Black dawn (34 page)

As long as her
soulmate
was alive, and they were
together, she would be all right.

Then she noticed that P.J. was pressed up against
her, too, and she let go of
Delos
to put one arm
around the small shaking body.

"You okay, kiddo?" she whispered.

P.J. sniffed.
"Yeah.
I am, now. It's been pretty
scary, but I'm glad it's over."

"And you know," Jeanne said, looking down at
Sylvia with her hands on her hips, "that's how I
want to go. Taking my own way out ... and totally pissing everybody off at the end."

Maggie glanced up, startled, and choked. Then
she gurgled. Then she shook her head, and knew
that her crying spell was over. "I don't even know why I'm like this about her. She wasn't a nice person. I wanted to kill her myself."

"She was a person,"
Delos
said.

Which, Maggie decided, was about the best summing-up anybody could provide.

She realized that Jeanne and Laundress and
Delos
were looking at her intently, and that
Ara
dia's
face was turned her way.

"Well?" Jeanne said.
"Do
you know? Which ani
mal your brother is?"

"Oh,"
Maggie said. "I think so."

She looked at
Delos
. "Do you happen to know
what the name Gavin means?
For a
shapeshifter
?
Does it mean falcon?"

His black-lashed golden eyes met hers.
"Hawk or
falcon.
Yes."

Warm pleasure filled Maggie.

"Then I know," she said simply. She stood up, and
Delos
came with her as if he belonged by her. "How can we find the falcon she had with her that
first day we met? When you were out with the
hunting party?"

"It should be in the mews,"
Delos
said.

A fascinated crowd gathered behind them as they
went. Maggie recognized Old Mender, smiling and
cackling, and Soaker, not looking frightened any
more, and Chamber-pot
Emptier ...

"We really need to get you guys some new
names," she muttered. "Can you just pick one or
something?"

The big girl with the moon face and the gentle
eyes smiled at her shyly. "I heard of a noble named
Hortense
once.
. . ."

"That's good," Maggie said, after just the slightest
pause. "Yeah, that's great. I mean, comparatively."

They reached the mews, which was a dark little
room near the stable, with perches all over the
walls. The falcons were upset and distracted, and the air was full of flapping wings. They all looked
alike to Maggie.

"It would be a new bird,"
Delos
said. "I think
maybe that one. Is the falconer here?"

While everyone milled around looking for him, Jeanne edged close to Maggie.

"What I want to know is how you know. How did
you even know Gavin was a
shapeshifter
at all?"

"I didn't-but it was sort of logical. After all,
Bern
was one. They both seemed to have the same kind of senses. And
Aradia
said that Sylvia took care of Miles down at her apartment, and
Bern
and Gavin
were both there. So it seemed natural that maybe
she made one of them pass the curse along to
Miles."

'But why did you figure Gavin was
a falcon?"

"I don't know," Maggie said slowly. "I just
well,
he looked a little bit like one.
Sort of thin and
golden.
But it was more things that happened-he
got away from
Delos
and over to the hunting party too fast to have gone by ground.
I didn't really think about it much then, but it must have stuck
at the back of my mind."

Jeanne gave her a narrow sideways glance. "Still
doesn't sound like enough."

"No-but mostly, it was that
Miles
just had to be
a falcon. It had to be something small-Sylvia
would hardly be carrying a pig
or
a tiger or a bear
around with her up the mountain. And I saw her
with a falcon that first day. It was something she
could
keep near her, something that she could con
trol.
Something that was an-accessory.
It just all
made sense."

Jeanne made a sound like
hmph
.
"I still don't
think you're a rocket scientist. I think you lucked
out
"

Maggie turned as the crowd brought a little man
with a lean, shrewd face to her-Falconer. "Well,
we don't know yet," she murmured fervently. "But
I sure hope so."

"

The little man held up a bird. "This is the new
one. Lady Sylvia said never to take the green band
off his leg-but I've got a knife. Would you like to
do it?"

Maggie held her breath. She tried to keep her
hand steady as
she carefully cut through the emer
ald green leather band, but her fingers trembled.

The leather tie fell free-and for a moment hex
heart stood still, because nothing happened.

And then she saw it. The rippling change
as
the
bird's wings outstretched and thickened and the
feathers merged and swam
...
and then Falconer
was moving back, and a human form was taking
shape
... .

And then Miles was standing there, with his au
burn hair shining red gold and his handsome,
wicked smile

He gave her the thumbs-up sign.

"Hey, I knew you would rescue me. What are
little sisters for?" he said-and then Maggie was in
his arms.

It seemed a long time later that all the hugging and crying and explaining
was
done. The slaves
the ex-slaves, Maggie corrected
herself-
had begun
to gather and organize themselves and make plans.
Delos
and
Aradia
had sent various messengers out
of the valley.

There were still things to be settled-months' and
years' worth of things. And Maggie knew that life
would never be the same for her again. She would never be a normal schoolgirl.

Her brother was a
shapeshifter
-well, at least it
was a form he could enjoy, she thought wryly. He
was already talking to Jeanne about a new way of
getting to the summits of mountains-with wings.

Her
soulmate
was a Wild Power.
Aradia
had al
ready told her what that meant. It meant that they
would have to be protected by the witches and Cir
cle Daybreak until the time of darkness came and
Delos
was needed, so that the Night World didn't
kill them. And even if they survived until the final battle
...
it was going to be a tough one.

Plus, she herself had changed forever. She felt
she owed something to the people of the valley,
who were still calling her the Deliverer. She would
have to try to help them adjust to the Outside
world. Her fate would be intertwined with theirs
all her life.

But just now, everybody was
talking
about get
ting some food.

"Come into the castle-all of you,"
Delos
said
simply.

He took Maggie's arm and started toward it. Just
then P.J. pointed to the sky, and there was an awed
murmur from the crowd.

"The sun!"

It was true. Maggie looked up and was dazzled.
In the smooth, pearly sky of the
Dark
Kingdom
, in
exactly the place where the blue fire had flashed
from the earth, there was a little clearing in the
clouds.
The sun was shining through, chasing away
the mist, turning the trees in the surrounding hills
emerald green.