Keepers of the Flame (9 page)

Elizabeth
wanted to see. She drew away from Bri, straightening in her chair and Bri let
her go. Both of them back on an emotional keel.

Alexa
cleared her throat loudly, stared at the cooler once more. “Anything perishable
in there?”

Bri
met Elizabeth’s eyes.
The fruit salad. You handle this. You’ve always been
better at negotiations, at haggling in the local markets, than me.

“Fruit
salad,” Elizabeth said. “Leftovers from our father’s birthday party. Melon,
papaya, grapes, kiwi, pineapple…” She waved.

Bri
strolled over to the cooler, opened it and took out a big plastic-wrapped bowl.
She blinked rapidly. “Mom’s bowl,” she said, placing it on the table and
removing the clingwrap.

“Wedgwood,”
Marian murmured.

“A
special celebration,” Elizabeth said.

“Well,
the fruit won’t keep,” Bri said. She dished servings out to everyone.

Alexa
sat, took a bite and hummed in pleasure. She scooped a portion of Bastien’s off
his plate, swallowed and said, “You really shouldn’t eat this. You might
develop a taste for it, then where would we be? Not sure any of this grows
here.”

“Grapes
do,” he said, and left them on Alexa’s plate as he took more back, and they all
dug into the food.

As
soon as she took her last bite, Alexa stared at the cooler again, licking her
lips. “Two sacks of spuds, white and red. Pretty big cooler. What else is in
it?”

Bri
wiped her hands on a napkin and went back to the chest. She lifted the
plastic-wrapped casserole out and set it aside.

“Oh,
man. Oh, man,” Alexa breathed. “Is that what I think it is? Potato casserole?”

“With
sour cream and onions and loads of cheese,” Bri returned sweetly.

Alexa’s
moan was nearly orgasmic. Bastien’s eyes gleamed. “I know my woman and her
tastes. Whatever that is, it is wonderful.”

“That
can go pretty bad if not eaten quickly, too. Probably really excellent for
breakfast,” Alexa pointed out.

“Yes,”
Elizabeth said. She lifted her brows. “There’s no refrigeration available?”

Marrec
said, “There is a keep-cold twiddle-spell and we have ice.”

Jaquar
said, “We can bespell the cooler free of charge.”

Bri
said lightly, “Then we might invite you to eat the casserole with us at a later
time. You have to talk to Elizabeth about that. It’s her cooler.” Then Bri
lifted out the large dome-covered plate. She smiled, cocked an eyebrow at
Elizabeth. “Chocolate cake with vanilla frosting.”

The
words caused a lengthy silence. All the women’s gazes locked on the plate. The
three once-Earth-now-Lladranan women nearly quivered.

“I
know this choc-lat.” Marrec rolled the word on his tongue. “It is good.”

“Damn
right,” Bri said. “Homemade birthday cake.
Now
we’ll talk about
returning to Denver.”

7

E
lizabeth waited
for reactions. Marian sighed, shared a glance with the other women. Alexa
dabbed at her lips with a napkin, folded it and stood. “We always go through
this.” She cleared her throat, looked tentative. “I don’t want to step on toes,
I only want to understand.” Her chin lifted. “I didn’t have much to go back to,
so I settled here after the initial shock. Lladrana’s been good to me.”

Elizabeth
felt her eyes widen. Bri’s mouth fell open. The woman had a long scar on her
cheek. She’d said she fought monsters every week.

Bastien
snorted, stood and stepped behind Alexa, wrapping his arms around her. His gaze
was fierce. “She is beloved. She has a good estate, wealth which she did not
have on Exotique Terre. She is,” he glanced at Marian and Calli, “you all are,
the crème de la crème.”

“We’ve
found our places in life.” Calli went to stand beside Alexa, took her hand. “I
hadn’t planned on going back with the Snap, either, not after I bonded with
Marrec, and certainly not after we adopted our child, children.” She smiled
softly at her man. He lifted a shoulder and moved to hold her like Bastien held
Alexa.

Alexa
angled her chin at Marian. “That one was the one who kept saying she had to go
back.”

“For
Andrew, my brother with multiple sclerosis. And I did.”

“But
you’re here,” Bri said.

“I
brought him back with me. And he’s still here. After a fashion.”

Cold
curled inside Elizabeth. She kept her voice mild. “After a fashion?”

Alexa
grinned. “Since you’re both medicas you’ll be interested. His mind and, um,
soul—” she glanced at Marian, who nodded “—were transferred to a Lladranan
body.”

Wow!
Bri’s thought
echoed Elizabeth’s.
Incredible.
Bri said, “I’m not a medical doctor.
Elizabeth is.”

Marian
raised her eyebrows, obviously back to normal. “We saw you save last night.”

“She
has a unique gift of healing hands,” Elizabeth murmured.

Blinking
at Bri, Marian said, “So I would postulate that you studied alternative
medicine. As I studied New Age subjects.” She crossed to the other side of
Alexa, and still watching the twins, held out her hand. Alexa took it. Jaquar
strolled behind her to stand with the other men, rested his hands on Marian’s
hips.

“Choose
an end,” Alexa challenged with a smile. “You’re supposed to be here.” Then her
humor faded. “Bottom line, we need you. We’re sure the Dark is sending this
disease somehow and we need you to find a cure.”

Elizabeth
shook her head. “It isn’t that easy.”

“We
know it isn’t,” Marrec said, his accent thick. “None of the Exotiques’ tasks
were easy. But they prevailed.”

“We’re
sorry for your problems, but we have loving parents who will miss us in two
weeks,” Bri said, lowering the cake back into the cooler.

At
that moment a long lilting strum came from the door. “Sevair Masif here,” said
the deep voice of the city man.

Alexa
hurried to answer, obviously glad of the interruption. “He’s been very patient,
but he’s waiting for you two. The City and Towns were the ones who Summoned
you.”

Marian
and Jaquar did a little chant and the dishes and cutlery cleaned themselves and
were stacked on the table. Elizabeth and Bri watched wide-eyed, then Bri
hurried to put the casserole back into the chest and set the top back on it.
She smiled. “Plenty of ice.”

“Bri,
you can’t go out looking like that!” Jaquar sounded shocked.

All
the women looked at him.

Marian
said, “I would never have thought you to be a prude.”

He
glanced at the other men as if for support. Bastien smiled blandly and replied
in simple Lladranan that Elizabeth was beginning to understand, “She looks
wonderful.”

Marrec
leaned on the sofa and said in accented English, “I was in Co-lo-ra-do. In the
summer. I saw bare legs.” He smiled reminiscently.

Calli
blinked at him. “Oh, yes, I left you in the park when I went to the bank.”

Bri
said, “Before I was in Denver, I was in Sweden, before that, Spain. But I’ve
traveled a lot, I should have realized.” Now she smiled at the women, not
nicely. “Can you do an instant clean on my clothes? The blouse is silk. Or do
you have clothes for at least one of us?”

“Yes,”
said Marian drawing herself up.

“Yes,
what?” asked Bri.

Marian
withdrew a finger-length stick from her pocket and with a flick of her wrist it
turned into a wand. She pointed it at Elizabeth. A hot breeze hit her, rippled
over her, shaking her clothes and leaving them with a fresh scent. Her panties
had dried. But Elizabeth wasn’t too sure about the efficacy of magical clothes
washing.

“Both,”
Marian said. “I can cleanse your clothes, even while they’re on you, and we
have clothes for you. Both of you.” She went into the bedroom and came back
with two robes of dark red with white crosses on them. Medica tunics, one knee
length, the other mid-calf. The shorter one buttoned tight around the wrist for
several inches, so the sleeves didn’t get in the way of anything. The longer
one had wider sleeves that came to the elbow.

Another
heavy ripple of noise came from the door, obviously impatient. The knob turned
and Sevair Masif strode in, followed by a hesitant person wearing the shorter
medica robe.

“What
is taking so long?” The tone more than his words held meaning. He stopped and
stared at Bri. Blinked. Swallowed. A hint of red came to his cheeks. Bri sent
him a grin, then slipped the tunic over her head and wiggled into it. The robe
fell past her knees and she looked—marginally—like the other medica. Since the
tight lower sleeves didn’t fit well over the thinner silk shirt, Bri rolled up
the red sleeves and let the white show. It was a very
Bri
look: casual,
rakish, elegant. Proclaiming to all that she leaned toward New Age. Elizabeth
couldn’t imagine Bri in a proper nurse’s uniform. Meanwhile the medica was
eyeing Bri’s style.

Elizabeth
wasn’t about to add to the show. She looked at the remaining heavier robe with
short sleeves. “Not one for each of us at all,” she said. “Two different
robes.”

“One
for each of you,” Marian said easily, “but in the two different styles that the
medicas wear. This one is for traveling.”

Bri
took the long tunic, and tossed it over Elizabeth’s head before she could
protest, pulling it down over her Earth shirt and slacks, twitching it so it
fell smoothly. The hem was long but the sides were cut high for easy movement.

Bri
hummed in approval. “Looks good.”

Elizabeth
had worn a cream-colored silk shirt and dark blue slacks to their father’s
birthday party while Bri had worn stylish jeans and a turquoise shirt.

“It
suits both of you,” Alexa said.

“
Prie
introd moi
,” said Sevair.

“This
is Sevair Masif, a City and Townmaster, a stonemason and excellent architect of
Castleton,” Marian said.

He
bowed. “Call me Sevair,” he said. Those were the last words Elizabeth
understood of the long stream of sentences, except that the gist was splitting
her and Bri up. One for the Castle medicas and one for the City? When she
glanced at the medica, she had her hands folded at her waist and was nodding.

As
soon as he finished, the medica launched into speech before Elizabeth could ask
for a translation. The woman tapped her chest, gestured to the whole Castle,
was impassioned. Elizabeth thought she spoke of facilities and training, or an
exchange of training, while the man had spoken of need and duty.

The
medica paused for a breath and Marian interrupted. “You’re not understanding
much of this, are you?”

Bri
said, “I lived in Cannes for two years and Elizabeth studied French and visited
me.”

“But
it’s not quite French, is it?” Marian said.

Everyone
stared at them.

Bri
looked at Sevair and the medica, inclined her head, and said. “
Je ne
comprehends pas.”

The
medica sighed, looked at Marian.

“Just
a drop of language potion,” Jaquar wheedled, drawing a tiny bottle from a
pocket of his robe. It sparkled. “A drop would let you test it for a couple of
hours.” He flashed a “Trust me, baby,” smile. “You’d be able to speak and
understand Lladranan well.”

Elizabeth
decided to let Bri handle this and kept her mouth shut.

Bri
said, “How many medicas are there?”

“Five
here at the Castle,” Alexa said, “the best in the country. The Marshalls can
form a healing circle, too.” She shifted, appearing disgruntled. “Though none
of us have been able to cure those with the sickness, like you did.”

“They
are
the Exotique Medicas,” Calli said. “They will have skills that the
rest of us don’t. Like I can speak with the volarans, or you can handle that
baton.”

Jaquar
had strolled over to Bri, lifting a small cork from the bottle. Blinking, Bri
could see that the pale lavender liquid inside sparkled a little, even in the
tendrils that rose from the bottle. Really odd.

Jaquar
waved it under her nose. It smelled
wonderful
, floral, like all the
spring blossoms of a tree. She wanted another sniff, but since it was more like
a craving, decided against it.

“Say
something, Sevair,” Jaquar ordered—and it wasn’t in English, but sounded
perfectly clear and not the mangled French Bri had had to concentrate to
untangle.

“We,”
Sevair gestured to the medica behind him, “have come to discuss matters. Since
there are two Exotique medicas, it is only reasonable one stay here at the
Castle and one come with me to Castleton.” Though he sounded as if he was
reporting a compromise that didn’t please.

“Split
us up!” Bri said, and realized she was speaking French—sort of.

The
line between Sevair’s brows dug deeper as if
he
tried to understand what
she said.