Candles, salt, herbs. They awaited on his worktable, just as he’d left them. His spell book sat open, turned to the right page. Everything was ready.
Except himself.
No, no,some part of him cried as he stared at the ritual components. The bond shouldn’t have had any hold over him at this distance. Yet deep down, in defiance of all logic, he still wanted to go to her.
Even now, it wasn’t too late. From the bond, he could tell that she hadn’t yet gone through the portal back to her own world. He knew spells for fast travel, though they required so much energy he hardly ever used them. But he was a steed now, bound to his knight. All he had to do was draw on that connection as he performed a teleportation ritual, and he could step out at her side.
Remember what you’ve always wanted, Cathy had written. Remember what you’ve fought so hard to achieve.
His gaze moved from the worktable to his own hands. He turned them over, flexing the fingers, feeling joints move under skin. This body, this room, this library—these were the things he’d struggled to earn. Everything he’d ever wanted was right here.
Everything but her.
Aodhan drew his wand, squaring his shoulders. Cathy was right. It was just the steed bond, making the prospect of life without her seem empty and pointless. Just stupid, animal instinct.
With a decisive snap of his fingers, he lit the candles. Once he’d performed the ritual, his mind would be his own once more. He’d be free of this aching, yearning need. He’d stop thinking about the fragrance of her hair, or the brilliance of her smile. Everything would go back to normal.
He’d left the iron pyrite concealed within its protective box, so that its anti-magical nature wouldn’t contaminate his workspace. As he lifted the lid, exposing the cold, hostile lump of metal, the crow-cat cawed in protest. She leaped into the air, swooping across the room—and seized the iron pyrite.
“What the fuck?” Aodhan lost precious seconds goggling at his empty hand, unable to believe the evidence of his own senses. The crow-cat took advantage of his disbelief to clatter away, the stone clutched in her talons.
“Bring that back, you dratted thief!” He bolted after the crow-cat, bruising his hip against the unforgiving edge of the worktable in his haste. “Drop that this instant!”
The crow-cat, unsurprisingly, ignored him. Still gripping her prize, she swooped across the room, disappearing through a newly opened doorway. The tip of her tail had barely whisked out of sight before the trunk sealed shut.
“Morrigan take your leaves!” Aodhan slammed an impotent fist against the blank wood. “Reopen the door this instant, or I swear I will turn you into a damned daisy, you jumped-up acorn!”
The wood failed to split apart. In fact, if anything, it thickened.
Snarling another curse, Aodhan pelted for the stairs. The upward journey was considerably more arduous than the descent had been. Even powered by sheer outrage, it took a few minutes to reach the top.
When he finally staggered out of the oak, his thighs were burning, his robes were gray with dust, and he was entertaining wistful thoughts of cracking open one of the nastier grimoires in his small (but very, very carefully guarded) collection of books on black magic. There was no time to stop to recover his breath, though. He could feel the cold, dull dead spot of the iron pyrite moving through his protective spells, like a spider detecting something caught in its web. From what he could tell, the crow-cat was heading straight for the lake.
He got there just in time to see the crow-cat drop the iron pyrite right over the center of the lake. She swooped back to shore, landing on a nearby rock. Flipping back her wings, she let out a smug caw.
Aodhan glared at her. “I could turn you into a horned toad. Or an earthworm. Or a very small and unsatisfactory rug. I wouldn’t even need to use magic for that.”
Without the slightest sign of contrition, the crow-cat began to groom her hind legs.
Aodhan gloomily contemplated the glimmering lake. He could cast a spell to breathe underwater, of course, but the damned crow-cat had dropped the stone outside his wards so he could no longer sense its position. Without some kind of locator spell, he’d be reduced to combing through mud and rocks with his bare hands.
He was pacing back and forth on the shoreline, debating whether it would be quicker to devise a suitable ritual or just shuck out of his robe and wade in, when a voice spoke from the lake. “Lost something?”
Aodhan whirled, reflexively pointing his wand. Neifion took a hasty step back, standing on the rippling water as if it were solid ground. He was in his humanoid rather than equine form, appearing to be a handsome male in a wet shirt that left little to the imagination. As ever, waterweed twined through his damp, curling black hair, betraying his true nature.
“Whoa.” The kelpie put both hands in the air, his eyebrows raising as well. “If this is how you greet all your visitors, I can see why you don’t get invited to parties.”
Aodhan didn’t lower his wand. “What are you doing here?”
Neifion dropped his hands, rolling one muscled shoulder in an easy, casual shrug. “I was bored. Thought I’d come have chat with that delightful human lady-friend of yours. See if she fancied getting her leg over my back again.”
“She’s not,” Aodhan gritted out through clenched teeth, “here.”
“Clearly.” Neifion treated him to a long, evaluating look. “Things are going about as well as I expected, then. At least tell me you helped her find her son before you royally screwed everything up.”
“Yes,” Aodhan snapped. “Not that it’s any of your business. Go away.”
“Fine, fine.” Neifion tossed a glittering chunk of rock into the air, catching it again as he started to sink back into the lake. “I’m going. I’ll just take this with me, shall I?”