“We’ll have to tell the Conclave,” I said.
Curran grimaced. “Yes. They won’t like it. They would accept a fire mage, but a dragon isn’t something they can cope with.”
I knew it. Luther had explained it to me once. We lived in an age of chaos, never knowing if magic or tech would have the upper hand or what they would throw at us. The human mind wasn’t built to cope with constant uncertainty. Instead, it sought to find order and consistency, some pattern, some sort of logical equation where a certain consequence always followed a specific event. Water evaporated when heated to a boiling point. The sun rose in the east and set in the west. All magic waves eventually ebbed. We managed to distill rules out of chaos. These core beliefs kept us sane and we protected them at all costs, otherwise the house of logic built on these foundations fell apart and we tumbled into madness.
“An elder being can’t manifest unless there is a flare” was a core belief. A dragon was an overwhelming being, a creature of so much power and devastation that nothing in our arsenal could match it. It was like the idea of being hit by a meteorite. Theoretically, we were aware that a burning space rock could fall out of the sky at any moment and kill us, but we refused to dwell on this possibility. The idea that a dragon could manifest at any time and attack the city and there was no defense against it was so frightening that our brains stepped on the brake, rejecting the possibility. And this dragon wasn’t just manifesting. He was smart and cunning. He had an army and wanted to invade. We would need ironclad evidence to pull the Conclave’s collective heads out of the sand.
“I know the Conclave won’t believe us,” I said. “We’ll have to convince them.”
“It will take the entire city.” He stroked my arm. “We only have one chance to build this coalition. If we go with a fire mage, and Neig manifests as a dragon, it will come out that we knew and deliberately kept it hidden.”
“Then the alliance will fall apart.”
He nodded. “And when your father comes, there will be nobody to fight him.”
A Jeep drove away. The blond driver took the turn fast. Julie.
“Where is she going?” I wondered.
“Who knows.”
As we walked back to the scar, I turned to him. “You should give up and let your mane grow out.”
“Mm-hm. And then we can stay up late, and you can braid it, and put ribbons in it . . .”
“Don’t you want to show off your pretty hair, Goldilocks?”
“I’ll show you hair.”
I raised my eyebrow. “Is that supposed to be some kind of threat?”
“Wait and you’ll find out.”
CHAPTER
14
I HUNG UP the phone and gave it an evil stare. It didn’t squeak and flee to hide under the kitchen table. A pity.
The light of the morning shone through the windows. The last half of my morning coffee was slowly cooling in my favorite mug. The house was quiet.
Last night we’d gotten in, collected our son from Martha, did the bare minimum necessary to maintain personal hygiene, and passed out, all three of us in our huge bed. I’d had a nightmare that tech hit during the night and ripped Curran apart. I’d woken up in a cold sweat. It took several minutes of Curran holding me for my body to let go of the panicked feeling.
Once we got up, George came and collected Conlan and we split up. Curran went to George’s to make Conclave phone calls, and I made mine from our house. I hadn’t wanted him to leave. The magic had held through the night. The tech could hit at any minute, yet he acted like nothing was wrong. Nobody knew how much of him was human and how much was god at this point, and my aunt was still out of touch. But spending the entire day clutching at my husband to make sure he didn’t disappear wasn’t an option. We had to pull the Conclave together, and getting all of the Atlanta bigwigs into one spot was like pulling teeth, only a lot less fun.
The phone rang.
“This is Amy from Sunshine Realty . . .”
“Take me off your calling list, or I will find you and make you regret it.” I hung up. Great. I’d graduated to threats now. What kind of sadistic asshole calls the same number twenty damn times in the space of a week pestering strangers to sell their house?
I drank my coffee. This was the first moment I had gotten to myself in days. I remembered I had a great deal of things to sort out, but hadn’t gotten the chance to do it while they were happening, and now I just couldn’t muster any energy.
Curran was now a theophage, like Christopher, only far more gone. He had eaten six manifestations of various animal gods. Only time would tell if he survived the tech shift. Thinking about it was like having your neck exposed and waiting for the axe to fall.
Julie disappeared after Rowena’s rescue. I’d called around to Derek and the Guild, and the last time anyone had seen her, she was driving away from Kings Row at top speed. She would be back. If she went somewhere, she usually had a good reason for it.
A dragon was about to invade the city. A dragon whose brother had slaughtered most of my family. When I finally told Erra, she would go through the roof. She must’ve suspected a dragon was involved, but I doubt she’d guessed he and our ancient enemy were related. That conversation would go well, I just knew it.
We had to convince the city that a dragon was invading without any evidence.
And my father was still going on the offensive.
I felt like there wasn’t enough of me to go around.
At least Rowena was still alive. I’d done something right.
Someone knocked on the door. I walked over and opened it.
Saiman stood on my doorstep, carrying a large Tiffany-style lamp, the kind that would fit on a side table, in one hand and a duffel bag in the other.
“Did you abandon your life of wealth and intellectual brilliance and decide to sell lamps door to door?”
“Hilarious,” he said. “I may have a way to communicate with the Suanni.”
I stepped aside, let him in, and locked the door behind him.
“Is this more from the David Miller collection?” I asked.
David Miller was a magical version of an idiot savant. A cruel jest of nature or fate, he couldn’t use magic at all, but every object he’d handled during his lifetime had acquired some sort of random power. Saiman had spent a fortune acquiring Miller’s possessions after the man’s death.
“No,” Saiman said. “Where is he?”
“In the basement. Let me go first.”
I led the way. Adora glanced up from her book, gave Saiman a derisive look, and went back to her reading.
Saiman set the lamp on the side table by Yu Fong and paused, studying him.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Quite a remarkable face,” Saiman said.
Somewhere in my future, if I had one, Saiman would show up wearing Yu Fong’s face. Ugh.
Saiman knelt, unzipped the duffel, and extracted a roll of fabric, wrapped in plastic. He untied the knot and hauled out a small rug, which he placed on the floor. The old rug must’ve been vibrant at some point, but now the blues and reds of the blooms twisting across it had faded to near beige. Saiman took a tealight candle from the duffel and put it on the table, next to the lamp. Finally, he produced a small box.
“Hold out your hand.”
I offered my palm to him. He opened the box and shook a radiant amethyst into my hand. As big as a walnut, the stone pulsed with brilliant color.
“Don’t let go, or you’ll break the spell.” Saiman pulled a box of matches out. “This lamp came from Cunningham Hospital, a facility in New England that specialized in the treatment of coma patients. Countless people sat by its light and wished with every drop of their being for just one more chance to speak to their loved ones.”
All of that energy, all the love, grief, and sadness poured into the light of one lamp. So much desperation wrapped in it.
“Will it hurt him?” I asked.
“The lamp won’t wake him from the coma. But if everything goes well, we can communicate with him. The tea light will burn at an accelerated rate. We’ll have about five minutes. Ready?”
“Ready.”
Saiman lit the candle. The lamp came on with a click. The cord was right there, wrapped around it. It wasn’t plugged in, yet it glowed with a familiar electric light.