“You don’t think he had reason to fight?” Lily said mildly. “Considering you intend to sacrifice his father and all. Him, too, it looks like. Hammer stakes through their hands and—”
Miriam flared up. “You should know me better than that! I am not like that man. That Robert Friar. There will be no torture, no . . .” Her mood switched as suddenly as if someone had flipped a switch. She giggled. “True. But I’m glad I don’t have to.”
“What don’t you have to do, Miriam?”
Miriam spoke slowly, as if to a rather dim child. “Use those nasty stakes. Friar needed them to bind my lord to his goals, which is why we’re here.” She waved widely. “It’s all Robert Friar’s fault. If he hadn’t bound Dafydd that way, I could have killed strangers instead of . . . I’m really very sorry about the clan, but we have no choice. The stakes, however, are obscene. I would never bind my beautiful Dafydd.”
She needed to keep the woman talking. “Tell me about Dafydd.”
Miriam’s face lit. “You’ll see,” she said eagerly. “Very soon now, you’ll see. He’s so beautiful, so much
Miriam liked talking about the god she called Dafydd. Lily listened with half an ear as she babbled on about how wonderful he was. Was it time?
Pete was close, which wasn’t good, but he was watching his men. A pair of them carried Rule into the circle while another man held the charm to Isen’s chest. The fourth man waited beside Isen; Carl still had charm duty there. They were the only ones other than Pete who were close enough to be a problem. Miriam stood right in front of the French doors, about ten feet away—farther than Lily liked, but this might be the only chance she got. If she didn’t try to jump Miriam, but instead—
Around the side of the house, a husky baritone voice started singing: “‘We shall overcome . . .’” A second later, his voice was joined by others—a child’s high voice, and Cynna’s? Could that be Cynna singing? And a voice Lily knew intimately. Her mother’s soprano came in strongly.
Miriam jolted as if someone had shot her. “What’s that?” she cried. “What’s that singing?”
“I’ll find out.” And Pete set off at a lope.
Pete was gone, Miriam distracted. This was her chance. She’d arranged two signals with Cory for when it was time for him to release her—one spoken, one nonverbal. But she didn’t just want him to release her. She wanted him to throw her at Miriam. “Cory—”
Drummond popped into sight in front of her, more see-through than usual. And frantic. He was waving his arms, shaking his head, saying with every motion
Drummond faded out with his arms still waving
Lily tried to look behind her, but Cory was in the way. He shifted and she could see the steps up to the path. She heard Pete’s voice faintly, and someone responding to him, and the singers continued to come closer. She waited, her body taut, wanting to act, to do—and then it was too late. Pete leaped down the four steps to the deck and ran up to Miriam to report.
“It’s Cynna, Toby, Lily’s mother, Li Qin, and that homeless guy who was staying with Isen,” he said. “They approached the house. When Dave and Mitchell stopped them, they said they wanted to see you. Orders are to bring anyone suspicious to me, and they thought it was suspicious for them to ask to see you. How did they even know you were here? They’ve been searched. No weapons.”
“What homeless man? Who’s Li Qin?” Miriam was baffled, tense, distressed. “No, never mind. Why are they singing?”
“I don’t know.”
“They need to stop. I can’t hear him. I can’t hear my lord. They’re singing too loudly.”
They weren’t that loud. Not loud enough to drown out a voice you heard with your ears, but maybe . . . maybe the singing was happening someplace else, too. A place that Drummond was aware of and Lily wasn’t. A place that a saint might know about.
Without thinking, she started humming along. A moment later Cory started humming, too. And others. All around them, lupi joined in, humming the old civil rights anthem:
And Miriam did nothing. Her face was as pale as the white powder she’d used to lay her circle and she swayed as if tranced or about to faint. But her lips were moving. She made no sound, but her lips moved:
The singers came down the steps to the deck as calmly as if they’d been in a processional at church. Hardy held Toby’s hand; behind them Cynna and Julia walked hand in hand, too. Li Qin brought up the rear—and behind her were two guards, their guns trained on their odd assortment of prisoners . . .
. . . who didn’t seem to notice the guards, the guns, or the peculiar tableau they approached. Toby looked like he was concentrating the way he did when he played soccer or computer games. Cynna wore a small smile, grim and defiant. Julia seemed caught up in the song, and Li Qin might have been pouring tea, she was so matter-of-fact. And Hardy . . . Hardy looked utterly at peace.
“Stop,” Miriam told them. Her voice shook. “Stop now, all of you.”
The guards stopped. The singers didn’t.
“I forgot,” Miriam whispered. “Of course, I forgot to . . .” She fumbled at the scabbard and pulled out one wicked big knife—bigger than Benedict’s hunting knife, smaller than his machete. Maybe eighteen inches. And black. Whatever it was made of, it was all one piece from hilt to tip, and a dull, solid black. “Stop!”
They didn’t. And Lily knew why. As the singers had drawn closer she’d seen the silver charms they wore— charms the previous Rhej had created based on ancient spellwork from the Great War, workings no one alive today knew except those able to reach into clan memories. Charms that Nokolai clansmen had worn the previous year when they went to war against the Chimea.
Charms against the most potent of mind magic.
Her heart leaped in her chest. Of course! Why had none of them thought of that? Lily herself, Rule, Cullen— they all knew about the charms. It was blindingly obvious now, but she hadn’t once thought about them . . . Persuasion? Could that be used not just to plant ideas, but to keep you from thinking clearly, seeing the obvious? If so, nothing she’d done tonight was likely to work.
But it didn’t have to. The saint was winning this battle.
Lily and Cory stood near the house. There was plenty of room for the singers to pass them, and at first it seemed they would. But as Hardy and Toby drew even with her, Hardy stopped and made a patting gesture with one hand. Without a break in their song, the others moved to form a semicircle slightly behind Lily and Cory, facing Miriam. They kept singing . . . and Hardy kept walking.
Alone, he walked up to Miriam, who turned so she could keep her eyes fixed on him—eyes wide and wild, but now their brightness looked like tears, not mania. She shook as if she might fall over.
Hardy stopped in front of her. “What have I done?” she whispered. “What have I done?”
He held out his hand. He’d stopped singing. Lily wasn’t sure when, but it didn’t matter. His face was so full of compassion and love—it radiated from him like heat from a fire. He held out his hand and Miriam looked at the knife she held in hers. And shuddered.
A shredded and sorrowful calm descended on Miriam. Her face relaxed into it. She stopped shaking and stretched out the hand holding the knife, hilt first—then cried out in an anguished voice, “No!” Fast—too fast for Lily to react—she gripped that wicked big knife with both hands. And plunged it into her own chest.
Hardy cried out wordlessly. Miriam collapsed.
Lily gave the nonverbal signal. She stomped on Cory’s foot.
He let her go and she dashed forward, but Hardy—who’d fallen to his knees beside Miriam—held up a hand urgently, saying without words to stay back. Lily stopped. “I’m not going to touch it. The knife. I want to help her.”
