by Eileen Wilks
“Rule,” Lily broke in, “that’s Grandmother’s car.”
He followed her gaze to the car heading toward them at a sedate pace. “So it is. I wonder if she knows something we don’t. Max, excuse me a moment. I—”
“Not now!” Max exclaimed. “Rule, this is important. You have to pay attention!”
“I’ll find out.” Lily squeezed his arm once and moved away.
Damn gnomish notions of courtesy. Rule forced his temper down and dragged his gaze back to Max. “I’m listening. My father won’t speak to these gnomes until I introduce him.”
Max heaved a gusty sigh. “That’s right. And you speak as Nokolai Lu Nuncio, not as Leidolf Rho, not until you can be introduced in that role. We’ll deal with that later. Now, Isen’s been named Hragash-friend, but you aren’t, so you’ll speak as the outsider second eldest of an allied warrior power. That’s less respectable than a trading power, but it doesn’t pay to offend warrior powers, so you’ll be treated as fourth status, second degree. None of the gnomes are representing their hitsuche, so they’ll be accorded their personal status, which makes Byuset the one you introduce yourself to. His personal standing to an outsider is third status, first degree, so he’s higher status than you.”
“I can’t say I agree with that.” Madame Yu’s aging Buick pulled to a stop behind Rule’s car. Her companion, Li Qin, was driving. One of the Nokolai guards hurried up to the car to open the door for Li Qin; Lily was getting Madame Yu’s door.
“You don’t have to agree. It’s like that guy over there opening the door for the old lady. She could get the damn door herself, couldn’t she? But he opens it to show her courtesy because that’s how it’s done.”
Lily and her grandmother were speaking, voices low—speaking Chinese, which was annoying. Rule didn’t understand Chinese. He tore his gaze away from them. “It’s strange to hear you harping on courtesy, Max.”
Max snorted. “Why d’you think I’ve never taken the tvortish? I hate that crap. Now shut up and let me finish. You’ll speak first, and in Ggilek—I’ll teach you what to say—and bow low. Ninety-degree angle, Rule. That’s important. You hold the bow until—”
“No. A low bow is an act of submission.”
“It doesn’t mean that to gnomes, so it doesn’t matter.”
Rule showed Max his teeth. “You have it exactly backwards. It doesn’t matter what the gnomes think. To me and my people, it is submission.”
“Dammit, Rule, it doesn’t have to be! And even if it were, this is why the second eldest makes the initial contact—so all that bullshit won’t apply to the clan as a whole. Get off your high horse and—”
“If I am acting as my father’s second, what I do affects all of Nokolai.”
Max gargled out a couple words in what must be Ggilek. Swear words probably.
“The gnomes’ deal is with the dragons,” Rule said flatly. “Let them talk to the dragons.”
“You have to talk with them, Rule,” Max said frantically. “You have to greet them, offer them hospitality. If you don’t, you’re according them no status! You don’t understand what that would—”
“Do not worry,” Grandmother said, breaking off her conversation with Lily to stride toward them. “I will arrange matters.”
“You!” Max hooted.
She looked him over with the haughty disdain only she and cats could achieve. Then she gargled at him.
Max scowled and gargled back. She answered in what had to be gnomish; it involved sounds the human throat should not be able to produce. Max’s eyebrows shot up in comic surprise, and his response sounded uncharacteristically tentative. She answered and they went back and forth briefly before he exclaimed, “That’ll do it! Come on. They’re out back.”
“One moment.” Madame Yu looked at Rule. “Do I have your permission to offer these gnomes the hospitality of your clan?”
“Ah . . . yes.”
“Good.” Then she did something unusual. She reached up and cupped his cheek. “Rule. We will get Toby back. We will bring all the children back.” With that, she turned and followed Max.
“Hank,” Rule said.
The guard who’d opened Madame Yu’s door responded. “Yes?”
“You heard that? Madame Yu will speak with my voice when she offers the gnomes Nokolai’s hospitality. Make sure the others know.”
“Got it.” Hank loped off.
Lily was watching her grandmother’s erect figure as it vanished around the side of the house. “She speaks gnomish. I didn’t know she spoke gnomish. Half the time she barely speaks English—that’s on purpose, of course, but still . . .” She shook her head.
“Your grandmother is an amazing woman, but how is she going to ‘arrange matters’?” Rule asked.
“She said she can speak for Sam in this, which makes her first status, second degree. Apparently a first-status sovereign power can do pretty much whatever the hell she wants as long as she’s polite about it. Not that Grandmother put it that way, but that’s what she meant. She’s going with us, you know.”
“I didn’t.” And he wasn’t sure it was a good idea. Madame Yu was tough and powerful in her way, but . . . never mind. He’d deal with that later. He could not let himself be distracted again. “Lily—”
“There’s something I need to tell you.”
Hearing the words he’d been about to utter come out of her mouth startled him into silence.
“You know the Unit has a new head,” she went on. “A guy named Stephen Marsh. He’s regular Bureau now, but he used to be MCD. Cynna says he’s an asshole. I tend to agree. He called me.”
“He’s going to be a problem?”
“You could say that. He wants me in D.C. on the double to be part of the investigation there. And by ‘part of,’ he means he wants me to confirm Cullen’s findings by touching God knows how much rubble. I told him,” she said, simmering. “I told him about Toby, but he already knew. He knows my stepson has been kidnapped and he still wants me to drop everything, leave you here—he doesn’t know about the mate bond, so he thinks I could do that—and start running my fingers over crumbled walls and desks and shit, when Cullen has already checked most of it! He said I could not be left in charge of the investigation here anyway, it being so personal. That would be against Bureau policy.”
“I can see why that would be so. What did you say?”
She snorted. “I asked him who the hell else was going to handle it, then? Because as far as I know, none of the other Unit agents has a relationship with the black dragon, whose assistance is absolutely essential to recovering the children. Do you know what he said?”
“No. Lily—”
“Neither do I. I hung up on him. So I may or may not be a Unit 12 agent at the moment. I thought you should know.”
She’d refused her superior’s direct order. Humans didn’t punish that sort of thing as harshly as his people did, but this Stephen Marsh wasn’t likely to overlook it. Which meant he was too late. If he’d gone ahead and had the argument about whether she would accompany him, she wouldn’t have hung up on the man. “Perhaps you should call him back.”
Her brows drew together. She didn’t respond.
“I’ve been trying to tell you. Not trying hard enough, but my own head wasn’t clear on the subject at first, and . . .” He stopped and rested his hands on her shoulders. “Lily, this isn’t like other times we’ve gone up against strong opponents. Our enemies are expecting us, and they’ve shown themselves to be powerful and resourceful. We’re going into their territory, and we’re going almost blind, without knowing what resources they have. It’s unlikely that all of us who leave on this mission will come back.”
“And?” she said in a dangerously low voice.
“I want you to stay here.”
“We don’t always get what we want, do we?”
�
��Lily, I can’t do this! I can’t handle you being in such danger when Toby is . . . I’m barely keeping it together now. I’ll be risking so many people I love on this. I can’t risk you, too. I need—”
“What about what I need?” She stepped back, letting his hands fall away. “Have you thought about that?”
The volcano shuddered inside him. “Be careful. I’m not safe right now. Don’t raise your voice at me.”
“I’ll damn well yell if I want to! Has it even once crossed your mind—dammit, Rule, I haven’t tried to stop you from going, no matter how insanely dangerous it is. I won’t. I don’t have the goddamn right to do that, and you don’t, either!”
“He’s my son!” Rule bellowed.
“I know that! And maybe this stupid-ass attitude of yours is partly my fault. Maybe I’ve been too careful. You’re the parent with the hands-on experience and he’s been yours all along while I’m new to this, plus you’re lupi and so’s Toby, so I’ve held back, but—but dammit, Rule, he’s mine, too!”
His control tore right down the middle. He flung back his head and screamed. Screamed with all the rage in him until his voice tore, too.
He came back to himself slowly. It was very quiet.
“Is that why you never yell when we argue?”
He looked at his nadia. She stood exactly where she had before, her head tipped slightly to one side, dark eyes steady on him. He would have answered, but when he tried, nothing came out.
The effort hurt. He put a hand to his throat and looked around.
Ten feet away, a wolf cowered on the ground. Behind him was another wolf, also flat on the ground. He saw two more prostrate Nokolai off to his left, but they were farther away and had remained men. And just behind Lily . . .
“You’ll do now, boy,” his father said, and gave him a nod.
If you have finished challenging the sky, said a cold, clear mental voice, you may wish to know that Reno and I have completed our task. Your stolen young were taken to Dis.
EIGHTEEN
DIS. The hell-realm. The place where demons walked . . . and flew, and swam. The realm without a moon.
Technically, Sam didn’t order them to join him near Cullen and Cynna’s house. He called that a “strong suggestion,” adding that he would not elaborate until he and Reno finished discussing technical matters with the gnomes. He would then provide additional information to those who chose to assemble near him and Reno.
Additional information had better mean answering a few questions, Rule thought, then sending them on their way. Too damn much time had passed already.
Lily must have thought something similar, because she rushed inside to grab her backpack and jacket before they set off on foot for Cullen and Cynna’s place. Walking was the default at Clanhome, and why rush there in a car when Sam wouldn’t talk to them yet? Isen tactfully chose to wait for Madame Yu, Cynna, and Cullen to join him before setting off, which allowed Rule and Lily a degree of privacy.
“How can it be Dis?” Lily muttered. “I don’t see how it can be Dis.”
He shook his head, frustrated. Whatever damage he’d done would heal, but it hadn’t yet. His throat felt like raw meat. He reached for the backpack she carried by one strap.
“I can carry . . . oh, all right, if it makes you feel better.”
It did. He slid her backpack onto his own shoulder. His was at the staging spot.
“Still can’t talk? Well, if that’s what you have to expect if you start yelling, I can understand why you always fight cold, not hot. It would suck to lose a fight because you couldn’t speak.”
His mouth quirked, charmed in spite of himself by her notion of what constituted a fight. They never fought. They disagreed, they argued, but they did not fight. He would never fight Lily.
Which was, perhaps, why his voice was broken. Or half the reason.
It was not what he’d expected to happen. When his control snapped, he’d been sure he’d be sucked into the Change—or worse, into the fury. But his Chosen had been standing in front of him and it was not possible to harm her. That was not a choice, not a decision, but a simple fact of existence. With her in front of him, he could not fall into the fury.
Which did not explain why he’d screamed instead of Changing. He didn’t understand that. He’d simply done so, pouring his rage into a scream that damaged his vocal cords, pulled four nearby lupi into the Change, and caused every Nokolai clansman within hearing to abase himself. In the process, he’d alarmed their gnome guests and caused his father to race out to see what was attacking them this time.
He wondered if he would be embarrassed about that at some point. Gods, he hoped so. He hoped he survived long enough that life would smooth out and he could spare attention for such minor pangs.
Toby was in Dis.
Toby. He’d failed his son. Failed—
No. Don’t think of that.
Toby was in Dis. So was Ryder, an even smaller baby, and two more children.
Lily intended to go there with him. He didn’t know how to stop her.
Their enemies would be waiting—backed by the Great Enemy, who could probably act more directly in Dis than she could here. The odds were high that even if he survived this mission, others would not. He could not handle losing Lily.
Toby was in hell . . .
Lily believed he didn’t see her as Toby’s parent.
She was right.
She was his nadia, his Chosen, his wife. She was not the mother of his son, and he had no model for “stepmother,” no understanding of that role. In a society where no one marries, there are no stepmothers. He had, he admitted, little enough understanding of “mother.” His own had been entirely absent.
Not that he’d missed out on mothering as a boy. The sisters and daughters of his clan had watched out for him, tended scraped knees, scolded or praised, lectured or listened. And that, he supposed, was the role he’d assigned Lily where Toby was concerned. She cared for his son, yes, just as many women had showered affection on him as a boy.
But the women of Clanhome hadn’t claimed him. He’d never been theirs the way he was his father’s.
Lily had claimed Toby.
Did that mean the same to her it as did to him? Did she know what it meant to him? Claiming was different from simply loving. Affection could wax or wane. Bonds of love, loyalty, or enmity might strengthen over the years or be sundered. But claiming was for always. Once you claimed someone as yours, you could not unclaim them.
Human adoptions were for life, weren’t they? And hadn’t she spoken up for Dirty Harry, who was hers?
She’d claimed Toby. He stopped.
She got a pace ahead, turned, and looked at him. “What?”
He set her backpack down on the road and put his hands on her shoulders the way he had before. This time he spoke different words, and in a hoarse rasp. “Of course he’s yours, too.”
They were still wrapped in each other’s arms a few minutes later when an eye-poppingly bright green Volkswagen with a yellow hood, a red fender, and a shitload of gnomes shot past.
* * *
THE adobe bungalow where Cynna and Cullen lived was the oldest intact structure on Clanhome. When Isen’s father sank so much of the clan’s money into purchasing the land for Clanhome well over a century ago, little had been left for building homes. But adobe was cheap, and the clan had had plenty of willing hands if not, at first, a great deal of expertise. Their first attempts hadn’t survived, but this one—built last, and with the addition of cement to stabilize the adobe bricks—might well make it another century or two.
Somewhere along the line, the house had been stuccoed. In Rule’s lifetime it had been white, sandy beige, and once—briefly—bright yellow; it was currently chocolate brown. About fifty years ago, Claude Cheveaux, who was then Isen’s second, had added a second box to the first, creating a l
ong covered porch as well as a second bedroom and bath plus a small “whatever room.” Claude had kept his weapons collection in the whatever room. The man who lived there next had used the little room as an office; the one after him, for storage.
It was currently a nursery. An open-air nursery. The little bungalow had suffered the same deconstruction by dragon as Rule’s house. He could see the gaping hole from a hundred yards away and wondered if the house could be restored properly. Wondering if it would matter. If they didn’t get Ryder back . . .
They would. They had to.
“Do you think they darken with age?” Lily asked. “The babies are such bright colors. So’s Mika, and she’s the youngest of them.”
“What?” He dragged his gaze from the wounded house to look straight ahead, where Sam lay on the road, sunlight striking iridescent sparks from his midnight scales. Not that he fit the road; his coils lapped over onto the earth on either side. Reno was coiled in the meeting field about twenty yards from Sam. “I don’t know. You could ask. That probably isn’t a close-held secret.”
“Which doesn’t mean they’ll answer.”
That was sure as hell true. Neither Sam nor Reno had spoken yet, though everyone but the fighters who’d accompany them was present, including Max. Not his gnome squad, however. The oppressively bright Volkswagen sat empty just up the road, near the foot of the path that led up Little Sister. Twelve gnomes were currently tromping up that path. Rule glanced that way. He could just make out a few of the small figures, though most were hidden in the scruffy growth on the mountain’s slope. They’d almost reached the node.
Arjenie’s voice drew his attention back to ground level. “It’s weird to see two dragons so close together, isn’t it?”
“It is, rather.” There were sixty feet between the two dragons—not close in human or lupi terms, but sixty feet might be a dragon’s notion of personal space. Dragons were largely solitary beings. Rule knew they gathered occasionally for what Lily called their singalongs, but he had no idea if those were social occasions or some communal project, song being the way dragons worked magic.