13. Valerian
Valerian
I wait until she’s asleep, truly asleep, Luka curled round her in panther form standing guard, before I say the thing I can’t say in front of her.
Azaan and Gavriel follow me down to the spell room without being asked. They know my quiet the way I know theirs. Three centuries in a book together teaches you to read a man’s silence.
“Say it,” Azaan says, once the door’s shut. “You’ve been chewing on it since the library.”
I light the braziers with a thought, more to have something to do with my hands than for the light. Then I make myself look at them.
“When Tabeitha was dying,” I say, “I was the one who told her to split her essence. To pour part of her soul into her half-human daughter so that one day, down the bloodline, she could come back. It was my counsel. Mine.” The words are ash in my mouth.
“I did it to save her. I thought I was saving her. Instead I built the cage that Tabby’s been carrying her whole life.
Tabeitha is inside her because of me. Mordecai has a vessel to hunt because of me. ”
Gavriel says nothing. Azaan’s face does something complicated.
“You couldn’t have known,” Azaan starts.
“That isn’t the worst of it.” I cut him off, because if I stop I won’t start again.
“The worst of it is what it means for getting her out. Tabeitha isn’t a passenger we can evict.
She’s woven into Tabby’s soul at the root.
Her power and Tabby’s power are the same power.
When I say I don’t know how to separate them, I’m not being cautious.
” I hold his gaze. “I mean it may not be possible to destroy Tabeitha without destroying Tabby. They may be one thing now. And every death makes them harder to tell apart.”
The silence in the spell room is total.
“No,” Gavriel says at last. Flat. Final. “We find another way.”
“I intend to.” I press my palms to the cold stone table and let the old fear sit in me, because I’ve learned that naming a thing takes some of its teeth.
“But you two should know the shape of it. If it ever comes to a choice, if we ever have to decide, I need you to know I’ve already decided.
There is no version of this where we lose her to save the world. Not for me.”
“Not for any of us,” Azaan says quietly.
“Then we’re agreed.” I straighten. “We don’t tell her the worst of it.
Not because we’re lying to her.” I hold up a hand before Azaan can bristle, because he’s the one who hates the secrets, and he’s not wrong to.
“Because she has enough weight on her, and this is a weight we can carry for a while yet. When there’s a plan, she gets all of it. Until then, we find the plan.”
Gavriel stands. “The Oracle knows more than she’s told us.”
“The Oracle is a cryptic bitch who’s probably working for Mordecai,” I say, automatic, and then I hear myself, and I stop.
Three centuries of instinct. And every warning that woman ever gave us has come true, and I’ve called her a liar every time.
“Or,” I say, slower, hating it, “the Oracle has been telling us the truth from the start and we’ve been too proud to hear it. ”
Azaan’s brows go up. “Did that hurt?”
“Enormously.” I snuff the braziers. “We find her. Tomorrow. And this time we listen.”