“Give or take a few centuries.” Her smile was a tad grim. “Makes for restless nights sometimes.”
Cynna leaned forward. “Do they feel like your memories? I mean, is it all just crammed in there together, so that what someone experienced a thousand years ago is like what you lived through last year?”
The Rhej nodded. “Good question, but tricky to answer. You might think of the passed—that’s how we refer to what’s been passed to us—as computer files, being as how that’s what your generation’s used to. I like suitcases better, myself, but to each her own. If I need to check the details of a particular memory I open a suitcase, take out the one I want, and try it on. Once it’s on, though… it isn’t memory anymore. I’m there.”
Either the woman was sincerely nuts, Lily decided, or she was sincerely… well, something completely outside Lily’s experience. This was no put-on. She found herself tugged toward belief, maybe because she needed to believe. To think she’d found someone who could help.
But Cullen was the opposite of gullible, and he’d brought them here, to this woman. “You’re saying that you experience what someone thousands of years dead lived through. You don’t remember it. You experience it.”
“That’s right. But once we’ve finished our apprenticeships, we don’t open our suitcases often. We remember what’s in them well enough for most things.”
The sort of memories that would be saved wouldn’t be pleasant, would they? They’d be from the big moments— the life-and-death struggles of the clan, not a baby’s first steps or the beauty of a sunrise on a particular morning. Lily could see why the Rhej didn’t open her “suitcases” often.
“I’d planned to tell you all of this anyway,” the old woman said. “Along with a great deal more, including some of those songs and stories. You’re Nokolai now. You need to know your clan. But you won’t have time for that now. So.” She slapped her palm on the table. “Time to spill your secrets. Tell me what you know or have guessed about Rule’s disappearance.”
It didn’t take long. Lily knew how to boil a report down and present it dispassionately. She left out what Karonski had told them, of course, simply saying they’d had a lead on a possible source for opening a hellgate, but it hadn’t panned out.
“So Rule’s in the demon realm.” The Rhej’s voice was heavy. She was silent a moment. “It was Cullen’s idea, I take it. To come to me.”
“Yes. We need to open a gate, and we don’t know how. Can you help us?”
She shook her head, but it looked more like “let me think” than a refusal, so Lily held her tongue. For several moments the old woman frowned at her thoughts.
“You’ve brought me a hard one,” she said at last. “Normally I’d refuse and then grieve. There are things we’re not allowed to reveal. That’s another reason Cullen isn’t fond of us,” she added. “We know things that we won’t tell him. Drives him crazy.”
Lily smiled faintly. “It would.”
“But now…” Her frown deepened. “I’ve been Rhej for forty-two years. I was apprenticed for twelve years before that. When I say I listen to the Lady, I’m not talking about hearing voices. If I get a feeling, a certain kind of feeling, I know it’s from her. Oh, when it’s clan business, I still use Tell-Me-Three-Times to confirm my feeling. That’s how we’re trained—check and double-check, using different rituals. But most of us only hear the Lady’s voice once in our lives. It’s enough.” She gave a short nod.
“Do you have one of those feelings now?”
She snorted. “Got better than that. There’s one time we don’t use Tell-Me-Three-Times. If the Lady ups and speaks, well, that’s it. Can’t mistake her voice for anyone or anything else, not if you’ve ever heard it. And we all have, that once. Well, she woke me up last night. Three o’clock in the damned morning, and for the second time in my life I heard her voice.”
Lily’s heart was pounding. “What did she say?”
“Bring him back.”
She closed her eyes, so dizzy with relief she swayed. “Then you’ll do it.”
“I’ll do what I can. It may not be enough. The sort of memories you need… they were split hundreds of years ago. Too dangerous to rest just with one person. None of us holds the entire spell to open a gate.”
“Then what?” she demanded. “What do we do? Will the other Rhejes help?”
“They should. When the Lady speaks… but you’d better hope the she’s been shaking some other shoulders. The ban’s been round for a long time, and we all remember why it was put in place. This is going to take time. Some of the others…” Her head turned toward the wall with the recliner. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Cullen. If you just have to hear what’s going on; come on in.”
A few seconds later a lean wolf trotted in the front door. He was smaller than Rule’s wolf-form—his shoulders would hit below her waist—and his coat was a pale silver, not the black-and-silver of Rule’s fur. And the sight of him hurt her heart.
Cynna made a small sound. Lily looked at her. “Knowing about it and seeing it are two different things, aren’t they?”
“Yeah.” Cynna’s eyes never left the wolf, who came up to the table and fixed the Rhej with a pair of disconcertingly bright blue eyes.
“I guess you heard the most of it,” the old woman said.
Cullen-wolf nodded.
“This is not going to be easy.” She contemplated things for a moment and then pushed her chair back. “Or quick, so I’d best get started. You can take me to Isen’s house. I’ll use his phone. Someone bring the cookies. Isen’s fond of chocolate chip.” She stood. “I’m Hannah, by the way.”
Cullen yipped and then pointed with his nose at Cynna.
“Wondering about that, are you? Why I let her learn so much?” Suddenly the old woman grinned and her face lit up, bright as a mischievous child. “I did say I’d explain. After all, she’s not clan yet.”
“Ah…” Cynna looked taken aback. “What do you mean, yet?”
Hannah’s grin widened. “Just what it sounds like. You’ll have to become Nokolai sooner or later. You’re the next Rhej.”
TWENTY-NINE
RULE woke from his first true, deep sleep in hell with a hard ache in his leg; the scents of earth, water, and smoke in his nostrils; and a clear head. He lay quietly, eyes closed, savoring the relief.
Most of his memories of the period immediately following the demon’s bone-setting were a blur of pain punctuated by fitful sleep. Lily had woken him periodically, coaxing him to drink from her cupped hands. Sometimes he’d woken on his own. She’d always been near.
He did recall how he’d gotten to the cave. Lily had called down a dragon.
The agony of having his bone set had left him too weak and dizzy to stand. She’d been determined to get him in the cave, where there was water, since they lacked any kind of bowl or pot. The demon was strong enough to handle Rule’s weight, but too small to manage his bulk. Lily had gotten one of the “coverings” the dragon had mentioned, a thick braided mat she could use as a stretcher. But there had been no way to lower him from the sandbox to the beach.
He’d tried to tell her to wait until he’d healed enough to do it on his own. Maybe his meaning lost something in the translation, or maybe she was just stubborn. She’d called for help.
One of the coppery-brown dragons had descended. Rule remembered the way Lily had ordered it to be careful of his ribs and gentle when it set him down. He remembered the miserable jerk of the takeoff, too, with the talons wrapped around his middle, but the flight had been brief. And the dragon had sent him down gently as ordered, right on the mat Lily had waiting outside the cave. Gan had dragged him in.