I couldn’t blame him. Right now, I’d rather be a wolf, too.
“This changes the stakes,” Stefan mused. “Forgive me, Daisy. I was wrong to attempt to dissuade you from approaching Persephone.”
I took another sip of tea. “She’s a little nuts, Stefan. Do you think it will make a damn bit of difference to her?”
“I think we’d best pray it does.” Cooper got to his feet abruptly. “And fight like blazes if it doesn’t. All right, then. Since there’s nothing else for it, I’m off for my bedroll.” Following his lead, Cody rose smoothly and loped into the dark woods. I gazed after him, wondering what that was all about. Maybe it was easier for Cody-the-wolf than Cody-the-human to see Stefan and me together.
“Do you think Cody understood what we were talking about?” I asked Stefan.
He shook his head. “I cannot say, but we will speak on the morrow.”
I moved over to sit beside him. “How likely do you think unlikely is?”
Stefan put his arm around me, and I nestled against his side. “I do not know the answer to that, either, Daisy.”
We sat like that for a while, watching the shifting play of light and shadow in the dying embers.
Stefan pressed a kiss against my temple. “I would like to hold you in my arms tonight, Daisy, but I do not think it wise.”
Neither did I, for a number of reasons. “I know.”
“There will be other nights, Hel’s liaison,” Stefan said with a firm surety I wished I felt.
Leaning over, I kissed him. “There had better be.”
I wasn’t sure I’d be able to sleep that night with my mind reeling as it was, but as soon as I crawled into my old sleeping bag, nestled in a cozy woven shelter that Mrs. Browne had made for me, I was out like a light.
I had the nightmare, though.
Once again, I broke the world.
This time the familiar nightmare was mixed with images of the universe unraveling like a tapestry and laced with snippets of conversation echoing through my unconscious mind. I awoke to overcast skies, the smell of bacon frying, unexpected visitors, and the sense that I’d forgotten something important.
The bacon—bacon and eggs, actually—was courtesy of Mrs. Browne, who was hunkered by the campfire, a long-handled cast-iron skillet in one hand and a spatula in the other. Household brownies were one of the few fey who didn’t abhor the touch of iron.
“Good morning, dearie!” she greeted me cheerfully, sliding a pair of perfectly cooked sunny-side-up eggs onto a tin plate, deftly snatching a few pieces of bacon from the skillet to accompany the eggs. “Eat hearty, child. ’Tis a big day today. No utensils, I fear, but there’s trenchers of bread over yonder,” she added.
Skrrzzzt ambled over with an empty plate and a hopeful look in his magma-glowing eyes. “Any chance of seconds, Mrs. B?”
Mrs. Browne whacked his hand with her spatula. “Leave the rest for the mortals, greedy-guts!”
Glancing around the campsite, I saw a dozen members of the Fairfax clan, now in human form, attacking plates of bacon and eggs with hunks of crusty bread. “Where did all this food come from?”
Mrs. Browne patted the picnic basket beside her. “Why, I brought it, dearie.” She gave me an indulgent look. “Some things are bigger on the inside, you know.”
I smiled at her. “So I’ve heard.”
At that moment, we heard an uninvited vehicle approaching from behind our campsite. I wouldn’t have thought a stretch Hummer limousine was actually capable of off-road travel, but damned if that wasn’t what was making its way through the woods and across the dunes toward us.
For a few heart-stopping seconds, I thought it must be an ambush. Since the law was one of the tools Persephone had used against us, we’d assumed she would abide by it and that her attack on Hel’s demesne would take place on property that was now legally hers. But no, it was too slow and clumsy an approach for an ambush, and the Outcast and the Fairfaxes had the Hummer surrounded in an instant. Stefan yanked the driver’s door open, and the driver came out with her hands up.
“Oh, for goodness sake!” Lurine emerged from the rear of the giant limo. “We come in peace, sweetie.”
Not just Lurine, but my mom, Jen, Lee, Sinclair, Stacey, Casimir . . . crap, the whole coven, my entire Scooby Gang, and a few other people, too.
“No,” I said without thinking. “Oh, no, no, no!”
“Look, I know what you’re thinking, Miss Daisy.” Casimir came toward me, hands spread wide in a placating gesture. “But we might be able to help. With the whole coven here, we can cast a protection spell over the basin.”
“Against a goddess?” I shouted at him. “Are you out of your mind?” I gestured toward my mom, Jen, and the others. “And what the hell are they doing here?”
“No one expects the protection spell to hold, Daisy,” Mom said quietly. “We’re here to bear witness.”
“To bear—” It was what Mikill had said of the dead. I stared at my mother, at a loss for words.
“They’re here under my protection, Daisy,” Lurine announced. “I promise to keep them safe.”
I transferred my stare to her. “Aren’t you under the threat of a curse worse than death? And how are you going to keep them safe if Persephone brings a goddamn private militia?”
“I’m not intervening in the battle, cupcake,” Lurine said. “But Persephone can’t deny me the right to defend my friends.”