43. Principles of Banking II #2
I jerked my neck to look at Ciarán where he crouched halfway down the stairwell. Maxwell stood at the top step, pale faced and stricken.
“Listen to him,” I said to Ciarán through the tether.
I thought he might disobey, but then his shoulders dropped and he raised his hands over his head to join me in the workshop.
“Why are you here, Titus?” I drawled his Nightmare name, but if Stanley picked up on any disrespect, he ignored it.
“My lucidity, it’s slipping.” Stanley’s voice shook, presumably hyped up on adrenaline. His time in Mom’s strange rock had left him sweaty and weak, but it didn’t take much to pull a trigger. “When I go to Skalterra, it’s not the same as it was anymore. I’m there sometimes, but other times—”
He cut off to lick his lips, and I remembered the way he’d become emotionless and empty on Tamora’s steamcart.
“Now, Stanley, your own inability to perform isn’t a reason to hold a woman at gunpoint,” I hissed.
“It’s Titus!” Stanley roared.
Mom gave me an admonishing look. I’d missed that. I hoped we survived long enough for her to tell me off properly.
“I overheard you telling the Eldguard about the chickens on the steamcart, how they’re the reason I’m Lucid in Skalterra, and how they’re the reason I’m losing that.”
“You’re threatening to kill my mother over porcelain chickens?” I balked. “Did you not see the shelf full of them by the front door?”
“I did.” He licked his lips again. “The whole town’s been closed for weeks. I was so stupid to not put it together until I got here. This was where the Saergrim lived and worked, so what if, what if, this was where the Rift lets out in Keldori?”
Still holding the gun to Mom’s head, he reached back to open the supply closet behind him with a free hand. It swung open, and a gust of frigid air rolled out.
A tunnel carved of glowing ice twisted out of sight beyond the doorway. My knees shook and my heart hammered in my ears.
Gams was through there.
“Your mother was in the shop, but luckily, I was armed. I forced her to bring me down here,” Stanley continued. “When we got here, she did something. We’ve been in that rock for days.”
“It was more of a chrysalis.” Mom shrugged. “Only Saergrim magick or a big enough explosion could’ve broken it. I figured, if you were coming, you’d make it through, Wren. And if not, well, it would’ve been another barrier to slow down Ferrin.”
“To slow down the Baron!” Stanley corrected her. “Ferrin is nothing compared to her, and Tamora is the one who will lay claim to Keldori!”
“Wren?” Orla’s voice called from upstairs. “There was an earthquake, and when we came out, the rock was gone. Are you in here?”
“Come on down!” Stanley yelled. “The fun’s just getting started! And keep your hands up if you want your friends to remain in one piece!”
Orla, Iseult, and Fana appeared at the top of the staircase where my father was still frozen and listening.
I turned back to Stanley as they came down the steps. “Think about what you’re doing. What’s your end goal? You have to know this doesn’t end well for you.”
“This ends with me as the Baron’s righthand man as she takes both worlds for herself,” Stanley snarled.
“I’m the one who will stop the storm, just in time for her ships to come into harbor.
I’m the one who will open the door for her into Keldori.
I’m the one who she will keep by her side when she remakes Keldori into something greater. ”
“You’re delusional if you think any of that is going to happen.”
“Wren, darling, you know I love you, but please stop antagonizing the man with a gun held to my head,” Mom sighed.
“What’s going on?” Orla asked as she, Iseult, and Fana joined us in the basement. “Who is that?”
“I said hands up!” Stanley pressed his gun harder against Mom’s head, but Orla cocked her own head in confusion.
“I don’t understand. What is he holding?” she whispered.
“They don’t even know what guns are, Stanley!” I said. “The Baron isn’t taking Keldori because the Baron has no idea what she’s dealing with!”
“She has me to help her,” Stanley growled, “and I told you not to call me that!”
He dragged Mom backwards through the supply closet door.
“What are we doing? We can take this loser.” Iseult flicked the visor of her helm into place, but Ciarán put his hands out to keep her from drawing a Skal-weapon.
“What he’s holding is called a gun,” he explained in a low voice. “He pushes a button, and it will kill Wren’s mother.”
Iseult blanched. “Why? Who would invent that?”
“Should we go see your grandmother?” Stanley called, pulling Mom deeper into the tunnel. “Do you think she might stop her storm if I threaten her daughter and granddaughter?”
I absolutely knew she would, but I stepped through the supply closet door anyway. There had to be a solution. I hadn’t come all this way just for Stanley to best us with a gun and an inferiority complex.
“We can beat him,” Ciarán said in my head as he followed me into the Rift.
“We can, but as long as that gun is pointed at my mother, we don’t make a move.”
“I’m faster than he is.”
“You are not faster than a bullet.”
The ice cave sloped downwards, and shifting, cloud-like shapes danced beneath the frozen surface.
“Is this the Rift?” Orla asked. “Did we make it?”
“Yes.” I kept my eyes on Stanley as he walked backwards down the slope.
Disarm Stanley. Save Mom. Reseal Gams.
And then it would be over.
Thunder cracked up ahead, and wind screamed. Flashes of blue lightning refracted through the ice, and the opening of the cave was awash in the dark of late night.
Blue electricity cut through the shadows, sparking and arching between Gams’s fingers as she held her storm.
She had aged more, finally looking like the Gams I knew. It had been at the cost of magick and strain, but I selfishly preferred her this way.
My grandmother, holding the worlds apart for weeks so she might save everyone within them.
She was greater than the worlds themselves.
I’d told her I’d make it back to her, and here I was, but Stanley had stolen all the love from what should’ve been a triumphant moment.
Gams’s stance softened as we approached.
“Wren.” I couldn’t hear her over the storm, but I saw her lips move as she said my name.
“Saergrim!” Stanley roared, dragging Mom out onto the uneven ice.
We followed with our hands up, passing under Skalterran skies once again.
Gams stiffened, and the electricity in her hands surged.
“Stanley.” She said his name as if he’d just walked into the shop to buy chips and chickens, but her eyes sparked a dangerous blue and the magick around her swelled, kicking up the skirt of her gossamer dress.
“What a surprise to see my favorite customer here of all places. And with my daughter at gunpoint no less. Lovely.”
“Line up,” Stanley barked. “All of you. With the Frozen God.”
We did as he asked and even with my mother held at gunpoint, to be next to Gams again was a relief.
Nothing bad could happen now. We had Gams.
“Wren.” Her voice cracked as she whispered my name.
“I told you I’d make it,” I whispered back, turning to face Stanley, Mom, and the Rift.
“I never doubted you, dear.” She regained her composure to ask, “What has gotten into Stanley?”
“He works for the Baron as a Lucid Nightmare.”
“Stanley? A Lucid Nightmare?”
“It’s the chickens.”
Gams swore. “Then I suppose I’ll have to discontinue them. Pity. They do so well with customers.”
Ciarán lined up on my other side, his thoughts vibrating against mine. We’d been here before, held at weapon point at the Rift. That had been against Ferrin and Caitria. We could manage Stanley.