Skykeepers

nahwal. Or heck, maybe we’ll even call up the spell itself.” She paused tellingly. “That’s assuming that you get behind this a hundred percent. It won’t work if you’re not into it, or if you don’t trust me.”

“I trust you,” he said immediately, realizing that he’d begun to sweat lightly, which sucked, because he was wearing the last of his clean shirts. “It’s just . . . if it’s not Nightkeeper magic—”

“It’s not,” she broke in. “No blood sacrifice, no barrier. It’s all about flames and mirrors.”

“Then are you sure it’ll answer questions about Nightkeeper magic? Does it . . . I don’t know . . . acknowledge other magic systems?”

It was the right thing to say, he saw immediately from the gleam in her eyes. “It’s more along the lines of self-hypnosis, allowing you to access your own natural visions and your connection to other levels of sight and knowledge,” she said. “It’s all very low-impact, very natural. Honest.”

He shouldn’t do it, he knew. He should back out as gracefully as possible, hoping she didn’t take it the wrong way. But even as he told himself that, he couldn’t help thinking about everything that’d gotten fucked up because he’d killed the three-question nahwal. If the Nightkeepers still had access to its answers, they might’ve rescued Sasha sooner, found the library, found a new intersection . . . hell, they might’ve even dealt with Iago by now. Who knew?

“What . . .” Rabbit faltered. “If these visions come from my magic, or my ancestors, or, shit, the barrier or something, then it’s Nightkeeper magic.” But the protest didn’t sound convincing even to his own ears. He kept picturing what Strike’s face would look like if he showed up at Skywatch and announced that he knew how to summon a new three-question nahwal. Or better yet, that he’d already summoned it. That’d have to make up for some of his more spectacular disasters, right? And, tangentially, it’d prove to them that Myrinne belonged with the magi, and with him, because she would’ve been his catalyst for recovering the nahwal.

Right?

She slid her hand down his forearm, across his bloodline mark—the peccary—and his main talent mark, that of pyrokinesis. When their fingers linked, she squeezed, conveying her sympathy and support. Her affection. “Trust me,” she said again.

How could he not? He might’ve saved her from Iago, but she’d saved him right back. He was alive because of her. He didn’t just trust her; he loved her.

“Okay, let’s do it,” he said finally, and was rewarded by her brilliant smile.

She leaned in and kissed him hard, slightly off center, but was gone before he could correct the angle and follow up with more. She skipped back across the star, making the candlelight dance. “Sit here,” she ordered, pointing to one spire of the star. “That’s the top of your triangle. I’ll sit at the top of mine.”

They linked hands over the flickering candles, making a small, intimate circle of two. Myrinne said some sort of incantation about the mother and the earth, and being young and seeing all that was to be seen. Rabbit didn’t totally follow all of the words, not for lack of trying, but because she was so damned beautiful in the candlelight that he couldn’t stop looking at her, couldn’t take his eyes off the play of light and shadow across her face.

The bloodred candles were faintly scented—how had he not noticed that before?—and whatever was in them made his head spin, made his body feel light.

“Look into the mirror,” she said now. A faint smile touched her lips. “You can look at me later.

Promise.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” he said, feeling an added layer of heat kick into his bloodstream. He looked into the mirror, where she had placed a slender candle made of clear wax, or maybe some sort of crystal. Whatever the components, it made the candlelight refract at all sorts of crazy angles. The flickers merged and separated, always moving, never the same. The patterns fixed his attention, drew him in. “Cool,” he breathed, and heard his own voice as if from far away.

“Now, ask your question aloud; then hold it in your head as you keep looking into the flame and the mirror.”

He stared into the patterns, imagining that he saw men and women in the flames. “How can I summon a new three-question nahwal?” The flames skipped and danced, showing nothing but light and shadow. For a second he saw an animal—maybe a coyote?—and something that might’ve been a boat. But then it was just flames and shadows again, and nothing more.

After a few minutes, when their clasped hands were starting to get damp with sweat, she said, “Anything?”

Rabbit shook his head. “Nothing I’d call an answer.”

“Maybe the way you said it was too specific. Maybe you’d be calling the same old nahwal, so the word ‘new’ in the question short-circuited the answer. Or maybe the answer isn’t replacing the nahwal; maybe there’s some other sort of oracle you can summon instead.”

“Good point,” Rabbit agreed, adding, “Damn, you’re smart.” He felt a little drunk and a lot horny, sitting there holding her hands, achingly aware that she was naked beneath the robe. But he made himself focus, and asked, “What can I do to help the Nightkeepers?”

Again, he thought he saw patterns in the reflected light—a burning tree, a big house in flames—but nothing that gave him a clue how to fix what he’d broken.

He glanced sidelong at his and Myrinne’s intertwined fingers, and at the stark marks on his forearm: three black, one red. In contrast, her forearm was creamy white and unmarked, which made him ache. He wanted her to wear his jun tan, wanted the world to know they were bound to each other.

But no matter how much he wished for it, no matter how much he loved her, the gods hadn’t marked them as a mated pair. Not yet, anyway.

“Try another question,” she suggested. “Maybe one that’s more personal. Something about you rather than the Nightkeepers.”

“Are—” He broke off, ashamed to realize he didn’t have the chops to ask if he and Myrinne were destined mates, partly because he didn’t want a “no” from the candle flame and partly because he didn’t want one from her. So he fudged it, saying aloud, “What is my destiny?” Inwardly, though, he asked the question he really wanted the answer to: How can I make Myrinne mine?

Nothing happened. He sighed, frustrated and more disappointed than he would’ve thought, given that he hadn’t really believed her so-called scrying spell was going to work in the first place. “I guess I’m not—” He broke off as the reflected flames suddenly turned liquid and blurred together before his eyes. “Holy shit. I think it’s working.”

Myrinne said something, but he couldn’t hear her, couldn’t hear anything but the pounding of blood in his veins, in his head. His heartbeat sounded like ritual drums, his bloodstream like a waterfall.

What is my destiny? he asked inwardly. How can I make Myrinne mine?

The world went silent, as though his heart had stopped entirely. The liquid flames merged and separated, merged and separated . . . and then they roared up, reaching for him. And when they touched him, they burned like fury.

Rabbit felt his mouth stretch wide in a scream, but couldn’t hear his own voice, could hear only the horrible roar of flames. He was dimly aware of Myrinne shaking him, then leaving him to beat at something nearby. He saw her mouth move in panicked shouts he couldn’t hear, couldn’t respond to.

He could only curl in agony, screaming silent howls of pain that quickly turned to denial as he blinked back into the vision and saw himself standing over Myrinne, who lay at his feet in a spreading pool of blood, her lovely eyes wide and fixed in death. As he watched, a drop of blood fell from the ceremonial knife he held in his fist, to land on her upturned, waxen face.

“No!” He writhed, pushing the image away, rejecting it, rejecting himself. “No, I won’t do it;I won’t!” He heard the words now, heard them echo inside his skull.

And in those echoes was embedded another voice, deeper yet familiar, growling, “Then fucking get rid of the hellmark, shit for brains! As long as Iago can find you, he can control you, and the gods can’t touch you. Get rid of the godsdamned hellmark, or you’re godsdamned screwed.”