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“I can live with that. How many you got locked up?”
“Including POWs? Several thousand.”
Sal’s mouth dropped open. Yancy simply stared out of narrowed eyes.
“You don’t have any outside communication,” Fallon decided.
“We get someone comes through now and again,” Yancy said. “Maybe brings some news in. Heard some rumors about fighting back east, about you. We got Carrie—she sees things. She says she’s seen you fighting, an army with you, but she didn’t know where.”
“There’s been more than one fight. You don’t know we’ve taken D.C.”
Sal gripped Fallon’s arm. “Girl, you took those government bastards down?”
“We did.”
“You’re the answer to prayers I’ve been afraid to speak. I’ve got a pile of questions for you.”
“They got Sal’s son, the government did, and my sister.”
“I’ll answer your questions. Let me arrange to have Travis and Meda transport the prisoners. I’ll stay the night. We have a lot to talk about.”
__________
When she got home, snow fell in fat, soft flakes. And she saw her mother coming from the greenhouse with a basket, moving along a shoveled path.
Her hair bundled up under a red cap that matched her knitted gloves, Lana kept her eyes on the ground to watch for slick spots. On a surge of love, Fallon rushed toward her.
“Mom.”
Lana’s head jerked up. She very nearly lost her balance, then beamed and opened her arms. “You’re home! You’re finally home.”
“Just this minute. Let me get Laoch settled—and I promised Faol Ban one of your biscuits.”
“I’ll get it for him.” She met the wolf’s patient eyes while Taibhse glided—white through white—to one of his favorite perches. “I’m so glad to see you all. This calls for some serious hot chocolate.”
“With whipped cream?”
“It’s not serious without it. Don’t be long. Come on, boy, I’ve got a biscuit with your name on it.”
Home, Fallon thought as she scooped grain for the alicorn, gave a carrot treat to the faithful Grace. Not the farm, but still, home. Stepping out again, she looked through the snowfall toward the barracks. Duncan should be there, she thought.
She sent her mind toward his. I’m home.
Moments later, she heard his voice in hers. I’ll be there as soon as I can. I missed you.
So smiling, she walked through that snowfall and into a kitchen that smelled of chicken soup, bread, and, gloriously, chocolate.
“Have you eaten?”
“Not since breakfast. I stayed a little longer than I’d planned.”
“Then it’s soup first.”
“I’ll get it, for both of us. Where’s Dad?” she asked as she got bowls, ladled them with soup.
“Hunting party. Ethan’s in town. He’s had this idea to hold a kind of vet clinic. They’d both be here if they’d known you’d be home today for certain.”
“I stayed longer to help with some basic training—combat and magickal. Bright Valley’s an interesting place.”
“So I hear. Travis filled us in. Earthquakes in California?”
“Apparently severe enough to destroy a PW base. I flew over to see for myself. It’s rubble. The prisoners?”
“In the Hatteras facility. It seemed the best choice for now. Hard cases,” Lana said as she turned the hot chocolate to low, sat to eat with her daughter. “Travis said their minds are, at least for now, hardened. Even the young one. He also had a lot to say about the land out west. The mountains, the plains. He enjoyed every minute of the trip—and said you’d managed to recruit over five hundred.”
“A lot of the five hundred are green and greener than green. But they can be used as non-combatants. I want to hear about your trip.”
“Well, it cemented I’m an East Coast girl. All that flat land, miles and miles? I like the hills. And my God, Fallon, the wind. It just screams over that flat land. And so much of it empty,” she said. “It brings it home just how desolate the world is now. You can forget, living here in a busy, thriving community, that there are miles and miles of nobody.”
“And Riverbend?”
“Small and segregated, as you said. I tell you, when you see those miles and miles of nobody, it shows how ridiculous it is to live barely a stone’s throw from other people and behave as if they’re not there.”
“Bigotry comes in all levels. It’s never right or smart or productive. You talked to Lucy’s grandmother?”
“The formidable Mrs. Aldi. A very tough nut to crack.”
“Did you?”
“I’d say some cracks opened. She does love Lucy—or Lucia, as she calls her. DUs attacked when Lucy was just a baby, so Mrs. Aldi’s prejudice has its roots there. And Lucy’s mother came into power. A witch.”
As if she just needed to touch, Lana reached out, ran her hand along Fallon’s arm. “Like too many in the beginning, the change drove her mad. She tried to burn down the house, with the baby in it.”
“Oh my God.”
“Mrs. Aldi saved Lucy, and to save her, killed her own child.”
“To have to make a choice like that . . . It’s no wonder she’s bitter.”
“It’s a terrible burden, Fallon, a terrible price to pay. I had more sympathy for her when she broke enough to tell me. In any case, after we talked, and after she read Lucy’s letter, she gave me one for Lucy in return. She isn’t giving her blessing, but she’s giving her acceptance. That’s the gateway.”
She’s so beautiful, Fallon thought. She’d seen it all her life, knew it went beyond the physical, but in that moment, over soup in the kitchen, it simply struck her hard.
She leaned her head toward Lana’s shoulder.
“She saw something in you. She had to see it.”
“I don’t know about that, but she heard me. Finally.”
“And on the other side of the river?”
“Not as stubborn,” Lana told her. “The sentiment there seemed to run from apathy to resentment for their neighbors. I’ll say you were right to send your family. It gave us weight and status we wouldn’t have had otherwise. And Ethan, along with an injured puppy, helped turn the tide on the NM side.”
“How is that?”
“This poor little pup had been mauled by a larger animal. They were going to put him down, and the little girl who loved him begged and begged her father not to kill him. He was suffering, and they didn’t have the means to help the poor little guy. But Ethan intervened, was able to keep the puppy calm, begin to heal him until I got there. The little girl hadn’t named him yet—the little guy was barely weaned. He’s Ethan now,” she said with a laugh.
“A sweet little mutt named for our boy—who showed them in a very real and simple way that magick can be kind and compassionate.
“The upshot is, we have forty-eight willing to fight. And your dad thinks others will come along.”
“That’s really good news.”
“Oh, I have better.” Lana rose to finish off the chocolate. “We found the other communities you earmarked. Add seventy-three more. And best of all?” She t
ipped her finger in a bowl of cream to whip it. “We found—or they found us—a band of nomads who’d traveled east from Idaho, down through Colorado, into Kansas, picking up more along the way. This way, Fallon. They were coming east to find you, to fight with you. Nearly seven hundred.”
“Seven hundred?” Fallon’s spoon clattered against her bowl. “That’s more than I ever hoped for.”
“There’s more. Mick sent word he’s added three hundred, bands migrating up from the south—again on their way to find you. Every base is adding more. The light, my baby, it spread, even through those miles and miles of nobody. They’re coming to fight for you.”
She felt the lift, the thrill of light spreading. “We’ll take New York. We’ll take it back from the dark. We’ll take it for the light, and for you, Mom. For you and Max.”
She looked over as Duncan came to the door, pulled it open. “Welcome home. Hi, Lana.”
“Hi yourself. Come in and shut the door. We’re about to have some hot chocolate.”
He stomped snow off his boots. “I could go for some, thanks.”
As she got the mugs, Lana studied the way they looked at each other. Love, she thought with an inward sigh, that came with longing and a healthy dose of lust.
“And for the goddess’s sake, kiss the girl.”
“Good idea.” He strode across the kitchen, lifted Fallon off the stool, circled her once. And kissed the girl.
He couldn’t stay long, but had a little more time with Fallon when she walked back to the barracks with him. She watched the troops train. Battles didn’t wait for fine weather, so they held their mock fights in the snow, taking on Mallick’s ghosts and each other.
Others did the same, she thought. In the West, the Midwest, the South, the North. And more, still more, would come.
At Lana’s invitation, Duncan and Mallick joined the family for dinner. She put on a hell of a spread—a kind of welcome home, Duncan imagined—with a rack of lamb, potatoes that looked like accordions—which, it turned out, Ethan called them—roasted with butter and herbs. Kale, nowhere on his list of favorites, done in some creamy sauce that made him a convert, a fancy salad crunchy with sprinkles of grain. Bread, wine, and the promise of lemon-berry tarts for dessert.
