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“Four, maybe five. Anson, Jingle, Quint, Lorimar—and maybe Yip. NM”—non-magickal—“elf, witch, NM, and shifter. In that order.”
“Okay, thanks. See you later.”
She moved over to where Tonia’s archery group rotated out.
Duncan’s twin—and it was impossible to look at her and not see him even though Tonia’s features were more delicate, her eyes a summer blue instead of a forest green. The humidity had her hair curling wildly as if it fought to free itself from the restricting band.
She nocked an arrow, let it fly. And hit the straw-man target heart center.
“How’s it going?”
Tonia nocked another arrow. “Not too bad. I’ve got one or two in the batch I just finished with who probably won’t shoot an arrow or bolt into their own foot.”
“Do you work with Marichu?”
“Sure. She’s got potential, and I’m thinking of switching her to a crossbow. She’s got the strength, and I think she’d work better with a crossbow than a compound. She tends to drop her left shoulder—and that’s probably from the damaged left wing. We’re working on it.”
She shot a third arrow. The second had pierced the straw head between the eyes. The third went straight through the groin.
“No straw babies for you,” Tonia said, and smiled. “Music in the gardens tonight. How about we hang?” Before Fallon could answer, Tonia laid a hand on her arm. “We reclaimed it, Fallon. We won’t let Petra or her bitch of a mother take it from us. You said it yourself.”
“Yeah, I did.”
Petra, she thought, her cousin, daughter of her birth father’s brother—and murderer. Blood of her blood.
She pushed it back. “I did,” she repeated. “We won’t.”
“But you hardly ever come. Plus, there’s a guy I’m looking over. You could give me your take.”
Fallon envied how naturally, easily Tonia could “look over” a guy. And if the looking over part hit the mark, move to the next step.
“What guy?”
“Anson, recruit, worked his way up here from Tennessee. Totally cute accent, killer abs, and so far not an asshole.”
“Travis said he was about combat ready.”
“I’d agree there. So come check him out tonight. Come hang with me and Hannah.”
“Next time,” she said and meant it. “I can’t tonight.”
“You’ve got something else cooking?”
“Yeah. I’m still working out the details, and I need to talk to my dad, to Will, some of the others—including you. To start, how many do you think are ready for a mission?”
“Of the boots? A lot of greenies, still.” Tonia signaled so Fallon walked with her to retrieve the arrows. “I’d say Anson with the studly abs. He’s got nearly two months of training—an NM, fearless but not stupid. There’s Quint, who came in about the same time. Witch, damn good swordsman. He’s still learning to harness his magicks, but he keeps it wrapped well.”
“Just the two?”
“Thinking,” Tonia replied, and swiped at sweat on her forehead. “There’s Sylvia—no,” she said with a shake of her head. “Not yet there. Shit, Hanson Lorimar. He’s a show-off, and irritates the crap out of me, but he’s solid. NM,” she added. “There’s Jingle—very fast elf. She’s a little goofy, but she gets down to it when it matters.”
“What about Yip?”
“Shifter. Possible. What’s the mission?”
Fallon started to evade. But this was Tonia. “PW enclave, Arlington.”
Tonia’s eyes widened. “Arlington? It’s huge, and it’s cozied right up with D.C.”
“That’s right.”
“Word is they’ve formed alliances with Dark Uncanny and Raiders, fortified the shit out of the place.”
“That’s right, too.”
Like Travis, Tonia took time to think. A fat jay winged by to perch on the straw man she’d killed, peck at it.
“Fallon, I’m with you, but we just don’t have enough to take it.”
“I’m working on that. Keep it quiet, okay, until I talk to my dad, Will, a few others.”
“No problem. If we could take Arlington . . .”
“It would be a major kick in their ass,” Fallon finished. “That’s the idea.”
With her father, Colin, Poe all doing instructor duty, she walked back home.
To her profound surprise, she found her mother, Fred, Arlys, and Katie swimming in the backyard pool.
“Caught us,” Lana said with a laugh. “So join us.”
“What’s going on?”
“Committee meeting.” Katie, town mayor and one of its founders, who’d given her dark curly hair to Tonia, her green eyes to Duncan, dunked her head back and giggled.
“Somebody’s been into the wine,” Fallon concluded.
“Oh, yes we have!” Fred, naked, flowed out her wings, fluttered up, shaking her curly red mop, then dived back in.
“Come on, baby, give yourself a break, too. Fred’s youngest two are napping.” Lana gestured to where Eddie and Fred’s youngest slept on a blanket in the shade. “The rest of the kids are doing what kids do on a hot summer day.”
“And we’re having a little private party,” Arlys finished.
New Hope’s chronicler, workhorse, founder wasn’t naked. She wore a tank top and underpants as she floated blissfully on her back.
“I can’t think of the last time I swam in a pool just because,” she added.
It occurred to Fallon she’d never seen the four of them this relaxed—and she wondered if, now and again, they had their little private parties when she wasn’t around.
God knows they’d earned them.
“Come on in!” Fred waved her hands, added little fountains to the water. “We’re talking about men. And sex. I really like sex. Makes me all sparkly.”
“I haven’t had sex in . . . Who knows?” Katie finished. “The men I have sex with end up dead.” She slapped a hand over her mouth as a laugh erupted, as Fred slid over to wrap an arm around her. “Oh, it’s not funny. It’s just true. I’m not sad,” she assured Fred. “I loved them both. You know how that is, Lana.”
“I do.”
“I was thinking about having sex with Jeff Barlow.”
Arlys sank, came up spitting out water. “Jeff Barlow!”
“Considering it. But, Jesus, I don’t want to kill him.” Katie laughed again, pushed back her wet ropes of hair. “But since it’s a little lust and not love, maybe.”
“He’s a good soldier,” Fallon said, she hoped helpfully.
Katie shot back an indulgent wink. “I was thinking more he has a nice ass, honey.”
“Oh. Well.” She could feel her mother’s amusement as Lana treaded water and smiled. “I’d say Mark McKinnon has a better one, and he doesn’t have a wife or woman, either.”
Arlys let out a wild roll of laughter as Katie shook her head. “He does have a better ass,” Katie considered, “but he’s at least ten years younger than me.”
“What difference does that make?”
“That’s my girl. Mark McKinnon.” Lana pointed at Katie. “Go for it.”
“I couldn’t . . . maybe.”
“Try not to kill him,” Fallon added, and after a shocked beat, all four women roared with laughter.
“You’re now, officially, a member of our private party.” Arlys sent a splash of water in Fallon’s direction. “Into the pool, girlfriend.”
She needed to get into town, needed to talk to Will, check on the rescues. She needed to—What the hell.
She unstrapped her sword, pulled off her boots. After a moment’s consideration, she stripped down to the skin like her mother and Fred. And for the fun of it, leaped, rolled twice in the air, and dived in.
Later, when she rode into town, Fallon thought how much she’d enjoyed that half hour of silliness with a group of women. Her mother’s circle—minus Rachel, who hadn’t been able to get away from the clinic, and Kim, who had an herbalist class scheduled.
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She knew her mother’s power, her mother’s strength. She depended on it. How much strength and will had it taken for Lana Bingham, a child in her belly, grief in her heart, to leave New Hope and that circle? To leave it to save the child and everyone, everything she’d left behind?
More than anyone she knew, Fallon decided.
She thought of the other women—she knew their stories.
Katie, who’d lost her husband, her parents, her entire family but for the twins inside her. It had taken strength to survive, more strength, and such compassion, to take another infant whose mother hadn’t survived as her own.
With Jonah’s and Rachel’s help and friendship, Katie had escaped New York with her three infants.
Arlys Reid, intrepid reporter, had watched her colleagues sicken and die of the Doom, had watched her city fall, the world crumble. But she, along with a few brave souls, including Fred, had continued to broadcast for as long as possible.
With Chuck, hacker and IT guru, as her source, Arlys uncovered the truth and the lies. How many lives had she saved by telling the truth? Fallon wondered.
