Chapter 23 #2
“Got it.” Benedict tapped, swiped…then frowned again. “Update,” he muttered, and I smiled.
You should try tuning that, Pluck fizzed, the shadow having slipped up onto the chairs to sit beside me. He was again in his dog form. I guessed we were good.
My gaze went to the drift I had just freed. Pluck, why did I get so cold when I made that light from a strand of dark matter? I seriously thought I was going to freeze.
Pluck didn’t answer, a thin haze of green skating over his almost-there surface like lightning. I don’t know, he finally admitted. I didn’t think it was possible to manipulate a single strand, and I am over three thousand years old.
That kind of makes sense, I thought, my fingertips barely touching him. Why would you want to make a light in the first place?
True. His ears flattened to his skull, and a hint of his concern lifted through me. But I was guessing it wasn’t so much a lack of knowledge as it was that Pluck was already ice-cold. Maybe if he tried to make a light, he’d go solid right through.
“Done,” Benedict said, head down over his phone. “Who bought tickets today?” His fingers manipulated the phone, and he sighed. “This might take a while. It’s not set up well.”
I leaned my head back against the wall, staff scraping the floor as I looked out over the parking lot. I couldn’t see the coming dawn, but I could feel it behind my eyes, sort of a faint zest to the ever-present tinnitus that was the ringing of the cosmos. Slowly my eyes closed.
“Woman with a baby,” Benedict said, voice preoccupied. “Couple of students. Wow, four, no, five students going to Vegas.” He chuckled. “That won’t end well.”
Eyes closed, I listened to the universe, hearing the light creep across the skin of the world, the sensation becoming ever stronger, ever more turbulent.
No wonder the light burned me. It was unmitigated chaos forced into tight bands of waves.
“I don’t know how we are going to find her if she’s left already.
I don’t want to bring the militia into it, but we are all she’s got, Benny. ”
I agree she needs to be found, Pluck fizzed. Teaching her how to use a lodestone might not have been the best idea.
“I didn’t expect her to run off,” I said softly. “She’s just scared.”
“Of Thoth?” Benedict said, not having heard Pluck. “Me too.”
Frustrated, I opened my eyes, losing the feel of the coming sun. Pluck, if we find her, can she keep him out of her mind? I know I said weavers were exempt from shadow attacks, but Thoth got through my defenses.
Pluck flicked an ear, then flowed to the floor. She can. She likely already has. She and Thoth do not mesh well. Thoth had to lure you into Cameron’s mind to damage your ability to make a field.
I quit swinging the stick between my ankles. Still, am I asking too much of her? I thought, and Pluck turned into a snake. Body hazing, he climbed the side of the kiosk until he hung his head over the top to watch Benedict’s screen.
No, prickled through me, but it only made me more worried. Thoth might not be able to mesh his mind to hers and take her as his weaver, but they are alike enough that he found her. Followed her here. I will take that as a good sign, seeing as one of Marty’s defining characteristics is fear.
You think he’s afraid? I guessed, and Pluck’s snake head lifted.
I do. He made a mistake. He’s never done that before. Finding Marty is the smart thing to do even if it makes her more vulnerable.
Because we would teach her how to survive Thoth and help catch him. Looking into the future, we had to find a way to bend the rules for her boyfriend—but I didn’t see how. I couldn’t even get the board to admit that shadows were worthy of consideration.
“Nothing today,” Benedict said, completely unaware of our conversation. “I think she’s still here.” He yanked the cord from the machine. “She’d need a credit card to take the train or rent a car.”
Still atop the kiosk, Pluck’s green eyes glinted. I suggest trying the aqueduct tunnels. It’s getting close to daybreak, and I would appreciate being hidden. Dana is probably looking for both of you.
I glanced at the dark windows as I stood. Stashing Herm’s truck might be a problem.
“I’ll drop Herm a text,” Benedict said, and I started when he gave me a consoling, sideways hug. “We will find her.”
“As long as Thoth doesn’t find her first.” My shoulders slumped, and he tugged me closer yet. “I don’t know where to look,” I said, then stiffened when Pluck’s alarm fizzed through me.
Try behind you.
She’s here? I spun, my elation and Pluck’s worry making a sickening slurry of emotion in me. Marty stood just inside the door—it hadn’t even closed yet—and I smacked Benedict’s arm to get his attention. She was scared. That much was obvious. And alone.
“What?” Benedict muttered, and then he looked up from his phone. “Oh!” He took a breath. “Oh…”
Gently now…Pluck’s warning lit through me. She’s here to flee, not join our cause.
But I was too excited to care, and I pushed Pluck’s thought aside. “Oh, my gosh, I’m so glad to see you,” I said, my grip on Benedict’s arm tight in hope.
Marty’s eyes widened. “I didn’t know you were here,” she said, her gaze darting nervously from me to Pluck to Benedict.
She’s going to run, Pluck thought as she took a step back.
“Marty, wait,” I pleaded as the young woman reached for the door.
“I never should have come.” Marty fumbled for the handle, unwilling to look away from us for even a second. “Dana said they were going to make Victor forget about me…” she said, voice rising in panic.
“Just…wait,” I pleaded as I stepped between her and Benedict. “You are a weaver. You have no idea how important you are. She’s trying to scare you, but you have power. You can make demands.”
Benedict made a rude snort. “She’s telling the truth. Petra does it all the time.”
“We will work something out. I promise. Cheese and crackers, Marty. I blew up the auditorium and they gave me a promotion and a raise.”
It wasn’t you, it was me, Pluck fizzed, ignored.
Marty’s breathing was fast, eyes wide as she clutched her coat close. “What if you’re lying to me? What if you make me forget about him!”
“Please. Please,” I begged her, desperate. The moldavite we’d given her was still around her neck. It was a pale green. Empty, I thought in relief. “I think we have a way to get rid of Thoth. But we need your help.”
She took another half step back. “You expect me to trust you?” she accused softly.
“You said you could get rid of him. And look what happened!” In a quick motion, she tugged the lodestone over her head and off, holding it out as if it was to blame.
“You lied to me. Maybe once, I could have gone home, but now? Now I know too much. I don’t want this anymore! ”
“Marty, no!” I shouted as she threw it.
Benedict lurched, diving for the glittering green glass. He hit the floor with an oof, sliding to narrowly get his hands under it. Relief spilled through me, doubly so for Pluck’s emotion, and I exhaled, eyes darting to Marty. It was safe.
“Marty—” I pleaded as the woman retreated to the door. “I’m so sorry. I only wanted you to see how wonderful it could be.”
“Wonderful!” Marty barked, her gaze going to Benedict as he got to his feet, stone cradled protectively. “There’s a monster following me!”
No argument there, Pluck thought.
And yet her eyes never left the amulet when Benedict handed it to me.
“You know full well that Petra and Pluck aren’t destroying the vaults,” Benedict accused. “She can’t help you if she’s hiding from a crime she didn’t commit.”
Her hand fell from the door. “I told Dana what I saw in the basement,” she said, a flicker of anger giving her a hint of strength.
“She thinks I’m lying for you.” Her jaw clenched.
“Or that I can’t tell one shadow from another.
She says we’re in it together. And you think I want to go to school here? Well, screw that!”
“Damn you, Dana…” Benedict whispered as I tried to wrap my head around it. Marty had told Dana the truth, and she still blamed me and Pluck?
The mage is a yeth, Pluck fizzed. She won’t believe unless she hears it from Thoth himself.
Thoth, though, is a confident shadow spit.
He will admit to the destruction and trickery if we can catch him, if only to prove how smart he is.
He has never been contained and will expect to gain his freedom at the moment it’s most devastating to you.
I put a hand to my head, trying to figure this out.
If Dana didn’t believe Marty, she sure as hell is hot wouldn’t believe Cameron’s testimony whether supported by Lev’s militia experts or not.
Catching Thoth was the only way Pluck and I could prove our innocence.
“Marty, please,” I begged. “We almost caught Thoth with three sticks, but they weren’t a set and Thoth found a way to break one and escape.
All we need are five balanced sticks and the people to hold them.
I know we can catch Thoth. It’s the only thing that will discredit Dana, and once the board stops listening to her, we can change their minds about Victor, too.
There’s no reason he can’t be told about magic. ”
“Ah, Petra…” Benedict started, and I rounded on him.
“There’s no good reason!” I shouted. “She is a weaver! If he talks, her shadow will leave him clinically insane and no one will believe him.” I turned to Marty. “But he won’t. Not if he loves you.”
Marty’s impetus to leave faltered. Hope pinched her eyes, a quiet desperation that I might be throwing her a rope with which to pull herself to a happy ending.
“I can’t…” she said, clearly scared, until she looked at the stone in my hand.
Gaze fixed on it, she rubbed her fingers together as if feeling a tingling of power.
Slowly her chin lifted, making me think she might have only now believed she had value—that what she wanted mattered.
“Thoth first,” she said, breath shaking in her. “Then Dana. I will not allow anyone to hurt Victor. Promise it.”
“I promise,” I whispered, and then she nodded.
“What do you want me to do?”