Chapter 13 #2
Pluck’s eyes narrowed, the black flecks in them sparkling. That’s interesting.
And then he turned to the front door when someone came in, bringing the sounds of the night.
It’s Herm…echoed through me—both of us.
“Grady?” Lev called, overlapped by Herm’s enthusiastic, “How come you only call me when you’re in trouble?”
Pulse fast, I stood and dusted my hands on my jeans, quashing the worry that the older man might see me as an invalid. If there was anyone I could be honest with about my condition, it was him. “I’m always in trouble,” I said as I crossed the room, eager for a hug.
“More rice,” Benedict muttered as he put another pot on the stove.
Herm’s eyes lit up as he saw Pluck in the hall.
He bobbed his head in greeting, then looked at me, arms spread wide to take me in.
After my dad had died, Herm had paid my tuition—a silent, watchful presence as he kept the separatist mages focused on him and oblivious to me.
The older man was gruff, surly, and really smart.
He’d probably had lots of friends once, but he’d been living off-grid for a long time, pretending to be a weaver so I could grow up safe. I owed him a lot.
“I am so glad you’re here,” I said, and then his arthritic, knobby hands pulled me close to send the scent of coffee puffing up between us.
He looked as if he’d just come in off the desert in his faded jeans, dusty cowboy boots, and wide-brimmed hat.
His red shirt was open at the neck to show a patch of sunburned skin, and his tan was deep despite it being November.
Kind, wrinkly eyes smiled at me when he pushed back.
“You look good. I hear the new vault cracked,” he said, and I shrugged. “They blaming you and Pluck? Typical. How come Ryan hasn’t quashed this?”
“Give me a chance to say hi before I ruin your night.” I tugged him into a second, quick hug. I’d missed him. I hadn’t known how much until this moment. “You heard about Marty?”
“I knew you’d find more weavers,” he said, the pride in his gravelly voice obvious. “You and Pluck,” he added, and the hazy shadow pricked his ears.
“She’s upstairs talking to her past. Come on in. Sit down.” I tugged his elbow. “Benedict has kitchen duty. I have no idea what he’s making. He won’t tell me.”
“That’s because it doesn’t have a name other than dorm-room rice!” Benedict shouted from the kitchen. “It’s everything in the fridge plus hot sauce.”
“Sounds good.” Herm gave my shoulder a comforting pat as Lev collapsed the Ping-Pong table to make more room. “I could do with something I haven’t cooked myself,” he added, then hesitated. “Ryan mentioned you wanted to use the old vault to lure the shadow in, but how is this going to work?”
Startled, I looked at Lev as Herm settled himself in one of the firmer chairs around the coffee table. “You didn’t tell him?”
Lev flopped into a beanbag chair. “I told him about Thoth. The rest is up to you.”
Herm’s gaze on me sharpened. “It’s more than the university blaming you for the damaged vault?”
Yeah, I wouldn’t want to tell Herm bad news, either, and I sat down on the couch across from the older man and tucked my feet under me.
Herm’s expression settled into a hard waiting, and yet his concern only made me feel better.
Or maybe it was Pluck’s grateful emotions spilling into mine.
Herm had been the first person who had treated Pluck with respect, something more than a deadly monster bent on destruction—though shadow could be that, too.
“Ah…I was hoping you might have some insight into, um.” I looked at Pluck, and the shadow melted into a hazy black puddle, right there in the hall.
“What happened?” Herm lost every ounce of good humor. “Is this about the marshal?” His gaze shot to what was left of Pluck. “Was she asking too many questions? Please tell me it was an accident.”
“No,” I blurted as Lev shifted, his flash of guilt quickly hidden. “I mean, that wasn’t us, but it is kind of our—my fault.”
His sun-worn face creased in worry, Herm leaned across the table. “Petra?”
I took a steadying breath. Pluck had eased himself closer, but he didn’t look like much more than a snake.
“Um, when we learned Cameron was unconscious, Pluck and I went into her mind to try to get her out. Thoth was there, waiting. That’s the shadow who destroyed the vault?
” I said, and Herm nodded, glancing at Lev. “He followed Marty here.”
“And they are not bound?” Herm chewed on his lower lip. “Lev said they are not a pair.”
“Pluck says Thoth can’t bond with anyone.
That he lost the ability,” I said, and Herm’s brow furrowed.
“It was a side effect of learning how to, ah, enter a mind and possess it without leaving them insane. That’s how he put the marshal’s mind in a loop—sort of a living nightmare,” I said, voice soft.
“And he did it to lure me in. Ah…” My throat turned into a lump.
I couldn’t say it. “It was a trap,” I said instead.
“Cameron was the bait. I can’t believe I left her there… ”
I stopped talking before I started to cry. I was a weaver, damn it. Or at least, I had been.
“Shadows can’t harm experienced weavers,” Herm said. “I don’t see the point to luring you into someone else’s unconsciousness. What am I not seeing, Petra?”
I steadied myself to tell him, my words faltering when Lev stiffened. Breath held, I followed his gaze to the thumping on the stairs. It was Marty, obviously, and as Pluck evaporated to ooze up the wall and hang from the ceiling, I wiped my nose and forced myself to smile.
“Hi.” Marty scuffed to a halt at the wide archway opening to the hall, eyes red and looking miserable. “I heard voices.”
Herm bounded to his feet, grinning from ear to ear. “You must be Marty,” he said as he pushed forward, hand extended. “It’s really good to meet you.”
She took his hand briefly, clearly reluctant to come into the room. “Marty Mayson.”
“Herm Ivaros,” he said, gesturing for her to come in and sit, but she hung in the archway where she was, neither here nor there but in between. That’s about right…
“Herm knows more about shadows and weavers than probably anyone who isn’t one,” I said, and she bobbed her head, starting to take an interest.
“Marty, you are so welcome here.” Herm dropped back, clearly hoping she’d come in. “I’m sorry you found us under such trying circumstances. I’m starting to think change is a hallmark of a weaver’s becoming.”
He was smiling. I wasn’t.
“I still don’t know if I’m staying,” Marty blurted, and I stifled a wince. Clearly her conversation hadn’t gone well. “Petra said you could teach me how to keep shadow from following me. After that, I’m going home. I don’t want to be a weaver.”
“Oh.” Herm glanced at me. “Ah…”
Yeah. That her boyfriend was a mundane had complicated everything. I took a breath, startled when Benedict shouted, “Hey, Marty? I could use your help.”
“Sure.” Head down, Marty retreated to the kitchen.
“Thank you,” I mouthed to Benedict, and he nodded once. Turning away, he began talking loudly to Marty, clearly distracting her.
“You told her I could get rid of shadow?” Herm whispered, and I hunched in sudden embarrassment. “Even if I could, she can’t go home without a shadow to protect her. The separatists know who she is by now.”
“You think?” Frustrated, I patted the couch for Pluck, but the shadow remained where he was, hanging from the hallway ceiling where he could see both rooms. “It’s gotten complicated, and I had to tell her something to keep her from jumping the first bus out of here.
She knows she’s a weaver, understands we can help her, but her boyfriend is a mundane and there’s no way of hiding that you’re bound to a shadow.
She’s trying to decide between him or us. ”
The older man glanced at the kitchen, then slumped deeper into the couch. “Shadow spit. I can tell you right now the courts won’t give a variance to tell him,” he muttered softly. Sighing, he ran a hand over his stubbly salt-and-pepper bristles.
“None of this with Thoth is her fault,” I said firmly, voice low and my head down. “She’s safe for the moment, but—” My words cut off.
Pluck’s guilt was fizzing through me like lava, and I forced my jaw to unclench if only to ease his thoughts.
“Thoth thinks that weavers subjugate shadows,” I said.
“And since he can’t harm a skilled one, he’s trying to eliminate them lest they enslave his people again.
That’s why he lured me into Cameron’s mind.
It made a middle ground where he could damage me.
Herm, he broke my ability to make fields.
” My gut clenched at Herm’s sudden horror.
“He, ah, knew exactly what he was doing. I’m more or less vulnerable to whatever he wants to dish out. ”
Over my inert plasma, Pluck thought from the hall ceiling, his anger as cold as winter.
“I haven’t told Ryan,” I blurted, thinking now that had been a mistake.
“He’d have to tell the board. I don’t want to start a panic, and if it becomes public knowledge that shadows can break a mage’s ability to create fields…
” I scrubbed a hand over my face. “I’m having a hard enough time already keeping the university from declaring shadows a clear and present threat and wiping them out. ”
“No-o-o,” Herm drawled in disbelief. “You can’t make a field? Show me.”
Anger flickered. It was misplaced, but if I was angry, I wasn’t crying.
“Show you what? They don’t form.” Frustrated, I held the wire-wrapped chunk of moldavite around my neck.
It wasn’t tuned yet, and it felt almost warm.
“I can hear dark matter bouncing off the back of the universe, but the echo of it in my head that I use to weave it all together is gone. No field, no magic.”