Page 42 of Lost

“Of course it is. I’m full of good ideas,” she said, tossing back her mane of blond hair and waggling her perfectly arched brows at me.

“How ’bout I help?” Stevie Rae moved to my side. “I don’t know much about Old Magick, but I am earth. Let’s call together. Like we do when we circle.”

“Okay, that makes sense. Stevie Rae, you start, and I’ll use my blood like I’m lighting an earth candle.”

“Easy-peasy!” Stevie Rae cleared her throat and spoke to the ruined tree. “I am Stevie Rae, Red Vampyre High Priestess to Nyx, who has gifted me with an affinity for earth. With the power the Goddess granted me, I would like to call the ancient sprites of earth.” Then she nodded and took half a step back, allowing me to lead the final call.

I held my hand up again, took a deep breath, and said, “Earth sprites—Old Magick spirits of trees—I am Zoey Redbird, High Priestess in the service of Nyx, and I wield Old Magick. With the ancient power in my blood, I call to you and ask you to appear to me.” Then, like I was tossing a handful of water away from me, I flung my blood onto the gnarled, broken bark.

Nothing happened for a moment, and I felt my heart sink into my gut. Was I really going to have to fly to Skye and try to pull Sgiach out of her mourning? Could that even be done? Or maybe I should try to talk to the Vampyre High Council—the European one—the one that wasn’t particularly pleased my friends and I had taken over their leadership of North America…

“Uh, Z. Wake up. Someone’s here,” Aphrodite whispered.

I mentally shook myself and stared at the figure emerging from the center of the splintered tree. She was obviously a tree sprite. Tall and graceful, her skin was dark—the color of bark at midnight—but there was nothing rough about it. Instead her skin looked unbelievably soft and smooth—and there was a lot of it visible, because the things she wore that resembled clothing were the delicate fronds of a fern, though the more I looked the more I realized the fern appeared to be applied to her skin, like body paint, or even a tattoo. She blinked at me with large, beautiful dark eyes.

“Hello,” I said. “Thank you for answering my call.”

The sprite tilted her head to the side in a birdlike movement, making her spectacular hair, which was all the colors of autumn leaves, ripple like it moved in a wind that only touched the sprite.

I was trying to figure out how I could coax her to talk to me, when the sprite inhaled deeply, and then her big, dark eyes grew even larger. “Another Redbird? This has been such an interesting night.”

She stepped from the center of the shattered tree, giving it a sorrowful look as she let her hand trail across the broken bark. She didn’t actually float, but her bare feet made no sound and stirred none of the winter-brown grass over which she strode. The sprite halted in front of me, leaned forward, and sniffed at me.

“You are, indeed, a Redbird Girl.”

“How do you know my name?” I blurted.

“I just left others of your blood. A young man and a woman.”The sprite’s musical voice hesitated before continuing.“But they are not in this world. How odd.”

“Wait, are you talking about my brother, Kevin?”

“The Redbird Boy—yes, I believe Kevin is what he is called.”

“Who was the woman? Z, I thought you were, um, dead over there,” whispered Stevie Rae.

The sprite turned her attention to Stevie Rae, who smiled nervously and waved at her, saying, “Hey there! I’m Stevie Rae. Nice to meet ya.”

“I do not know you, though I do feel the strength of your bond with the earth. As a tree sprite, I appreciate that. You may call me Oak.”

“Thank you, Oak.” Stevie Rae bowed respectfully.

Then Oak began sniffing the air again, and as she did so she moved closer to Rephaim, who stood so still I didn’t think he was even breathing.

“What are you? I smell Old Magick in your bones, but it has been changed.”

“I am Rephaim. Son of Kalona. I was a Raven Mocker.”

“So, not human. Not raven. But something changed to meld the two together.”

“Changed by Nyx.” I spoke up, feeling the need to gain some kind of control over the conversation. “Rephaim earned the forgiveness of the Goddess, so she granted him the body of a boy.”

“But only from sunset to sunrise,” Rephaim continued for me. “While the sun is in the sky, I am a raven.”

The sprite continued to stare at Rephaim, sniffing the air around him cautiously.“It is in atonement for dark acts you once committed that the Goddess allows the raven to take your body.”

Rephaim lifted his chin. “Yes. Nyx is just. My past is not something I view with pride.”

“Except for the past year,” Stevie Rae said, taking Rephaim’s hand. “He chose Light, and Nyx forgave him.”