wizard-of-the-pigeons

both places. And when I saw it upon you, saw you transformed in it…I thought I
would go mad with horror. I fled. Even now, when I think of now easily it
hunted me down using you… But it is done. You are free now.”
She was giving him the pieces faster than he could fit them together. “It was
your power I used, then, when I faced it down?”
She shook her head, not looking at him. “You used mine upon the knife; did
not you guess that ferocity was woman’s magic? The soaring rush you felt
afterward; that was seduction of the grayness. I saw you swept away from me.
But when you cloaked me in your protection and sent me away, I took my magic
with me as well. I needed it, to find and rouse your pigeons, and call them to
you. Then, when I returned… I know you felt me join you.”
The spice scent. He nodded slowly, beginning to understand as Cassie fitted
the pieces together for him. But Cassie never explained anything. Something
was terribly wrong. He reached and turned her face up to his. Moonlight and
streetlights touched her tears.
“Why are you crying?” Her tears hurt him as nothing else had.
“Because I am hurt!” She cried out. She pulled gently free of him, wrapping
herself tightly in her arms. She stood so alone. “Why do you think the rules are
given us, if not to keep us from hurting ourselves? But the decision was mine. I
took it upon myself, to give you what you would not ask for. My magic. To call
for you the allies you had prepared so well for this battle. I unbalanced my
magic. But I could have done nothing else. Could I have watched you destroyed?
Knowing that for all the times and tomorrows that might ever come, never again
would our paths cross? Shall I be sorry for what I did? But it hurts. Yes. All the
old scars have come unhealed. I had forgotten it could hurt this bad. All the old
pains are new again.”
He nodded stiffly, knowing what she meant. The pains that came out of the
past and haunted, hurting past toleration. A pain that made you explode at a
touch. He could not reach after her as she walked to the edge of the dock. The
full moon was over the sea, sending a wrinkling silver path across the waves to
diem. Cassie gave him one anguished look and then stepped down onto that
path. He hurried to the edge of the dock and stood looking after her. She walked
steadily away, her small feet leaving no impression on the ocean’s salty face.
Her silhouette grew small against the moon.
“I’ll see you later!” he cried after her.