They were all silent for a long moment when she finished. Finally, the other woman asked quietly, “How long do you think you’ve been here?”
“I don’t know. We don’t have regular days and nights here. After a while I didn’t think about it that way anymore.” She glanced at Rule. “He’s slept about twenty times, I think. I don’t know if that means it’s been twenty days.”
“Twenty.” The other woman didn’t sound happy. She kept stroking Rule, touching him. Lily wanted to push that intruding hand away, but… she swallowed. Rule wanted that touch. She could tell. He wanted both of them with him. To him, they were both Lily.
It was the other one who knew him from before, though. Who remembered whatever they’d shared on Earth. All he’d shared with her was… hell.
“We’ve got a problem,” the other Lily said.
Cullen barked out a laugh. “Never let it be said you don’t use understatement, luv.”
“I’m talking about the gate. We’ve got too many people to go back through it.”
“A gate.” Her heartbeat picked up. Of course. They had to get here, didn’t they? They hadn’t all been dragged here by some realm-hopping demon, the way she had been. “You have a way back. We can go back.”
“We have a small gate,” Cullen said. “And, as Lily— one of you Lily’s—pointed out, that’s a problem. We planned this pretty tightly. If…” He stopped abruptly, looking up.
She looked up, too. And stood. “It’s Sam!” That huge, winged shape could be no one else.
The others sprang to their feet, too. Cullen swung the long, hollow tube on his back around and onto his shoulder.
Do you shoot at everything you see ?
That rocked them. Cullen recovered first. “Around here it seems like a good idea.”
There are better targets. Sam began a slow, spiraling descent.
“Don’t shoot at him. Sam’s on our side… sort of.” He’d saved her life, anyway, and killed one of his own kind to do it. She suspected that was mostly because of the insult of another dragon daring to dispose of his property, but still…
This is most curious. You seem to have connected with the missing half of your soul, but it is embodied.
“I noticed that,” she said dryly.
The little demon didn’t do that. I wonder… He was close now, the wind from his wings stirring her hair. Yet you are the one with Ishtar’s token.
Cullen stared. “You know about the Lady’s token?”
I know a great deal that you short-lives will never dream of. As gracefully as dandelion fluff, that great body drifted to the ground near the cliff’s edge. The head swung around to look at them.
“Don’t look at his eyes,” Cullen said quickly.
An informed short-life. Sam was amused. And… how interesting. You’re a sorcerer of sorts.
“Of sorts?” Cullen said indignantly.
And one of you has a gate. No, I misspoke. One of you is a gate. That is unusual. He settled his wings about him more comfortably. And useful. I wish to make a deal.
“Deal quick,” the little one called down from his vantage point in the rocks. “They’re coming. First wave should be here in fifteen minutes—and that’s one fucking big demon coming along about thirty minutes behind it.”
Yes. Xitil comes.
LILY couldn’t stop glancing at her other self. Her, yet not her. The part with her Gift. The self who’d been with Rule all this time. You’d think she’d feel a tug, a sense of longing, something.
She wanted to knock the bitch’s hand away from him.
Lily swallowed. Not now. She couldn’t figure out how she could be bitterly jealous of herself—her other self— right now. Somehow she had to get them all out of here. “We’ll have to hold the gate open longer.”
Cullen shook his head. “Can’t, luv. We’re too far from a node for me to pull any energy, and there’s precious little loose sorcéri around.”
‘The dragons soak it up,“ the other Lily said. ”That’s what Gan says, anyway.“
Lily looked at the little demon, huddled unhappily against one of the larger rocks. It didn’t say anything. It hardly seemed aware of them at all, tuned in to some private fear. “Plan B, then. Cullen, you’ll carry, ah, the other Lily piggyback, and Max can ride Rule through.”
There are two problems with that. First, you’ll fall a great distance. The land is much higher here than in the earth realm.
She jumped. It was entirely too weird, having the dragon’s thoughts just show up in her head. And how did he know what this area was like on Earth? “There will be ocean below us,” she said tersely.
A long way below you. The main problem, however, is that your gate won’t open.
“It will open.” She just had to bleed again and say the word Cullen had taught her.
The dragon’s gaze swung toward Cullen. What happens, sorcerer, when you tie a spell to an object, and another object identical to the first is nearby?
Cullen scowled. “They aren’t identical. Well…” He looked from her to the other Lily. “Not entirely. They’ve had different experiences. They’ve… diverged.”
They are one soul. I believe your gate won’t open. The dragon’s long tail twitched at the end. But do try it and see for yourself . Unless, perhaps, you know how to check it without opening it?
Lily pushed impatiently to her feet. Where was Max? “Max! Come down. We’re going to get out of here.”
The other Lily spoke suddenly. “What do you want, Sam? What deal are you offering?”
/ can make the gate bigger. Much bigger. I can hold it open as long as is needed and fly you out. And I know how to solve the problem with the gate.
There was a second’s silence, then the other one—the Lily wearing blue—cried, “No! No, there has to be another way!”
Cullen glanced at her and then back at the dragon. “Dragons are magic, but can’t work it.”
Most do not. I, however, am a Great Singer. I know more about gates than you’ve yet dreamed, sorcerer.
“Except how to open one, it seems. Or you wouldn’t be talking about a deal. What do you want in return?”
The great tail lashed in obvious irritation. Is it not obvious ? I wish to leave. I wish to take those of my kind who still live and leave Dis. Something like a mental sigh whispered along the edges of Lily’s mind. We are losing.
“This is what you’ve wanted all along, isn’t it?” the other Lily demanded suddenly. ‘This is why you captured us. You wanted to leave hell. Only I don’t see how you knew they’d come for us.“
I didn’t. I had… another way in mind.
Cullen shook his head. “I’m sorry for your people. But a gate large enough for you to fly through can’t be tied to a person. It would destroy her.”
For the first time the little demon spoke, its voice wobbly. “But you’re a Great Singer. You said they couldn’t win without you. How come you aren’t winning?”
In her madness, Xitil has been quite clever. She—or the One she ate—made an alliance with the one you know as Tegelgor, lord of the realm to the south. In return for a large number of his lower demons, she has abandoned her region to him. She enters our land with every demon, every imp, every creature from her realm. We cannot fight such numbers.