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All the stray molecules in the atmosphere of magic were being pulled to one source, then emanated from it, like a recycling pump…her nose and tongue and skin and scalp told her that the new magic emanating from that point was just a little richer than it had been.
Walking close to a concrete wall, she trailed her fingers. As she’d suspected, the building was soaking up magic. It was penetrating into the electrical system. Fascinating.
After skirting a winter-dry fountain, she crossed to the doors of one of the tallest buildings in Denver, hesitated as she put her hand on the door pull, which sparked energy against her palm. She suppressed fear that sparked with the magic—fear for her brother, for facing great Lightfolk who assigned missions that only caused her hideous loss.
But she had to save her brother and the Lightfolk had information and the quest was the price.
With one last deep breath, she entered the building and approached the security desk. There she showed her human ID that stated her birth date was fifty years later than it had been. She would be twenty-five for a while yet.
As the guard scanned her ID against the computer’s appointment list, Jenni studied the directory. Eight Corp was the only business on the thirty-second floor. The guard murmured “Good afternoon,” and indicated the correct elevator, not that she could have missed the bay. The magic was much stronger there.
During the elevator ride, she breathed in a calming rhythm, checked that her natural fire was banked. Losing control in these negotiations would be disastrous.
The door opened and Jenni stepped out onto moss. To humans it might look like a dark green sculpted rug, but it was true moss. Her toes wiggled in her shoes.
She faced a gray-blue marble wall that framed a large granite desk with a top-of-the-line computer system. Fountains bubbled somewhere near.
The female dwarf receptionist—dwarves traditionally guarded entrances—didn’t stand when Jenni swished in, the layers of her filmy, multicolored skirt rustling. But the receptionist gave her outfit a glance and frowned at the bright gold blouse Jenni wore, easily seen since her red leather trench coat was open.
The dwarfem’s wide nostrils flared, “Djinn and elf,” she stated, then, “half-breed human.”
Dwarves responded well to rudeness. Jenni showed her pointy incisors. She could be ill-mannered, too. She scanned the female with all her senses. “Full dwarf, ancient fem.” She didn’t meet the receptionist’s gaze. “And I am an elemental balancer.” A quality that no one else now in this world could claim. “Why would anyone choose a dwarf as a greeter?” She let the question hang. “Surely one of elven blood would be much better.” But pure elves wouldn’t see the job of greeting others as important.
The receptionist grunted, a sound like pebbles rolling down a rocky slope, then said, “My apologies, Jindesfarne Mistweaver.”
A full-blooded dwarfem apologizing to her. Things certainly had changed. Jenni curled her tongue to the bottom of her mouth, letting the taste of magic coat it. The best, finest kind of magic, all four elements in nearly equal measure.
Then the atmosphere changed and the tang on her tongue turned to honey. More elves had entered the suite. Odd to even think of elves in a modern office building…any of the Lightfolk.
“Djinnfem?” The receptionist was prompting a reply to her apology.
Jenni didn’t know the dwarfem’s name and the scrolled-and-engraved brass nameplate on the granite stated Mrs. Daurfin. Jenni snorted. No Lightfolk would ever put a real name out for anyone to see. Jenni narrowed her eyes but did the proper thing, naming the dwarfem’s heritage as she did so. “Apology accepted, Dwarfem of the Diamond clan.”
The receptionist narrowed her eyes, too. They became glinting slits of black between brownish curves of flesh. “Mistweaver, Desertshimmer, Cirruswisp,” she rumbled again, defining Jenni’s ancestry.
“I’m Jenni Weavers in the human world.”
“Please wait,” the dwarfem instructed, and gestured with a stubby hand to two semicircular groupings of furniture in the space between the elevator and the desk. Both were black and cushiony, one side was leather, the other looked like leather but was actually made from the hide of naugas.
Jenni was not early enough to sit down. They were making her wait. Her inner fire simmered. She heard the tiny clicks of multikeystrokes from a nearby room and tasted another wave of magic. With a smile, she headed for a corridor off the lobby. She found what appeared to be a smooth wall with a bespelled door behind the illusion. Jenni waved and the spell vanished.
“You can’t go in there,” snapped the dwarfem.
Jenni shrugged a shoulder, opened the door to ripe swearing of the minor Waterfolk kind. The room was long and narrow, painted a stark white that none of the eight Lightfolk and Treefolk workers would appreciate. There was a long counter holding eight computers, a mixture of desktops, laptops, tablets and pockets, according to the size of the beings.
Just in front of her was a naiader—a minor Waterfolk male—who was slender with a bluish tinge to his skin and natural spiky green hair. He stood next to a chair, shoulders hunched as he typed. A mug of hot chocolate made with real cocoa steamed on the desk as if he’d just gotten it.
Programming lines rolled across his screen.
Jenni stepped near him to look at the code on his monitor without him being aware, as he was so caught up in his own irritation. Orange symbols, magical symbols, lit the screen along with regular white human programming lines and mathematical formulas. She nearly choked on her tongue.
Magic.
And technology.
These Folk were writing spells on the computer to draw magic into…into what?
She frowned. She knew this spell, but it was an old and slow and limping one when they needed a big, gliding one to…store electricity? A magical and electrical battery?
Snared by the problem and the knowledge that she could flick it and fix it, she slid into the waterman’s—the naiader’s—seat, stared at his strange keyboard, memorized it, nudged his fingers away. She moved to the middle of the poorly constructed line, erased the spell he was trying to write and encoded a spell she’d developed and recorded in her spellbook a while back…with a shorter, elegant twist that came to mind. Now this spell would do what they’d intended better than the one that had been on the screen.
There was a wet sucking of breath. “Damned djinn,” the guy muttered. “Whole project is fire, electricity, why did it have to be djinn? Fluidity should be the key. Flexibility.” He squatted and bumped her hip with enough force that she had to stand or fall. He took his chair, brows down, staring at the screen. Then his fingers flew to the end of the spell as his mind engaged and he began writing code.
“I’m plenty flexible, and you’re welcome,” Jenni said.
He stuck out his lower lip. “Irritating.”
She studied the rest of the full-blooded Lightfolk in the computer room. They lounged, watching her, like a tableau of the beauty of the Folk.
There was the water naiader that she’d displaced, a Treefolk dryad with a tinge of green in her skin and her body encased in a black fake-leather catsuit, a dwarf with a heavy scowl and long beard that marked him as one of the older generations—what was he doing here? At the end was a small red fire sprite perched on the ledge of a monitor, wearing a merry grin. He-she winked at Jenni, but remained stationary.
“Jindesfarne, we did not bring you here for your computing skills,” Aric said coolly from the open doorway.
At the sight of him, Jenni felt a melting inside. That didn’t stop her hair from lifting in individual shafts as her aggravation transmuted into static electricity.
“Dampen spell!” The naiader flung his arms wide, scowled at Jenni, his face beading with drops of distress. “That’s why I hate djinn. Should know better than to release static electricity around all these computers.”
She did, but she wouldn’t apologize. “I’m excellent with computers, and I know a little something about business ergonomics, too.” She looked down at the computer counter. “This is a pitiful working space.”
The tree dryad perked up.
Aric’s brows lowered. The dwarfem receptionist, half his height but nearly as broad, joined him, tapping her foot.
“Everyone should have individual spaces,” Jenni said.
“Rounds and semiround rooms,” breathed the dryad.
Jenni cast her a sympathetic look. “Or cubes, and those of like elements grouped together, or those working on congruent inquiries—”
“Enough.” Aric glanced down at the receptionist. “Please note what Jindesfarne Mistweaver advised.”
A rock pad and a tiny chisel appeared in the dwarfem’s hands. She scritched on it, glaring at Jenni. “You’re keeping the Air King waiting,” she said, “and I’ll tell him a lot.” She showed red pointed teeth before marching back to her desk.
“Du-u-ude,” breathed the water naiader, his round eyes getting wider and more orblike, staring at her. He must be a baby…born in the last thirty years or so.
The palm-sized red fire sprite whizzed to Jenni, buried itself in her hair. “Ver-ry fun plac-s-s-se,” it hissed. “Glad to s-see you, Mis-stweaver energy balanc-ser. You s-smell fine.” It nuzzled her head, nipped her ear, took off to prance along the top of watery guy’s monitor.
Aric prompted again, “Jindesfarne.”
“The light is all wrong, too, should be tailored to each element,” Jenni said.
There was a low murmur from the workers.
“Come, Jenni,” Aric said, holding out his hand.
Jenni didn’t want to leave these kindred spirits to talk to the Air King about a mission she didn’t want to do. But that was the price to save her brother. When she recalled Rothly caught in the mist because of the eight kings and queens, anger roiled through her. She tamped down her temper, but couldn’t stop one statement. “Sounds as if Air King Cloudsylph picked up the manner of an Eight fast,” she said. “He ascended to royal fifteen years ago, right?”
“You have no idea,” murmured the dryad like the whisper of new leaves in spring. “But the changes in the Lightfolk community have been incredible.” She beamed and her pewter eyebrow rings shone in the light.
Jenni nodded to the workers, waved a jaunty hand and strode to the doorway. When she reached him, Aric stepped away, then touched her elbow to indicate direction. His fingers were warm and steady.
They strolled by the receptionist dwarf, who was standing on her granite desk, hands on hips, mouth a straight line of disapproval.
The hallway they took was all glass, showing open offices that appeared to be occupied, obviously a set stage for any human clients. But the rooms wouldn’t fool a mortal for a minute. Jenni shook her head. Maybe the Lightfolk were finally beginning to try to live—work—side by side with humans, but they weren’t doing a very good job yet. They needed to consult the half mortals among them, those who’d lived among humans, integrated into their culture.
But not her.
The sooner she rescued her brother and finished her business with these Folk and got on with her own life, the better.
Aric was wise enough to say nothing as he ushered her into a glassy corner office that was all light and grace.
The Air King sat behind a large, pale green, art deco glass desk. He might not have learned how to handle subordinates in a business setting exactly right, but he had “intimidation” down well.
He was thin and elegant and fascinatingly beautiful. The elf, Air King Cloudsylph. One of the four kings. Her mouth dried.
She hadn’t been in the presence of a full elf for fifteen years, let alone a royal. His magic washed over her and her lips trembled at the sweetness of it, the way his energy brushed away the vestige of fear from the Darkfolk, the faintest weariness from the step into the gray mist.
She avoided eyes that she knew would be ice-blue, set in an unlined heart-shaped face with a deep widow’s peak of silver hair. His hair was manelike and flowed to his shoulders, covering his pointed ears.
He wore an exquisitely built suit of pale gray silk, a white linen shirt that was only slightly paler than his skin and a light blue tie. Everything in her shuddered—he was dressed as a human and mortal. Her world tipped.
Jenni reminded herself that they needed her.
His first words emphasized how much she needed the Lightfolk. “We have the best elemental healers on call to repair whatever trauma or physical problems that your brother might have endured in our service…his service to the Lightfolk and the Eight.”
Jenni hunkered into her balance. “So there are rewards for being injured in service for the Eight. I hadn’t noticed.”
The king’s gaze went cold. “The Eight issued formal thanks and paid a rich reward to the proper Mistweaver after the incident at the dimensional portal fifteen years ago.”
Jenni inclined her head. “To Rothly, and I suppose you mean that you tried to heal or help him.” She smiled as cold a smile as she could manage. “Yet I never sensed he was complete, as I would have.” She inhaled deeply. “When I checked on him in the mist this morning, he was still crippled.”
Since she couldn’t look the elf in his eyes without being caught by his glamour, she stared at the perfectly formed pale pink elven lips. “And you must not have rewarded him so well before, since he risked his life for a title of ‘Prince of the Lightfolk.’ You tempted a maimed man and sent him to die.”
The air went still and thin, too thin to breathe.
CHAPTER 5
ARIC STEPPED NEXT TO HER, GRASPED HER hand. Bonds she’d thought were ruptured between them—mental, emotional, magical—snapped back into full being.
Do not anger the king! he warned her telepathically.
Sensations flamed through her with his touch. She couldn’t grasp Aric’s emotions, didn’t dare stop to consider them. He was right, she’d said something stupid, but she couldn’t take it back.
Aric continued his mental scolding. It was the King of Water, the merman, who sent the dwarf to you and Rothly. The and Queen of Earth, the dwarves, approved. The older couples. They did not tell the Cloudsylphs or Emberdrakes.
Great, now she knew more about the Eight’s internal politics than she’d ever wanted, and was tangled in them like in seaweed.
“I will accept an apology for that,” the king said, each word a bullet of ice.
Jenni risked a fleeting glance in his eyes. They remained light, and she thought she’d seen a flash of pain. “Then what I said was not the truth. I apologize.”
“Questioning the actions of the Eight is not wise,” Cloudsylph said with absolutely no emotion in his voice.
Jenni felt all too human, all too vulnerable. A lifting of his finger could remove all the air from the room and she would die…except that Aric’s warm hand was wrapped around hers and he could live without air for a time, and could keep her alive.
She looked out the window at the city, gray-block buildings diminishing in size to the brown-yellow plains. “Yet you seem to think that the Eight need me.”
He tapped his fingertips together. Once. Jenni thought it was a mortal gesture he was trying to mimic. “As you need us to save your brother.”
Again her chest constricted, this time from emotion. She dragged in a breath, wet her lips. “Do I?”
The elf’s brows lifted in the faintest arch. “You may be able to find your brother, but will you be in time to save him? Your father told me once that staying in the interdimension decays the life force. Can you travel through the interdimension to him?”
Jenni figured the king knew the answer was no. Her lips were now cold and she didn’t want to use energy to raise her body temperature.
After a minute-long silence, the king continued. “I didn’t think so. And you can’t tell where he is, geographically?”
“I can’t pinpoint his location.” All she knew was that Rothly was to the northwest.
“We know he is in your ‘gray mist,’ but not where in the real world he stepped into it—geographically. It is my understanding that the closer you are to where he might be in this world, the easier it will be for you to bring him from the interdimension into reality. We sense he is not alone in the interdimension, but shadleeches feast on him, draining his magic.” The king’s fingers curled in a tiny flex. “Can you separate him from his pursuers and pull him out without bringing them, too?”
A shivery breath sifted through her. The elf’s phrasing sounded as if it had come directly from one of the Mistweaver family journals, one she’d thought had been personal. How many journals did they have transcriptions of? How many of the Mistweaver secrets did the Eight know? And how many of the Eight had read them?
“Your father was my friend,” Cloudsylph said.
Jenni didn’t remember that. Didn’t recall Cloudsylph being in their lives. He was of a royal line and the Mistweavers were “mongrels.”
“I can send warriors to protect you and him,” the king said.
“A little late for that.”
For the first time he showed anger. “I was not responsible for the deaths of your family. I fought and suffered. We all suffered.”
“But you survived, became a new royal and part of the Eight. All of the Eight survived and four of the old Eight got to transfer to another, richer dimension. My family paid for your survival and that portal with their lives. You did not save them.”
“You do not know all that occurred. You were not with your family when the Darkfolk attacked. Nor did you save them.”
Jenni went up in flames. Literally.
