Silver-Tongued Devil (17 page)

“Erron Zorn!”

My head jerked back in shock. Talk about the last person I expected him to say. “You’re kidding! I thought he was on tour in Europe?”

Giguhl nodded eagerly. “He was, but I guess the band’s wrapping up the tour here in New York tonight.”

The band in question was Necrospank 5000. Erron and his drummer, Ziggy, had pitched in with our battles in the Big Easy. “I’m surprised they’re playing New York. I figured they’d want to steer clear of the Hekate Council.”

“Wait, why?” Georgia asked. “I thought they were mages.”

“Erron and Ziggy are Recreants,” Adam explained. When Georgia raised her eyebrows to show she’d never heard of a Recreant, he went on. “That basically means they defected from the Council and its laws.”

What Adam didn’t mention was that they were stripped of their ability to cast healing spells as punishment for their defection from the Council.

Giguhl waved an impatient claw. “Anyway, they’re playing the Jupiter Ballroom tonight.” He pulled something from the pocket of his sweatpants. “And Erron gave us tickets and backstage passes!”

“How many tickets did he give you?” I asked.

Giguhl grimaced. “Five—that’s enough for all of us and Pussy Willow.”

“Where is PW?” Adam said.

Giguhl rolled his eyes. “She was so excited about being invited to the show, she decided she needed a new wig and a mani-pedi. She said she’d meet us here in time to head to the show.”

“Well, you guys can go ahead,” I said. “I’m sitting this one out.”

It’s not that I didn’t want to see Erron and Ziggy again, but I couldn’t work up any excitement about the show itself. Necrospank 5000 specialized in industrial shock rock. I’m generally not opposed to angry music, but Erron’s songs turned rage into a fetish. And the idea of sharing a club with hundreds of mortals who got off on that shit had about as much appeal as having my fangs yanked out with pliers.

“Oh, c’mon, Red!” Giguhl said. “Don’t be a party pooper.”

I glanced at Adam. He shrugged. “It might be fun.”

“Are you kidding?” Giguhl interrupted. “It’s going to be a total freak show. I can’t wait. Do you think he’ll have a gimp onstage?”

My lips twitched. The first time we’d met Erron we’d stumbled on an orgy his band was hosting in a mansion in the Garden District that involved midget strippers, golden showers, and males in gimp suits with exposed undercarriages.

“I don’t know, guys. I was kind of hoping to take it easy tonight.”

“Oh, wait, I almost forgot to give you this.” Giguhl pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. “If this doesn’t change your mind, nothing will.”

I took it from him. Adam read the note over my shoulder.
Sabina and Adam, please come. I have some interesting news about M.M.

A shiver passed through me, like someone walked over my grave. “M.M.” stood for Master Mahan. That’s what the members of the Caste of Nod called Cain.

Giguhl was right. Erron’s note did change my mind. After voicing my suspicions about Cain and being dismissed, I couldn’t help but wonder if Erron was about to alleviate my fears—or confirm them.

I glanced over my shoulder at Adam. His eyebrows shot up to his hairline.

“Okay, I’m in,” I said, my pulse thrumming. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

A cheer rose up in the kitchen. I left them to make plans while I went in search of Maisie.

As it turned out, Maisie was harder to find than I expected. I checked her rooms and the library down the hall from her apartment with no luck. Finally, I decided to check the rooftop greenhouse.

Since Prytania Place was basically a mage city within the city, they kept a greenhouse for easy access to herbs and plants for use in home remedies and spells. I’d spent many hours in there over the last couple of months taking notes while Rhea lectured me on the proper uses for each species of plant.

I’d never admit this to Rhea because she’d make me listen to more lectures, but I kind of liked it in there. The warm, damp air intensified the sharp, green scent of leaves and the dark, rich perfume of fertile soil. But most of all, it was my sanctuary from the expectations of mage life and the city’s constant noise.

But, once again, no Maisie. However, I did find Rhea wrist deep in a patch of mugwort near the back of the structure. She looked up when I rounded a display of ferns at the end of the aisle.

“Fancy meeting you here,” she said, sitting back on her heels. With the back of her hand, she smoothed a loose strand of silver hair from her face.

“Hey, have you seen Maisie?”

She pursed her lips. “She came by and had lunch with me in my apartment earlier. Why?”

“I just wanted to check on her, but she wasn’t in her rooms or the library.”

“Ah, yes, I think she’s with Orpheus. She told me she wanted to sit down with him and go over the plans for the Imbolc festival.”

My eyebrows rose. “Really? That’s new.”

Rhea brushed her hands together and stood. “I know. You should have seen her this afternoon. She was more relaxed than I’ve seen her in weeks. I don’t know what you said to her during your talk, but it must have worked.” Her words were carefully casual, leading. She wanted to know what we’d spoken of, but I wasn’t ready to tell her the truth.

“Not sure I can take the credit. We mostly chatted about the weather and Giguhl’s latest exploits,” I lied. “Nothing of substance, really.”

She motioned toward the door of the greenhouse. “Yes, well, she’s spent so much time alone lately, I’m sure she appreciated that you showed an interest in spending time with her.”

We walked together through the aisles of frilly green ferns and rosehips and clusters of yellow and red witch hazel blooms. Once we were back in the chilly night air, we headed toward the pool of golden light spilling from the French doors that led into Rhea’s workroom.

As we walked, I couldn’t help feeling suspicious of her report about Maisie. When I’d last seen my twin, she hadn’t shown any signs of progress. If anything, the lack of sleep seemed to make her regress. But I also worried that expressing my confusion over the change might cause Rhea to ask me questions I wasn’t ready to answer. I’d promised Maisie I’d keep her secrets. And for now I intended on keeping that promise. “I’m glad Maze seemed to be doing better. Did she mention anything about the dream incubation?” I asked as we entered the workroom.

“No, actually. I tried to broach the subject, but she kept diverting the conversation.” As Rhea spoke, she washed her hands in a copper basin set in one of the long soapstone counters bordering the room. “So, as promising as the change was, I’m afraid we still have some work ahead of us to convince her to try it.”

I should have known better than to hope it’d be that easy. “I’ll try again tomorrow night.”

I sighed and dropped onto one of the wooden stools Rhea stored under the lip of the counters. With my free hand, I picked up a sprig of parsley. Several weeks earlier, Rhea and I had spent an entire evening discussing its medicinal properties. In addition to protecting food from contamination and promoting fertility and freshening the breath, it was also an herb of protection. I rubbed it between my fingers, releasing its fresh, green scent.

Rhea patted my arm. “Keep the faith, Sabina. The clock is ticking, but we’re not out of time or options yet.”

Not sure what to say to that, I just nodded. Optimism wasn’t exactly one of my strengths.

“But enough of that,” Rhea said. “I’ve got some news on your botched interspatial travel attempt.”

I perked up. “Oh?”

“I was out at the Crossroads yesterday and tracked down Ameritat’s journals.” She moved toward a red chinoiserie armoire in the corner. Under her breath, she whispered some words and a magical tingle spread through the room. Once her wards dissolved, she used a key around her neck to unlock the latch and open the doors. Inside sat several leather-bound volumes, which I assumed were her special spell books. The ones she didn’t want to leave just lying around. From the bottom shelf, she removed a large book—about the size of an unabridged dictionary.

She lugged it over to the worktable and set it down gently. “This is one of her volumes. It covers the years she spent training your father.”

I scooted my chair closer for a better look. Rhea opened the massive book, revealing page after page of neat script. “Wow, how many other books are there?”

“Hundreds,” Rhea said. When my mouth fell open in shock, she explained. “Ameritat lived to be almost two thousand years old. Her life was… eventful.”

While I digested that, she found the page she was looking for. “Ah, here it is. As I suspected, your father also had trouble at first with interspatial travel.” She pointed to a section of text. “See here? The description of the place he went matches the one you gave.”

I scanned Ameritat’s words. Rhea wasn’t kidding. The details of the place Tristan had ended up in were almost identical to what I had seen. “He didn’t say anything about howling, but otherwise, yeah, it sounds like the same place. Did they ever figure out what it was?”

Rhea nodded and flipped forward in the book. “The Liminal.”

I frowned. “What’s that?”

“It’s the borderlands between our world and Irkalla.” She shifted excitedly in her seat and thumbed through more pages. “Ah, here it is. Listen.”

She leaned over the book and read directly from it. “ ‘Tristan continued his exploration of the Liminal today. When he returned, he described finding the edge of the borderlands—a shimmering veil of magic. He attempted to pass through it but reported the contact disoriented him. He wandered around the in-between for what he said felt like hours before he regained his memory and returned to my workshop. It is my hope that continuing with his Chthonic training will increase his powers until he is able to access Irkalla through the Liminal.’ ”

Rhea looked up then. “Amazing!” She looked so excited, like she’d discovered a new land. But I found it hard to share her enthusiasm.

“Did he ever figure out how to do it?”

She frowned. “No.”

“Why not?”

She turned to the last page of the book. “This ends just before your father’s disappearance. But before that, Ameritat said she was going to make him stop trying because it was getting too dangerous.”

“Dangerous how?”

“The Liminal isn’t just the borderlands between our world and Irkalla. It’s also the place our subconscious connects to during our dreams. Tristan reported seeing confusing images and getting lost in serpentine labyrinths. She was afraid if he kept trying, he’d eventually get too lost to find his way back.”

“Wait,” I said. “That doesn’t make sense. If this Liminal is where we go when we dream, how do we manage not to get lost there?”

“Ameritat’s theory was that our bodies act as a tether to our subconscious. So dreaming is kind of like an out-of-body experience. Our spirits go to the Liminal and our bodies anchor us to the mundane world. But Tristan, and now you, accessed the Liminal in your physical bodies. That means there’s nothing here to pull you back out. The only way to exit is through your will and magic. So if you get confused or lost, you could conceivably become stuck there.”

I was silent for a few moments while that sunk in. If what she said was true, I was damned lucky I’d made it back the other night. “You said there were hundreds of journals. Did you go through the rest to see if she wrote more about the Liminal after he disappeared?”

Rhea frowned and shook her head. Her eyes were shadowed with old memories. “Ameritat was so devastated by his disappearance that she refused to record those events in her journals. Those were very dark days for all of us. And once she took custody of Maisie after your mother’s death, Ameritat threw herself into raising your twin, as if Maisie could somehow fill the Tristan-sized hole in her life. All her journals after that are about raising Maisie and her work with the Council.”

My stomach twisted. I didn’t like to think about the events of more than fifty years earlier that led to my birth. “Well, at least we know what that place was.”

Rhea frowned at me. “Sabina, why aren’t you more excited?”

“Why should I be? You said it yourself: The place is too dangerous.”

“There are risks, sure, but I don’t think we shouldn’t continue experimenting. You could be the first mage to access Irkalla without dying first.”

“Rhea, just because I could do something doesn’t mean I should.”

“Don’t be silly, of course you should try!”

“Why?”

“Maybe the problems Tristan had won’t affect you, since you’re the Chosen.”

I slammed my hand down on the table. “Gods, not that again.”

Rhea looked confused and hurt by my tone. “Why do you continue to deny it?”

“Yes, sure. The Chosen who can’t get the leaders of the races to listen to reason. The Chosen who can’t even control her own minion half the time. The Chosen who can’t even get a simple interspatial travel spell right.”

“Yes, you,” Rhea said. “The Chosen who called on the powers of Hekate and Lilith to stop a war. The Chosen who united all the dark races in peace.
You
. Like it or not, Sabina, you
are
the Chosen.”

“Look, all that might be true, but I don’t know how you think it’s related to this Liminal business.”

“Well, according to Maisie’s prophecy, the Chosen is actually the New Lilith.”

“So?”

“So think about it: It’s always bothered me why you would be the Chosen and not Maisie. I mean, you had the same parents, were born at the same time. I think your Chthonic powers have to be the key. The same Chthonic powers that allow you to access the Liminal. And the Liminal could be your doorway to Irkalla… and Lilith.”

I crossed my arms and gave her a dubious frown.

“Your magic is special, Sabina. It gives you rare abilities. That has to be tied to the prophecy.” She shrugged. “I’m just saying that nothing is a coincidence. Maybe accessing Irkalla through the Liminal is part of the prophecy.”

I sighed and stood, choosing my words carefully. “No offense, Rhea, but I don’t give a damn. I’m not about to start screwing around with dark magic and instigating contact with the underworld just for shits and giggles—or worse, because some ancient arcane prophecy can be twisted to fit any situation.”