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I stared at him as he snapped the phone shut. "Leo will be waiting for you in the limo. I advise you don't tarry long. The night is dangerous, and there are monsters abroad far more fearsome than I."
Shaking, I stood and polished off the cookies and swigged down the milk, then gathered my purse and headed out the door without another word. As I slowly descended the stairs of Vecktor Hall, I heard a rustling in the bushes nearby and something whispered my name on the wind.
Cicely . . . Cicely, I need to talk to you.
It wasn't Ulean--she'd chosen to stay home since vampires didn't care for Elementals much.
Who are you? What do you want?
You must come speak to me. I'm staying by Dovetail Lake. Please, come tonight. The voice was female but I felt no hostility, no deceit, in it.
I don't know--it's been a rough night . . .
Please, stop on the way home. I must speak to you about Grieve.
Grieve? What about Grieve?
But the voice drifted away, with simply a Meet me by the boat moorings. I'll be waiting for you.
I headed for the limo, pulling out my cell phone. Rhiannon answered. "Don't ask me how things went, please. Not now. I need you to do something for me. I want you to go stand in my room and say out loud, 'Ulean, Cicely needs you to meet her at Dovetail Lake right away.' Will you do that?"
"Of course, but what's going on?"
"I don't know, but somebody wants to meet me there and I swear, I've heard the voice before--it came in on the slipstream, and it seems like . . . something I heard when I was very young."
"Should I come, too?"
"No," I said, thinking it over. "You and Kaylin stay and keep a watch on the house. I won't be long, and Leo will be with me." As I hung up and crawled in the limo, it occurred to me that life had gotten terribly complicated, terribly fast. My old life had seemed a nightmare, but I wasn't sure this new one was any better. Except that I have Grieve and my cousin, my mind peeped up.
I smiled. True, I whispered back to myself. I have Grieve and my cousin, and both are worth fighting for.
Leo didn't have anything to do after driving me home, so after an argument about it, he acceded to my demand to stop at the lake. I slipped out of the limo, warning him to stay inside. "You have to be able to get away in case it's a trap. If worse comes to worst, I can try to turn into an owl again and escape."
"I don't like it," he argued, but in the end, I won and he stayed. I played the I just got bitten by a vampire so do what I want card on him.
Dovetail Lake was a small lake or a large pond, depending on how you looked at it, an ellipse of dark water hidden away down a lonely road. Surrounded by a thicket of alder and fir, of cedar and weeping willow, the lake was a local hangout for weekend warriors looking for a quiet fishing spot. It wasn't suitable for swimming--the lake was deeper than it was wide, and gave way suddenly once you got past the edge. The last time I'd been back home, two local boys had drowned trying to snorkel in it.
I quietly edged down to the boat mooring and waited by a stand of frozen rushes and cattails that were ragged and weather-beaten. The water was restless and dark, frothing around the pilings as the wind ruffled its surface. I leaned against one of the railings--cautiously, they didn't look all that sturdy--and thought I heard something in the bushes around the side of the lake.
As I turned, a shape appeared from behind one of the scrub alders crowding next to the shore. She was shining, gloriously beautiful and wreathed in silver fire. I caught my breath and slowly stepped off the dock, back onto the icy ground, and made my way over to her.
"Lainule." I stared at the Fae Queen who stood before me, cloaked in the ragged robes of summer. The look on her face sang of sadness and loss, of pain and the weariness war can bring. A stirring inside rang a bell of recognition, and I knelt before her, realizing that if I was Cambyra Fae, then I was of her people, too. I looked up at her gentle touch on my head.
"Stand, Cicely. I'm grateful to see you. I'm glad you got my summons to bring you home." Her voice danced over the words, lightly, playing a musical scale with each syllable. She was as beautiful as Myst, as terrifying as Myst, and yet Lainule didn't strike my heart with the same sense of dread.
"Lady. You were the one who called me back?"
"I . . . yes, and my guardians. The owl summoned you home, Grieve summoned you home, and I . . . I summoned you home. We need you, Cicely."
"But what can I do?" I looked at her, helpless. "I can't fight Myst--she'll tear me to pieces."
"No, you cannot fight her directly, but there are ways to hurt her, to knuckle her down. She's defiled the Courts, defiled the Seelie, the Unseelie. She's destroyed the Court of Rushes and Rivers and she is an abomination against the very code that makes up the essence of our people. Your people, too, as you now know. It's time to bring her into the open, to wage war, to stop her."
Lainule stroked my chin, smiling, and her smile was feral and fearsome but it called me close to her. I stepped into her embrace and she murmured soft words in my ear, stroking my hair, kissing me gently on the forehead.
"I didn't want to let you leave when you were so young, but it was necessary. You needed to become your own person, away from New Forest, away from our people, before you could return to join us. You needed to embrace both sides of your heritage, and learn how to stand strong on your own feet. Your mother was sacrificed, so we might have you."
I looked up at her then--she was tall, oh so very tall and radiant--and her smile blinded me. "My mother . . ."
