She stopped, could not take another step. Trapped.
By love, as Aric had trapped her before.
This time not for him, but for her beloved brother who now hated her. Rothly had been coldly, flayingly acid to Aric, too, but maybe he’d forgiven Aric. If he had, maybe there was a chance he’d forgive her, too.
“What news of my brother?”
“Must we speak of this on the street?” Aric asked.
“I don’t want you in my house.”
He winced and only a twinge deep in her heart regretted hurting him. She’d spoken the truth after all.
His breath soughed in and it seemed as if the trees on the street bent toward him in sympathy. He straightened to his full height and Jenni got a feeling of implacability. “There’s a commercial area a few blocks down, yes?”
She blinked. That didn’t sound like the Aric she’d known, ready to mingle with full humans. “Yes.” She smiled briefly. “There’s a coffee shop. It’s very busy. I agree, we must speak of matters.” She had to know about Rothly. Aric wouldn’t lie to her.
He angled his head then waited until she came parallel to him, though she kept a good two feet from him. “Calm your djinn nature,” he said. He swept a hand before them and the bare branches of the trees shivered as if in a wind. The needles of the evergreen trees whispered against each other.
Aric lowered his voice so that his words were covered by the sound, murmuring so only Jenni’s magical hearing had her understanding him.
“Listen. There’s been plenty of change since the old Air and Fire couples went through the gate and new ones took their place.” He paused, then said even lower, “The sacrifice you and your family made to stabilize the dimensional gate was not for nothing.” His gaze was set straight ahead, his expression impassive.
Jenni’s laughter mocked. She’d been over every instant of the ambush, the fight, the frantic effort to save her family and everyone at the gathering from wildly unbalanced magic. She no longer thought the “mission” had been important. “All occurred just because two of the kings and queens had reached the height of their power and wanted to move into a dimension richer with magic than poor Earth.” She laughed again and it was dissonant.
Once more his jaw tightened, released. “The decision to open a portal to another dimension was the Eight’s, not yours or your family’s. Your family equalized all four elements so the gate could be made and stay for the time it took for two of the four couples to leave.”
“We were so flattered as halflings to be asked to help.” She shook her head. “Pleased that we could invite guests to such an important ritual and gathering.” Sarcasm. Aric had been her guest. “All the family was close to the portal, the target of the Darkfolk, and died.”
“Not you, or your brother,” Aric said.
“Has my brother’s crippled magic and arm been restored?”
Aric was silent.
Jenni hissed out a steamy breath of anger. She wanted to turn back, to hole up and hide again in her house, but she needed to know about Rothly.
She swept her senses around her, glanced over her shoulder toward the entrance to Mystic Circle. In the entire cul-de-sac and all its houses, earth was equal to fire to air to water. Her doing by just living there. The natural magic within her made it so, a comforting thought. All the strongest magic and spells worked better when all elements were equally balanced.
Aric followed her stare, his glance lingered. “Wonderful place,” he said. His gaze slid over her, then he looked forward again and began walking. “The old Kings and Queens of Air and Fire left, and new couples ascended to their rank, and change began,” Aric said smoothly, as if he was telling a tale. He hadn’t been much of one to tell stories before, preferred to listen.
He continued, “The new Kings and Queens of Air and Fire are progressive. More, human technology is catching up with our magical energies enough that we might be able to merge the two. Lightfolk could live easier with mortals, and mortals could stop harming Earth for their fuels.” He glanced at her. “As you know, you use a little of that in your work to develop that game you write.”
“Fairies and Dragons.” Jenni’s mouth twisted. He knew more about her than she’d thought. “Neither of which exist anymore. I just finished working on a leprechaun story line. They are gone, too.”
“And shadleeches have become.” The tone of his voice was grim and laced with hurt.
Jenni didn’t know much about shadleeches, they were a relatively recent phenomenon, appearing in the time since she’d turned her back on the Lightfolk. She knew they gnawed on magic.
They reached the coffeehouse, the Sensitive New Age Bean, and Jenni pulled the door open. Human noise and luscious scents emerged, along with warmth. Her mouth watered. She wanted to taste something hot and fiery and jolting down her throat. Espresso and cinnamon.
There was a line at the long wooden counter and she stopped at the end. The icy cold had the humans bundled up in puffy coats, scarves and hats. Jenni was wearing her red leather trench and Aric a brown one—unbuttoned and open. She hadn’t felt so inhuman in years, especially in a place she loved, and it unnerved her.
They waited in silence. Her body felt starved for the ineffable essence of standing near Aric, a purely magical being who carried elven blood, and she despaired of herself.
He wasn’t manipulating her through active control, he couldn’t do that, not as one with Treefolk blood, but he was tempting her with what she shouldn’t want and now discovered that she did—news of her brother. That would remind her of all that she’d been and lost.
But she longed for news of Rothly.
Aric leaned on the counter, absently stroking the smooth finish with his fingers, and charmed the women. He ordered hot chocolate with whipped cream and made it sound manly. Of course a male who topped six-four and was built on muscular lines would automatically make whatever he did “manly.”
When the logo-etched glass mugs were slid toward them, he casually paid and had Jenni staring. He appeared as if he knew mortal money and was accustomed to using it. Before she could comment, he lifted a glass in a half toast and she followed his gaze to the top of the bookshelves in the other room. “You kept the brownies.”
The brownie couple was there though they had been home when she’d left. They were dressed in their best colorful patchwork made from Jenni’s fabric scraps and old clothing. Small round upright hats glittering with tiny mirrors sat on their heads between their huge ears. They both had little leather slippers of bright red that Jenni thought were made from one of her old and shabby purses.
Their eyes were locked on Aric’s drink. Like every being in the Folk world, they loved chocolate. Jenni’s liquid cocoa had disappeared within hours of their arrival.
Jenni didn’t keep chocolate candy in her house. She couldn’t. The minute she touched solid chocolate, it melted, a tiny physical idiosyncrasy of her and her mother and sisters. Her lost family.
The espresso burned her throat but it wasn’t as hot or as bitter as the taste of tears she’d thought were all gone. Or the memories that Aric and the dwarf and the damn brownies stirred up.
Aric took his mug and two small paper sample cups of cocoa in his other hand. He crossed to a corner surrounded by bookcases, an alcove with a wooden table that was painted in colorful green and blue swirls. He sat sideways in the wooden-runged chair, his arm across the top, angled toward her. His perfectly “pressed” linen trousers couldn’t hide the long, thick lines of his thighs, the narrowness of his waist. His silk shirt emphasized the broadness of his shoulders, the