lifted his cup. “To the light, and to the unexpected.”
Duncan tapped his cup to Mallick’s again, and drank.
* * *
Fallon stayed in Arlington for two weeks, helping to organize and arrange housing, training, overseeing the transfer of prisoners, and working to relocate any former slaves and captured magickals who chose to leave.
As more opted to remain—to live, work, train there—she supervised the redistribution of supplies and furnishings within the base.
Volunteers cleared the houses in the outlying neighborhood of the remains of the dead, banished rats, cleaned, repaired.
She used Katie’s blueprint from New Hope for assigning jobs—skills, experience, or interest in gaining both—for creating volunteer sign-ups.
The attack came on the dawn of the third day after her broadcast. Prepared for it, forces who now called themselves Light for Life repelled the PWs in under an hour. It had been, in Fallon’s estimation, more an angry, arrogant barrage than a structured attack.
There would be others, but at the end of two weeks, she trusted Colin and his troops to defend the base and any who settled on its outskirts.
She stood with him by the white memorial stone she’d placed. She’d shaped it like a tower to symbolize a rising, and with her light, had carved the names of everyone who’d given their life to take this ground.
Below the names, she’d etched the fivefold symbol, and had added LIGHT FOR LIFE.
Already someone had planted flowers at its base, and they bloomed as white as the stone.
“Mallick will be on and off base for the next couple weeks. You know how to send for him or for me if you need to. And I need those weekly reports, detailed.”
“We’ve been over it, Fallon. Detailed weekly reports. Anything unusual or noteworthy that comes out of scouting missions, you hear asap.”
“They’ll attack again. The PWs, and very likely government or military out of D.C. Watch the skies, Colin.”
She let out a breath. She had to trust he was ready. She’d already sent Taibhse and Faol Ban back to New Hope. Now it was time for her to join them.
So she turned to him. “Listen to Mallick. Learn from him. You’re in command—but you’re not president.”
He grinned at her. “I like fighting better than politics.”
“Clearly, but don’t forget the politics. Train them hard, Colin.”
She looked around the base, at the soldiers and recruits on the training grounds, the volunteers working the gardens, tending the livestock. Laughter filtered out of the house they’d outfitted as a school, and the scent of fresh bread wafted out of another they’d designated as a base kitchen.
More than a base, already more, she thought. A community in the making.
“Train them hard,” she repeated. “Within the year, we take D.C.”
“We’ll be ready.”
She turned to him, hugged him hard. “Keep them safe,” she said, then swung onto Laoch. “You’re still at least a little bit of a jerk, but I love you anyway.”
“Same goes.”
Laoch spread his wings. She flew up over Arlington, circled once, then soared toward New Hope.
She wanted the flight rather than the flash, and used it to make maps in her head of the land below. Too many roads not yet cleared or in impassable disrepair. What had been cities, what they’d called suburbs, developments of houses, centers for shopping remained largely deserted. The land itself had taken over in the two decades since the Doom so grasses grew thick and high, trees spread like weeds. Over them, through them, wildlife roamed in herds and packs, and she imagined the rivers and streams below busy with fish and waterfowl.
With their mad mission to eradicate magickals, to enslave, the Purity Warriors had done little to nothing to tend the land, to build. Raiders raided, and left destruction in their wake. What government there was seemed focused on rule, and the battles in the major cities, and still, she knew, on their work to contain and restrain those with powers they refused to understand.
She wouldn’t make the same mistakes, and wouldn’t aim her focus so narrowly.
She veered west, studied the hills, the forests, waterways, fallow, overgrown fields, and the buildings—houses, vast shopping areas, and service centers.
Twice she took Laoch down for a closer look when she saw signs someone had settled. A broken trail, a few houses in good repair, a cow in a pen.
She marked the locations in her mind, continued home.
When she landed, Ethan gave a shout, and with Max, his closest companion, and a pack of dogs, raced over from the farm.
Under a tattered, faded ball cap, Ethan’s hair was