Fiona stood up, leaving the flow chart active on the screen. It sat there as a puzzle unfinished, glowing blue against the orange-white light of the mantle lamp hanging overhead. She caressed her microscope and centrifuge, the cold unambiguous enamel and steel of science and the thoroughly modern touch she brought to magic. She used human tools when they suited her task, just as Brian used human firearms when he walked lands where they would work.
And the Summer Country had no rules against electricity. She had electric lights to use when a flame would be dangerous in the lab. Still, she mostly used kerosene for light and wood for heat and cooking, because she could summon them at need. As far as she knew, no Old One yet had figured out how to summon electrons from the human power grid. So she relied on solar panels on the roof and batteries in a shed out back where the sulfur stink wouldn't wrinkle her nose and brow.
The orange-tinged kerosene light felt warmer, though, more natural, fighting against the chill of Maureen's curse. She frowned. The bitch shouldn't have been able to do that. Obviously, Fergus had cheated on his promise. He'd given the feeling of protection while not spending time and effort on the true warding.
Then her face relaxed into the mocking drooped-eyelid smirk she'd practiced in a mirror. Fergus was a problem solved. And his treachery also meant that Maureen thought herself stronger than she was. If the bitch thought she could walk safely through Fiona's gate and hedge and door a second time . . .
The smile broadened as it became real. But whether her smile was "real" or "false" meant very little. She was an actress, yes. This lab formed one of her many stages, a threat of a kind of Power no one else in the Summer Country could wield. Fully half of her strength lay in convincing her enemies to fear her. If she could do it with a calculated sneer or a piece of lab equipment she rarely used instead of a spell, that craft saved her true Power for when she needed it.
But if the sneer wasn't enough . . .
Fiona rubbed her belly, feeling the Power growing there. The baby kicked and turned. She felt her mother's touch, the magic flowing between them as the child grew. Already they recognized each other.
She let her mind sink into that touch, testing, measuring. She'd been right in her calculations -- the baby would be fertile. The mutation that both mother and father carried would breed true. Her children and her children's children would rule both the Summer Country and the humans' world.
With a casual flick of thought, Fiona adjusted the lamp overhead, turning its wick down to a blue glow and withdrawing her gift of fire from the flame. A second touch from her mind, and the computer started its complex shutdown dance. The door opened behind her, answering her whim, and she stepped out of the lab. The door closed again, obedient, and locked itself. She glanced over the tangled spells that would kill any stranger who set hand to the lock. They stood firm.
She climbed the spiral stair to her kitchen, slowly, making sure of each step and keeping one hand on the smooth oak rail because her swelling belly did strange things to her balance. Why did pregnancy have to be so inelegant? The whole process seemed poorly designed. And then there was birth at the end of it, all sweat and blood and pain and mess. Some women even died.
The kitchen waited, cold and cheerless in spite of a fire in the stove. Smoke pricked her eyes, the curse again, choking the draft of her chimney flue.
Her stairway vanished behind her, becoming a closet even to Fiona's own eyes. That spell also held. Maureen had never guessed.
Illusion and acting, the basis of that toy humans called "magic." Smoke and mirrors. And then, hiding behind that veil, the iron claw of true power. It all made life worth living.
Chapter Ten
Maureen studied the curved blade of her kukri, red with blood and the flickering light of her campfire, glowing with the dull shine of decades of use and honing. How many men had died on this blade? She'd killed Dougal with it, and Brian said he'd carried it in Malaysia and the Falklands. Used it on night raids. And now she balanced its weight in her fingers and weighed the shadow across her cooking fire.
Padric.
Dougal's huntsman and jailer. He'd tortured her. He'd starved her and broken her sleep into shattered moments and beaten her bloody and staged a rape scene to push her into Dougal's arms. And after all of that, she'd let him live. She'd freed him, just like he'd cut the jesses and thrown that deadly peregrine into the sky to fly free after she'd killed Dougal.
Now the peregrine had returned. She stared across the fire. He squatted there, tearing at a roasted haunch as if he hadn't eaten since he left the keep. Tall and thin, long blond hair pulled back into a pony tail, worn leather jacket and forester's green twill pants wet from the rain. He had some kind of coarse scarf wound around his neck.
"Any reason I shouldn't just kill you?"
He looked up from the carcass, face shiny with grease and blood. Feral. He chewed and swallowed, not totally lost to manners. "None, lady. Please let me speak before you do it." And his teeth tore another chunk from the rabbit.
Maureen cleaned the blade and dried it on a scrap of fur. Brian would skin her if she let it rust, or sheathed it bloody. Brian was . . . particular about his weapons. His professional tools.
The rain pattered down through the trees, thickening as if calling in reinforcements to wash away more blood. It didn't touch her, though, or the fire. She slid
