“Yes.” She did not believe he would let her remain here unbound, but she followed him to the elevator as quickly as she was able. She didn’t know if he avoided the stairs out of consideration for her condition, but she was grateful whatever his motive. Upon reaching the lower floor, she was escorted along the hall to a conference room with a large cherry table and dark brown decor. It was mostly leather and wood, with a few accents of deep hunter green.
She recognized the room. When she had clasped Giovanni’s wrists and licked away the blood from his hands, she had read him. Not a full mind scan like she did with the aid of her sisters, but a gentle search into the recent past. After she’d departed the haven in pursuit of the witch, he’d interrogated her sisters here.
Moments later, her sisters scurried in and rushed toward her. “I knew you would not forsake us!” Talto cried even as her eyes widened upon seeing her sister’s condition. But it did not stop her or Ailo. Both threw their arms about Liyliy.
Liyliy also took in their appearances with some grief. Both of them wore iron about their necks like slaves. Giovanni was right; her sisters had been bound.
Together they cooed and cried, shushed and sniffled as their reunion carried on for a long minute. They clasped hands and Ailo and Talto pushed images into her mind. They told her that in her absence Menessos had bound them to him and had the iron put round their throats. If they tried to transform, it would kill them. They were so angry, so resentful of him . . . but she had returned. She would save them, they were certain. All would be well.
In return, Liyliy showed them the pocket at her hip, the phones inside. She told them what they were for. “Heal me and take them,” she whispered.
Embracing tightly, they each drew upon the magic that allowed them to clothe themselves with quicksilver and silk. Fabric flowed around them, between them, entwining and twirling like lovers wrapped in sheets. Liyliy’s sisters began chanting and the fabric liquefied, spilling at impossible angles like gentle silver waterfalls onto Liyliy’s skin.
All the magical fabric they possessed had flooded around her, leaving them both naked. It flowed outward to create a circle of liquid that encompassed her, then it filled in, growing deeper until it was ten inches of fluid, hovering unbelievably in the air. Her arms lifted and her hair fanned out as if she were floating in an upright pool of mercury.
Her sisters’ chant became a song.
As the song continued, the liquid hardened like a gigantic mirror, sealing Liyliy in place. For a moment she seemed dead, frozen, caught in this strange magic. Then her sisters slammed their fists against the glass, pushing through, slicing their own flesh on the shards, and spilling their blood into the spell they were crafting.
The mirror cracked and shattered in slow motion, each broken piece cascading into sparkling dust, stretching into threads, and weaving into silken bandages that wound Liyliy like a mummy. When she was enveloped, her sisters stood and lowered her vertical body until it lay supine in midair. They each held one of her cloth-covered hands and clasped their free hands together. Still singing, harmonizing in a crescendo rising to angelic soprano notes, they forced the magic to permeate Liyliy. Her body began to glow under the wrapping, shining brighter and brighter until the room was filled with silvery illumination so blinding it seemed the moon had been stolen from the sky and placed in the hands of the shabbubitum.
All at once, that dazzling brilliance winked out.
The sisters’ melody dropped into something less divine, something made of deep tones and fast staccato notes. Liyliy’s body began to spin between them, the fabric unwinding and splitting in two, part sliding around Talto, part around Ailo.
When Liyliy was unwrapped, she stood.
The almost sentient material had reclothed each of them, with the phones hidden within the folds of their new silken gowns. With tears shimmering in her eyes, Talto held up her hand. The sleeve of her dress formed a hydrous mirror along her palm so Liyliy could view herself.
Her skin was no longer blistered, the globules on her chin were gone, and her face had resumed a human shape. Her eye had re-formed beneath a scarred lid. Lashes bristled this way and that in a drooping line across it.
Liyliy swallowed down bile.
Talto’s tears fell.
Lifting her arm so she could view it, Liyliy learned it was no longer mottled with feathers, and her fingers, though still twisted, were the proper length. Her leg felt regenerated. She clasped her youngest sister into her arms. “Do not cry, Talto. It is better than it was.”
“Do not leave us here,” Talto whispered.
Liyliy pulled Ailo into their hug and by touch told them she had to do just that.
Talto began sobbing.
Liyliy shushed her.
Ailo told her Menessos was not there.
Liyliy asked why he had left. Ailo told her she had not been able to find out.
“Yes,” Talto whispered.
“Ailo?”
“Yes. And I have an idea.”
Liyliy and Talto let her grasp their hands. She shut her eyes, and power flowed around her. Liyliy felt the energy reaching out, striving to touch something that was both deep within and far away . . . the binding. Liyliy listened inwardly and Ailo’s silent plea echoed into her mind.
She was searching for Menessos, reaching back along the bond imposed on her, stretching. She sought him out, eager to report to Liyliy what he was doing.
Ailo found him . . . but he was not alone.
He was performing magic—a heady, dynamic magic—and it felt familiar, like an ancient memory.
Recognition burst into their minds as one.
CHAPTER TWELVE
It was barely six thirty and the day’s light had almost entirely faded as I slid my satellite phone into my pocket. After I’d finished my call to Menessos, Johnny’s text arrived—I was grateful for the distraction. He’d simply said he was on his way. Then my Great Dane, Ares, burst from the field and raced toward me in the grove. He was still pushing through the branches when Mountain emerged from the same spot the dog had. “Did you find her?” he asked.
“No,” Zhan answered for me. “She’s gone into the ley.”
Mountain scratched his head. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
Everyone faced me, waiting for the answer. Looking at her empty little shoes made my legs weak and rubbery, but I was trying to reason this all through. “Bad,” I said. “I think.”
“Explain.”
“Witches use sorcery to tap into a line. It’s dangerous and painful . . . and, truly, we have to be very careful to not get sucked in.”
“So she was sucked in,” Celia said through her tears.
