Leesa put her fork down. The solstice—now she understood his concern. Or understood it partially, at least. The solstice could have strange effects on magic, especially volkaane magic. She thought back to the previous winter, when the entire volkaane clan, Rave included, had disappeared for several weeks into the mountains of New Hampshire in an effort to avoid trouble with vampires or anyone else.

  Last year had been special, though. The volkaanes didn’t abandon their settlement every year. Last December they had been worried about the combined effects of the solstice and Destiratu. But the Destiratu had finally faded and no longer seemed to be a cause for concern. With so much else going on, Leesa hadn’t even considered that the solstice could be a problem this year.

  “Do you really think the solstice could be dangerous, without Destiratu to feed it?” she asked. “And that it might have been behind yesterday’s incident?”

  Rave sighed. “I don’t know. That’s why I’m concerned.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t be against another New Hampshire getaway,” Leesa said, thinking back on how much fun she and Rave had shared when they retreated to the mountain caves for a few days last spring to escape the xenorians.

  “I don’t think we need to leave here,” Rave said. “There’s no special danger from vampires like last winter. We just need to be extra careful for the next few days. We probably should keep away from other people, too, just in case our son acts up in a way you can’t control.”

  “That’s fine with me, as long as we can still go to Christmas with my family. Do you think we’ll be okay by then? That’s four days after the solstice.”

  Rave nodded. “Probably. I don’t think any effect from the solstice will last more than a couple of days. But we need to play it by ear and see what happens.”

  “Okay. For the next few days, we’ll keep practicing my magic out in the woods. Other than that, we can just hang out here.” She picked up her fork and speared a big chunk of syrup-soaked waffle. “I’ve got enough waffles and syrup to last me for a few days, at least.”

  23. TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING

  SOLSTICE MORNING DAWNED clear and cold. As soon as Leesa woke up, she kissed Rave on the mouth and then padded into the living room and over to the large picture window. Pulling aside the curtains, she gazed outside. She knew she was being foolish, but she half-expected to see some kind of sign in the sky heralding the arrival of the solstice. Much to her disappointment, the pale blue early morning sky looked like it always did. The lawn out front, however, did not.

  The biting cold had brought a layer of frost with it, and the tiny ice crystals coating the dormant brown grass glistened in the slanting sunlight like thousands of tiny, sparkling jewels. Leesa had seldom seen anything so beautiful. She wished there was a spell in her magic book she could use to prevent the frost from melting as the sun rose higher. If there was, she would have used it immediately to preserve the beauty.

  Rave came up beside her and slipped his hand up under the back of the T-shirt she had slept in.

  “You can’t see the solstice, you know,” he said as he softly caressed her back.

  Leesa sighed at the gentle warmth of Rave’s touch. “I know. But I couldn’t help myself. Our beautiful sparkly lawn is a pretty nice consolation prize, though.”

  “It is beautiful.” Rave pulled his hand from beneath Leesa’s shirt and began running his fingers through her tangled tresses. “Almost as beautiful as my lovely wife.”

  Leesa felt like purring. She never tired of hearing Rave use the word ‘wife.’ And adding beautiful to it certainly didn’t hurt, either. She had never thought of herself as beautiful, but Rave had a way of making her believe it. Old habits died hard, however.

  “Not so beautiful first thing in the morning, I dare say.”

  Rave continued stroking her blond locks. “You are to me—first thing in the morning, in the middle of the night, or at the end of the day. It doesn’t matter. You are always beautiful.”

  “Where did you learn how to talk to human women like this?” Leesa asked, smiling. “I thought you volkaanes were a reclusive bunch.”

  Rave grinned. “I’ve had more than a century to practice, remember?” He removed his fingers from Leesa’s hair and took her hand. He lifted it to his lips and kissed it. “Seriously, though, I’ve never talked to anyone like this, because I’ve never felt about anyone the way I feel about you.”

  “I know. I was just teasing. Sometimes I just have trouble believing how lucky I am to have found you.”

  Rave gave Leesa’s hand a gentle squeeze. “Almost as lucky as me,” he said.

  Leesa rested her head on Rave’s shoulder. They stood like that in silence for several minutes, content to be touching each other while they gazed out at the sparkling lawn. Finally, Leesa lifted her head from Rave’s shoulder.

  “Can we get back to the solstice for just a moment?”

  Rave turned his head and looked at her. “Of course. What about it?”

  “I know we can’t see it, but I was wondering if maybe you can feel it. You know, since it affects your magic and all.”

  “I can feel it,” Rave replied. “But just barely. It produces a very slight change in my vibrations, almost like a faint pull upon my fire. If I wasn’t paying attention, though, I don’t think I would even notice it. What about you? Do you feel anything different?”

  “Not really. Wait a second, though.” Leesa turned her attention inward, focusing on their baby. She thought maybe she detected some slight difference there. “I’m not really sure, but I think our son feels a little bit different today. I may just be imagining it, though, because I’m looking for something. It’s difficult to tell, and hard to describe.”

  She rubbed her stomach and smiled. “One thing I’m feeling for sure is that I’m hungry. Time for breakfast!”

  Rave laughed. “Hold the presses. News flash: my pregnant wife is hungry.”

  “Yes, she is.” Leesa grinned. “And if you know what’s good for you, volkaane, you’ll stay out of my way.” She spun away from the window and headed for the kitchen. She knew exactly what she wanted.

  Scarcely five minutes later, Leesa dug into her first bite of blueberry waffle. This made it four days in a row for the waffles, but she didn’t care—the way they tasted, she was pretty sure tomorrow she would make it five. She had heard that some pregnant women craved things like ice cream and pickles, but not her. The way she craved waffles and syrup, it was a good thing she had packed the freezer with the frozen treats. You couldn’t beat them for convenience, either, with the microwave ready to heat them up in minutes.

  Rave sat across the table, silently watching her wolf down her breakfast. Leesa didn’t understand how he could resist the delicious treat, but she didn’t care—that just meant more waffles for her. She shoved another big forkful into her mouth.

  She had devoured two of the four waffles she had prepared in the microwave when her stomach suddenly started to rumble. Before she could stop herself, she let loose with a loud burp. She covered her mouth with her hand, but she was much too late. She felt herself blushing.

  “Must be the solstice,” she said, trying to explain away her embarrassing breach of decorum.

  Rave grinned. “Either that, or our son can’t handle the way his mother has been shoveling in her breakfast.”

  Leesa knew Rave was probably right, but she much preferred the solstice explanation. It was far less embarrassing, and made the whole thing not her fault.

  They watched in surprise as a cloud of tiny, misty green energy particles appeared a foot or so in front of Leesa’s face, as if the spray had escaped with her burp. The pale green hue told them the mist had originated with their unborn son. The diaphanous cloud slowly coalesced above the table into a translucent sphere the size of a grapefruit. Rave nudged his chair backward in case he had to move quickly, while Leesa was ready to cast an air shield spell at a moment’s notice. The smoky globe seemed harmless so far, but after what their baby’s magic had done to the mountain laurel, neither of them was about to take any chances.

  The sphere began to rotate, turning with tantalizing slowness at first, and then gradually picking up speed. Leesa had no idea what was happening, but she decided safe was better than sorry. Calling forth an air shield, she wrapped it around the twirling green orb, leaving plenty of space between the sphere and the shield so her barrier wouldn’t interfere with her son’s magic unless it started to spread. She was curious to see what might happen with the magic, as long as she and Rave and the house were safe.

  Soon the globe was spinning as quickly as one of the colorful toy tops she had played with as a little girl, and she could hear an audible hiss in the air around it from the speed of its spin. The center of the sphere grew intensely bright for ten or fifteen seconds—brighter than any illumination spell Leesa had ever cast—and then the whole thing simply disappeared. She felt no pressure anywhere against her shield—whatever the magic was, it had been self-contained and had not tried to break out. It had been by far the most intricate thing she had seen from her son, and she wondered how much of it was him and how much might have been caused by the influence of the solstice.

  After waiting a few moments to be sure everything was safe, she dropped her shield. She probed the area where the sphere had been with her mind, but detected no trace of any remaining magic. Whatever it had been, it was gone now.

  “Well, that was definitely interesting,” she said. “Kind of pretty, too.”

  Rave looked at her with a thoughtful look on his face. “Do you have any idea what sort of magic that was? Because I don’t.”

  Leesa shrugged. “Not a clue.” She cut off a smaller than usual chunk of waffle and speared it with her fork. “One thing I do know—I should probably eat a bit more slowly from now on. There’s no telling what another burp might produce.”

  She popped the waffle into her mouth.

  Rave smiled. “I think that’s probably a good idea.”

  24. SOLSTICE SURPRISE

  BY THE TIME LEESA AND RAVE headed outside, the sun had melted the frost from the lawn, returning the yard to its barren, light brown color. The air remained bitingly cold, though, carried against the exposed skin of Leesa’s face and hands by a stiff northerly breeze. Instead of using a warming spell to ward off the chill, she simply hopped up into Rave’s arms. No warming spell was needed when he cradled her against his chest like this—and it was much more fun, besides.

  Leesa had considered skipping magic practice today because of the unpredictable effects of the solstice, but she hated to miss even one day of working to improve her skills. In the end she had decided to go ahead with her practice, but not to try anything too new or too dangerous, and to pay careful attention to any sudden changes in the way she felt. She was determined to be doubly attentive to the baby in her womb, though she had to admit she was intrigued to see if their son might conjure up anything as spectacular as his display during breakfast.

  Rave carried her across their yard and raced into the woods behind their house. As always, the trees slipped by at an incredible pace, but Rave’s gait was so gentle that if Leesa closed her eyes she would have scarcely known they were moving, save for the wind rushing against her face. How he managed to avoid every tree and every branch while moving at such incredible speed was something she still found difficult to believe, despite how many times she had ridden in his arms.

  Two miles fell behind them in what seemed like no more than a minute or two. When Rave put her down in a small clearing after so brief a ride, Leesa wished they were going farther, but they had decided to stick close to home today. They were near the reservoir again, far enough into the woods to guarantee their privacy, which was all that really mattered.

  She stood cuddled against Rave’s side with her arm around his waist, using his heat to keep her warm while she surveyed their surroundings and decided what magic she wanted to use first to warm up with. Her eyes fell upon a broken branch about five feet long lying on the dead leaves near the center of the clearing.

  She dropped her arm from Rave’s back and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

  “Okay, sweetheart. Time to move back. I’m ready to get started.”

  As soon as Rave stepped away, the cold air enveloped her in its frigid grip, so she quickly cast a warming spell. The chill immediately vanished from her body. Maintaining the spell while she performed other magic would not be as challenging as some other combinations, but it would still be good practice.

  Rave took up a position about twenty feet away, remaining on his feet and leaning against the thick trunk of a tall oak tree. He always appeared alert and ready, even in repose, but today Leesa thought he seemed even more so. She knew he was ready to spring into motion at an instant’s notice, whether to rush to her aid or to evade a sudden magic strike, courtesy of the solstice and the child in her belly. She hoped that neither would be necessary.

  Turning back to the fallen branch she had chosen, she focused her mind on the limb.

  “Blitha morun sumuss,” she chanted.

  The branch began to grow slowly longer and thicker—not just the main part of the limb, but all the smaller twigs that branched off from it as well. The slow, steady growth reminded Leesa of time-lapse nature films she had seen, which gave her another idea. She didn’t know if it would work, but she saw no reason not to try.

  “Blitha egras sumuss,” she said as she visualized green buds sprouting from the ends of the smaller branches. Technically, the limb was no longer alive and so perhaps not subject to the plant growth spell, but it had been alive once, and she knew what oak buds looked like.

  She was delighted when tiny green bumps appeared in a number of places. It was working!

  She continued to visualize the branch growing bigger and buds sprouting into leaves. Now it was truly similar to a time-lapse film, like watching a small tree grow and bloom. Only this tree was not rooted in the soil.

  Leesa didn’t stop until the limb was nearly twice its original size and covered in green leaves. It now looked like a branch that had snapped off from a tree in mid-summer, not at the beginning of winter.

  “Impressive,” Rave said from his spot at the edge of the clearing. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

  “Neither did I,” Leesa admitted. “The idea just came to me while I was watching the bare wood grow.” She was about to explain about how the time-lapse analogy had triggered the idea, but realized the notion would be meaningless to Rave.

  Flushed with her success, Leesa decided to try something a little bit different from her standard spells. She called forth a yellow illumination orb, which was second nature to her by now, then willed it to begin rotating above her outstretched palm, using the visual she had gotten from her son’s magic earlier this morning. She had never thought to try anything like this before—and wasn’t really sure it had any practical use—but she figured it never hurt to add a new trick to her repertoire. In the world of magic, she was learning, you never knew what might come in handy some day.

  It took a few moments of focused concentration, but eventually the glowing globe began to slowly spin in a clockwise direction. She pictured it rotating faster, and it promptly sped up, though she couldn’t make it spin as fast as her son’s had spun. Still, she was pleased with her efforts and decided to keep experimenting.

  She shifted her visualization and tried to make the orb spin in the opposite direction. Since she had never seen a sphere rotate counterclockwise, this proved more difficult, but after ten or fifteen seconds of intense concentration she succeeded in reversing the globe’s direction.

  “Bravo,” Rave called out, clapping his hands and smiling. “What other tricks do you have up your sleeve, master wizard?”

  “How about this, mister volkaane?” Leesa floated the spinning sphere across the clearing until it was suspended a foot or so in front of Rave’s face.

  Rave reached out and pointed his index finger at the orb, keeping his fingertip just outside the edge of the glowing area. He sent a thin stream of blue fire into the globe. As the blue spread through the sphere, the color of the illumination changed from bright yellow to a pale green—a green not too dissimilar from the one they had seen earlier this morning. Leesa smiled at the image of their separate and very different magics blending into the color of their unborn son’s.

  “I like it,” she said as Rave lowered his hand. “I like it a lot.”

  The sphere remained green even without Rave shooting his fire into it. The magic was already mixed and in place. Leesa was pretty sure if she touched the orb, it would feel much warmer than usual now.

  She floated the globe back over in front of her. The new hue had given her another idea to try. She pictured the bright green center her son’s sphere had formed earlier, trying to use the visual to generate the same intensely glowing center in her own globe.

  Her efforts proved counterproductive, however. Not only did the interior of the orb fail to brighten at all, but it also suddenly stopped spinning. She was left with a motionless glowing green sphere floating in front of her face, something she could have created without any fire from Rave. Disappointed, she let the orb wink out.

  Rave walked over to her. “What happened? I could tell from the look on your face you were trying to do something.”

  “I was trying to increase the brightness in the center, like we saw this morning. I think putting so much focus on that distracted me from the spinning part. Once that stopped, I decided to let the whole thing end.” Leesa smiled. “I’m not giving up, though. I’ll just start again from scratch, without any of your fire this time.” Her smile widened. “No offense, but I think I might have better luck using only my own power, at least until I start to get the hang of it.”

  Rave returned her smile. “No offense taken, sweetheart. I’ll keep my fire to myself this time.”

  Leesa called up a second yellow globe identical to the first. With much less effort this time, she set the sphere to spinning rapidly. She watched it rotate for nearly a minute, using the visual to strengthen the spell until she thought it was safe to divide her concentration once again.