“Well, Hadraniel does. It doesn’t really matter. It won’t have time to make a fuss. ”
Branwyn thought it over, and remembered how fast just Severin could kill somebody. Maybe he was right. Instead of arguing further, she said, “Max and Aleth are both offering me something in exchange for my help. I want something from you, too.”
“Oh? What could you want from me?” She could practically feel his breath on the back of her neck.
She made a point in not looking in the mirror over her dresser, concentrating on a poster by Carolyn Astin instead. “When you took me away from Hunter’s basement slave den, you put a mark on my shoulder. So I’d remember, you said. I do this for you, you take the mark away.”
After a long moment with nothing but a tickle on the back of her neck, he said softly, mockingly, “Such a little thing. Well, we can discuss it after we’ve dealt with Hadraniel. I’ll let you try to convince me.”
“Severin,” Branwyn said, tired of the sniping. “Try not to annoy me so much that I decide sabotaging your entire game is worth it. You know I would.”
“Yes,” he said quietly. “I know you would. Show up early tomorrow.” Then the sense of his presence vanished, and the phone hung up.
Marley
Neither Marley nor Branwyn talked much as Branwyn drove Marley to where she’d left her car. Penny had gone back to her own house to, she said, choose appropriate clothes for ambushing an angel.
At one point, Branwyn said, “You’ll be there, right?”
“Tomorrow? Of course. You know how much I like being useful,” Marley said absently. She was mostly thinking about Corbin. It had to be the sickness that was making him so secretive. She remembered the way her own bout of illness had changed her emotions and reactions.
“Good.” Branwyn’s fingers tightened on the wheel. “I don’t trust those assholes. I’m going to see what I can set up in advance.”
“Smart plan,” Marley told her. She wondered what the best way to get in contact with Skadi again was.
Branwyn was quiet a moment and then asked, “Do you want to talk about Corbin?”
“I just… I don’t know what’s going to happen to him, Branwyn. So I keep trying to think about the worst possible paths, and then what I can do about those but you can’t fight the worst stuff because it just… happens. It’s already happened by the time you find out about it.” Marley curled her fingers around the car door’s interior handle.
“You never used to know what was going to happen to people,” Branwyn pointed out.
“I always did, kind of,” Marley countered. “And when I didn’t, I imagined it. I don’t like imagining it.” She wondered, not for the first time, what she would have been if her biological mother hadn’t been a celestial. If everything was the same, except she didn’t have any magic, suppressed or active. Maybe she would have been happy, like Branwyn was happy or her mother was happy. The celestial blood, thought Marley resentfully, messed everything up.
But while she might still have Branwyn and Penny if she was purely human, she wouldn’t have Lissa and Kari, because Zachariah had only ever found her because of her magic. And she wouldn’t know Corbin to be worried about him. That wasn’t really a win.
A few mile markers went by and the car started the long curves that led into the mountains where the Arrowhead Squirrel Hollow Resort nestled. Branwyn said, “I’m worried about Corbin, too. Everything you’ve said tells me he’s up to something terrible. The kind of terrible where we should be helping Senyaza recover him. And I say that despite how annoyed I am at Senyaza right now.”
“I don’t think it’s him,” said Marley stubbornly. “I think it’s the shadow inside him. The illness.”
Branwyn shot her a skeptical look. “Is that really different from him? I’m not saying he should be put down, just… stopped from doing anything that would hurt other people.”
Marley finally looked directly at her friend. “Branwyn… do you think I’d be the same person if I didn’t spend so much time worrying?”
“Is that person likely to exist anytime soon?” Branwyn asked calmly. That was Branwyn, right there, refusing to indulge in philosophical hypotheticals.
Marley sighed. “There’s a parasite that infects ants and drives them to climb to the top of blades of grass so that they get eaten by cows. That’s actual suicidal behavior caused by an invasive entity.”
“Yeah, you told me about that the first time you read it. Zombie ants, you said. Come on, Marley. Are you saying Corbin is a zombie?”
Marley remembered kissing Corbin and shivered. “Not entirely. But maybe some.”
“And how does this relate to Senyaza capturing him and restraining him so he doesn’t hurt anybody or, God, spread the sickness?”
“Corbin doesn’t deserve to be punished for getting sick. And there’s something going on with Senyaza I don’t trust. They’re keeping secrets, too. I think they recognized the illness, but they didn’t mention it. So I’m going to try something different.”
“You’re right about Senyaza,” said Branwyn darkly, and fell into a silence of her own.
There was no sign of the monster hunters at the turn-off to the cabins. In the parking lot, Marley’s car was almost exactly as she’d left it. A small Geometric circle had been chalked on the hood, similar to the “go away” one that Finn had been running that morning: a little bit of protection against strangers rummaging through the unlocked car and the purse she’d left inside.
Marley walked to the path to Corbin’s cabin and peeked down it. The door was ajar and sagging, which wasn’t exactly reassuring.
She went back to where Branwyn was waiting, leaning on her window. “Corbin was right. They came back already.”
“Hey, I guess Corbin didn’t hurt them too badly after all. That’s reassuring. Sort of. If you look at it sideways. Meet me back at the house?”
“Maybe,” said Marley slowly. “I need to talk to Skadi.”
“Back at the house?” encouraged Branwyn. “Where I can stop you if you decide to teleport somewhere without thinking about the consequences?”
Marley flushed. “I’ll meet you there.” She tapped out a quick text to Zachariah asking for a way to contact Skadi and then started the drive home.
By the time she got home, she had not just a message from Zachariah, but a message from Skadi and Skadi was leaning against the building next to the parking lot. Branwyn was already home, and leaning on her car, staring at Skadi through her sunglasses. There was definitely a vibe, like at any minute guitars would start wailing and Branwyn’s stepfather’s band would leap out to perform in a music video.
Then Marley got out of her car and Skadi strode forward. “Marley! Zachariah told me you wanted to speak with me?”
“About Corbin, yes.” Marley glanced at Branwyn. “Can we get out of the parking lot before somebody decides a fight is about to break out and calls the cops?”
“Sure,” said Branwyn. “Come upstairs. I’ll make more lemonade.”
“That sounds lovely,” said Skadi politely.
Up in their small living room, Neath was still fast asleep. Apparently chasing Corbin’s ravens had really taken it out of her. Skadi sat on the old armchair and made the whole apartment seem tiny. “You’ve seen Corbin again, Zachariah tells me.”
“Zachariah talks too much,” said Branwyn, from the kitchen.
“It’s all right,” said Marley quietly, sitting down beside her cat and stroking her fur. Neath rumbled and twitched a paw before stilling again. “I wasn’t going to keep it a secret.”
Skadi laughed. “I’m sure that’s the first time anybody’s ever accused Zachariah of being a gossip. But he is very attached to you, and worried Corbin will hurt you.”
“I know,” Marley said, her impatience leaking a bit. “I need to know, Skadi. What do you want with him after curing him?”
Skadi picked up her ponytail and combed the end of it with her fingers before dropping it again. “To shake him
until his teeth clatter. To find out how he’s survived so long. Both.”
Marley narrowed her eyes and tried again. “Do you work for Senyaza?”
“Yes,” Skadi said, without missing a beat. “Or rather, I am a part of Senyaza. But if you are asking if I will take him back to them—I don’t care about that.” Her voice grew fierce and Marley remembered the song Skadi had sang when she’d cured her. “People have died because he is wandering around sick. I cannot bring back those who have died. I must prevent others from joining them.”
Softly, Marley asked, “Why didn’t you cure him before? You were with him when he got sick.” Healing people isn’t what she does, he’d said, and After I’d escaped from Skadi, and she’d filed those away. She knew firsthand the sickness brought confusion. She knew how much the virus made her hate the woman who could cure it. But she still wondered.
Branwyn handed Skadi a glass of lemonade. “Ooh, this should be good.”
“Between the manifestation of symptoms and his flight, there was little time.” Skadi glanced at the glass of lemonade, which had a single cube of ice melting. The glass frosted around her fingers, and then she took a sip.
Marley was dissatisfied with that answer. “Tell me how he got sick, please.”
Skadi smiled faintly. “Corbin is on a mission. The mission involves digging up secrets. He was looking for a new way to get at those secrets because he’d run out of palatable options. He came to my homeland following a riddle. I served as his guide. His investigations brought him to a puzzle box in a local collection. He became obsessed with solving the puzzle box. He stole it from the collection so he could work on it more. When he finally opened it, the illness was inside. Once he was infected, his first impulse was to flee. You also felt that way.”
“Yes,” agreed Marley. “But I don’t know why, and it bothers me.”
Branwyn snorted. “Why wouldn’t a virus flee from somebody who can cure it?”
“Viruses don’t have minds,” Marley pointed out. “They barely have bodies.”
“You mean they don’t have brains,” Branwyn said. “We’re in a whole new world of things that have minds without brains, Marley. A lot of people are very upset about that.”
“Maybe,” Marley said doubtfully, watching Skadi make frost patterns on her glass. “I’m going to try to convince Corbin to meet you. I’ll be there, too. If you do anything I don’t like, everybody around me is going to be unhappy. So don’t.”
“Can I come?” said Branwyn in the bright voice that meant, “I’m coming.”
Marley gave her a sidelong look. “I don’t think Corbin trusts you.”
Branwyn nods. “Because he’s smart. He knows if he hurts you I’ll make singing flutes out of his bones while they’re still inside him.”
“Well then, no, you can’t come. No, seriously, Branwyn. I don’t want him feeling outnumbered. I want him feeling in control, and you kind of embody annoying people who want to be in control.”
“You have a point,” said Branwyn thoughtfully.
“Zachariah had to hold you down.” Skadi licked some frozen sugar off the edge of her glass, as if they were discussing something unimportant. “You can’t, I think, hold Corbin down.”
“Yes,” said Marley. “I can. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Then she went to her bedroom, closed the door and called Corbin.
It rang a few times before he picked up. “What?” he said warily.
Suddenly breathless, Marley said, “I’ve been thinking about Skadi.”
“You’ve got the wrong number, then,” he said. But he didn’t hang up, which she thought was promising.
“She did cure me, Corbin. And I think she can cure you. Make it so you’re not contagious anymore. So nobody else will get sick like I did.” Die like your friends did. But she didn’t say that. It was too much of an open wound to exploit.
“You’re joking, right? I’ve been avoiding Skadi for months, Marley. She’s dangerous—”
“Corbin, I wanted to run away from her when I was sick, too. I hated her when I was sick. You’ve got to try to remember before you got sick. You knew her before, right? She was your guide? Did you think she was dangerous then?”
“Yes,” he said heatedly. “I did. She’s a millennial nephil.”
“Were you afraid of her? Why did you only run after you got sick? Actually think about the question, not just about how much you hate her.” She hesitated and then added, “Do you just hate her?”
“What do you mean?” he asked, his voice subdued.
Marley lay back on her bed and covered her eyes with her arm. “When I was sick and near her, I was afraid of her, I hated her, and I… I wanted her, Corbin. It was all tangled together but I couldn’t stop thinking about her. About her hair. It wasn’t just fear. I wanted to…” She faltered, uncomfortable even putting words to the feelings she recalled.
“You wanted to dominate her.” Corbin’s voice was hollow. “Marley, I don’t know if I can go near her. I can’t. I won’t. She’s a liar—”
“Then come to me. I’m going to be at the park near Old Pasadena again in about an hour. Come to me and I’ll help you however you want.” And then she hung up, because she couldn’t bear to listen to him talk about Skadi. Every time he did, she imagined that black shadow looking at her and leering.
Then she went to the bathroom she shared with Branwyn and started digging through her cosmetics, looking for lip gloss and a few other things.
“What you’re planning is disgusting,” said Branwyn without rancor. She was leaning on the doorframe with her arms crossed.
“You don’t know what I’m planning.”
“You’re putting on lip gloss and you’re going to hold Corbin down somehow. I think you’re going to use your ‘magic powers’. If you know what I mean. And I know you do, because lip gloss.”
“Well, it’s not disgusting. I rather like it. And so do you.” She met Branwyn’s eyes in the mirror and said, “I’m not tricking him, Branwyn. I’m just going to give him something else to think about.”
A subtle tension went out of Branwyn’s shoulders. “Good.”
It was late afternoon when Marley arrived at the park with Skadi and only Skadi; Neath hadn’t even woken when she’d left a second time. Marley was early, but she wasn’t surprised to see Corbin already waiting, sitting on a park bench with his long legs stretched out in front of him and his hands in his pockets. His backpack was on the ground at his feet.
He didn’t stand, didn’t say a word as Marley went to him. She was acutely conscious of Skadi trailing her. She’d wondered, on the drive over, if this would count as a betrayal to Corbin. But he’d been able to follow her reasoning about his reaction to Skadi and where it came from.
His face was pale under his ragged hair, and the black shadow extended through his Geometry, part of every node and infusing his entire aura. Red flickered at his core, as if a door was opening to somewhere else.
When she got close enough to see the expression in his eyes, she faltered more. His gaze was cool, and not the slightest bit nervous. Skadi stopped somewhere behind her, which seemed like a smart decision all of a sudden.
“Hi, Corbin,” she said, as cheerfully as she could manage.
He continued looking past her. “Hey, Marley,” he and his shadow said. “Want to test whether your magic works against me again?”
Marley glanced at the ground. There was no sign of a circle, no carpet he could have hidden his plastic circle under. “No. The first time was bad enough.” She moved into his line of sight and shivered when he transferred his gaze to her. An old hate burned in his eyes, and his magic seemed on the edge of bursting to life. “Corbin—”
“Hello, Corbin,” said Skadi from a few yards away. “Yes, I’ve come. I must make things better, just as you must.”
Corbin kept looking at Marley. “You can try, Skadi.” Somehow that sounded less like permission, and more like a challenge. “You offered to help me however I wanted, M
arley.”
Marley thought fast, then cautiously said, “Yes.”
“Then don’t let her leave after she tries her little cure.”
“Restraining people isn’t exactly how I operate, Corbin!”
“You’ve done it before,” he said calmly. “You’ve restrained a faerie Duke in his own realm.”
Marley swallowed. “That was different. He… he wanted me to restrain him. He wanted to be punished.”
“You can do it again. Look at her and tell me you can’t.”
Frustrated and afraid, Marley turned to look at Skadi. The tall blond woman stood like a soldier at ease, without any sign of nervousness. She didn’t look like somebody who wanted to suffer. And yet… there was something…
For a moment, curiosity overtook Marley’s better self and she let herself remember when she’d held the faerie Tarn in her power. She concentrated on her danger-sight, looking at what loomed in Skadi’s future. It was a strange danger, only half drawn in, maybe because Corbin was involved. Then she followed the part of her magic that could tell if people wanted to be protected, and found other things in Skadi, too. Guilt. Anger at herself. Weariness.
Marley felt the hot spikes on her skin, the precursor to her magic reversing itself. Dizzily, she thought, The world could be protected from Skadi.
Corbin stood behind her, slid his arm around her waist and pulled her close. He was warm and he smelled intoxicating. But he held her like she was his and Corbin had never done that before. Corbin had always treated her like she was hers.
She couldn’t help herself. She looked at Corbin again, wondering if the world could be protected from him. But all she could see was the black shadow and beyond it the red fracture in his aura.
She couldn’t protect anybody from what she couldn’t see: the monster hunters, two little girls, the world.
Hollowly, she said, “Yes, I can stop her from leaving.” Then she turned in Corbin’s embrace, put her arms around his neck and kissed him.
Chapter Fourteen
Marley
Divinity Circuit (Senyaza Series Book 5) Page 16
