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“We don’t need help.”
“Lord knows we do.” I glanced at Margaret. “You see it, don’t you?”
She met my gaze for the briefest moment, then turned her attention to her hands clasped in her lap. “Let’s just get back to the lighthouse.”
Not the response I’d hoped for, but it would have to do. Rafe sulked in his corner. Margaret made herself very small next to him on the bench. Across from them, I watched the rain splatter against the carriage window.
I didn’t have Rafe’s ego and knew enough to ask for help when I needed it. I occupied myself with that self-righteous thought and others like them all the way to the island. Once there, we claimed our canoe – I gave the old man who’d watched it a five dollar bill – and headed for the lighthouse.
I rowed, Rafe brooded, and Margaret sketched sigils in the air.
Our return to the lighthouse was without fanfare. Della appeared on the lawn, likely summoned by the sound of our voices. Well, my voice, anyway. Rafe hadn’t said a word the whole trip and Margaret had spent the time watching the sky as if expecting the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to descend at any moment.
After making the rowboat disappear, Rafe went straight to his workshop and with a sigh, I let him go. I wasn’t surprised by the way he’d shut me out, in fact, I’d half expected it.
He’d fit my body better than any other man I’d been with, but he kept so much of himself walled off that I doubted I’d ever truly reach him.
Still, his rejection stung.
His rejection and the sudden reemergence of that sense that there was a pebble in my shoe. Not a real stone, but something in my mind that shouldn’t be there.
You didn’t really believe he cared, did you?
That voice. I bit back a curse. Della and Margaret had disappeared into the tower, Rafe had shut me out, and I stood in the rain at the edge of the beach.
He doesn’t care about the only things you have that are of any value.
Somehow the voice turned my own words back on me, and it made me want to scream. I stifled the impulse to run into the woods, figuring that would be my biggest mistake.
Besides, I couldn’t be sure if the impulse to run was my own, or if it had been planted by the voice. My own nature would have me get under cover as quickly as possible, so that’s what I did.
I hung up my coat and hat and made my way to the kitchen, the only source of warmth in the house. Della came in a few moments later, her scowl nearly as black as her son’s.
“You have no idea the trouble you’ve caused, do you.”
She hadn’t asked a question, so I didn’t answer her.
“It was all I could do to keep Rafe from chasing you off, that first day, and now you’ve invited more strangers.”
I smacked the table, a gesture so out-of-character I startled myself. “Della Gallagher, tomorrow is Samhain.” I listed the dangers we faced; the storm, the Seattle Council, the Ferox Cor. “I’m not willing to risk losing any one of you.” The rough edge to my voice shut me up before I said anything stupid.
“But the more strangers who come here, the higher the chance that they’ll take him.” Her distress matched my own; exceeded it, even.
“Take who?”
“Rafe,” she all but shrieked. “How many witches do you know who possess his strength? And how long do you think he’ll survive if they lock him up in a city? Rafe’s earth magic is a precious thing. They’ll take it and pervert it and put it to their own uses.”
“Wait.” I was sincerely confused. “You notified Madam Munro first.”
Some emotion, anger or something fiercer, hardened her features, except for her eyes. Her eyes flared like blue fire. “I did, and now I see what a mistake I made.”
Her words drove me back a step. “You really believe that?” I had to blink back some unexpected emotion. “I apologize for upsetting you.”
“But not for telegraphing Munro?”
Her words burned but my conviction did not waver. “No, ma’am. Not for that.”
Before either of us could find an appropriate response, we were both distracted by the sound of yelling.
