Yet she was doing it anyway-as if she believed her own personality sufficiently strong to resist being corrupted. If she was lucky, she'd discover the relevant information soon enough that she wouldn't change much: only a few of her own traits, memories, and perceptual matrices would get wiped out, replaced by ones copied from Hump. She could then halt the spell and walk away, only slightly damaged. If she was unlucky, however… we'd get two enforcers for the price of one.
The radiance around their two heads grew more brilliant by the second, a blazing gold so intense it was like staring into the sun. I had to look away… and as I did, I noticed a third golden blaze in the room. It came from Dee-James, still frozen in the act of rolling off the table. He burned with his own golden fire: a third sun orbiting at a distance from the other two.
I wondered how long he'd been glowing. With so much light from Dreamsinger and Hump, I hadn't noticed the third flare-up. For all I knew, he could have been ablaze for the past few minutes.
Even as I watched, his body unfroze; Dee-James fell to the ground with a dazed thump. The light surrounding him hurt to look at-I had to close my eyes. But why was he part of the Twinning? What did he have to do with…
Someone screamed. Ear-splitting. Then Dreamsinger croaked in a strangled voice: "Warwick Xavier, Nanticook House, four armed guards, and an antiscrying field. Three dogs patrolling the estate."
"That's all?"
The question came from Dee-James. Surprised, I opened my eyes to see Dreamsinger spit with rage toward him. The Sorcery-Lord shouted, "What the fuck else do you need, you little shit?"
"Nothing," Dee-James said, "and everything." He walked forward slowly, answering Dreamsinger's fury with a smile. "Dearest, dearest sister, you're so precious and lovely."
He threw his arms around Dreamsinger, squeezing her close and beginning a deep hot kiss. The man was good-looking but nothing compared to the Spark Lord's Hafsah beauty-his clothes were worn, his face a bit dirty-but in that split second, Dee-James seemed stronger and more self-possessed than the Sorcery-Lord. Venting some passion that was so demandingly right, it could overwhelm even a Spark.
But the kiss lasted only an instant. Then Dreamsinger lashed out with both hands, shoving Dee-James away so fiercely he slapped hard against a table. The impact must have hurt-his elbow thunked heavily on the table's edge, the sort of impact that sends pins-and-needles shooting through one's arm-but Dee-James only laughed. "Ooo, what a bully. Push me around some more."
Dreamsinger snarled and charged. She held her arms out from her body, an ungainly way to run… till I realized her brain must be so dominated by Hump's, she thought her arms were covered with razor-sharp spikes. When she reached Dee-James, the Spark Lord slammed her forearm toward the man's face-a vicious attack, even if you didn't have bone-spurs jutting from your body-but Dee-James, still chuckling, didn't flinch.
The instant Dreamsinger's blow made crunching contact, both the Lord and Dee-James were engulfed in gold light so searing I felt as if I'd been stabbed in the eyes. I snapped my head away, trying not to cry out. Eyes shut, I could still see an image scorched into my retinas-the Sorcery-Lord bringing down her arm, Dee-James smiling as he got his face clubbed, the burst of unbearable radiance.
Twenty seconds passed before the ache in my eye-sockets subsided. When I opened my eyes again, I could barely see through my blur of tears… and what I saw didn't make sense: Dee-James was back sprawled on the table, and Dreamsinger had pressed down on top of him, gasping through another fierce kiss.
I blinked. My vision cleared a bit, but the sight didn't change. A Spark Lord kissing a nobody. The nobody kissing back. The two of them almost convulsed with passion. I had time to blink once more; then Dreamsinger pushed away slightly, her face still close to Dee-James. "Your breath reeks."
"Awful me." The man's words were slurred; Dreamsinger's blow half a minute before had split his lip. It might also have broken some teeth-blood dribbled from Dee-James's mouth. He lifted himself on one elbow and spit red onto the floor. "If my breath is so foul, perhaps I should kill myself."
"I could do it for you," Dreamsinger said.
"And rob me of my fun? Fuck you."
"If only there were time."
They both laughed and Dreamsinger stepped away, leaving Dee-James on the table. The man reached down toward his foot and drew out a bone-handled knife from an ankle sheath. Not a big blade, but practical. He rubbed his thumb on the blade to test it: not lightly across the metal edge, but hard down the length, slicing his skin clean open. "Sharp enough," he said, extending the bloody thumb for Dreamsinger to see.
"I envy you," Dreamsinger said.
"Of course," Dee-James answered. "Here's what 'expendable' means."
He lay back comfortably on the table and planted the knife-tip just below his ribcage. With a strong upward jerk, he plunged the knife into his own heart.
Dreamsinger put one palm on the butt of the knife, then slapped hard with her other hand, driving the blood-drenched blade even farther into Dee-James's vitals. The gesture was unnecessary-the man had done an expert job of skewering himself, a quick and certain kill. Dreamsinger obviously didn't care; she wrapped her hands around the knife handle and tried to twist, as if the man still weren't satisfactorily dead. "Dear sister," she whispered. "Dearest, dearest sister."
She bent to give the dead man a last soft kiss… and finally I understood what she'd done.
Before Dreamsinger stole the enforcer's brain, she'd copied her own mind into Dee-James. A forced Twinning; it explained why Dee-James had been surrounded by golden light. The man's mind had been expunged, totally replaced by the Sorcery-Lord's. In effect, Dee-James became Dreamsinger… with all the sorcerous knowledge that entailed. Then Dreamsinger had proceeded to Twin with Hump, safe in the knowledge that her original personality was preserved elsewhere-"on backup," as OldTech computer programmers might say. Once the desired information had been obtained ("Warwick Xavier, Nanticook house…"), the Dee-James copy of Dreamsinger used another forced Twinning to restore the original Dreamsinger's brain.
The kiss between Dee-James and the Spark Lord had been Dreamsinger kissing herself.
Then Dee-James had rammed a knife into his own heart. Dreamsinger committing suicide. Why? Because she could die happy, leaving the horrors of existence to her other self?
As the duplicate died, the real Dreamsinger had said, "I envy you."
So much for the myth that Spark Lords revere life. And let's not forget Dreamsinger had wiped Dee-James's original mind as casually as borrowing a piece of paper to write down a note. The Sorcery-Lord needed a mental receptacle, and the man was close to hand.
Poor Dee-James. Martyred because he happened to be convenient.
And if he hadn't been there, would Dreamsinger have used someone else? Impervia? The Caryatid? Me?
I shivered.
"Dear friends," said the Spark Lord. "Shall we go to Nanticook House?"
Impervia, the Caryatid, and I nodded in cowed silence.
On our way out the door, Dreamsinger stopped with a dimpled smile. "Almost forgot." She turned back toward Hump, still frozen above the bar. "Boom," she said.
Hump went boom.
For weeks afterward, they'd be finding pieces of him caught in cracks of the walls.