Black Heart

Well, hanging around here won’t solve anything, I thought. I was going back. I’d take my chances with the Retrievers and the Agency. Maybe Lucifer would even show up and throw his weight around for a change. That would be nice.

I was hardly the helpless princess in a tower, but it would be refreshing if someone else rode to the rescue once in a while.

I realized I was standing under a tree in the dark, woolgathering. It would be a fine thing if I was attacked because I was spacing out instead of getting on with my business.

I flapped my wings, ascending high enough to be out of the reach of the grasping water creatures. I flew over the stream, landing on the far side, looking for the glint of metal in the darkness. I didn’t see it.

Maybe I’d miscalculated. Maybe the sword was a little farther up- or downstream. I was leery of getting too close to the water. I didn’t know whether the sprites woke up only if you drank from the stream, or whether they lay in wait for anyone who approached. It didn’t seem smart to risk it, but my memory told me the sword was pretty close to the water. If I wanted it, I’d have to get closer.

I crept cautiously toward the flowing water, and almost immediately felt an overwhelming urge to drink it again. I slid backward in the dirt, and the impulse passed. Interesting. The stream exerted a pull on anyone who had drunk from it before, so that if by chance the sprites’ victim escaped, they would not be able to do so again. I hadn’t experienced the same compulsion when I was flying, so the enchantment was probably limited to the ground close to the stream. I lifted up again and approached the stream as before. I felt like myself, no pull to drink water that would try to kill me.

Ha! I thought. At least I’d managed to outsmart at least one trap. A second later my elation faded. I’d seen the gleam of the sword in the darkness.

It was in the water.

2

I MUST HAVE BEEN BORN UNDER THE UNLUCKIEST star there ever was. I couldn’t even drop a sword in the dirt without its retrieval turning into a minor saga. The blade flashed as the water ran over it, so tantalizingly close. But I knew as sure as I knew my own name that if I put one fingertip in there, the sprites would be upon me.

I floated back to the shore and settled down in the dirt, just out of reach of the spell. I wrapped my arms around my knees and stared hard at the stream, willing a solution to present itself.

Everything went blurry, and I wiped the tears out of my eyes. I figured I had a right to cry. I had been hounded out of my home. I was hungry, tired and pregnant. And I wanted my sword back.

That sword had saved my life in the Maze, and countless times after. And if I left it here, it would be gone forever, because I was most definitely not coming back to this place again.

There had to be a magical solution that didn’t involve putting my hand in the water. I had already tried and failed to draw the blade toward me like Thor calling Mjolnir.

My skill as a firestarter was completely useless against water. The truth was I’d never learned to do much with my power except smash obstacles in my way.

Think like Lucifer would. There was both danger and wisdom in such a thought. Lucifer was a master of subtlety, a trait that I did not seem to possess. Subtle magic did seem to be required here.

On the other hand, thinking like Lucifer even for a moment opened a door that I wasn’t sure I could close again later.

You could just leave the sword and go home. It’s just a piece of metal. Maybe Lucifer will have another one made for you, this time with an auto-return feature.

That hardly seemed likely. Lucifer had put a bit of himself inside that sword, and he had done that for a reason. He certainly wouldn’t give any part of his power away again, especially not with Evangeline leaning over his shoulder.

My many-greats-grandmother bore no love for me. She doubtless felt even less kindly toward me now that she had lost both her eyes and one arm as the price for passing from the dead back to the living. Despite the fact that the price had been set by the universe and not by me, I was sure to get blamed for this. I always get blamed for such things.

No, I couldn’t leave the sword behind. It was more than a bit of metal. It was a powerful magical object. More than that, it was mine. I didn’t easily give up anything that was mine.

And the idea of being defeated by a bunch of sneaky water monsters did not sit well with me at all.

Grabbing the sword out of the water was out of the question. But what if I moved the water? Could I even do that? The enchantment on the stream was very strong. If I tried to shift the water, it would probably fight back. Still, it wasn’t as if I were trying to divert the whole body. I just wanted to move the water around the sword so I could safely grab it without being grabbed myself.

Trouble was, I’d never tried to do this kind of magic. I wasn’t really sure where to start.

Think subtle. Think like you did when you exorcised Amarantha from J.B.

That had definitely been a delicate magic. I’d had to get Amarantha out without killing J.B. It had been difficult, but I’d been under pressure. So I hadn’t really thought about how to do it. I just did it.

Now I was dawdling. I knew I was. I even knew why.

I’d honestly grown so accustomed to succeeding that I didn’t know how to fail. I didn’t know what other option I had except to leave the sword behind if this didn’t work.

I stood up, took a deep breath and flew into the air. I positioned myself above the water, well out of the reach of any water creatures that might rise up. I hoped. There was always the possibility that the sprites could spray out of the surface like a giant fountain.

I reached for my power and it surged up, the way it always did, like a massive tidal wave. Except this time I didn’t have a plan for it, or a place to go. My body was suffused with magic, magic that tingled on my skin and arced across my fingertips. I imagined that magic as an invisible force that poured steadily from my hands.

The moon had risen, drenching the sky and the landscape with blue-white light. I opened my palms, directing the spell at the water around the sword.

As soon as the magic hit the surface, the creatures exploded out of the water, hissing, their hands grasping for me. When they saw how high I was they gave off strange watery growls. I pushed the spell harder, into the face of the creature nearest to the sword. It flinched and covered its face for a moment with its hands, but this was not enough to make it leave. The spell didn’t seem to do more than irritate it.

I wanted to just break the ground open and send the water into a chasm. That was more my style. But there were doubtless numerous animals that depended on the stream for water, and I didn’t want to cause an ecological disaster. I just wanted to get my sword and go home.

I pushed the magic again, with more force, and a strange thing happened. I was aiming for the mass of creatures huddled around the sword. The magic bounced off the group, seemingly without affecting them at all. The spell spun sideways, hit the bank of the stream, and caused several clumps of dirt to tumble into the water.

The sprites gave a sharp cry as one, holding on to their heads. I was going about this the wrong way, apparently. The creatures must draw their power from the bank of the stream, not the stream itself. Or maybe they did draw power from the water, and the presence of dry land was like kryptonite. Either way, I could stop messing around with the water. Which was good, because I wasn’t making much headway in that arena.

I shifted position so that I was closer to the shore, and sent a full blast of nightfire into the land that ran along the lip of the stream. It exploded in a very satisfying way, raining earth over the water creatures.

As soon as the dirt splattered over them, steam rose from the creatures’ bodies at the points of impact. They screeched at me, the sounds horrible in my ears. Their voices were like pieces of broken glass grating together. I hit the bank with more nightfire, keeping up a continuous stream so that the creatures were pummeled over and over.

They screamed, they howled, they gnashed their watery jaws together, but they would not yield. These