Work Text:
Lydia’s always the first one to know and the last one to remember. It’s her curse, for daring to play with fate and destiny and human magics in the first place, a thousand years ago.
She’s human now, no fae immortality, none of Mab’s grace guiding her, too solid to disappear into shadows or step through one doorway between places altogether. She has some of her beauty left, and this endless cycle is a sort of immortality, maybe, if you don’t mind being a squalling infant for so much of your eternity. But the magic still won’t leave her alone.
Lydia doesn’t remember much about the ten thousand years she spent as pure power and spirit. She doesn’t even remember much about the past thousand years of living, over and over again, like a human--is it a reward or a punishment for daring, who knows? Allison has so much more. Stiles remembers almost everything, Lydia thinks. She knows he dreamwalks without a tether sometimes, terrifying dangerous magic that seems so simple on the surface, trying to track down every last sliver of his own past. Lydia can barely remember knowing Stiles at all, but she knows him, knows he hasn’t changed in a millenium of lives.
Derek remembers things he won’t even admit to the rest of them. Derek, says Lydia’s instincts, is different than he used to be. She can picture him young and carefree and cocky. She doesn’t know if the thing that changed him happened in that very first life, or in all the time since--and if Allison does, she’s not saying.
.
They’re thirteen. The coven, twelve-plus-one. Once upon a time a dozen humans raised hands and magic with one lone sidhe on a barren, lightning-blasted hilltop under the moon, and they have been thirteen for a thousand years since.
When they can actually find each other, of course. Right now they have six, but they’re young in this life yet. It’s only high school. They have time to track each other down.
They’d better have time. There have been lives where they didn’t, or maybe only once. Allison closed her eyes and shuddered, when Lydia asked.
“Seventeenth century,” she said, and wouldn’t say any more, only, “We’ll scry for the others again tomorrow.”
Allison, Allison Argent, is seventeen years old. She’s female this time, and beautiful--though she’s usually beautiful--athletic and spry, with ten years of jujitsu and karate and krav maga worked into her bones. She’s the Sword, she’s always been the sword. In every lifetime she manages to be deadly. It’s in her soul. Erica says her aura simmers with just-contained power, usually smooth and tight around her skin and crackling silver and red just under the surface.
In this lifetime, she’s an only child of two witch hunters who must have offended some important god or goddess to find themselves parenting this daughter. Allison’s birth-parents taught her enough about magic to know how to test Lydia, when Lydia found her.
She’s a junior in high school, and right now she’s failing economics. Lydia’s tutoring her as best she can. There’s one benefit of losing a thousand years of memories of managing war bands and tiny communes and whole kingdoms--there’s plenty of space in Lydia’s head for her Econ textbook.
Lydia found Allison first. She doesn’t always, or so the others say. Sometimes it’s the Leader, sometimes it’s the Hand, who’s Stiles this time, living right on the other side of town. Sometimes the Leader and their Hand will already be together when Lydia finds them, whoever they may be, though this time Stiles came to them alone and the Leader is still out there, unknown, waiting to be discovered. Sometimes Lydia happens across one of the others, the Serpent or the Wanderer or the Stone or the Wild One, but she always finds the Sword early.
“Were we lovers, before?” Lydia asks, finally. It’s been preying on her mind for months and months since they met--how familiarly Allison’s always hugged her, how easily they seemed to fall into each others’ step. A thousand years, and Lydia found Allison first. What did that mean?
They’re laying with all their clothes on across the coverlet of Lydia’s bed, textbooks spread out before them, because this is part of the task this life was bringing them and also, by god, Lydia Martin does not fail classes.
Allison looks at her and smiles that soft smile that Lydia knew from the very first day without knowing. “Sometimes,” she says. “I think it’s been us together a lot.”
“Did you want to be again?” Allison presses her lips together, nervous, and suddenly Lydia feels incredibly sixteen--half a virgin, with a handful of experience in messing around with teenage boys in this skin and some vague sense of other lifetimes that she doesn’t really remember at all. And she’s propositioning her best friend. Lydia ducks her head to hide the blush glowing over her cheeks.
“Yes?” Allison says, less answer than question. “This is all still pretty confusing.”
“Yep,” Lydia agrees to her econ textbook.
“Every single time we have to do things over and decide everything all over again,” says Allison. “Even if we got married, it would only be for the rest of this life, and then…”
“So you don’t know yet?” Lydia raises her head. Allison bites her lip and looks away, too.
“We’re seventeen,” Allison says. “And I think I’ve loved you in every single life we’ve been in.”
“I think I’ve loved a lot of people,” Lydia admits, and Allison nods, swift and a little relieved.
“Me too,” she says. “Including you.”
“So okay,” Lydia says. “This time. In this life. Do you, Allison Argent want to hook up with me, Lydia Martin, as teenage best friends trying to figure out what they want?”
“Yes,” Allison says. “But.”
“What?” Lydia asks, sudden worry clenching in her belly.
“Maybe after this worksheet is done?” Allison asks. “I’ve been spending so much time trying to learn to scry, and I really need to pass Econ.”
.
Wednesday afternoon. They’ve been meeting at Derek’s apartment, mostly. Lydia’s still not sure why Derek’s so much older than them this time. Did he die earlier, their last life? Nobody’s saying. Maybe it’s just coincidence, a minor age difference that’ll fade to near nothing as they all get older. For now it’s convenient, so she’ll take it.
“We found the Wild One,” Stiles announces, completely stealing Lydia’s thunder. Whatever. He still has leaves in his hair.
Lydia and Stiles make a pretty good team at scrying for absent members of their coven. Lydia’s good at sensing people and patterns, and Stiles is good at maps, logic, writing things down. As a pair, they’re probably better at it than any other two witches would be. They just sometimes need to get a little creative.
They can’t just go scry the whole world, especially not with only six witches to pull from. If they had twelve members, then they could pool that to find their thirteenth, their twelve-plus-one, almost anywhere--
“We found the Wanderer that way last time,” Stiles told her once. “Wait, no, last time he just walked into that bar out of nowhere. The time before last? I’m pretty sure we’ve found the Wanderer halfway across the world that way like five times.”
“Isn’t the Wanderer always Derek’s sibling?” Lydia asked. They have a name for the Wanderer this time, at least--Derek apparently has three sisters and two brothers in this life, and of course the only one he can’t contact with a ten-second phone call is Cora. Which means she must be theirs. That’s how the Wanderer works.
“And how much is that helping us this time?” Stiles asked. “They’re ‘the Wanderer’ and ‘the Lost’ for a reason.”
Tracking down their missing ones takes work. The Wild One always takes to the woods--or the desert, or the mountains, or whatever other wilderness they can find. Lydia and Stiles had to dig into the bones of the earth for this one. Luckily, the Wild One walks barefoot.
“Where?” Derek asks, ever-impatient.
“Somewhere out in the middle of the Rockies, near Nevada,” Lydia says before Stiles can take all the credit. “We managed to put out a summoning, so she’s headed this way.”
“She’s a girl this time?” Erica asks. “Nice.” Nobody gets born as just a woman or a man every time, but most of them tend one way or another. The Wild One’s split pretty evenly, if Lydia remembers right. As much as Lydia remembers anything at all.
“Is she human?” asks Boyd. Their Rock, their Stone, their solid one. Lydia’s so glad she found him so soon, especially since they still don’t have the Leader with them. They’re still limping along, and somebody has to balance Derek out.
“Well…” Stiles says.
“Probably not,” Lydia admits. “Which I’m told is nothing we haven’t faced before?”
Everybody has a particular set of skills. The Wild One happens to be excellent at self-transmutation. Possibly a little too excellent. There are certain kinds of spells that shouldn’t be done without a tether--and of course, this would be one of the lifetimes when the Wild One apparently comes into their own power before meeting the rest of the group.
Allison looks worried. “Usually the Leader calls them back. Or the Fox, sometimes, but…”
“You’ve been their tether before,” Derek says, with an abrupt nod at Stiles. “Can you do it?”
“Uh, not if I haven’t even met her yet in this life,” Stiles snipes back. “Since she’d basically have no idea who I am.”
“So what is your plan, exactly?” Derek asks. Stiles rolls his eyes.
“I don’t know, Derek, I guess it looks like we’re going to be keeping a pet…whatever she managed to turn herself into this time, until we can track the Leader down.”
“And let’s just hope it doesn’t take ten years again,” Lydia adds.
“Any idea what form she’s in?” Allison asks.
“It’s definitely not a bunny.” Lydia didn’t get a clear look, but the feeling of running paws and strong jaws and fangs was pretty unmistakable. “Let’s just hope she’s not a wolf.”
“You summoned a wolf?” Erica snorts. “Good job, guys.”
“Okay, enough,” Allison says, and the sniping stops.
“It’s Wednesday afternoon,” she says. “Half of us have a Chemistry midterm tomorrow, and then there’s a three day weekend. If we find the Leader by Monday, they can help us with the Wild One when she gets here.”
“How are we supposed to find the Leader by Monday?” Erica asks.
“Come on, Allison, do you think I haven’t tried?” Stiles looks exhausted.
It weighs on him and Allison hardest, not having the Leader with them. The king’s sword, the queen’s right hand, one way or the other it’s always been them. For a thousand years, whenever the coven came together in their circle, the Sword and the Hand would bracket the Leader to the left and right.
Allison is okay. She’s patient. She’s faithful. She has other things to worry about. She’s well-immersed in this life; she loved her parents deeply and unquestioningly for sixteen years, and none of that goes away just from remembering another life. Allison’s parents moved to this town because they heard the Coven of the Thirteen was reassembling itself again, and still don’t even realize that they’d brought such an important piece of it here with them.
Stiles is fraying around the edges, little by little. He has just as much faith that they will find the Leader someday, but the Hand has never been patient. And nobody they’ve found yet in this life knows how to tether him the right way.
This life matters as much as everything any of them can remember about their past. More. This life is the one happening right now. In this life, Stiles has a father who he adores, but not much of anyone else. He’s seventeen and fidgety, twitchy, talks too much in class, makes the other kids at school sidestep him a little. He’s only been in Beacon Hills for six months, and his father still doesn’t know they moved here at the pull of the strongest summoning spell Lydia and Allison and Erica could manage, power and need and a little bit of blood on the night of a solstice in the full moon light.
Stiles had already started to play around the edges of his own power, when they found him. He was easy to track. Wherever the Leader is, they haven’t found that power in themself yet.
“There are spells we haven’t tried,” Allison says. “Powerful ones. We thought we had time, but if the Wild One’s on her way and we can’t call her back, it’s time to pull out the big guns.”
“So you want to do this tomorrow night?” Boyd clarifies. Allison nods.
“Full moon,” she says. “It’s as good as we’re going to get.”
.
School is...school.
They hang together, more or less. They try to act like normal students. It almost sort of works.
Lydia’s the only one of them who’s lived in Beacon Hills for even a year. There’s a nexus of ley lines here, so it’s a good place to try and collect the whole coven to. She thinks that’s typical. It took a lot of power to start calling her back to herself. She can only imagine how she’s started to realize herself before.
Lydia isn’t quite popular in the sense of having a lot of friends, but everybody in school knows her name. She wears the most perfect outfits and throws the most fantastic parties, and she’s not somebody you cross.
People step aside in the hallway when she and Allison walk through. They don’t really fit, none of the coven does. There are other things on their mind.
A month and a half ago, after they got together to channel the power of the ley lines into a spell that would draw Boyd to them, they discovered a pair of gargoyles in the woods around the town. It wasn’t even coincidence, it was their own stupid fault, flailing around too strongly and wildly with magic that none of them remember as well as they should. What other kids at school have to deal with things like that?
“So who’s ready for Chemistry?” Boyd asks, settling his tray down on the lunch table. Lydia tips her head back and groans.
“I’ve studied,” she says. “I’m done studying. I’m done thinking about Chemistry for half an hour.”
“Should’ve taken your AP in Physics,” gloats Stiles, who doesn’t even have a midterm because Mrs. Kerner doesn’t believe in cumulative testing. Lydia rolls her eyes.
“Some of us will be taking both by the end of high school,” she points out. Boyd will back her up in physics next year. Some people understand the value that a rigorous hard science education has to pursuing the art of magic and power. “Was Allison in the lunch line?” She’s not here yet. Lydia peers up towards the front of the cafeteria for a glimpse.
“I think I saw her by the lockers,” Erica offers. “Maybe she went to the bathroom.”
“Maybe,” Lydia says, but she dices her cafeteria pizza carefully and precisely into tiny squares with plastic knife and fork until Allison finally appears. She raises her eyebrows as Allison slides into her seat.
“It was nothing,” Allison says. “Just some kids on the lacrosse team harassing a couple of sophomore girls.”
“Did you get into a fight?” Lydia asks archly. Allison’s the Sword, yes, but she’s also susceptible to detention and, far more importantly, grounding.
“I just smiled at them,” Allison says, and yeah, that would do it. “They stopped.”
“Wait, lacrosse team?” Stiles asks. “Come on, I have to go to practice with those guys.”
“Are they going to mess with you?” Lydia glances at Boyd, who’s also on the team but doesn’t appear worried at all. Stiles snorts.
“Yeah right,” he says. “They barely even talk to us. But I don’t completely love how much my own teammates are kind of afraid of us.”
“They still invite us to their parties,” Erica says unconcernedly. She didn’t go to a lot of parties before, Lydia doesn’t think.
“We still let them come to our parties,” Lydia points out. “Excuse me.”
“Nobody throws a party like Lydia does,” Allison agrees, with a smile that’s not quite as cheerful as her tone. Lydia stretches a foot out under the table and taps her toe against Allison’s ankle.
Allison lifts her foot and taps back. Who needs the rest of the school, anyway?
“I’ll have to host one once we get the Leader and the Wild One both back,” Lydia says. “Next week, maybe. Three days is enough advance notice for this student body, right?”
.
The best magic is done under moonlight. Even Lydia remembers that.
The highest point in the woods outside of town is a small, rocky rise, jutting out over a creek. There’s a bit of a clearing there out from under the trees.
They could fight dragons out here; they could brew potions and enchant toadstools and dance skyclad under the moon, if they really wanted to. In a thousand years, they’ve surely all seen each other naked in a dozen different bodies.
Six isn’t the most magical number on its own, but divided up into two threes, it should be powerful enough. With the Leader back, they’ll have seven, and then they’ll be able to really work.
“I’ll lead?” Lydia says, like it’s a question, though it’s really not. The Sword can give commands in the Leader’s absence, the Hand can make plans, but the Sidhe’s their best chance of drawing up the magic without the Leader there to focus on, and everybody knows it.
They arrange themselves carefully in the moonlight, two offset triangles: Lydia, Allison, and Stiles in the middle to cast, and and Derek, Boyd, and Erica positioned wider out, to bolster. Derek’s willing to follow their lead, thank god. He’s just as distant and bitter as ever, but he was born to witches in this life and he knows power in ways the rest of them have all but forgotten. They need him.
It’s quiet. Early spring isn’t the season for owls. It’s chilly, too, and drizzling just a bit but nobody’s wearing a jacket. They need bare skin for at least part of this. And chilly’s the last of their troubles. The cloud cover might be more of a problem, but they don’t have time to wait for a clear night. They need to do this now.
Magic is a force of will and nature and unrestrained power, and Lydia is older than any thing here tonight besides the very bedrock beneath the dirt under their feet, and the distant light of moon and stars that they can’t quite see. She was once that power. She doesn’t have to remember it. She knows it enough.
Once she was power. She’s human now.
Well. Lydia closes her eyes, reaches out left and right to take Stiles and Allison’s hands, and squeezes tight. Determined, terrified teenage kids. Determined, ancient spirits of magic.
They’ve got this.
.
Lydia sneezes. She glares fiercely at nothing.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing to show for all that power, except they’ve probably summoned something even worse than the gargoyles. No Leader, no help at all on that front.
Apparently when you try to do midnight spells with the moonlight on your bare skin when it’s cloudy and raining, all you manage to summon is a cold. Which Lydia should have known. She should have known.
But they need the Leader to help with the Wild One, who’s still on her way, as fast as paws can carry her. And Allison and Stiles need them.
Allison’s at home today. If they can’t go off tracking down the Leader, then at least she can try to distract her parents from the trail of the newest untrained witch about to come to town. Allison’s parents are still looking at adults in their early or mid twenties, trying to find the Coven of Thirteen before it reforms again. They still haven’t turned around to look at home.
There’s a knock on Lydia’s door, though it’s still only three in the afternoon. She weighs the option of getting up from her bed to open it, which means she can block her mother from coming in and seeing the sea of tissues on her floor, versus just staying put.
“Come in,” she calls, and winces at the roughness in her voice. Maybe her mom will make her some tea, since she’s home so early.
The door creaks open slowly. Allison’s biting her lip, an unopened box of kleenex in one hand.
“Hey,” she says.
“I thought you texted you were with your parents today?” Lydia shoves herself up sitting, and regrets it almost immediately when her head swims. Allison sinks down onto the foot of the bed. “Don’t come over here, it’s plague central.”
“I’ve had the plague,” Allison says. “This is a cold. And I wanted to see how you were doing.”
“I’m fine,” Lydia sighs. “I’m fine, I’m just…” Ugh, her nose is leaking again. Lydia grabs for a tissue and rolls her eyes in Allison’s direction.
“Have you been trying to do homework?” Allison asks, eyeing the books on Lydia’s bed.
“Trying,” Lydia sighs. Her head hurts.
“Do you want me to make you tea?” Allison asks. “You should nap a little.”
“No, I should be calling Stiles and trying to work out some way to do what we didn’t manage to do on Thursday,” Lydia says. Allison grabs the mostly-empty tissue box from her nightstand and pulls out the little pile that remains, setting them down next to the clock. “Where are you going with that?”
“I’m cleaning up a little so you’ll feel better,” Allison says. She picks up a crumpled-up tissue gingerly, two fingertips on the single unsoiled corner, and Lydia snaps.
“Oh my god, Allison, no, you are not picking up my dirty kleenexes,” she says. “Give me that.”
“Then you pick them up while I make you tea,” Allison says. “You’re sick. Let me take care of you.”
“Fine,” Lydia relents. She feels like freshly microwaved death and she’s not a big enough person to go turning offers like that down.
She’s nearly regretting it by the time Allison gets back upstairs--standing up long enough to clean up her pathetic used kleenex mess and wash her face in the bathroom sink takes more effort than she’d expected. She’s been taking zinc and elderberry, but magic is draining. After Thursday night, Lydia just didn’t have much of an immune system left.
“Are you still sitting up?” Allison asks. She’s got the biggest mug in the house, steaming gently, which she sets carefully down on the bedside table. Lydia doesn’t roll her eyes, because her head hurts just a little too much, but she does give Allison the best mildly scathing look she can muster.
“I’m not a child, Allison,” she points out.
“I know,” Allison says. “I just also know you’re miserable right now, so let me help.”
There are stories about the Coven of the Thirteen in Allison’s parents’ history books. Lydia’s read them all, trying to jog a memory loose, and some of it’s helped. They never mention, though, things like this. Lydia’s forgotten so many things. She’d forgotten how kind the Sword can be.
“Will you stay?” Lydia asks.
“As long as you want me to,” Allison promises.
“What about the Wild One?” she asks. “You need to be out there, doing…something, so your parents don’t shoot her.”
“It’s taken care of,” Allison says. “Derek and Boyd are out tracking her down, and Stiles is looking up ways to contain her or transform her without the Leader here. She’ll be safe for the weekend. Lydia, if you want me to go, I’ll go, but it’s okay if you want me to stay.”
“Okay,” Lydia relents. “Stay.”
.
They watch an hour and a half of Project Runway on Lydia’s laptop, propped up against the pillows at the head of the bed. Lydia’s eyes keep drifting shut.
Her head’s swimming a little. The tea Allison brought was sharp and almost spicy with the bright zing of magic that Allison shouldn’t be wasting on a stupid cold like that, and it’s making Lydia’s bones and fingertips tingle.
“You should probably sleep,” Allison says.
“Hmm?” Lydia lifts her head off of Allison’s shoulder. How did it end up there again? “Sorry.”
“No, it’s fine,” Allison says quickly. “But you need to nap.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. We’ve got three more episodes.” Lydia waves her hand in the general direction of the laptop, and only just notices the dimness of the room. What time is it?
“We’ve got two more episodes,” Allison says. “Did you see the last one at all?”
“Of course I did, they made those...those things.” She’s fuzzier than she thought, head like an overstuffed doll full of cotton, and okay, sleep does sound nice. Maybe. But Allison is warm and Lydia’s not giving that up just yet.
“Okay, let’s get you laying down.” The laptop clicks closed, and Allison shifts and the whole world goes spinny and sideways. Lydia grabs automatically for her kleenex.
“What are you doing?” she demands. Allison’s back in a second, maneuvering Lydia down onto the pillow with so much easy familiarity. They haven’t done much more than kiss in this bed, in this flesh, this life, but Allison tugs her around like she knows Lydia’s body as well as the Sword has ever known the Sidhe before. Lydia lets her. She’s not up for a wrestling match right now.
“If this is the only way I’m going to get you to sleep, then I’m going to nap with you.” Allison tucks her arms tight around Lydia’s middle. “Comfy?”
“Almost.” Lydia wiggles over so she’s mostly facedown, just enough space under her mouth to get air. “I can’t breathe on my side, it’s disgusting.”
“This works.” Allison strokes a hand over Lydia’s hair, soothing, never mind that Lydia hasn’t showered today and she’s gross. “Going to sleep now?”
“Going to tell me a bedtime story?” Lydia asks, as snarky-sweet as she can. Allison laughs.
“Once upon a time,” she starts obligingly.
“You don’t have to,” Lydia says, suddenly embarrassed. There’s a soft, unmistakable press of lips against the back of her head.
“Close your eyes,” Allison says. “Once upon a time, there was a Viking shieldmaiden named Sigrún Hávarðrsdottir.” It rolls easily off her tongue, funny accents and all.
“Well, that’s oddly specific,” Lydia points out. Allison kicks the back of her ankle.
“She was in the mountains far from home with her brothers,” Allison says. “The locals there all told tales about a dragon high in the mountains that would carry off sheep or townspeople, so they were hunting it together. Sigrún and her five brothers.”
“You’d think at least one sibling would’ve been back at home learning to make candles or something,” Lydia mutters.
“Is this how the whole story’s going to go?” Allison sounds amused. Lydia sighs gustily.
“Fine, I’ll shut up,” she says. “Tell me about Sigrun Havertsdottir.”
“Sigrún Hávarðrsdottir,” Allison says. It has to be memory--well, obviously it’s memory. Where would Allison get random bedtime stories about viking shieldmaidens in this life? “So she and her brothers were tracking through the woods to find this dragon, and they decided to camp in this clearing near a stream. And so in the middle of the night out of nowhere, this enormous, pure silver and white raven flies down, and lands in the middle of the clearing, and screams.”
“Ravens are diurnal,” Lydia murmurs into the pillow, before she remembers she promised not to. Oh well.
“Which is how they all figured out it was probably an omen,” Allison said. “Plus it was the color of pure moonlight and a lot more beautiful than normal ravens. But they were brave Viking warriors, so Sigrún and her brothers prayed, and sacrificed a rabbit to Odin, and figured it was probably a good omen, and kept going.”
“Dumb,” says Lydia. Allison’s arms tighten around her, just a little.
“Yeah, it really was,” she says. “The next night it was a horse, and one of the brothers almost threw a spear at it, which would have been really dumb, and the night after that it was a woman. All the color of moonlight, even her eyes, combing her hair on a rock in the middle of the stream.”
“Banshee,” Lydia fills in.
“Not Ireland,” Allison says. “Somewhere around France or Germany, I think. But close enough. Do you know what she said?”
“Aren’t you going to tell me?” Lydia asks. “I thought you were the one telling the story.”
“Really, no idea?” Allison prods.
“Mmm, you’re all going to die?” Lydia guesses. “Something like that.”
“Close enough,” says Allison. “She said, the dragon had a power that would slay any man of woman born, that it was written. And Sigrún Hávarðrsdottir said, ‘I’m no man.’”
“You’re stealing from Tolkein,” Lydia informs her.
“I came way before Tolkein,” Allison says. “And I was cooler.”
Lydia’s close enough to dozing that it takes her a few seconds to connect, and then suddenly she’s not dozing at all any more. “It was you.”
“You really don’t remember?” Lydia’s too tired and sick to tell if Allison’s hiding the sadness in her voice or she’s really just fine. Maybe Lydia’s sad, frustrated and sad. Maybe she just feels like crap generally and really ought to sleep.
“I was the banshee?” Lydia asks. “Nixie, whatever. That was me?”
“That was the first time we met,” Allison says. “You were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”
“Well, thanks,” Lydia says, half sarcastic and half desperately, sincerely grateful. “I guess it’s nice to hear now that I’m human and full of snot and goo--”
“I like you human,” Allison interrupts. “I like that I can touch you.”
Quiet. Lydia squeezes her eyes closed and tries to forget, tries to remember, tries to picture a creekbed in moonlight and the silver of a forest a thousand years ago. She can’t.
“I don’t remember,” she whispers. Allison kisses the back of her head again.
“You will,” she says. “When we’re all back together, it’ll come back. And until then, I can tell you.”
“What happened to your brothers?” Lydia asks.
“They died,” Allison says quietly. “The dragon killed them. It almost killed me, but I got away down the mountain, half dead. I just remember thinking that maybe, if I found the faerie, everything would be okay.”
“I’m sorry.” For not saving people that Lydia can’t even remember? Or for not remembering? Or both?
“You saved me,” Allison says. “You led me to the village, where the Leader was, where we founded the coven. You helped me learn magic.” Lydia doesn’t have an answer for that, so she says nothing. “You gave up your immortality for us.”
It was a thousand years ago, and they’re having this conversation here, now, Sigrún Hávarðrsdottir and the fae woman of the river, teenage girls Allison and Lydia in 2014 in California here in this bed. Right now, death cold or no death cold, Lydia feels pretty immortal.
“What was the next life like?” she asks instead. “When we found each other the first time.”
“You’re supposed to be sleeping,” says Allison.
“I’m resting,” Lydia says. “Tell me.”