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Lord Raith's daughter pouts her lips, only slightly, and flicks her tongue over the bottom one in a way that makes Maggie's ankles weak, and would have made her pause a few years ago. She bows her head. "I will be at home this day if you require any assistance, Margaret. We do not want you taking poorly. You are sure you are well? You will be fine in the outside?"
"Thank you, Natalia," Maggie says, turning to step past the tall, strong woman without letting her skin or clothes brush against her. "I am quite well." She balances a steaming cup of coffee and a peach in her hands, and slides open the door to the stone patio. "Do not concern yourself." She lets the door roll back and close behind her, waiting for the click of the latch and Natalia to move from visibility, and steps away from the shade of the overhang.
The sun is high and hot and mid-morning bright. It floods the courtyard with light that is almost blinding, making her blink and her eyes water when she steps out into it, and she raises a hand to rest along her brow, the peach held loosely in her grip. Her skin breaks out in dots of sweat, the air is thick with humidity, and her bare feet begin to burn against the heat-soaked stone.
She takes a few quick weaving steps, her skirt swishing about her knees, and holds her coffee mug up at an angle to counter her fast movements. The step onto the carefully maintained grass is welcome, thick and fresh and cool with the remaining damp from the morning watering, and she sits on the edge of the patio steps, skirt bunched to protect her skin from making contact with the hot rock.
She holds the mug under her nose, breathing deep and waiting to see how her stomach will react. The heat of the day soaks into her skin, sweat turning into an even glow of warmth trying desperately to cool in the absence of a breeze, and her hair becomes heavy with it, weighed down with the sun and the stillness of the air. Her stomach gives one slow, unhappy roll, and the queasiness evaporates, leaving behind only the stain of hunger and slight fatigue.
She sips her coffee; it's just a bit too hot, and overly, deliciously sweet. The peach is firm and ripe, and she bends forward while she eats it, letting the juice roll from the exposed fruit and off her chin and fingers and onto the grass.
Thomas is digging in his sandbox, the sides painted a bold blue and contrasting well with the mixed green and white of the enclosed courtyard; there is a bright red plastic bucket between his legs and his small fist is curled around a matching shovel. She watches as he stretches forward, reaching out with the shovel to fill it to overflowing and pulling it back. The angle looks unbearably awkward to her, but he doesn't seem to mind, instead focusing on his load. When he tips the shovel, little mouth pressed tight with concentration, more sand lands on his lap than in the bucket, and judging from the state of his legs, half-buried, this is the regular procedure. He repeats the process with a serious frown until he fills the bucket almost to the top, and then pats happily inside, pulling out a hand that's coated in sand to wipe at his face.
She laughs at the streak it leaves behind, and he looks over, chubby cheeks lifting as he smiles a smile that is so much like her own on what promises to be his father's face that she burns her tongue taking too fast a drink from her cup. She presses the burn to the roof of her mouth and quirks her lips around it, raising a hand to wag her fingers at him. He chortles, calls out something that slurs and burbles with his eagerness, and lifts the bucket to show her the sand inside. Most of it dumps out, landing in his legs and lap and sending up a puff of dust.
Maggie widens her eyes and gasps loudly, pressing her fingers up against her lips in classic shock, and uses her hand to help hide her smile until she can judge from Thomas's reaction whether or not he'd appreciate the amusement. Thomas stares at his lap for a moment, then peers into the bucket. He scoops up a handful of the sand in his lap and makes a fist; sand trickles out between his fingers, and he drops the remainder into the bucket, frowning dubiously.
Maggie squashes her smile and takes a long drink of coffee; she sets the empty mug down behind her, knocking it against the discarded peach pit, and opens her arms. Thomas launches himself from the sandbox, sand flooding off his lap and across the meticulously maintained grounds, charging past the crisscrossing footpaths, and Maggie swoops him up, laughing. She presses a finger to his nose, and sweeps his legs out from under him, grinning at his shrieks and plopping him down sideways across her lap.
Thomas locks his arms around her shoulders and giggles against her neck. There is sand on her arms from his flailing, streaks of it across her shirt and face, and she blows a raspberry against his hair. "Oh no!" she says. "I'm being attacked by a sand monster! Thomas, Thomas, help me, Thomas! I'm being attacked by a very, very, VERY sandy monster!"
Thomas laughs and squirms, pressing one sandy hand against Maggie's cheek. "Mama!"
Maggie drops her jaw, opening her mouth into a wide O. "Oh no! Thomas? Did the sand monster get you, Thomas?" She sneaks a hand down his side, waggling fingers poised. "Did it eat you all up? Are you in there, Thomas? Don't worry; I'll tickle you out!"
Thomas squeals and hollers as she darts her hands over his ribs and under his arms and behind his knees. She pops off his small shoes and socks, grins at the outpouring of sand, and tickles the bottom of his feet. He's gasping and red-faced when she eventually takes pity on him, letting him lay back across her knees, his head hanging over the side. He hiccups.
"Thomas!" she says. "Finally, I found you! You were under all that sand!"
Thomas laughs again, interrupted intermittently by his hiccups, and she pulls him into her arms, standing slowly and plopping him carefully onto his feet and the cool grass. Sand runs off the front of her skirt, leaving more behind. She rubs her hands briskly on his arms, brushing off what she can of the still-clinging sand; her own arms are similarly speckled, the sand is fine and white and clinging to any trace of moisture, and she purses her lips as she peers down at him. "We need to clean off, buddy."
Thomas looks at his hands in dismay, and rubs at one plump cheek, trying to brush off the sand there. "I tried to make a tower," he says.
She slips her hand into his, and leads him across the grounds, ignoring the pathways, and their bare feet are white on the dark grass. Lord Raith would disapprove; but he was in France, and the Illinois château was empty save for herself, Lara, Natalia, and the staff. Eventually, she knows, all of the blood would depart the house for one reason or another.
"Hmm," she says. "Well. I used to make castles and towers at the beach when I was small. And you know what?" She flips open the discreet panel on the wall and flips the switch for the sprinkler system. "It always worked better when the sand was wet."
Natalie's silhouette is visible in the window four floors above them, and it pauses at Thomas's sudden yell and rush of laughter. Maggie ignores it, and lets Thomas pull her in circles around the grounds and through the buried sprinklers.
*
Her chance comes in mid-December.
The night outside is still and cold, winter stars burning bright across the dark sky and the glow of the city visible on the horizon, and she rubs her gloved hands together, blowing into them and hunching her shoulders as she approaches the main outside gate. Raith would be in Bogotá for another week, deep in negotiations with the Red Court; Salome had not yet returned from New York; Lara had left for Prague that morning; and Elise for Zero a half hour ago, just long enough for Maggie to grab a few vital things, and press a kiss to Thomas's sleeping forehead, slipping a duplicate of her own silver pentacle around his neck. "They're not going to hurt you," she promised, and the effort of will she'd left on him made her knees wobble.
Maggie makes no attempt to hide the sound of her footsteps as she comes up to the gate; she's visibly showing, even under her bulky winter jacket, the snow is a foot deep around the pathway, and until she got off the grounds, entering into the Nevernever would be impossible.
"Ma'am," the guard says, stepping out from the gatehouse as she approaches. She blinks, raises her eyebrows, and smiles.
"Yes?"
"Do you need any assistance, Ma'am? It's late." He's big and broad, handsome with straight lines and a strong jaw, and she tries not to remember his face, although she recognizes him from some of the other walks she's taken over the past months -- sometimes accompanied by a Raith, sometimes alone. He looks strong; but it won't do him any good in a few hours.
"No, no," she tells him, laughs lightly, and tucks her hands in her pockets. "Brr! It's chilly! I just need a walk, again; restless." She pats her belly. "This little one is keeping me up tonight."
The reminder is enough, and the guard hesitates for only a moment, gaze flickering between her stomach and her face and the house behind them. "Let me call someone to go with you, Ma'am. It's late."
She smiles, plays along with his fiction. "Oh, it will only be for a few minutes. Don't worry-- I'll be back before you know it!"
He argues with himself, it plays out across his face-- it's late, where will she go, she's a wizard, but if something happens to her, he wasn't given orders for this-- and nods. A woman comes out of the gatehouse behind him; they open the gate, and watch her as she disappears down the path, dark jacket and jeans and hair blending with the night sky.
She waits until she's fifteen minutes past where she felt the wards drop off, and with a last, quick glance behind her, presses her lips together, and flicks open a Way into Winter.