Page 231 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
“Why would they need a steer for my summoning?”
“Ritual blood sacrifice,” Morus replied like he’d told me the time. “The steer’s an offering to Danu.”
I chewed on this. “Can’t we just save some of the pieces from the steer—while we’re turning it into steak?”
The Kobold’s prune-like face wrinkled further in amusement. “If you were readying to have any goddess, let alone the All Mother, to supper, what would you likely serve her? Day old stew?”
Souring, I exhaled. “No.”
Morus let Sionna lick more fish guts off his claws. “You’d offer the best that you had, o’ course. To display your deference. Your summoning’s no different an affair.”
The affair of my summoning would take place on the fire festival Imbolc, what we’d called Candlemas or St. Brigid’s Day on Earth. I’d always thought Candlemas happened in winter, but it fell in late summer on Mag Mell’s annual timetable.
Myrddin showed me their calendar for gauging the passage of time outside Eden later that day when he took me on a tour of the sacred stone circle where they’d conduct my summoning. There, I learned that a fae year consisted of 13 months instead of 12. Someone had carved these months into one of the standing stones in yet another circle (we fae—we liked our circles). A tree and a moon phase denoted each month. We were now in mid-hazel moon.
“August,” Myrrdin clarified, helpful as always when I was pretending not to be clueless before his clerics.
“I’ve been here for three and a half months already?” My family probably thought I was dead. And my friends back home in 2008, who I pictured packing to return to UPJ for the fall semester, doubtless still hoped I’d come to my senses, changed my mind about dropping out of college.
If only I had that choice to make.
Clearing my throat, I faced Myrrdin’s serenity. Maybe he’d rub off on me. “Is there a tutor here in Eden? I want to learn the little but important things about this world.”
“I’ll have Master Hickinbottom meet with you first thing in the morning. He’s been offering to—”
The prophet’s voice blurred into the background as my Danann ears detected a vigorous scuffle transpiring on the downslope of the fairy hill. Alarmed, I scampered to the edge of the henge. At the bottom of the hill was a rudimentary fighting ring constructed of fallen palms. Inside, weapons drawn, were three large males, the largest being Pete.
“What the hell is he doing?” I demanded. “He’s still recovering!”
Although, watching the massive man right then, he didn’t look like he was recovering from a deathly illness. Despite his thinner physique, which was filling in again with his constant gobbling, he still looked lethal, like he could crush a bear’s skull in the palm of one massive hand. His body moved with such power, dodging and thrusting, that he made my heart—and other body parts—shudder.
Cool it, Amy, before you burst into flames.Anger was no longer the only emotion that riled my fire.
Myrrdin hummed as he glided to my side. “Trying to keep himself fit, I presume. He’ll need to if he’s going to help us in your summoning.”
Startled, I whirled on Myrrdin. “He’s what?”
“He’s offered to assist us in conducting your powers.”
That would only endanger Pete. Again! “But he can’t do that! He’s not—”
“He’s stronger than anyone else in Eden, Amy—apart from you, of course—both physically and magically. And remember, we need all the strength we can muster.”
“But he still coughs sometimes, and he—he gets tired too easily. He’s been taking naps during the day.”
Myrrdin chuckled. “Pete has always taken naps during the day. Even with all his undertakings, he finds time.”
“I don’t care. I don’t want to risk it.”
Myrrdin set a long, elegant hand on my shoulder, his voice a tranquilizer as he said, “He’ll be fine, Amy. I assure you.”
My pulse slowing, I scowled. “You better be right, Myrrdin. If he dies in this summoning, Iwon’tbe happy with you.”
“Curious, but Pete said something similar to me about you.” Myrrdin’s crystalline eyes twinkled like water under moonlight, and I got the feeling he didn’t find anything curious about what Pete had said at all.
Liatris’shandsfluttered,asdid her wings. “You look—” She beamed at me. “Exquisite!” Reaching for my hand, she spun me about in the warden’s hut. “Just exquisite.”
“You truly do, Amy,” Imogen gushed from my other side. “You’re a dream.”
