Page 31 of Which Witch is Willing?
But relief wasn’t at all what Moira was picking up. The emotional signature rolling off her sister in erratic waves wasn’t nearly so simple. It bled into the space around her like weeds in a swamp. When Moira tugged on one, several others came with it.
Sadness. Anger. Fear. Regret.
“But how could this be?” Tierra rocked forward on the couch, finally making it to her feet with Bane’s assistance. “The prophecy said—”
“Perhaps we were a little hasty in our original interpretation of the prophecy.” Julian, far too polite to glance at Tierra directly, cut his eyes toward the well-preserved leather-bound book on the coffee table instead. The volume of Paladin’s Planetary Magic that their father, Stian the Wanderer had brought through to their mother through the standing stones. “If you recall, it said the four born of one will conceive two children. It didn’t say when, precisely. Tierra is obviously the first. The question that remains is which of you will be the second.”
Icy fingers squeezed Moira’s chest as she swallowed around a lump in her throat roughly the size of a duck egg. “Are you sayin’ that in order to fulfill the prophecy, one of us is going to have to get knocked up willingly?”
Julian looked at her, his eyes full of the extra measure of kindness they’d brought to her ever since they had worked together to free Aerin of Lucy’s unholy dominion. “That, Miss Moira de Moray, is precisely what I’m saying.”
16
“Nope.” Aerin backed out of the circle, her palms up like she was trying to stop an oncoming train. “Nope, nope, nope. No babies. Not me. Not ever.”
“So you’re just arbitrarily deciding that it has to be me or Moira?” Some of Claire’s fire had leapt back into her amber eyes, flecks of gold sparking deep within their depths. “How is that fair?”
“I think the more important question is why does it have to be any of us?” Aerin had begun to pace, the color in her cheeks hectic and her silvery eyes wild. “Why are we making reproductive decisions based on the ramblings of some centuries-old fuckwit who uses ridiculously arcane and obscure terminology? I mean, four born of one and one good the other evil. I’m sorry, but no. Just. Fucking. No.”
“Regarding that part of the text, I have a thought.” Julian’s smooth, imminently sane diction lowered the room’s temperature by a couple degrees. “The medieval mindset was far more primitive in its understanding of the forces governing the universe. I would suggest we take a more enlightened approach. Rather than thinking of it in terms of good and evil, I think we could substitute light and dark. Entities neither good, nor bad, who will restore balance to the world.”
As he so often did, Julian paced the length of the room as he walked, that long body, elegant as an undertaker, making liquid work of the steps from one end to the other. His dark hair, threaded with silver at the temples, tied back into a queue so orderly its mere existence seemed to rebuke the chaos of the world around them.
“Call them entities, call them babies, call them crib lizards whose chief exports are misery and shit, but the point is, none of them is welcome here,” Aerin said gesturing toward her middle. Little hairs had escaped the tether of her bun, the sweat on her forehead making them coil up around her face like springs popping out of a broken watch.
Moira had to school a rogue smile away from her face.
Together, they’d faced down zombies, ghosts, apocalyptic Horsemen, and even the devil herself, but they’d just now stumbled ass-over teakettle into the thing that scared Aerin more than all of them combined.
Babies.
“Look, I ain’t especially crazy about the idea either,” Moira admitted. “I mean, if I wanted myself a, needy, immature boob-leech prone to temper tantrums, I could have soul-bonded myself to Nick.”
“I heard that,” Nick said.
Moira had been counting on it.
“Well if you aren’t crazy about the idea, then why are we even discussing it?” Aerin asked.
Moira walked over to the windowsill, which she’d cracked only minutes ago to allow in a blast of autumn air to cool the stuffy parlor. She dragged her hand across the surface then held it up for her sisters to see. “Look here.”
“So we’re not much for the housekeeping lately with everything going on.” Aerin shrugged. “I think we can be forgiven for that given the circumstances.”
“It’s ash.” Claire stared out into the middle distance, her eyes going wide and glazed. “Wildfires are eating up the coastline. I can feel them.” She hugged herself and shivered.
It was a feeling Moira understood all too well.
She’d known about the floods long before they’d made the news. She’d awoken to a feeling of dread the likes of which she’d never felt before. A sick tightening deep in her guts. A profound ache in her chest. Not because she felt the pain of all those who had been affected, but because she felt the deep yearnings of the element that it was her curse and blessing to bear.
The water wanted this.
The same way it wanted to break on the shore and spit curds of foam against the rocks. The same way it wanted to spin eddies and form currents. To babble over river rocks and glide over fish scales.
It wanted to wipe the planet’s surface clean.
To rinse everything clean away and start over.
And it would.
