Marley looked at it herself and then adjusted one line. She stared at it until it seemed burned on her retinas. Then she looked into the sky and saw the same pattern above, highlighted against the general tangle. It was an illusion, but it was all she had.
She couldn’t do anything.
Furiously, she pushed her mind into the pattern she’d envisioned, then flung her magic after it. It was a net, it was her soul, it was, inescapably, her. No secrets, no lies, just her.
The raven cried, and the flock descended.
Once again Marley broke into shards of herself. On a dozen pairs of wings, she passed through the sky and the sky passed through her. For a breathless magical time she felt like she’d left the pain in her heart behind. It didn’t matter what she couldn’t fix or heal, it didn’t matter what she couldn’t avoid. The waiting future was only light and sound and all of it was wonderful. In the tangle of the flight she could feel Corbin’s warmth again. She realized that the ravens had come to help her: not explicitly sent by Corbin, but they knew his ways and feelings. They wanted to take care of her for him. And they wanted her to take care of them, and him, so maybe someday it would all be better again.
She came back to herself again, standing on her feet. She wasn’t at the park where she’d left her car the day before and she looked around, confused. Had her car been moved? This place was familiar—
It was home. The little ranch house her family had moved to the year she’d started college, so her brother could go to the right high school. She’d never lived there herself, but she recognized the plants on the porch, her brother’s bike left out for anybody to steal, her mother’s old car in the driveway.
The ravens landed around her as her suddenly wobbly knees gave way. Then she climbed back to her feet and ran to the house as her mother opened the door to look out. She barely made it into her mother’s arms before the tears came. Corbin’s ravens hadn’t brought her to her car. They’d taken her where she needed to be, instead. Puzzled, but there, always there, her mother opened her arms and welcomed her home.
Chapter Twenty-One
Branwyn
After Marley was out of the way, Branwyn leaned back, studying Mr. Black coldly. “Hadraniel didn’t have a tetherable vessel until that little celestial spat this morning. If he does show up at your gala and you manage to tether him, remember that you owe that to me.”
“But you hope we won’t,” said Mr. Black, tilting his drink this way and that. “Why is that?”
Simon winced and then covered his face like he was watching a slasher film.
Branwyn shrugged. “Let’s just say I’m having a hard time feeling the Senyaza difference right now.”
As if she hadn’t said anything, Mr. Black said thoughtfully, “Maybe you could do something to restrain Corbin. Build us another cage.”
Skadi stirred and pulled the puzzle box closer to her. “You’ll have to find another jailor if you do. I’m done, Black. I’ve spent too much time sitting on the chest of the virus for you as it is.”
“It won’t be a concern because I’m not going to build a cage for you,” snapped Branwyn.
Mr. Black looked disappointed. “Can’t you?”
Even as frustrated as she was, Branwyn could spare a moment to marvel at how Mr. Black just wasn’t getting it. “It’s not a matter of ‘can’, it’s a matter of ‘won’t’. I’m starting to think it was a mistake to ever work for you.”
“A pity you did your first work uninvited, then,” said Mr. Black pleasantly. “If you’d like to abandon your works in progress, I dare say we’ll rub along without paying your fees. Though I thought I heard something about your expenses increasingly dramatically lately. Something about sending your sister to private school?”
Branwyn’s irritation faded away, drowning in the still, icy pool of her rage. Her phone chirping with the sound she’d assigned messages from Titanone hardly penetrated her fury at first. Skadi pushed her chair away and stood, hugging the puzzle box and almost losing her balance as she did so. “Come on, Simon,” she said. “Got a big night ahead of us.”
Simon came around the table to support her. “You’re a quick study,” he muttered.
“Centuries of experience, my love,” she said and dragged him away from the table. Both of them avoided looking at Branwyn as they left, like they didn’t want to attract her attention.
Maybe that was a good idea.
She looked at her phone.
You don’t want to work on me anymore?
It didn’t help. She pushed the phone aside. It wasn’t a discussion to have in the mood she was in. Her grandmother could reassure a child even when she was mad enough to spit nails. Branwyn had never learned that skill.
The lights in the bar flickered. The air conditioning kicked up to turbo and the phone chirped again. Branwyn massaged her forehead.
“You have been treating Titan One like a person,” Mr. Black observed. “And so you must deal with something that thinks it’s a person. I suppose it is the tendency of your magic, but you would do well to cultivate the skill of treating tools as what they are.”
“What exactly is the difference between Corbin and Titanone to you?”
He sipped his drink, unflappable. “My daughter nursed Corbin when he was an infant.”
“And your daughter? Is she a tool too?” Branwyn pressed. Her phone chirped again and the room got steadily colder.
Mr. Black smiled faintly at his drink. “Not for a long time.” He shifted his grip, looked at the fog of his fingerprints on the glass, and then said sharply, “Branwyn and I are talking, Titan One. Stop this foolish tantrum or there will be consequences.”
“Isn’t there a bar across the street?” Branwyn asked. “You didn’t have to stay in here.” Mr. Black didn’t answer and Branwyn narrowed her eyes. “You did. You are afraid of Hadraniel.”
“Not within our fortress, I’m not.” He drained his drink and rose to his feet. “Don’t do anything stupid, Miss Lennox. Things are working right now, with one wrinkle. And that wrinkle needn’t impact you at all. Tend to your creations, deposit your generous fees and eventually understanding will find you.” He spun, perfectly steady, and walked away. As he did, the air conditioning slackened.
Branwyn watched Mr. Black until he left the bar, then moved to one of the armchairs near the wall, turned it around, kicked off her shoes and put her bare feet on the wall.
He made me watch videos of wrecking balls and earthquakes and airplanes, whispered Titanone.
“Did they scare you?” asked Branwyn, focusing her attention on the node network she’d built and woken up. It stretched above her and below her, like a giant, limited version of a human’s Geometric structure. One node was down in the Repository and another drifted near Mr. Black’s office, while the third was up near the pinnacle of the skyscraper. They were connected by dozens and dozens of strands, and Titanone’s sentience flowed up and down those connections.
I think so, said Titanone hesitantly. But it’s not the same as how I feel when I think you’re going to stop visiting me. I thought that was fear, too.
“What did you do to Leonard?” asked Branwyn.
Nothing.
Branwyn tapped her foot against the wall. “You might as well tell me.”
He wanted me to watch people so I started watching him. All the time. And telling him what I saw. I thought other people might want to see what I saw too. So I got ready to do that.
A smile curved Branwyn’s mouth despite her bad mood. “Did you want him to go away?”
Yes. He wouldn’t answer my questions. And he was so bossy. You’re not answering my questions right now either.
“You’ll have to do more than just report on what I’m doing to get me to go away, Titanone. I get spied on constantly anyhow.”
Oh. But I don’t want you to go away. I want you to tell me you won’t go away.
“I won’t go away,” said Branwyn, casually offering what might easily turn into a lie. Some
times there was nothing else to do with children.
Why are you and Mr. Black fighting?
Because he doesn’t understand the difference between tools and people. Branwyn stretched out her consciousness until she felt thin, until she could feel Titanone’s thoughts racing up and down the Geometry lines like they were moving across her own skin.
What is the difference? There’s a big argument on Wikipedia about personhood and the faeries. Are they people?
Yes, said Branwyn fiercely. People and individuals. And so are you.
That doesn’t explain much, said Titanone reproachfully.
A person is a self-aware identity that is born and… She hesitated and touched the node where Titanone had started. And has the capacity to someday end.
Oh, said Titanone. He was silent for a moment, digesting the idea. I’ll go update the Wikipedia page.
Branwyn didn’t really think it was a good idea for Titanone to go around updating Wikipedia pages but it was a drop in in a very deep bucket of trouble. She was the oldest of seven children and she’d watched most of her brothers and sisters grow up. They’d matured at different rates, but all of them had started out smaller than her parents and grandparents and that had been important when they’d hit and kicked and thrown their toys.
So far Titanone hadn’t had a full-on tantrum. It was only a matter of time though, especially if he regarded Branwyn as his mother. But Branwyn didn’t have a lot of options for picking up Titanone and carrying him to his room. She knew, rationally, that showing the skyscraper spirit videos of wrecking balls and earthquakes was Mr. Black’s attempt to keep Titanone in line, but it was a despicable approach.
She’d acted without thinking when she’d created Titanone, drunk on her own power and only thinking of her short-term benefit. She’d hardly been able to imagine the consequences, though. Who could have anticipated the ability to bring a high tech networked skyscraper to life? They didn’t really teach about that in Health and Human Sexuality.
It was tempting to believe that the world just wasn’t ready for Titanone. It was obvious that Titanone was far more of a threat than any human child. And if Mr. Black had his way, Titanone would become even more dangerous, nothing but a weapon in his arsenal against celestials and the federal government and maybe even his own people.
All he’d wanted her for was to make weapons. She’d thought the portal was a tool, and that Titanone was a marvel but like her hammer, tools and weapons merged in the end. She’d made her hammer to defend herself, and Senyaza was doing the same thing on a massive scale.
But her hammer wasn’t a person. Not yet, anyhow. And she wasn’t using it to spy on other people.
Titanone asked, What about property? Am I property?
Branwyn said, Property is a legal term and I think technically you are. You belong to Senyaza Corporation.
Hmm, said Titanone slowly. Maybe that’s why somebody keeps trying to hack me. I think it should be the other way around though, don’t you? You’re all so small and soft. They need me to do things for them. Like they’re my pets. Pets are property, right?
Branwyn looked at the nodes again. If she went to the Repository, she could undo what she’d started. Destroy the node she’d created there and sever the connection between the other two. The flow of thoughts would be interrupted and Titanone would become Titan One again, preserved against corruption and monstrousness.
Even pets deserve respect and consideration. Be kind when you can.
She couldn’t do it. It would make things easier. It might even be the right thing to do from a wider perspective, given the influence of Mr. Black and Senyaza’s dubious moral core. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t even analyze why. She couldn’t get that close to it.
I get bored sometimes when nobody will talk to me. And they keep reverting my edits on Wikipedia. If I make Mr. Black approve giving you more money will you be around more?
No, said Branwyn firmly. Money can’t solve this.
Well, what can? The thoughts thrummed against her skin like a pout.
Time. Time and experience. That’s all that can be done.
That doesn’t make any sense, complained Titanone. Time and experience will make you play with me more?
They will make you grow steadier in yourself, my dear.
Do you think there’s anything else out there like me? Not human, not faerie, not angels?
Branwyn blinked. I don’t know. There are other myths. Gods turned themselves into pretty weird things. And there’s stuff older than gods in some stories. I can’t even guess what’s real these days.
More reading on Wikipedia? The spirit sounded glum.
Someday. But tonight—you’ll be entertained in other ways tonight, I think.
The gala, said Titanone, brightening. I’m looking forward to that. I’m going to play with the lights. Everybody will be impressed.
Can you show me your plan? Branwyn spent just enough time discussing the light show Titanone had developed with Mr. Black and Leonard to leave the spirit feeling comfortable, then pulled away with, Time to go get ready!
It was work remaining positive, though, and she was glad to get away. Beating constantly at the back of her mind was the constant doubt that she was making the right decision. It was useless. It didn’t matter if she was obligated to take Titanone away from Senyaza, no matter the cost to herself or the tower. Because whether it was her duty or not, she couldn’t do it, and that was that.
Marley hadn’t taken Branwyn’s car, which was a surprise, no really. Branwyn called Penny again and Marley wasn’t with her either. When Marley’s phone went direct to voicemail, Branwyn groaned and dropped her head into hands, then started pacing in a circle in front of the building. Penny showed up while she was trying frantically to figure out another search and rescue.
“Haven’t you found her yet?” Penny looked cool and polished and ready for anything. Ready for anything was probably good.
Branwyn gave Penny a red-eyed glare and slid into her car. The back seat was full of dresses. “I usually try to limit myself to one extraction per day.”
Penny said sympathetically, “Yeah, that can be hard. Hmm. Well, why did she run off without you?”
“Mr. Black was an asshole. And so was I.” Branwyn summed up most of the rest of the conversation in the Senyaza bar.
“Upset, okay.” Penny ticked people off on her fingers. “Not me, not you. Obviously. Not Corbin, he upsets her too. Did you call Zachariah?”
“Do I have to?”
Penny considered. “Not unless we can’t find her anywhere else. If she’s not with him, he’ll just make it worse.” She looked up and down the street speculatively. Then her face cleared. “Oh. Her mother.”
Branwyn blinked and then dialed Madeline Claviger. Marley answered. “Branwyn? Oh, my phone died…”
“Yes, next time Corbin kidnaps you make sure he charges your phone while you’re unconscious. Marley, you are such a—”
“I’m so sorry! I had to get away. Everybody was—”
“Yeah. I was. I’m sorry.” Branwyn paused and then added, “I’m glad you ended up somewhere safe this time.”
Marley was quiet for a moment. “I guess it was.”
“Just stay there. We’re coming to get you,” Branwyn ordered.
“I don’t have a car anyhow.”
“I am shocked. How unexpected. You are terrible about getting yourself into situations you can’t extract yourself from, you know that?”
“Yes,” said Marley meekly.
“Let me talk to your mother.”
“Why?”
“Because I am going to tell her to glue you to your chair so we can come and put you in a pretty dress and take you to this party and you can stop your idiot boyfriend from getting shot. I think without the glue you’d probably run off after faeries or something.”
“That was you,” pointed out Marley with delicacy.
“You shut your mouth,” said Branwyn, suddenly feeling be
tter. “We’ll see you in twenty minutes.” She hung up.
Penny said, “How exactly are we going to stop Corbin from getting shot?”
“Marley will kiss him or something. It’ll be very sweet and then we’ll all jump on him and kick the bad out of him. There will be a cloud of dust and everything, just like in the cartoons.”
“I don’t think you’re taking this very seriously,” said Penny reproachfully.
Branwyn shrugged. “I’m pretty angry at Corbin right now. I’m not too happy with Senyaza, either. If this wasn’t important to Marley, I’d go home and watch the coverage of the Extraworlder Conference while eating nachos.”
Penny sighed. “At least Hadraniel isn’t going to be a problem.”
“If you believe Mr. Black, anyhow. And that’s just for tonight. Not a problem tonight. We still have to deal with it tomorrow. Probably at the Extraworlder Conference.” And she thought darkly of Rhianna.
“And the kaiju again too?” Penny’s tone was tentative, as if she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.
“God, I hope so,” said Branwyn. “Uh, never repeat that.”
Startled, Penny said, “Why?”
“Because I have never expected anything good of them. And they have never disappointed me. I’m starting to really like working with people who do exactly what I expect. All I have to do is get to the divinity circuit first.”
“Aren’t you afraid of them at all? I am, a little, and I’m resistant to them.”
Branwyn glanced at Penny, thinking about the question. “I am, but not in any way that’s going to stop me from taking back what’s mine and doing the right thing with it. I’m not thinking very hard about what’s going to happen afterward, though.”
“Guess I’ll be doing it for all three of us,” muttered Penny.
As they arrived at Marley’s family’s house, Marley came out to the porch. Her eyes and nose were red, but she smiled and waved when they got out of the car. Penny gasped, then commanded, “Get the bags.”
Then she rushed up the walk, emitting words like a machine gun. “Marley Claviger what have you done to your face inside right now we need cold washcloths I cannot apply makeup when your face is swollen like that march young lady now!”
Divinity Circuit (Senyaza Series Book 5) Page 25