Page 57 of Big Little Spells
Up here, in the center of the maze of his widow’s walk, is a kind of roof terrace all covered in candles. Clearly he’s enchanted the space because the wind coming off the river does not cause even a flicker of the many flames. The moon shines down like a spotlight, landing on Coronis, who perches on a spire and gives the illusion of a living weather vane.
Not that magical, ancient raven familiars would ever lower themselves in that fashion, I’m aware.
“We will make a Teineigen,” Nicholas intones as he walks out into the candles behind me. I didn’t actually know I moved from the doorway.
That word echoes inside me. Teineigen. I know it’s a Celtic term for some kind of Beltane fire, but I’ve never been all that interested in the correct terms and all the boring historical dates the way Emerson is.
Until tonight, I can’t say that bothered me too much.
Nicholas sighs. “It’s a need fire. Purifying. Clarifying. We will build it. You’ll walk through it. If done right, it might solve your vision issues.”
“You want me to walk through a fire.”
“A magical fire, witchling,” he chastises me, not all that gently. “You’ll hardly meet your end here. I promise.” Something flares between us when he says that word, promise. I choose not to point out that even I know better than to make vows on sacred nights. His mouth seems to tighten. “We will start the flame here with what kindling I have, then add logs in turn. You are capable of repeating after me, I trust?”
I shrug. “Debatable.”
He is neither amused nor deterred. He points to a spot opposite him, on the other side of the pile of logs and kindling. “Stand there, and we will begin.”
I don’t know much about the Teineigen, but I know how starting a ritual fire works. “Aren’t we supposed to hold hands for something like this?”
“There is no need.” He says that stiffly.
Stiffly enough I see the pattern. “You really have a problem with me touching you.”
“Hardly.” And he begins the fire chant before I can argue. “Heat within, flame without.”
I repeat the chant with him, then blow it out toward the pyre. Three times as the flame begins to build.
Then he adds the first log. “Let the flames of Beltane burn.”
I add my own log and repeat his words.
“May the Old Ones now return.” He adds a log, I parrot him and add another.
And so we keep on, building the fire against the night, one line at a time.
“And aid our visions strong and pure.”
“To lighten what went black once more.”
The fire blazes, and he’s right. There is apparently no need for hand-holding. By now the flames dance high enough that they block most of my view of him.
Then as I’m standing there, feeling parts of me that I’ve ignored for too long leap and writhe like the flames against the night, Nicholas walks around the fire. To me.
To me in this traditional white dress that feels less stupid suddenly than it has all night. Here in this impossible moment, trapped in the sky itself with his eyes on me, it feels right that I should be wearing a gown of white to herald the start of spring. As if I’m as new and green as the season.
So new and green it takes me a few beats of my heart to notice that he’s cupping a small bowl in his palms and stretching it out toward me.
“Remove your adornments.”
When I hesitate, he doesn’t move or even tsk. He holds my gaze, and his voice seems to get impossibly deeper, darker, inside me.
Stop being afraid of what you are, Rebekah.
The way he says my name is a hit from some powerful drug all on its own. “I’m not afraid,” I manage to choke out.
“You weren’t. Once.”