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Seven
The airport was noisy, and I leaned against a support beam and tried not to fidget as I waited. Jenks and I had been here for nearly an hour, but I was glad I’d gotten here early when security stopped me at the spell-checker gate. It had either been my truth amulet or my lethal-spell detector interfering with theirs, because they were about the only invoked charms I had on me. Dumping out my bag for three uniformed stiffs to paw through was not my idea of how to meet guys. Jenks had thought it was hilarious. No one else was getting searched.
The pixy was currently down the hall at the flower cart, not a single indication that he had been honey drunk earlier. He was working a deal with the owner for some fern seed if he could entice a few people to buy roses for their departing loved ones. He had still been out cold when we passed the charm shop, and I hadn’t stopped either there or the library. But if he could get the fern seed, he’d be a happy pixy.
It was cool in the drafty terminal, but vastly warmer than the blue, white, and gray world outside the huge plate-glass windows. Plows kept the runways clear, and the mounds of snow at the outskirts just begged to be played on. The people around me were a mix of hurried harassment, bored irritation, and anxious expectation. I fell into the last, and as I waited for Robbie’s plane to clear checks and disembark, I felt a shiver of anticipation-though some of that might have been lingering anxiety from having been stopped at the heavy-magic detector.
Witches had always worked in aviation, both on the ground and in the air, but during the Turn they’d taken it over and hadn’t given it back, changing the laws until there had to be at least one highly qualified witch on duty at each security checkpoint. Even before the Turn, witches had been using heavy-magic detectors right along with the mundane metal detectors. What had looked like a random check on a harmless-looking man or woman had often been a covert search for contraband magic. Why I’d been stopped I didn’t know. Bothered, I tried to smooth out my brow and relax. Unless Robbie was in first class, it would be a while.
A cloying, too-sweet scent of ci
A smile curved over my face when the little boy screamed in frustration, pounding at the faintly shimmering barrier glowing a thin blue. That had been something I’d never had to worry about when I was little. Mom sucked dishwater at making circles. I hadn’t been able to walk until I was three anyway, too sick to do much more than survive before then. It was a miracle I’d made it past my second birthday-an illegal medical miracle that worried me every time I went through something like the heavy-magic detection field. There was no way to detect the tampering done to my mitochondria, but I worried anyway.
Anxious, I shifted my weight to my other foot. I was eager to see Robbie, but tonight’s di
The toddler’s screaming shifted from frustration to recognition, and I turned when his mother dropped her circle. She was beaming, looking absolutely beautiful despite the weariness of keeping three energetic children within society’s norms. I followed the toddler with my eyes as he ran to an attractive young woman in a smart-looking suit. The woman bent to pick him up, and the five of them came together in a wash of happiness. They all began to move in a confused tangle, and after a heartfelt kiss between the two women, the one in the suit exchanged a trendy bag for a gurgling infant. It looked noisy, messy, and utterly comforting.
My smile slowly faded as they moved away, and my thoughts went to Ivy. We’d never have such a recognizable relationship, where we somehow fell into normal roles that could function within society’s parameters. Not that I was looking for something so traditionally nontraditional. Ivy and I did have a relationship, but if we tried to make it fit her ideas or go past my limits, it would blow everything to hell.
Something older than the spoken word tickled my instinct, and I pulled my eyes from the couple’s vanishing backs. My gaze landed on my brother, and I smiled. He was still in the tu
People finally moved out from between us, and I could see his narrow-shouldered frame. He had on a light jacket and was carrying a shiny leather satchel and his guitar. At the head of the tu
“Robbie!” I called, unable to stop myself, and his smile grew. His long legs ate up the distance, and he was before me, dropping his things and giving me a squeeze.
“Hi, sis,” he said, his hug growing fierce before he let go and stepped back. The crowd flowed around us, but no one minded. Little pockets of reunion were going on all over the terminal. “You look good,” he said, tousling my hair and earning a slug on his shoulder. He caught my fist, but not until after I’d co
Instead, I gave him another hug, noticing that we were almost the same height with me in heels and him in…loafers? Laughing, I looked him up and down. “You are going to freeze your butt off outside.”
“Yeah, I love you, too,” he said, gri
Smiling as if I would never stop, I picked up the larger bag, remembering the last time I’d carried his luggage. “We’d better stop and get some now. Besides, I’m waiting for Jenks to finish up with something, and I want to talk to you about Mom.”
Robbie straightened from trying to grip his satchel and guitar in the same hand, his green eyes looking worried. “Is she okay?”
I stared for a moment, then realized what my last words must have sounded like. “Mom’s happier than a troll under a toll bridge. What happened out there with you, anyway? She came back tan and humming show tunes. What’s up with that?”
Robbie took the bag from me, and we angled to the nearest coffee stand. “It wasn’t me,” he said. “It was her, ah, traveling companion.”
My brow furrowed and my pulse quickened. Takata. I’d thought as much. She’d gone out to the West Coast to spend time with her college sweetheart, and I wasn’t sure what I thought about him. I mean, I knew who he was, but I didn’t know him.
Silently we got in line, and as I stood shoulder to shoulder with Robbie, I suddenly felt tall. Takata was birth father to both of us, a college sweetheart who gave our mom the children her human husband-and Takata’s best friend, incidentally-couldn’t, while Takata ran off and traded his life for fortune and fame, down to dying his hair and changing his name. I couldn’t think of him as Dad. My real dad had died when I was thirteen, and nothing would change that.
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