Windburn

Panting, I realized I was on my hands and knees. Across from me, Giselle sat on the edge of the stairs, her eyes wide. “What happened?”

“I . . . pulled her apart. Broke her into tiny pieces.”

“I didn’t know you could do that.”

“Neither did I.” My voice cracked as though I’d been running in the desert.

Cactus.

I turned my head to see him staring at me with eyes nearly as wide as the kid’s. “I didn’t know you could do that either.”

With a shrug, I pushed to my feet. I shouldn’t have felt embarrassed, yet I did. Like being strong was a sin. Giselle wobbled to me and touched the back of my hand.

“You feel like him.”

I felt like him. Like Talan, the one who’d taught her to use her abilities.

Understanding flowed over me. He had to be a Spirit Elemental. Or maybe a half-breed like me. “Mother goddess, I am not alone.” The words escaped before I could catch them.

In front of us, Cactus stood over the ashes of the book, his hands still flickering with firelight. “You got a dust pan?” Yeah, those were not the heroic words I’d expected out of him. Yet that was Cactus for you.

Giselle shook her head.

“Open the door,” I said, pointing at the back door. He walked over, opened the door, and the wind in the house picked up, blowing out the ashes of the grimoire, and along with it, the feeling in the house settled.

I touched Giselle’s head. “You understand why we burned it and destroyed the spirit in it?”

“Yes.” Her voice was barely audible. “Ask your questions.”

“Are you up to it?” I held her out from me so I could look her in the eye.

She drew in a deep breath and nodded while Cactus grumbled about me pushing her too fast. I glared at him. In some ways he was still the wild child I’d known in my youth. Quick to find a game, slow to do what he was asked to do. “This is her job. She will be pushed every day for the rest of her life as she tries to balance what she is with who she wants to be.” He frowned at me. “Do not give me that look, Cactus.”

Giselle stood. “I can do it. I . . . I thought the grimoire would help me be stronger. At least,” she put a hand to her head, “that’s what it felt like when I read it. What she told me.”

“Grimoires are the journals of witches and Readers gone bad.” Peta wove herself between Giselle’s legs. “They hold evil spirits like a honey holds flies. You are not the first to be fooled, nor will you be the last. You are lucky we came along when we did. Pray the madness hasn’t taken seed in you.”

The kid nodded, swallowed hard, went to the middle of the room and sat on the rug. “Larkspur, can you sit in front of me?”

To business it was, then. It made me like her even more to see her put herself back together with such speed.

Only the strong of heart could pull that off.

“Do you not want to discuss payment?” I asked.

She lifted an eyebrow. “You saved my soul. That is payment enough.”

I moved to the rug and sat across from her. She reached out and took my left hand first. Her fingers trailed lightly over my skin, pressing here and there, turning my hand from side to side while she squinted at things only she could see.

“Is she going to marry soon?” Cactus blurted out behind me. I startled with the sound of his voice, and then glared at him over my shoulder.

“No. I don’t see a marriage for a long time, if at all,” Giselle said, her voice a bit dreamy. “Love. Lust. Sex. She sees marriage as a yoke that will bind her wings and break her.”

“That is not my question.” I bit the words out, silently cursing Cactus for butting in.

“I can handle those three,” he said as he crouched behind me. I whipped my head around and stared hard at Giselle.

“Are you ready for me to ask my question?”

She shook her head. “Not yet. I’m following your life line.” She trailed a finger across my palm. “It’s too interesting not to Read.”

I closed my hand over hers. “I am not here for my own life, Reader. I am here to save another.”

“Your father, I know. I see that. But you need help to find him because he is in the shadows of his own madness. I cannot see him clearly; he is cloaked from me.”

I didn’t like how she put that. It made me think of Blackbird. If my father had been caught by Cassava and her lover, they could in theory put that cloaking spell on him. Giselle went on. “Someone doesn’t want you to find him.” Her eyes flickered ever so slightly. “Am I right?”

I was relieved. Another step in the journey, one that would take time. A quick nod was all I gave her.

“You need a Tracker then,” she said. “That is a bit harder than doing a Reading of your palm, or answering a question like ‘will she marry?’”

She stood and went to the kitchen. The sound of a drawer opening and closing and then she was back with me. In her hand was a deck of cards. She held them out to me. “Think of your question, then choose a card.”

“Why don’t I say it out loud?”

“That’s not how this works.” Giselle looked at me, her face serious. I on the other hand struggled not to laugh. Niah had sent me to a child who had no idea of her own abilities. Sighing, I pulled a card and handed it to her. She flipped it over and laid it in front of me.

The picture was of a large black tower with flames curling out of the windows. A smell of burning flesh tickled my nose and I clenched my teeth to keep from gasping. The picture on the deck moved as figures ran to put the flames out.