Dancing Days by Val St. Crowe
Chapter Nineteen
Nora was inside Phoebe’s tent, wrapped in blankets and drinking hot cider. Sawyer stood next to her. Owen was across the room, bound, gagged, and blindfolded.
Phoebe paced in front of Coeus. “He killed Dirk?”
“You can’t trust him,” said Nora. “He got in your head. He made you do something earlier, Phoebe. You have to believe me. He’s dangerous.”
Phoebe stopped and looked at Nora. “Yes, I know that, Nora.” She shook her head. “He’s strong.” She turned to Coeus. “We can’t let him stay here.”
“You know that?” said Nora.
Coeus put his arm around Phoebe. “You tried. You did the best you could.”
“Maybe if I’d kept a better eye on him,” said Phoebe. “In the summer, Nora told me things about him. I didn’t listen. I laughed it off.” She shook Coeus off and went to Nora, putting a finger in her face. “I told you to tell me if he hurt you.”
Nora shrank back. “He threatened Maddie. He was going to make her kill herself—”
Coeus pulled Phoebe away. “It’s not Nora’s fault. It’s not your fault.”
“Coeus, I was horrible to that boy when he was a child. I could have taken him from Nimue when he was a baby. I could have raised him, but—”
“Then it’s my fault,” said Coeus. “It’s my fault for not wanting your lover’s child.”
Phoebe sighed. “It’s no one’s fault.” She gazed down at Owen.
“You can’t let him wake up!” Nora exclaimed. “You don’t know what he’s capable of.”
Phoebe knelt in front of Nora. “I’m sorry. I haven’t explained, have I?”
Nora shook her head.
“When Owen spoke to me earlier, when he looked into my eyes, he whispered a prayer to Dionysus. But you see, Dionysus has no power of his own anymore. The only power he has is the power of Helicon. And that’s my fault. When I was young—”
“You gave Dionysus power so that he could help the gods try to save the Roman empire, but it backfired and sent the world into the Dark Ages,” said Sawyer.
Phoebe looked at him. “Yes.”
“We ran into Ned Willow in the woods one day,” said Nora.
Phoebe sighed. “That Ned Willow needs to learn to keep his mouth shut.”
“A prayer to Dionysus?” said Nora. “Because we used a prayer to Dionysus to get to Helicon last year.”
Phoebe took a deep breath. “Well, that makes sense, then. I wonder how long Owen’s had access to our power. He probably doesn’t even know that’s what he’s drawing on.” She stood up. “You saw me arguing with Dionysus at May Day, because I thought he was pulling energy from Helicon, and he does pull energy, at least a bit, anyway, to survive. But after he left, promising to stop, it didn’t stop. I hunted him down afterwards. It took months. He’s not always easy to locate. Anyway, that’s when I realized it wasn’t him. And when it got worse recently, I was at my wit’s end, trying to figure out where it came from. And then Owen used it on me. Right in front of my face.” She smiled wryly. “It didn’t last very long, of course. By the time I’d walked away, it was already fading. You can’t use energy from Helicon against the head of the council.
“I went to Coeus right away, to tell him what I knew. We were talking, trying to decide what to do about Owen, and then Coeus noticed that the tracker for the portals had gone off. By the time we got there, Dirk was already dead. We went looking for the rest of you right after that.” Phoebe took a deep breath. “Owen’s killed a man. He’s used the sacred power of the muses to threaten and terrify. He’ll have to be exiled. We’ll call a council meeting to make it official, of course, but I know there won’t be any disagreement.”
“Exile?” said Nora. “But he’s powerful, even in the mundane world—”
“I’m working on a binding spell,” said Phoebe. “He won’t be able to draw on the power of Helicon again.”
“He’ll want to come back,” said Nora. “When he was talking to Dirk, he called this place home. He still thinks of it that way.”
“Nora, if you’re suggesting we kill him, we don’t do things like that in Helicon.”
“But he deserves it,” said Nora. And I’m scared of him. Scared he’ll come back. Scared he’ll come for me. He always wants me.
“Exile,” said Phoebe. “He won’t be able to get back. He won’t hurt you, Nora. Trust me.”
Nora pulled her blankets closer.
Later, Phoebe and Coeus took Owen’s still unconscious body away, leaving Nora and Sawyer in Phoebe’s tent.
“Would you really have thrown him off the edge?” Sawyer asked.
Nora took a sip of her cider, which was getting cold. “In the mundane world, people kill each other every day, you know? And in some places, if you kill someone, the government kills you for doing that.”
“Well, that sounds barbaric,” said Sawyer. “The government’s no better than the killer then.”
Nora chewed on her lip. “I loved him, you know. He...got inside my head. He used my love against me. He’s horrible. Everything about him is horrible.”
“Yeah,” said Sawyer. “But if you did that, Nora, you’d be horrible too.”
She burrowed under the blankets. “Well, I didn’t do it, did I? But I hope I never see him again.”
“I’m with you there,” said Sawyer. He pulled a chair over next to Nora’s. He studied his fingernails. “Listen, um, about back there? You know, when I saw you were okay?”
Oh. Right. Sawyer had kissed her. She looked up at him, and at that moment, he looked up too. They stared into each other’s eyes for a minute. Nora hadn’t realized that Sawyer’s eyes were a sort of sea-foam color, or that he had long pale lashes.
Sawyer looked away.
“You’re gay, aren’t you?” said Nora. “I mean, or you’re a woman trapped in a man’s body or whatever.”
“It’s not exactly like that,” said Sawyer. He sat back. “I guess it’s more like I don’t feel like a girl or a guy. Or like I feel like both. Or...” He glanced up at her again. “But, yeah, I’ve always been attracted to men.”
“That’s what I thought,” said Nora. “You were happy to see me. That’s all.” She shrugged.
He nodded, smiling. “Yeah. That’s all.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “Friends can occasionally kiss on the lips, and it not be weird, especially when they’ve both just narrowly escaped death.”
“So it’s not weird?” he said.
“Not at all.”
“Good.” He sounded relieved.