“True,” Cassandra al owed. “But they have been felt. I’ve even had a glimpse or two.” Her mood quickly dropped off. “It’s like rubbing up against a wal of slime. But once you get past the ick factor, you can manipulate them.”
Everybody in the room sat a little straighter as she explained. “These prophets who’ve been trailing Jaz and Vayl know they’re coming. They even think they know by which gate. See, they’re tapping the future, the same way a vintner taps a keg. Shoving their psyches into the fabric of time and forcing its juices to reveal pictures of what is to come. But they’re bound by the same laws as I am.”
“Meaning what?” Dave asked.
“Meaning they need something of Jaz’s or Vayl’s to drive that spigot in correctly. Preferably something they can touch. If we gave them something new, they’d be ecstatic. They’d feel like they had an even better feel for where you’l be going and when you’l get there, so they can set up an ambush and drive you right into it.” She paused, grinning at Vayl. “After you snatch Hanzi, of course.” He nodded at her, giving silent thanks for her optimism.
Raoul was rubbing his forehead. “And how do we turn that to our favor?”
“We feed the wrong story into the item. Wel .” She looked at the floor bashful y. “Actual y I would do that. It takes pretty immense psychic power to pul that off and, since most of you know how long I’ve been around by now, I think I should volunteer.”
“Now, wait a minute,” said Dave. “I may not know a lot about what you do, but I know it takes energy, sometimes so much that you’re exhausted by the end of the day. How are you supposed to pul off something this big without hurting yourself and the baby?” She nodded. “I’ve already thought of that. I need your energy. Al of you,” she added, looking around the room. “I need to feed off it so this transfer doesn’t kil me or…” She reached out to Dave, who grasped her hand in both of his, bowed over it, and pretended not to cry.
“You are going to need a personal item of ours as wel , correct?” asked Vayl.
Cassandra said, “Yes, like a piece of jewelry.” She looked at me hopeful y and I realized almost instantly what she wanted.
But it was hard, it hurt to pul the ring Matt had put so much thought into, the one he’d slipped on my finger the night he’d asked me to marry him and I’d said yes, it was so much tougher than I’d imagined to lay it in Cassandra’s hand and say, “Here. This has been with me through the best and worst times of my life. It should work.”
She closed her fingers around it and smiled gently. “It’s for the good of the Trust,” she said.
“Yes,” Vayl’s agreeable voice sounded booming next to my whisper. I stared around the room with its rotting bedspread, peeling wal paper, and chipped dressers, feeling the loss, waiting for the moment when it would be okay again. Then Jack was there, shoving his nose into the backs of my calves, which was his way of saying he’d had enough snacks for one day, it was time for dinner.
I knelt down.
I looked around the room. “Thanks for making such great preparations, guys. It looks like you’l be set when we get back.”
Sudden silence as my friends faced the fact that we might not return. Even Aaron managed to look concerned. I took Vayl’s hand. “There’s no room in here,” I said. Then I smiled, my eyes twinkling up into his as I said, “We have a lot of luck with showers. Let’s try in there.” His lips quirking, he said, “I bow to your vast experience in this area,” and fol owed me into the room, which was covered with faded pink tile, its grout so dingy that it almost looked black. Since he hadn’t been told to stay, Jack fol owed us, watching with interest as I slid the ivory shower curtain to one side and then leaned against the sink. Vayl buried one hand in the scruff of Jack’s neck fur as I thought about summoning the door, just like I had in Brude’s dungeon. Only this time I considered it more like a phone cal to a dear old friend.
The portal shimmered into being inside the tub like it had always been there, but I’d only now gained the visual acuity to see it. Framed by blue-and-orange flames, it stood at ceiling height and took up the entire length of the tub. It was the biggest door I’d seen, discounting the one I’d cal ed to transport Aaron Senior’s cel .
I leaned over, placing one hand on the tub’s edge, keeping the other firmly on the comforting reality of Jack. “I know who you are,” I whispered.
The flames danced merrily.
“You and Raoul,” I went on. “You’re the only beings who’ve ever real y seen my soul. The fact that neither of you ran screaming—I appreciate that.”
Another leap and twirl of flame. I began to associate it with joyous laughter.
“I understand now that you were helping me before, when you chose a familiar battleground where I could fight the Magistrate with sort of a home-field advantage. And when you appeared in Brude’s territory so we could escape—that couldn’t have been easy or safe for you. Now I’m ready for that favor I was tel ing you about before.”
As I spoke the flames banked and rose, as if every thought and breath of the creature who appeared to us al as a plane portal was communicated through that movement. When I felt she understood, I motioned for Vayl to come forward beside me.
I whispered, “She’s wil ing to help.”
“She?”
“Um, yeah. I think you’d cal her, like, a guardian angel. Only she’s more about movement than destination, so there’s probably a neutral word that works better. It’s just that I don’t know her language so I couldn’t tel you what it is. My Sensitivity is wide open since you took my blood, so I’m feeling her pretty strongly. I can tel you she was once a spectacular human being. But she hasn’t had a body like we know them for thousands of years.”
“What is she going to do?” Vayl asked.
