Instead of using the knife to cut herself or Rabbit, Myrinne placed it on his blanket-covered chest.
She lit the candle and put it, pig saucer and all, on Rabbit’s stomach, which dipped flat beneath the covers. The assemblage wobbled for a moment, then stabilized as Myrinne took Anna’s hand on one side, Rabbit’s on the other, and said, “We welcome the element of fire, symbol of willpower and courage. We call to the south for inspiration and passion. We call on the goddess Nephthys, ruler of magic and secrecy. And we call on Rabbit to return to us. He is fire, willpower, and courage. He is my inspiration and my passion.” Releasing Anna’s hand, Myrinne leaned in and kissed Rabbit on the cheek. “It’s time to come back now. Follow the sound of my voice and the energy of the people who love you.”
There was no hum of red-gold Nightkeeper magic, no song, no change in the air or the flickering candle flame. For maybe half a minute, absolutely nothing happened. Then, as if someone had thrown a switch, Rabbit’s chest rose in a long, drawn-out inhale, and the knife and candle set on his chest moved with the ripple of a long shudder racking his body. Then his eyelids flickered.
Relief curled through Sasha like a song, and she instinctively tightened her fingers on Michael’s.
Whatever Myrinne was doing, it was working.
Rabbit’s consciousness swam up through the sticky layers of gray, fighting inertia, fighting the tide that threatened to suck him back down. He didn’t know where he’d been, didn’t know what he’d been doing, didn’t even know where he was going, only that the familiar contralto voice drew him onward, to a glittering silver interface where the grayness met something else. There was light beyond the interface, and the sense of motion and life. And the voice. Her voice. As he struggled up to the surface, the clinging layers started to fall away and he started reconnecting with himself, with memory.
He affixed the voice to a name—Myrinne—and an emotion: desperate love. At the same time, he saw flames and heard himself scream her name. A waxy face. Blood dripping from a knife.
No! Instinctively, reflexively, he threw a mental block over the nightmare. It wasn’t a true vision, he knew. It’d been a projection of his own terror that no matter how hard he tried to do the right thing, he always fucked everything up, usually destroying shit in the process. But not her. Never her. She was a metaphor for the good stuff he screwed up. That was all. He wouldn’t ever hurt her.
“That’s it, kid. Open your eyes,” another familiar voice said, accompanied by the brush of cool fingers over his forehead. Anna, his mind supplied.
“Rabbit, you’ve got to come all the way back.” That was Myrinne’s voice, and those were Myrinne’s fingers holding his, squeezing encouragement. He latched onto the promise of her, the reality, using that to pull himself the last little bit through the grayness to the interface, then shove himself through.
He jolted back into his own body and spun, disoriented, as his consciousness fought to reconnect with the shell it was supposed to inhabit. When he finally got his eyes open, he found himself blinking up at a whole damn crowd gathered around the bed in his old man’s cottage back at Skywatch. Which reminded him that he’d set Myrinne’s dorm room on fire. Shit.
“You’re back,” Strike said.
Rabbit’s knee-jerk response was something along the lines of, Duh, but he managed to squelch it, saying instead, “Sorry it took so long.” He braced to get his ass chewed up and spit out. Gods knew he deserved it—he’d broken his “no Nightkeeper magic” vow, if not to the letter, then certainly by intent.
Worse, he didn’t have a damn thing to show for it except more property damage. He hadn’t gotten the answers he’d been looking for, and didn’t know what to make of the answers he had gotten.
There was an awkward pause, as though Strike couldn’t decide whether to hug him or strangle him.
In the end, the king didn’t do either; he just turned away, muttering, “Glad you’re okay,” under his breath.
“You scared us,” Anna said, but instead of censure, there was mostly relief on her face, and in Jox’s eyes. Which made Rabbit realize that they were pissed, yeah, but they were also damn glad to have him back. The knowledge warmed him. It humbled him, to the extent that he could be humbled. Why did he keep forgetting that they weren’t his old man? Why did he keep assuming the worst about their reactions, and then being surprised when they went the other way?
“He should rest,” Myrinne said pointedly. In case the others didn’t get the nonhint, she followed it up with, “Go away. I’ll let you know when he’s up for an interrogation.”
Strike ignored her to lean over the bed. “I’ll kick your ass later for pulling this stunt . . . but given that it’s a done deal, I’ve gotta ask: Did you get any answers?”
Yeah, Rabbit thought. I’m just not sure which question they belong to.
What is my destiny? he’d asked. How can I make Myrinne mine? And he’d gotten a response of sorts. He just wasn’t sure what the hell it meant. Choosing his words carefully, he said, “The images I got were all jumbled up. I have a feeling they weren’t anything, really, just pieces from inside my head . . . except for one of them. Just before I passed out for good, I blinked into a ceremonial chamber and felt a hell of a power surge. Like maybe it was an intersection.”
There was a collective indrawn breath. Strike said, “Can you describe it? Could you get back there?”
Rabbit grimaced. “I didn’t really see the room; it was mostly a blur. But there was a stone tomb in the middle of it, a big one with a scorpion carved in its side, along with some wavy lines.” He paused.
“The thing was . . . the symbols weren’t Mayan, I don’t think.”
“What were they?” Strike asked, his voice deadly intent.
“Egyptian.” He looked from Strike to the others, and raised an eyebrow. “Anybody up for a field trip?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The next morning, after catching up on sleep and calories, the residents of Skywatch assembled for an all-hands-on-deck meeting, at the picnic tables set beneath the big ceiba tree. Rabbit was there, with heavy circles beneath his eyes and a faintly mulish look on his face. But at least he was vertical.
Myrinne sat beside him, with Anna on his other side. Sasha had originally taken a seat between Jox and Sven, in a cowardly effort to avoid dealing with Michael. Her best efforts were foiled, though, when he arrived, big and grumpy-looking, and thumped Sven on the shoulder. “Move.”
Clearly hungover, Sven merely winced and slid down. Sasha divided her glare between the two men, annoyed with Sven for being oblivious, with herself for the kick of physical reaction that coursed through her when Michael’s shoulder touched hers, and with Michael for being . . . hell, for just being.
Before she could decide whether or not to change seats, Strike brought the meeting to order, standing up at the head of the table and saying, “Okay, gang. Suffice it to say that a whole lot of things have changed over the last forty-eight, some for the better, some not.” He paused and looked at Sasha.
“First and foremost, I want to officially welcome Sasha to the family, quite literally. I’d like to start by having Jox go over what we’ve pieced together so far.”
The winikin, clearly prepped, stood up from his seat. Once he had everyone’s attention, he began, dropping into what Sasha had learned to recognize as his sto ryteller mode, eyes half-closed, as though he were describing vivid pictures seen in his mind’s eye. “Nearly two years before the massacre, the queen gave birth to a baby girl. As far as anyone alive today knew, it was a stillbirth. The funerary bundle was made and burned, the child’s ashes added to those beneath the altar here at Skywatch.”