Chapter 31 #2
Cameron patted the bench, shifting to make room for Marty as she meekly inched closer. The amulet around her neck was darker than the night. Clearly Aasta was in it. “Is it just you two?” the marshal asked Herm. “I was hoping that some of the sweepers who broke you out…”
Her voice trailed off when Herm shook his head. “They weren’t exactly subtle. Which is helpful in trying to lay a false trail. They’ll be fine if Thoth ever catches up to them. He doesn’t care about sweepers.”
No, Thoth’s beef was with me. Mostly, I thought, glancing at Marty and Aasta. I’d made them a target, too, though I couldn’t really take the blame for that.
Lev sank back down on the bench. Cameron immediately tucked in next to him.
Herm took the bench across from them, where he could see everyone, and Marty sat beside him, the woman looking nervous and yet pleased to be included.
Only now did Benedict’s hand fall from my waist, and we sat at the third point of the triangle.
“I knew you were okay when they told me the vault blew,” Benedict said, and I shifted so our thighs touched.
“Pluck, thank you,” he added, and the shadow hazed where he stood, his guilt brightening in me.
“Us, not me,” the shadow said. “It took both of us to break the vault.”
Herm’s attention sharpened on me, hope brightening his face. “Us?” he questioned, and Lev grunted, paying attention again.
“Um.” I glanced at Marty, nervous for some reason. “Pluck and I learned how to work together as a weaver/shadow pair.”
“Petra!” Benedict practically crowed as he jostled against me, and Cameron shushed him. “I knew you could do it,” he said, softer but no less enthusiastic as he took both my hands in his. “Didn’t I say?”
“We have an experienced weaver/shadow pair, then,” Herm said in satisfaction, completely missing my sick expression. Benedict saw it, though, and his enthusiasm dimmed.
“Petra doesn’t have a lodestone,” Cameron reminded everyone. “And even if she did, we can’t stand up to an airologist.”
Herm waved a hand in dismissal. “Which is why we have to free Dana first, and not just because she has Petra’s lodestone. Any ideas?”
Benedict leaned closer, his hand in mine tightening. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
I hesitated, still finding it hard to say. “Um, Pluck and I are up for this, but you should all know that despite what it looks like, I still can’t make a field.”
“I would argue that,” Pluck said. There was a hint of moonlight passing through him, the effect surreal and distant.
“Then how did you…” Herm’s voice was low in disbelief.
“Pluck makes it.” I made a mirthless smile.
Pluck’s encouragement was bubbling through me, and my ankle went cold.
He hadn’t taken one step closer, and yet he now stood beside me, feet hazed to nothing so he could wrap a tendril around my ankle.
“I supply the dark matter. Pluck weaves it. Gives it direction.”
They were silent, and I exhaled to bring a tangled mass of dark matter threads into existence between my hands. “I can, however, make a light.” Wrists spinning, I wound a single strand of it around two fingers and pulled it taut. Light blossomed, and Herm swore softly.
“See, I told you,” Benedict said proudly as I hunched in my own personal ice age.
“Holy smokes,” Cameron whispered. “It’s charging my lodestone.”
“You’re not making dross,” Herm said, and I nodded. It felt like a small thing, but in the grand scheme of it all, it was significant. “Light is a waste product. What are you doing with the energy?”
“Ah, nothing,” I said, only now realizing why making a light left me cold. If I had a lodestone, I could store it, but as it was…Brrrr.
Benedict grinned and held out his hand to recharge the lodestone on his ring.
“Balance,” Cameron said, voice soft as she settled her lodestone amulet more securely against herself.
“So.” Herm chewed on his lower lip. “You and Pluck are functioning as a weaver/shadow pair, but Pluck is the one in charge? You are supplying the energy, not him?”
Pluck bobbed his head. “I would not say in charge,” he said. “And I don’t share Petra’s conviction that we can effectively trap Thoth.”
“It’s this that makes me think we can,” I countered, and Pluck fizzed sourly in my thoughts. “Thoth won’t expect it.”
Cameron tucked her lodestone behind her shirt, and I let the light go out, relieved.
“Mmmm.” Herm yawned as he looked at the brightening east. “Our best chance to free Dana will be after sunrise. Thoth’s magic utilizes dark matter, which is available twenty-four/seven, and I don’t want to rely on Petra’s light to recharge our stones.
If he knows we need you to keep fighting, he will target you first.”
Herm inhaled, hands at his middle. Sensation trickled over me, and I wasn’t surprised when a tidy field took shape between his hands.
“Last I checked, Thoth was halfway across campus.” Herm exhaled and sent the field out.
It whooshed over me like a wind, and I swear, my hair moved.
“Chasing the sweepers’ guild,” he finished.
I seldom saw Herm do his water magic, but it was obvious that he had relied on it to stay clear of the separatists—and later, university personnel—who had targeted him. It was lucky, really, that he had the skill to keep my weaver status hidden until Pluck forced us both into society’s eye.
Herm frowned, his gaze going to Benedict. “He’s not following the sweepers anymore.”
Lev looked up, last folder of fries in his hand as Herm sent another field out.
“Shadow spit, he’s close,” Herm added. “We have to move.”
Pulse fast, I looked at Marty. “Take Aasta and hide in the grotto.”
“I’m not hiding anymore,” she said, pale but determined. “And neither is Aasta.”
That’s about three thousand years too late, Pluck fizzed.
Benedict scooped up the balanced sticks, handing me one before passing the rest out. “Let her stay.”
Lev stood, his lodestone earring glinting. “I agree. She has a stake in this, too. We finish this now.”
“What a good idea,” came a loud, sarcastic voice from the street, and Herm sprang to his feet. Dana stood at the gate, and Herm moved around the low table to stand beside me, one of my dad’s sticks in his hand.
“You think that’s just Dana?” he said hopefully, and Cameron shook her head, her expression grim as she found her feet.
“If it was only Dana, there’d be at least six mages behind her to take us in,” the marshal said, her own lodestone beginning to glow.
Benedict sidled closer. “I never should have busted the lock on the gate,” he muttered when the woman shoved the gate open and strode in, her heels echoing as they trod over the open space below.
It had to be Thoth. Dana was confident, but Cameron was right; she never would have come alone.
She’d bring witnesses to substantiate our rebellion, and Thoth would not, unable to afford the gossip.
Not if he wanted to continue holding power as Dana.
Marty may be of some help, Pluck fizzed, and I glanced at Marty, glad she was behind me. She looked terrified, her hand clenched about her amulet in protection—but she was there.
“That’s close enough,” Herm said boldly, and Thoth halted Dana, hands loose at her sides and her lodestone glinting in the moonlight. Me being able to make a light wasn’t the boon it might be, seeing as it would charge hers as well.
Cameron took a slow breath as she moved out of our alcove.
Clustering together was a bad idea, and I sensed Thoth sending out a questing field.
The marshal’s lip twitched, her fear of him obvious.
“You’re not getting in my head again, you hear me!
You’re nothing more than a haze of dross, stinking and ready to break! ”
But it looked as if Thoth hadn’t been taking care of Dana and an upgrade was needed. The woman was still in the clothes she’d had on yesterday. There were dark circles under her eyes and she clearly had not been allowed to sleep.
Still, Thoth brought her to a halt, his confidence pulling Dana straight as the shadow’s disdain poured from the woman. “Still in your war uniform?”
Pluck’s heartache flamed through us both, quickly stifled when Thoth swung Dana’s arm to awaken the energy in her lodestone ring. The chunk of glass flared, the spell almost visible as the shadow threw it.
“Move!” Pluck shouted as his frantic worry flashed through my mind. It was Dana’s magic, not Thoth’s, and I shoved Benedict clear as Pluck yanked me the other way.
I hit the ground hard, the staff in my hand bruising my fingers as I refused to let it go.
Pluck was a cold, protective blanket, and I struggled to get free of him.
The air crackled with Dana’s spell, and then I looked up as Benedict gasped.
His eyes met mine…and then he sank into the ground and vanished—stick and all. “Benny!”
He was gone. Panicking, I scrambled up even as his shout of pain echoed from the well. He was in the grotto.
“Net him!” Cameron shouted, but I ran to the well, skin prickling when Lev pinned Thoth, or Dana, I guess, with a spell, his lodestone sending great streamers of force out to bind Dana to the ground.
Herm spun, awkward in his arthritic grace, gathering dross and flinging it at the shadow, his expression twisted in vengeance.
Marty was with him, stick in hand as she did the same, determined to have her own freedom from the shadow.
My hands took the brunt of the force as I hit the wall of the well. “Benny!” I shouted down, unable to see anything. “Benny?” I called again, more frantic as I glanced behind me. Cameron had joined the fray, and another wave of energy sparked.
“I’m okay!” Benedict’s voice drifted to me from the dark. “I twisted my ankle. I’ll be right up!”
“We got him! Pluck! Petra! Get over here!” Herm crowed.
Thoth was down thanks to Lev’s earth magic, and Dana’s expression twisted up in hate as her face pressed against the pavers—until it went frighteningly slack.