Deirdre smiled. The Savanna Walker might be a half-completed dragon, but he wasn't much of a talker. As the demon's avatar, Deirdre could vaguely sense Typhon's emotions; his suspicion was rapidly growing. As well it should; the Walker had demonstrated his greedy and larcenous nature in the past. More important, Typhon had found the anklet in the stomach of one of the Walker's consumed devotees. The demon could not conceive that Deirdre had planted it there ⦠and, in fact, she never could have done so without Francesca's help.
Just then she sensed the demon's anger flare. The Walker couldn't explain the anklet. Chances were good that Typhon was now threatening the beast.
At last, Typhon finished speaking to the Walker. He turned and strode past Deirdre before pausing. “I will deal with him later. He has much more to explain. But now, follow me, daughter. We shall peer into your mind to see if your intentions are what you claim. If you prove yourself to be a true servant of the Disjunction, I shall have Canonist Cala teach you of the Silent Blight.”
Deirdre bowed and murmured her thanks.
“Nevertheless, I want Francesca brought back immediately. Organize our best agents and find her. I'm not ready to wound Nicodemus.”
“Yes, Typhon,” she said.
He nodded. “Let's go.” The demon started to walk away.
Deirdre bowed again. Now began the most dangerous part of her scheme. She glanced back at the cube of blindness. The beast was standing near the balcony.
Until now, the Walker had ignored her. Their only interactions had been when Typhon had sent the half dragon out to repossess her after she had died. But now the creature knew she was his mortal enemy.
His first attacks would be directed at her person. That would be dangerous,
certainly, but later the beast would strike against Nicodemus or, worse, Francesca.
Deirdre needed to act to reduce the beast's power now. Usually, she could do nothing to harm or even hinder the half dragon when possessed by Typhon's soul. But presently the demon was infuriated; it gave her a certain freedom to enact his desire for punishment.
She took a few steps after Typhon and then turned and charged the Savanna Walker. The blindness rushed to meet her.
In a few steps, she moved into the cube of blindness. She'd also gone deaf. Even though she could no longer tell where her limbs were in space, she tried to throw her arms in front of her. A jolt of pain suggested that she'd struck something. She couldn't feel what; her skin had become numb, but she was aware that her forward motion had stopped. Blindly, numbly, she tried to wrap her arms around her foe. She moved her arms so as to lift ⦠and â¦
A sudden blast of sound struck her ears: Typhon bellowing for her to stop. A flicker of vision. She was holding a massive object above her head. A long gray something hung before her. It looked like an impossibly long arm consisting of twenty or thirty elbow joints. Beyond stood the balcony railing and the sloping red tiles of the sanctuary's dome. Blindness enveloped Deirdre again.
She bent forward and with all her strength threw the beast forward.
In the next instant, she was panting with the exertion. Sensation returned in a dizzying rush. Something hard and powerful wrapped around her right arm and hoisted her into the air as if she were a child.
It was Typhon grabbing her; she had no doubt about it. But she cried out victoriously as the cube of blindness went tumbling down the dome to a long, sheer fall.
Something forced her to look at the demon's face, now a white mask of anger. “You can no longer resist the Disjunction,” he hissed. “Those who oppose us become us.”
Deirdre felt as if ice chips were forming in her blood. Some part of her knewâthough she did not understand how or whyâthat the demon spoke the truth.
Â
STANDING GUARD AT the alley's entrance, Nicodemus saw the Savanna Walker fall down the dome, the impossible body tumbling over itself, nightmarish limbs flailing.
“What is it, Nico?” Shannon asked from deeper in the alley. The old man and Nicodemus's disguised students were crouching in the mud of a
Water District alleyway. They had been shambling from one dilapidated neighborhood to the next, hoping to avoid notice.
Nicodemus jogged back into the alley toward Shannon. Behind the old man, the kobolds were spread out, more comfortable in the shade of the alleyway. Vein and Flint were talking quietly, while the other three played a dice game. The sight made Nicodemus's heart ache. Nearly ten years ago, he had led fifteen kobolds out of the Pinnacle Mountains to hunt Typhon. All but these five had been killed by lycanthropes or demon worshipers.
Nicodemus spoke to Shannon. “The Walker just fell from the canonist's quarters.”
“A clash between Cala and the beast?” the old man asked.
“Possibly, or the demon is disciplining the Walker. Either way, things are looking worse. We should get out of the daylight.”
The old man adjusted his gray robes. “I could have told you that. But where? Under the Sliding Docks?”
Nicodemus shook his head. “Reservoir's full.”
“Merchant Dal?”
“Not after what happened to the warehouse last time.”
“Old Fatima's gang then?”
“She still is offering a price on my life.”
Shannon snorted. “My boy, what did you say that night in her bedroom?”
Nicodemus grimaced. “What about Guy Fire's crew?”
“Remember what Vein did to his brother's left hand?”
“It wasn't Vein's fault. He should have had more sense than to suddenly grab a kobold. And Guy doesn't even like his brother.”
Shannon sighed. “Still, won't work. So that leaves the boys at the abandoned gatehouse.”
Nicodemus looked at the dome. “They might be our only option.” He paused. “What about hiding in the burn?”
“Who's running that territory now?”
Nicodemus looked back. “The old dog still.”
Shannon scowled. “I'd rather chew glass.”
“Magister, the old dog is not that obnoxious.”
Shannon only narrowed his blind eyes.
“All right,” Nicodemus said with a sigh, “maybe he is.”
Francesca opened her eyes as something hard dug into her armpits.
A confused moment passed before she remembered her attempt to disspell Cyrus and his counterattack with the cloth of the landing-bay wall. She must have fainted after he censored her mind. She stood up straighter and the pain left her armpits. Her robes, still iron stiff with hierophantic spells, had kept her from falling to the floor.
Cyrus was standing in front of her, calmly arranging his robes.
“Perhaps this is simply a misunderstanding,” he said in a controlled tone. “We both want the same thing. I've sworn to Celeste to serve Avel. As a healer, you also want to serve its citizens. But it's my duty to report any threat. When we talk to the tower warden and the marshal, you'll see they're trustworthy. In the meantime, I will keep you censored.”
A sudden memory made Francesca look down at her leg. She could not see the ball of decaying signal texts she'd cast earlier.
Cyrus spoke. “Trying to spellwrite will only make you dizzy.”
Francesca's cheeks flushed hot. She berated herself for not realizing the landing bay's cloth walls were textualized. “Cyrus, you're making a mistake,” she said as evenly as she could. “This is dangerous. You must uncensor me.”
He stopped straightening his robes and looked at her. “No, Francesca, I won't.” He lowered his veil, and began to unwind his turban.
She'd watched this ritual many times before. It made them both quiet. His thick black hair was shorter than she remembered but still cascaded down about his head in loose curls. His complexion was light brown, his nose aquiline. His strong jaw was made more prominent by a trimmed, jetblack beard. “I don't know you anymore,” he said. “I can't trust you like I once did. There's too much at stake.”
“You mean, you still haven't forgiven me.”
“Perhaps not. But that's not what this is about.”
“Isn't it?”
He frowned. “You think I'm being irrational?”
“You have too much faith in your order. The Avel hierophants might have been corrupted.”
“By a demon who crossed the ocean? Francesca, that's madness.” He stepped closer. “You can't trust this Deirdre woman.”
Francesca tried to touch her own face but found her arm still trapped in her stiff robes. “Cyrus, she died on my table and then came back to life. She's not a woman; she's an immortal avatar. Something horrible is happening in Avel, so we have to be smart.”
“And I'm not being smart?”
“You're being a loyal soldier.” A shadow passed above them as a lofting kite alighted in a different landing bay.
He crossed his arms. “And that's still what hierophants are to you? Loyal, unthinking Spirish soldiers? Not authors like the exalted wizards?”
“You take duty and hierarchy too far.”
He threw his hands up. “How do you do it, Fran? I catch you when you fall out of a kite. I fly you away from some blasted aphasia curse. I even bind and censor you, and you still manage to patronize me. Don't you see that for once you're not in control?”
He was beginning to breathe faster. Francesca felt a grim satisfaction. The more she could upset him, the better.
She shook her head and felt her stiff collar rub against her neck. “I don't mean to patronize you, Cyrus. You're right, I can't trust Deirdre. But I can't trust the tower warden or the air marshal either. I can't trust anyone.”
His hands clenched. “I am sorry, Francesca, but just this once you have to trust me.”
“No, I don't. You're going to release me.”
“You're censored. You can't order me around.”
She kept her voice calm. “I can. You just don't know what's best now.” “Holy bloody canon! That's it! I'm done talking to you,” he snapped and then grimaced and touched his chest. “You're impossible.” He grimaced again, and then shook his left hand. Tiny beads of sweat glistened on his forehead.
“Cyrus, it's started. You're in danger,” Francesca said earnestly. “You must listen toâ”
“Damn it, I'm not going to waste my time!” He turned and marched toward the wall flap. “I'll be back in ⦔ After a few steps, he brought his hand to his chest and gasped.
“You feel a crushing pain just under your sternum,” Francesca announced.
“It's moving to your left arm, maybe your left jaw as well.”
He looked back at her, his face twisted with pain.
“Your heart's racing. You're sweating. Maybe you even taste something metallic.”
He swallowed. “When did you do it? When you were searching my body for the curse?”
She nodded.
“You put a spell in my brain?”
“Your heart.”
He grimaced. “What's it doing?”
“With every beat, your heart pumps blood into the aorta and so to the rest of your body. There are two small arteries at the aorta's base that run back down and supply your heart with blood, the coronary arteries. There's a short Magnus sentence wrapped around your left coronary. It's contracting, depriving your heart of blood. Your ability to spellwrite is decreasing.”
“Burning heaven! How could youâ” His words cut short as he gasped. “You're a physician. You swore neverâ”
“Never to harm a patient,” she said evenly. “You, Cyrus, are not my patient. Presently you're my captor who is threatening to disclose information that may endanger all of Avel. My physician's oath compels me to stop you however I can. Now, stay calm. Slow your pulse and stop spellwriting; your heart will need less blood. The pain will decrease.”
He took a slow breath. “What if I order another hierophant to disspell it?”
She sniffed. “It had better be done perfectly. You've sharp words next to your heart. If one should go astray ⦔
He closed his eyes and then shook his head. He spoke in a low rasp. “Celeste and every demigod in her canon damn you to the burning hells, Francesca.”
“I couldn't trustâ”
“You always had to win,” he whispered and clamped his eyes shut. “You haven't changed a bit.”
Guilt moved through Francesca. “Cyrus ⦠I'm sorry.”
“Like hell you are.” He clutched his chest again. “Right, Fran, you win. You win again. How'd you know to make the spell contract now?”
She kept her voice even. “I had been casting signaling texts. Every few moments, one would hit the spell in your heart, instructing it not to construct. But since you censored me ⦔
He let out a tremulous breath and laughed humorlessly. “A fail-safe. You wrote a fail-safe.”
She nodded. “More like a fail-deadly. It's a spell we clerics use in extreme circumstances. Sometimes, we're approached by bandits or rogue spellwrights. They want us to treat their wounded. So we cast the death
sentence on the leader's coronary artery before we proceed. If any of the rogues censor or kill us, their leader dies.”
“You call this spell a death sentence?”
“Uncensor me and I'll loosen yours.”
He walked over and touched the stole tied around her temples. The red silk fell to her shoulders. Her robes were again merely slack fabric. A chill ran through Francesca's head as she was restored to magic. After shivering, she flicked a wave of signal spells into Cyrus's chest. One struck the sentence constricting his coronary artery, and it relaxed.
“Did it work?” Cyrus asked.
She nodded. “So long as I'm near you and uncensored, you won't have a problem.”
He pressed a hand to his forehead and looked exhausted. “And if I tell the tower warden about Deirdre?”
“You won't.”
He looked at her. “How in all the hells is this supposed to work, Fran? You're going to hold my spellbound heart hostage, kill me if I do something you don't like?”
She straightened her stole. “You've sworn to protect Avel. I've sworn to care for her people. We both need to discover what is threatening the city. But we have to be subtle about it. I was hoping I wouldn't have to coerce you, that I could make you see reason. But you fought me all the way. So now the sentence stays around your coronary, and I will be making the decisions.”
Cyrus rubbed his temples. “Death sentence,” he muttered and then laughed. He turned to look her in the eyes. “I don't know what hurts more: your getting the better of me, your strangling my heart, or your damned stupid pun.”