“You know Ceridwen has a bottle in the living room. Just go get a glass?—”
Deryn cut herself short. There were no more glasses. The living room had borne the brunt of the destruction. TheCawdid not get half of the magnitude of the break-in right. When Deryn came home at a little after four in the morning, still reeling from Paloma and her wonderful, devious, devastating mouth, she found the phthalo green door slightly ajar. In her almost comatose state, she chalked it up to Ceridwen forgetting to lock up. But the debris she stumbled over in the dark quickly disabused her of that notion. The first floor was in shambles. The glassware, the pictures, even the damn pillows on the couch. All in pieces on the floor.
Heart and mind in overdrive, Deryn took the stairs two at a time, all the while shouting for her sister, then for the kittens, only to be greeted by an empty bed and more disaster on the second floor. She found the tabby and the gray huddling under her bed in the guest room and scooped them up, whispering nonsense reassurances as if the cats could understand her. They spent the rest of the night glued to her side and were nowsleeping in the salvaged basket that Victoria managed to fix and fill with a torn blanket.
As for Ceridwen, a call to the sheriff, followed by a desperate call to Victoria, revealed that she had spent the night on the mainland.
“I really wish you would all tell me things.” There was hurt in Deryn’s voice; she heard it—and by the look on her aunt’s face, she wasn’t the only one.
“See, if it were me, I’d have done it on purpose, but Ceridwen is too soft a touch to torment you. She must’ve forgotten.”
“I haven’t.” Ceridwen’s quiet voice sounded from the doorway. Both Deryn and Victoria shared a self-conscious look at being discovered by the subject of their conversation. “I left you a note by the couch. I guess it got lost in the…mess.”
Ceridwen came in, still wearing the same clothes she had arrived back on the island in: skinny black jeans and a turtleneck. There had been a blazer too—Deryn had seen her drop it the moment she stepped into the house. While Deryn, Seren, and Victoria had cleaned up as much as they could, Ceridwen still had to face some of the disaster.
Deryn remembered that she loved to watch Ceridwen wield magic. As she stepped into the house, she extended her hands, and the pots, smashed to pieces, and the plants that used to live there, now broken and stomped on, sprang back to life with a whispered incantation.
Deryn considered herself to be a powerful witch. Fire, by its nature, was a force that very few could contend with. She and Seren were equally matched and, in their youth, she gave Rhiannon plenty of competition, but Ceridwen? Ceridwen was at a different level. Seren was cautious, preferring to let her gift guide her. And while Deryn and Rhiannon were wild and reckless in their approach to power, there was a scientist at work when Ceridwen chose to unleash hers.
As she fixed some of the items that could be put back together and simply got rid of the rest with a flick of her wrist, Ceridwen’s face was a mask of utter calm.
Ceridwen sat down on a wobbly chair, taking the tabby kitten in her hands, making it purr under her ministrations, as Deryn slid the muffin tin into the preheated oven. Deryn turned to look at her sister, and the mask over Ceridwen’s face began to slip. Victoria pushed a mug of tea close to her, and Deryn reached out and touched it, making sure it was warm. Then she touched it again, knowing Ceridwen liked hers very hot.
“Thank you.”
As Ceridwen hid her face behind the mug, Victoria and Deryn exchanged worried looks. But before either of them could voice their concern, Ceridwen set the tea down.
“I had to basically yell at Rhiannon to stay in New York and not rush over here. I swear, for someone who avoided the island for over two decades, she is now chained to it.” Ceridwen flicked some lint off her sleeve.
“I’d say she wants to hurry back to you. To, well, all of us, what with all this happening.” Deryn watched her sister closely as she spoke.
“She’ll be back in time for Christmas, in any case. And there’s not much she can do right now anyway. I mean, she’d just yell and curse and spoil for a fight.”
Ceridwen tried for humor, but the joke fell flat. Victoria watched the mess around them pensively.
“I wish we could have a fight. I wish I could kick the ass of whoever did this and end it all. Rhiannon’s impulse is completely understandable to me.”
“Since we don’t know whose ass to kick, forgive me, Aunty, for wanting Rhiannon not to be here for the moment. She and Prudence have a lot of work to do with the restoration and replenishing of the collections. And she thinks I don’t know thatshe is very slowly and painstakingly restoring the family bible and correspondence we found tucked in those books. She’s tired, she’s stretched too thin, and she’s better off taking the break.”
Victoria did not look pacified, but Ceridwen was clearly done with the conversation, as she suddenly changed the subject.
“Have you given your cat a name yet?”
Deryn tilted her head to the side, wondering what Ceridwen was asking about when the kitten in her lap meowed, and Ceridwen lifted it to her face and nuzzled in.
“Ah, yeah, well, I didn’t. Paloma did. Just this morning.”
It had been an utterly surreal ordeal to interact with the cops, with Seren rushing in after her call, Victoria right on her heels. They had let the sheriff and his two deputies do their job to look for prints and evidence, though after a few hours it became painfully obvious that they were dealing with someone who wasn’t a fool, someone who was painstakingly careful, leaving absolutely nothing behind.
After the police left, Paloma swooped in. Deryn did not use the word lightly because dawn was breaking, and with the first light, Paloma was more an avenging angel than a millionaire businesswoman. In all black, eyes blazing, she nearly mowed down the departing sheriff as she barreled into the house.
“I had to find out from Lachlan?”
She all but hurled the accusation at Deryn. Broken glass crunching under thigh-high black leather boots, she was a vision. One Deryn would never forget. She didn’t touch her, though Deryn could see her fingers flexing, trembling a little as she stood close. Instead, she scooped up the kittens and gave both kisses between their tiny ears. The little monsters began purring immediately. Huckleberry, Ceridwen’s tabby and the freer spirit between the two of them, demanded to be set down and proceeded to play with the debris underfoot. But the gray feline remained, cuddling closer to Paloma’s chest.
The kitten was dirty, dusted in some kind of grime, which Deryn carefully flicked off its little head. When she took her hand away, her fingers held something that could’ve only been ashes. Like something had been burned, and the kitten had rolled or walked all over it.
Deryn carefully touched each one of the little paws to check for burns or injuries, but the tiny menace just swatted at her, managing to bite her thumb.
