Chapter One
Elise MacFinnan shookher head to clear the clinging threads of sweaty hair and looked up at the rock face, squinting against the afternoon sun. She was almost three quarters of the way to the top. Phew. Almost there. Her arms and shoulders were screaming with the effort of hauling herself upwards, and the wind kept gusting in all directions, seemingly determined to tear her from her precarious perch. All great fun, as far as Elise was concerned.
She found a ledge wide enough to stand on, so she stopped to take a break, leaning close to the rock face and breathing in the earthy smell of the warm granite. Slowly, her breathing began to settle. Unbidden, she found her eyes swiveling to look down at the patchwork pattern of the landscape far, far below. From this height, it looked like a rumpled quilt that had been thrown over the earth, with different colors and textures too far away to make out detail.
She supposed that many people would find the sight terrifying. To Elise, it was exhilarating. The hugeness of the landscape and herself being one tiny speck within it served to remind her of how small and insignificant she really was. In the grand scheme of things, her problems didn’t really matter a damn.
Right now, she needed that.
“All right,” she muttered. “Enough dawdling. This climb won’t finish itself.”
Giving her climbing rope a good yank to check its anchorage, she began climbing again, pressing herself flat to the rock face with limbs outspread like a spider. She’d done this so many times that she barely had to think. Her limbs moved with muscle memory, her fingers finding holds in the rocks, her toes finding tiny ledges that would take her weight.
Slowly, steadily, she made her way upward. Everything else around her vanished until there was just herself and the rock face. Her life as a MacFinnan spellweaver—and all the difficulties that engendered—disappeared. There was just this moment, the breath in her lungs, and the burning ache in her limbs.
But then the world suddenly came crashing back in as her toeholds gave way. The rock, more brittle than she realized, shattered and went slithering out from under her with a hiss of falling debris. A strangled cry burst from between her lips, and she desperately tried to hold on with her hands. But to no avail.
Gravity, far stronger than her tenuous grip, took hold and tore her off the cliff. She plummeted downward, her stomach rising into her throat with a horrible sick feeling—but she was yanked up short a heartbeat later as the self-belaying system she’d rigged for safety kicked in.
For one, two, three heartbeats, she hung there, gently swinging in the air as her booted feet bumped against the cliff face. The safety line hummed from the sudden tension. The wind whipped around her, sounding like laughter to her ears.
Paltry human! You really think you can best me?
Elise dragged in a breath and wiped a shaking hand across her forehead. Her heart was beating so hard it felt like was going to smash out of her chest. But it lasted for only a moment before the fear subsided to be replaced by a heady euphoria, a triumphant joy at still being alive.
A shrill laugh burst from her lips, quickly snatched away by the wind. If only her sister and niece could see her now! They would be appalled at her recklessness. Appalled, butnotsurprised. After all, wasn’t she the irresponsible one of the family? Wasn’t she the black sheep who still hadn’t quite figured out how to behave? Her family called her rash. Impulsive. Reckless.
Elise herself preferred the term “spontaneous.”
Yes, if Rose and Jenna were here right now, they’d definitely havethatlook on their faces. That look that said they couldn’t believe she’d done yet another stupid, irresponsible thing. And she’d receive another lecture about how dangerous this climb was and that she shouldn’t be taking such risks.
But the problem was, her sister and niece didn’t understandwhyshe did the things she did. They didn’t understand that, unlike the two of them, Elise had to fight with her MacFinnan powers every hour of every day. To her, her magic didn’t come easily, like a trained hound to do her bidding. Her power was more like a raging inferno that would incinerate her and everything around her if she relaxed her guard for even a second.
That’swhy she was here now, alone on a rock face.That’swhy she went skydiving and downhill mountain biking. Because those risks, walking the edge between safety and danger, helped her keep control, helped her rid herself of the tension that would break her if she didn’t find a way to release it.
Taking a deep breath, she righted herself against the cliff face and began feeling around with her boots for a new toehold. Once she’d gotten her feet firmly planted, she began to climb once more. Left foot. Right hand. Right foot. Left hand. Slowly, she inched upward.
This time there were no more slips. She reached the top of the cliff and pulled herself over the lip, slumping onto her back in the stiff grass and staring up at the pristine blue sky.
A hawk wheeled high above her, its haunting call cutting through the whine of the wind. Other than that, she was alone. Just herself, the empty plateau, and the endless sky.
She pushed herself up, unclipped herself from her harness, and clambered to her feet. The wind stirred the edges of her sweaty, pink-tipped dark hair and whispered through the grasses that carpeted the plateau. She took a deep breath, then raised her hands above her head and let out a whooping shout of triumph.
Yes! She’d done it! Ha!
She wished Rose and Jenna were here. Sure, they’d be annoyed with her recklessness—they always were—but they’d be proud too. They’d look at her with that warmth in their eyes that told her how much they loved her, even if she exasperated the hell out of them most of the time.
Oh, how she missed them.
The three of them used to be as tight knit as a family could be. She and Rose had taken care of Jenna after her mother, Sarah—Rose and Elise’s eldest sister—had died. It had been an unconventional little family, with the three of them being witches and all, but it had worked.
Until everything changed.
Both Rose and Jenna were gone now. Whisked into the past on errands only a spellweaver could accomplish, both had decided to stay in the fifteenth century, leaving Elise alone in the twenty-first. Oh, they could visit of course—and they often did—but it wasn’t the same.
Elise had moved into Rose’s ramshackle old house, but it was too big for one person, and she rattled around in it like a pea in a whistle.
She railed at herself. Enough of this. Brooding wasnother thing. She dug into her pocket, pulled out a cereal bar, and sat down to enjoy the view and her snack.
