Page 48 of Truly Madly Magically

Leaving us alone with a baby we can expect to meet in March. That seems far away to me tonight. Far, far away, on the other side of ascension. Far off in a future we somehow have to save.

For her, if nothing else.

I look over at Zander. He’s staring at the picture. His hand is still in mine, and he looks as awed as I feel. The only reason I look away is I hear a shuffle.

Down at the end of my bed, Elizabeth and Zachariah are standing there. Right next to each other, but even more astonishing, Zachariah has his hands wrapped around Elizabeth’s shoulders. I almost comment on how this baby really must be magic—

But I see a strangely sparkly tear slide down Elizabeth’s cheek. Then she poofs. Not gone, I don’t think. Just out of here.

“We couldn’t have children,” Zachariah says softly in the wake of her departure. He sounds as if these words hurt him. “A curse from her parents, as a wedding gift.”

Then he, too, disappears.

Leaving Zander and me to hold on tight to each other, and the part of me that isn’t cursed, after all.

13

ZANDER IS STILL holding my hand. Or, I guess, I’m holding his. Clutching it tight.

“We Goods do love a curse,” I mutter, frustrated with these things, these family legacies, that do little more than hurt. When they’re meant to. When they’re not.

Zander looks at me then, and I’m not sure what I see on his face. It’s a little too naked. And serious. Maybe I can fight off a Joywood poison, twice, but that doesn’t mean I can also manage to handle whatever this is between us any better than I ever have.

I look down at the picture in my hand instead. Our daughter. A Good. A Rivers. A mix of us, and all of our ancestors and histories, and the great big mess Zander and I have made of loving each other and hating each other for most of our lives.

But there are bigger issues than this endless tangle we’ve made.

I tell myself it’s not a relief to focus on said bigger things, but I don’t dare try to say that out loud. “They want me to die,” I say instead. Because that’s clear now, like it or not. I’m the one with the target on my back, and I have been since Beltane.

So it isn’t solely about the baby. Or Zander.

He plays with my fingers the way he did when we held hands often, and I pretend I don’t want to melt into it the way I always did then. “I think they’d be happiest if we all did, but they need to make sure they win over the public. That was the whole Litha deal, right? They need the people who support us to think we lost, fair and square. Or they can’t do whatever it is they want.”

I shake my head. “Immortality, Frost says.”

Zander makes a noise of agreement, and I keep staring at the picture of the baby growing inside of me. The one I’ve got to survive ascension to meet. That means we have to understand more than we do right now. We have to fight harder than ever.

I guess I’ve proved twice already that I’m a lot tougher than they assume I am. “They think I’m the weak link. That’s why they’re targeting me.”

“Think being the operative word. It isn’t true if you were strong enough to fight their poison off. Twice.”

I open my mouth to say something. Probably something stupid, like he should prepare for disappointment. But Zander steamrollers on, and even though I can tell he’s pissed—it’s flashing in his eyes, vibrating inside of him—he’s quiet when he speaks. Calm.

Like somehow, while I wasn’t looking, he went and got mature.

“You’re stronger than my mother, Ellowyn.” He’s quiet, sure, but his voice is rough. “If you want to play the poor little half witch card, don’t do it around me anymore.”

I want to be incensed at that, but how can I be when it’s about Zelda? And he isn’t even wrong. I fought off that terrible poison two separate times, because I’m half a witch.

Not despite the human blood in me. Because of it.

Maybe this is what Elizabeth meant when she called me special.

I turn in the bed to look at Zander. “Even if there are risks, I have to do the ritual Jacob talked about. I have to do whatever I can to help all those other Summoners.”

He lets out a short sound that would be a laugh if it didn’t sound so unamused. “Like hell.”

“I trust Jacob, and so do you. He wouldn’t bring it up if it wasn’t important. Imperative, even.”

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