“She died?” Paloma felt her palm heat up, the pain almost unbearable. She had known it from her visions, from the anguish that Isamar—that Paloma herself—had been in, watching the events unfold, reliving the emotions… She knew. She had known all along, and yet the grief was just as terrible as it had been the first time.
“Her husband killed her. He beat her to death after she tried divorcing him. She was leaving him for a woman… No.Oh, no! Paloma… That woman…” Ceridwen’s face contorted, compassion and understanding filling her eyes.
“Isamar Moreno,” Paloma whispered. “Her name was Isamar Moreno.”
Seren sighed.
“Hell… Yeah, Rhy, I owe you the money.”
“You bet on what, exactly?” Paloma wondered.
“Oh, nothing, but sure as fuck not on the relationship being fake, is all I’m going to say. Now, where are they?” Rhiannon looked around the kitchen. It seemed empty, but Paloma’s sense of relief started only when they entered this particular space. Then she saw the walk-in freezer and went breathless. It was padlocked and barred.
Ceridwen followed her line of sight and crossed the room to the massive door.
“I don’t assume anyone knows where we can find the keys?”
“Deryn would know, since she spends the most time here.” Seren came close and placed her palms on the door before yelping loudly and clutching her hand. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Der!” Then she turned to her sister and Paloma. “She’s in there. She just burned me!”
Paloma felt the room sway. When Ceridwen’s arms reached for her, she understood it wasn’t the room.
“But she’s… She’s not okay. Somehow. I don’t know how I know.” She couldn’t recognize her own voice.
“Well, for one, it’s really, really cold in there.” Ceridwen came closer and immediately looked up as loud bangs came from inside the freezer. She slapped her fists on the door, banging several times.
“Ouch, yeah, she’s in there. I can’t feel her like Seren does, but I trust she’s in there. Ideas?”
Rhiannon stepped to the freezer, her fingertips running over the hinges and the lock.
“I can maybe try, but I know I will ruin her restaurant, and I’m fairly certain I won’t be able to contain myself to just…well, here. And I don’t know if I will be able to keep any of you safe, either. Or them, for that matter.”
Seren scratched the back of her neck.
“An axe would be pretty useless to try, even if I got my entire team here. And none of the equipment Redding has will help either. It’s a very efficient trap as there should be a mechanism to disable the locks from the inside. It’s mandatory, I know, ’cause we inspect these things periodically for fire safety and?—”
Seren stopped abruptly, putting her palms back as more bangs could be heard, then murmured, “Fire safety… Yeah, Der, fire, that’s right, bring your Fire.” She looked at her sisters. “Come on, we need the circle. Deryn will need us. Victoria’s place will probably need us more. Cast it, Ceri.”
Paloma watched as, without hesitation, all three sisters joined hands while Seren kept one of hers on the door of the freezer. Ceridwen began quietly chanting words Paloma could not understand, words that felt ancient. Words that felt like a benediction. Freedom and elation in one. She felt Deryn’s Fire before she saw it. Her heart soared, engulfed in a flame that consumed and yet filled, devoured and sated. It was a burning to ashes, and still she felt renewed. Paloma had known this Fire, had lived it. Had felt it once before, the night she made love to Deryn, the night she told Deryn it was the only time, the last time…
Rhiannon’s free hand pushed Paloma behind her, and she watched in awe as the door was consumed by flames that surely were not natural… Nothing could look like this—awful, horrible, beautiful, mystical… A torrent of Fire, like nothing she had ever seen, erupted all around the door and was battered back by Wind and Water as Ceridwen held her sisters’ hands. Paloma knew it was Ceridwen’s magic powering all three of them,magnifying both Rhiannon’s Wind and Seren’s Water. Rooting them. Giving them a foundation. A solid ground. To grow, to fight, to protect, to save.
A moment, two, and the Fire cut through the reinforced metal like a knife through butter, and the joined Storm held it off long enough for the door to wobble on the disconnected hinges. It was Rhiannon who moved it aside, her Wind lifting the hot hunk of metal even as Water cooled it off, and set it down by the far wall, tiles and cement crunching under the weight of it.
From the open doorway, Deryn staggered out, took one look at the four figures staring back at her, and promptly fell into the waiting arms of her sisters.
Paloma reached her in two steps, kneeling on the floor, the debris from the broken tile cutting into her legs. She didn’t care. Deryn was smiling dopily up at her.
“Hi… Ah… I guess I was late to your party after all.”
Paloma smiled through the tears. “It’s okay. I heard you had to go get the cheese puffs.”
Deryn’s eyes unfocused for a second before she exhaled. “Yeah, the cheese puffs. You should ask Victoria, though. I think she’ll say I did agratejob!”
Everyone laughed and turned to the freezer, where Victoria was slowly walking toward them through the burnt remains of the aforementioned puffs.
She took a look around and set her hands on her hips.
“What have the four of you done to my kitchen? And who the hell locked us in here?”
