Tempest Reborn (Jane True) - By Nicole Peeler Page 0,4

out. We’ll all help, of course.’

I smiled then, having never thought I’d smile again. It was refreshing to be wrong.

‘You’ll all help. And we’ll figure it out,’ I repeated, more for myself than for him. The words felt fragile in my mouth, but once they were uttered, they grew in strength.

‘Yes,’ came Iris’s voice from the stairway. ‘We’ll all help. And we will figure it out.’

I twisted my upper body to see all of my friends, old and new, peering around Iris. Lord knows how long they’d been waiting there.

Overcome with emotion, all I could do was hold out my arms. And then they were there.

Grizzie crowded in, smothering both my dad and me in her ample, enhanced bosoms. My dad looked alarmed, but I was used to it. Tracy was behind her wife, her arms wrapped around us as much as she could, considering her huge, pregnant belly. Iris and Caleb did their part and took the other side. Nell and Trill were in front and back, the gnome levitating herself to sling an arm around our necks. Only Gog, Magog, and Hiral stood back, looking a bit flustered at all the emotion. They were British, after all.

When we’d hugged and cried and everyone had said something about his or her own feelings of loss, we still stayed as we were, hugging each other tight.

Finally, my dad spoke.

‘So, are we ready to figure this out?’ he asked.

‘Hell yeah,’ Grizzie said, her husky voice growling.

‘We’re getting Anyan back,’ Iris told me. I noticed her voice was nearly honeydew again, and I could only grasp her hand tightly in response.

‘We need snacks,’ Tracy said, making her way downstairs, undoubtedly to rustle up some grub.

‘I like these people,’ said Hiral, following Tracy to the kitchen.

‘I like them, too,’ I said to no one in particular as we made our way downstairs. For we had some planning to do.

Operation Get Anyan Back was in full effect.

‘So what exactly happened?’ Grizzie asked as we all settled around Anyan’s large, open-planned living room. Iris made tea while Tracy put the finishing touches on the snacks she was preparing.

My stomach rumbled like a monsoon was about to hit, and I realized I was starving. Keeping one eye on Tracy’s progress, I turned Grizzie’s question around on her.

‘I want to know the same thing,’ I said. ‘How much do you know, and how do you know it?’

Grizzie gave me a finger waggle. ‘You should be in trouble, miss, but your dad explained everything. Keeping secrets from us…’

I hung my head. It had always bothered me that I couldn’t tell Grizzie and Tracy about my supernatural life, but it had been as much for their sake as the sake of the secret. The more they knew, the more vulnerable they were, and I wasn’t about to risk their getting kidnapped and tortured just because I couldn’t keep my gob shut.

Speaking of gobs, my stomach sounded again, rolling over and over in its emptiness. Everyone gave me a queer look as I clamped a hand to my belly.

‘Sorry. I don’t think I’ve eaten in a few days. Er, weeks.’

My dad shook his head; as if that was the craziest thing he’d heard in the past week. Not me fighting a dragon, as I had in Paris, but me not eating.

‘So how did it all come out?’ I prompted, still wanting answers.

‘You fought a dragon on television,’ Tracy said drily as she placed a platter of sandwich halves in front of us. I picked up what I thought was turkey and cheddar, biting into it gratefully.

‘There was that,’ I said around my mouthful of food. It came out, ‘Der wad dat.’

‘And then your ex showed up, with Caleb and Iris, and they whisked us out to the cabin we thought belonged to our famous local artist, Juan Besonegro, but actually belongs to another of your kind named Anyan, who is apparently something called a “barghest”.’ Grizzie was really glaring at me now. It was one thing to keep my secret identity from her, another thing entirely to keep secret any single scrap of information regarding my love life.

Griz had priorities.

‘Sowwy,’ I mumbled through another huge bite of sandwich.

Tracy set down a platter of sliced-up fruit and a bowl of potato chips, both of which I helped myself to like a toddler confronted with a limited supply of Cheerios.

Tracy took a seat next to Grizzie, and finished what her partner had started. ‘Your dad explained everything. And he told us that