tried appealing to her Momness first. Usually worked.
Her anger faded instantly, the visible magic disappearing.
Bull's-eye.
"I'm trying," she whispered, body sagging forward. "I really am, honey. I wish you believed me."
I still didn't. "When was the last time someone went looking, scouting, asking questions?"
Her cheek twitched, guilt rising in her eyes. "I thought this was what you wanted?"
Oh she did not just change the subject and put this crap on me. Did not.
On the other hand, it answered my question.
"Thanks a lot, Mom," I said with all the venom I could muster. "Your own daughter and you don't give a crap enough to spare one or two of your precious witches to help me. That's just great."
Her shoulders snapped back. "You do not talk to me like that, young lady."
"Why not?" I dug the verbal knife in as hard as I could, hating her so much in that moment it shocked me. "Unless you're going to make that a coven leader order too."
She held very still for a long moment before drawing a shaking breath. I knew I was one more word from being turned into something unpleasant.
So much for the master manipulator. I'd never learned to keep my mouth shut.
"Fine," she said, "you want the truth? Here's the truth. We are alone in this. There is no High Council or Enforcers to help us. There is no other coven coming to our aid. As a matter of fact, everyone we've contacted has told us it's our problem." Her cheeks flushed with fury. "Now, if that wasn't enough, if we weren't facing the most powerful natural disaster magic ever created, if it weren't trying to wake up and destroy us before razing the entire world, you want me to pursue the Chosen of the Light, a powerful organization of sorcerers and witches who hate us and our magic and in their misguided sense of purity want to kill all of us."
Well. When she put it that way.
"I can't afford a war on two fronts." Her voice dropped, the shaking gone. But the plain truth was perfectly clear. "The Wild Hunt is the priority and has been since the night your demon was taken from you."
That long? I had no idea. Kind of hard to hang onto my anger at that point, even though I tried.
"You're not looking." She really wasn't.
"Of course we are," Mom said. "But we can't act until this is over. The High Council has made it very clear by their silence they consider this our problem. And they are right." She glanced at Dad before turning back to me. "Even though it was Batsheva and Dominic who created this mess by waking Galleytrot, because I accepted them into our family, the rising of the Wild is my responsibility."
There were those stupid coven laws again. "They'd rather see the world destroyed than help?"
Mom didn't say anything for a long moment. "They can't," she said. "Celeste and some of the others may think the High Council will interfere, but it's quite possible outside magic will only make things worse. And since we're barely holding our own..."
Gears churned, understanding clicked. "Pain's magic waking up isn't helping."
Mom nodded. "It's not her fault. But if I did break her blocks at this point... Syd, I have no idea what would happen. I'm already feeling an outside influence, a power disrupting what I'm trying to do. I've tried to chase down the source, but it vanishes every time."
"Is it Pain?" It couldn't be. Mom agreed obviously.
"I doubt it," she said. "But it does keep me from acting outside this current situation."
What did that mean? "You know where Demetrius is? Where my demon is?" There's no way she would keep that from me. Was there?
"I didn't say that." Mom sighed deeply. "Syd, I promise we will get your demon back. But to be honest, you're just not that important right now." She winced. "I know how that sounds, honey. I do. And if you were in physical risk or any harm was coming to you, there would be nothing I wouldn't do to save you." Now she was turning the manipulation table on me. "But until I've dealt with the Wild and figured out a way to return the riders to their rest, you'll just have to wait."
At least she was honest. That was something.
"Please don't ask me to leave when the rest of you could die from this." I hugged myself, shuddering in the sudden damp chill of the basement now that my rage no longer kept me warm. "Mom, I can't do it. I need to be here with you."
She stepped forward and gripped my shoulders in her hands. "And I need to know you and your sister are safe." Mom shook her head. "Your father told you, I take it. That this will probably end badly."
I nodded, now miserable and wanting to hug her, but just not willing to let go yet.
"Sydlynn." I looked up into her eyes. Hers were calm and full of love and strength. "I love you. Nothing will ever change that, not losing your demon, not being latent. And not the coming of the Wild Hunt. Or death, if it comes to that."
"If you fail," I said, "it won't matter whether I was with you or not."
She didn't say anything. We both knew I was right.
If Mom failed to stop the riders the whole world would be destroyed.
"Miriam." We both turned to see Dad at the bottom of the stairs, watching us. "She's right."
Mom's hands fell from my shoulders. "Maybe." She stroked my hair back from my cheek, "but the order still stands. You are to stay away from the coven site until this is done. Do you understand?" Power flashed out from her in a pulse, reaching through the very earth.
Not only had she made it official between us out in the yard when she gave me the initial order, now she'd sent the knowledge to everyone in the coven.
I was so screwed. It was enough to bring my anger back.
Mom didn't give me a chance to fight back. "You will go with your friend on Wednesday," she said, "and I will see you after this is done."
There was nothing I could say or do. Nothing. Except show her my back and march upstairs.
I exploded out the back door in a rush, intending to throw some more rocks. Maybe it was time to invest in a punching bag. I could even tape Mom's face to it.
"You had to make her do it."
I spun with a snarl on Quaid who slouched on the bench by the door.
"Piss off." I was not in the mood. Not.
"Fine," he said, unwinding from the seat, stretching so his leather jacket creaked, "I will. But that means I can't bring you to the site when everything goes to hell."
I glared at him. "You heard her," I said. "I can't go there, anyway. She made sure of that."
"Not to the site, no," he said, a grin on his face.
"Do you want to just spit it out?" Didn't I say I wasn't in the mood?
Yeah, double that.
"Just trust me," he said. "When the time comes, you'll be where you need to be." He stepped up to me, chocolate eyes full of grim joy, "and you'll have your demon with you."
That sucked all the remaining aggression out of me.
"You really think so?" I hated the whine in my voice. Had to work on that sometime.
"I know it," he said. "I'm not giving up on you anytime soon. So, you go quietly and I make sure you're where you need to be when you need to be there. Deal?"
Fine. I'd go to the stupid lake house and spend stupid time with Alison and her stupid mother. I'd stay away and be a good girl. To a point.
"Deal," I said.
***
