As Strike called the meeting to order and did a quick “this is where we’re at” to bring the winikin, Michael, and Sasha up to speed, Patience pressed her sneakered foot against the side of Brandt’s boot and received a return nudge that meant more to her than it probably ought to. But she let herself have the moment.
Strike finished his rundown with, “Obviously these new developments raise a shitload of additional questions and issues, but our priority needs to be finding a way to get our asses into the intersection for the solstice-eclipse. We can’t use the light-magic tunnel. Even if we could come up with a spell to move that much rubble, the area’s going to be under some serious human scrutiny. Which means we need to find another way in.” He looked at Rabbit. “Do you think you could find the dark-magic entrance?”
“Maybe. Could I open it once I found it? Probably. But that’d lay me wide-open to Iago, and I don’t
—” He broke off, flushing. His voice was tight with guilt and frustration when he said, “At this point, I don’t know what the fuck to do except stay here inside the wards for the rest of the war. It doesn’t make any godsdamned sense for me to go outside where Iago can read me whenever the hell he wants.
It’s like I’m an enemy spy, only I’m not. I’m just . . . fuck. I’m not strong enough to block him anymore.” He fell silent, scowling miserably. Myrinne, who sat beside him on the far love seat, touched his arm in support; he nodded acknowledgment, but his expression didn’t lighten.
“I keep wondering why Iago didn’t know about the intersection already,” Patience said. She’d been going over it in her head, partly in an effort to not think about the cave, or the fact that they were running out of time.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Lucius said. “The Order of Xibalba split off from the Nightkeepers, right? But then it developed its own characteristics, which we’re pretty sure parallel the Aztec culture.
Well, in the Aztec world, the boys who were destined to be soldiers were raised under really rough conditions. When they hit fifteen, they entered military training camps, where knowledge was power and an elder son always had a much higher status than his younger brothers. Based on that, I could see Ix keeping the intersection’s location a secret from Iago, especially if they were the only two surviving members of the ruling bloodline. It was all about competition, even between brothers.”
Rabbit didn’t look entirely convinced. “If that was the deal, why was Iago so pissed when he found out how Ix died?”
“Because they were blood,” Strike said flatly.
“And because we’re Nightkeepers,” Brandt put in. “Not to mention that we prevented his father’s reincarnation as a makol. It doesn’t matter how he felt about Ix—he’s going to be bullshit.”
A shiver crawled down the back of Patience’s neck. “ ‘What has happened before will happen again,’ ” she murmured, quoting from the writs. When Strike gestured for her to continue, she said, “Everything cycles. Cabrakan and Iago both blame Nightkeepers for killing their brothers. And they both want revenge.” But she frowned when that jarred. “Except if Iago wanted to kill me and Brandt, why didn’t he blow the cave while we were inside? He had to have seen us through the eyes of the makol.”
“He might have decided he couldn’t risk killing the two of you right at the light-magic entrance,” Lucius pointed out. “There’s a good chance the sacrifice would have opened the skyroad for good.”
There was a beat of silence as they absorbed the near miss.
In that moment, though, Patience had an idea. To Rabbit, she said, “I know you said you’re not strong enough to block Iago anymore, but do you think you could direct him to certain pieces of information? Or hide other pieces so he can’t get to them?”
A faint spark kindled in his eyes. “Maybe. Yeah. I think I could figure out a block that looks like my normal background mental pattern, sort of camouflaging some stuff.”
“No,” Brandt growled. “Don’t even think about it.”
Which meant he already had. Pulse bumping with a mix of nerves and adrenaline, she turned to Strike. “Iago didn’t come after us today because he’s too smart to waste the power he could gain from our sacrifice. We can use that to set a trap.”
“No,” Brandt repeated, jaw set. “Abso-fuckinglutely not.”
Strike flicked him a look. “That’s not your call.”
Brandt glared. “I’m not saying we shouldn’t try it. Set me up all you want. Douse me in ketchup and tie a fucking bow around my neck. I don’t care. But she doesn’t get used as bait.”
Patience’s inner warrior wasn’t buying that one, but the woman within liked the steel in his tone. To new beginnings, she thought. “We don’t have to decide the details now. The immediate question is whether Rabbit can figure out a way to show Iago only what we want him to see.”
Brandt turned back to her. “I’m serious; if we set a trap, I want you waiting with the others, not down in the hot zone with me.”
But instead of the gold-shot concern she expected to see in his face, she saw cool distance.
Her heart plummeted, and her pulse bumped off rhythm when she realized that he wasn’t present anymore. He was . . . gone. “That didn’t last long, did it?” she said softly.
Regret flashed briefly in his eyes. Instead of answering, though, he turned to Lucius. “Is there anything in the library about major dark-magic spells that are specific to a solstice-eclipse? It’d help if we knew what Iago could be planning for tomorrow night.”
“He might not be planning anything,” Rabbit pointed out. “I think he’s still pretty weak, at least physically. He might hold off until the spring equinox, when he’s at full power.”
“You willing to bet on that?”
“No. I’m just saying.”
Patience let the conversation move around her while she tried to make the inner shift from “this is our new beginning” to “I’m responsible for my own emotions.” She’d gotten pretty good at the latter, but it sucked to realize how quickly she had fallen back into old patterns based on a few good days.
Damn it, she knew better. But she was weak when it came to him, too ready to give things between them a second chance. Or a fifth. A twenty-fifth.
A noise from the far side of the great room jerked her from self-recrimination.
Jox stood white-faced in the arched doorway leading to the winikin’s wing.
Strike bolted to his feet. “What’s wrong? Is it Anna?”
“There’s been an earthquake in Mexico City. I’m not sure how bad—it just hit the CNN crawl.”
The room went dead silent. Oh shit, Patience thought as her heart nose-dived and her and Brandt’s problems suddenly felt a whole lot smaller.
“Fuck. ” Strike grabbed the remote, powered up the big screen that dominated one wall, and clicked over to one of the Mexican news stations they monitored.
The audio came on first, in Spanish. Patience had to wait for the image to clarify and the closed-
captioning to come online. The picture steadied first; it showed people thronging a street, milling and gesturing.
Moments later, words scrolled along the bottom of the screen: “. . . the quake, which reportedly registered 6.1 on the Richter scale, shook buildings and sent people out into the streets, but no injuries have been reported. Many of the people you see standing outside their homes and jobs remember twenty-five years ago, when an 8.1 earthquake leveled much of the city and killed upwards of ten thousand people.” The screen switched to a montage of twisted steel and crumbled cement against a background pall of gray dust.
They watched for a few more minutes, the tension in the room leveling off as it became obvious that the quake could have been far worse.
Finally, Strike killed the volume and tossed the remote. “Cabrakan’s letting us know that he’s coming for us.”
But Brandt frowned. “If that’s the case, why hit Mexico City? That was Aztec territory. Why not aim for a Nightkeeper site?”
We’ve got a three-way fight shaping up: Iago wants to finish the conquest Moctezuma began in the fifteen hundreds, the Banol Kax want to conquer the earth plane and use it as a staging area to attack the sky, and we’re trying to hold the freaking status quo.”
Patience was only partway paying attention; she was focused on the closed-captioning and the images that flashed on the TV screen, partly because she was numb and heartsore over Brandt’s withdrawal, partly because of what was showing on the screen.
In the absence of any real damage from the current quake, the new ghouls were rehashing the earlier quake atop a montage of film and still shots showing rescue efforts, stadiums turned into morgues, and tent cities of dispossessed survivors. “Even though the epicenters of both the 1985 earthquake and today’s quake were located some 350 kilometers away, in the Pacific Ocean, Mexico City is particularly vulnerable to seismic activity because of its location atop a dry lake bed. The lake was filled during the expansion of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlán, but the fill isn’t stable, creating a drumhead effect that amplifies low-frequency waves . . . like those of seismic activity.”
“Ten thousand dead,” she said to herself, not really realizing she’d said it aloud until the others fell silent.
Jox, who had taken a seat near Strike, said, “Some of the upper estimates were over fifty thousand fatalities. The Mexican government ordered a news blackout after the quake, so there’s no real confirmed number. Internationally, the general sense was that ten thousand was a low-end estimate.”
She couldn’t conceive of those numbers. Or rather, she could, and the thought of it tightened a fist around her heart. “We can’t let the next earthquake come,” she whispered. “People are going to die.
Lots of people.” Hundreds. Thousands. Tens of thousands. She looked at Brandt. “We have to stop it.”
He grimaced. “You said it yourself: The etznab spell needs more than the words.” He didn’t say that he wasn’t sure they had “more” just then. He didn’t need to.
Despair pricked, but she didn’t let herself give in to it. Instead, she reached into a pocket and pulled out the small, well-worn star deck. “These led me to the etznab spell. Maybe they’ll help us figure out what comes next.”
Realizing that the room had gone silent and she had become the center of attention, she looked around, flushing slightly. “Sorry. I’ll go—”
“Stay.” Lucius shoved a coffee table across to bump against her knees, making Jox wince at the scraping noise the hardwood made. “Show us how it works.”
“No, really. I’ll just—” She stopped herself. “Scratch that. Sure, I’ll show you.”
Knowing that her focus was scattered, she began with a prayer that defined the reading. Please, gods, help me to help him earn the Triad magic. That had to be her priority. After that . . . she didn’t know.
She shuffled the cards until they slid freely, then cut the deck three times—once for the past, once for the present, once for the future.
Setting the deck on the coffee table, then said, “Given the nature of the etznab spell, I’m going to use a spread called the ‘hall of mirrors.’” She took the top three cards off the deck, then arranged them facedown in a triangle, with the top card at the lower left, the middle at the lower right, and the last forming the pinnacle of the two-
dimensional pyramid. Then she tapped the lower left card. “This one is called the smoky mirror. It represents the shadow darkening my present state of being, making things unclear or asking to be revealed. The one next to it”—she touched the lower right card—“is the clear mirror. It offers truth, guidance, and vision. Finally, the card at the top shows me how to step through the mirror into self-
awareness and reach an answer.”
Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes, centered herself, and tapped into her magic, which responded sluggishly. She kept working at it, though, seeking added power. Hearing the rustle of movement, she assumed the crowd was thinning. So she was startled when a hand touched her shoulder and her magic surged. She opened her eyes to find the magi gathered around the couch where she and Brandt were sitting. Sasha was touching her shoulder; she was connected to each of the others by a touch, forming a linked circle all the way around to Brandt.
He waited until she looked at him, until their eyes met. Then he extended his hand across the short gap separating them. His expression was all warrior, but she told herself that was the way it should be.
This wasn’t about them; it was about the Triad magic and the war.
Still, her heart ached. Oh, Brandt.
Nodding as much to herself as to any of the others, she took his hand and felt the team’s joined power swell through her. Without blood sacrifice it was a gentler magic, one that warmed rather than energized, centering her rather than pushing her beyond her normal limits.
“Okay.” She exhaled slowly. “Here we go.” She flipped the lower left card. A sense of inevitability skimmed through her at the sight of a burgundy and black glyph against a yellow sun sign. “This is Imix, the Primordial Mother. It’s the card I almost always draw in positions representing my needs.”
“Which means that the magic’s working,” Jade offered.
“I think so. The question is going to be whether I can correctly interpret the cards I pull. Getting Imix in the smoky-mirror position suggests that I need to reveal myself, or that in the past I’ve been my own worst enemy.”
“Which could apply to most of us,” Brandt pointed out.
Trying not to read too far into that, she turned over the card on the lower right, and jolted at the sight of a deep blue-black design with a starscape in the center and the sun behind it. “Lamat. Wow.”
“What is it?” Lucius pressed, seeming fascinated.
“I drew the same two cards in the same order the other day. That can’t be an accident.” Exhaling to settle the sudden churn of her stomach, she continued: “I think of Lamat as Brandt’s card.” She didn’t elaborate; there was no need to broadcast that it was his card because its shadow aspect was disconnection and a rigid adherence to dogma. “For his card to appear in the clear-mirror position means that he holds the answer we’re looking for. Which is a given, really, since he’s the only one who knows—consciously or not—why the gods won’t speak to him.”
“Could the Lamat card refer to anything else?” he asked. She couldn’t quite read his expression.
“Possibly. Maybe the third card will help clarify things.” She flipped the apex card, and her stomach sank at the sight of a jagged “X” symbol. “Etznab. Shit.” She shook her head as disappointment rolled through her. “We already know we need to step through the mirror. That’s what we’re trying to do, damn it. But what mirror? Where?” Looking up at the others, she made a helpless gesture. “I’m sorry. It’s a real reading—there’s no way I could accidentally pull a reading that says Brandt and I should step through the mirror. But it doesn’t tell us anything new.”
They all stared down at the triangle of cards for a long moment. She was surprised when Brandt was the one to break the silence. “What if it’s trying to tell you something new, but you’re not listening?”
When her head snapped up, he held up his free hand. “Whoa. Not trying to start a fight. I’m just wondering whether you’re making assumptions here based on past readings. What if you—I don’t know—try to look at this with completely fresh eyes? No preconceptions.”
“Right. Because I’m my own worst enemy.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No. The cards did.” And as much as it sucked to admit it, he could be right. She stared down at the spread, trying to blank her mind and start over. “Okay. Imix is the mother figure, period. In the shadow position, it deals with issues of trust and revelation
. I’m confident of that interpretation.”
She’d been through the book so many times in the past week that she didn’t need to look anymore. She knew the aspects by heart. “But you might have a point about Lamat. Not everything about it connects to you. The shadow aspects are a perfect fit, but this isn’t a shadow card.” Thinking fast, she recalled, “In its light aspects, Lamat is the One Who Shows the Way. He’s a leader who seeks to harmonize disparate things. He’s connected to the rabbit, fire, and the path of destiny.” Light dawned; she turned to Strike. “Hell. You’re Lamat here. I would’ve thought you’d be Ahau, the king’s card, but you’re not, at least not in this spread. Here, you’re the clear mirror.”
“Keep going,” Brandt urged.
Thinking out loud, she said, “Strike holds the clarity I’m seeking. To reach it, I need to reveal myself. In doing so, I’ll step through—” She broke off as dismay rattled and her stomach knotted.
“Oh.” Oh, shit. The cards had practically been beating her over the head with it, but she hadn’t seen it until now.
In the end, it was all about the hall of mirrors.
Brandt tightened his grip on her hand. “You’ve figured it out.” It wasn’t a question.
“I think so.” And in revealing herself to her king, she was going to have to out Brandt as a coconspirator, when the incident in question had been one of the few times he’d really come through for her at Skywatch.
Then again, she thought, revelation, like sacrifice, wasn’t supposed to be easy.
She released Brandt’s hand. As if that had been a signal, the other magi dropped their touch links.
Taking a deep breath, she stood and faced Strike fully. “Brandt and I need to use the shrine.”
“The ceremonial chamber?” Strike said, referring to the sanctified room near the center of the mansion, where a glass roof let in the sun and stars, and the ashes of their ancestors provided a power sink. “Of course. No problem.”
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