Card looked over his shoulder, and his expression was a mix of regret and acceptance.
“Okay.Now we can go forward,” he said.“It takes both of you.As I was saying to Lula, there are no shortcuts.Not with this book.It isn’t a magic that can be controlled.It can only be used the way it wants to be used, and it wants the both of you to use it.Not one or the other.”
“I’m going to step out so you two can talk.Call me back in if you want to go forward with the book.”
He walked out, taking Abbi with him, not that it would matter much.She had big ears.She’d hear everything we said.
“You’re here,” Lu said.
“You know I’d never leave you behind.Where you go, Lula Gauge, I go.”
She wiped the tear tracking her cheek with the back of her hand.“I’m angry,” she said.“But I’m not angry at you.”
“Fair,” I said.“I’m angry too.Not at you.”
I crossed the room to stand in front of her.I opened my arms.“Too angry for me to hold you?”
She shook her head.“No.Never.”She leaned into me, her arms unlocking and wrapping around my hips.Her palms, pressed against my back, radiated heat.
I kept my breathing even and slow, and after a moment or two, her breathing settled, calmed, matching mine.
“I know I’m wrong,” she said.“I know we’re not ready to use the book.But Headwaters has never stuck his head out—not in a hundred years.I’ve never known where he was, or what he was.And I’ve been dealing with him for decades.”
“Through a third party,” I said.“A monster like that has his own ways to throw hunters off his trail.You can’t blame yourself for not knowing.”
“That’s only part of it,” she said.“We’re running out of time.”
She leaned back to look at me.“I can feel it, can’t you?More and more gods are looking for us, looking for the book.More and more people are getting involved with us trying to use the book, or hide the book, or destroy the book.”
“Pretty sure destruction isn’t on the table.”
“I know.But if it were…”
“That would be my first choice, yes.”
“Even if we don’t go to meet Headwaters,” she said, “even if we just stay here, holed up, trying to find the perfect spell that will kill Headwaters, stop Atë, stop Mithra, and Apep, and all the other gods…how long do you think we’d have before we’d be found?”
The hunters had good wards, the magic here was old, established.We had all their tricks on our side, along with a powerful wizard, the moon rabbit, and Ricky with her resources of the Crossroads.
We had Cupid and Raven on our side too.
But stacking all of that against the unknown, the wrath of three, maybe more gods?
“Not long,” I said truthfully.“A week, at the most, before we’d need to find another bolt hole.”
“I think so too.So, this is it.Thisisour chance.We find the spell, we use the god magic and cast it at Headwaters with everything we have.No matter the cost.This is it.This is where we were always headed, whether we liked it or not.”
“I agree, Icanagree with all that.I hate it, though.That these are our choices.But at least we still have choices.
“But Lu, there’s one thing I don’t agree with.The cost matters.Your life matters.If there’s a way to use this magic without it killing us, then that’s what I want to do.Even if it’s harder.Even if it takes us longer.”
She hesitated.When my wife made up her mind about something, she did not doubt herself, she did not back down.She had made up her mind that tomorrow was her one and only chance to kill the monster who had destroyed our lives.
I needed her to see that we might have other chances.
“If we find a spell that can kill Headwaters,” I said, “I’m all in.If we find one that can trap Headwaters…”
She was already shaking her head.
