“The future is a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
They looked at me.
“We worked so hard not to provoke him and it doesn’t matter in the end,” I said. “The battle will happen. We can’t stop it.”
Curran looked at Robert. “Tell him that after he goes through with it, Roland will retaliate in force. Tell Jim he knows where we live. We’ll be here.”
“Tell him that he is endangering every person in the city limits,” I said.
“Hypothetically speaking,” Robert said, “if the attack happens, and Roland retaliates, what will you do about it?”
“She is a princess of Shinar.” My aunt burst into existence in the middle of the kitchen. “It is by the grace of her mercy you are still breathing.”
Robert stumbled back. Raphael’s hands went to his knives. Andrea bared her teeth, cradling Baby B. You could hear a pin drop.
“I have family in town for the wedding,” I said into the silence. “My aunt, Eahrratim, the Rose of Tigris.”
Curran covered his face with his hand.
“Your pathetic castle is in her domain,” Erra said. “She can level it with a thought. If your Beast Lord picks a fight with my brother, how will you survive without her to shield you?”
“We’ll fight,” Robert said, his body tense, ready to leap and tear.
“And when fire rains from the sky and the earth opens to swallow you, who will you fight then? How much damage will your claws do to a flood? Tell that to your king, half-breed.”
My aunt vanished.
Andrea pivoted to me, her mouth open, and shook her finger at the spot where Erra had stood.
“Long story,” I told her.
“Tell Jim that after he has his fun, we’ll be here,” Curran said to Robert. “Tell him that help is here. All he needs to do is ask.”
CHAPTER
13
THERE WERE CARS in the parking lot of Cutting Edge.
“We’re agreed?” I asked.
“Fine,” my aunt said into my ear.
“Please do not manifest. Please.”
“I’m not hard of hearing.”
“It scares people,” Curran said. “And we want to keep the element of surprise. If Roland finds out that you’re here, helping Kate, we’ll lose it.”
“He won’t find out unless your people talk,” Erra said. “He can’t feel me unless I want him to. That’s one of the privileges of being dead—and if the two of you don’t shut up, I will let you experience it for yourselves.”
I bumped my forehead against the dashboard.
“I’ll park,” Curran said.
I checked that her dagger was securely in the sheath, exited the car, and walked through the door into the office. All of our desks had been moved aside and put by the wall. Ascanio sat on my desk. He’d called me from Cutting Edge before I left the house asking me if he should let Saiman in. I told him to do it.
A large young woman with a mane of dark curly hair pulled back from her face sat on a chair. She turned when I walked in. Her lips were blue and the traditional ta moko covered her chin. Maori. It didn’t look smooth either. Someone had used a uni chisel instead of modern tattoo needles.
In the center of the now-empty office, a small raised platform stood. Several full-length mirrors waited stacked against the far wall. Saiman turned as I walked in. I had expected him to be back in his neutral shape. He wasn’t. He was six feet tall, gaunt, and frail, leaning on a cane, and the black bodysuit he wore showed off every rib. His face was still that of a frost giant. He’d humanized it enough for people not to stare at him on the streets and that was it. His sunken cheeks made the cheekbones in his face even more prominent. Eyes made of winter ice looked at me from under shaggy eyebrows. Two small night tables and a large wooden chest stood on the floor by him.
“Have you eaten?” I asked.
“Yes. I need you to strip and stand on the platform.”
Everybody wanted to take my clothes off today. I pulled off my boots and began to strip.
Curran decided this was a good time to walk in. He looked at me, looked at Saiman, and parked himself by the wall with his arms crossed.
I stripped to my underwear and a sports bra and climbed onto the platform.
“Zoe, if you please.”
The Maori woman picked up a large drawing pad and walked over.
“This is Zoe. She is able to see an image for an instant and perfectly reproduce it. Given the impact seeing the writing had on me, we have to take certain precautions.”
Saiman nodded and Zoe went to stand behind me.
Saiman waved at Ascanio. The bouda jumped off the table and came over.
“Take a mirror and set it so Zoe can see her reflection.”
Ascanio picked up one of the mirrors and set it in front of me.
“A little more to the left,” Zoe said.
He moved the mirror and kicked the stand with his foot, opening it. I saw my reflection in the mirror. The bruises were fading.
“And the mirror is supposed to help?”
“Yes. The writing loses potency with reflection.”
“How do you know this?”
“Because when I looked directly at you in the Mercenary Guild as you were absorbing a power word, my head wanted to explode. When I looked away and accidentally caught your reflection in the glass, it hurt significantly less.”
Saiman took one of the night tables, walked to the right front corner of the platform, and walked exactly six steps diagonally. “Do you remember David Miller?”
“Yes.” David Miller was a magical idiot savant. Nobody ever managed to teach him how to use his enormous reserve of magic, but after he died it was discovered that the objects he had handled gained strange powers. His descendants had sold them off to different buyers, deliberately trying to scatter them, but Saiman collected all of them over the years. He’d used Miller’s bowling ball to produce a vision of my aunt when we were trying to identify her as she rampaged through Atlanta.
Saiman took one step to the right and placed the night table. He came back, picked up the second night table, walked back to the first night table exactly the same way, turned, and walked to the left for eight steps.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to measure?” Curran asked.
“Measuring doesn’t work,” Saiman said.
“Why?” Curran asked.
“Nobody knows. Counting the steps is a part of the ritual.”
Saiman opened the wooden trunk and took out a pink vase with three fake pink roses in it. He walked directly to the first night table and set the vase on it. A lava lamp with pink and blue wax was the next to come out of the trunk. He set it on the second table. The third item was a bright pink fake fur rug. Saiman carefully placed it in front of the platform and turned to me.
“You’re standing on a stage Dave Miller built for his daughter when she was a child.” Saiman reached into the trunk and pulled out a pink tulle tutu.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“It won’t fit.”
“Elastic waistband,” Saiman said. “It will fit.”
Curran’s grin was pure evil.
“Don’t you dare,” I told him.
“It’s too bad the magic is up,” he said. “I’d take pictures.”
“Shut up.”
“Have no fear, Alpha,” Ascanio said. “We’ll tell no one.”
Kill me, somebody.
Saiman held out the tulle skirt to me.
“Maybe it will work without it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“If I put this on, it will be ridiculous.”
Saiman waved the pink tutu in front of me. Fine. I snatched it out of his hands and pulled it on over my hips.
Ascanio collapsed into a moaning hea
p of laughter.
“Now what?”
“Move around onstage. It would help if you danced.”
Curran was dying. That was the only rational explanation for the noises coming from his direction.
“You’re doing this on purpose,” I told Saiman.
“Yes. The purpose being to read the writing on your skin without killing the people who are looking at it. Which reminds me. Ascanio, once she is done dancing, do not look directly at her. It will be very bad for your health and I have no desire to deal with upset Pack parents.”
“Yes,” I said. “You should both avert your eyes.”
“I believe your fiancé will be fine,” Saiman said, walking over to the table with the vase. “Dance, Kate.”
I stomped around onstage. Saiman was looking at the lava lamp.
“Not enough.”
“How do you know?”
“The lamp would glow. We need more. You have to commit and put in the effort, like the child that was originally dancing on the stage. Try to be graceful this time. You’re a swordsman. Surely you can scrounge up some elegance.”
Screw it. “Throw me my socks.”
Curran balled my socks together and tossed them at me. I pulled them on, raised my hands, and slipped into the classical fourth position. I took a deep breath, fixed my gaze on the narrow window directly in front of me, and launched into a double pirouette to pick up momentum. One, two, fouette turn, another, another, another, pirouette, pirouette, what the hell, let’s go for eight, fouette, fouette, seven, eight, pirouette, fourth position, arms open.
Botched that last pirouette a bit. It had been a while.
Saiman and Curran stared at me.
“Do you need a shovel to help you pick up your jaws off the floor?”
Saiman woke up, grabbed the roses from the vase, and threw them at me. A spotlight drenched me, out of nowhere. Behind me Zoe screamed. The spotlight vanished.
I turned around. The Maori woman collapsed in a heap, her hands over her eyes. Saiman hurried over to Zoe, leaning on his cane.
“Ballet?” Curran asked.
“There are so many things about me you don’t know.”
Voron was Russian. He tortured me with ballet for three years, until I turned ten years old.
“Is it safe to look?” Ascanio asked.
“Yes.”
“We need more mirrors,” Saiman called out. “The impact of the words is too strong. The mirror-to-mirror reflection should dull it.”
It took seven mirrors. After Zoe successfully managed to reproduce the first drawing, Saiman brought it to me. It was the language of power, alright, but I couldn’t read it. I got a few isolated words, but most of it didn’t look like the words I already knew.
We kept going and by the end of the hour my head hurt from spinning and my legs hurt from jumping. Ballet wasn’t for the untrained and it had been a long time since I’d had to do it. I was amazed I still remembered how. Voron had said it would help with strength and balance. I mostly hated it.
“I have to take a break,” I told Saiman.
“We’re only halfway done.”
As if on cue, someone knocked.
“See? Serendipity.”
“You mean coincidence.”
Ascanio opened the door and Roman walked in. He saw me onstage and blinked. “Ehh . . .”
“Don’t,” I warned him.
He raised his hands. “I do not judge.”
Curran tossed me my clothes. I slipped the shirt over my head, pulled on my jeans, and took off the stupid tutu.
A black woman with a head full of bright poppy-red curls followed Roman, pulling behind her a small metal cart full of plates. Roman picked up one of the plates and a spoon, carved a small piece of the cake on it, and held the spoon out to me.
“What is this?”
“Cake.”
“Why do I need cake right this second?”
“This is Mary Louise Garcia,” Roman said. “She is the head baker for Clan Heavy’s Honey Buns bakery.”
Mary smiled at me and waved her fingers.
“Mary very kindly agreed to bring over samples so you could select a wedding cake.”
“I did.” Mary nodded.
“Mary turns into a grizzly. A very large grizzly.”
“I know who Mary is,” I told him. “I met her before, at Andrea’s wedding.”
“If you don’t pick a wedding cake, Mary will sit on you and stuff all this cake into your mouth until you make a selection.”
“Mary and what army?”
Mary smiled at me. “I won’t need an army.”
“Can he select the cake?” I pointed at Curran. “This wedding involves two of us.”
“He already did,” Mary said. “These are the choices he narrowed down.”
I turned to Curran. “You narrowed it down to sixteen choices?”
“They were all very delicious,” he said.
“Were there any choices you didn’t like?”
“Yes,” he said. “I scrapped coconut and lime.”
“After you are done with the cake, we’ll discuss flower selection and colors,” Roman said.
I would strangle him. “Roman, I have to dance until Zoe can record the rest of the mystical writing on my skin, and then I have to train to work my magic. So no. Not doing it.”
Roman heaved a sigh and looked at Mary. “Do you see what I have to put up with?”
“Roman, if I don’t do this, Atlanta will be destroyed.”
“Atlanta is always getting destroyed,” Mary said. “Eat some cake. It will make you feel better.”
“Before I forget,” Roman said. “Sienna said to tell you to beware . . .” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. “Crocuta crocuta spelaea. Apparently it’s going to try to murder you. Don’t you want to eat some delicious cake before you die a horrible death?”
I sat on the stage and covered my face with my hands.
Curran’s hand rested on my shoulder. “Are you okay, baby?”
“No. Give me a minute.”
“That’s understandable,” Roman said. “Take your time.”
“What did you say it was that was going to murder me?”
“Crocuta crocuta spelaea.”
“Crocuta” usually referred to a hyena, but I couldn’t remember any hyena with “spelaea” attached to it.
“Cave hyena,” Ascanio said. “Also known as Ice Age spotted hyena.”
All of us looked at him.
He rolled his eyes. “I’m a member of Clan Bouda. I know our family tree.”
“How big?” Curran asked.
“Pretty big,” Ascanio said. “It mostly preyed on wild horses. They estimate about two hundred twenty-five pounds or so on average.”
Of course. Why wouldn’t my future have a vicious prehistoric hyena in it?
I exhaled and looked at Roman. “What do I have to do to get you to leave me alone?”
“You have to make all the wedding decisions,” Roman said. “You have to select the cake, the colors for the ceremony, the flowers for your bouquet, and you have to stand for a second dress fitting tomorrow at eight o’clock. You also have to approve the guest list and the seating chart.”
I looked at Curran.
“I can take the chart,” he offered.
“Thank you.” I looked at Roman. “I do all this and you stop bugging me?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a deal.”
“Excellent.” He rubbed his hands, looking every inch an evil pagan priest. “I love it when everything comes together.”
• • •
THE RECORDING OF the writing on my body was done. The cake would have alternating tiers; the first would be chocolate cake with a white chocolate
mousse filling and white chocolate buttercream, and the second would be white chocolate with raspberry mousse and white chocolate frosting. They told me I could have whatever I wanted, and if it was the last cake I would ever eat, I wanted it to be as chocolate as it could get.
The colors were green, pink, and lavender, because when I closed my eyes and thought of a happy place, I saw the Water Gardens with lotuses blooming in the water. I told Roman that I wanted wildflowers for my bouquet. He dutifully wrote it down.
“Thank you,” I told Saiman, as he packed away Dave Miller’s things.
“We’re even,” he said.
“We are.”
He nodded and left.
Roman left too, taking Mary Louise with him. I dismissed Ascanio for the day after we put the desks back where they belonged and then waited for him to be out of earshot.
“He’s gone,” Curran told me.
I laid the drawings out on the floor.
My aunt appeared before me and looked at the pages.
She frowned. “This is the high dialect. The language of kings. Why would he . . . Switch these two around for me.”
I moved the two sheets she pointed at.
My aunt peered at the drawings. We waited.
“Moron.” Erra rolled her head back and laughed. “Oh, that sentimental fool! This is what happens when a man is thinking with his dick.”
Curran and I looked at each other.
“It’s a poem. A beautiful, exquisite love poem to your mother and you, written in the old tongue, in the high dialect, and fit for a king. The scholars of Shinar would weep from sheer joy and the poets would murder themselves out of jealousy. He tells your mother she is his life, his sun, his stars, the life-bringing light of his universe. I’d translate for you but your language is too clunky. He goes on about all the sacrifices he would make for her and how much he adores his beloved and how you are the ultimate expression of their love.”
“He still killed her,” I said.
“Yes, he did. Lovesick or not, he’s still your father.” She shook her head. “He inscribed all this on you while you were in the womb. The skill required to accomplish this without injuring the child and with such perfection . . . Your father truly was the jewel of our age. He is a horror, but still a jewel. Here is the important part.”