Page 44 of The Water Witch (Fairwick Chronicles 2)

SIXTEEN

Ileft Liz’s office, relieved that I’d confessed my membership in the Grove and about the Aelvestone but more uneasy than ever about the threat the Grove posed to Fairwick and the horrible consequences if they were successful in closing the door. I couldn’t imagine not having Diana living across the street. If Liz chose to leave with her, what would become of the college? I’d just begun to feel at home in Fairwick, but what kind of home would it be if my friends left? As I left campus, I thought about ways of keeping the door open even if the Grove tried to close it. I mentally flipped through the spells I’d read in Wheelock yesterday. There had been spells to make someone fall in love or fall out of love, spells to make a baby or to keep from having a baby, spells to find something that had been lost or to hide something so no one would ever find it, spells to make money or cause an enemy misfortune. But nothing about keeping a door open. By the time I got home, the energy I had felt earlier had faded. Instead, I was headachy and tired.

When I opened the front door, a slip of paper that had been stuck in the doorframe came loose and drifted to the floor. Itwas a note from Bill. He’d fixed the missing tiles on the roof and tomorrow was going to start replastering the ceilings that had been damaged by the leaks. He’d noticed that my gutters needed cleaning and had taken care of that. As I looked around the foyer, I saw that he’d picked up the mail and put it neatly on the foyer table. Upstairs, I discovered that he’d swept up the plaster dust that had fallen from the ceilings and mopped the floors in the hall and my bedroom. I turned on the tap for the bathtub and discovered there was plenty of hot water.

While the bath was filling, I sat down at my desk and picked up Wheelock. I looked through the index for door-opening spells, but found only a ward to bar your door from intruders and a whole section on threshold gnomes that was fascinating (apparently their function as guardians went back to a treaty made in Prague in the fourteenth century), but that wasn’t helpful in keeping the door to Faerie open. Most of the spells about doors had to do with keeping people from coming through them, not keeping them open.

While I was flipping through the book I came across a section on correlative spells. There was something I’d been trying to remember about them last night when Duncan was explaining how to shapeshift. I reread the section carefully.

The most powerful—and dangerous—form of correlative magic is when a witch creates a bond between herself and the object or person she wishes to control…*

The sound of lapping water interrupted my reading. Crap! The bathtub was overflowing. That was all I needed after the water damage the house had already suffered. I rushed into the bathroom, turned off the tap, and unplugged the drain to let out some water. The water felt deliciously hot. I’d finish reading Wheelock later. I undressed and got into the tub, sinking gratefully up to the nape of my neck. I felt all the sorespots from last night’s run through the woods untensing. I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the cool porcelain rim of the tub.

There was something in that passage about correlative spells that could be useful…but I felt myself drifting, my body weightless in the warm water, a warmth that surrounded me like liquid sunshine…or like the fluid Aelvesgold that had wrapped around me when Liam and I had made love in Faerie. Behind my closed eyelids I summoned the image of Liam as he’d appeared to me there, his skin golden and glowing. I pictured him moving above me, the gold light limning his body, but leaving his face in shadow. I couldn’t quite bring his face into focus, but I felt his body stirring the liquid Aelvesgold between us and I remembered how the golden light had entered me before he had. Just as the warm water seemed to be moving over me now, caressing my breasts, stirring between my legs…I spread my legs to let the water inside me. I arched my hips and felt it move against me in a wave. A wave that had fingers and a mouth. I gasped as the water caressed me and the image of Liam, his face still in shadow, pressed his mouth against mine. My mouth was flooded with the hot, syrupy sweetness of his tongue. I drew it into me just as I drew in the wave of warmth between my legs. He rocked into me so hard, filling me so completely, that I sank beneath him. I would have gasped but his mouth was locked on mine, sucking my tongue, my lips, the very breath out of my lungs.

We were both sinking, our legs wrapped around each other, our mouths locked, our bodies rocking to the rhythm of the ocean’s tide. I opened my eyes and saw his hair spread out in a dark corona around his head, his aquamarine eyes staring wide into mine…

Liam didn’t have blue eyes. Who was this man? A fantasy? Or some creature made out of water and Aelvesgold fuckingme into a watery grave? I bit down on his lip and, startled, his head snapped back. Not Liam, but someone else I recognized. Duncan Laird. He smiled at me and opened his mouth…and a small crayfish crawled out.

I tried to scream but only sucked in water. I thrashed against Duncan—or the creature that had taken his face—but he only tightened his hold on me and pushed himself deeper inside me. Deeper than any man could go. The thing that was inside me wasn’t a man. It had a life of its own, snaking deep into my womb, and to my horror and dismay I was still rocking against it. Even as I struggled to get free, even as I knew I was drowning, I was still arching my hips again and again, meeting each thrust with a thrust of my own and finally, with a last push, I felt my limbs—and his—loosening in an orgasm that released shockwaves through the water…

…and brought me up into the air, gasping, clutching the rim of my tub, in my bathroom.

“What the hell?” I cried out in the echoing, tiled room. But I was alone. The floor was soaked with water, and the porcelain inside of the tub, when I ran my hand along it, was coated with gold glitter.

The worst thing, I decided after rubbing my skin raw with towels and drinking three cups of hot tea to get warm, was that it had been Duncan’s face in my drowning-by-sex dream. Because clearly there were only two possible reasons: either I was sexually attracted to him or he was trying to hurt me. I wasn’t sure which suspicion was more disturbing. I knew I should have been more disturbed by the thought that I’d imagined my tutor trying to drown me, but it actually bothered me more to think that I was attracted to him. Sure, he was handsome, but I’d just made love to Liam three days ago. How could I be attractedto someone else so soon? Even if I didn’t love Liam, he’d saved my life twice in Faerie. It seemed fickle—if not downright slutty—to be having dreams about Duncan after knowing him for less than twenty-four hours. Besides, I wasn’t sure Iwasattracted to him. I’d flinched when he’d touched me last night.

By the time Duncan knocked at my door, I was hopped up on caffeine and my skin was pink from the two extra showers I’d taken (I wouldn’t be taking any baths for a while). I was wearing jeans, a black turtleneck and a sweater, and I still felt cold. When I opened the door, though, and saw him—dressed in a body hugging black T-shirt and black jeans, the last evening light glancing off his high cheekbones and turning his blue eyes to aquamarine—I felt a surge of electrical sizzle inside. It must be attraction, I realized with dismay. Seeing someone who had tried to drown me wouldn’t make me go all warm and fuzzy.

My face mustn’t have looked so good to him.

“What happened?” he asked, his eyes locked on mine (the way his mouth had locked on mine…). He grasped my arm and pulled me closer. His touch, even through my sweater and turtleneck, stirred that fizzy current inside me. “You look…”

“Awful?” I asked weakly.

“No, actually you look amazing, like you’re lit up from inside. But you’re dressed for subarctic temperatures in June and you’re still shivering.”

“I am?” I held out my hand and saw that it was indeed trembling. But I didn’t feel cold anymore. I felt warm and tingly. I peeled off the sweater and stepped back to let him in. “This old house,” I said. “The temperature’s always fluctuating. You wouldn’t believe my heating bills last winter. Do youwant some tea? Or a glass of wine? Or Scotch? I think there’s still some scotch from when Liam lived here…”

I kept up a steady babble as I led him into the library to the cabinet where Liam had kept his scotch. There was an open bottle on the shelf. Duncan touched my hand as I reached for it and I flinched so hard I knocked over the bottle. He caught it before a drop could spill.

“Sit down,” he barked.

Startled by the force of his command, I sank down on the couch.

“Before you hurt yourself,” he added more gently. He brought the bottle and two glasses to the couch, placed them on the coffee table, and sat next to me. He poured an inch of the amber liquid into each glass. I watched, mesmerized by the way the liquid caught the light. No wonder Liam had always drunk scotch—it looked like liquid Aelvesgold.

“What’s wrong with me?” I asked as Duncan handed me the glass. My hand was shaking so badly I could hardly hold it. He wrapped his hand around mine and guided it to my mouth. I took a long sip. When I lowered the glass, my hand was steadier.

“Sometimes Aelvesgold has this effect on new witches. Tell me what happened.”

I told him about the dream, looking down into my glass the whole time, nervously swirling the scotch around the bottom. I told him I couldn’t see the man’s face.

“But you thought this man was your incubus…Liam?” he asked when I was done.

I gave the scotch a clockwise swirl. “Um, yes, at first…but then when I saw his face, it wasn’t him.” I took a sip in mid-swirl and got a mouthful.

“Did you recognize who it was?”

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