of her children anymore. I think she knows you aren’t strong enough to survive a rebirth of the elves, so if you want to find your place in reality, you’re going to have to use all your magic, not just the piddle pat you allow yourselves, and to do that, you’re going to have to get off your high horse and ask for her help.”
“Piddle pat?” Hodin said, and my eyes narrowed, head tilted to look up at him.
“Piddle. Pat,” I said into his suddenly startled expression. “You can’t rule the world from fear and live in it anymore. You gotta use all the tools in your toolbox to get along. I can help, but not if you’re going to hang me from the tree I dig you out from under.”
Jenks’s wings tickled my neck, and I stifled a shiver. For a moment, I thought Hodin was going to storm off, but then he took a step back. Head down, he whispered, “I can’t.”
“That’s a load of crap.” But I froze when his eyes met mine. He was afraid.
Embarrassed, I glanced at the table and back to him. “Why not?” I asked. I knew about fear.
“Because I asked for her help, and she said no,” he said, a flicker of betrayal in him.
My shoulders slumped.
“And because of that,” he continued, voice iron hard, “I was made a slave to the elves, her favorites, for an eternity. I’d still be trapped if the two worlds hadn’t collided.”
It was what I figured, but the more I thought about it, the more that last misfire felt like a slap from the Goddess. “The same elves who can’t do crap right now,” I said, reaching to touch his shoulder.
Hodin jerked back, and my hand fell. “This lesson is over,” he said, and the basket of ley line paraphernalia he’d brought vanished.
Angry, I pushed out from between the couch and the table. “This is not a lesson,” I said loudly, pointing at the table. “It’s a lab session, and it’s not over! If you leave, I’ll be working alone,” I said, allowing a touch of fear to enter my voice. “You want to sit on the couch and sulk, fine, but you’re not leaving until I’m done.” I lifted my chin, not caring that he was mad. I could take whatever he dished out. “What else you got to do today?”
His eyes narrowed . . . and then he sat with a huff. “You’d be surprised how I fill my day.”
He’s going to stay? I thought, exchanging a glance with Jenks. “Yeah, well, today you’re filling it sitting on my couch,” I said, shocked he hadn’t left. “I need a spotter. Spot me.”
“What a whiny baby,” Jenks said from my shoulder, and I huffed my agreement.
“I want to try this with one of the generic candles,” I said, taking up the snapped chalk and sketching a new, closed pentagon with its ten bisecting lines. “See how much freedom we have now that we know what the Goddess wants,” I added as I massaged more blood from my pricked finger and smeared it on a birthday candle. “And you can just deal with it,” I shot at Hodin, but he was busy brooding, knees crossed as he scowled.
“Perhaps I shouldn’t be so worried,” Hodin said tightly. “Sloppy. You aren’t even bothering to make an All candle.”
“I don’t have the time,” I snarked back, angry. “And if there is one thing that Newt understood, it was a lack of time.”
“Ah, Rache, should you be spelling angry?” Jenks asked, and I brushed his dust from my front before it could find my pentagon.
“Ta na shay, you crazy bitch,” I muttered as I set the candle in the center. “Ta na shay, obscurum per obscuris. Wee-keh Wehr-sah!”
I shouted the last, clapping my hands and jerking when a wave of energy ballooned out, pushing my hair back as it flowed past me. Crap on toast, I knew better than to spell angry.
“It worked!” Jenks crowed, and I looked at my hands, horrified as they tingled. But it was just from overload, and the sparkles vanished to leave me shaken. “Look. It’s exactly the same.”
Hodin frowned, his image wavering through the shimmering protection bubble he’d snapped around himself. His eyes went to the table as he dropped it. His expression shifted to disbelief and then to something I couldn’t name. “Huh,” he muttered as his knees uncrossed.
Eleven candles burned, ten at the points, one in the middle, their colors more shades