Page 63 of Crossroads Magic
Broch weighed up my words with a serious expression. “Tell me.” His voice was deep, stroking my mind.
And I found myself blurting it all out. The weirdness of my day since stepping outside to drop the scraps on the side of the greenway. The strange things that had happened to me earlier.
The stag. Ghaliya’s pregnancy. It all came tumbling out like water over a cliff, unstoppable.
While I was speaking, Hirom slid a half-full glass of his best whisky in front of me and went away.
When I ran out of words—and it took a while—I finally picked up the whisky and drank deeply. It burned all the way down and was exactly what I needed to help pull me back to normal.
Broch remained silent, deep in thought.
“You can tell me I’m being stupid,” I told him. “I need a truthful perspective right now.”
“Truth is slippery,” Broch replied, his voice remote. His gaze came back to me. “You prefer to deal in absolutes. What you think of as the truth. Yes?”
“Yes!” I said fervently. “It just makes life easier if everyone is up front.”
“So why are you denying the truth now?”
“Excuse me?”
Broch gave me a small smile. “You have been in Haigton Crossing for four days, yes?”
“This is my fourth day.”
“And up until now, you thought you were dealing with straight forward, truthful people. Now you have learned that actually, you weren’t dealing with the truth at all. Now youhavelearned the truth, and that makes you unhappy. Yet you say you prefer to deal with the truth.” His smile flashed again. “You can’t have it both ways, Anna.”
“But…even Benedict said that magic is just a label for things that aren’t possible.”
“Not possible for the average person. But you are not average. Neither is anyone in Haigton Crossing. Nor is your daughter.”
“But…”
“You watched grass grow. You’ve seen dryads. Trevalyan knew about Ghaliya’s child. How much more proof do you need before you accept what you have been told?”
I let out my breath in a heavy exhalation and just stared at him, trying to find an answer to that.
Broch sat back in the chair and crossed his legs. “Actually Haginton Crossing is quite a normal place.”
I laughed.
“It is,” he insisted. “But it only seems that way once you have accepted that ‘normal’ is different from the normal you were used to. It’s just a matter of adjustment.” He winced as a stray beam of sunlight speared him in the eyes, and shifted so the light wasn’t directly in his eyes. “You’ll get used to it,” he added.
The light moved. I watched the bright dot of light move over his shoulder and up to his eyes once more.
He hissed and raised his hand to shield his eyes. “Damn the woman…” he muttered.
“What woman?” I asked, looking out the window. I saw Harper standing on the sidewalk, a pair of sunglasses in her hands. She was reflecting sunlight directly into Broch’s eyes. The smile on her face looked odd. I hadn’t seen her anything but angry since I had met her, but she was clearly enjoying herself now.
“Why is she doing that?”
“Because she can’t cut off my head,” Broch replied. He waved violently at Harper through the window. She laughed and put the sunglasses on, and moved down the pavement and out of sight.
“Cut off…?” I stared at him. “Why would she want to do that?”
“In her world view, I am still an enemy to hunt,” Broch replied. “But Haigton is neutral territory. No enemies can touch each other. The natural laws forbid it.” He lowered his hand. “Which is just as well, because my kind has far too many enemies.”
“Your kind?” My heart picked up speed. “You are not…human?”
