The Witch with No Name

“Just a few hours,” I coaxed, popping my cupped hand against her shoulder when she threatened to pull out the ribbons she could reach. The old horse snorted, ribbons forgotten at the unexpected sound, and I held her head to me and took solace in her horsy smell, still there despite the bath and brushing. A few hours ago the pavilion had been frantic with last-minute details and rushing about. It was just Red and me now, waiting until almost the end, and the soothing gray of sunset was nice. I really didn’t have much of a part to play, but I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.

Red’s ears flicked, her body young under a youth charm, but her mind old and tempered. If she was tensing, there was a reason, and I let go, turning to where the white cloth billowed, showing the wedding guests assembled amid fire pots and torches just now starting to give off light, but Red was looking the other way.

“Mom!” Ray whispered, and my eyes widened as she came in the back of the temporary pavilion. “Have you seen my spelling cap?”

I dropped Red’s head, aghast as I ran to close the billowing curtains before anyone could see Ray. “What are you doing here?” I exclaimed, almost whispering it. “You should be lost in the woods by now!” Elven weddings. I’d had no idea they were so complex. No wonder Ellasbeth had wanted a church wedding.

“I had it this afternoon.” Ray swooped about in her lacy wedding dress, and I halted, blinking fast so I wouldn’t tear up. She had no idea how beautiful she was with her dark hair piled atop her head and her color high in worry. “I went to put it on, and it wasn’t there. I think Jumoke’s kids are hiding it.”

“Ray . . .”

“Jenks!” the young woman exclaimed, hands in fists as she looked at the ceiling as if the pixy was up there hiding, and Red snorted, stomping at her show of frustration.

“Ray, relax.”

“But I can’t find it, Mom!”

I won’t cry, damn it, I thought as I stilled her, bringing her to a halt as I tucked a stray curl under a jeweled pin. “I love it when you call me that.”

Ray stopped short, her flush deepening. “Well, you are,” she said, fidgeting. “Ellasbeth is nice and all, but you’re the one Dad loves.”

Meaning Trent, I thought, giving her a hug and feeling her strength and determination, happy that I might have had a part in that. “Your mother would be so proud of you,” I said as I dropped back, still holding her shoulders. “You have her stately beauty.”

Ray’s eyes dropped. “And my dad’s hands,” she said, meaning Quen this time. It made sense if you didn’t think about it too hard. “Mom, I can’t get married without my cap,” she said, her momentary calm gone as she began casting about for it again. “Where’s Jenks? I know it’s Jumoke’s kids. They were plotting to hide it as they did my hair.”

Of that, I had no doubt. The pixies had been in and out of the pavilion/stable all afternoon. Trent had banished them shortly before leaving with Quen, and smiling, I began taking out the pins holding my spelling cap on. “Jenks is doing a last security check in the woods. Here.” The last pin came out, and I shook my hair free. I wouldn’t be doing any magic today. “Wear mine. No one will know the difference.”

“I can’t wear yours,” she protested.

Eyebrow’s high, I smirked. “I can ask Lucy for hers. She’s sitting with Ellasbeth.”

Ray winced, her eyes flicking to the shifting walls as if able to see the large glen beside the river where her mother had last stood upon the earth. The last I’d looked, Lucy was sitting directly between Ellasbeth’s stately snobbery and my mom’s loud refusal to let anyone think Ellasbeth was better than she was. Takata was enjoying himself immensely, sitting back and watching the show before the show, as it were.

“Ahh, I’ll wear yours, thanks.”

My heart almost broke from happiness as she all but flopped onto a linen-covered bail of straw and I carefully used my hairpins to fix it among her elaborate braids. Ellasbeth was not happy, making no bones about her disapproval of Ray’s marrying a Rosewood baby, even if that baby had grown into a powerful demon who’d turned his thoughtful studies into researching aura mechanics. The field was relatively new and massively funded by an ever-decreasing but desperate segment of the old undead. It had never occurred to me that Ray might marry one of the kids that Trent and I had saved from Ku’Sox. Funny how things worked out.

But I think Ellasbeth’s disapproval stemmed more from the coming lack of grandbabies than from Keric’s being a demon. While elves and demons had finally learned to live together—in part because their new Goddess was a demon and she wanted it that way—the biology remained static. There’d never be a successful demon-elf pairing. The magic fought the science, and the science undermined the magic. There were some things, apparently, that even a crazy Goddess couldn’t fix.