Chapter 14 #2
“Is fine.” His earlobe was right there, and I took it between my teeth, feeling him start as I gently bit down, my reaching hand plucking the wand free of the utensil cup and spinning the dross from his elbow onto it.
“I don’t have a microwave because dross loves breaking in it.
” I pulled away, my teeth scraping his earlobe in a promise I was more than willing to fulfill—if we ever had a night free.
“And the teapot is in the cupboard over the fridge.”
Eyes coy, I slipped from his arms, the wand with the offending dross hidden behind my back. “Points for finding the herbal tea behind the oatmeal, though,” I said as I flicked the dross to the trap, where it merged with a drift already in there.
Nice, Pluck fizzed as he trotted out of the kitchen—and relief brought my shoulders down. I wasn’t helpless.
Oblivious to it all, Benedict leaned over the mugs and breathed in the steam. “I added some nutmeg. Hardly a pinch. Too much, and it overpowers everything else. Otherwise, it’s just sticks and twigs.”
Sidling close, I gave him a kiss. “You are the best, you know that? Thanks for staying with me tonight. I feel safer with an extra pair of eyes.”
He bobbed his head, and feeling good, I took two steaming mugs in hand: one for me, one for Marty.
The woman was studiously ignoring us as she flipped through a copy of the university’s directory.
It was a good sign despite the pinch of heartache in her eyes.
Giving her the stone and telling her what to do with it seemed appropriate.
“I’d be nowhere else.” Benedict took the last mug for himself. “With Thoth at large, I don’t want you or Marty alone.”
“She’s in a hard spot,” I whispered, still in the kitchen. “And I’m not talking about Thoth.”
Show her what she gains by staying, Pluck fizzed from under the couch.
Benedict leaned his head toward mine, his gaze on her as she studied the class listings. “Is there something in that stone?”
“Yes, but I don’t like that it feels like we’re trying to trick her into staying.”
It worked with you. The shadow dog sneezed, dark matter exploding out from under the couch.
Yes, well, I had a chip on my shoulder the size of a T. rex, I thought, giving Benedict a worried smile before going to set the two mugs on the low coffee table and sit on the couch kitty-corner to her. Giving her a stone might make her a target, but not doing so could be an even bigger mistake.
A wispy, whiplike tail stuck out from under the couch as the rest of Pluck remained in hiding.
I say teach her. It would have been easier to tame you if someone had given you guidance other than a Spinner working off hearsay, he thought, the ache rising to fill my mind with an old regret.
Instruct her on how to use the stone. If Thoth kills her, we will avenge her memory.
It wasn’t the ringing endorsement I had hoped for, and I eased deeper into the cushions as Benedict plopped down next to me.
It would take more than chamomile tea to lure me into sleep when Lev and Herm were across town waiting for Thoth, and since giving the young woman some way to protect herself was high on my list, I finally fumbled in my pocket for the dark piece of moldavite.
The tinnitus-like, rolling roar of the universe waxed painfully loud when my fingertips touched it, mercifully fading when I set it next to her mug. “You want to learn how to use it?”
“Now?” Her gaze fixed on the black rock with a familiar intensity. It was her future…if she wanted it.
Pluck hazed out from under the couch, puddling at my feet into his dog image, ears pricked, eyes level with my knees as he stared at her.
“If you’re going to stand watch tomorrow, you need to know how to use dark matter.
” I took a sip of tea, trying to look sage-like and smart but not sure how it was coming off.
I was only a few years older than her and all I had was a raggedy shadow dog beside me.
“Don’t mind Pluck. He’s been waiting five centuries for this. ”
To destroy Thoth? A lot longer than that, fizzed through me, and I squelched it.
“I told you I’m not staying.” Marty looked at the stone, clearly reluctant to take it. “You’re trying to trick me into bonding with it.”
That she didn’t know that weavers didn’t bond to an amulet like mages and Spinners somehow gave me confidence.
Smiling, I nudged the stone closer to her.
“You don’t bond to moldavite. You just use it.
It’s nothing like a Spinner’s stone or a mage’s.
I can use yours. You can use mine. But seeing as mages can make any scrap of glass into a lodestone, I guess it evens out. ”
Benedict chuckled, already knowing how this was going to end as he settled himself at the far end of the couch. The first time I had intentionally used dark matter from a stone, I had superheated a bottled water, exploding the cap clear off.
Brow furrowed, Marty reached for the stone, her fingers curling reluctantly around it. “Okay, but this changes nothing,” she said as she took it in hand. “Soon as Thoth is taken care of, I’m leaving. You can have your stupid moldavite back. I won’t need it.”
Yeah. That was what she said, but her fingers were almost white-knuckled as she gripped it and her expression had gone blank. She was feeling energy in it. I’d bet my life that she’d never held a tuned stone before.
“Fine, but you need it now.” I glanced at Benedict, not appreciating his grin.
“Sorry about Herm. He thinks showing you how to use it will trick you into staying. That’s how he tricked me into accepting that Pluck wasn’t a savage, unthinking monster until I calmed my shit down long enough to see it for myself. ”
Thanks, fizzed sourly through my mind, and I dabbled my fingers in Pluck’s chill.
“But that’s not why I want you to know how to use it,” I continued, and her chin lifted.
“And why do you want to show me?” she asked belligerently.
“Because if you are brave enough to help us with Thoth, you should be given the tools to survive him. What you can do with that stone might be the difference between all of us walking away from Thoth and not.”
Benedict flicked his attention up from his phone, shifting in unease.
“But mostly because if you want to leave St. Unoc when this is over, you should have a fighting chance against the separatists.”
Marty looked at the muddy-green stone, eyes down, head bowed. “I can hear the ocean when I hold it,” she said. “In my head.”
A faint smile quirked my lips. “That’s the remnants of the big bang pushing on the back of the universe, like ripples on a four-dimensional beach,” I said, and Pluck huffed, collapsing into a curled puddle at my side with only his nose and ears retaining any solidity.
“The dark matter in the stone amplifies it. The more dark matter, the louder it is. You should hear a second one when you make a field, a little offset from the first.”
Her head snapped up, eyes wide. “It’s faster. Annoyingly out of sync.”
“That’s it,” I said with a forced cheerfulness.
I couldn’t hear it anymore, and its lack was like the loss of a finger.
“That’s the echo of the energy in you. It’s offset, bent like light bends when it goes through water.
To use the dark matter in the stone, you have to bring the two sounds into alignment. ”
Her gaze flicked from the stone to me to Benedict. Pluck, too, was watching, nothing more than a dark haze with eyes. His thoughts, though, were whirling. “How?” she asked.
It hurt, watching her grow into something I’d lost, but if she did this, she’d be safer.
“Wait. Give me a second.” Benedict heaved himself to his feet, dropping his phone on the table before going into the kitchen and filling a plastic cup with water. Pluck firmed up into his dog form when Benedict set it before Marty, his eager grin wide and honest. “Try that.”
Better than warming already hot tea, Pluck fizzed, and I absently nodded.
“Put a field around it,” I said, and Benedict retreated. “As if it’s a dross drift.”
Marty’s expression fell. “You saw my fields.”
“Your fields are fine,” I assured her, stifling a grimace when Pluck’s comment of Barely adequate drifted through me.
“Hold your field around it as you bring the two chimes into one sound. You can modify the smaller one, and when they are in sync, you can use the dark matter in the stone like a mage uses light waves and a Spinner uses particles.”
“Two chimes…” Marty cradled the lodestone in her hand and stared at the plastic cup.
An ache filled me. If I couldn’t fix this, I’d never…Oh, shadow spit. What about Pluck?
I’m well, he fizzed. Tell her what to do before she blows herself up.
“Um, if you make the molecules in the water move faster, everything heats up. Slow them down, and it freezes. But don’t use a lot of energy, otherwise you might boil it away.”
You’re good at this teaching, Pluck encouraged.
Well, you know what they say, I thought, and his tail flicked me, the cold stinging as it went right through my leg.
Oblivious to us, Marty exhaled as she concentrated on the moisture-beaded cup.
A patchy field formed about it, and with a new wisdom born in seeing mine unable to take shape, I could sense the weft made by the very chime of the universe’s beginning and the weave coming from Marty.
That, I reaffirmed, is what’s missing from my fields.
The weave. I could still hear the universe.
I just couldn’t hear the echo of it in myself, and without that… no field.
“Good?” Tense, Marty waited for me. “Before I do anything, is my field okay?”
Petra…Pluck prompted, and I shoved my worries aside to deal with later.
“Your field is fine,” I said, and she exhaled in a heady relief. “Give it a go.”
Again Marty stared at the plastic cup. Pluck pressed closer, my leg going numb with prickles. She’s got it! he crowed, and with a crack, the cup broke.