Another fuckup. Seriously, how could one guy screw things up as consistently as he did? It was a godsdamned talent—that was what it was.
Halfway wondering what the forearm mark for “incurable fuckup” would look like, he moved to end the call and delete the number. Before he got there, though, he heard the thin thread of a tear- laced voice say, “Don’t hang up.”
The phone shook slightly as he lifted it to his ear again. “I’m—” His throat closed on the words. He had to swallow hard before he could continue. “I’m still here.”
“So am I.”
The three simple words unlocked a hard, hot torrent of grief. It slapped through him, flailed at him, accused him of all his past sins and more. Then it faded, leaving him clutching the phone, hunching his body around it in full sight of numerous classmates who’d only recently decided he was supercool.
He wasn’t feeling cool now, though. He was sweating greasily down his spine. “I’m sorry,” he said again, and this time he wasn’t just talking about scaring her with the call. “I’m so godsdamned sorry.”
“Me too.”
Only two words this time, but they spun through him like sunlight—real, warm yellow sunlight, not the orange shit currently beating down on him. The crushing pressure on his lungs eased, and he could breathe again. His heart could beat again, when he hadn’t been aware of it bumping off rhythm. “How
. . . how are you?” He wasn’t sure he had the right to ask, but couldn’t not ask.
“I’m . . .” She blew out a breath. “I’m doing my duty.”
“Yeah. I’m starting to figure that one out myself.”
“I’ve heard you’re doing a good job of it.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“I shit you not. The word on the street—or at least in the great room and out by the picnic tables—is that our boy has grown up, and he’s looking more like a mage and a man than a punk-ass juvie these days.”
“Then why am I still here? Why hasn’t he—” Hearing the potential for a whine, Rabbit broke off.
“Never mind.”
But Patience answered, “Because he’s got a shit-ton on his plate, and he’s had to out-of-sight-out-
of-mind a few people and problems that he just can’t deal with right now.” There was no need to clarify who he was. In a way, Strike held both of them hostage.
“Which am I—a person or a problem?”
“A person. Definitely a person. He loves you; don’t think any different. But you scare him too. He isn’t sure how powerful you really are, and what you’re going to be able to do when your magic matures fully.”
I don’t blame him, Rabbit thought, but didn’t say. Hell, he scared himself some days, when he could feel the magic rising up inside him, banging against the filters and demanding to be let out. When that happened, his body temp spiked, his muscles and joints hurt like hell, and he felt somehow old.
Sometimes it lasted a few minutes, sometimes a few hours. Once, it’d been two days before he’d felt like himself again; he’d stayed in bed, claimed to have the flu, and kind of liked how Myr had fussed over him, saying his aura was all jacked up. When he’d gotten back on his feet, he hadn’t much liked what he’d looked like in the mirror—all hollow eyed and drawn—but that’d gone away eventually.
Since then, the magic had been quiet. Oddly, that hadn’t made him feel any better—which was part of why he was jonesing to get back to Skywatch, where he could get behind the wards, drop his mental shields, and see what was doing with his magic. Not that he’d told Strike any of that; he hadn’t told anyone.
As though he’d responded—or maybe she was following her own inner dialogue?—Patience said thoughtfully, “No, you’re a person to him, as are the twins. The problem I was talking about is Snake Mendez. . . . He’s one of us, but he’s not, you know? And Strike’s dealing with him by not dealing.”
“I guess.” Mendez was a full-blood Nightkeeper, but the winikin who’d saved and raised him hadn’t been the most mentally stable of guardians, and Mendez had gone way off the reservation. More, he’d found the magic on his own, just like Strike and Patience had. Except that Mendez was a hard-ass, and it sounded like he hung way too close to the dark side of the Force. He’d gotten hauled in by some bounty hunter, tossed in the slammer, and had stayed there nearly two years so far: eighteen months on the original sentence, then six more for attacking another inmate. Rabbit was pretty sure that Strike —or, more likely, Jox—had made sure Mendez had stayed put. Out of sight, out of mind, indeed. “He must be thinking that jail’s one of the safest places to keep a guy like that, at least until we get into the library and figure out some of what’s coming next.”
“Don’t count on the library. It looks like that’s not going to be the answer we’d hoped.” She gave him a quick rundown of Lucius’s latest attempt to breach the barrier, surprising Rabbit, who hadn’t realized Jade had left the university, or that there was any sort of experiment planned. And oh, holy shit on the sun god being trapped in Xibalba, with a rescue needed within T minus seven days and counting. Was that what Anna had been hiding? Maybe, maybe not, he thought, trying to keep up as Patience bounced from one thought to the next, more talking at him than with him, chattering fast, as though she feared he’d cut her off if she slowed down. “But back to Mendez. I’ve been thinking—what if Strike’s wrong about him? What if we’re blindly accepting what the king’s telling us because, well, he’s the king?”
Rabbit zeroed back in on the convo, as what Patience was saying suddenly started to parallel some of what Myrinne had been telling him for the past few weeks. “The jaguars have a rep for being stubborn,” he said carefully.
“Yes!” she said, excited now. “And who’s to say there’s really only one way to accomplish a goal, right? I’m not saying he’s wrong, and I’m not talking treason. I’m just wondering if sometimes maybe we’re too quick to follow the writs. This is the third millennium. Maybe it’s time to . . . update, I guess.”
Rabbit wasn’t so sure he was tracking her anymore, and the greasy sweat that had prickled his back only moments earlier had gone cold, sending a chill down his spine. “That’s kind of why I wanted to talk to you. Myrinne and I have been . . . I don’t know . . . discussing a few things . . . and I wanted a reality check from someone I trust, and who won’t—”
“Shit,” Patience hissed as an aside. “Damn it!”
He sat bolt upright. “What’s wrong?”
“Brandt’s coming, and he doesn’t know I still have this phone. I’ve got to go, but I’ll call you back later, okay?”
“But—”
“Sorry, sorry. I know you called to talk about you, and I babbled about me. But don’t you see? You already know the answer; you’re just looking for someone else to say it first. So, okay, I will. If you love her, then you need to trust her, and you’ve got to put her above everyone else in your life.”
“But the writs—”
“Are more than three thousand years old. And Strike’s doing the best he possibly can, but he’s a man, not a god. With the skyroad closed, he’s feeling his way just like we are. Who’s to say he’s right about everything?”
“I—”
“Gotta go,” she said. “But do yourself a favor, and don’t let other people’s agendas screw up a good relationship.” Her voice descended to a whisper on the last word, and then the line went dead.
Rabbit sat for a few minutes, while the world came back into focus around him. He was dimly surprised to see that he was still at the university, that nothing around him had changed. Students passed him, heading from point A to point B and vice versa with varying degrees of urgency, yet no clue that they were practically on borrowed time unless the Nightkeepers figured out how to get Kinich Ahau back where he belonged, without the promise of help from the library.