Chapter 249: Coven Help
Erica waited for me in the kitchen. "I just saw Celeste leave." Her expression was troubled, but I just shrugged.
"She has her orders," I said. Erica paused, like she wanted to ask me what happened, but I was already marching downstairs.
Dad looked up, startled, backing off when I approached the pentagram. The witches followed, a long stream of them, faster than I expected, but silently, expectant.
When the last of our family, Meira and Sassafras huddled in the corner with Dad included, had passed the wards, I sealed them with us inside and opened to the family. Mom's mind flickered against my attempt to keep her out, but for now I was in charge.
"The Gate is real." I showed them, dragged them through what I'd been through in the last few hours as they gasped and moaned and raged with me against the Unseelie and the wounding of Fergus.
"Syd," Erica's voice trembled, hands reaching for me as I shrugged her off. "You can't go."
The whole coven immediately echoed her mentally with their power, wrapping me up in the family magic. Accepting me fully for the first time in my life. I shook with the effort it took me to keep from bursting into tears as their love for me wound around me and held me tight.
I suppose I should have been grateful, but it was too little too late. Nice of them to make the gesture, at least.
"Erica is now your leader." I sent the family magic to her. It fought me, struggling to return, the power Mom placed on my shoulders wanting to remain, but I forced it to go and it went at last, an unhappy and grieving weight settling around the basement.
"Mom is almost back. But I only have until dawn and that's," I checked my watch, "like a half hour from now. Stay here, under the cover of the wards just in case something goes wrong. I'll send Galleytrot to you when it's over."
I turned and left them there, shutting them off, the pull of the magic trying to bring me back. I heard Meira scream my name, felt Sassy and Dad both try to reach me, but I had to go, couldn't stop to say goodbye.
Couldn't. Or I'd hesitate, change my mind. Fail. And the world would suffer for my weakness.
It was a horrible, dread-filled drive back to the library. I don't even really know how I got there. I barely remember even climbing behind the wheel. When I stepped out of Minnie, I patted her roof gently. Even that act was enough to clench my throat in painful grief, make my nose tingle and tighten with impending sobs.
For a moment, I felt a ripple in the family magic, heard a voice crying out, stilled in a heartbeat. It felt like a thread inside the coven power had snapped abruptly. I reached out in search of the lost link in our chain, but met with nothing but a blank wall of emptiness.
Erica was already on it before I could do anything. The brief instant of return to clarity and action faded quickly. As much as I wished it were different, the coven's problems weren't mine any longer. In the periphery, I felt her giving orders, sending out witches to investigate. I walled them off on purpose. It was just too hard to feel them, knowing I had to leave them behind.
More tears welled, but I shook them off. I would not go to the Sidhe realm as a weeping weakling. If my fate was to live my existence in the Seelie court, I would do so with resolve and reserve. Shaylee and my demon begged me to reconsider, but I'd made up my mind.
If you two have a better idea, I shot at them at last, hand it over.
They didn't. I knew they didn't.
They stop giving me such a hard time and help me.
Grudgingly, sadly, they both agreed. I felt my demon prepare to leave me, though we had no idea if she would be forced to go. That made me stagger, sob out loud. I loved her. Had spent my whole life struggling to accept her. Now that I had, I didn't want to let her go.
Hands settled on my shoulders, turned me around. I spun, shocked and full of grief, to see Dad standing there, Meira at his side. She grabbed me, hugged me, while Sassafras sat on my feet. And behind them arriving in groups of twos and threes, their cars lined up for blocks, was the coven.
The whole coven. There for me. I collapsed into Dad's arms, just grateful to let someone else carry this for a moment.
When I pulled away, Erica joined us. "You're not our leader anymore," she said, eyes bright with her own tears. "So you can't tell us what to do."
I laughed, welcoming the soft release of my sadness.
"You won't all fit in the chamber," I said.
"We'll see about that," she shot back, grim. The others nodded, a hundred people who loved me and believed in me at last.
We descended together, down the stairs and through the fairy doorway. For a moment I worried they wouldn't be able to pass, not being Sidhe, but the entry didn't deny them. I swiped the tears from my face, allowed Dad to hold me on one side, Meira to clutch my hand on the other as we strode as a family into the Gate chamber.
Everything was as I left it. Galleytrot chuffed a greeting to the family, though he was prone on the floor now, panting heavily. I rushed to him, fed him some power. It was barely enough to keep him going. The vast and incredible magic of the hound of the Wild was almost used up.
"Syd," he whispered to me, "you can't go."
"You're not the only one trying to convince me, you know." I kept it light, amazed I was able. Maybe the support of the coven did it.
I looked up into Liam's eyes where he again sat with Fergus's head in his lap. "I'm sorry," he said. "This is my fault."
"It's not," I patted his hands, stroked Fergus's cheek. "It's Venner's."
I left them, approached the Gate. Thalion stared at the large group of witches assembled behind me.
"You must come," he said. "It's almost dawn."
"She will not." My dad was beside me again, his anger vibrating the air around him. The whole coven took up his lead, their power joining to his, the family magic reaching for me, creating a wall between me and the barrier Thalion maintained. The gathered Sidhe around him drew back with snarls and barks of fear, but the Prince remained unmoved.
"Surely she has told you," he said in his voice like a song. "There are no other options. She must cross or the Gate will open completely and your world and mine will collide." He looked very sad. "None of us wants that to come to pass. Do not focus your anger on me or mine. Blame the Unseelie lordling who has made this happen."
"But she belongs to us," Erica said. "She is a witch."
"A demon," Dad said.
"She is Shaylee, Princess of the Seelie court," Thalion told them, "and she must come with me now."
Magic surged, rippled through the Gate and outward. I felt Thalion stretch his power, show us the strength of the Sidhe realm. It was nothing like the touch of Venner, his magic just a ghost of what real fairy power felt like. That power tried to attack the family, winding its way into a lash, striking out at the magic protecting them. Fury fed Shaylee, her rage at his nerve throwing up a whip of her own, fed again with two other sources of power, alien and unknown to him. Together, that shared magic enfolded his and deflected it, sending the green energy sparking through the stones under foot.
Safe, the coven's anger grew, but I stopped them with a gesture.
"Come," the Prince said. I turned toward him, stared at his outstretched hand. His fingers cleared the barrier, his palm, until he was exposed to my world up to his wrist. "It is almost too late."
I stood there, trembling, forcing my hand to rise, my fingers to touch his. One step and I was gone.
Galleytrot's cry spun me around just as my fingertips brushed Thalion's. I felt his hand reach for mine, grasping, trying to pull me toward him, but I fought him off, my concern for the black dog stronger. What I saw made me gasp. Galleytrot was on his feet, glowing with power. The magic I'd trapped in the floor, Thalion's magic, pooled around the black dog, surging up into his shaggy body. And, through him, to Fergus.
The old man's eyes opened and met mine before drifting to the Prince.
"Your Highness," Fergus said, "perhaps it's time to tell Shaylee the whole truth."
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