Gisela had been lingering on the fringes of Deanna's covens for as long as she could remember, a pattern broken only for the time Deanna had been with Rebecca.
Not since she'd first heard it proclaimed that Coven Sundark had been born had she seen anything more than the usual disagreements within any close-knit group.
Certainly nothing like what she was faced with now. Not wanting to be alone, she'd walked out to Sundark's house to wait for them to finish their usual once-a-week circle.
Curled up on the couch beside the woodstove, soaking up its heat, she could hear the voices from the next room, loud and angry. She winced; it might give them a chance to release some of the tension, but doing it this way was only going to leave bad feelings behind. In a sense she could understand it: worry for Jess was gnawing at her, too, though she did her best to maintain the calm serenity a healer should show. She just wished they'd find a different outlet.
On second thought, being alone might not be so bad after all; she wasn't sure she wanted to be here when this circle ended.
Wearily, she uncoiled herself and made her way back out of the house. Tomorrow she'd see what she could do about the chaos; no one was likely to be very receptive tonight.
She trudged home, not even the bright moon she normally loved walking under doing much to dispel her gloom. Her family was concerned, but she fled to her room and closed her door. She knelt by the window, petting the fluffy grey-brown tabby sprawled full-length on the sill. He raised his head, began the low thunder of a purr.
“You've got it lucky, furball,” she murmured. “You have people to pet you and feed you and spoil you, and you don't have to worry about much of anything. The people who spoil you have all kinds of things we have to worry about.” She rubbed his pale gold belly, and he twisted over on his back so she could reach more easily.
“Jesse can't be gone forever. We're bound together, me and him and Kev. Something'll happen, he'll be back.”
* * *
The next day didn't go precisely as she hoped.
What she wanted to do was talk to Sundark, and try to get everyone to see that attacking each other wasn't going to undo the damage, while working together just might find Jess.
She walked to the village proper, letting the internal pull guide her towards Kevin—too bad they couldn't use that same link to find Jess, but that would take more than a spider-silk thread.
She found him, and she also found Rebecca and Moira. The latter pair were leaning against Donovan 'Sky-Drum's store Arachne's Loom; she didn't think Kevin had noticed them yet, too tangled in his own depression.
“Dear me,” Moira said loudly, with blatantly false solicitude. “Poor Sundark. Should've been more careful about who they called a friend.”
Kevin whipped around, his melancholy melting into anger. “Damn you, Becky, you did this! You sent Avryl to vamp him! Why? I thought all that was finally over!”
Gisela saw a dark look flicker across Rebecca's face, then she smiled charmingly. “You should never take me for granted, you should know that. Anyway, Avryl set up the trap, but you closed it. It was a transparent trap, and you walked right into it. I don't know whether he can change, but apparently you can't.”
Kevin whipped a ball of scarlet mage-fire at her; Moira deflected it. Gisela watched most of the people on the street turn wary, many of them edging away or leaving the vicinity outright. She knew Kevin would notice, too, despite his current focus, and that it would only feed the fire.
“Come on, Becky,” Kevin hissed. “You want a fight? Let's have it out. You and me, right here, right now. Come on.”
“Why should I?”
“You a coward, wolf-bitch? You a dog under all that red fur, killing chickens by moonlight? How are the wild male wolves? Better than I was? Do you have to dominate them first?”
Rebecca bared her teeth in a savage snarl. “You little...”
“Stop it!” Bryan commanded, interposing himself, Deanna a step behind him. Gisela released the breath she'd been holding; they wouldn't let Kevin fight. “A fight here would endanger too many innocent people. I thought you'd learned better by now, Kevin.”
“Leopards can't change their spots. Why should I care if others get hurt?”
Deanna stepped in front of him, and met his gaze with hers; Gisela felt the fringes of it as Deanna mentally threw the full force of her anger at him. Much like a physical slap, it rocked him back a step, and brought tears to his eyes—of shock as much as pain, Gisela thought. “Damn you, mage, you're doing this on purpose! Punishing yourself! Now grow up and get a grip on yourself or so help me...” She trailed off, tears on her cheeks. “Oh, hell. Let them go, Bryan. Maybe they'll hurt each other badly enough to learn something.”
“Not here,” Bryan insisted. “You want to fight, you go elsewhere. Alone.”
Rebecca regarded them all haughtily. “It's not worth the energy. Come on, Moira.”
Rebecca and Moira left in one direction; Deanna strode furiously away in another.
“There's only one way you'll find Jesse,” Bryan said. “And that's together.”
“There'll be a fight right here if you don't get out of my way,” Kevin said savagely. “Take care of your own coven and leave ours to us!”
“Jesse's my friend too! There are a lot of people worried about him! Haven't you realized yet just how many lives he's become a part of? Coven Sundark does not have some exclusive claim on him! Sam's frantic trying to find him!”
“Then I wish her best of luck and she can talk to him when she does!” The mage whirled away.
Gisela went after him, had to run to catch up. Kevin barely glanced at her. “What do you want?”
“A hug?”
He stopped, actually looked at her this time. After a pause, he offered both arms. She hugged him hard, resting her head against his chest, and tried to send him as much love and reassurance as she could.
“We'll find him,” Kevin told her firmly. “When and how I don't know, but we'll find him.”
“Not this way we won't. Sundark all together maybe could...”
He pulled away, the walls coming back up. “Teamwork is a bit hard when everyone is more intent on calling names.”
“So stop calling names.”
“Go home, 'Sela. Let us worry about our own coven.”
“But...”
“Stay out of it.” He turned away from her, too, and she let him go.
She tried Flynn, and got a similar reaction; despondently, she gave up, and detoured to the pet store to get hamster litter so she could clean their cages.
Sam's eyes were red from crying; mutely, she rang in the litter, and accepted the money Gisela gave her. The healer fled, unable to stand yet another bout with intense grief just now. She went home, found Deanna there asking their parents if she could have her old room back for a while.
This was too much. She closed her bedroom door, and lost herself in playing with her hamsters on the bed while the cat slept on her pillow and completely ignored them.
* * *
Usually on Thursdays, she went out to Sundark's house, had supper with them and Jess, and afterwards Jess walked her home on his way to the Brewery.
This Thursday, she stayed in her room, and the only ones who were happy were the cat and the hamsters who were getting more spoiled than usual.
She jumped when someone knocked on her door.
“Yeah?”
Samantha opened the door, closed it behind her, and came to sit on the edge of the bed. One of the hamsters ventured over to investigate.
For a change, Sam looked more determined than depressed.
“This nonsense has gone on long enough. The only way we're going to find him is to use everything we've got. Which means you and I are going to have to go beat Sundark over the head until they behave themselves. Up for it?”
“They won't listen. I've tried.”
“This'll be both of us. We can't give up. We'll make them see.” She stroked a hamster with one finger as it climbed onto her denim-covered leg. “Are you going to make me do this alone?”
Gisela sighed. “No, I'll come, but I don't think it'll do any good.” She got up, and started catching hamsters to return them to the complex of cages and tunnels that covered one corner of her room. Sam helped, and they left the house together, Gisela calling to the first person she saw—her little brother—where she was going.
Sam, interestingly enough, had Coven Winter's dark-plum van; a good thing, though, once she thought about it, since otherwise Sundark might finish circle before they ever got there.
The front door was unlocked, as it generally was since the wards had been reactivated in the outer walls. They went in, found Sundark in the usual room, all sitting on the carpeted floor; they paused in the doorway, and no one noticed. Under normal circumstances, interrupting a coven circle was unthinkably rude, but these weren't normal circumstances—and this was, very obviously, not a normal circle.
Kevin and Deanna sat in sullen silence; Bane and Cynthia were quarrelling, interrupting each other so much it was impossible to make out what the problem was. Flynn surveyed them all with a weary expression.
“Do something,” Cynthia demanded of Flynn. “You're supposed to be leading right now.”
“Why? Face it, no one wants to be here. Kev, I'm sure, would rather be off challenging Rebecca. And Bane would rather be killing something out in the forest. Personally, I think I could be getting farther at home with my cards and my runes and a bowl of water. What about you, Cynthia? Dia? Where would you prefer to be?”
“Anywhere alone,” Deanna said tightly.
“I don't give a damn about Rebecca,” Kevin said angrily.
“Then where would you like to be?”
“Back in time about two weeks.”
“To hurt Jess all over again?” Cynthia asked.
“Like you would've done anything else!”
Gisela flinched. What a mess. Why did they have to act like this, trying to hurt each other?
“All of you be still,” Sam commanded.
They all froze, turning as necessary to track the intrusion.
Samantha strode out of the hall; Gisela followed her. “This is truly pathetic,” Sam scolded. “Dia, I know you went home to Helix. Bryan tells me, Bane, you're back with your parents, and that according to Lori, Kevin, you've been at your grandmother's for the last week. What exactly is that supposed to accomplish? What is all this fighting supposed to accomplish?”
Gisela wondered why Sam wanted her there, since she seemed to have Sundark's full attention on her own. Moral support, maybe?
Only silence answered Sam's demand.
“Do you really want to find Jesse and leave all this behind?”
More silence.
“Yes,” Flynn said. “What did you have in mind?”
“I want full agreement. That it's irrelevant who did what and whose fault it is and that what matters now is finding Jesse and convincing him to come home.”
“I definitely agree.”
“Me too,” Deanna said unwillingly.
One at a time, grudgingly, so did the others.
Sam nodded curtly. “Remember that. Then right now, we are going to get to work looking for that wolf-cub. Kev, 'Sela, you two are the best chance we have of getting a fix on him. So help me, we will try every night until we find him.”
The circle shifted, left space for Sam and Gisela.
Ah, so this was why Sam had wanted her along.
It was intensely frustrating, though. Her abilities useful only at immediate range, Gisela could only sit still and be patient while they used the bond between her and Kevin and Jess as a starting point.
They searched for an hour, took a short break, spent another hour hunting. After the third hour, Kevin objected.
“That's enough for tonight.”
“He's right,” Cynthia admitted reluctantly. “We'd better call it quits for now.”
Samantha nodded. “Tomorrow night I'll meet you here at six. And every night until we find him.”
* * *
Gisela bolted awake in the middle of the night. Heart pounding, she tried to calm herself and sort out where the rush of fear came from.
She heard Deanna's bed groan, heard her scrambling around. The healer slithered out of bed, and darted down the hall.
“Dia? What is it?”
“I think we've got a fix on Jess. Nightmare that caught the whole coven, and Flynn's cards say it was real. Hang on, Kev's going to...”
She didn't even have time to finish the sentence before Kevin's gate exploded into the room. Deanna sent Gisela across, and followed her. A second gate swirled into sight, and Lori sent Sam and Flynn and Naomi with Gwyn across ahead of her before following—Flynn must have gone to Sam's to give Kevin an anchor, and found Lori and Naomi there. There was no sign of either Bane or Bryan, though.
“Wolves?” Gisela asked.
“Out for a run,” Naomi said.
“They're on their way back,” Kevin added, “but they can't do much anyway and we can't wait or waste the power right now for another gate. They'll be here.”
The house had a definite chill at this hour; most grabbed for magesilk blankets to throw over various combinations of day and night clothes, and they settled in a ring close to the woodstove.
All things combined, nightmare and triangular connection and all the power they could muster, gave them just enough that they could gain a focus of sorts after days of coming up empty. And once Flynn had that much to work with, it was a matter of time, and not much of it at that.
“Oh, hells,” Flynn said. “Kev, you need to get there, now, with as much power as you can grab from us fast.”
“Without Bane?” Lori protested. “Kev a hundred miles from Bane...”
“... will still be close to a wolf, if Flynn hits the right spot,” Kevin interrupted, already getting up. “Worst comes to worst, you gate so I can get back here. If Jess is in danger now, then I'm not waiting.”