Darkness, moss, and bones?

No bar where once one was?

“Must we leave the abbey?” Tanty Anna exclaims. “Is it the only way to escape him?”

“It’s our home! We can’t leave!” Josie protests.

“Where would we go? How would we get there? Dog sleds?” Margery says.

“There aren’t any dogs left. The Shades ate them all,” Lorena says.

“That was a joke. The point is we can’t leave,” Margery says. “Under any circumstances. This is our home. I will let no one drive me from it!”

Again I turn a tight focus on her. She wishes we would vanish, doesn’t care the how or why of it, so long as she gets him to herself. She has been in no way dissuaded by the fickleness of his affection.

I dab at my neck, my brow. The temperature in the chapel is rising. I smell blossoms, spicy and sweet.

I cannot move Cruce. But I can and will do something about the IFP.

I must find a way to contact Ryodan and his men. He already has my Sean. What more can he thieve from me?

We will move the fire world, send it back the way it came, and I will have my answer, if the grass dies. Fire world or ice prince; which is overheating our home? Did the Fates cackle when they stitched together the tapestry that froze our greatest enemy in our basement then parked a heater above it?

I do not believe fragments of Faery are one-way.

If it can be tethered, surely it can be towed.

THIRTY-EIGHT

“Burning down the house”

Our exodus from Dublin is a somber one.

It isn’t easy to leave the city. It takes a small army of us to battle our way out.

Before we go, we set up sound decoys at the north, south, and west edges of the city, in abandoned neighborhoods where nobody hangs anymore. Dancer hooks them up, broadcasting from a central radio source. Even Ryodan is impressed, making me über-proud Dancer is my best friend! Hopefully it’ll be enough to keep the Hoar Frost King from being drawn to all the noise we have to make in order to escape the snowy prison Dublin has become.

I make a quick pit stop in the Cock and Bull tavern and take something off the wall I been dying to have ever since Dancer mentioned it. It’s the only place I could remember seeing a whip, mounted like art next to a set of giant bullhorns. I got no doubt it’ll come in handy somehow. And if not, so what? I can’t resist making something move faster than the speed of sound. Sonic booms are so going to be me!

Truck engines roar, scraping a path so Humvees and buses can lumber between snowdrifts piled in enormous banks, iced solid as rock. Streets are impassable with the stuff, and still it falls, landing thick on our windshields. We got dudes up front driving snowplows and trucks that scatter chunks of salt. I got no clue where they found the equipment. We don’t get this kind of snow. Knowing Ryodan, he’s got all of it tucked away in a warehouse somewhere, prepared for any and every eventuality, even the seemingly impossible.

Got to admit, I like that about him. I’m used to feeling like I’m the only one sees the hard things coming, and I’m always angling to skew the odds in my favor. It’s nice to know somebody else is preparing, too.

He’s right. The hole has to be plugged because the boat is sinking. Another few days and I’m not sure our exodus would be possible. We’d be iced in. I hate the plan we’re about to put in motion but we got to do it. Sometimes when all hell’s breaking loose the only thing to do is to break more hell loose.

Before it’s too late.

When we get to the abbey and tell her what we’re going to do, Kat’s going to have a total meltdown.

Night brings a violet aurora borealis to our home. Aubergine and gentian flames flicker on shiny ice-capped snow as if on the swells of an alabaster ocean.

We gather at the windows of the common room to watch the dance of violet vapors. I am appalled to realize how much time I’ve spent in my chambers the past month, so as not to betray Cruce’s visitations. I did not see we were all going off alone for similar reasons. Our abbey had become hauntingly quiet and lonely with me, their leader, unaware. I will never again permit myself to forget that isolation is the first step to defeat.

Tonight our unwanted visitor is conspicuously absent. It is the first evening in weeks he has not dogged my step. He knows we are angry and his appearance would only further rile us. Margery, too, is absent. I will confront the wasp in our nest come morning. She and I will reach terms or she will leave.

Tonight we break into our precious stash of corn sealed airtight in jars late last summer, popping it with oil over flame. We make the evening a celebration, warmed by the last of the cider scalded over a fire, spiced with cinnamon and clove. Communion, warmth, good scents in the air, contribute to a feeling of thanksgiving and hope, and we reconnect into the family we once were with new appreciation. Now that we all know Cruce was plying his seduction upon each of us, we are no longer divided by guilt.

When I hear the roar of engines approaching the abbey, I fear for the safety of my girls and bid them retreat to the cafeteria while I see to the door. Three of those who served in the Haven, Rowena’s inner circle, refuse to leave, and another three step forward to join them, Tanty Nana at the forefront, her eyes wise in twin nests of wrinkles. They infuse me with courage. I begin to understand the purpose of the chosen inner circle.

The seven of us bundle into cloaks, scarves, and mittens, and step out into the snow. Lavender lights wisp across a twilight terrain, evoking a surreal, dreamy ambience. We watch as trucks with enormous blades carve their way up our white-capped drive followed by four Humvees and two buses.

When Ryodan steps down from the driver’s seat of one of the trucks, for the briefest of startled moments I think: But how serendipitous, I can ask him to tow the IFP away!

Common sense asserts itself and my heart grows chill.

Yes, I wanted to see him. But for this man to come here tonight, for him to use machines to bulldoze a path through mountains of ice to reach our home, means we have something he wants.

Badly.

Through narrowed eyes, I regard him. Lack of visible cloven hoof, tail, or horns does not disguise the devil at my door. He glides, long-limbed and sure-footed, through the snow. He is a beautiful man but unlike my Sean the impression is of animal grace, something not human. Coupled, of course, with the fact that he is not really here! No man stands where he walks. I sense nothing. It is shocking. It is sensational in that it is the very antithesis of sensation. Loath though I am to admit it, it is such a relief! I get nothing from him. Never have I been around anyone that affords me such blissful emotional silence.