“Okay,” said Branwyn, deciding she’d rather feel better that it wasn’t only her rather than annoyed that it was also Rhianna.
“My turn again! Truth or dare, Summer.” Rhianna sat up.
“Dare,” said Summer promptly. Branwyn could detect a pattern.
“Thank the next three faeries who help you with something,” said Rhianna sweetly.
Summer squinted at Rhianna. “Your dares aren’t very much fun.”
Rhianna shrugged. “There has to be some incentive for you to pick truth, right?”
“Fine, fine… Branwyn, truth or dare?”
Branwyn protested, “Me again already?”
“You’re getting off light, Branwyn,” said Rhianna. “Get fortified.”
“Well, I can’t deal with any more feelings analysis. Dare.”
Summer thought for a moment. “Show me how you flirt.”
“Uh,” said Branwyn. She tried to remember the last time she’d made a conscious attempt to flirt. “Uh. You’re cute when you’re not falling-down drunk? Want to come back to my place and see my magic hammer? That’s a nice sword you have there, mind if I touch it? Get the hell out of my way, wait, actually, come back?”
They laughed at her and she didn’t mind. It was good to get things back on a shallower and less personal track. With that in mind, she said, “So, Summer… Truth or dare?”
“Dare,” said Summer. The Queen definitely had a pattern. But Branwyn was prepared.
“Order something weird from whatever passes for room service here. Something that’ll really make them wonder.”
Summer’s grin made Branwyn smile back, especially when she said to Rhianna, “See, Branwyn does the kind of dares I like.” She hopped to her feet, opened the door and spoke to somebody outside.
Rhianna called, “Make sure you say thank you!”
“And thank you so much, Sola,” said Summer with exaggerated enthusiasm, before turning back to give Rhianna a dirty look. She was holding a stack of Branwyn and Rhianna’s cleaned clothes, which she put on a chair.
Rhianna gave her a thumbs-up in response. “What did you order?”
“Dessert hummus. He had no idea what I was talking about,” said Summer. “Truth or dare, Rhianna.”
“Uh, truth. I feel like truth is less likely to make me lose my job.”
“Why are you a spy?”
Branwyn watched the enchanted mirror while Rhianna thought about her answer. There were fewer knights now, but the beast was moving as if in slow motion. Branwyn’s brow furrowed as she tried to remember where she’d seen that before.
“Well… first of all, I’m really not a spy, Summer, though I wanted to be when I was a kid. I thought it would be fun to pretend to be somebody else, and trick people for justice. I knew it would be exciting and adventurous and I didn’t even think about the reports.”
“It’s not just reports,” said Summer. “You’re here now.”
“That’s true. It’s also my job to go out and get the information before turning it into a report for the rest of my team. And sometimes I run errands, like this. But OX, especially my corner of it, isn’t just an intelligence agency anymore.” Rhianna looked at her hands. “Honestly, this is outside my usual line these days. I’m here because my Advisor wanted Branwyn involved. I think that connection is why he originally got me transferred to OX, too.”
Branwyn’s nascent positive feelings toward Umbriel abruptly faded.
“Ugh,” said Summer. “Yeah. That’s… I sympathize.”
Rhianna glanced up. “Oh, he’s made it clear he finds me, Rhianna, useful now. And what I do normally is better than I could have dreamed when I was in college.” She smiled. “But no, I can’t tell you details because of oaths. Hey, Branwyn, truth or dare?”
How did it keep coming back to her? At least it was Rhianna this time. “Truth.”
Rhianna gave her an interested look. “When was the last time you had sex?”
The only sex that counts is real sex. “Um, there’s a guy I’ve hooked up with a few times recently. The last few months?”
Summer gestured imperatively. “Juicy details!”
“All right. His name is Mack; he’s one of Senyaza’s monster hunters; we first got together at a party. He’s nice, he’s quiet, he doesn’t distract me, we have our own lives.”
“A booty call, not a boyfriend?” asked Summer, her gaze intent.
“Sure, if you want to put it that way.” Branwyn glanced at Rhianna, who had a strange little smile. Something twinged in the back of Branwyn’s mind.
“How did you first get together with him?” Summer asked.
That embarrassed Branwyn more than the other questions. “Uh, I think I said, Hold still, I want to test out how well you kiss.”
Summer howled with laughter. Rhianna said, “A little more casual than you usually go for, Bran? I thought you preferred partners in crime.”
Branwyn shrugged. “I’m busy. I don’t know him that well, but I trust people who trust him, and none of them have said a word. And he’s pretty hot.”
That twinge at the back of Branwyn’s mind grew stronger, and suddenly she realized what it was. “Uh…” She sprang to her feet and staggered to the table on half-asleep feet, where she grabbed her hammer. “Excuse me, I just have to…”
She made it to the window, where she thrust the head of the hammer outside the window, angled so a dark energy ripple would hit the ground and the sky. Plenty of time, she told the Machine fragment. In response, the black diamond stopped holding onto the second charge and it practically detonated off the hammer.
But it was a ripple for only a fraction of a second, before it turned into a swirl, before it turned into a line that shot back into the room and arrowed straight into Rhianna.
Rhianna gasped, a wet little pained cry, and Branwyn was too horrified to speak. She flung herself beside Rhianna and wrapped her arms around her as she shuddered. Her sister was ice cold, and Branwyn’s mind was blank with shock. She’d done everything she could to keep the energy away from Rhianna, and it had been meaningless.
“Is this a family trait?” asked Summer anxiously, and then, “Why does she look… emptier?”
Branwyn said, “Get over there, in the corner of the room, behind me, right now. Do it!”
Startled, Summer fell back out of Branwyn’s line of vision, and Branwyn activated her Sight again, desperate to somehow catch what had been taken from Rhianna. Surely with a before and after…
Her head hurt again, but it wasn’t as bad. She could bear it. It was just the memory of that mindless pain from before. She stared at Rhianna, stared at their hands side by side. All the lines were the same as they’d been before, but Rhianna’s were… fainter. Thinner. She didn’t know what it meant, except that it was bad. She swiped at them, trying to will them to expand again as she might expand a node from an intersection.
Rhianna yelped and pulled away from her. Branwyn let her go, pulling back herself. She watched, the Sight still glimmering in her eyes and echoes of deathly pain pounding in her head, as Rhianna stared down at her hands. After a minute, Rhianna looked up again, with a trembling little smile. “I guess it’s halftime, huh?”
Branwyn wanted to throw herself around the room, wrecking things. She didn’t. She stayed completely still. “We’re doing fine,” she said. “We’re going to sort out the haunt and once we do, this is going to be fixed.” She’d rebuild the divinity circuit and hand it over to Umbriel herself if she had to, if it would require that kind of miracle to save Rhianna.
But it was halftime, which meant there were two charges left. She didn’t know why the second one had arrowed for Rhianna, but it wasn’t an accident, and she couldn’t blame Severin. How much of Rhianna would be left after the third one?
Hesitantly, she asked, “How do you feel, Rhi? Still cold? Weird in any way?”
“Truth,” said Rhi absently. “I feel pretty weird, yeah. Like I’m not all here.” She gave a little laugh. “I g
uess I’m not.” Her eyes were too bright as she looked at Branwyn. “Truth or dare, Branwyn.”
“Truth,” whispered Branwyn.
“You saw this before, didn’t you? On the sailing stone. You knew something had happened to me.” Rhianna had the same quiet little voice.
“Yes,” said Branwyn, wishing she was dead.
Rhianna sighed and stood up unsteadily. “Well. You saw it and you’ll find a way to fix it, so there’s nothing to worry about. You’ll do it all.”
“Um, guys?” said Summer worriedly over Branwyn’s shoulder. “It’s okay if we stop playing Truth or Dare now. Want to watch a movie instead?”
Rhianna picked up her clothes from where they’d been placed on the chair. “And hey, even if I feel weird and look weird… I can still do things. Maybe makeup can help.”
Suddenly Summer was beside her, her face fierce, and Branwyn had to turn away. “You can do anything. Don’t let anybody stop you. Even if they’re stronger than you, they’re not you and they can’t understand what you need.”
Branwyn held herself back from screaming. It wasn’t the pain in her head. It was the terror for her sister and that awful rage against herself, for making mistakes and lying about them, for making it easier for herself because it was her sister and she couldn’t bear it otherwise. But she should have done it anyhow.
There was the stomp of feet in the hall outside and Summer perked up. “The dessert hummus!”
But then the door was flung open and knights in battered white armor poured into the room. Summer and Rhianna were closer to the door than Branwyn, and it was Summer who shrieked in annoyance and made the weapons closing around her and Rhianna waver. “What are you doing here? Get out! Don’t ruin my party! Centri, Axis, all of you get out.”
Eight. Eight faerie knights, all armed, all battered, and their expressions ranged from coldly determined—the one addressed as Centri—to the fervently passionate Axis. Branwyn saw past the glow of the Queen to their strange auras and the braided glows that bound them into the world.
“They’re calling the beast, Your Majesty,” said Centri. “We saw it respond when they sent the signal from your room. It’s coming to them. We’re going to save you.”
One of them reached past Summer to take Rhianna’s arm. Rhianna could have fought back, evaded, escaped. Branwyn knew she could have. But she didn’t. Instead she blinked as if confused.
Summer smacked the knight’s hand. “I don’t care. Go away. I don’t want you here.”
Another knight shoved past the first one, pushing Summer so hard she staggered backward and fell over the beanbag chair. As he took Rhianna with both hands, Summer screamed, “How dare you!”
The braid defining the knight began to unwind. But it was slow, so slow. Dispassionately, because between the pain and the perception she had no longer had room for feeling emotions, Branwyn knelt down and put her hand on the floor. She felt the Court around her, and tucked that knowledge away for later, reaching down, down, further, until she could touch the deep root of Faerie.
It was, in fact, the world, from a different perspective. And the world was far too big for her to work with. It was out of her scope.
But the place where the faerie grabbing Rhianna connected to the world was… fragile, by comparison. It would have made sense to have scissors, but she didn’t, so she turned tucked-away rage into a blade instead and cut the tie.
Now the faerie was unbinding from both ends, and it was much faster, so much faster that it was already over. The light dissolved into nothingness, and the faerie knight holding Rhianna dissolved in just the same way. There was only the scent of dried grass, sharp and fading.
Seven knights left, and they were all angry now. And Branwyn’s head was killing her.
“I said she was too dangerous like this,” said Centri, and two of the others stalked toward Summer, who scrambled backward with an almost feral gleam of excitement in her eyes. Rhianna finally stopped blinking and stumbled away from the knight closest to her. He lunged after her.
Branwyn tried to reach into the Court, to bend the structure itself to her will. It had nodes already. But her head hurt.
Didn’t I warn you that if you didn’t stop, I was going to kill someone? Severin whispered irritably, and stepped into Summer’s bedroom. He looked like he’d been exerting himself, like he needed a shower, like he was annoyed at a naughty child. The first thing he did was step next to Branwyn and bring his finger to her forehead.
She ducked and backed away from him, gasping, “No. Them.”
Without looking at what was happening behind him, Severin brought up his hand and his black diamond aura screamed to life. Static filled the room, and suddenly everybody else was moving slowly. “Shut it off,” he said coldly. “Right now.”
That was it. That was the choice she had. Sleep against her will, and trust she’d wake up again. Shut down the Sight voluntarily and trust they’d get out of this without her power. Or don’t trust and trigger a catastrophic cascade of unpredictable but probably lethal proportions.
Trust him? Let him save them? She almost balked. But she hurt so much, and there was Rhianna to consider…
She visualized the shut-off pattern. The pain faded.
“Good choice,” he said, his voice still cold. Then he flashed his shark smile. “Nice nightgown.”
As he turned away, the slowing faded. Rhianna tripped, her pile of clothes flying everywhere. Summer bounded to her feet, clapping her hands. The seven knights crowded more completely into the room. Branwyn scrambled to her feet as her mind cleared, moving to put herself between Rhianna and the attackers.
“Oh, please, monster,” said one of them. Branwyn couldn’t tell them apart, save for the named Centri and Axis. “You’re not going to fight seven of us.”
Severin’s gaze swept over them, and his expression of annoyance flashed into that same rage he’d had when the Wild Hunt had tried to destroy Imani. “No? But I’m going to kill at least two of you.” The black diamond aura sharpened.
The speaker shifted, tensing against Severin’s aura, but sneered. “Like we’re afraid of your weak death, when our Queen is—”
“Nuh-uh, Revo,” said Summer. “I told you not to wreck my party. Although it did bring Sev out to play. Thank you for that.” She tossed her hair and glanced at Rhianna, who gave her another thumbs-up.
Several of the knights looked taken aback, including the speaker. They’d spread out now, clearly unused to fighting in ranks with those big swords. Severin didn’t wait for them to regain their equilibrium. With one of those sudden darts, he was beside Revo, kicking the knight’s legs out from under him even as he twisted his head so savagely that the oversized shoulder pauldrons slashed across his face. Then he dropped the knight, who collapsed onto the floor in a pile and didn’t move again.
Before the first knight’s armor had stopped ringing, Severin had skipped over to Centri in the rear. “Come on, don’t hide behind them. Get out there. Show your Queen what you’re made of.”
He made as if to shove Centri, but Centri lunged forward ahead of him, twisting and diving over his fellow’s body, revealing the knight’s poniard Severin had swung at his back.
Meanwhile, three of the knights advanced on Branwyn and Rhianna, while Axis turned toward Summer. Branwyn kicked a chair at the knights while Rhianna muttered incoherently behind her about swords. Then Rhianna said, “Come on, Branwyn, let me deal with this, you go make us a way out.”
“You?” said Branwyn harshly, and then “I can’t.” She and Rhianna were being backed toward the window.
“Bran—”
“No, I can’t make anything right now!”
Summer squealed, “No! Get away, get out of my way! I want to watch Sev!” She bounded onto her bed and pushed one of the hangings over the knight pursuing her.
Rhianna knocked Branwyn down as her inner arm burned and a sword slid through where she’d been. Then Severin was between them and the knight, with blood on
his face and his shirt thick with gore. “Can’t you stay out of trouble for fifteen seconds?” He moved, flinging the closest knight away with superhuman strength.
Branwyn tried to get up, but Rhianna stood on her. And for all that she seemed half-translucent now, she weighed the same, which was more than Branwyn did. Rhianna snatched up a poniard from the ground—another? The same? Branwyn had lost track—and sprang off Branwyn’s hip toward another of the knights. She didn’t even try to dodge the knight’s sword and Branwyn was sure it would impale her.
But somehow it didn’t. It must have impaled her, yet she was fine, and the sword was clean, and then the knight, as surprised as Branwyn, had a poniard in the eye. Rhianna kept moving, through a spot where another sword most definitely was. But impossibly, she wasn’t sliced in half as she went low and then that knight was falling as she kicked out the back of his knees.
As Rhianna smashed her fist into the fallen knight’s face, Severin reached down and pulled Branwyn to her feet. His whisper buzzed in her ear. Angel girl can move all right. Don’t worry about her; Umbriel’s got her back. Make yourself useful and convince the kid the party’s over. He was gone before the words ended, back to Centri.
Branwyn looked around wildly, found the Queen still on her bed and bounded over there. Axis was pleading with her rather than attacking her. No, not pleading with her, berating her. Ranting at her.
“—could you betray us like this? For him. I do everything for you. I’ve fought dragons for your entertainment. He is a murderer, a monster, without honor or grace or—”
“Shut up,” said the Queen. “You’re boring me. As soon as I have a minute, you’re done, Axis.”
“Uh, Summer,” said Branwyn, watching the knight’s face darken. “Don’t you have other courtiers who might be able to help right now?”
Astonished, Summer said, “Why would I want them here, messing things up more? This is perfect!”
Fury Convergence Page 20
