Now calm, and staring directly into her eyes, he said in a flat voice, “You are
not
allowed to hit me.”
“Your actions may have triggered the destruction of your world,” she replied. “Which,
incidentally, is also
my
world. I will refrain from hitting you if you will refrain from self-indulgent
pity and defeatism. Now, how do we find the fighting elementals?” she asked.
“Have you heard a word I’ve said?” he asked.
“I’ve heard you say it’s
hard
,” she retorted. “And I gather you would rather give up and trust your fate—as well
as mine, and however many others’—to the winds of chance. Perhaps you have no chivalry
or courage. If that’s the case, tell me what you know, and I will do what I can. I
will not be imprisoned in another house.”
She would not wait this time and let fate choose whether she would live or die. Daryl
was gone, and this witch needed to be saved.
It was up to her.
“Brina,” Jay said hopelessly, “I want to help, but I don’t know what to do. I don’t
even know where to
begin
. People I love are sick. My brother is sick, do you understand that? And I know it’s
my fault, but Rikai has already walked out on me, and I barely know anything about
elementals or the Shantel.”
Giving into instinct, she pulled him close, her holding him this time. His hair was
softer than she had expected. She started to contemplate what colors she would need
to re-create its silky shades and highlights, and then her mind reeled back in.
“I know about the Shantel,” she said. Her stomach grumbled in a most unladylike way,
making her blush and realize that she was hugging this man while wearing nothing but
her shift. “I would appreciate it if you could assist me in dressing. Then we can
share what knowledge we have. That is a good place to begin.”
The witch nodded. She shied back from the light of gratitude in his eyes, and tried
to conceal the uncomfortable moment as she returned to her room and gathered up the
gown she had removed earlier. She pulled it over her head and settled the skirt into
place, by which time the witch had come up behind her.
“This seems pretty tight,” he said as he started to fasten the two dozen mother-of-pearl
buttons that ran down the back of the dress. “Warn me if you have trouble breathing.”
She nodded.
“Though I never met her before she was Pet, I knew
of
the
sakkri
,” Brina said as Jay worked. He was right that the dress was snug, but she seemed
to be able to draw enough air to sustain herself and continue speaking. “The Shantel
did not like visitors, and attempting to trespass on their land was problematic, but
they allowed us to pass through in exchange for certain trade agreements. It was an
acceptable arrangement.”
“Do you know much about how their magic works?” Jay asked.
She chewed her lip and considered. “The heart of their active magic is illusion,”
she said. “If you walk in the Shantel woods, they seem to change around you. Shantel
hunters know exactly where you are, but you never see them until they wish it. No
matter what compass you use, you end up where the magic wants you, whether that means
outside their territory or at the Family Courtyard, which is what they call their
palace.”
“If Shantel magic is so strong,” Jay asked as Brina began to
finger-comb her hair into some semblance of presentable, “how did Midnight get its
hands on the
sakkri
?”
The accusation in his tone was sharp enough to cut, but she raised her gaze, unflinching.
“The same way all shapeshifters came to us. She was sold by her own kind. Humans used
to send their criminals to Australia, or the Americas. Under Midnight, the shapeshifter
nations used us for the same purpose. I do not know what crime a
sakkri
could perform that would merit such a punishment, but I assure you it was her people
who made the choice—not mine.”
Brina couldn’t deny the many atrocities intrinsic to Midnight; they were why she had
rarely gone to the main building unless she had needed to. The trainers were vicious
animals whose only instinct was to destroy, and Mistress Jeshickah herself had the
emotional depth of a jackal. But Midnight was the only game in town, and
everyone
played by its rules.
At least the Shantel elemental had one thing right: Mistress Jeshickah and her trainers
were not the only ones responsible for everything the Shantel had suffered.
N
OW IS PROBABLY
not the time to argue,
Jay thought, biting back a retort. Maybe the Shantel had sold their
sakkri
into Midnight, and maybe they hadn’t. Jay didn’t know for sure.
“They sold her to Daryl?”
Idiot! You weren’t going to discuss it—or
him
!
Brina flinched from her brother’s name but approached the question. “A Shantel witch
is too valuable to go to anyone but Jeshickah’s chosen. If we could find the trainer
who worked with her, he would know more about her magic. He would have studied it
before accepting her.”
He
. Brina said
he
with more distaste and slightly less fear, but she was speaking of the same
he
Pet was terrified of. “Even if one of them was willing to help us, I’m not sure they
could,”
Jay replied. “Rikai said Xeke was violent, with an insatiable need to feed, and he’s
a
good
guy. I don’t want to know what—”
“He’s not human?” Brina broke in. “Like me?” Before Jay could respond, she said, “Then
the trainers aren’t human. Or Jeshickah. It’s just me?” She had barely been able to
manage them when she was a vampire, with Daryl breathing down the neck of anyone who
dared offend her, and Kaleo defending her simply because she was
his
. Now she would have no such protection.
“Lovely world you lived in,” Jay commented, unable to screen out Brina’s anxiety about
those whom she’d once called associates, if not friends.
“It
was
lovely,” she retorted. “There were ugly parts to it, but the same can be said of
any civilization, even today.”
“I don’t think enslaving and torturing helpless humans, shapeshifters, and witches
compares to anything we have today.”
Many times in his life, Jay had been stared at by someone thinking,
Are you really this dense?
This might have been the worst, since it was coming from a woman famous for being
so oblivious that she starved her slaves when she lost track of time.
“You live comfortably in one of the wealthiest nations in the world,” Brina said,
voice clipped. “You live on the bones of your own ancestors, who were eradicated by
the expanding white populations. The food you eat, the clothes you wear, and the toys
you buy are often made across the oceans by nameless, faceless workers living in conditions
you would find intolerable.”
“I try …”
Her glare silenced him.
“For years I was one of the poor, starving on the streets,” she said flatly. “Then
I was offered a chance to be immortal, and a lady. If you have never needed to sell
your body just to get out of the rain for an hour, do not think to judge me—
or my brother
—for what we chose.”
But you … and they … and we don’t …
No words came. Jay liked to think that no matter how bad things got, he would never
turn into the kind of vicious creature Daryl had been. But he couldn’t say for sure
that he would have made a choice different from Brina’s, which had been to take the
good and ignore the rest.
He said the only honest thing he could think to say. “I am sorry you had to go through
such hardship.”
Unfortunately, he knew instantly that Brina had taken his words as more of the same
mocking she had often received in her life. She bristled, and snapped, “The Shantel
elemental may be justified in killing us all, but I for one intend to put my survival
first, regardless. Are we in accord on that point?”
“I don’t agree that she is justified in killing
my
family,” Jay answered. “But I do agree that we need to stop her. The best idea I
have is to talk to a parabiologist here at SingleEarth,” he added, thinking of the
video he had seen at Xeke’s apartment. “She talked about elementals fighting back
when the serpiente were made. If she’s not sick, she might be able to help us.”
Jay quashed a twinge of guilt as he refused Brina’s request to come with him to the
library, where a brief search of the archaeology and anthology sections revealed the
name of the researcher Jay had recalled. He returned to Brina’s quarantine room as
soon as he had tracked down the woman’s phone number, and then he put the conversation
on speaker-phone.
They quickly discovered that archaeologist Paula Epsilon was human, and had been sequestered
in her office, unaware of any problems at SingleEarth, while she revised her next
paper. Jay and Brina huddled around the phone as they both described the events of
recent days in halting phrases.
“My god,” Paula whispered for perhaps the hundredth time as Jay wrapped up.
“So, we need advice on handling an elemental,” Jay said. “Do you know anything?”
“My god.” Jay and Brina exchanged a frustrated glance as the human went silent for
several seconds. “I mean, I wrote my dissertation on elementals and their influence
on history,” Paula said, “so I
know
plenty, but academic knowledge isn’t going to help you much. You need a sorcerer,
at the least, to have any chance of controlling an elemental.”
“Great!” Jay said, latching on to the suggestion. “Do you know any?”
“A few. They tend to be pretty cranky,” Paula said. “What I don’t understand is how
this other elemental can possibly be strong enough to even spit at Leona. I mean,
when people say humanity discovered fire, they mean we discovered Leona. The
Epsilon theory states that Leona is directly responsible for the sudden shift in our
evolutionary development, for our starting to use tools and—”
“And yet the Shantel elemental is challenging her,” Jay interrupted, thinking,
She named a theory after herself. That’s special
.
“The Shantel elemental is an earth elemental,” Paula said, “and your friend said the
Shantel protected a certain area of land, right? She is probably still bound to that
land. You might find answers there.”
“If we can get a sorcerer to help us, can you find Shantel territory?” Jay asked Brina.
“I think so.” Turning back to the phone, Brina asked, “Do you know why she made me
human?” Jay had heard the desperate question in Brina’s mind since the start of the
conversation. “Why would she protect me?”
“She didn’t protect you. Humans are mortal,” Paula answered. “Elementals
aren’t
. A mortal life span is nothing to a creature who will exist as long as time itself.
Given the vindictive nature of this particular elemental, I might theorize that she
didn’t kill you outright because she wanted you to see what she would do.”
I will give you time
, the elemental had said.
Time to watch everyone else die?
Before getting off the phone, Paula gave them contact information for a handful of
sorcerers she knew, but it didn’t make a difference; none of them was willing or able
to come to the phone. Jay had just hung up from a short and frustrating
conversation with some assistant named Cooper, when Jeremy knocked on the door.
“He’s okay,” Jay said to Brina, before he had even finished processing her thoughts
to Jeremy, which was intense, to say the least.
“I’m sorry about before,” Jeremy said, “but I didn’t know what kind of danger you
could be in, or could put other people in. You don’t seem to have any symptoms, but
as a precaution I’ve prescribed you a course of antibiotics. You got the first dose
intravenously while you were out. I would like you to stay in isolation at least another
day, though.”
“You
attacked
and
drugged
me.”
“I wasn’t thinking clearly enough to be tactful,” Jeremy said. “I was scared.”
I’m still scared
. “How are you feeling?”
“We’re both fine,” Jay said, cutting off another angry reply from Brina. He knew why
she was so scared. He had her memories of being under medieval quarantine, locked
in a house to die. He also knew Jeremy probably hadn’t had any choice. “How is Caryn?”
“Stable,” Jeremy answered. “What you did helped a lot. How are
you
feeling?”
It would be an overstatement to say Jay was feeling
well
, after everything that had happened, but he wasn’t sick. “I … think I may be immune.”
The Shantel elemental might have made Brina mortal as punishment, but it had seemed
sincere in its offer to protect Jay.
“Then we need you out here,” Jeremy said bluntly. “We’re doing all we can with human
medicine, and we’re transferring
the more advanced cases to hospitals outside SingleEarth as fast as we can, but we
could use a witch.”
“He isn’t available,” Brina barked.
“With all due respect, my
lady
,” Jeremy said, as his last thread of patience snapped, “some of us have responsibilities
beyond catering to you. The kitchen staff is preparing a meal for you, but that’s
as much time as we can devote to the apparently healthy right now.”
Jay watched them without comment. What could he say? Jeremy was right. Brina was also
right. Jay was one of the only people with a prayer of fixing what he had done … but
all
he had was a prayer, and a list of sorcerers who refused to come to the phone. Would
he be more useful helping the sick?
“We left messages for everyone Paula suggested,” Jay said to Brina. “Maybe someone
will call us back. In the meantime, I should try to do some good here.”
“Don’t exhaust yourself, witch,” Brina cautioned him. “You are too valuable to waste.”
“I’m not comfortable with your concept of ‘value,’ ” he replied, his mind on Midnight.
He tossed his phone to Brina, who let it fall to the bed. “If any of our sorcerer
friends call back, you can come get me. If we don’t hear from anyone in, let’s say
an hour, we’ll try something different.”