Dawnkeepers

Relieved to let her mind skip from one thought to the next, as long as none of them were dark haired and amber eyed, Alexis was on lap number twenty when she heard Izzy call her name.

A large part of her wanted to keep swimming—or maybe dive down and hold her breath for a while, and pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist. She just wasn’t in the mood for conversation. But duty to—and love for —the woman who’d raised her had Alexis stopping to tread water. “Hey,” she called softly to her winikin, who stood by the edge of the pool holding her robe and a towel. “You need me?”

Izzy nodded. “I thought we should talk.”

The winikin was petite and ultrafeminine, with long dark hair caught back in a French braid that was as elegant as it was practical. Wearing trim slacks and a soft button-down that was about as casual as she ever got, Izzy looked put-together and in control.

In contrast, Alexis was a scattered mess. “I know,” she said, but what she really meant was damn it.

She’d wanted to avoid this convo, at least until after she’d gotten a good night’s sleep, and preferably after she’d made the trip to New Orleans and acquired the sacred relic from the witch. Not only because they needed the artifact and the demon prophecy, but because she was hoping that spending the day alone with Nate would remind her why the two of them didn’t work as a couple, namely that he was an arrogant, detached, egotistical jerk who didn’t want any of the same things she did, didn’t believe in the things she believed.

“Come on out. You’ll shrivel.” Izzy held up the robe and towel, her voice making it more of an order than a suggestion.

Alexis sighed and obeyed her winikin, mostly because there was no point in picking a fight just to blow off some steam. Her sense of peace was gone, her hope of burning through the restless, edgy energy pretty much shot. She might as well dry off and deal with Izzy.

The very thought gave her pause. Since when did she “deal” with Izzy? The two of them were closer than most mother-daughter pairs, and had stayed good friends through the ups and downs of teenagerdom and life thereafter. They’d dealt with things together, not one against the other, even after Izzy had revealed the truth about Alexis’s parents and her role as protector and conscience, not just godmother.

But as Alexis climbed out of the pool, shivering as the crisp February air rapidly chilled the water on her skin, she realized that she and her winikin were back on opposite sides of one of their few true disagreements, a battle they’d thought had turned into a moot point months ago: the issue of Nate Blackhawk.

“Thanks.” Alexis took the towel and dried off, then pulled on the robe, which was a thick terry-cloth indulgence with a pleasing nap and drape. Belting it securely at her waist and pulling the lapels close across her chest, needing the sense of being clothed, of being armored, she sat in one of the plastic chairs that was set around the long poolside table that served the Nightkeepers for everything from picnics to councils of war.

Izzy sat opposite her, folding her hands one atop the other. “Okay, no more evasions. What did you really see when you touched the statuette?”

Alexis thought about continuing to avoid the question, but knew from experience that she wouldn’t be able to hold out very long. Izzy wasn’t just gorgeous and graceful; she had a sort of sixth sense when it came to her charge, an almost preternatural ability to tell when something was—or soon would be—bothering her. So instead of ducking, Alexis said, “Were Gray-Smoke and Two-Hawk lovers?”

There was a beat of shocked silence before Izzy said, “Absolutely not—they could barely stand each other, and she loved your father. Why in the gods’ names would you even think something like that?”

Because when I dream, I can’t tell if I’m myself, my mother, or someone else, some sort of me existing in a parallel reality where I grew up so much better than I did in this one, Alexis thought, but didn’t say, because she didn’t want to get into the dreams. Hell, she didn’t really want to get into what’d happened earlier in the day. Gods knew, she hadn’t fully processed it herself. But because she depended on Izzy for perspective, even when she didn’t agree with the other woman’s opinion, she said, “I’ve been getting . . . I guess you could call them flashes of a man and woman together.

Sometimes I think it’s me and Nate, but other times it’s different, like it’s us but not.”

The winikin’s eyes sharpened. “These flashes are sexual in nature?”

“Um. Yeah.” Quickly, feeling beyond awkward, Alexis sketched out the scene she’d found herself in earlier that day, describing the stone chamber and the water, skimming over the sexual details for both their sakes.

Izzy frowned. “Maybe it wasn’t Blackhawk. Maybe it was someone else and your brain filled in the last man you were with.”

“Meaning if I hadn’t slept with Nate, it would’ve been Aaron?” Alexis thought of the charming prick she’d dumped just before Izzy revealed to her that she was a Nightkeeper. She tried to picture Aaron Worth, heir, philanderer, and world traveler, in the vision she’d had while touching the statuette of Ixchel, and failed miserably. “Maybe,” she said, but she wasn’t buying it.

A new gleam had entered Izzy’s eyes. “You should have Jade pull some of the itza’at spells for you.

Your aunt and a couple of cousins had the sight.”

“I’m not a seer. I don’t have a talent beyond the warrior’s mark.”

“You don’t know that for sure.”

“If I’m an itza’at, then it wasn’t a case of my brain plugging in my latest lover,” Alexis countered, fixing her winikin with a look. “Which probably isn’t what you wanted to hear.”

Izzy looked away, refusing to comment. In the distance a coyote howled, sounding mournful and alone.

“You ready to tell me what you’ve got against Blackhawk?” Alexis pressed, though she’d never gotten far with the question before. “You raised me to want to be the best at everything, right? So why wouldn’t you want me allied with another Nightkeeper? Gods know my magic could use some help.”

“He’s untrustworthy,” Izzy said, though Alexis got the distinct feeling there was more to it than that. “He already tossed you over once. Why would you go back there?”

“Lack of options?” Alexis said wryly, though she didn’t mean it, not really. What was—or rather had been— between her and Nate had always been way more complicated than simple chemistry.

She’d known his medallion before she’d ever met him, and had a feeling he’d recognized her on some level, though she’d never gotten him to admit it. And while their temperaments and priorities were very different, the sex had been easy . . . and phenomenal. Why shouldn’t she wonder whether it was worth another try, especially after her vision?

But Izzy wagged a finger at her. “Don’t settle.”

“But the magic—”

“I taught you better,” the winikin interrupted. “Find your own magic. Don’t put that on a mate, or you’ll only be disappointed.”

For a second Alexis thought she saw something in the other woman’s expression. “You sound like you’re speaking from personal experience. Would that be you or my mother?” When the winikin said nothing, Alexis knew she’d hit a chord. Pressing, she said, “Is this about my father?”

She bore her mother’s bloodline name and glyph, not her father’s, which was highly unusual, and Izzy always avoided mentioning the man who’d sired her, except to say that her parents had loved each other. All Alexis really knew about her father was that he’d been a mage of the star bloodline, and he’d died a few months before the massacre.

“He has nothing to do with this or you,” Izzy said, her expression going grim. “He was a good man who wanted only the best for you and your mother.” But then her face softened and she reached across the picnic table to grip Alexis’s hands in her own. “Just please promise me you won’t act based on any of these visions until you’ve talked to somebody about them.”

“Like who? In case you haven’t noticed, part of the reason we’re having trouble figuring out what the hell happened today is because we don’t have a seer. Which means I can’t exactly ask a seer.”

“The eclipse ceremony is in a couple of days. Anna will be here. Talk to her.”

Anna was an itza’at; it was true. But she couldn’t control her visions, and really,