A general silence fell. Lily frowned. “That presents a problem. I don’t think any of us have a true name. Except for Sam, I suppose, but he can’t act against the sorcerer or the Chimei. Wait a minute. Maybe Max—”
Names function somewhat differently with gnomes, and the one you call Max is divided in his nature. Neither Cynna Weaver nor Cullen Seabourne possess their names. Li Lei does, of course. She knew her name at seventeen, but she is restricted, as am I. Lily Yu, your soul was sundered. You will not know your name until that sundering is healed. Rule Turner, however, lives with portions of two names. They are not his alone, but they are true.
Rule’s nostrils flared as if he’d scented something. After a moment he nodded.
It took Lily longer to catch on. Sam was talking about the mantles—which he wasn’t supposed to know about. She glanced at Rule, eyebrows lifted.
He tilted his head in a gesture that was neither a nod nor a shake. She took that to mean something along the lines of: Sam’s a dragon. Who knows what he knows?
It is possible, Sam continued, that the possession of these names will grant Rule Turner some immunity from the Chimei’s mind-magic. I will speak with him privately about this.
Lily’s eyebrows rose. Rule was frowning abstractedly, maybe listening to Sam. “Good to know. Let’s see if I’m following so far. If we somehow learned this secret name, which belongs to both of them, Rule could use it to . . . do what? Command one or both of them?”
I am unable to respond to your question. Cullen Seabourne speculates, but his lack of knowledge renders his speculations questionable.
There was a muffled snort from the bed. Cullen reached up to pull off the oxygen mask—and Cynna clamped a hand over it, narrowing her eyes at him. He sighed and let his hand drop.
Lily figured he must be frustrated. She sure was. The name business was important, or Sam wouldn’t have spent so much time on it. But they didn’t know why it mattered, how to learn a true name, or how to use it if they learned it.
Lily opened her mouth to ask another question, but Rule beat her to it. “Madame Yu, I interrupted when Lily asked why you came out of hiding. I hope you will answer that now. I also wonder why you hid in the first place. It seems out of character.”
“You are perceptive.” Grandmother said that much, then fell silent, her expression turning inward. Was she consulting with Sam? Checking to see what the treaty would allow her to say?
“I will answer,” she said at last. “There is no longer any value to my remaining hidden. The sorcerer changed the . . . Bah, what is the word? Parameters. He changed the parameters under which the cursed treaty forces us to act. With this, he placed himself in danger. He does not realize this; I think the Chimei will. She will act to protect her lover. She will act soon, and harshly.”
THIRTY
GRANDMOTHER stopped there, her face grim.
“And why,” Rule prompted gently, “did you hide?”
“To delay her, of course. To keep her attention on finding me. She wants me to suffer. How can she know I suffer if she cannot find me? But I can no longer delay her by hiding, so I stop hiding. I will move in with my son and daughter-in-law. Sam disagrees with this, but I will not leave them unguarded. Lily, I will instruct your sisters and brother-in-law to join me there. Once the Chimei acts, matters will be . . . less stable.”
Lily tried to imagine how that would work—her mother, sisters, brother-in-law, and grandmother beneath one roof. The mind boggled. “I don’t know if Susan and Beth will do that,” she said dubiously. “Not without knowing what’s going on, and we won’t be able to tell them.”
Grandmother fixed Lily with a steady gaze and answered in Chinese—a sure sign of displeasure. The gist of it was, “I have not cultivated my position as autocrat all these years to have them disobey me now. They will do as they are told.”
Well, yes. If Grandmother looked at them like that, they probably would. But it was going to be lively in Lily’s old home. “What kind of action do you expect the Chimei to take?”
Grandmother shrugged. “Something large and messy. Something she has done before. She has not an original mind. She has great patience, great power, but she does not change readily.”
“Can you give us more of a clue?”
Grandmother’s lips thinned. She shook her head.
“Okay. Back to Cullen. You said he was wrong on two counts and told us about names. What’s the other way he was wrong?”
She arched her eyebrows. “Mr. Seabourne possesses more than one ability which the sorcerer fears.”
“Shit!” Lily exclaimed as the obvious jumped up and bit her. “Mage fire. Of course. That’s what he’s afraid of. It’s supposed to burn anything. Maybe it couldn’t kill the Chimei, but it could damned sure hurt her.”
Cullen Seabourne’s thoughts contain many profanities, Sam observed. He castigates himself for not perceiving this earlier. He speculates that mage fire might disrupt the bond between our enemies. He wishes me to share with you his belief that a sorcerer who participates to some degree in his lover’s immortality might be hard to kill by normal means.
Probably true, but killing him wasn’t the goal, so that wasn’t a major problem. Lily was more concerned with what to do with him once they caught him. “We’ll keep it in mind, Cullen, but you’re in no shape to toss around mage fire, and won’t be for some time.”
She glanced around at the others. “Assume we find the sorcerer. How do we incarcerate him if he can burn things down or pick locks magically or whatever? I’d rather not duplicate the techniques used in the Purge.” Back then, they’d cut out tongues and lopped off hands. And that was with the people they suspected of being sorcerers, but not workers of dark magic. The ones they thought were into the bad shit they’d killed any way they could.
Rule and Grandmother exchanged a look.
“Oh, no,” Lily said. “We are not going there. Murder isn’t an option.”
“Not for you,” Grandmother said equably. “You are an agent of the law, the government. It is very bad if governments start assassinating people.”
“It’s not an option for anyone in this room.” Lily looked at Rule when she said that. “It’s also very bad if governments sanction murder by looking the other way.”
He met her eyes steadily. “I’ll decide for myself what my options are. But killing isn’t my first choice, so we’ll talk about our other options.”
First they had to think of one. So far, she hadn’t.
Cynna spoke suddenly. “Send him to Edge.”
Lily looked at her, startled. So did everyone else.
“It makes sense,” Cynna said. “We’re not set up to deal with magical heavyweights. They are. Shit, they cope with elves. This sorcerer dude can’t be harder to deal with than the Sidhe.”
Send him to another realm. Yes. It might work. “We could sedate him,” Lily said. “Catch him, keep him sedated, fly him across the country, and shove him through the gate.”
“Banishment is an old punishment,” Rule said, “which means there is precedent. The law appreciates precedent. In modern times there’s extraordinary rendition—”
“Which is only quasi-legal,” Lily said, frowning.
“Quasi may be as close as we can get. Given sufficient payment, the gnomes who govern Edge might agree.”
“What about the Chimei?” Lily asked. “Would she be able to follow him there? Can she cross without using a gate? The gnomes might not be willing to take the sorcerer if she tags along.”