The Blood Keeper (The Blood Journals) (31 page)

Mab made a serious face. “If they promise not to charge at any of my spells again.”

“Hey, now,” I picked my way closer, and returned her look. “That wasn’t their fault. And besides”—I paused, standing just out of reach of her. I felt soft, suddenly—“all things considered, I’m pretty glad it happened.”

“Me too,” she said, a smile cracking through.

Having someone else atop my tower should have made it smaller, but instead it felt expansive and new again. I sat back against the trunk of the redbud, hugging my knees, while Will stretched out in the sun with his arms folded under his head. The crows joined us, settling into the tree and causing the bells to ring and the leaf shadows to shake. The patterns dappled across Will’s face and chest. I could see the shadow of the yellow-rose bruise, but it was nearly vanished.

Relief seeped down my body, relaxing me. Now that the curse I’d released from the roses was cleansed away, any
rampant strands of magic should fade. I’d have time to fully remove Lukas’s black candle rune, safely and certainly. Everything was falling into place.

I leaned my cheek onto my knee and watched his eyelids flutter as his eyes moved under them. “I’m not sure I’m going to be able to climb back down,” he said softly, surprising me.

“How come?” My words sounded skewed because my cheek was pressed into my knee.

“Too comfortable.” He stretched, arching his neck and reaching with his arms back toward me. His fingers splayed and so did his toes, like a big dog just waking up.

I curled my toes into the grass. That was how I always felt up here, too. “A little sleep would probably be good, after how hard we worked.”

“I just lay there. You did all the work.”

“It’s my job.” I lifted a hand up and skimmed a finger along the bottom of a low-drooping leaf. “And I can gather energy back up to me from the land.”

Will’s eyes opened, and he looked at me, craning his neck a bit. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“What else can you do?”

I smiled secretively. “Anything.”

“Walk on water?”

“Oh.” I pursed my lips. “I’ve never tried, but I bet Arthur might’ve.”

He laughed and shook his head. “Was he your dad?”

“No.” I hugged my knees together.

“How’d you end up here?”

“The way all the magic does. Someone brought me. My mother did, when I was almost two years old. Old enough she decided I didn’t need her all the time, she said.”

Will’s smile died. “That sucks.”

“Oh, it was true, though. I had Arthur, and Granny Lyn, and several frequent … cousins, I suppose you’d call them. When I was younger, there was a boy named Justin here, and for five years a couple lived with us named Faith and Eli, and they had two children. Mother came and went, and when she was here she loved me fiercely.” I shrugged. “I haven’t felt neglected or abandoned, if that’s what you’re thinking. My family is here.”

“Non-trad, huh? I guess normal isn’t really something that applies to many families these days.”

I nodded. “And now I have Donna. She’s been here since I was eleven, just longer than my mother’s been gone. Her son, Nick, treats me like a stepsister most of the time.” I thought of Silla. I wasn’t sure what she was to me. What she wanted to be. I’d have liked to call her sister.
Sister-in-magic
, perhaps.

I glanced up at the crows roosting overhead. “And them,” I said.

“The crows?”

“They’re my family, too.” I looked back at Will. He was watching me instead of the crows. “I was up here, you know, when they first came. I was tying a charm into the branches.” I twisted my body and pointed up. “That one, the little wooden bear. I was on my tiptoes, and the ribbon kept slipping because it was stiff and new. And then a crow landed right on the limb, put his claw against my knot, and held it in place while I looped
the bows. I said, ‘Thank you, sir,’ and he bobbed a little bow for me. I was so delighted, I plucked a few hairs from my head and braided them together.” My eyes drifted closed as I remembered. “I offered the braid to him, and he took it delicately in his beak as if it were more precious than gold.”

“You talk like they’re human.”

I blinked. “Oh, well. They were.”

“What?” He sat up.

“They’re a boy named Reese. He lived in Missouri, and just before he died he threw his spirit into one of the crows, so that he wouldn’t be dead. Possessed them. And he lives on, flying and free, and he’s here with me and safe. We’re friends.” I smiled up at the nearest crow. He ruffled his neck feathers.

“That’s amazing. Like being immortal, and being able to fly.” Will sounded wistful, half dreaming and full of faith. He understood.

I crawled the handful of feet to where he sat, and when he glanced down at me, I touched his chest. Slowly, I flattened my palm against it, near his shoulder, where on the first day we met I’d left a bloody handprint. Will’s breath brushed against my temple, ruffling my hair. Shifting even nearer, I tilted my head and touched my lips to his cheek.

One of his hands lifted to my jaw, and his fingers caressed just under my ear. Neither of us moved otherwise for several shaking moments, until Will turned and kissed me.

It was his lips on mine, unmoving, only resting together so that if we held still enough we’d melt into one.

I leaned my chin away, to breathe him in, all my blood
atingle, and it put my face even nearer to his, so that when I blinked, my lashes swept along his cheek.

“Mab,” he whispered.

Smiling, I looked into his acorn eyes, at the glints of red like broken glass. There was a line of magic between us, and it hummed.

You wanted your oldest friends to meet me, to come to our wedding, and for me to have a chance to know them. So many weren’t available by telephone or even mail—you had to leave and track them down. Your old apprentice Philip Osborn, who’d vanished into the Rocky Mountains after the Second World War; the German twins; and Earnest Harleigh in particular. Gabriel said, “Go, man, I’ll make sure no dragons devour your princess.” I said I was dragon enough to fight back myself, and Gabriel tugged my braid like a ten-year-old boy, and you were comforted that we’d be all right
.

The first few days passed as normally as ever, though I missed your touch, especially first thing in the mornings. Gabriel slid back into farm life, taking up the slack you left, and being, I must say, more appreciative of my baking than you ever were. As the sun set on the third day, he brought me tea as I watched the sky change from pale blue to purple from the front porch. He claimed it was a tea he’d found in New York, from a tiny yellow flower we didn’t have on the prairie. I took it and drank it. The cloying flavor was covered with mint, and overall quite delicious
.

But it was not merely tea. It was poison
.

Because it was getting to be evening time, I took Will back to the barn for his clothes, then we circled around to the car. As much as I wished for him to stay, we climbed into the station wagon and headed into town. Halfway to his neighborhood, Will got out his cell phone and texted his parents, then put a hand on my wrist and said, “I don’t want to go home yet. How do you feel about concretes?”

I hadn’t the first idea what he was talking about until he directed me onto an appallingly commercial road with fast food every five feet and giant superstores. We pulled around a drive-through at a building with cartoon cows painted on all the awnings, and Will ordered a strawberry ice cream for himself. After peering at me for a moment, he asked for another, flavored mint chocolate chip. I tried to pay with a couple of hastily transformed leaves from the glove compartment, but Will snatched the fake money from my hands and dug his wallet out of his jeans. As we drove back toward the real world, Will balanced the two Styrofoam cups between his legs and popped open the glove compartment. He pulled out every last leaf and tossed them all out the window. They floated in our wake. A couple of crows dropped down from the sky to catch at them.

Content to follow Will’s directions, I turned us into the parking lot at his high school. There weren’t many others near at this hour. I supposed most of their after-school activities were just finishing up, and students trickled through the cars. We got out at the far corner, near the football stadium. Holding the cold, hard ice cream in my hand, I climbed up the concrete bleachers. It was like an ancient coliseum, all stone and cement surrounding the green playing field. The white stripes were freshly painted against the grass, like runes, and a ring of bright pink track surrounded it. “It’s like a giant magical circle,” I teased. And Will said, “This is
my
silo, Mab,” with a smile.

It entirely made up for being trapped in town, without the comfort of dirt under my feet.

Overhead, the clouds had vanished along with most of the humidity, leaving the sky a solid blue. I sat beside Will, the setting sun shining on us from low above the trees, and curled my legs up under me. The crows landed around us, bobbing around as they hunted for old crumbs and bits of trash.

“I don’t think this is real food.” I pushed the plastic spoon into the chunk of frozen dessert.

“It’s custard.” Will offered me his spoon. “Taste the strawberry?”

I considered the rock-hard ice cream in his hand. “The only food that should be that pink is steak.”

“You’re staring at that like you want to turn it into a frog,” Will said with a full mouth.

I tasted mine. The mint was surprisingly refreshing, and I
let it melt over my tongue, leaving the little flake of chocolate behind.

“I knew you’d like it.”

He was half finished with his, and I gave in, digging into the custard. We didn’t have ice cream very often, and I’d never had this flavor. I ate about half, too fast, and when a burning cold headache bit into my forehead I gasped and pushed it away. As Will tried to muffle his laughter, I lay down and put my cheek to the hot concrete step. The heat radiated up into my whole body.

Will sat on the row below me, his back against the vertical stair, so that his shoulder rested a few inches from my nose. I opened my eyes and stared at the scatter of freckles drifting down from his hairline to vanish under the collar of his T-shirt.

Reaching out, I skimmed my fingers there. Will jerked in surprise but settled back again. I set my hand on his shoulder, just where it met his neck. His skin was warm from the sun, and his shoulders rose and fell as he breathed. “Is this where you play soccer?” I asked.

“Naw. Practice sometimes. But soccer needs a wider field. We play over there.” He pointed south. “See the goal nets?”

I didn’t look, but murmured my assent. He lifted his hand to cover mine, and I was content to soak up heat from the stadium and watch the way his jaw moved when he talked, the way the muscles connected down his neck and the very slight motion of his earlobe.

Several rows below us, a little gray and brown sparrow landed, only to hop nervously away from the crows that had
spread themselves in a wide arc up and down the stone bleachers. The sparrow had a large chunk of bread in its tiny beak. My eyes fluttered closed as the rush of town traffic filled my ears. I smelled the city’s summer cocktail of exhaust, mud, and sweet rotting trash. The heat cooked my skin, and sweat prickled along my spine. But I didn’t want to get up and go. There was something shocking and easy about being under such bright, harsh sun. Anyone could see me, could see all of me, and Will’s hand in mine.

He asked me, quietly, “What do you want, Mab?”

I leaned up so that I could look at him. His face was scrunched as he tilted his head at the sun. A slight glint of red still winked at me from the edge of his iris. “Want?”

“Yeah. You know. From life.”

“Oh, well. To be what I am, who I am. The Deacon. Magic. Living and breathing the land and its energies. Helping people, binding curses. It’s what I’m meant for.”

Will’s smile twisted on one side, hinting at bitterness. “That must be nice.”

I shook my head. “It’s hard.”

“But at least you
know
.”