Page 67 of The Water Witch (Fairwick Chronicles 2)

TWENTY-FIVE

Today?” I cried, touching the marks on my face. “But we need more time!” I still had to study the spell in Wheelock and I needed time for the loosened wards inside me to dissolve.

“Well, we don’t have it,” Liz said briskly, glancing at her watch. “I should be there already. Ann and I will go ahead and let Soheila help you with those scratches. You can’t go looking like that.”

Liz got to her feet and smoothed her skirt. I noticed now that she was dressed in her best tweed Chanel suit, ready to face her opponents in pearls and vintage couture. “This schedule change is meant to unnerve us. We mustn’t let it.”

Liz and Ann went on ahead while Soheila stayed behind to help me apply makeup over the marks on my face. She used a touch of Aelvesgold and said a spell that she told me her sisters used to cover wrinkles. “Better than Botox,” she assured me.

I dressed carefully in my best interview suit. For luck, I pinned on a brooch my father had given me. It was fashioned out of two interlocking hearts—a Scottish design called a luckenbooth brooch. Downstairs, I tossed Wheelock in myleather briefcase. When Soheila gave me a look, I told her about the footnote.

“If the icon has a door on it, that means only a doorkeeper can read the spell,” she said. “Be careful, though. Those correlative spells can be very dangerous.”

So everyone kept telling me.

We walked together to Beckwith Hall, where the meeting was being held. It had stopped raining. The day had turned muggy and hot, the air holding a sultry threat of another downpour.

“There’s something I don’t understand,” I said as we walked. “If Duncan is really the incubus, why don’t I feel more attracted to him? Whenever he tried to kiss me, I pushed him away.”

“Hm.” Soheila tilted her head and looked at me, then touched her hand to my arm. “Maybe the wards are keeping him away.”

“They didn’t the first time,” I argued, “with Liam.”

Soheila shrugged and hugged her arms around herself. “Maybe you are becoming stronger. A strong human can resist the pull of an incubus.”

I told her then about the dreams.

“Oh,” she said, “but still, you resisted him in the flesh and…” She slanted her eyes toward me and the corner of her mouth tugged into a half smile. “You slept with someone else, didn’t you? That fellow Bill?”

I blushed, but there was no point lying to Soheila. “Yes. It sort of just happened. He was there after I was attacked and was so sweet.”

“It’s good you’ve moved on to someone else. It means you’re breaking the hold the incubus had on you. It’s better this way. There’s no future in a relationship between a human and one of his kind.”

I had a feeling we weren’t talking about me anymore. “Frank would miss you if you went, Soheila. We all would, but Frank most of all.”

Soheila nodded, her face a mask of pain. “I’d miss him, too,” she admitted. “But it’s because of him I must go. If I were trapped here without access to Aelvesgold eventually I would be driven to feed on humans. If I ever hurt him…” She shivered despite the warmth of the day. “I’d never forgive myself.”

She forced a grim smile and squeezed my arm. As she turned to continue walking, I wondered if that’s how Duncan had felt after he struck me—and if that’s why he ran away.

We found a small gathering outside the lecture hall. The only sign indicating the event readSYMPOSIUM ON THE DIALOGUE OF DISCOURSE DETERMINED BY THE DEBATABLE DEXTERITY OF DYNAMIC DISSENT. No doubt it was boring and intimidating (not to mention alliterative) enough to drive away any laypeople. Caspar Van der Aart from earth sciences was talking to Joan Ryan from chemistry, and also some people from town—Dory Browne and two of her cousins and the guy who ran the Greek restaurant, whom I always suspected might be a satyr. I noticed a number of the witches from the circle—Moondance and Leon Botwin and Tara Cohen-Miller—talking among themselves. When they saw us they stopped talking abruptly, as if they’d been talking about us. Moondance, wearing a T-shirt that readI BELIEVE IN FAIRIES, approached us.

“We heard the meeting had been moved up and wanted to show our support, but they’re not letting us in. They say it’s private. I say if this meeting is going to determine the fate of our friends and neighbors, we should be allowed to attend.”

“I agree completely,” I said, glad for once to be on the right side of her belligerence. “Let’s see what we can do.”

One of Adelaide’s blond minions was stationed just inside the door to the lecture hall. Soheila strode toward him, but the second her toe crossed the threshold she shrieked and fell to the floor. I knelt quickly beside her to see what was wrong…and recoiled in shock. Her arm was spidered with a pattern like tree branches. As I watched they broke through her skin and wrapped themselves around her slender forearm and wrist, growing thicker and rougher. Bark formed over their surface and leaves sprouted. A tree branch was growing out of Soheila’s arm. I reached forward and touched it gingerly. Soheila winced.

“My God, that’s horrible. How can we get rid of it?” I looked up at the impassive face of the fair-haired man.

“The branch will recede in a few minutes as long as she doesn’t commit any more infractions,” he said.

“She only tried to walk through a door—a door onourcampus! She works here, for heaven’s sake! This is outrageous!”

“We sent an email out this morning specifying that no demons would be allowed in the meeting, unless specifically summoned. We can’t have them influencing the proceedings.”

“And yet the proceedings will decide our fate,” a gruff voice called out from the circle of onlookers. Recognizing it, I got up from Soheila’s side and eagerly peered through the crowd as it parted to let one large, flannel-shirted man through.

“Brock!” I cried, so glad to see him up and looking well that I threw my arms around him. A red welt appeared on his face, always a sign he was embarrassed. I unwound my arms from him and stepped back. Brock gave me a wistful smile, but when he raised his head to look at the fair-haired guard,an ugly red stain spread across his face and his brows knitted together. “My family has lived in Fairwick for more than a hundred years. You can’t force us to leave.”

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