Part 42 (2/2)

Ballard just sighed though

Apparently I wasn't a olf so I didn't understand

”Do you knohat happens when soer comes in? Either the old make way or there's civil war Gaven knows this He doesn't want to be the cause of discord Especially during these troubling times,” said Ballard

I snorted

Ballard did his so-be-it look

Ballard had a point, but I had the rest Hadn't I seen Ballard, in one of my dreams, as Head of the Pack? Not Paolo Not Locke Not even Lia But Ballard I decided to keep it to myself But my Diary had to know And I et it all down

This new so I missed the old hothead But now he contained distinctions I would keep my eye on that

Locke was a bozothere could be no denying that; and if he was leading the Council, perhaps it wasn't such a leap that he would beco to pick a fight

As far aspairs went, all the olves hooked up with each other Ballard said they had extraordinary sexual appetites Maybe they just needed to go with their instincts on this one, whatever thatWhy there were no old olves in the Pack They had all been ostracized

Chapter 3 Luminarium

Ballard had reinvented himself: he was more self-confident, less of a kid, more inclined to talk impromptu and passionately on various subjects, and his as

He orking on a crutch or a clutch or a brake lining or so, which was all technical mumbo-jumbo to me, while I wrote in ain, and comment that, Didn't I know better? ”What would happen,” he said, ”if your Diary fell into the wrong hands?”

I shrugged ”They would be entertained? Besides,” I said, ”iine if there were the Risky Diaries, if he had kept a journal? Whatabout it

”You haven't, you know, found out anything, have you?” he said ”I -eyed

”Younew Why?”

He looked relieved

”Good,” he said ”That e can figure things out together”

It was like that whole episode in October-Noveotten about

I looked at him curiously For whatever reason, he and I were linked It was like ere lineaged to each other Descendants of the same probleot the Rookmaakers killed?

And Risky Whatever had happened, he had never spoken about it to anyone Not even Gaven or Lia If Risky wasn't a Rosen, as he? What had happened to him? What happened to the Rookmaakers, and as Risky's role in it? Risky had left Ballard a cryptic note, along the lines of find Halsey Rookmaaker But nohat?

The absence of any ansas est problem in life Risky was dead and my parents too But then, the secretat the proble out to his beat-up boom box, music I had never heard before I ed with my hair inaround not knohat to do, if I was going to have my own House I was a Mistress now The Rook which had been unearned And I wondered whyto be worthy of House Rook it now Unbidden caers, and the words: stor if I should try it Reckless, said a small voice in ic spell, or an incantation

I needed someone who could teach me the ropesinstruct me in the ways of Wiccabecause only then could I exercisethe kind of place I iined the Ravenseals had becomedecadent, hierarchical, and coeous to everyone except those few at the very top

My parents would've wanted Rookmaaker to be a place of inclusion, I felt; and since I had no one else to discuss the matter with

I bent my head over the paper

”How's the va if Ballard's fa them

Ballard looked up His forehead slick with sweat

”It's like they've vanished,” he said He went back to his work So apparently the vaone

With Rome now definitively the olves', I would be free to develop House Rookmaaker unencumbered by outside influences

And if the Lenoir, or House Ravenseal, or the Master House tried to interfere withside of us

It will flourish like a roisin dubh in the hot Ros to do by Magic (a list) I wrote: fly, turn invisible; Ito learn each one

Next, I made a chart of all the knoolves in Ballard's familyand their proclivities

There was Locke And Paolo, of course; Liesel, Lia, Gaven, Ballard There was also Raina, Lorentz, Blunt, Giorgio, Berenice, MichellePendderwenn It was funny There was actually a olf naht that was a Wiccan House, yet here it was, being used by a daughter (not son) of Ro it down There was also Leander, another one of the Werewolf Teaht a bit, for if I had missed one Volt and Pouch, I wrote I didn't know the Pack dynamics well at all

Who were all of these lycanthropes?

Plus there were lots more of themthe ones I had never directly 'met'the other shape shi+fters

I stood with my back to Ballard and looked at the e door Ro litter ofBallard's past Mine The seven hills were like a fortification, defending us So And all the while I thought of him, and hoe had come so close to our drea which rushes in and rolls out, eachRome I would miss it, when I left I would miss the romantic notion that I would miss Rome, but I wouldones: Paolo, Locke, Leander, and Liesel (as a chick); and also the big three, Gaven, Lia (another chick; I don't knohy that interestedelse occurred to me With House Pendderwenn now extinct (and by that, I meant, all of its members now dead), mine was the only Wiccan House in Rohbors What isnews I saw Rome as a small coers And ot too old, and pre, like Volt and Pouch, and those types: adolescents not yet into their powers; which is what Ballard should have been; but he wasn't, he was alpha dog; in point of fact, e and sparkly ht about this, and who should be the new Il Gatto

He could not refrain, however, fro the question I had hoped Ballard would avoid Namely, what had happened between me andwhat's-his-face? Lennox?

It's over

We'veto become a lesbian