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All at once, the wind rose up around me: a warm, soft wind made not of air, but of voices—a chorus of spirits, gathered around me, echoing my words, and speaking others besides—incantations I could not fathom, charms lost to the ages; but I could feel them deepening the magic around me, and within me. The ribbon under my fingers grew hot to the touch, the paper smoking and sparking; but I didn’t stop winding it around and around, the words of the binding spilling from my lips on the current of the magic that was pouring forth, dragged up by sheer force of will, because it was working—I could see it.
All around the Gray Man, fire and molten sand was shifting and twisting, wrapping his flailing limbs, encasing the dark furious storm of him. Now I could hear other voices, not just the ones on the air, but voices beside me, behind me—real voices cracked with fear and thick with tears, stumbling and stammering over the words of the binding, lending their strength and their magic to the spell. The Gray Man reached forward with one last, desperate lunge, elongated fingers clawing the air between us as, in one final burst of red heat, the molten sand closed up around him. A clap of thunder released a torrent of rain upon us, sending up a hissing cloud of steam that swallowed the Gray Man from view. When it cleared at last, the Gray Man still reached for me beneath a blackened shell of molten glass.
I gaped at him, mesmerized by the long, outstretched fingers that still beckoned to me. Could it really be over? Had it worked? I took one staggering step forward, and felt a hand grab my wrist.
“Wren, no! Don’t go any closer!”
I turned, my head spinning, to see Eva standing there just behind me, her cheeks glazed with tears, and her eyes wide. Behind her, Eva and Zale were there, Zale with my mom slung over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. And behind them, hurrying across the sand toward us, Rhi and Persi, their faces starkly white.
“Wren! Goddess above, what has happened here?” Persi cried.
Rhi was downright hysterical. “Is… is that Kerridwen? Oh, Kerri, oh no, she’s not… is she…?”
“She’s alive,” Zale said, his voice hoarse and trembling. His wide eyes were fixed on what remained of the Gray Man, his expression equal parts fascination and horror.
I felt my grip on consciousness weakening. “How did you know where to find us?” I managed to ask, my words slurring together.
“We saw the light from the lighthouse, and we knew something must be wrong. We ran straight here and we… we saw…”
“Never mind what we saw,” Persi said quickly. “Or how the hell it was possible. Rhi, we have to gather the Conclave. We don’t have a moment to lose.”
“Why—” I tried to ask, but my voice trailed away. I was tired. So, so tired.
“Wren?” Eva reached for me, her voice full of worry.
I tried to tell her I was okay, but I couldn’t, because the darkness closed over me at last, like the water, like the lightning sand, and I knew no more.
24
Idreamed of the Gray Man again.
He stood upon the beach, like a statue beneath his shell of molten lightning sand, and I stood facing him, his fingers reaching for me. I wore a white sundress, like the one I’d worn that night so many years ago, but I wasn’t three-year-old me anymore. I wasn’t even sure I was me at all—the hair that whipped past my face was at once brown and frizzy, like my own, now silvery blonde, now red curls twisting in the air like banners.
I was me. But I was them, too: the Vesper witches who had come before me, and the ones yet to come. And the Gray Man? He was the Darkness in one form… the form that could reach out and take a child’s hand. But he, too, contained multitudes.
As I watched, the molten glass began to crack and splinter. Insects began to spill from the fissures and scurry up through the sand. The wind carried a hint of sulfur, and a whisper of a voice that was not a voice.
It’s not over, Little Bird.
The glass exploded.
I woke with a start, sitting bolt upright, a cry on my lips.
I was in my bed at Lightkeep Cottage. Rosy, late afternoon sunlight filtered in through the gauzy white curtains. An indignant yowl told me that Freya resented my sudden and violent return to consciousness. She glared at me as she settled back down again, near my feet. I gathered her up, despite her wriggling, and buried my face in her fur. She tolerated it with a huff.
“Wren? Are you okay?”
I looked up to see my mother’s anxious face peering around the doorframe. She had a shadow of a bruise on her left cheekbone, and a cut on her lip, but otherwise she looked fine. She was halfway across the room, expression anxious, before I could summon my voice.
“Mom! It’s okay. Just a dream,” I told her, in little more than a harsh croak.
She sat on the bed beside me and wrapped her arms around me, and we spent the next ten minutes in tearful, incoherent babbling: trying to ascertain if the other was okay, scolding, apologizing, and generally weeping all over each other.
When we’d finally calmed down, she sat, wiping tears and salt-stiffened strands of hair from my face, her breath still hitching occasionally, as she tried to keep the tears at bay.
“What happened on the beach… after I… how long have I been out?” I asked, the questions tumbling over each other, as my fuzzy brain tried to figure out what to ask first.
“You’ve been asleep for almost eighteen hours,” she replied, still stroking my hair. “Rhi gave you a little something to keep the sleep restful, but she thought it might wear off soon. Are you sure you aren’t hurt? I treated a few minor burns, but I couldn’t ascertain any major injuries…” She bit her lip, fully in nurse mode.
