“Been better,” she said with a note of weariness in her voice. Her gaze dipped to Jada’s cuff as she moved into the office and joined her near the desk. When she reached for her, Jada stiffened, but Mac only caught a stray curl of her hair and smoothed it behind her ear. Then she said, “I missed you.”
Jada shifted uncomfortably. “Dude. Space. You just saw me last night.”
A slow smile curved Mac’s lips. “I never thought the day would come I’d actually be happy to have you ‘dude’ me. I meant before that. I’m glad you’re back. Glad we’re back. I missed us,” she said simply. Her gaze dropped to the cuff again. “The ZEWs are still out there and so is the Sweeper. The cuff’s what keeps them from being able to track you. Don’t take it off.”
Jada nodded.
“And listen to Barrons. Do what he says. He’s got a plan.”
Jada inclined her head.
“And for heaven’s sake, try talking to Ryodan sometime. Have an actual conversation. I think he’d do anything you wanted, if you just asked him. Nicely. Barrons is the same way. Difficult to manage, yet manageable if you know the right buttons to push.”
“Barrons is right here, Ms. Lane, and Barrons doesn’t have buttons,” Barrons said stiffly, and Lor snickered.
Jada glanced at Barrons, wondering if he’d told Mac what they were planning to do. Or were they supposed to take her by surprise? She discarded that possibility. Barrons would have already given her one of the stones, if that were his intention.
From the way Mac was doling out the big sister advice, she suspected she knew, but said anyway, “You’re on board with this?” as she searched Mac’s gaze.
Green eyes darkened to pools of obsidian. “Not a fucking chance in hell, you stupid cunt.”
And Mac vanished.
AOIBHEAL
Her name was Zara.
His was a symbol too complex for her mind to absorb.
She was one of her race’s revered healers.
He was a god-king, half mad from long solitude.
Tethered to something much vaster than mere rock and soil, acolyte to the great, wise Soul-Thing that pervaded the universes, Zara was connected to all, bound to none.
She was wild and free, a powerful witch of the forests and stars and seas, her every breath filled with joy. Her name was a prayer, uttered by her people in times of need.
She always came: a fevered child to be tended, a wounded animal to mend, a tree damaged by storm. She healed, nurtured, repaired, and, when necessary, helped those whose time it was to become the next thing. Death was but a doorway to another life. She could see the souls of the living, their colors, shapes, and sizes, ailments and strengths. She could feel the soul of the All. Everything fit precisely where it was, had been, and was going.
And if being bound to none was sometimes lonely, on nights when she peeked through windows as her people nestled down and made love, and children and futures, and mating season came for the animals she protected, being connected to the All made it worth the price.
Or so she thought.
Until he came.
Aoibheal shook her head sharply, splintering ice with the motion. It tinkled like shards of broken glass when it crashed to the floor in the king’s black velvet darkness.
“No,” she whispered.
The moment she’d stepped into the mirror, it seemed to absorb her, drawing her into a memory bubble planted deep within its silvery interior, and suddenly she was somewhere else, racing through a misty, triple-canopied forest, laughing, and being chased by a flock of brilliant, winged, inquisitive T’murras, darting through the leaves.
Somewhere she’d known.
Somewhere she’d rued ever leaving.
She’d recognized the place with the fundamental essence of her being. She’d been born there. Fashioned from the elements and minerals and waters of the planet itself.
The king had brought the T’murras to her world, the first gift he’d ever given her.
Had he chosen anything else, she’d not have been so easily disarmed. There’d been no material goods for which she’d hungered. But he’d selected brilliantly winged living creatures, birds with crimson and gold beaks that were wont to echo odd words and phrases, sometimes stringing them together in ways that seemed to almost make sense, and sang an exquisite melody—but only at sunrise and sunset, as if they, like her, saluted the morning and welcomed the night.
Impossible for one such as she to resist.
She’d been touched, beguiled, delighted by his gift. She’d thought he chose them for her because he, too, loved the small things of the world.
“Zara,” she whispered, cracking the ice again.
She glanced around the vast starlit chamber that was twice the size of an ancient Roman Coliseum, its floor scattered with exotically spiced, velvety dark petals. Tiny black diamonds floated on the air, midnight fireflies winking with blue flame. Between towering slabs of black ice that stretched to a starlit night sky, an enormous, velvet-draped bed filled most of the chamber. On the far wall, a blue-black fire sent tendrils licking up to the ceiling where they exploded in a fantastic nebula shimmering with blue vapors.
There was only one other piece of furniture in the room.
A small table upon which perched a translucent beaker, filled with a golden liquid, steaming at the narrow mouth.
Gathering her cloak around her, she crushed spicy petals beneath her feet as she glided toward it, feeling an unshakable sense of deft manipulation that chafed her.
Next to the beaker was a sheaf of thick vellum with three words on it.