•••
The spell of childish tears didn’t last long, but it was enough to ease my misery. It helped that Occam was murmuring sweet nothings into my ear, his jaw by my temple, his chin bristly with scruff. He was sitting on the floor with me, holding me. “I gotcha, Nell, sugar. You done good. It’s okay.”
“Not really,” I said. “I tried to drag your desk in front of Rick’s door.”
Occam chuckled. It sounded growly through his chest.
“FireWind is on the way in,” I said. “He’s bringing Loriann. And Mud is barricaded in the sleeping room. Is FireWind gonna be mad that she’s here?”
“Do we care?” my cat growled.
I thought about that. “Not really.”
Occam stood and hauled me to my feet as the outer door opened. I smoothed my clothes and said, “Thank you. I feel better.” And I did. Soulwood wasn’t yanking on my brain so much. I found my chair and this time managed to sit in it. Occam told Mud I was okay, then cleaned up the coffee mess I had made, rinsed out my metal mug, and poured me a fresh cup. JoJo and T. Laine came in from dropping things off in their office cubicles. Rick slammed against his cage again. The grindy chittered in anger. Tandy came in, carrying a bowl of fresh fruit. My coworkers poured coffee. Took their seats. Tandy passed the bowl around and I took a banana. Peeled it. Everyone looked exhausted. I had waked some of them up after too few hours of sleep. The schedule was getting to all of us.
“I’m thinking I can read the land through the soil on the roof,” I said to them.
Occam stilled, thinking. “How?”
“You and Rick put Soulwood soil there for me to plant things in. The soil is touching the roof. The roof is touching the earth through the three stories and the foundation. So maybe I can read the earth and track the blood without accidently getting rooted, since there aren’t any roots in the dirt.”
“Or maybe the earth will send up magic-roots and swallow the whole building trying to get to you,” T. Laine said, sounding grumpy.
I gave our witch a small smile. “Soulwood soil will protect me from other pieces of the earth trying to claim me.”
“Is that what the roots are trying to do when they grow into you, Nell, sugar?” Occam asked. “Claim you?”
“Or merge with you and with Soulwood,” T. Laine said.
It was a possibility that had already occurred to me. I didn’t know what would happen if I once again communed too long with land that grew roots into me. I might lose myself, might become a tree for real and forever. I took a breath that showed nothing of my apprehension, but Occam touched my shoulder again and I knew he could smell the anxiety coursing through my veins.
Suddenly talking fast, T. Laine said, “FireWind’s here, and he’s got Loriann Ethier with him. Tandy, open the null room door. Nell, are you going to be okay with him observing?”
“Oh,” I said.Not really. No. Make him stay away.“Sure,” I lied. Because I had no choice. I had called FireWind in. He was here.
I heard the upstairs door open and swiveled in my chair to see two figures enter and one disappear into the null room. It didn’t appear to be voluntary. The door closed and Ayatas FireWind walked up the hallway. He was half a foot or so taller than Tandy, taller even than Occam or Rick, maybe six feet three or four. Rangy. His stride was long and purposeful and smooth, as if he walked barefoot. Long hair flowed behind him in an ebony wave. He was dressed in black jeans and a white shirt that contrasted with his coppery golden skin. A strong nose. Black hawk-wing brows. He was Cherokee; I remembered that.
The rest of the unit had worked with him. I hadn’t even met him.
FireWind paused in the doorway, his eyes on me. He was sniffing the air. And... Ayatas FireWind had yellow irises. No one had mentioned that. I took another breath, this one less steady. I didn’t know what to do. How to react. I knew what yellow eyes meant. “Skinwalker,” I whispered. I had known that Ayatas FireWind was an unspecified paranormal, but not a skinwalker. That had to be need to know. Or need to figure out. But Rick knew. He had to.
Suddenly all sorts of things made sense. Thoughts raced through me, tiny pieces of puzzles I hadn’t known were even in play slipping into place. His official history was full of holes. He was Cherokee and looked like Jane Yellowrock, who was a skinwalker. And I had just outted him.
FireWind dipped his head at me. It wasn’t quite a bow. More in the nature of a formal greeting. And he didn’t smile. Not. At. All. My blood froze through me like ice water, chilling me from top to toes.
“It is true,” he said. “You scent ofyinehi.”
“How do you know that?” I asked. “Nothing like a fairy or elf or troll has come out of the paranormal closet.”
FireWind smiled slightly. Finally. It was like watching an iceberg thaw. “The little people are said to smell of oak and running water, sweetgrass and white sage. And just a little of the blood of the earth.”
Occam poured himself a coffee, scrutinizing our new boss, now that the skinwalker was out of the closet. He nodded thoughtfully as if what he now knew agreed with what his nose had been telling him about FireWind.
“The children of our family were taught that the little people would steal us and eat us if we were not careful. They were the boogeymen of the forest, used as a warning and a punishment if we were bad. Though no one I knew ever saw one, we were trained to be aware and to run back home if we smelled them.” His smile fell away. “Mine was the last generation to be taught to smell out the little people, as there were none where I grew up.”
“I don’t eat people.”My land does.Had my species once eatenchildren? My stomach did a little rolling flip of nausea.
“So I have been informed,” he said solemnly, “and I am grateful.”
