“I think you don’t really need me to tell you that it will work,” he said. A burst of light from the fireplace as a log tumbled flashed in his eyes, which were reflecting glassily as if they were brimming with tears. He looked away and took a long gulp of Scotch.

I reached for his hand, stealing myself for the lash of my wards. They did feel a bit like fish hooks. “I’d like you to stand by me when I do it.”

He looked down at our interlocked hands, the coils beneath our skin lashing at each other like warring snakes. “Of course,” he said, draining his glass, “but if you don’t mind I’d like to stay out of the rain. I think I’m coming down with a cold.”

“Sure,” I said. “I thought we’d do it on the back porch. The wind is blowing from the west – away from the back of the house. We’ll stay dry.”

I got to my feet, keeping his hand in mine, pulling at it to make him get up. As he got to his feet he pulled me to him and brought his head down to kiss me. His mouth tasted of peat and smoke and wild heather. He tasted like Liam, but there was a bitter taste as well. Like ashes …

Or maybe that was just the taste of our wards burning away.

“Come on,” I said, pulling away from him. “We’d better get outside before we set something on fire.”

He followed me through the kitchen out onto the back porch. The wind was blowing away from the house so the porch was dry, but Duncan still held back as I moved to the railing. I concentrated on clearing my mind of everything but the invocation I’d memorized, first calling upon the Basque rain goddess I’d read about in Wheelock.

Mari, Goddess of the rain, I call on you,

You who reward the just and punish the false,

You who wield the rain and the wind,

Daughter of Earth, Wife of Thunder.

Thunder rumbled in the west and the wind lifted up the ends of my hair.

Let the lock that was locked

unlock.

Let the door that was closed

open.

Let the bird that was snared

fly.

As Wheelock had instructed, I pictured each image as I spoke it: a key turning in a lock, a door opening, a bird flying free. At first I felt nothing, but then a gust of wind blew the rain into my face. It felt deliciously cool on my skin. As it dripped down my neck, I felt as if it were seeping deep into my body.

As the rain seeps into the parched earth

come into me,

As the stream finds its way to the sea,

find your way into me,

As the drip cracks stone over time,

Crack the bonds that bind me.