wisdom, for a clear eye. Now mix and meld and bubble and brew, stir away the mists for visions true. For strength,” she said as she added herbs, “for knowledge, for understanding the reply. Now heat and boil and release your scent, now rise the wind to carry the question sent.”
She stirred the air, brought it lifting.
“And now to seal this my quest, three drops of blood upon the rest.”
She pricked her finger, let the three drops spill into the brew.
“At this hour, on this night, I renew my vow to carry the light.”
Power whipped through her. She shot her arms up as shimmers of lightning woke above the western hills.
“In this place, in this hour, I call upon my source of power. Mother goddess, accept my offering from earth and vine. Hear your daughter, Ernmas divine. Grant me an answer, show me a sign.”
Inside the circle, the wind wailed, pulled the smoke from the cauldron up, spread it like fog. For a moment, it seemed a thousand voices spoke, a thousand hands reached out to touch her with a power that nearly buckled her knees.
Lightning cracked across the bowl of the sky, and in the answering roar of thunder, the fog cleared. Silence fell.
But she was no longer alone.
“Max.” She breathed out his name. “Dad.” And reached for him.
Her hand passed through him.
“I’m not corporeal.” His voice held the faintest echo. “The veil’s not thin enough.”
“But you’re here.” Disappointment at not being able to touch him warred with gratitude. “You’re here. I’ve tried so many times, but I could never find you.”
“You didn’t need to before this. Look at you. You’ve grown up. Beautiful, you’re just beautiful. You’re a woman now, and a warrior. You carry the sword.”
She saw, clearly, both pride and sorrow in his eyes. More than anything she wanted to deserve the first, somehow ease the second.
“There’s so much to tell you. The sword, the shield, the book. We took back New York. We— I don’t know where to begin. It means so much to see you again. We came to New Hope. We’re in New Hope.”
“Yes.” He looked toward the cornfield. “I know.”
“If I’d known you— I shouldn’t have done this here.”
“I’m here because you did. I told you before, I have no regrets. How can I when I look at you?”
“He’s dead, Eric’s dead. Allegra, too. I’m sorry if it hurts you.”
“No. I lost my brother in the Doom. What he became wasn’t my brother.” If there’d been regret in his words, on his face, it cleared away like the fog. “What he became would have tried again and again to kill you if you hadn’t killed him.”
“I didn’t. Simon did.”
“Simon.” Max nodded. “Here? I can’t see, but I can feel. They came back here.” Once again, he looked toward the cornfield, rustling, rustling in the autumn breeze. “Eric died here, as I did.”
“Yes, here. And only a few months ago, I killed Allegra here. Maybe that’s why this, I think, you coming again was meant to be here. They have a daughter.”
“Eric had a child? Eric and Allegra,” Max said, slowly now, “have a daughter.” He looked up, seemed to search the stars. “She’ll be like them.”
“Yes. She’s darker and more powerful than they were. We’ve come so far, Dad, done so much. The cost, it’s a terrible cost, but we’re winning this war. But I can’t end it, I can’t finish it until Petra, Eric’s daughter, and what she serves is destroyed. All this power.”
She pushed her hands through her hair, tossed them up. “All they’ve given me, but I can’t have the answer to the one question I need. When to strike. I don’t ask how, I don’t ask the cost. I don’t ask if I’ll survive. I don’t ask if the sister of my heart survives, or the man I love. Just when.”
“You’re wearing a ring.”
“What? Oh, yes. Duncan.”
“Katie’s boy.” With a nod, he looked out again, not to the cornfield, but to the gardens. “He makes you happy.”
“Yes. You’d like him. I know he was only a baby when you died. I wish you could meet him now. He’s on rotation, tamping down a flare-up of DUs—Dark Uncannys—out west.”
“He’s a soldier,” Max murmured.
“A soldier, a commander, an artist. He’s … everything.”
“I see that.”
“It has to be me, Duncan, and Tonia who go to the circle, destroy Petra and the source of the dark. It has to be the three of us who set the shield again. Our shared blood,