Magic Breaks

17

LANDON DROVE. I rode in the front passenger seat, and Curran took the back. If things went sour, I’d get Landon’s attention and Curran would rip out his throat.

The sun had risen, setting the snow aglow. The ruins of another gas station slid past us, iced by the winter. Heat swirled inside the Land Rover. I had shrugged off my jacket before I got in and I rode in comfort, with Sarrat in her sheath across my lap. This would be my special present for my father. If I got a shot at him.

Thinking about our impending meeting set my teeth on edge. The pressure was almost too much. I wanted Landon to stop the car so I could run in circles through the snow as fast as I could just to burn some energy off. I settled for stroking Sarrat’s sheath.

I couldn’t win against my father. I knew it now. The problem was, I had no idea what choice that left me.

“Has he claimed Atlanta?” I asked.

“No,” Landon said.

So the claiming hadn’t come to pass. That meant I still had to somehow prevent it.

An old sign slid by. I-80 East.

Landon glanced at me. His smart eyes lingered on my face.

“Are you Apache?” Curran asked from the backseat.

“Navajo,” Landon said.

“I thought the tribes discouraged necromancy,” Curran said.

“They do. They didn’t like what I was doing, so I found someone who does.”

As Hugh once put it, that was my father’s greatest power. Outcasts and misfits flocked to him. He found a perfect place for each one and inspired them to greatness. Except his kind of greatness resulted in death, misery, and tyranny.

Landon was looking at me. If he kept staring, I would have to do a trick or something. “Yes?”

“You’re not what I expected,” he said.

“Who did you expect?” I asked.

“Someone with more . . . presence. You seem ordinary.”

“I’m sorry, was I supposed to arrive in a black SUV, wear a two-thousand-dollar pantsuit, and set my sword on fire for the encore?”

“You look terrible, which is to be expected after Mishmar,” Landon said. “But you’re simply not like him. There is a lot of resemblance in the face, but that could be coincidental. With him, when you’re in his presence and he’s happy with you, it’s like standing in sunshine. Your entire being is lifted. When he’s displeased with you, it’s like being in a blizzard. He freezes you out and there’s nothing worse. With you”—Landon moved his hand in front of me—“I get nothing.”

Good to know all of my magical shields were still holding.

“That’s the point,” Curran said. “You’re supposed to get nothing. Give her a chance to use her sword, and you’ll change your mind.”

Landon glanced in the rearview mirror. “You, on the other hand, are exactly what I had expected.”

“And what would that be?” Curran asked.

“An uncomplicated man who thinks that everything can be solved with a sword.”

“I think you’ve been insulted,” I said.

Curran smiled. “I’m crushed. I don’t even use swords.”

Landon ignored him and faced me for a brief moment. “If you are who he thinks you are, you change everything. If you are genuine, your presence alters the power structure of the entire continent. What can you do? What are you capable of? There hasn’t been another one like you for thousands of years. Are you going to support him or oppose him? Who will follow the daughter of the Builder of Towers? Am I driving a pretender to the throne or should I kneel? D’Ambray must’ve thought you were the real McCoy. I couldn’t understand the motivation behind his odd political machinations in Europe over the spring and summer, but now I see—he was building a trap, which apparently failed. But Atlanta? What he did in Atlanta was rash even for him. Contrary to all of his chuckling and ‘aw, shucks, I’m just a simple soldier’ declarations, d’Ambray is intelligent and ruthless. Something must’ve happened between him and Roland to push him into . . .”

“Do you call him Roland?” I asked.

Landon’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll answer one of your questions if you answer one of mine.”

I’d played this game before. It never turned out well. But why not. “Fine. Do you call him Roland to his face?”

“I call him Sharrum.”

King. Well, that wasn’t exactly surprising.

“But yes, in public, I refer to him as Lord Roland. That’s the name he has chosen for this age.” Landon’s eyes lit up. “My turn. Do you carry Voron’s sword?”

“No.”

The excitement died in Landon’s eyes.

“Hugh broke Slayer,” I told him. “I loved that sword. It was a part of me for over twenty years.”

“A convenient excuse,” Landon murmured.

Oh screw it. “I mourn my sword, but that’s alright. Grandmother gave me another one.” I pulled Sarrat out of its sheath.

Landon spun the wheel. The Land Rover nearly careened, turning off the road. Landon parked and bolted out of the car, slapping the driver’s door closed behind him.

Awesome. I’d terrified the Legatus of the Golden Legion just by showing him my sword. If I waved it around, he’d probably explode.

Sarrat smoked on my lap. Its magic wasn’t subtle, like Slayer’s. No, this sword emanated power. It coiled around me. It liked me.

Landon paced back and forth, his eyes a little wild.

“Well, he took it worse than I did,” Curran said.

“I don’t see what the big deal is.”

“It’s a sword made out of your grandmother’s bones, Kate.”

I shrugged.

Landon stared at me through the windshield, turned around, paced back and forth, and stared at me again.

“Do you know what most people have from their grandmother? A tea set. Or a quilt.” Curran smiled. “If your family had a quilt, it would be made out of chimera skin and stuffed with feathers from dead angels.”

“Are we talking Judeo-Christian angels, because those don’t exist, or pagan angels like Teddy Jo?”

“Kate,” Curran said.

“Hey, I warned you from the start it would be weird. I sat in that bathtub with you and told you that this was a really bad idea. You said you loved me and stayed in the tub. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve made your bed. You have to lie in it.”

“I’ll lie in any bed as long as you’re in it, but this is still weird.”

I turned back to look at him. “We’re going to see my dad, who’ll probably crush me like a gnat, and you’re weirded out by my sword?”

Curran nodded at Landon. “I’m not the only one.”

Landon peered at me again.

“Did you name it yet?” Curran asked.

“Yes. Sarrat Irkalli. It means Great Queen of Irkalla, the Land of the Dead. My grandmother was occasionally confused with her, and now that she’s dead, it’s fitting.”

Curran spread his arms. “I rest my case.”

This was ridiculous. I leaned over the driver’s side, swung the door open, and yelled at the top of my lungs, trying to outscream the enchanted water engine. “Are you done?”

“What?” Landon said.

“Are! You! Done?! If you want, you can stay here. Just point us where to go, and we’ll drive ourselves!”

Landon slid back into the driver’s seat and pointed at my saber. “Put it away.”

“Say the magic word.”

“Please,” Landon squeezed out.

I slid the blade back into the sheath and petted it. “It’s okay, Sarrat. If he insults you, I’ll cut his head off and you can drink his blood.”

Landon shut his eyes for a long moment, exhaled, and steered the Land Rover back onto the highway.

Trees slid past my window, draped in snow and ice. Inside the heavily insulated SUV the world was quiet save for the low hum of the engine. Landon watched the road. Some complicated calculations were no doubt taking place in his head. Probably trying to figure out how my presence affected his little kingdom within Roland’s empire.

The road wove its way through the woods. The snow ended and asphalt began, seeded with large stone blocks. “Why the stone?”

“His magic degrades modern roads,” Landon said.

The woods continued. The trees grew thicker and taller, spreading their mighty branches to the sun. The snow sparkled in the weak winter light, pure white in the sun, blue in the shadows. The magic must’ve fed this park the way it fed the parks in Atlanta, and what began as a carefully managed spot of green had rioted and turned into a dense old forest. How odd it must’ve been for my father to go from ancient Mesopotamia to this winter wonderland.

Voron had dedicated his life to bringing me to this point. If he were still alive, he would know I was riding to my death. I now realized that he never expected me to win. All of his plans always ended with me confronting Roland. There was never any discussion of what to do after. He didn’t expect me to have an after.

The woods parted. A building loomed in the distance, surrounded by the spiral of a wide iced-over moat, curving around the structure like a snake of frosted glass. The building rose, all but floating, above the snow-covered lawn, oblong, its walls a gathering of delicate white panels that looked suspiciously like giant feathers. They thrust from the main mass in perfect imitation of a bird. The road turned, circling the building, and I saw the whole structure.

A swan.

The building was constructed in the shape of a giant swan, its tail sitting on the ground, its chest caught in the ice of the lake, while its proud neck curved five stories above the water. The sun bathed it and it glowed slightly, as if the entire palace had been painstakingly carved by a genius sculptor out of an enormous block of glossy alabaster. Each feather stood out, distinct, its vanes and shaft clearly visible. The swan looked ready to push off from the shore and swim out onto the lake. If it had been life-sized, I would’ve thought it was real. The beauty of it took my breath away.

How could the man who’d built Mishmar build this?

“Why a swan?” Curran asked.

“He’s fond of them,” Landon said, bringing the car to a stop. “We get out here.”

He stepped out of the car. Curran and I followed him toward three ornate bridges. One after the other, we walked across them and through the concentric rings of the moat. Snow crunched under my feet.

I was walking into the heart of my father’s power, while the magic was up. This wasn’t how I had pictured confronting him. But at least Curran was with me. So we could die heroically together. Okay, that wasn’t the best thought to have right about now.

It didn’t matter. I would walk in there and I would walk back out with Christopher and Robert. Or at the very least, I would see Roland’s blood on my new sword before he crushed me.

Maybe I should just stop thinking altogether.

The bridges ended. I wasn’t ready.

Curran paused and examined the swan. “What the hell . . .”

“Just go with it,” I told him.

A wide arched door waited for me in the swan’s side, right where the legs would’ve been tucked under the body. A stairway of white marble stairs led to the door.

He’d killed my mother. He was going to claim the city I called home. He’d stopped a horde of undead vampires in Mishmar.

This was happening.

Every nerve in my body tensed. My breathing deepened. My muscles became loose and pliant, like I had spent half an hour warming up before a big fight. It felt like my blood was boiling. Next to me Curran rolled his head, stretching his neck and loosening his shoulders.

The stairs ended. The arched door swung open. I walked through the open doors into my father’s palace.

• • •

I HAD EXPECTED a sterile monochromatic space. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Warm, sand-colored tiles lined the floor. An indoor garden, lush with green plants, spread on both sides of me in curved, raised beds, bordered by a gently winding pond, where fat lazy koi floated under the lily pads. The air smelled of lotus and roses. Tiny insects, blue and green and ruby-red, floated between the flowers, like a scattering of weightless jewels carelessly flung by the handful into the air.

In the center of the garden, a round mechanism of golden and silver gears rotated, balanced on a thin spike. Hair-thin wire rings wrapped around the mass of gears. The rings spun and turned, hypnotic in their beauty. Magic emanated around it. Was this an atomic model of some sort?

I made my mouth move. “What does it do?”

“I don’t know,” Landon said. “He built it one afternoon on a whim.”

A giant door waited at the other end of the room.

I reached forward with my senses. Vampires.

My hands were trembling. Hell no. I’d had twenty-seven years to prepare. I wouldn’t lose it now. I inhaled the air, letting it out slowly. My hands steadied. My pulse slowed.

“You can’t go any farther than that door,” Landon said to Curran.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll wait in the doorway.”

We passed between the flowers, circled the mechanism, and stopped before the door. I touched it and it swung open. A long room stretched before me, its white marble walls soaring up. I stood on a raised walkway. Twenty feet wide, it spanned the length of the room, running from the door all the way to the opposite wall. A trench bordered both sides of the walkway, filled with vampires. Past the trenches, on the sides, men and women waited, standing quietly. My father’s court.

The walkway ended in a raised dais. In the very center of it, on a throne formed by the bodies of serpents carved from glossy white stone, sat my father. He wore white.

I looked at his face.

He looked back at me.

The instant I saw his eyes, I knew why my mother loved him. His skin was a deep even bronze, saturated with the sun’s warmth. His nose was straight with a sloping tip, his cheekbones carved with careful attention, his jawline strong and masculine. A length of white cloth tossed over his head covered most of his hair. A short beard with a touch of silver traced his jaw, but the eyebrows above it were black, and his eyes were young and full of life. He could’ve been Arabic or Jewish, Hindu or Hispanic. Had he been twenty years younger, he could silence a room full of women simply by walking in. But he chose to appear older. When orphans dreamed of being adopted, this was the kind of father they pictured. His eyes radiated wisdom and kindness, intelligence, and calm surety, born of age and confidence in his own power. He could’ve been an ancient king, a great prophet, or a revered teacher. He had killed my mother. I hated him. Yet when he looked on me now, I wanted to stand taller. It was like being in the light of the morning sun. When the power of those eyes shone on my mother, she had no chance.

What little doubts I had evaporated. He really had meant to kill me in the womb, because nothing short of complete desperation would’ve torn my mother from his side.

Next to me Curran paused, ready, like a lion before a strike. His face iced over. Muscles bulged on his legs, stretching the jeans. His eyes had turned completely gold. He lost all expression and slid into that perfect calm of a predator focused on his prey. He was treating my dad to an alpha stare.

For some dumb reason, nervous laughter bubbled up inside me. My father and Curran were glaring at each other. Maybe if I whistled and waited long enough, a tumbleweed would roll by.

The stone serpents slid against each other. Their heads rose above my father’s shoulders and they looked at me with crimson eyes. Here he was inside a swan palace, a marvel of delicate beauty, sitting upon a throne of massive stone snakes. My father knew he was a bastard. He was the venomous serpent in a bed of roses. Apparently, he didn’t just acknowledge that fact, he beat people over the head with it. All that was missing was a neon sign that read EVIL AND CONFLICTED ABOUT IT with a flashing arrow pointing at his head.

Hugh d’Ambray stood to the right of the throne and a couple of steps below it. His face looked like he had to be physically restrained from losing his shit and slaughtering everything he saw. His gaze snagged on something over my right shoulder. Landon. A muscle jerked in Hugh’s face. Oh noes, someone didn’t like being upstaged.

Our gazes met. I winked at him. Your turn to be in the cage. It has no bars, but it’s still a cage.

On the other side of the throne, on a small bench, Robert and Christopher sat in identical poses, their spines rigid, their knees together. They stared straight at me with glazed-over eyes. They probably couldn’t even see me.

“It’s stasis,” Landon whispered behind me. “It will wear off with distance and time.”

The vampires and Roland’s court stared at me.

“You can do this, baby,” Curran said quietly, his gaze fixed on Roland. “Go in, get them, kill anything that gets in the way. You are coming out alive. I promise you that.”

I raised my head. My voice rang through the room, too loud. “I’ve come for my people.”

Roland leaned forward slightly and the snakes slid, adjusting themselves to the change in his posture. His voice resonated through the room, deep and saturated with power. “If they are yours, come and claim them.”

Okay. That can be arranged.

I started down the walkway. Two vampires vaulted out of the trenches in front of me, fangs bared. Oh look, it’s a party and everybody is invited. Good. I liked parties.

I unsheathed Sarrat. The blade sang as it sliced through the air. It slid through vampire flesh like a knife through a crisp apple. The first vampiric head rolled off the stump of its neck. I buried my sword inside the second vampire’s heart, ripped it with my blade, and freed Sarrat.

Four vampires leaped onto the walkway. This was a test. He wanted a show of my power. I had no choice about it.

The vampires charged.

Four was too many.

I dropped my magic shield and grasped the four undead minds. The minds of their navigators tried to hold on, but I tore them away from their navigators. The effort hurt, but it was the most efficient way. I grasped the four undead minds and squeezed. Four skulls exploded, spilling the red mist of their blood onto the pale floor. Someone gasped. I kept walking, crushing the undead minds in front of me like peanut shells crunching under my boot. My magic churned and boiled around me. If it had a voice, it would be roaring.

The bloodsuckers leaped at me from the trenches and fell back, broken and twisted. The trenches ran with red. The stench of undead blood saturated the air. I felt the navigators bailing, disconnecting half a second before I reached for their undead.

The last vampire fell onto the floor. I stepped over it and kept walking.

A woman leaped onto the walkway from the trenches. She had a strong, harsh face and dark hair, and wore dark brown leather with a dagger on her waist and a katana in her hands. Hibla.

In my mind I saw Aunt B snarling in pain and Hibla’s sword severing her neck.

Hey, Aunt B, look what I found. I smiled. I couldn’t help myself. There was nothing holding me back and there were so many things we needed to discuss. I had a score to settle and if I lived, I would tell Aunt B’s gravestone all about it. Hell, if I could, I’d bring her Hibla’s head.

Hibla bared her teeth. She was some sort of shapeshifter. She claimed to be a jackal but nothing that came out of her mouth could be believed. Enhanced strength, supernatural speed, and judging by the way she held her sword, a great deal of training.

On my list of people to kill, Hugh occupied spot number two and Hibla took up spot number three. My father wasn’t willing to throw away Hugh, but Hibla was expendable. He wanted a demonstration of what I could do with the sword, and he must’ve known I couldn’t resist this bait. Very well. I would oblige.

Hibla raised her katana.

I charged. She struck from above, and I caught her blade with Sarrat. She pushed, trying to bring my sword down. Shapeshifter strength. How fun. The pressure of Hibla’s katana ground on Sarrat. I dropped my guard, she jerked her sword up to cleave my neck, and I sliced across her chest. My blade came away bloody. The blood soaked into the pale bone-metal. Thin tendrils of smoke rose from Sarrat, which was fed by my rage. My sword was furious and hungry.

Hibla stumbled back, her eyes wide. Hurts, doesn’t it?

She lunged at me, her blade fast like a striking snake. I blocked, letting her sword slide off the flat of mine. She pushed me back across the walkway, each blow hard. I would tire out before she did, but she had no idea how much anger I was carrying inside.

Strike, strike, strike. She lunged at my leading foot with hers. I shifted my balance, knocked her blade aside and smashed the heel of my left palm into her nose. Cartilage crunched. Blood gushed over her lips.

She punched me. No time to dodge. I turned into it, ducking, and took the hit on the shoulder. My left arm went numb. I kicked out at her knee. It crunched. I spun and kicked her in the head. The kick took her off her feet. She rolled back, shook her head, jumped up, and I slid Sarrat between her six and seventh ribs. My saber’s tip scratched Hibla’s heart. Not yet. No, not yet. I pulled the blade back.

She kicked at my stomach. I saw it coming and tensed, and her foot smashed against the shield of muscle. The blow knocked me backward. It felt like someone had slapped my gut with a burning hot iron. I grunted and straightened, and Hibla raised her sword. She was good and fast. But I was better.

“I’ll kill you and bring your head to Hugh,” Hibla ground out.

Not in your wildest dreams. “You’re good, but not my level of good. If you trained all your life, you still wouldn’t be good enough, because I really want to kill you. You murdered Aunt B. She was my friend.”

Hibla attacked. I blocked and sliced across her chest from left to right. She whipped about, thrusting, and I sliced her arm, severing the muscle and tendon. Hibla screamed.

“You didn’t have the decency to face her or to give her a quick death.”

I reversed the blade and stabbed her in the stomach. Hibla gurgled blood.

“She died in agony. I cared for her.”

Her leather armor was in my way, so I cut a piece of it off and tossed it aside.

“This won’t be quick. This will be painful for you. But if you ask me now, I’ll end this fast.”

“I’ll rip your heart out and eat it while you die.” She stabbed at me. Her sword grazed my side.

“Cute.” I drove her back across the walkway, slicing bloody chunks of leather off her. “I want you to understand me.”

I thrust. She moved to block but missed, and I slid the blade of my saber against her inner thigh, cutting through her femoral vein.

Her sword grazed my side and I drove Sarrat’s pommel into her face, gouging her left eye. The eyeball burst and the white of Hibla’s eye slipped onto her cheek. She stumbled and I pulled her dagger out of its sheath on her belt. Oh look, I have two blades now. The better to hurt you with.

“This isn’t vengeance.”

She shuddered and dropped her sword. Flesh spiraled up her bone. She was trying to shift. I lunged forward and sliced across her midsection, one, two, three. Her flesh smoked. Hibla’s top half careened.

“This is punishment.”

They said you couldn’t bleed a shapeshifter to death. They didn’t say anything about cutting her apart.

She lunged at me, a huge hulking monstrosity with her claws out. I ducked between them and slid Slayer through the bottom of her chin up into her deformed muzzle. Talons raked me, but I didn’t care. I plunged Hibla’s dagger into her lower abdomen, jerked it out, and broke free. She roared, baring her teeth. I swung my saber and sank into a smooth easy rhythm. The world narrowed to my blade and my target in front of it. A cut. Hibla’s hand slid off. Another cut. Another piece of flesh. She backed away, and I followed her, relentless, precise, paying her back for Aunt B, who would never see her grandchildren; for Andrea and Raphael, who had to watch her die; for Andrea’s unborn baby, who would never know his or her grandmother; for my fucked-up nightmares . . .

A cut. A cut. A cut.

Do you want to see how cruel I can be? I will show you.

Hibla fell before me, a stump of a creature. She was done.

A man lunged onto the walkway, tall and thin, the magic flowing to him. I had felt that same magic before, just before three silver chains shot out of him and pinned Aunt B to the ground. I dragged Hibla’s dagger against my bleeding side and hurled it at the mage. It bit into his throat. I sparked the magic in my blood and the blade erupted into a dozen sharp spikes, puncturing the mage’s throat from within. His eyes rolled back into his skull. He crashed down.

I looked back at the bleeding piece of meat that used to be Hibla. She couldn’t hurt any more than she hurt already. I swung my sword and watched her head topple off her shoulders. I should’ve just left her there to suffer, but I had things to do.

I could feel Curran watching me from the doorway. I wasn’t alone. He was there with me, like a rock I could lean on. I leaned on that stare and looked up.

The dais was almost in front of me. I wiped Sarrat on my jeans and took a step forward. A wall of red pulsed in front of me. A blood ward. My father had sealed the dais with his blood. If I broke it, no person in this room would have any doubt I was his daughter.

My father’s gaze fixed on me.

It was too late to turn back. I had a sword and he was feet away. My entire life had been spent working up to this moment. I could do this. I was the daughter of Nimrod, the Great Hunter, the Builder of Towers, Hero of His People and Scourge of His Enemies. My father’s kingdom and those like it had brought about the cataclysm that purged magic from the world.

I thrust my bloody hand into the ward. It shuddered like a living thing caught in convulsions and solidified into a translucent wall of red. The people behind me screamed. The wall cracked and shattered into chunks. The pieces of the ward rained down, melting into thin air.

It didn’t hurt. It didn’t hurt at all.

Magic spread from my father. It rose behind him like wings, like a hurricane pulled apart into shreds that could condense into a devastating storm at any second. The barrier of the blood ward had been containing it, but now the ward was broken and I felt every iota of Nimrod’s power. I forgot to breathe.

My grandmother was not completely dead, but she wasn’t alive, not in the true sense of the word. My father was alive. Semiramis’s magic had terrified me to the bone, but against this storm, her power was a mere shadow, a candle caught in the blinding glow of an industrial floodlight. It was the kind of power that could pick up chunks of skyscrapers and fuse them into Mishmar.

If that power turned against me, it would destroy me. He would simply will me out of existence and I would disappear.

So this was what Hugh meant when he said I couldn’t win.

I had no chance. No chance at all. If I lunged at him now and tried to bury Sarrat in his heart, I would simply stop being, as if I had never existed. I felt it with complete certainty, the same certainty I’d feel if I stood on the roof of a high building and looked at the hard pavement below. To jump was to die.

Christopher and Robert would die a second or two after me, Curran would never leave this place, and Atlanta would fall.

“Do it!” Voron screamed at me in my mind. “Do it! Kill him!”

I felt no fear, just an utter calm. Things became really simple. If I tried to kill my real father, everyone else, especially the man I loved, would pay the price. I could feel Curran’s gaze on me. There were people waiting for me to protect them from Roland in Atlanta. I couldn’t throw my life away. It wasn’t completely my own anymore.

I stopped and stood still. It took all of my will.

My father was looking at me and his eyes told me he knew what I was thinking.

“Do it!” the ghost of Voron roared. “This is what you worked for. This is why I trained you!”

Something fluttered inside me and I realized it was hope. I wanted to live. I wanted Curran to survive this. I thought of him. I thought of Julie. Of Derek and Ascanio. Of Andrea and Raphael. Of Jim. I wanted to bring Robert back to Thomas. I wanted Christopher to smile again and tell me he was trying to remember how to fly.

Death is forever. Death is nothing. But to save a life, that’s everything. My mother understood this and now I finally did, too.

Voron had a purpose for me, but it was his purpose, not mine. I loved him, I still mourned his death on his birthday, and I was grateful because he made me what I was. But I was done living for someone else’s purpose. I had to live for mine. I had people to protect. Curran had sacrificed everything to save me from Mishmar. Now I would sacrifice my vengeance to save him from the Swan Palace.

I walked up the dais and put my hand on Robert’s shoulder. “I claim them.”

My father nodded slowly. “Take them.”

The two men rose, their eyes still glassy. I turned and walked back along the gore-splattered walkway. They followed me, two androids on autopilot. At the doorway Curran looked at my father one last time.

“I’ll see you both in Atlanta,” my father said.

Curran smiled, his eyes like two burning moons. “If you want a war, we’ll give you one.”

I passed him and kept walking, out of the room, out of the garden, into the winter, Christopher and Robert following me and Curran guarding our backs. Nobody stopped us.

• • •

I MARCHED ALONG the cobbled road, Robert and Christopher following me. They still wore the warm clothes they had brought to break me out of Mishmar, but I had left my jacket in Landon’s car. The cold was scraping the flesh off my bones.

I had met my father. I had met him and survived.

I’d failed Voron. I should’ve killed Roland, but I had walked away and I’d done it deliberately. I’d betrayed Voron’s memory. And I didn’t care. I lived. We all lived.

I felt free.

“We survived,” I whispered. The words tasted strange. “We survived.”

Curran picked me up and kissed me, his lips burning mine.

“I killed Hibla,” I told him.

“I saw,” he said. “Do you feel better?”

“Yes.”

“We’re going to have a nice dinner with Martina when we get back,” he said. “I think that would be a really good idea.”

Ahead a steady pounding of hooves announced an approaching horse. A cart rolled into view, pulled by a roan horse. Naeemah held the reins. I sped up.

“Get in!” she called.

Shit. “What are you doing here? You shouldn’t have come.”

“I went to get a cart.”

Oh no. I turned back to look at the palace. “She didn’t know she couldn’t come with us.”

Silence reigned.

“She didn’t know.”

No answer. Somehow I didn’t think it would matter.

“Get in,” Naeemah called.

“Climb in,” I told Christopher and Robert. The two men didn’t move.

Curran picked them up and set them into the cart one by one. Naeemah pulled a blanket out and threw it at me. “Here. Come before Roland changes his mind.”

Curran climbed up next to her. I sat in the cart with the two men. They lay stiff like two wooden statues. Naeemah turned the cart and the horse clopped its way down the road, heading out of Jester Park.

“Well?” she asked. “How did it go?”

“I had a shot and I didn’t take it.”

“You chose to live. Smart choice. Life, it should mean something. A death is just a death. If you died there, what would your death mean? Nothing. You would stop nothing. You would change nothing.” She blew on her fingers and waved them at the road. “A bug under a shoe. But you lived. And now they live, too.”

“Damn right,” Curran said.

“I killed Hibla,” I said.

“Did she need killing?”

“Yes.”

“It wasn’t exactly a killing,” Curran said. “It was more like punishment piece by piece.”

Naeemah looked at him. “And you? Did you roar at the wizard?”

“No,” Curran said. “I’ll roar at him if he comes to Atlanta.”

“See, you both did good. You accomplished things and got out alive. Best behavior.”

The laughter finally broke free and I laughed, gulping in the cold air.

• • •

THE MAGIC WAVE receded three hours after we had left the Swan Palace. Twenty minutes later a lone figure dotted the field ahead of us.

“God damn it,” Curran swore.

The dot grew at an alarming rate until it finally became Thomas, running full speed over the snow. He sprinted to us, leaped into the cart, and hugged Robert to him.

“It will wear off,” I told him before he could freak out over Robert’s stasis. “The more distance between us and Roland, the better.”

Thomas turned to me. “Make her go faster, Consort.”

We found the rest of our people waiting where we had left them. We loaded up our gear and headed toward Atlanta.

At some point I climbed into the back of the cart and fell asleep. I dreamed of Christmas and garlands. They wrapped around me in long shiny strands. I kept trying to break free, while Jim was reassuring me that I was a lovely Christmas tree and the Pack was appreciating my efforts on its behalf.

Another magic wave hit closer to the morning. I felt the moment we passed out of Roland’s territory. It was like hitting a speed bump in the road. I lay there with my eyes open and took a deep breath.

He’d let us go.

We weren’t done. He said he would see us in Atlanta. Things would only get worse from here. Not only that, but both Naeemah and Thomas had disobeyed. It was a partial disobedience—Naeemah had left to get the cart before I announced that they had to stay put, and Thomas ran to us after we had left the Swan Palace—but still, there was a price to be paid. I half expected their eyes to melt from their sockets.

“Incoming,” Curran said.

I raised my head. A swirling clump of darkness appeared on the road in front of me. The tightly wound whirlwind of dark twine, snakes, and feathers spun on its end, stretching to seven feet high.

“What the hell now?” Curran growled.

“No clue,” I told him.

The clump broke open and spat a person onto the road. He or she wore pants and a tunic of animal hide with patches of fur sewn onto it at seemingly random places. Pale paint covered the person’s hands and face, with two scarlet vertical lines stretching from the hairline on both sides of his or her nose down to the lips. Three scarlet lines curved from those two, tracing the cheekbones. A pair of longhorn’s horns, painted with bands of red and white, rested on top of the person’s head, positioned so the tips pointed downward.

The person shook a staff at us. “Daughter of Nimrod!”

A man.

“I cast my eye upon you!”

The man threw something to the ground. Red smoke exploded. The wind cleared it, and the man had vanished.

Shaman ninjas. Perfect. Now my life was complete.

Curran looked at me.

“I’ve blown my cover,” I told him. “Now every weirdo with a drop of power will be coming over to investigate.”

“It’s like you had a coming-out party,” Andrea said. “You’ve been presented to polite society, except now everybody wants to kill you.”

“Spare me.”

“Kate Daniels, a debutante.” Andrea grinned.

“It’s not funny.”

“It’s hilarious.” The smile slid off Andrea’s face and she vomited on the snow.

“Karma,” I told her.

“Daughter of Nimrod?” Curran asked quietly.

“Nimr Rad, if you want to get technical about it. He who subdues leopards. The great hunter.”

“Nimrod like in the Bible?” Curran asked. “The one who built the Tower of Babel?”

“It’s an allegory,” I said. “My father and his contemporaries built a civilization of magic. It was great and mighty, like a tall tower. But they made the magic too strong and the Universe compensated by starting the first Shift. Technology began to flood the world in waves, and their civilization crumbled like the tower. The language of power words was lost.”

“How old is your dad, exactly?”

“A little over five thousand years old.”

“Why does he build towers?”

“I don’t know. He has a thing for them, I guess. I think they might help him with the claiming of his territory.”

“The claiming?”

I explained what the witches had told me about the genocide of the Native tribes and the lack of natural protection for the land, and the Witch Oracle’s vision of Roland claiming Atlanta.

Curran stared straight ahead, his expression grim.

“Are we okay?” I asked.

“Yeah. We’re okay,” he said. “I just need some time to process.”

It was one thing to know that you were sleeping with Roland’s daughter. It was a completely different thing to have met Roland. And to have challenged him. “Why the hell did you invite him to start a war?”

“He needed to know. We’re ready and we won’t roll over for him. It had to happen sooner or later. We knew he was coming and we’ve known for a while. If he shows up, we’ll deal with it. We’ve dealt with Hugh and Erra; we’ll deal with him as well.”

An hour later Robert began to cry. He didn’t say anything. He made no noise. He just rode in the cart, tears rolling down his face. Thomas talked to him, saying quiet soothing words. Eventually Robert stopped, and then Christopher began to weep.

Half an hour later Robert cleared his throat. “Tom?”

“Yes?” Thomas bent to him.

“If Roland tries to capture me again . . .”

“He won’t.”

“If he tries, kill me.”

• • •

BY NOON WE reached the ley line point and the two Pack Jeeps they had parked there. Naeemah told me she wouldn’t go any farther.

“Thank you,” I told her.

“I will see you,” she said.

We boarded the Jeeps and steered them into the ley line. The magic current grabbed the vehicles and dragged them southeast. We rode the ley line for hours. I slept. I was so tired. Sometimes I would wake up and hear Jim and Curran discussing war plans or see Christopher asleep next to me with a small smile on his face, or hear Andrea vomit into a paper bag. At some point Jim asked her how she could possibly have anything left to throw up and she threatened to shoot him.

Finally the magic squeezed the Jeep, compacting us inside it, as if some unseen force somehow moved our atoms closer together. The pressure vanished and the ley line spat us out onto solid ground. I opened my eyes. “Where are we?”

“Cumberland.” Curran was looking at something ahead.

Northwest end of the city. We were home.

I raised my head and looked in the direction Curran was looking. Barabas stood on the sidewalk.

“How did he know we were coming?”

“He didn’t,” Curran said.

We got out of the car and Barabas trotted to us. “I’m so glad you’re alive!”

“We’re glad, too,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

“The People notified us that you would be coming in at this ley point. Actually they gave us the exact time you would arrive, which is odd.”

Not odd at all. Apparently my father had us watched.

“The People want to have a Conclave meeting tonight, and they requested the presence of both of you and the Pack Council. They said they want to bury the hatchet. It’s in two hours.”

“Tell them no,” Curran said.

“I tried,” Barabas said. “They said, quote, ‘Sharrim’s presence is requested.’ Does that mean anything to you?”

Curran swore.

“I’ve sent our guys to sweep the location and establish our presence,” Barabas said. “They’re reporting that the People are already in place. The Pack Council is on standby. Do you want me to cancel?”

“If we don’t go, it will make things worse,” I said. “Roland’s giving us the time and place. If we ignore him, he can hit us at the Keep, and the loss of life will be greater.”

Curran put his arm around me. “It’s your call.”

I was as ready as I was going to be for now. Another few days or even a few more weeks wouldn’t make a difference. I would’ve taken a century or two if it was offered, but it wasn’t on the table. “Screw it. I’m tired of waiting. Let’s get it over with.”

Curran looked at Barabas. “Call the Council. The Pack will make a stand.”