Then the call came from Jack.
She had been busy working in the kitchen, phone forgotten on a side counter, not seeing the missed call notification until it was nearly the hour when Anzan came to collect her. She was sotiredof crying. Her eyes were going to wind up permanently swollen at this rate, she’d thought, listening to the message for a second time, her heart racing and her mind reeling, not fully comprehending it until the third playback.
Anzan had been grim when he’d found her weeping at the kitchen table, playing the message from the werewolf patriarch for himself. She was forced to hear it again a short while later when Holt turned up, his dark eyebrows turned down and his face frozen in a scowl as he listened. Jack sounded serious and unsmiling, she thought, not his custom, even as he tried to reassure her in the message.
We already knew they had the numbers to put it on the ballot. But I want you to remember, Elizabeth, all that means is it’s on the ballot. Ansleth doesnothave the numbers to push it through. He knows it. This is a last-ditch show of power to his supporters, that’s all. An empty gesture. And even if he did have a significant minority, it’s going to be on the same ballot my son is running on, and you’d better believe this will be a part of his platform. If you have any questions, please call. Otherwise, I’ll see you in my office next week. I hope you like sushi.
“It would be best for everyone if I left now.”
Anzan’s words were measured and low, but sheknewhim. Knew him better than anyone else in the world, and she could hear the defeat in his voice.He’s going to go upstairs and pack his bags right now. He’ll leave in the middle of the night in some ridiculous effort to spare you, and you’ll never see him again. Then what will you have? An empty house that will never be home again.
“Do you remember what I asked you?” His head was bowed, and he did not raise his eyes at her words. “I asked you to fight forus. I can’t do it alone.”
“Little bug, this is something that will be out of your hands, and this is your home. And besides, they are also planning on passing an ordinance forcing every resident to don pants. I will be expelled from town for that issue, if not the other.”
“Let them try,” she countered in a voice that was steadier than she felt. “Jack’s right — they don’t have the numbers. You should hear the customers at my table, they don’t care! They don’t care at all! And if it passes, then,” she swallowed her sob, “then I’m going with you.”
“You’re not going anywhere.” Holt’s voice was dark and clipped as he leaned on the stones, staring intently into the fire.
Anzan turned, facing the flames. “I will not put her or her property in jeopardy. The safest course of action —“
“NO!” Anzan broke off at Holt’s shout, and Ladybug felt pressed back in her chair. He’d spun to face them, the edges of his form rippling like water. The whole room seemed to vibrate and his eyes were a green glow, from which Ladybug was unable to look away.Walk wary of magic that is beyond understanding.
“You are not goinganywhere,“ Holt thundered, and the room shook, the heavy oaken table trembled before her. “Do you understand? Doneitherof you understand?“ His head whipped from her to Anzan, the green flames in his eyes jumping, the same way the cauldron fire leapt in the grate. “We are allexactlywhere we are meant to be. This is adistraction. Nothing more. It is meaningless. What is done cannot be undone, but we can beprepared. Fear is a gift, Elizabeth. Do neither of you understand?”
He was beyond aggravation, was beyondfuriouswith her and Anzan both, and she had no idea why. Another little blow of memory, of Holt and her aunt speaking in riddles, comprehensible only to each other.We cannot prevent what has been set in motion, beloved. The familiar gave a frustrated little laugh, as if he could her thoughts, as easily as reading a speech bubble over her head.Perhaps he can. You’ve let him in enough times.
Another humorless smile and a shake of his head, as if he’d reached an agreement with himself. “I will keep you in this house myself if I have to. Put this out of your mind. It’s a distraction and nothing else.”
A glass on the counter shattered and Ladybug squeaked, shielding her face, and the spell was instantly broken. The heaviness of the room dissipated as Holt stalked across the kitchen, wrenching open the door and slamming it behind him, disappearing as a cat into the garden.
At length, Anzan scuttled back to his attic, once he’d silently cleaned the glass, leaving her alone at the table, but she found herself unable to concentrate on even the most menial task. Leaving her kitchen, Ladybug trudged up the short staircase to the main floor of the house, where she was able to hear the squeak of floorboards two floors above her. Heavy and slow, with none of the speed of his silent skitter. He was pacing. Pacing the way he had before that first Mabon, and she wished the only thing they had to contend with right now was his heat.
It had only taken a day for her upset to melt away into rage, and she couldn’t blame Holt for that.
Her neighbors had done this. Not the trolls and the goblins and mothfolk she talked to every week at the community center. Not those customers at her table, the ones who asked her about Anzan, who seemed genuinely curious and were excited to try her products featuring his venom and silk. Not them. The ones who lived around her, neighbors who’d known her since she was a little girl. The same neighbors who’d whispered about her mother, who had been whispering about the Brackenbridge witches since Cambric Creek was developed. Jack Hemming was right. The old neighborhood had always been the same, and she didn’t need to give a shit about any of them.
Stomping up the stairs, she did not slow at the second floor landing, continuing up to the attic and throwing open the door.
“They’re right,” she’d said resolutely. “Jack and Holt. This is a distraction. And we’re not going to hide away.”
They were going to go to the May Day celebration in town together, it was decided, she and Anzan. She would celebrate Beltane with the residents of Cambric Creek who were interested in learning more about the Araneaen in Oldetowne, who bought goods from her table, who made the community the vibrant hub it was.
But now the party was here. Hexennacht.
Tomorrow she would celebrate the sun with her mate at her side, but on this night . . . this night, she was a witch.
The first car that rolled into her driveway was Holt’s. He’d not been back since the day he’d stormed out at the start of the week, but she reminded herself that his anger was at the situation, not her. Ladybug waved awkwardly from the porch, watching as Holt’s human girlfriend took in Anzan’s silhouette in the doorway behind her.
“Company’s coming.” The familiar’s words were cryptic as he passed her, entering the house through the front door for the very first time since he’d returned.
“I know company is coming!” she exclaimed to his back. “You invited them!”
Holt shook his head, but she did not have time to question him, as the next car rolled into the driveway. One by one, the strangers crowded into her living room, chattering and laughing, none of them seeming unduly perturbed by the sight of the giant spider person hovering in the doorway, before Holt ushered them to the back door.
Across the street, at the top of her winding driveway, Ladybug could see the light on Kestra Kittredge’s front porch, where she sat watching with Millie Tonguegrass and the troll from next door.Good. Let them watch. Let them see. We’re not hiding, and we’re not running away.
Anzan looked as stoic and unsmiling as he ever did, but Ladybug knew that he was as nervous as a kitten. He was used to a lifetime of hiding away, staying away from people, of being feared, and was even less prepared to host a gathering than she was herself.
