Wicked Circle

Eris felt useless. Seph, her daughter, was out there right now in the water. She could imagine her sinking, drowning. She isn’t the Lustrata after all. Eris had wanted to believe it. She wanted to believe that she’d done something right, that she’d brought someone special into the world. Her tears spilled.

“Knock off that crying,” Demeter croaked.

“I lost her!”

“Crying won’t help right now.”

Eris sniffled and wiped her nose. “I can’t even put my will into the ground, like you just did. I can’t create the circle of energy you just created.”

“You have feet, don’t you?”

It’s just like Demeter to sit there all imperious and tell me what to do after I’ve ruined everything. Eris glared. “Feet?”

“Your feet aren’t as good as your hands for focusing and directing energy, but that’s what you have, Eris. So buck up and start figuring out how you’re going to be a one-armed witch.”

Eris turned her back on her mother, but that left her looking at the water that had just swept Seph to her doom. She choked on a sob she didn’t want Demeter to hear.

“Your feet have carried you all your life,” Demeter said. “You just need to figure out a new way of walking.”

Spinning back, Eris shouted, “Don’t lecture me! Persephone is”—she swung her arm and pointed, and it was so not normal to do this with her left arm—“out there!”

“And you couldn’t—”

“Don’t you dare lay this on me!” The tears sprang up again. “I tried. I did the best I could.” But she hadn’t. She hadn’t believed this could happen. She hadn’t believed the goddess would allow it to happen.

Eris saw her mother’s pained face. “You’re lucky you didn’t break a hip.” She reached out to Demeter, ready to lever her up.

Demeter accepted her hand and tried to stand, but she cried out, “Let me sit, let me sit!”

Eris noticed the shallow trenches in the embankment mud. “You didn’t scoot over the edge and ease down. You fell.”

“Everybody else did tonight. Why not me?”

Eris invoked the Norse healing goddess. “Eir’s sweet mercy, Mom!”

Demeter rubbed at her knee. “I could use some of Eir’s attention right now, but I’d settle for an OxyContin.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Hecate’s dragon-drawn boat dropped me off at the island in the middle of the lake. It was comprised of a narrow, muddy shoreline around a sun-bleached stone that, when viewed from the opposite shore, seemed like a giant’s spearhead rammed into the earth.

I walked to the backside of the huge rock, searching for the crevice I’d entered when Hecate, in the form of a mustang, had led me here during the sorsanimus. This time, there was no crevice.

My shoulders slumped. She’d delivered me here, so what was I supposed to do now?

The fog shifted and swirled. A thunderous cry heralded me.

A griffon limped into view. He was missing a few talons on his right foreleg, and his gait identified him as much as his sleek black feathers and tiger body did. “Thunderbird!” He was missing his right eye as well, so he kept his head slightly aslant to monitor me. “How did you get here?” He was supposed to be in the barn at my farmhouse in the real world.

“The goddess,” he said.

I stumbled, then froze. “You. Talk?”

“Your totem animal can speak in this place. Why shouldn’t I?”

He sounded unnervingly like the actor Patrick Stewart. “Right.” Still, the shock felt like a kick in the chest.

He positioned himself facing the water and stretched the wing nearest me back toward his haunches. With a nod he indicated that I should sit astride him. “Shall we?”

A test of air obviously included flying. Still, I hesitated. “What are we supposed to do?”

“I do not know.”

“That makes two of us.”

He wiggled his wing insistently. “Get on.”

He wasn’t quite the size of a pony. No grown-up in her right mind would expect him to ably carry her. “I’m too big.”

His one eye tilted in its socket, up then down. “No, you’re not.”

I gave him the once-over, assessing the muscular tiger body. This has to be done. This destiny of mine depends on the three of us.

Hauling my skirt up, I straddled him in front of his wings. I sat—tiger backs are not comfy—and wrapped my arms around his sinewy, feathered neck. He cantered along the shore, beating his wings. As his muscles flexed his great strength was remarkable, and suddenly we were rising in the white air.

We burst through the fog, and now, flying above it, I was glad for the clear air . . . until a flash in the distance drew my attention to the clouds. Ahead of us was a massive cloud formation. The edge could have been a snapshot of stormy seas, freezing the frothy water in motion. The “crashing waves” ascended in asymmetrical jumbles, puffy and beautiful. Atop that, layers of smooth-edged clouds jutted out as if a layer cake with thick icing had been placed atop that curling wave.

“That’s the mother of all storm clouds,” Thunderbird said.

Again, lightning flickered within the depths of the formation, a reminder that such beauty was often dangerous and wrathful. “We have to fly inside it, don’t we?”

“To confront the most powerful air we do.”

“You won’t be able to see inside it, will you?”

“Don’t need to. I just need to feel the current and ride it without you falling off.”

This test couldn’t be just about the ability to hang on, but my fingers burrowed under his feathers for a better grip anyway.

“Wind shears spiral around, up from the ground, then back toward it. Young griffons play in them often, but that involves much twisting and would increase the risk for you, so I’m going to skim the top.”

Sounded like surfing. “Do the young griffons ever carry extra weight when they play in wind shears?”

“No.”

“Do you think it will make a difference?”

He craned his neck regally. “I am strong enough, Persephone. Are you?”

Considering the previous tests, this one was stirring up significant unease. “I have to be.”

Leaping from a plane without a parachute might prove easier than what I was going to have to do.

Thunderbird pumped his wings faster, gaining speed. Griffons could be incredibly swift if they wanted to be. Beneath us, miles of ground elapsed at amazing speed.

Thunderbird’s path had us pass in front of the formation. Clouds, I learned, were deceptive. They gave the appearance of being close even when they weren’t. As he angled back to approach from the southwest, we were dwarfed by the storm.

He caught the wind shear on the western side. It pulled us across the top toward the north, but before it threw us over the downward eastern side, his wings arched and his whole body tensed as he fought to ride the top of the shear. Doing this propelled him—us—even faster.

For me, a pair of goggles would have been nice.

We were rising again. “Updraft,” he shouted. “Hold on!”

Thunderbird let the spiral sustain us, twisting his body to keep me as vertical as possible as we rose up into the cloud. The temperature was dropping rapidly, and it was hard to breathe. Swallowing to release the pressure in