Page 25

TWENTY-FIVE

Wren

I run my hands along the wall, trying to find a seam or an opening. Nothing. It’s completely solid. I have no way of knowing where she went, or what spell she used to get there. Beside me something glows, and I turn from the wall.

The threads of moonlight that formed Celeste’s shield have lifted. They’re knitting together and floating toward the center of the chamber where Catalina still kneels on the floor.

“Lee, is Ruby okay?” I call to him as I follow the threads of moonlight.

He moves aside, revealing Ruby conscious and sitting with their back against the wall while Lily sits beside them, holding their hand.

Ruby clears their throat. “I’ll be fine. Thanks to Lee.”

Lee smiles at me, stands, and raises hands that still glow softly with healing magicks. “I’ve never felt anything like it. I healed her with no problem.”

“Because you’re amazing!” I say as I join Catalina and bend to help her to her feet. My gaze searches for Viento, who slowly unfurls himself from the floor. “Are you okay, Viento?”

Better than fine. I am free, Little Bird!

Lee comes to me and I want to throw myself into his arms, but he stops a few feet from Catalina and me and points up. “Uh, Wren. What is that?”

All eyes turn upward to the silver threads. They have come together to form a glistening tube that grows, expands, until the top of it spears through the dome, not breaking the glass, but stretching up, up, up beyond it to the moon hanging full and fat directly over us. The bottom of the funnel also expands and, before any of us can even attempt to stop it, it drops down and engulfs Catalina.

I start forward, but Viento soars to my side. Wait! She is in no danger. It is our Lady Moon Who touches her.

“What’s happening?” Lee is beside me.

“I’m not sure, but Viento says she’s not in danger. It’s the moon. She’s touching Catalina.”

Head bowed, Catalina lifts off the floor. She’s completely encased in silver threads, like a caterpillar within a cocoon.

“Catalina?” I call to her.

Her head lifts. Her eyes are the color of mercury. Her face is no longer lined, though her long hair is still silver-white. She is incredibly beautiful. She smiles at me and when she speaks her voice is not her own. It is more powerful, yet soothing and so musical that I could listen to her forever.

“My Doncella, I am so proud of you.”

I follow my gut and bow low. On one side of me, Lee does the same. On my other side, Viento drops to the floor and also bows.

“Lady Moon?” I ask.

“Yes, child. Of course.” Catalina’s glowing mercury gaze takes in Ruby and Lily, who stare at Her in awe, and then Lee and Viento. “You have chosen your friends well, young Wren.”

“I couldn’t have done any of this without them,” I say. “It was definitely a group effort.”

She nods. “Indeed. It is what the maidens before you lacked—friendship. Selene was able to isolate them, and those isolated are easily defeated.”

“What happens now?” I can’t help asking. “What’s going on out there?” I jerk my chin at the door that leads to the present.

Her smile is so beautiful that it’s hard to look at. “Wondrous things are happening—things that should have come to pass centuries ago. It will be quite an adventure for humans and Elementals alike.”

“Is our magick different?” Lee asks. “Mine feels… different .”

“That is entirely up to your individual talents,” She explains. “My gifts are no longer suppressed and controlled by Selene. They now reflect what is within each of you, and not simply what one selfish person decrees.”

“Even my powers?” My heartbeat thuds hard as I wait for Her answer.

“Yes, child. Even your powers.” She turns to Viento. “Faithful Air Elemental, you may ask. If your Little Bird agrees, I will make it so.”

“What does She mean?” I ask my friend.

“I choose to leave this place—this island.”

At first I don’t realize Viento is speaking aloud, but Lee startles and says, “We can hear you!”

Viento nods. “It is our Lady. She has allowed me to speak.” The Elemental draws in a deep breath and then asks, “Wren, my Little Bird, my human daughter, I would like you to join me. To travel this new world as an Elemental. To taste the wind and know the endless sky. Will you come with me, child?”

Next to me, Lee goes rigid. I slip my hand in his and squeeze it before letting it go. I turn to Viento and answer him the only way I can. “That’s an incredible offer. It means more to me than I can even tell you. Thank you for being my friend. Thank you for protecting me. I’m proud to be your human daughter.”

“Then you accept?” Lady Moon asks through Catalina.

“Not exactly. Viento, do you know what a rain check is?”

He shakes his cowled head. “No, Little Bird.”

“Well, in this case what it means is that I’m not ready to accept your offer, but someday I will be—some day after I’ve been a human for more than eighteen years, after I’ve lived and loved and learned more about life.” I take his hand in both of mine. “May I give you my rain check? Could you ask me again in, like, sixty years or so?”

He touches my cheek softly. “Yes. I will return with the rain check and ask again.”

“Would you do one more favor for me?” I ask.

“Anything in my power, Little Bird.”

“Could you show me your true form?”

“Gladly.” Viento pulls his hand gently from mine. He takes several steps back. In one graceful movement, he lifts his arms. His black cape spreads and shimmers, and as it folds around him it shifts from cape to enormous wings. When they spread wide their feathers glisten with silver moonlight, exposing a magnificent raptor. His body is opalescent. The plumage that frames his head is all the colors of a rainbow. But his eyes have not changed. I would recognize their amber warmth anywhere.

I go to him and he lowers his head so I can stroke the soft plumage. “You are even more beautiful than the luna moth.”

His snort of laughter echoes inside my mind with his words, I won’t tell the moth you said so! His mighty wings beat against the air as he soars up.

“We’ll miss you, Viento!” Lily calls.

“You’ve been a good friend!” adds Ruby.

Viento flies a circle over us and then spears up through the dome.

“Wait, is he stuck in the past now?” Lee asks.

“Elementals aren’t held to only one timeline,” says Lady Moon.

When I look at Her, She smiles at me and adds, “You made a wise choice, Maiden.”

“Thank you for giving me the opportunity.”

She nods graciously. “And now I must return to the sky. I cannot long be parted from the celestial. But before I go there is one more favor I shall grant.” Catalina’s body blazes so brightly that all of us have to look away, and when the light clears the elder is standing on the ground looking up at a hovering sphere that glistens with silver-white radiance.

From the sphere, Her voice projects with sweet musicality. “My ever-faithful Arciana, my elder. For your centuries of service I gift you with the choice of deciding your future. What is your heart’s desire, Catalina? Speak and I shall make it so.”

“I have lived long enough as a human. My greatest desire is to return to the Elemental Realm as one of my dearest ones.” Catalina looks from Wren and Lee to Ruby and Lily. “I will never be far from you. Should you be in need, simply call.”

“But which Elemental do we call?” Lily asks.

Catalina smiles. “That which has grounded me for more than two hundred years—Earth.”

“So it shall be!” Lady Moon exclaims.

A moonbeam sparks from the sphere, striking Catalina. As the old woman laughs joyously, her body shimmers. From where she stands, a lovely trumpet-shaped flower grows out of a crack that has opened in the floor. Within the flower there are familiar dark brown eyes that sparkle at us. The flower fills the chamber with its sweet scent and the sound of laughter and then it rides a moonbeam up, up, up, and follows the same path Viento took to disappear into the night sky above us.

“Wow! That was so cool!” says Lily as she and Ruby make their way slowly to us. Lily’s arm is around their waist, and Ruby’s arm is wrapped over Lily’s shoulders.

Above us Lady Moon shoots up through the dome and into the sky where She explodes into brilliant white fireworks.

As the fireworks fade I slip my hand into Lee’s. “That was something else, huh?”

Lee lifts my hand and kisses it. “ You’re something else, my lady.”

“And by ‘something else,’ do you mean Whoa, you’re amazing or Whoa, I’m ready to curl up in a fetal position and not move for days ?” Lily grins. “Just asking for a friend.”

“Can it be some of both?” Lee asks.

“Makes sense to me,” says Ruby.

I study Lily. Her face is still blotched with tears and dark circles stain the skin under her eyes. “I’m really sorry about your brother.”

Her haunted green gaze meets mine. “What you said to him before he ran away with Celeste is the truth. He already made his choice. I don’t have a brother anymore.”

“Well, you have me,” I say.

“Me, too,” Lee adds.

“And me,” Ruby says, smiling. “You will always have me.”

Lily turns to Ruby and wraps her arms around them. “Found family is the best.” She pulls Ruby into a kiss.

I look up at Lee. He meets my gaze. “I couldn’t agree with her more.”

Lee takes me into his arms and kisses me deeply, intimately, and with a promise of a future together.

The four of us walk slowly to the door that will open to our present, but a present that is filled with more questions than answers. I pause, one hand on the doorknob.

Lee’s thumb caresses circles on my other hand. “Are you ready?”

I grin at him. “For a new adventure with you? Always.”

I turn the knob, and the four of us step through the door into a whole new world.