Chapter 24 #2
“Great green eyes staring at me from under a chair,” Herm griped, as he handed Benedict a second bag of takeout.
He had my dad’s three sticks from Ryan in his other hand, and my worry eased.
One to go. “It’s a wonder I didn’t have a heart attack.
Petra, Benedict, good work. Marty, I’m glad we found you. Safety in numbers and all.”
Marty fidgeted at the edge of the light’s easy reach. “Petra promised she’d help change Dana’s mind about Victor, but she can’t do that if Thoth is free.”
“Ah, sure.” Herm acknowledged my glare telling him not to argue with her. “Marty, this is Professor Brown.”
The man in his early sixties nodded to Marty, his gaze immediately going to Pluck when the shadow dog made a doggy circle and flopped to the poured-cement floor at my feet. “Petra, it’s good to see you.”
“Hi, Professor B.” Mood soft, I closed the distance between us and met his fist with my own. “My gosh, it’s been years. Your lab looks the same, though.”
His gaze went to the dark corners as if seeing more than the quiet, tidy space. “I never forgave myself for losing you to the sweepers’ guild.” Eyes bright, he looked past me at Pluck. “Clearly it was a good move.”
Benedict had taken both bags to a workstation, head down as he rustled through them.
“You met Pluck?” I asked.
He did. Pluck flicked an ear to send a wad of dark matter to splat next to Benedict’s foot. The mage noted it with half his attention, more interested in the food.
“Ah, yes.” Professor Brown watched the haze of spent energy evaporate in an evil-looking ribbon of smoke.
“Um…I’ve not been able to bring myself to work with shadow since the auditorium collapsed.
That energy could have an intelligence…agency.
” His eyes held guilt as they found mine.
“Perhaps it was easier to ignore what was in front of me. Us. Dana…” His words cut off, and he rocked back a step to include everyone.
“I make it a practice to not talk ill of others, but it’s an honor to give you all sanctuary,” he said, voice louder.
“Not everyone is against this new balance of shadow and light.”
“Thank you,” I said, but in all honesty, as a Spinner, he had everything to gain and nothing to lose.
Pluck sat up, whip-tail waving. I approve of this Spinner. Tell him I won’t ever drive him insane.
Timing, Pluck, I thought, and the shadow flopped onto the cool cement again.
“Ryan says to stay out of sight.” Herm’s gruff expression eased when he came close and handed me the three sticks. “I’m sorry, Petra. He doesn’t know where the last stick is.”
“No, this is great!” I looked the three over, silky against my fingers. “I thought we’d have to make an entirely new set. One stick won’t take too long. Marty has agreed to help. Our chances at catching Thoth just got better.”
Herm pinched the bridge of his nose. “Can I talk to you for a moment?” he said, gaze going to Marty.
I stifled a sigh. He doubted her. Whether it was her skills or loyalty made no difference. And that I might doubt her, too, sort of irritated me. “Sure.” I propped the sticks up against a counter, and Pluck fizzed that there was no need for Marty to see his uncertainty. He was right.
“Um, Benny?” I said loudly, and the man looked up from the bags of food. “Could you and Marty go find a couple of couches to drag in here? I’ll unpack everything.”
Benedict hesitated, and I widened my eyes and sort of nodded to the door.
“Oh! Right.” Benedict glanced at the bags reluctantly. “Sure. Marty, where did you say you saw them?”
Marty slid from one of the high-tops and set her waxed cup down. “The front. I’ll show you.” But it was obvious by the way she left that she knew that she was being gotten rid of.
“Thank you,” I mouthed to Benedict when he looked back, and then he was gone.
“Herm, Marty has better skills than she’s admitting to,” I said as I went to unpack the bags. “She wants to help. You told Benedict to trust me. So trust me.”
The old man sighed, and when Professor Brown gestured, he settled himself on a high-top with a familiarity that reminded me he had been a student here once, too. “I do,” he grumped. “I just don’t like us all scattered like this. Lev and Cameron are still working to get the court-worthy affidavits.”
“Good.” I moved to take the seat next to him. “We’re going to need them. Marty told Dana that Thoth was the one blowing up the vaults and she called Marty delusional.”
Professor Brown looked up from trying to engage Pluck. The shadow was being unusually accommodating, making extra eyes on stalks to freak the man out.
Herm grunted his opinion. “Yeah, well, Dana being a hypocritical bureaucrat was my big news. Petra, you can’t promise Marty that they will make an exception for Victor. He’s mundane.”
I crumpled up the first bag and tossed it to the center of the table.
“Then we lose her.” I glanced at Professor Brown, clearing my throat when Pluck flicked an ear and the man jumped with a nervous laugh.
“Herm, she has to tell him. You can’t hide a shadow.
If Victor and Marty are both here, we have some sort of control.
Not to mention if he blabs, there’s an entire university of people who can cover for his mistake. ”
Head down, Herm nodded, forcing a smile when Professor Brown came to join us.
“Petra, Herm said you plan on capturing Thoth with five sticks.” The older man winced. “Five would certainly make a tighter net than three, but it still feels chancy.”
“We almost had him with three.” I drew a folder of cold fries closer and began to pick at them, looking for the longest. “With balanced sticks and the right people manning them, Pluck thinks we can force him into a pure energy state and capture him in a field.”
Guilt pinched my gut. I couldn’t make a field. Couldn’t help catch Thoth. It was my idea, but I wouldn’t be the one taking the risk.
You can wield a stick, Pluck fizzed. And you can tune dross better than any shadow.
Only if I stop and think about it, I mused. I’m sure Thoth will wait for me.
Don’t be a yeth, Pluck fizzed, his presence in mine taking on a disgruntled tone. You’re tuning more dross than any shadow alive. Practice imparts speed.
I couldn’t exactly ignore his sour fluster twining through me, but I tried, and the salt from the cold fries stirred my appetite despite the general sogginess of them.
Okay, maybe I could be of some help. Keep the area clean if nothing else.
Benedict was exceptional at manipulating heat.
Lev was good with gravity. Herm was good with water studies, and Cameron claimed she was an etherologist, which would be helpful in her marshal duties.
Worried, I glanced at the three sticks Herm had brought. “So, Professor B. How long will it take to make a fifth stick?”
Professor Brown ran a hand over his chin, his expression having that same distant look I remembered from when I’d been his student. “Making a stick isn’t a problem. Matching the dross balance of the other four might be an issue.”
Herm unwrapped a burger and lifted the top bun, sighed at the mess, then put it back on. “Her dad made them here, didn’t he? I thought you kept records.”
Professor Brown’s gaze went to the door as Benedict and Marty shuffled in, an ugly, institutional-looking couch between them. “Yes,” he admitted. “But I have no idea of the amount of dross decay that has occurred.”
I ate another fry, a small noise of understanding slipping from me. “I forgot about that. Shadow spit, none of them are alike anymore, are they?”
“Dross decay?” Herm prompted as Benedict and Marty left to get a second couch.
Professor Brown clasped his hands before him, his index fingers coming together to make a little steeple. “Dross is energy, and like any power source, it loses potency over time and use. Think of it like a radioactive substance, but unlike, say, carbon 14, which decays at a fixed rate…”
He looked at me to finish his thought and I smiled. He was in teaching mode. “Dross decays at a variable rate dependent upon how much there is and how often it comes in contact with other dross. That’s why you have to keep your sticks together.”
“And whereas,” Professor Brown continued, “your dad’s sticks have been scattered the last few months, they had been stored the previous ten years in a controlled environment that promoted stability. They won’t be as far off from one another as you might think.”
“Mmmm.” Herm took a bite of his burger and chewed. “Can’t you run one through one of your apparatuses here to figure out how much dross we’re talking about?”
The smaller man looked at the sticks in question. “Sure. But to get an accurate measurement through a quarter inch of wood, I’d need twenty-four hours. Unless you want me to destroy one. That would take about an hour, but require making two new sticks.”
My shoulders slumped. Twenty-four hours? Pluck fizzed, clearly not wanting to break one of the sticks, either. We don’t have that long.
“Meanwhile, Thoth is free to do what he wants,” I said softly, attention going to Benedict and Marty bringing in a second couch. “There has to be a faster way to do this.”
Marty’s end of the couch hit the floor with a thump. “Sticks? Is that why we’re here? You can pick them up at any secondhand shop. I should know.”
“They need to all have the same balance of dross,” I said as Benedict came forward to claim a paper-wrapped burger. “My dad’s old set is the only one I know of, but we just have four.” Did he prepare for this? I wondered. Or was it because, as Darrell claimed, he went through them fast?
Marty came closer, clearly more interested in the four sticks than eating. “Oh. Dana has one just like these,” she said, and Herm grunted.
“Dana?” he said, swallowing hard. “Are you sure?”
Marty ran a finger down one of the sticks to trace the esoteric symbols my dad had carved into them. “Absolutely. They’re beautiful, and I thought it weird she had only the one.”