Heartland

representative waiting to receive the blessing of the Land, the Weave was going to tear, and the grid was going to feel it. The psychic quake that had hit Mont-Saint-Michel was going to seem like hitting a bump in the road with your car in comparison.

The Watchers were going to be there. No question about that. Getting in on the party was going to be the best trick of my life.

The door to the room opened and Nuriye came in, carrying two wooden cases. She put one down on the floor beside the couch and set the other one on the seat next to me.

'Did you sleep?' she asked.

'Some,' I replied. 'Enough, I suppose.'

A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. 'Never enough, is it?'

I shook my head.

'Vivienne is almost ready for you,' she said. 'But first, let us deal with your hand.' She opened the latch on the case and lifted the lid.

The gauntlet lay in a velvet-lined casing. It was Renaissance-era, mid-sixteenth century, Italian by the looks of it. Two cuffs, six plates to the knuckle-plate, and the finger sleeves were solid pieces out to rounded caps. Silver and gold pieces, hand-etched with astrological symbols. The real surprise was the palm. Most gauntlets are metal overlays to leather gloves, attached via leather loops or ties to a pair of thin gloves. This pair had a hinged piece of silver that covered the palm as well, a piece that was covered with chiromantic markings.

'What is this?' I asked Nuriye. I caught sight of a tiny sigil in the bottom corner of the palm plate. It was the artisan mark of a well-known Italian armorer. 'Caremolo Modrone?'

She nodded. 'One of a kind. Built for a client who was fascinated by John ab Indagine's Introductiones Apotelesmaticae. The sixteenth-century bible on palm reading.'

She picked up Cristobel's rosary from where Lusina had left it beside the couch as I had dropped off to sleep, and stroked the ball with two fingers while whispering to it. It quivered in her hand, but didn't trigger; she carefully fed it through the cuff of the gauntlet until it rested on the inside of the silver palm. She said one more word and the metal tines sprang out of the sphere, and with a metallic ring, the newly formed crucifix anchored itself inside the glove.

More words flowed from her lips and the Chorus tingled as they felt her magick. She stroked the beaded tail of the rosary, and violet light limned the black beads. When she wrapped the strand of beads around the cuff of the gauntlet, they stuck to the silver and gold plates. The whole hand started to shimmer with a violet light, and when she ran out of beads, she slipped the cuff over my newly healed stump. Wrapping her hands around both the cuff and my wrist, she squeezed, and the thousand pinpricks of her magick intensified for a moment and then vanished.

'Try it,' she said as she removed her hands.

With some effort, I could make the hand open and close.

'You won't be doing needlepoint or brain surgery,' she said. 'But you can hold a sword.' She smiled. 'Or make a fist and hit someone.'

'That'll do just fine.'

'I thought it might.' She patted the other case on the floor. 'Speaking of swords. . '

'Have I mentioned how much I'm enjoying working with you instead of against you?' I asked.

Nuriye cocked her head to the side as she turned the sword case around and flicked open the latches. 'Don't get too comfortable,' she warned.

Like the gauntlet, the swords lay on velvet-wrapped cushions. They were beautiful blades, and my heart leaped into my mouth at the sight of them.

I stammered something incoherent, possibly something about not being worthy of the blades, and Nuriye laughed. 'You're not,' she said, 'Which is why I expect you to bring them back.'

That made me blush, that vote of confidence. It was the nicest thing someone had said to me in some time. Funny how that sort of thing can spin your world so readily.

'Thanks,' I said.

Nuriye nodded and shut the case. 'Thank you, Lightbreaker. Your curse is about to become a gift to others. That may be the finest choice you ever make.' She bowed her head, and the Chorus-for once-was completely silent.

The tiny room that had held the Grail seemed darker and smaller without the presence of the Cup, but there was a fine radiance gleaming from the portraits on the wall. Each of the figures was outlined in a luminescent halo, a dusty glow like the sort of iridescence found on fungal growths in deep caves.

Vivienne had changed into ceremonial robes, a simple frock of white and silver that left her arms bare. Her hair was down, cascading like a river of gold down her back, and on the inside of either arm were tattoos of stars. Constellations of her own invention, star charts for realms fixed in her imagination.

She stood next to the basin, and it was filled with something other than water now. Shiny, and less fluid than water, but not as stiff as Jell-O. 'Aqua vitae,' she said as I peered at the surface of the liquid.

'Really?'

She favored me with the sort of smile a patient parent gives their underperforming child.

'Right,' I said, straightening up. I rested my hands-both of them-on the rim of the basin. 'Are you ready to do this?'

Her smile faltered slightly, and she swallowed. 'Yes.'

Vivienne was going to take all three spirits from me. There were a number of ways this exchange could go horribly wrong, not the least of which was me accidentally breaking her spirit. But Vivienne had argued if anyone was going to be put at risk, it was going to be her. And only her. She would take all three, and if she determined that she could pass them on to other daughters, she would consider it.

I hadn't mentioned that I doubted they would stay very long. I had a feeling the construction of the Chorus was what had enabled the Architects to stick around. Without that web, they would fade into the subconscious of whomever held them. Whether or not Vivienne kept what knowledge they still had was up to her. And them, I suppose.

I couldn't quite tell, but I had the feeling that Philippe wasn't as pissed about this as I had thought he would be. Lafoutain welcomed the transfer, and the impression I got from Cristobel was that the arrangement was more than satisfactory. Philippe was, I think, still reserving judgment. On both me and his fellow Architects.

Or not. For all I knew, we were still unwinding along the path he had laid out for us. I didn't know anymore, and I think-more than anything-that was all he had wanted from me. All his obfuscation had only been intended to keep me from doing what I thought he wanted me to do. You will be your own agent; that is all you will ever be.

Sometimes, what he said is what he meant. Which only makes everything he says that much more convoluted.

Vivienne put her hands on the edge of the basin as well, and stood there expectantly, waiting for something to happen. I took a few slow breaths-in through the nose, out through my mouth-until she caught the hint and started to mirror me. Once we synced up with the breathing, I began to slow them down, making each exhalation last a little longer; and with each inhalation, I took in a little more of the light in the room. Each time, a little more of her innocence died; each time, we got closer and closer to the ragged edge of the Abyss.

With each cycle, I broke a little more of her mental defenses down, and the change was so gradual, so incremental, that by the time she realized the Chorus was in her head-what I know, I pass to you; what you know, passes to me; Father, daughter, Holy Spirit; let these secrets be revealed-we were already done.

For a moment, I felt their reunion-father and daughter-and was filled with an overwhelming sensation that I had done the right thing.

Nuriye's hair stirred about her face. I had expected it to be windier at the top of the tower, but the atmospheric pressure was so heavy that nothing more than a thin breeze could survive. She faced east, looking toward the glowing white shape of Sacre-C?ur on Montmartre. Her cheeks were damp, and though there were goosebumps on her bare arms, she didn't seem cold. At her feet, in one of the clear spots on the roof, was a white circle, filled with squirming sigils.