Elodie lowered her hand unshaken. “I’m just here to ascertain—”
“Osian?” came a feminine voice from inside the cottage. “Who is it?”
“A doctor,” Osian replied, while still eyeing Elodie as if he suspected “ascertain” involved assassinating him.
Suddenly, a great clamor filled the room behind him. He was shoved aside by a woman, a crookbacked old man, and a youth with a mustache as wispy as pampas grass.
“Lovely to meet you,” the woman said with an old-fashioned curtsy. “I don’t suppose you know anything about carbuncles?”
“No, sorry,” Elodie answered. “I’m not that kind of doctor.”
“Ach, Meggie, carbuncles probably require a specialist,” the old man said with a wink to Elodie that suggested he not only had considered himself a charmer in his youth but still did. “On the other hand, I’ve a rash that the lady doctor might be so kind as to look at?” He did not await her reply before proceeding to unbutton his trousers.
“Ah, er, um,” Elodie said, taking a hasty step back.
“I saw you arrive on that balloon, I did,” the youth interjected, smoothing his mustache with a finger. “Amazing! I don’t suppose your colleague is with you?” He craned to see over her shoulder hopefully.
“Er, um, ah,” Elodie said.
“Why don’t you come in?” the woman offered. “I’ll make you a nice cup of tea and some scones with jam and cream, and maybe you can tell me what a person should do when their carbuncle is oozing.”
Whoosh!
A sudden ferocious gust slammed through the cottage garden, frankly just in the nick of time, snatching away the umbrella along with Elodie’s balance. She stumbled, and Osian, despite his antagonism, reached out to help her. But then they both stopped, staring across the garden to the south.
The hills had vanished behind thunderclouds. Lightning ripped through the roiling, malevolent blackness, tearing it apart ruthlessly, like a mournful heart struck by memory. The rain was darkening from a veil to a shroud.
In the doorway, Osian crossed himself. But Elodie took a step toward the storm, shielding her eyes with a hand as she assessed the lower horizon. Wind shoved at her viciously, but she ignored it. The locals were saying something about it getting a little chilly; she ignored them too. The enchanted wild filled her mind. Eerie, deadly, it felt like home. She always bumbled her way through university corridors and human conversations, but here, at the edge of disaster, where the world was delirious with weather, and where all certainties unraveled, leaving only the hope that held the heart of all existence—here, she was centered. Standing quiet, she waited…
Then it came. In a graveyard behind the old stone church at the edge of the village, several bright blue lights flickered, as if poets were out with lanterns, looking for themselves among the dead.
Very tall poets, creeping steadily closer to the heart of Dôlylleuad.
Elodie’s instincts leaped, flinging her pulse up with them. “Get inside!” she shouted at the family. “And shut every door, every window!”
There was no time for further explanation, and Elodie could only hope they obeyed. She ran down the path—skirting the fallen pots—wincing as sodden wind slapped her face—not stopping when she reached the gate. Setting one hand atop it, she vaulted over with an ease that wouldn’t have matched the even greater ease of spending two extra seconds opening the gate and walking through, but that was admittedly more impressive.
Turning left, she raced along the street toward the dark maw of the wild, boots splashing through murky puddles, hair unraveling from its knot, dressing gown billowing dramatically as the wind shoved at her from behind. Thankfully, everyone seemed to be indoors, where she hoped they would remain, safe from the magic that had begun to flare through the storm-wrecked atmosphere.
Even with iron and gold hooked around her ear as protection, Elodie could feel that magic limning her nerves like a siren song. She could feel it warming deep places inside her body where the most fragile of her dreams were tucked away like pressed flowers among old receipts and scraps of childhood drawings. Most of them involved Gabriel, and were blushed with the recollection of their nights together, gentleand quiet nights that swayed with a shy rhythm coiling slowly into wishes she’d never dared to tell another soul. And although she knew it was a deadly earthborn enchantment, still she wanted it to continue until it slipped right inside her, killing her with a blissful little death, right there on the road.
Apparently not even iron and gold were enough against some magic or memories.
But this was something geographers trained for, relentlessly and essentially, and Elodie was not afraid. Indeed, she felt invigorated by the threat.“Gods do what they like, they call down hurricanes with a whisper, or send off a tsunami the way you would a love letter,”she called out to the sky in ancient Greek, laughing.
Passing the old church, she followed the road as it bent around a vast oak tree—then stopped abruptly, her heartbeat tripping over itself.
Gabriel stood beside the entrance to the church’s graveyard, his long black coat swirling like tamed storm shadows. He held his umbrella aloft as thaumaturgic lightning struck its metal tip in one continual, delicate beam of energy that would have killed him had it been real lightning and the umbrella been a real umbrella instead of a Weather Mitigation Device constructed with silver and enchanted oilcloth. He looked like a dark angel, leashing perilous weather for the sake of the dead.
Ooh,Elodie’s very soul gasped. Never mind earth magic; the witchery of her own lust caught fire within her, so that she felt surprised the rain didn’t start steaming above her head.
Gabriel glanced over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised. Damp, wind-tangled strands of hair had fallen across his face, and as he looked through them with his dark, dark eyes, Elodie’s internal flames became an inferno.
But she had been suffering reactions like this from the moment she first laid sight on the man nine years ago, and it was a matter of little effort to make a show of indifference now.
“Hello,” she called, walking closer, hands in her skirt pockets. “Aeolus is certainly out to play this afternoon.”
Gabriel did not reply. She couldn’t decide if this was because he failed to recognize the name of the Greek storm god, or because he wasan obnoxious, arrogant sod, despite his physical charms. Then she noticed the thaumaturgic compass in his black-gloved hand.
