Raintree: Oracle (Raintree 4)

That’s what I’m trying to do.

You’re killing me...

Would they still be able to communicate this way when he was stripped of the curse? All her life she’d wanted a normal man, a man with no magical abilities, but if they could no longer touch each other this way...she would miss it.

But there was no other way. She didn’t want to ever peek into the mind of Dark Ryder, and she did not want him in her own mind. What could he, would he, do there if he had free rein?

No matter what the cost, they had to strip away the darkness. To see the man she loved entirely gone would break her heart. If the darkness won and her Ryder disappeared, it might snow in Cloughban until the end of time.

Gideon placed his free hand over Ryder’s heart and directed Echo to say a few more words. She did.

Ryder’s head snapped back. His body bucked and then he went still. His head rotated slowly and then dropped forward; his shoulders and arms went slack. Gideon backed away.

“Is it done?” Echo asked.

“I think so.” Gideon looked at a far corner and nodded in acknowledgment of the ghost. “She won’t leave until he wakes up and we know for sure.”

Echo took a knife and began to cut away the duct tape that held Ryder.

“Shouldn’t we wait until he wakes up and we know if the spell, you know, took?” Hope asked.

“No,” Echo responded sharply. “We need him, dark or light.” She lifted her head to look Gideon in the eye. “They’re coming.”

* * *

Rye opened his eyes slowly. Wiggled his fingers as the world around him came into focus. He felt hungover, only half-present. For a long moment, no one else in the pub realized he was awake. They were making plans, gathering others to fight with them.

He tried to listen in, attempted to peek into the minds of those around him. They could block him, and had, but if they didn’t realize he was listening why would they bother?

He heard nothing. Saw nothing. He reached for a vision of the battle to come; he tried to identify the dark magic he knew was coming their way. Again, nothing. He lifted his hand and attempted to start a small fire on his palm, something which had, until now, been child’s play.

Nothing.

Without the curse, he was no wizard. He wasn’t even a mildly talented stray or a slightly gifted independent. He was an ordinary human, and in the coming battle he would serve no useful purpose at all.

Echo saw—or sensed—that he was awake and she ran to him. “Ryder, how do you feel? Are you...?”

He lifted his head and looked at her. She paled, and for a moment he believed she was disappointed to see that he was just a man. She’d fallen in love with a wizard and now he was nothing. In a town like Cloughban, he was less than nothing.

And then she whispered, “Thank God it’s you.” She leaned down and kissed him briefly, too briefly, taking him by surprise. That kiss was warmth in a cold world, a moment of peace and, yes, love.

“We don’t have much time,” she said as she pulled away from him. “They’re coming, they’re close. As far as I can see, there are only half a dozen of them or so. They still think they’ll catch us unaware, which is foolish considering where they’re headed, so I believe we’ll be...”

“Echo,” Rye interrupted. “I’m...” Powerless, worthless, empty.

She placed a hand on his shoulder. “I know.”

He found a way to continue. “The spell I cast on the cottage, the one to hide and protect Cassidy.”

She paled as she finished his thought for him. “It fell when we removed the curse.”

* * *

Cassidy glanced out her bedroom window, bored with her book, bored with being stuck inside for so many hours. Days! Well, a day and a half. It seemed like longer. She had never realized how much she liked the freedom to come and go as she pleased, even when she didn’t physically come and go.

The figure walking toward the cottage was one she knew well, though she had never seen him here in her home. He never came out to the cottage, never visited. She blinked. Strained to see. Why was he walking straight for the front door when he shouldn’t be able to see the cottage at all?

At that moment he spotted her in the window. He smiled and waved.