Lee thought of his mother, silent and scary in the house. He knew it was wrong, but he didn't want to go back there alone. “Take me with you, Carrie. Please.”
Carrie shook her head. She was practically an adult, yet tears were streaming down her cheeks. “You have to stay, Lee. Mama is Anaweir. She needs someone to look after her.”
“Oh, all right,” he said petulantly, not wanting her to know how frightened he was. He might as well get started, since he would be taking the long way to town. He raked the roses aside again, sticking himself in the process, and stepped out into the broken sunlight. And into the arms of the wizards who waited there.
“Carrie!” he screamed. Hands grabbed him, holding him tight, lifting him away from the mouth of the cave. He struggled and kicked, slamming his elbow into someone's face, feeling the cartilage give way followed by the rush of hot blood. He twisted his body, but he couldn't get free.
There were too many, a half dozen of them. Strangers with bearded faces, dressed for Sunday, like the dead wizard in the hall. Lee didn't know any attack charms, really, but he could find fire, so he plucked it out of the air and sent it spiraling into the men around him. There was more cursing, and then they threw him to the ground.
The wizard with the bloody nose pointed at Lee, muttering a charm. An awful cold went through him, and he went limp. The wizard slid his hands under Lee's arms, hauled him upright and held him there, his feet off the ground, dangling like a puppet.
“Call her out,” the bloody-nose wizard commanded, and flamed him with his hot hands. Lee's muscles seized, and he screamed—he couldn't help it—but then he clamped his mouth shut stubbornly.
“We haven't got all day. The White Rose is right behind us.” The wizard released power into him again, like hot molten metal running into his veins, but Lee was ready this time. He sucked in his breath, but didn't make a sound.
“Come out or we'll snap the boy's neck!” Bloody Nose shouted. The roses that obscured the mouth of the cave trembled, dropping petals as they were thrust aside. Carrie emerged into the sunlight in a half crouch, knife in hand. Seeing Lee in the hands of the wizards, she straightened and let the knife drop to the ground.
Bloody Nose gave Lee a triumphant shake. “You led us right to her.”
Carrie dropped to her knees, bowed her head. “Please, my lords. I'll come with you. Only, let my brother go.”
Lee tried to speak, to tell Carrie to get up off her knees, that they would fight the wizards together. “Carrie, don't…” His protest became a scream of pain as Bloody Nose sent flames into him.
“Wylie. Enough.” This from a gray-haired wizard with a seamed face, seemed to be in charge. “Bring the reader.”
Wylie tossed Lee aside as though he weighed nothing, then fumbled in a pouch at his waist. He produced a silver cone and handed it to the leader. Two wizards moved to either side of Carrie, grasping her arms and lifting her to her feet. The leader yanked her shirt free of her trousers and thrust the cone up against the skin of her chest. Carrie flinched, but looked to one side and said nothing. After a moment, he nodded and withdrew his hand.
“There is a warrior stone,” he said in an Old World accent. Satisfied, he returned the cone to Wylie. “God knows, we've paid a price for it. Let's get her out of here before the White Rose catches up to us.”
The wizards brought their horses forward and began to mount up while their leader bound Carrie's hands in front of her with a silver chain.
Wylie slammed Lee down against the trunk of a dead tree. The wizard knelt beside him, pushed his chin back, and placed his fingertips against his throat. Lee looked into the flat gray eyes and knew he was about to die.
The leader noticed. “Let the boy be, Wylie,” he said gruffly, pulling on his riding gloves.
Wylie looked up. “He's a witness. We killed a wizard, and if word of that gets back to the council…”
“There's three dead on our side as well,” the leader pointed out. “If the boy's father had stayed with his own kind, he'd still be alive. This is a child. Let's not make matters worse.”
“You're not the one who did the killing. This one may be a wizard, but he's of mixed blood.” Wylie's lips tightened in disgust. “Wizards, warriors, sorcerers, even Anaweir comingling as equals. It's unnatural.”
“Perhaps they're on to something.” The leader gestured toward Carrie. “At least the girl's healthy. Which is more than I can say for the warriors at home.”
Wylie's fingers still pressed against Lee's throat. Lee could feel the power in them, a faint vibration against his skin.
“I told you to leave him be,” the leader said. “We've lingered too long already.”
Wylie finally stood and moved away, looking for his mount.
Carrie had been lifted onto one of the horses. She stared straight ahead, her mouth in a tight line, spots of bright color in her cheeks. The leader took the reins of her horse and then mounted his own. He pointed at Lee, disabling the charm that had been laid on him, but Lee just lay there, afraid to move, knowing finally and for true that he was, at heart, a coward.
And then it happened. A bolt of light blazed through the trees, blue-white and deadly, trailing flaming stars— like the fireworks Lee had seen once in Cincinnati.The air crackled with electricity, and even at a distance, his hair stood on end. The blast struck its target dead-on, and for a moment, Carrie and the horse beneath her were outlined in flames, like some heavenly bodies that had passed before the sun. There was a shimmer in the air, a kind of visual vibration, and then they were gone, horse and rider vaporized, as if they had never existed.
“It's the White Rose!” one of the wizards shouted. Turning his horse, he charged through the trees.The other wizards wheeled their horses and followed, screaming in rage, but the White Rose had done what it came to do, and was in full retreat. In a matter of minutes, the horses and riders were gone. Dust settled slowly through shafts of sunlight, and the clearing was quiet, save the sound of the wind moving the branches overhead.
By the time darkness had fallen, Lee was already miles away, sitting cross-legged on the riverbank. When the moon finally cleared the trees, it shone on the Ohio, which ran like a silver ribbon in both directions. Across the river lay Kentucky, a mysterious darkness pierced by the lights of scattered settlements.
“I won't be a bear any longer,” he said to himself. He would be fiercer, more invincible. “From now on, I'm a dragon.”
Before he continued on, he took his sister's knife and wrote something in the soft mud at the water's edge, wrote it in order to fix it in his mind.
The word was “Wylie.”
Trinity, Ohio
More than 100 years later
The baby awakened when Jessamine uncovered him. She thought he might cry, but he only gazed at her solemnly with bright blue eyes while she opened his shirt and examined the incision. Still a little red and puffy at the edges, but no sign of infection. Perfect. She'd half expected that the procedure would kill him, but he seemed to be thriving. Only a month post-op, her patient had gained weight, his color was good, pulse and respiration normal.
No reason he couldn't travel. None at all.
She snapped the baby's shirt closed, feeling pleased with herself. Those fools at the hospital had been difficult about everything: her methods, that she'd brought her own people to assist, that she wouldn't let them observe the procedure.
Idiots. Perhaps she should have allowed a few of them into the operating theater. It might have been worth it to see their faces before she wiped their minds clean.
Of course, it would be years before she would see how the experiment played out. Considerable time invested if it failed, but much to be gained if it succeeded. Perhaps an end to the shortage of warriors. An unlimited supply of fodder for the Game. Final victory to the White Rose.
She glanced around the nursery. It was full of baby things, more paraphernalia than she could possibly carry. She could always buy more when they reached their destination. What would a baby need to travel? Diapers and clothes. A seat to travel in. What would he eat? Formula? She shrugged. Pediatrics was not her specialty.
She found a large bag on the floor of the closet that already held diapers and a box of wipes. No bottles, though. She yanked open a dresser drawer and found layers of tiny clothes. She shoved some of the clothes into the bag, which was decorated with elephants and giraffes in primary colors. Jessamine frowned and ran her hands over her elegant suit, swept a curtain of dark hair away from her face. She did not relish the idea of walking around with a diaper bag on her shoulder and a baby on her hip. She should have hired someone to take charge of the brat from the start.
She pulled a plastic infant seat from the closet and set it on the floor next to the crib. The catch resisted when she tried to lower the side, so she stretched over awkwardly and scooped the baby from the mattress. She laid him in the seat and began fussing with the straps.
How does one go about finding a nanny? She had no idea.
“What are you doing here?”
Jessamine jumped. The enchanter Linda Downey stood in the doorway. She was just a child, really, barefoot, in jeans and a T-shirt. Linda was the baby's aunt, Jessamine recalled, not his Anaweir mother. Good. Not that it would have mattered, but she preferred to avoid a scene.
Jessamine stood, leaving the baby in the seat and the straps in a tangle. “I didn't know anyone was home,” she said, instead of answering the question.
Linda tilted her head. She was a pretty thing, with long dark hair woven into a thick braid. She moved with a careless grace that Jessamine envied. But then, if Jess had to choose one gift over another, she would always choose her own.
“Of course there's someone home,” the girl said, in the insolent way of teenagers. “You don't leave a baby by itself.”
At least the sudden and awkward appearance of the enchanter solved one problem. “I'm glad you're here,” Jessamine said imperiously, with a sweep of her elegant hand. “I need you to pack up some things for him, enough for a few days, anyway. Food, clothes, and so forth.”