Awakenings

            Marin saw it first, the figure silhouetted against the darkness and the wind and blowing snow.  Thom knew because she tensed next to him, her head jerking to one side as she struggled to get a better look at whoever—whatever—it was. 
            He looked where she looked and swallowed hard.
            “Did you kill them all?  The raiders?” he breathed, barely audible over the wind.
            “No,” she said.  “But if that’s one of them, I’m going to kill them with my bare hands, one way or another.”  She took a slow step forward.  Thom went with her.
            The figure drew closer, became more distinct.
            Gods and monsters, Thom thought.  It’s a woman.
            She reminded him of the Morrigan—she shot shivers up and down his spine like the Celtic death goddess had.  The figure that began to slowly fade into view was small and slender, her body cloaked in fine but tattered robes of gray and blue.  Her black hair hung in a waves across her shoulders, braids framing her face.  Bright gray eyes reflected what little light there was, seeming to glow from the dark shadows surrounding them.  It was as if she’d smudged the hollows around her eyes with charcoal, if only to emphasize the paleness of the gray on white.  Her skin was the same color as the snow driving from the sky, catching in her coal black hair and melting oh-so-slowly.  She stepped toward them, barefoot in the snow, taking one step, then another.  She stopped a few feet from them as he and Marin drew to a stop.
            Blue-black lips parted and she spoke, her voice the sound of ice shattering against itself—beautiful, musical, and jarring all at once.
            “Had we known what wonders those principes illegitimi Hibernia mysticum would eventually spawn, we might have held out for that woman to finally die instead of settling for the elder.”
            Thom felt Marin stiffen.  Their fingers laced together and he squeezed her hand tightly.
            What the hell is she talking about?  He kept his expression carefully blank.  If this woman was their enemy, there was no reason to let her know she had the upper hand.
            The woman’s hands, small and delicate like a child’s, disappeared into her long, wide and ragged sleeves.  From one sleeve, clutched in one small fist, she drew forth a tarnished silver chain with an equally tarnished medallion.  Thom sucked in a breath.
            It’s almost identical to the one that Teague gave to Kira.
            He could see it clearly, despite the darkness, despite the snow and wind that stung his eyes and made them tear.  He could see the blade, the leaf, the flame and the star.  His heart crept up into his throat and he swallowed, stomach twisting.  “Bloody hell,” he breathed.
            “Who are you?”  Marin asked, her voice a whisper, barely louder than his.
            The woman-child smiled.  “A mother, a child, a sister, a daughter.  Winter.  Death.  The sunset and the moonrise.”
            “Riddles,” Marin said, the word a bullet of ice.
            The woman laughed.  “Fire!  You get it from them, I know it.  He was the same when you pushed.  I loved it.  I loved every moment I was with him.  Pity I had to share.”  Her eyes dropped.  “Pity he was lost.”
            “Oh gods and monsters,” Marin whispered, hand spasming around Thom’s.  “Seamus.  You’re talking about Seamus.”
            “Bright, too, aren’t you, auguratrix?  Yes.  Mei lumen cordis.”  She stepped closer.  It got colder, but the wind seemed to calm, and the snow seemed to ease around them, the nearer she came.  Her eyes were like the moon, glowing in the darkness.
            Thom tried not to shiver, his heart thudding painfully hard inside the cage of his ribs.
            “I loved him,” she said simply.  “And we lost him.  My sister…ah well.  A story for another night.”  Her eyes closed for a moment and all light seemed to vanish from the world.  Marin’s hand crushed his.
            Hold it together, Mar.  Please, hold it together.  If you fly off the handle, I’m going to go spiraling after you.  Keep it together.
            “Our get is coming.  Our lineage is coming.  Hers will, too, though I know not when.  I know not whether they come for good or for ill.  It is a thing I cannot know.  I can only hope.”
            “W-what are you talking about?”  Marin asked.
            She opened her eyes.  “The many times son of my son is coming.  The many times sons of Seamus of the Áes Dána are coming.  They are coming to you without knowing why.
            “What you do when they arrive is up to you, but I warn you: if you cross them, not even the Wanderer or a princess of Avalon will be able to save you.”

            Marin kissed him gently, then picked up the coat that had slipped off his shoulders.  “Here.  Put this on—the one side at least.  This is all going to be a moot point if you freeze to death tonight.”
            Beyond the tarp that Matt had rigged up to keep the weather out of the forge, the wind howled, clawing at its edges.
            He needs a real door, Thom thought as he shoved his good arm through the sleeve of his coat.  “How bad is the storm out there?”
            “It’s going to get worse,” she said.  “We can’t stay up here much longer, otherwise we’ll still freeze to death, even with the blankets and the jackets.”
            “Why does he hate us?”  Thom asked.
            Marin blinked.  “Random much?  Why does who hate us?”
            “Cariocecus.  Any of them.  I don’t know, Mar, I think that Vammatar would’ve shown up whether Phelan was here or not.  It can’t just be blood.  There’s something else going on here.  I just wish I knew what it was.”
            He thought of the Morrigan.  Was she the voice from his dream?
            No.  That wasn’t her.  That was someone else—something else.  I’m not sure what, but it wasn’t her.  As ominous as what the Morrigan said to us was, I don’t think she really wants to hurt any of us.
            Not yet anyway.  Not unless we cross her.
            Not until we cross her.
            “I don’t know,” Marin said quietly.  “Maybe it has something to do with what we can see—what we can’t control.  Maybe it’s just bad luck.”
            “You don’t think it’s bad luck any more than I do.”  Thom reached up with his good arm and ran his fingers through her hair.  “You know it’s not as much as I do.”
            She closed her eyes and sighed.  “You’re right.  I do.  That doesn’t mean I have to like it or admit it.”
            Thom smiled wryly.  The smile faded after a moment.  “I was dreaming when I walked out here,” he said.  “When you woke me?  I heard a woman calling me, asking me to keep going forward.  To keep moving.  One more step, she said.  One more step.” A shudder wracked him.  “It felt wrong, Mar, but I couldn’t tell you why.  I don’t know what it was.”
            Marin chewed hard on her lower lip, then shook her head.  “I don’t know, Thom,” she whispered. “But like we both said, we’ve got to find out.  We’ve got to figure it out.”
            “Phelan knows more than he’s telling us,” Thom murmured.  “About all of it.”
            “He’s trying to protect us by keeping his mouth shut,” Marin said.  “Maybe it’s a misplaced effort, but that’s why he’s doing it.”
            Thom shook his head, starting to struggle to his feet.  If she was saying that they needed to get back, they probably did.  He used her shoulder to lever himself upright and she rose a moment later, putting one arm around his waist to steady him.
            “I had a vision a few weeks ago,” he said as they leaned against each other in the darkness.  “Angie was giving me quite the lecture about sheltering people.”  He took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, wincing at the pain that lanced through his chest.  “We talked about our son—yours and mine.  She said he’d know more, more quickly than we’d give him credit for.”
            “I’ve seen him, too,” Marin said, voice barely audible over the wind.  “We’ll live long enough to have him, Thom.  Somehow.”
            He shivered at the realization that she’d known why he’d said it even before he had.
            Somehow, she knew.
            “You’re right.  We will.”
            They set off into the howling wind together, headed back toward where the tents and the fire should be.

            He couldn’t see any light, but something drew him onward—a feeling, a voice, something that set his heart to racing and his body shaking.  Shuddery breaths rushed in and out of his lungs, muscles burning like he’d run for miles to get to this point.
            “Yes, Seer,” a woman’s voice whispered.  “That’s it.  One more step…”
            The darkness pressed inward like a living thing, cocooning him in terrifying cold.  Goosebumps rose along his limbs and his hands hurt from squeezing them too tightly into fists.
            Dreaming, he thought.  I’m dreaming.  This is a nightmare.
            “That’s it.  Just another step.”
            He couldn’t bring himself to take that step the voice was urging him to take.
            What am I so afraid of?  Why does this feel so wrong?
            “Thom,” another voice said in his ear, “Thom, wake up.”
            He jerked and agony lanced through his side.  He gulped air in ragged gasps and stared at nothing but darkness.  “What–”
            Marin’s fingers twined through his.  “You fell asleep.  What are you doing out here?”
            He took two breaths and dimly tried to figure out where here was.
            “My side–”
            “You got shot, Thom.  It took Jac and Jay hours to dig it out.  They think you broke a rib again, too.”
            Just when they were getting better…  He blinked a few times, trying to get his vision to clear.  “Where are we?”
            “Matt’s forge,” Marin said quietly.  “You said there was something you needed to check up here and just got up and started walking.  I wasn’t going to let you go alone with the shape you’re in.  I grabbed our jackets and a couple blankets and followed you.”
            As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he started to make out the tears on her face.  “I don’t remember,” he said, voice choked.
            She let go of his hand and put both of hers on his cheeks, cradling his face between her palms.  “That terrifies me, Thom.  I can’t tell you how much that terrifies me.”
            Believe me, it doesn’t comfort me much, either.  He slid one arm around her shoulders and gingerly pulled her toward his chest, smothering a wince as the muscles on one side of his body protested.  That’s what you get for playing the big damn hero.  You get shot and get another rib broken.  Her arms slid around his shoulders and that was just about the best feeling in the world.
            “I’m sorry,” he whispered into her hair, throat tight.  “Guess I’ve scared you enough for a month in one day.”
            “For a month?”  Marin laughed a weak, broken laugh into his shoulder.  “More than that, but I don’t think anything’s going to change anytime soon.”  She looked up at him, chewing her lower lip hard.  “You walked out into a gathering storm without shoes, Thom.”
            A shudder wracked him and he hissed in pain, one hand going immediately to the wound in his side.  Marin sighed and shook her head, straightening slightly.
            “What am I going to do with you, Thom?” she whispered.  “How am I supposed to…to…”
            “What?”
            “To take care of you, dammit!”
            He rocked backwards momentarily, eyes widening in the darkness.  “You’re not—”
            “Oh don’t even fucking start the ‘you’re not supposed to take care of me’ bullshit.  That’s part of what us being together is all about, Thom.  We take care of each other.  We protect each other.  That’s what we do.”  She took a deep, unsteady breath.  “But I don’t know how I can do that.  I don’t even know what made you get up and walk out tonight.”
            “I don’t, either,” he said, queasiness rising in his belly.  Who the hell was that voice?  Didn’t sound like any I’ve ever heard before.  Shivers shot down his spine and he swallowed bile.  I’m not sure I want to know, but I know that I’m going to have to figure it out—especially if it’s something that might happen again.
            “What’s happening to us, Thom?” she asked softly, her fingers twining with his again.
            “I don’t know,” he said again.  “But I’m terrified of finding out.”
            Her voice was very small.  “Me too.  But we have to.”  She came up to her knees and caught his face between her hands again, resting her forehead against his.  “We have to.  I’m not going to lose you.  Not today and not ever.”
            He swallowed against a lump in his throat.  I’m not going to lose you, either.  I don’t care what the cost is.
            It could be terrifyingly high, but I’m not giving you up to anyone or anything.  No matter what.

            “You.  You’re terrified?”  The thought calmed him and unsettled his stomach at the same time.  Phelan’s not afraid to be fucking terrified.  The rest of us are scared more than enough for three times our number.  He’s the only one that’s not.
            At least I thought so.
            “Don’t act so surprised, Jameson,” Phelan said softly.  “I’m just as human as the rest of you.”
            “Except for being thousands of years old and seeming to know everything we don’t about the world we’re suddenly living in.  What do you have to be afraid of?”
            “The future, mostly.”  Phelan sipped his tea and watched the younger man through the edges of the fire.  “I’m not much a Seer.  That’s a gift—or a curse—that my cousin has.”
            “The cousin that hooked up with Thom’s?”  J.T. asked, sipping his own tea slowly.  The cold was reaching them even here by the fire, and it didn’t surprise him based on the sound of the wind.  I should’ve grabbed a blanket or something.  The thought of a blanket brought thoughts of Carolyn and the bed they’d been sharing.  He stared down into the mug between his palms.  It had happened so quick.  Too quick, almost.
            “Yeah, Teague.”  Phelan looked away.  “Your bloodline, but…”
            “The woman I saw in the dream,” J.T. said.  “When I dreamed about the woman in the tarn, when I saw you.”
            “I don’t know if it’s reincarnation or genetic memory,” Phelan said, eyes still focused on something far away—perhaps something long ago.
            He’s no seer, but he’s a druid of the old order.  Part priest, part warrior, part bard—all of it and more at the same time.  Nan would have liked him.
            Of course, his grandmother probably would have thrown Phelan in the tarn, too.
            “Whatever it is,” Phelan continued, “part of me is grateful that you somehow remember it.  For better or worse, you were my entrée.”
            “I fucking punched you, Phelan.  I wasn’t your in.  That was Care, reminding us all that we were being total assholes playing Twenty Questions with a guy who’d walked for weeks to get to us.”
            “I deserved it on more levels than you know.”  Phelan stretched slightly. His eyes slid closed for a few moments.  “Teague asked me to come to  you guys about two weeks before things came apart.  I didn’t leave the city when I should have.  Too many other things I was trying to accomplish before I bailed, and I thought I had the luxury of time.  I didn’t trust him.  I didn’t trust what he’d seen.
            “The fact of the matter is, I should have been here before the world ended.  You guys shouldn’t have faced it alone.”
            “We lived,” J.T. said.  “We’re still here.  Hell, it didn’t start to get really bad until after you showed up.”
            Phelan choked on a laugh and shook his head, opening his eyes as he took a deep draught of his tea.  “That’s me.  Harbinger of doom.”  He stared across the fire at J.T.  “Do you think they blame you?”
            “The only actual trouble that you brought to us was Vammatar, and she’s dead.  You killed her.”  J.T. stretched, wincing slightly as his shoulder twinged.  “The other guy—what was his name?”
            “Cariocecus,” Phelan said.
            “Yeah, him.  Shadow man.  What he said to Mar and Thom at their wedding—all the shit that he caused before you ever got here—that sealed it.  He didn’t come here to trouble you, he’s here for us.  I’m not sure why he’s here for us, but he is.”
            “That’s part of what’s got me shaking in my boots,” Phelan admitted.  “It makes me think he knows something I don’t, and that’s never a good feeling.”
            “What the hell could that be?”
            “I don’t know,” Phelan said.  “That’s what’s got me worried.”
            Jacqueline’s voice intruded on them both.  “Guys?  We have a problem.  I can’t find them.”
            J.T. looked at her, frowning slightly.  “Who?”
            “Thom and Marin,” she said.  “They’re just gone.”

            The wind started howling out of the north an hour before dusk.  The sound of it set J.T.’s teeth on edge and made every muscle tighten.  Tight muscles sent new fire lancing through his shoulder.  Even the bottle of brandy he’d obtained from their stores of supplies at Rory’s suggestion didn’t take the edge off.  Sleep had come slowly, fitfully, but it had eventually claimed him.
            The coming storm hit with all its fury just after full dark descended.  One second, it was only the howling wind, the next the sleet and snow began, like tiny knives from the sky.  J.T. had come awake at Carolyn’s prodding, schlepping over to the fire to have some dinner as the storm raged.  They ate in shifts, and after the last, some of the others headed to batten down the hatches while others headed to bed or various other nocturnal tasks, leaving J.T. seated next to the fire with Phelan, Jacqueline, and a pot of tea.
            Jacqueline glanced between the two men and unfolded from her seat on the ground near the fire.  “I’m going to go check on Thom and Marin and make sure everything’s okay with them.”
            “They should be in their shed,” J.T. said, trying to smother a yawn.  “I told Marin it’d be okay to help him there after he woke up.”
            “They’re already there,” Jacqueline said.  “I heard him swearing every step of the way, the big baby.  He acted like they shot him in the leg, not the side.”
            J.T. chuckled weakly.  “Probably muscles.  Remember, everything’s all connected.”
            Jacqueline snorted. “I still say he’s acting like a big baby.”  She stooped to pour two cups of tea before she headed off, away from the fire and the tent where it backed up against one edge of the shed-city and down one of the ‘corridors’ between the sheds.
            Phelan shook his head as J.T. stretched and leaned back against a bin of clean dishes.  “She shouldn’t go so hard on him when he’s actually admitting to being hurt,” Phelan said as he reached for the kettle.  “If she keeps ragging on him, he’s never going to admit to being hurt and eventually, it’ll get him killed.”
            “Why, because he’ll quietly bleed to death?”  J.T. asked, lifting his head from where it drooped against his chest.
            “Because his wife will kill him,” Phelan said, setting one mug of the steaming brew near the fire before he poured a second.  One hand dipped into a pouch hanging from his belt and he crushed a pair of dried leaves into one of the mugs before handing it to J.T.  “Drink that.  Maybe it’ll do the trick where the brandy didn’t.”
            J.T. sniffed the mug, but all he could smell was the heavily spiced black tea.  “I don’t want to know what this is yet, do I?”
            “Probably not.  It’s scribbled in the back of Jac’s herbiary.  I’ve used it before and it seems to do the trick.  Has in the past, anyway.”  Phelan settled down nearby, the fire making his hair glow against the darkness.  “You’re unnerved.”
            “I’m always unnerved when the ghosts come,” J.T. said.  He sipped his tea and tried to ignore the howling of the wind, noise that sounded too much like the shrieking of the ghosts that had saved he, Carolyn, and Drew from the camazotzi months before.  “Regardless of why.”
            “You don’t need to fear them,” Phelan said quietly.  “They’re here to help you.  If they weren’t, I’d tell you.  The ones that have stayed, the ones that decided to linger, they made a choice, Jameson.  They decided not to cross this time.  I can’t tell you why, but I can tell you that you’ve got nothing to fear from them.”
            “I try not to,” he said quietly, eyes focusing on the flames.  “But that doesn’t mean that I’m not terrified half the time.”
            “Everyone’s terrified,” Phelan said, shaking his head briefly.  “Every last one of you, and I don’t blame any of you for it, either.”
            J.T. glanced at him.  “Everyone?”
            “Everyone,” Phelan said.  “Including me.”

            Her name was Phillipa, and she’d been a student at Northern before things went to shit.  We found that out as we stood near the pyre, watching bodies burn down to ash and nothing.  After a while, Matt took her by the hand and led her away.  I sent Greg to follow them, to make sure that Matt got the wounds he’d tried to hide from me taken care of.  Drew lingered a little longer before Phelan waved him away.
            If Rory was going to come unglued during this, it would have happened already.
            It seemed to take less tending after he got the bodies to catch initially, and by the end, as it slowly began to burn down to a few feet deep, a smoldering pile, he stood nearby, sweating and watching the blue-white flames.
            “It’s not natural fire, is it?” I said softly, not sure if I was saying it to Phelan or to Rory as I eased up alongside of my friend.
            “I don’t know what it is,” Rory whispered next to me, his hands curled into fists as he watched the flickering light.  Every so often the pyre threw out embers that flared white and faded to orange and red before dying against the ground.  “Part of me feels alive and part of me feels sick.”  He wet his lips and looked at Phelan and I.  “What the hell am I?”
            I put my arm around his shoulders and squeezed him tightly for a brief moment, smothering a wince at how warm to the touch he was.  “You’re still who you’ve always been,” I said quietly.  “You’ve just begun to unlock whatever was inside of you all this time.  That’s all.  Your eyes are open.”
            He shivered.  “You don’t have to be here, Mar.  Go back to Thom.  He needs you now.  I don’t.”
            Liar.  I shook my head.  “Someone will come and get me when they’re finished.  If someone doesn’t, then he’s fine and I don’t need to worry.  Rather let him rest and not get myself worked into a lather.”
            Rory choked on a laugh.  “So I’m a distraction from your husband getting shot and probably having another broken rib.  Thanks, Marin.  That makes me feel fantastic.”
            “You’re doing a good job at it,” I said, forcing cheer into my voice and giving him another squeeze.  He slumped against me and sighed.  I wrapped both arms around him and stared at the pyre.  “And you’ve done what needed to get done here,” I added, my voice quieter now.  “This will keep on burning without us.  Let’s go back.”
            “You should eat something,” Phelan said to him.  “I’ve been listening to your stomach for the past twenty minutes.”
            “I’m not sure it’ll stay in me,” Rory said.  He let me turn him around, back toward the open gateway and camp.  He threw one last look at the pyre before we started to walk away.  “My stomach’s a mess.”
            “It’ll stay in,” Phelan said knowingly.  “The first time you do something like this is always hard, but you’ll recover.  Food’ll help.  I think I heard something about bread and stew.”
            My own stomach rumbled softly at the idea of food.  I suppressed a sigh.  For all that I was pretending I wasn’t worried about Thom, it was a lie.  I was more than a little worried, and as soon as I got Rory squared away, I’d be going to him, sure as the sunrise.
            You’re trying to take care of everyone except for the person that matters the most to you.  That’s quite a change, isn’t it?
            Rory straightened and pulled away once we’d crossed through the gateway into camp.  “Go,” he said.  “I’ll bring you food once I’ve choked something down.”
            I tousled his hair.  “You won’t choke it down.  You’ll enjoy it.  It won’t taste like sawdust, I promise.”
            He gave me a startled look but nodded.  “…sure.  I hope you’re right.”
            “I am.”  I squeezed his arm and glanced at Phelan.  Phelan smiled gently at me.
            “I’ll check on things by the fire.  Go on, leannán.  He might need you now if he’s awake.”
            I almost hope he’s still asleep.  I wonder if anyone’s sitting with him right now.  We parted company with each other and I wandered toward the shed where Jacqueline and J.T. had been working on Thom.  J.T. was sitting in the open doorway, staring up at the sky as I approached, his hands clean and an empty bucket sitting next to his feet.
            His eyes flicked up at the sound of my footsteps. I didn’t peer beyond him right away, just stopped far enough away that I couldn’t see in through the doorway.  Lantern light still spilled out around J.T., but it was dimmer now.
            “How bad was it?” I asked softly, hugging my arms across my chest.
            “It could have been a lot worse,” J.T. answered.  “Jac had everything pretty well in hand, all told, by the time I got here.  It was just finding the damn bullet and pulling it out before it started wandering around inside of him and causing more problems.”  He patted the spot next to him in the doorway.  I came and sat down, peeking in briefly.
            Thom was asleep, his face turned toward the wall, his breathing even and his chest bare except for blood-tinged bandages wrapped around his chest.  I looked away again, toward the dirt and gravel just beyond my toes.  J.T. put his good arm around me and squeezed gently.
            “The rib’s broken and there’s a bunch of torn muscles, but he’ll live.”
            Relief flooded through me and I nodded slightly.  “Good,” I said in a whisper, drawing my knees sup to my chest.  “Has he been awake?  Does he know?”
            He shook his head.  “Nah.  Jac dosed him with something to keep him out—something Phelan taught her, I think.  It’s for the best, if you ask me.  I’d rather be asleep right now.”
            “How’s your shoulder?”
            “I’ll live.”  He gave me a squeeze, then slowly stood up.  “Though right now I’m going to go get some of what Thom’s getting right now.  You can help him back to your spot when he wakes up.  It should be okay.”
            “Thanks, Jay.”
            “Anytime.  Just try to talk him into not falling on any more bullets.”
            I laughed weakly.  “I’ll try.”
            “Do or do not, Mar,” he said as he lumbered away.  I just shook my head, sitting on the threshold for a moment longer.
            Then I got up and went inside out of the chill wind and the damp that was beginning to settle into my bones.  The night to come, I suspected, was going to be unpleasant indeed.

            If it hadn’t been so cold that day, the bodies might have started to smell already.  I tried not to look at their faces—at the faces of the dead, of the men we’d killed to defend ourselves.
            Is it going to get easier someday?  I hoped it didn’t, not really.  Killing should never be easy.
            Matt slid his arm around my shoulders as we watched Rory make a slow circuit of the pile once, then again.  My brother shifted his weight and winced slightly.
            “What’s the matter?” I asked.
            He shook his head.  “A little sore.  Got peppered during the fight.”
            “By what?”
            He shot me a weak smile.  “Edge of some birdshot from one of their rear rifles.  It’s nothing.”
            “Did you bleed?”
            One shoulder hitched in a slight shrug.  “Yeah.”
            “Then it’s not nothing.”  I shrugged his arm off and turned to look at him.  “Where did it get you?”
            He gestured to his left side, the side opposite the one he’d tucked me against.  “It’s not serious,” he told me, nodding toward Phelan.  “Phelan looked at it.  He’s seen it.  Tell her.”
            Phelan turned toward me from where he stood several paces away, between us and the pile.  “Matt, don’t lie to your sister.”
            “Traitor,” Matt muttered.  Phelan only laughed.  I glared at them both.
            “Spill.  How bad is it?”  I wasn’t quite sure which one I was asking.  Phelan answered.
            “It’ll probably heal without someone looking at it, but I told him that either he was going to have Jac look at it or I was going to take tweezers to it myself.”  He shook his head a little.  “I’d just be worried that there’s little bits of shot that we can’t quite see.  It can get a little dark up at the forge when the sun’s at the wrong angle.”
            “After this is over, you’re going to go see Jac,” I said to Matt, my tone firm, brooking no argument.
            He made a face, then nodded with a sigh.  “Fine.”
            “Good.”  I looked back toward Rory, who was studying the pile.  After another moment, he turned to look at us.
            “I think I’m ready,” he said, his voice only a little shaky.
            If he wants to back out, I’ll let him.  I’d rather have him be ready, be sure this is something he wants to do rather than force him into it just because he offered.  “Are you sure about this?  You don’t have to do it.  We can find another way.”
            “No.  I want to know if I can do this.”  He took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly.  “And what it’ll do to me when I do.”  He shot me a crooked smile.  “Wish me luck.”
            “Luck,” I murmured, then crossed my arms tightly across my chest.
            Rory stepped forward, closer to the pile.  He lifted his hands slowly, fingers splaying as he aimed them at the pile.  The air around him warmed instantly, enough that I could feel it even from a few feet away, and the hum of energy around him set my hair on end.
            “Christ,” Matt muttered next to me, his eyes widening.  “I can feel that.”
            My hand found his, our fingers knitting together.  “Wait a second and you’ll see it, too,” I said softly.
            The first spark was weak, ember-red and fell a bit shy of the pile.  It landed on what was left of the asphalt of the parking lot and died there with the faint smell of burning rubber and brimstone.
            Rory’s muscles bunched—his jaw, his shoulders, everything knotting—and then the fire began to flow like water from his hands.
            Blue-white with hints of gold and red, it spilled from his hands like a waterfall, spattering against the ground before he gained more control.  He raised his hands slightly and the fire spattered toward the pile of bodies, finally resolving itself into a fluid line cascading toward the pile.
            The bodies caught in a heartbeat and began to burn.
            “My god,” a voice said softly behind Matt and I.  “What’s he doing?”
            It was one of the prisoners we’d rescued, a woman with dark hair, college-aged and slender.  She hugged a borrowed jacket around her shoulders as she edged closer, the fire’s light turning hazel eyes golden.  There were traces of fear in her expression, but they were mostly hidden behind slack-jawed wonder.
            I smiled faintly.  “Magic.”
            She looked at Matt, Phelan and I sidelong.  “I didn’t think it existed.”
            “Now you know it does,” Phelan said, his voice impossibly gentle.  He extended a hand to her and she took it, stepping closer to the three of us, her gaze drifting back to Rory.
            “Burning all the way over on this side, too,” Greg called to us from the other side of the pile, where he and Drew were stationed.  It was starting to get very warm standing near the pile, and my nose was starting to close up against the charnel-house smell.
            At least the wind is blowing north, away from all of us.  I squeezed Matt’s hand.
            “How does he know how to do that?”  the girl asked.
            “Instinct,” Phelan said.  “Practice.  Trial and error.  How do we learn how to do anything?”  He eased around her, so she was suddenly sandwiched between him and Matt.
            Matt looked at her.  “For someone who wasn’t sure that magic existed, you sure seem ready to believe it.”
            She laughed.  “What was it that Sherlock Holmes said?  When you eliminate the impossible, whatever’s left, however improbable, must be the truth.”
            “Sounds like you don’t think magic’s impossible.”
            She smiled at Matt.  “There’s too many stories about it for me to think that.”
            He watched her for a long moment before he finally nodded.  “Yeah.  I guess you’re right.”
            I looked past them toward Phelan.  He winked and we shared a secret smile that neither of them noticed.
            Things falling into place indeed.

            Rory gave me a dirty look as I fell into step with him.  “I thought I told you to stay with Thom.
            I shook my head.  “I can’t help him right now and if I stay, Jacqueline’s only going to end up wound tighter.  Better I come and help make sure you don’t go off the rails.”  I took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly.  “Besides, it’s better I see my orders to their completion.  I’m the one who said to burn the bodies.  I shouldn’t hide from that.”
            His look became measuring and he finally turned away, nodding with a sigh.  “I guess you’re right about that.”
            I reached over and squeezed his arm.  “I’m not the one that needs protecting anymore, Rory.  You guys can stop sheltering me.”
            “Thom would kill us,” Rory said.  “Because he really, really doesn’t share that opinion.  Intellectually, he knows that you’re strong enough to handle the nasty stuff, but he doesn’t want anyone to make you shoulder that burden.”  Rory’s lips thinned.  “This’ll make him open his eyes.  He’ll know what happened today, if not when he wakes up, then soon after.”
            Maybe I should shelter him from that for a little while.  I don’t want him to deal with that kind of shock right away.
            Drew was up on one of the rooftops and Greg was dumping out some dirty wash-water when we found them a few minutes later.  We flagged Drew down and beckoned Greg over to us, clustered in the shadow of one of the shelters.  Greg rubbed his palms together briskly and then blew into his fist, trying to warm his bare hands.  “What’s up?”
            “We’re burning the bodies,” I told them.  “Rory’s going to see what he can do without wasting deadwood.  Have either of you seen Phelan?”
            “Not since he walked away with you,” Drew said.  “He’s not still over by Thom, is he?”
            I shook my head.  “I just left them a few minutes ago.  He wasn’t there.”  My gaze drifted up toward Matt’s forge.  A faint wisp of smoke rose from the chimney.  “I think I figured out where he must be, though.”
            The three men followed my gaze.  Drew wiped his hands on the seat of his jeans and then shoved them into his pockets.  “Wonder why he spends so much time up there.  He didn’t strike me as the type.”
            “Why, because of the bow and the staff?”  I smiled wryly before I started walking toward the forge.  “There’s a lot more facets to him than he’s let us all see,” I said.  Even as the words left my mouth, I knew that a bare handful of us—me, Thom, J.T., and Matt—knew more about Phelan than any of the others.
            It was a strange, almost disconcerting thought, to realize that I knew more about him than most of my friends.
            If we’re mostly his blood, shouldn’t that mean he’d be more open with more of us instead of just a few of us?  I frowned, crossing my arms as I walked.
            “What’s the matter?”  Drew asked.
            “Just thinking.  Nothing important.”
            The smoky smell was like wood but not, a scent I couldn’t quite place.  I could hear the quiet murmur of voices as I reached the stone shed that was the most solid structure we had save for the sheds we slept in, though it was entirely open on one side, facing the ruins and the ravines to the south.
            Greg’s nose wrinkled.  “Are they trying to make charcoal?”
            That would make sense.  “Maybe,” I said, then raised my voice.  “Phelan?  You up here?”
            He poked his head around the corner and peered at me, then at the trio following on my heels.  His expression went abruptly from curious to grave.  “What’s the matter?”
            “Nothing,” I said.  “We just need your help with something.”  I reached behind me and tugged Rory forward.  “Can Matt spare you for a little while?”
            “I can bank the fire and come along,” Matt said, stepping out from the shadows and into view, his face smudged with either dirt or soot, I couldn’t be certain which.  “What’s going on?”
            I looked at Rory, who shifted from one foot to the other, almost nervously, like a child dragged into the principal’s office.
            He swallowed before he said, “I volunteered to try to burn the bodies,” he said.  “Using my…uhm…parlor tricks.”
            I stared at him.  Parlor tricks?  Really?
            Phelan started to laugh.  He shook his head and started walking past us, back down toward the gap in the walls and the road beyond it.  “I’d say what you can do is a little more than parlor tricks,” he said to Rory as he passed us, “but if it makes you feel better to call them that, who am I to stop you?”
            Rory shot me a baleful look as we started walking again.  I reached over and squeezed his hand.
            “You’re the one that said it,” I murmured to him.
            “I know,” he said.  “Now I’m never going to live it down.”
            My lips twitched into a smile.  “Maybe not.  But you still said it.”
            “Me and my big mouth.”

            I was watching Jacqueline finish up with Thom and nursing a lip I’d bitten bloody.  Jacqueline didn’t curse much, but she’d cursed today, and a lot, mostly aspersions on Thom’s character and on his ability to get himself hurt, but at the same time she’d tried to calmly reassure me that he’d be fine.  J.T. had joined her halfway through the patching process, his face pale and his chest bare except for bandages holding a heavy gauze pad against his shoulder.  He hadn’t joined in her swearing.  He’d just gone quietly to work.
            They were finishing up when Rory touched my shoulder and cleared his throat.  I turned, blinking blearily at him, realizing that my eyes were having trouble focusing.
            “What is it?” I asked, glancing toward J.T. and Jacqueline before I stepped out of the shed where they were doing their work and into waning daylight.  The sound of hammers on roofs echoed distantly.  Some of the others were working on the covered walkways at the far end of this row.
            “Was coming to let you know that we saw them on their way,” he said.  “The ones who surrendered.  I…”  He looked vaguely uncomfortable for a moment before he shook his head.  “I gave them a mark.  In case they try to come back someday.  In case something happens to the people who saw their faces today and they try to come back.”
            My stomach twisted uncomfortably.  “How, Rory?”
            He glanced down at his hand, then held it up slowly, palm up, fingers slightly curled.  A tiny, flickering blue-white flame appeared, then faded as he curled his hand into a fist.
            “Holy crap,” I whispered, forcing myself not to rock back against my heels.  “Rory, when did you—”
            “I’ve been practicing since the day Leah ran,” he said.  “I’m the only one with really strong offensive ability, Mar.  I’ve got to be able to control it if it’s going to be useful.”
            “I—I guess so,” I said, my eyes meeting his.  I didn’t like the look of discomfort I saw flicker across his face.  “Are you okay?”
            He shrugged.  “Does it matter?”
            “Yeah,” I said.  “Yeah, Rory, it matters.”
            He stared off into the distance for a few long moments before he spoke, not looking at me right away.  “I’m afraid of myself,” he said.  “I’m afraid that there’s some kind of monster inside of me.  I hear these whispers from inside when I bring up the fire, telling me that I can do more, telling me that I should do more.  It’s not like something out there is whispering to me.  It’s something inside of me.  I don’t want to turn into some kind of psychopath.  I’m not some kind of psychopath.”
            “Of course not.  You’ve been fascinated by fire for as long as I’ve known you, though.  It’s just your subconscious or something.”  Or is it?  I took his hand and squeezed it tightly.  “Everything’ll be fine.”
            “Right,” he said, his tone vaguely disbelieving.  “Anyway, I just was coming to tell you that.  And to offer my service when it comes to burning the bodies.”
            “Did they get them piled up?”
            “Looted and piled,” he confirmed.  “Out near the drive.  I told them to wait on the wood, though.  I might be able to take care of it without wasting some of the deadwood.”
            After you just told me what you told me, Rory, you’re volunteering to do that?  “Are you sure it’s a good idea?”
            “The sooner I sort this out for myself, the better off we’ll all be,” Rory mumbled.  “Right?”
            I exhaled softly.  “Right,” I said.  “Do you want me to come with you?”
            He looked beyond me, toward the building where Jacqueline and J.T. were still at work, then slowly shook his head.  “No,” he said quietly.  “You belong here.  I’ll ask Greg and Drew to come with me.  If I go off the rails, Drew’ll stop me.”
            “Take Phelan, too,” I told him.  “Talk to him about this.  He might be able to help.”  And if there’s something to worry about, he’ll tell me.
            Rory nodded.  “All right.”  He squeezed my hand.  “Thom’ll be fine.  You shouldn’t worry about that.”

            His breath stirred the hairs on the back of my neck and I shivered slightly, glancing up over my shoulder at him and away from the sleeping bundle in my arms.
            “Couldn’t sleep?” he murmured.  I shook my head, leaning back against his chest.  His arms closed around the baby and I and I relaxed in fractions, by inches.
            “Bad dreams,” I said softly.
            “Bad dreams,” he echoed.  “Bad dreams or bad visions?”  He rested his cheek against my ear, his voice rumbling through my bones.  I pressed closer.
            “Hopefully the former and not the latter,” I said.  Our son stirred in my arms, yawning and squirming, then quieted.  His eyes blinked open, as blue as an October sky.  I smiled faintly and brushed fine, dark hair away from his forehead.  “If it’s the latter, I don’t like the road ahead, Thom.  It’s not going to be a happy one.”
            His arms tightened briefly.  “For all of us?”
            I nodded slightly.  “For any and all.  I hope it’s just nightmares.”
            “What did you see?”
            “Death,” I whispered.  “And a lot of it.”
            “It wouldn’t be the first time,” he reminded me.
            “I know,” I said.  “I know.”
            “What was it this time?  Raiders?  Another beastie?”
            “All of them.  And plague.”
            I felt him wince.  He gently turned me to face him and put his hand on my cheek.  They were rough from chopping wood and repairing roofs.  “It was just a nightmare,” he told me softly.  “We’re not that unlucky, right?”
            I laughed a weak, broken laugh.  “Not since the first year.”
            “Exactly.”  He pressed a kiss firmly to my forehead and settled his arms around my shoulders.  We stood there, three that were one, for a long, long time.

            “I know he will be,” I said, mustering up a smile.  “I’ve seen too much of him in the future for him to die today.”
            Rory smiled back, gave my hand one more squeeze, then walked away.
            After a moment, I turned and followed him.

            Jacqueline appeared a few minutes later and immediately took charge.  She brought Davon along to help her carry Thom back to the fire.
            “How’s it look?” she asked Carolyn as she crowded in between us.
            “Hasn’t stopped bleeding yet,” Carolyn told her.  “But I don’t think it punctured anything except muscle.  Hard for me to tell, though.”
            “Keep your hands on it while we move him.  Kel, grab his feet.” Jacqueline said, then glanced at me.  “Are you coming?”
            Matt appeared at my shoulder and touched my arm.  I glanced toward him, then back at Jacqueline.
            “Not yet,” I said.  “I’ll be there soon.  If it’s bad, send someone.”  My heart ached a little to not be with him, but Jacqueline was probably secretly relieved that I wouldn’t be following them toward the fire.
            Jacqueline took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly.  “Okay, then.  Dav, grab his shoulders.  Let’s get him over by the fire where it’s warm and I’ve got light to work with.”
            I watched them head back beyond the safety of the walls before I turned around and looked at Matt.  “Okay.  What’s up?”
            He jerked his head toward the wagons.  “Their prisoners want to talk to you.”
            The women and the teenage boy were in a knot next to Greg, watching Matt and I.  Paul carried an armload of weapons toward the foot of the wall, and our ranks of defenders were starting to climb down from the walls and get back to work.  The prisoners seemed a little battered at this distance, a little dirty, but otherwise intact.  Greg was still cutting the duct tape off their wrists.
            “What do we know about them so far?”  I asked Matt, leaning near, voice quiet so it didn’t carry on the breeze.
            He shrugged.  “Not much.  From the sound of things, they’re from northeast, somewhere between Muskegon, Bay City, and here.”
            “That’s a lot of ground,” I muttered as I began to walk toward them.
            “Not as much as it would be if I said between Traverse City, Bay City, and here,” Matt said, falling into step with me.
            That’s true.  Still, it’s a lot of ground.  Does it really matter that much?  I guess not, unless they were the only survivors from a settlement somewhere else.
            I stopped myself from shaking my head as we came up to the former prisoners.
            Two of the women were somewhere between twenty and thirty, though the youngest prisoner—the gangly teenage boy—seemed to be maybe fifteen.  The youngest girl probably wasn’t much older.  The eldest was a smaller woman with salt and pepper hair that looked enough like the teenage boy that I could guess that she was probably his mother.
            That last, the one with the salt-and-pepper hair, was the one that gave me a long, measuring look before she shook her head slightly, holding her wrists out to Greg for him to cut her loose.  “Thank you.”
            I shook my head.  “You don’t have anything to thank us for yet.  I’m Marin.  You’re welcome to stay with us, or you can take what you need from the raider’s supplies and move on.  It’s your choice.”
            “Are you the person in charge?” she asked, stripping the duct tape away from her wrists carefully, wincing as the tape yanked hair and a little skin away from her arms.
            I stifled a laugh.  Greg shot me a narrow-eyed look.
            “Yes,” he said as he folded up his pocket knife.  “Marin is one of the people in charge.  The other one is the one that got shot.”
            “Will he be all right?” one of the other women asked.  “It looked like Amos got a good piece of him.”
            “He should be okay,” I said.  I hope that’s not a lie.  I hope Carolyn’s right, that it’s mostly blood and just some muscle damage, maybe a broken rib.  I hope he’s okay.  I swallowed against the sudden lump in my throat.  “Come on over by the fire.  We’ll get some hot water going so you can get cleaned up and have a hot drink.”  I turned to walk back toward the walls, only to see Phelan standing near the gap, studying me with his head titled to one side.  I frowned and walked toward him, letting Greg and Matt lead the four women and the teenage boy toward the shelter of the tent where we were still cooking.
            “What’s that look for?” I asked Phelan once I drew near enough for him to hear me.
            His brows knit for a moment and he shook his head.  “It’s strange.”
            My heart tripped over itself, then got rolling again, starting to beat faster than before.  That’s never a good phrase to hear out of him.  “What is?”
            He gave me a brief, enigmatic smile.  “How quickly and strangely things begin to fall into place.”
            I stared at him for a long moment, then shook my head.
            “I don’t think I want to know.”
            He laughed and put an arm around my shoulders.  “Then I won’t tell you.  Come on.  Let’s see about fear fiach and his penchant for getting himself hurt.”
            I nodded and headed with him back into camp.