Did you hear? No, you’re kidding!
Their words creating images, like a movie, right in front of me. Yeah, yeah, there were the eyes. And . . . something more. A rough outline, darker than the dark, of a furry body. Four legs. A tail.
“Holy crap!” I opened my eyes, realized the room had gone silent.
“Jasmine?” Vayl crooked an are-you-all-right eyebrow at me.
“I just figured it out! The reason I was willing to go to hell with Raoul. Give up shuffling cards. It was for the chance to find out what is more precious to Samos than anything in the world now that his
avhar
’s dead.”
Vayl’s eyes glittered with excitement. He knew what this could mean. Leverage of the best kind against our worst enemy. “What is it?” he asked.
“His dog. He wouldn’t give it up. Not even to come to hell. Meet with the Magistrate. Maybe arrange himself a real power play.” And we all knew how much Samos adored power.
Vayl rubbed his hands together. “How do you put it? This is major. This is . . . this is very exciting, Jasmine. We could really get to him with this.”
“Yeah. So start thinking.”
Everybody began talking at once, which gave me the cover I needed to slip out of the room. Asha had offered to take care of the reavers for me, but I felt like I should be the one to deal with them. My actions had brought them to this place, after all. In a roundabout way, okay, but still. As I suited up for one last job, I thought back to my farewell with the Amanha Szeya. He’d come such a long way in the short time I’d known him. The sad-dog look had fallen from his face, to be replaced with a quiet, proud courage. He stood taller, smiled wider, spoke surer than I’d ever known him to before.
“I wish I could do something for you,” he’d said as we stood outside the Wizard’s compound.
“You’ve done plenty, Asha.”
“And yet I feel incomplete.” He stared at me a moment; then his eyes cleared. “There may be something after all.” He laid his hand on my forehead. For a second it burned, just as his tears had. Then it was over. “Your Mark is gone,” he said.
“How did you do that?” I asked. “I thought —”
He shrugged. “It is within my rights, and so I exercise them.”
I smiled up at him. “You’re a good guy to know.”
“Thank you.”
I was just pulling on my manteau when Dave walked into the girls’ room. “What’re you up to?” he asked.
“Going to get those reavers,” I said.
“Why?”
“Well, I can’t let them run around loose grabbing stray souls, now, can I?”
“Jaz, I’m working for Raoul now, remember?”
“Um, yeah.”
“So . . . it’s taken care of.”
I looked at him. There were new lines beside his eyes. New depths behind them. A blooming misery I hoped he’d be able to master. “Oh. Thanks.”
“No problem.”
Long pause. Soon an awkward one. “Jaz?”
“Yeah?” I said quickly. My chest tightened. I knew what he was going to say. He was going to ask me to go back into hell. To rescue our mother. And I couldn’t. Wouldn’t. There was only so much you could sacrifice. I’d given her my childhood. I’d given the CIA my beloved cards. I’d reached my limit.
Maybe he read it in my eyes, because that wasn’t the question he asked. “Do you like Cassandra?”
“She’s a jewel.”
He nodded. “Good.”
He left and I sank onto the bed, mostly because my knees didn’t want to hold me anymore. Before I realized what was happening my eyes had strayed to the calling feature on my special specs and I’d dialed Evie’s number. “Jaz?”
“Yeah. How’s everyone? How’s E.J.?”
“Fine. She’s right here. She just woke up for the day. I’m feeding her right now.”
Crap, I hadn’t even thought about the time difference. I checked my watch. Nearly midnight in Iran. Yeah, I guess it was about time for breakfast in Evieland.
“And Albert?”
“Why don’t you ask him yourself?”
Before I could stop her, she’d handed the phone to the old man. We talked for a while. Just long enough to exhaust him. We hung up just as Vayl walked into the room.
