Page 73 of The Water Witch (Fairwick Chronicles 2)

TWENTY-SEVEN

Rising as one, the Grove members began to file out. The IMP board members got up more slowly, but they too left the room, avoiding looking at Liz, who remained in her seat. Soheila got up and started walking toward Liz and me. At the same time, Frank turned around from the slide screen and started toward her, his arms out as though to grab hold of her.

“Soheila, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know…”

She held up her hands. I think she only meant to ward off Frank’s apologies and to keep him from touching her—maybe she was afraid of what effect her touch might have on him in her highly emotional state—but the motion caused a gust of wind that blew him backward. He hit the wall, his arms splayed out to steady himself, in a pose eerily like the twisted limbs of the murdered fisherman. Soheila made a sound like a wounded bird and fled the room. With a pained look on his face, Frank watched her go and then addressed himself to Liz. “I had no idea that the information I was collecting would be used by the Grove. It looks to me like IMP has been compromised by the Grove.”

Liz nodded. “We’re in agreement there,” she said. “I don’t understand how they can turn their backs on the fey. Even Loomis Pagan and Talbot Greeley have turned on their own kind.”

I filled Frank in on what I’d learned from Jen Davies about the club in London that the Grove had joined forces with.

“The Seraphim Club?” he repeated. “I’ve heard something about them…” His voice drifted off. He was staring at me, his eyes narrowed. “Whatdidhappen to your face, McFay?”

“Oh,” I said, embarrassed. “It’s a long story—” Before I could finish he stepped closer and put his hand up against my face, but the wards on my skin sizzled and popped. He kept his hand there, though, even though the wards were beginning to smoke and I smelled singed flesh.

“Frank, don’t!” I grabbed his hand and pushed it away. He looked at me, then down at his hand. The coils had been seared into his flesh. He nodded once, as if what he saw confirmed something he’d long suspected. Then he turned and left without another word.

Liz’s face sagged. She seemed to have aged a decade in the hour we’d been inside this room. I was afraid she was going to cry, but instead she asked the last question I wanted to hear. “Can you stop them from closing the door?”

“Yes,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “I read in Wheelock that there’s a way for a doorkeeper to create a bond with the door to keep it open.”

“I’ve read that footnote in Wheelock,” Liz said, “but only a doorkeeper can access the spell.” Her face looked troubled. “I’ve also heard that doorkeepers have died in the attempt to prevent a door from closing.”

“It won’t come to that,” I told Liz.

She held my gaze for a moment, then nodded. “Let’s hope not.”

•••

I walked quickly across the campus, my anger at the Grove pumping in my veins. They had tricked and manipulated us. Clearly they had gotten to some of the IMP board members and influenced their votes. The others had been swayed by those awful pictures of undine attacks. The Grove was using fear and prejudice to control us. Well, I wouldn’t be controlled. I was the doorkeeper. There had to be a way I could keep the door open, despite the Grove’s intention to close it—and the answer was in Wheelock.

When I reached my house I opened my briefcase and took out the spellbook. Standing on the porch I opened to the marked section, reread the footnote, and then depressed the magical icon. Instead of pages filling with text as had happened before, I felt a sharp stabbing pain in my right eye, as if a hot cinder had blown into it. I blinked and a red film covered my vision. It took a moment to realize that words were imprinted on the film and that they were scrolling across my vision.

In order for a doorkeeper to gain complete dominion over a door to Faerie and prevent others from closing it she may cast a correlative spell that links her own person to the door. This can be accomplished by spilling a drop of her blood on the threshold of the door. Once the bond is established she only has to repeat the wordsQuam cor mea aperit, tam ianua aperit(“Just as my heart opens, so the door opens”) in order to cancel out any opposing closing spells. The best time to perform this ritual is at dusk on the eve of the summer solstice.

“Eureka!” I said aloud, blinking my eyes three times. The wordsThere is one caution…flashed as I blinked but then began to fade.Shoot!Blinking three times was probably the way to end the transmission. Never mind, I thought, I knew enough to make the bond. It was nearly dusk now. I had to goto the door right now to establish the bond before tomorrow morning.

Without bothering to change out of my suit and pumps, I took off into the woods, walking as fast as I could in heels to the clearing where the door to Faerie stood. As rushed as I was, I ground to a halt when I reached the edge of the clearing. I’d stood here before in the middle of winter and thought it was magical when glazed with ice and snow, but I’d never seen it before in full summer, on the eve of the summer solstice. The trees were draped with honeysuckle vines in full bloom, their white and yellow blossoms filling the air with sweet honeyed scent. The vines had twisted themselves into an arch directly across from me. Heavy wisteria blooms hung over the arch like a fringed curtain. The air inside the arch shimmered like the skin of a soap bubble. I approached it warily, feeling my resolve waver with the undulating colors. I was going to bond myself tothis, I thought, a portal to another world? I was already a mess of conflicting desires. What would it do to me to connect myself to an unstable, volatile entity?

Perhaps I should have read that caution in Wheelock.

But I’d left the book behind and I didn’t have time to go back. It was dusk. The Grove was closing the door tomorrow. Clearly they thought they could. This might be the only way to stop them.

I moved closer until I was inches from the door. The transparent film pulsed as if sensing my presence. Weren’t we already connected? I stretched out my hand and held it up to the surface of the door, palm out. The film swirled, forming a pattern like the one I’d seen on Skald’s phone. Yes, this was my fate. Whatever it did to me, I had to forge this bond.

Still holding one hand up to the door I unpinned the luckenbooth brooch from my jacket. Its design of two hearts seemed fitting for a spell that linked my heart to the door. Ipricked my finger with the pin, squeezed it until a drop of blood welled up, then turned my hand over to let the drop fall on the threshold of the door.

“Quam cor mea aperit,”I said,“tam ianua aperit.”

The transparent pattern swirled into a spiral. As it moved, I felt a tugging sensation in my chest. Yes, wewereconnected, for better or for worse.Like a marriage, I thought wryly, looking down at my hand. The drop of blood reminded me of Bill drawing out the splinter. I suddenly wished he were here to cradle my hand in his…

But that was silly. It wasn’t as if I was really injured—just bound to an ephemeral ancient gateway. I turned and walked back to my house. It began to rain again, but the trees were so thick that the raindrops barely touched me. I could hear them, though, rustling through the high branches. When I looked up, I saw a shadow moving through the branches.

A shadow? In the pouring rain?

A branch cracked overhead, the sound loud as gunfire in the rain, and I took off toward my house. Something burst out of the trees above me, but I was too frightened to turn around and look up. I sprinted across my lawn, up the porch steps, and onto the shelter of my porch. My hands were wet and shaking as I dug in my pocket for my keys. I’d just found them when I felt a hand on my back.

I whirled around, the point of the house key gripped between my fingers ready to stab the intruder…and looked up into Duncan’s blue eyes.

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