"He doesn't know anything. ,. ." Thea began, but of course that was hopeless. And ridiculous.
"I know I love Thea," Eric said, cutting her off. "And she loves me. And if there's some rule that says we can't be together, it's a stupid rule."
He sounded terribly brave and terribly young. Thea felt a wave of dizziness. Her fingers tightened on his until both their hands were shaking from the pressure. She realized for the first time that her right hand was fairly seriously burned.
"Please let him go, Grandma," she whispered. And then, as Gran stood silent, "Please... I won't ever see him again and he won't ever tell. All he's done is try to help me, try to save lives. Please don't punish him for what's my fault." Warmth pooled in her eyes and spilled over.
"He tried to uphold the law," Aradia said. "At least, I think so."
Thea wasn't sure she'd heard right. Gran didn't seem to be, either. She said, "How's that?"
"Hellewise said it's forbidden for witches to kill humans, didn't she?" Aradia asked, her face serene. "Well, that spirit was a witch who'd already killed a human-and who wanted to kill more. And he helped send her back. He helped Thea undo the forbidden spell, and he helped prevent witch law from being broken again."
Rhys muttered, "Neatly put," but Thea couldn't tell whether that meant he agreed or not.
Gran shuffled a step forward, looking at Eric. "And just what did you do to help, young man?"
"I don't know if I did help," Eric said in his quiet, straightforward way. "Mainly I just tried to keep her from killing me-"
"When did you light the fires?" Thea asked in an undertone, still clutching his hands.
He glanced at her. One side of his mouth quirked slightly.
"Nine o'clock," he said.
"Even though I wasn't there." Thea's voice was just slightly louder now. "And you knew Suzanne would come and try to get you, and you didn't have any magic to fight her. So why did you do it?"
He looked at her, then at Gran. Then at her. "You know why. Because otherwise she'd have gone over to the party."
"And killed more people." Thea looked at Gran.
Gran was staring at Eric, her dark old eyes very keen. "So you saved lives."
"I don't know," Eric said again, maddeningly honest. "But I didn't want to take the chance."
"He saved my life, too," Thea said. "Suzanne tried to kill me. And I could never have gotten through the spell to send her back if he hadn't kept her distracted."
"That's nice, but I'm not sure it's enough," Old Bob said, running a hand over his stubbly chin. His weathered face was quizzical. "There's nothing that says upholding one law makes up for breaking another. Especially Night World law. We could get in a mess of trouble fooling with that."
Gran and Mother Cybele looked at each other. Then Gran turned to Old Bob.
"I changed your diapers-don't tell me you know more about Night World law," she snapped. "I'm not about to let a bunch of bloodthirsty vampires dictate to me." She looked at the others. "We need to take this somewhere private. Let's go back to my place."
Somewhere private. Hope kept racing giddily through Thea as the jeep bounced and rattled home.
Eric was driving, and Thea was in the backseat, so they couldn't talk. Aunt Ursula was in the front beside Eric.
Gran's fighting for me. And Aradia, and maybe even Mother Cybele. They don't want me to die. I don't think they even want Eric to die.
But reality kept trying to push the hope away.
What can they do? They can't condone a witch and a human being together. They can't risk war with the rest of the Night World, not even to save me.
There's no solution.
The little caravan pulled up the back alley behind Gran's store.
And then Thea was in the workshop again, in the circle of chairs. Creon and Belfana had been waiting. So had Blaise and Dani, who were both sitting down.
"Are you okay?" Dani began, standing--and then she shut up. She was looking at Eric, her dark, velvety eyes huge. A human in the Circle.
"We put Suzanne back," Thea said simply. She took Eric's hand again.
The Inner Circle re-formed around the two of them, witch and human, standing centered.
"We have a situation," Gran said. And she explained even though most of them already understood the problem. She did it thoroughly, looking at each of the Circle members in turn. Aradia and Mother Cybele sat on either side of her, occasionally putting in a thoughtful remark.
Thea figured it out in a few minutes. Gran was recruiting each of them, appealing to them-and showing that the Mother and Maiden both agreed with her. She was working them all over to her side.
"And the end result is, we've got these two," she said at last. "And we have to decide what to do with them. This is a decision for the Inner Circle, for the daughters and sons of Hellewise. Not for the Night World Council," she added, looking at Old Bob.
He ran a hand through rough gray hair and muttered, "The Council might not see it just that way," But he smiled. "There was a time," Gran said, "when witches and humans got along better than they do now. I'm sure anybody who's gone far enough back with their family tree knows that."
Eric looked at Thea, who shook her head and looked at Blaise.
"She means," Mother Cybele put in, "that we used to take human husbands, a long time ago. To make up for the fact that there have never been enough witch men. That was back in the days when there was still the third Circle, Circle Daybreak. The one that tried to teach magic to humans."