“What would you do if you were me?”
She hadn’t been expecting that question. Even worse, she didn’t have a good answer for it. At least, she didn’t have an answer that was likely to benefit her.
“I don’t know,” Jo admitted. “But I wouldn’t do anything rash.” She hoped. “We don’t know what happened. But perhaps this is good, Wayne. Perhaps this is some aspect of my power that no one knew about before.”
Wayne seemed to be thinking the notion over, which gave Jo a margin of optimism.
“I mean, I was talking about bringing down the Society when—”
He held up a hand. “I’m stopping you right there.”
“But perhaps we could—”
“I don’t know what’s going on, doll. But you remember when I told you about brodies?” She nodded—they were bad ideas. “This is the definition of one. Right here.”
She wanted to scream and embrace him all at the same time. She wanted to scream at him for ignoring an opportunity or, at the very least, for betraying her. But she also wanted to embrace him, reassure him, tell her friend that she knew he was struggling with this just as she was. They were both confused and more than a little off-balance, but they could figure it out if they just stuck together. Jo was left reeling at the stark contrast in impulses.
In the end, the result of all the conflicting drives was for her to do absolutely nothing.
“So, what are you going to do?” she asked, finally.
“I don’t know yet.”
Jo stared out the window, watching the wind play in the waves of grasses that covered the world outside in a thick blanket. Her hand balled into a fist, as if trying to catch the fear and panic that had welled up in the wake of the desk and squash it like an annoying fly.
“We can use this to our advantage.” She finished her earlier thought, the one he’d interrupted.
“Brodies, remember?”
She heard Wayne approaching her, but Jo didn’t turn to face him, not yet. Whatever that feeling of power was—the one assuring her that she could break him if she tried hard enough—it was only there if she looked at him. Jo didn’t want to exert that magic. If he agreed to help her, it had to be of his own accord.
“I hear you. I do. But I need you to hear me. Nothing is going to change unless we do something to change it. It will be one wish after the next, faster and more impossible than the last, until none of us are left.”Until Pan gets what she wants. She kept the last thought to herself. Jo had no proof other than a feeling and she didn’t want Wayne to get distracted with the idea of turning Pan into an enemy. “You can’t possibly be okay with that?”
Jo looked to him then. Not with magic, but with pleading eyes, searching to see if he felt even remotely as she did.
“Of course I’m not okay with that.” He ran a hand over his hair. “It’s just that . . .”
“Just what? You’re afraid of bringing down the Society and us all dying? How is that any different than the path we’re on? Other than it just happens faster?”
When Wayne said nothing, she continued.
“Look, Wayne, I don’t understand what happened.” She was back to staring at her open palm. “But perhaps this is what we need to—how did Pan put it? Dismantle? The Society. It was an avenue no one could explore before because my magic wasn’t part of the equation.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
“If I’m wrong I’ll stop before I get too far ahead.”
Wayne thought about this, conflict written across his face. Did he believe her? That she would stop? Jo hoped he did, because she honestly didn’t know if she believed herself. Still, when he said nothing, Jo tried for one more nudge.
“If you don’t want to help outright, that’s fine. But promise me you won’t get in my way? Promise me you’ll keep what happened there between us?”
Finally, the man seemed to breathe once more. “All right, doll. I won’t get in your way, and I’ll try to give you leeway where I can. But if things start going haywire, I’m going right to Snow or Eslar.”
He extended a hand. Jo stared at it for a moment. It wasn’t the best she could’ve hoped for, but it was far from the worst. Her fingers curled around his, and they shook on it.
“You’ve got a deal, Mr. Davis.”
BTCOTS NOTES 2
