Chapter 5 #3
It sounded a little dramatic, but I had just shoved the angry shadow from my mind.
I stood, patting my pockets to find my phone to call Ryan.
The joy of finding another weaver lay heavy, soured by Thoth.
But we had found one. She was scared, but that she’d known enough to seek me out boded well. Pluck was right. She’d find me again.
Phone in hand, I stood inside the dross-laced tunnel and gazed out at the sunlit quad as my thoughts slowed. “You know him. He called you Kahu.”
The snake tightened his grip on my wrist in a sparkling of gold and green. Kahu is dead.
Kahu is dead? I jumped, startled when the phone in my hand rang.
It was Ryan, and I hesitated all of three rings before I answered it. Cheese and crackers, she stole my bike. “Ryan, hey,” I said when I hit the icon. “You’ll never guess what happened.”
Thoth followed a weaver to us. Pluck’s head hooded as he gazed out at the sun. Beat the dark matter out of me. Telling Ryan is a bad idea.
“Where the blue blazes are you?” Ryan said, voice hushed but intent. Behind him, I could hear a soft murmur of conversation. “The meeting is almost over and you’re not here.”
Oh, yeah…“Um, I found a weaver,” I gushed, my gaze lifting over the trees to find the roof of the Surran building.
“Here on campus. She stole my bike.” At least she didn’t steal my stick, I thought, seeing it in a patch of sun.
“Ryan, she’s scared and trailing some really angry shadow, but she’s here! ”
“A—A weaver?” he stammered, and I picked up my stick, surprised when Pluck coiled about the top third like a decoration. His bone-aching cold left my hand and I shook it in relief.
“Her name is Marty, and, uh, we might have a problem.” Still twined about my stick, Pluck narrowed his eyes in warning, but Ryan was my boss. “Um, I really need to talk to you.”
“Petra, this is fantastic!”
Pluck shed sparkles like stardust in warning.
The tip of his tail was quivering, and I smiled as I tried to touch him, my fingers going ice-cold when they fell right through to the wood underneath.
He only looked solid. “Yes and no. I need to find her. She’s trailing some mean shadow.
I’m going to have to meet the marshal later. ”
“No!” he blurted, then spoke again, softer.
“Petra, it was all I could do to keep the marshal from coming to pick you up this morning. Come in. Tell everyone what happened. What she looks like. I can send everyone out in their usual dross grid patterns to find her.” He hesitated.
“Did you get her last name? Maybe her family has history here.”
“No, sorry.” But I was beginning to relax. A sweeper-run search would be extremely thorough and discreet, seeing as the grid patterns to pick up dross were second nature to everyone in the guild. She had my bike, but unless she’d upgraded her theft to a vehicle, she was likely still in St. Unoc.
“Fine. I’ll be right there,” I said, and both he and Pluck sighed in relief. “But my interview with the marshal will have to wait. I have to find Marty. She’s scared to death.” My elbow hurt, and my entire side ached. “I can’t believe she stole my bike.”
“Petra…” he started.
“Five minutes,” I said as I ended the call and tucked my phone away.
My elbow was tingling, and I frowned, twisting it backward to see the haze of dross clinging to it.
Grimacing, I pulled the energy off and flung it to the wall, where it began to slowly ooze down.
Pluck shuddered at the burning glow, but it was little more than an annoyance to me and I had better things to do than clean out a tunnel.
Head down, I stomped to the light.
You were smart to not tell Ryan that Thoth tried to kill us, Pluck fizzed. Thoth is dangerous, and it’s unlikely that the shadows at the auditorium will provide assistance. We will settle this quietly. Without Ryan’s help.
He was overreacting, and I overlaid a feeling of uncertainty through Pluck’s sour anger echoing in my mind. “We could have handled that better, sure, but Thoth won’t—”
Do not delude yourself. Others have, and they died for it. Alerting mages that a murderous, disruptive shadow exists might trigger them into killing all shadows on sight. He’s here to disrupt, and he’s very good at it.
I went silent at the remembered feel of Thoth in my mind.
Pushing him out hadn’t been that hard. Weavers, even untrained, could protect themselves from shadows.
Pluck was the one in real danger, and my hold on my staff tightened as I started across the quad toward the Surran building.
I understood why he wanted to keep this quiet, but Ryan had helped me when my dad had died, trusted me when no one else had.
Torn, I inched my grip up until Pluck coated my entire hand.
“Pluck,” I started, faltering when the shadow’s conflicted emotions buzzed through mine like fog.
Thoth used her to find you, he fizzed. She’s inexperienced. No threat. But you are.
There it was again, and Pluck’s worried indecision sparked through me. I’m a threat?
He would see the balance fail, Pluck fizzed, anger and embarrassment twining in equal parts through his thoughts. You are a weaver, skilled with hosting shadows within your mind. You can catch him. Stop him. He knows it. You are a threat.
“He wants the balance to fail?” I said aloud. “Why?”
Pluck’s worry swamped my confusion, and I squinted when I found a patch of sun, not surprised when the shadow shrank to the size of a small stone and hid in my pocket from the damaging rays. “I thought all a shadow wanted was a weaver.”
Not Thoth. He’s why the mages were able to destroy the balance the first time, setting mage against weaver when he realized he can’t best a weaver’s skills. I won’t let him do it again.
My reach for my sunglasses faltered, and then I snapped them out and put them on, relief filling both Pluck and me as everything took on a dusky haze. “You sure he’s not just trying to get Marty’s attention? I mean, you were really out of practice.” I tried to smile. “Scared the crap out of me.”
Very sure, Pluck fizzed. He’s never found a weaver he can join with, which is the core of why he strives against us.
It might have begun as jealousy, but it’s long since become hate.
We are willing slaves, according to him, tricked into servitude.
He will go to all lengths to free us from our delusions.
When we refuse, he removes the one thing he can. Our weavers.
“But that’s not how it works,” I said as I crossed the dross-coated park, my need to talk to Ryan redoubling. “Are you sure Marty isn’t his weaver?”
The spot of cold in my pocket seemed to quiver and Pluck’s regret twined through my confusion, the sharp ping of his decision to tell me something flashing like a bright spark within our shared thoughts.
Marty is not his weaver. A shadow invariably chooses someone who thinks as they do.
It’s necessary to find an accord. Thoth has lost the ability to choose through his own hubris.
You chose me? I thought, quashing a rising surprise. I’d thought I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I chose, Pluck fizzed. Though I will admit I thought I’d made a serious mistake when you bottled me, he mused, and I cringed.
Hence you and I are both inventive, bold to the point of foolhardiness, and trusting within a small circle of friends.
Thoth is charming, confident, extremely manipulative, and possessing a great desire to see the opportunity that destruction brings so as to further himself.
Not only is Marty utterly devoid of those traits, Thoth damaged himself while trying to forge a connection long ago. He can bind with no weaver.
“Huh,” I said, remembering her fear. Marty wasn’t charming, she wasn’t confident, and she was clearly not aggressively seeking advancement.
Surran Hall was one block down, and I turned to the sun, my hand hiding his pocket from the worst of it. “He, ah, called you Kahu. Is that your real name?”
Not anymore.
“I mean, if you like, I can—”
Don’t, he interrupted. Kahu died in the long ache. I am Pluck.
There it was again: the long ache. “Pluck—” I started, words faltering as his fear flickered through both of us, old, bone-deep, and laced with guilt.
It’s too bright out here, and that’s a conversation for the dark.
I took a breath to protest, then decided to let it be. Not dark enough? It was clearly an excuse. I could tell from his closed fizzing that it would never be dark enough for that conversation.
Not even on a night with no moon.