And even aside from her desire for power, I have no doubt she’ll be motivated. Given how things went, she’s theoppositeof protected—High Earth will realize she helped me set them up.
They’ll come for her, and I’m not going to hang her out to dry.
“What kind of spells?” Ayaka asks.
“Anything that will help you protect yourself, as long as you can learn them.”
Her eyes spark. Got her.
“I hope you are a good teacher, or I will not be satisfied,” she says.
Ha! “I look forward to finding out. I take it you have some ideas, then?”
Ayaka smiles. “Oh, I am happy to learn what you think best first. And then you may teach me what I think best.”
See, this is why I like Ayaka. She’s a woman who knows how to get it all.
I laugh and clink my glass to hers in agreement.
Then Ayaka asks, “And what then?”
I take a drink and look at her sidelong. “Then?”
“Surely you do not expect me to believe that is the extent of your plans,” Ayaka says, with the tone of someone who would be deeply disappointed if I were that stupid.
Well, she’s not wrong, exactly. I do have plans. But I don’t think she’s going to consider them especially savvy.
But they’re going to affect her, and I’m not going to make the same mistakes twice.
“They imprisoned Nariel,” I say.
“Yes,” she says, “and they gave you quite a deal in exchange.”
“Oh, yes, it sure is a deal.”
Ayaka sets her drink down and looks me dead in the eye to say with uncharacteristic bluntness, “Sierra. We are not prepared for High Earth. We arecertainlynot prepared for angels.”
“Exactly,” I tell her. “Koshiel is clearly hoping I’ll be a distraction for High Earth from whatever the angels are up to there. She either underestimates me still and expects that to occupy all my attention, which means all she intended was to buy time. Or she took a true measure of me and expects me to provide her something else. I suspect the former, but either way, playing the part she set out has no benefit for me. If I go along with it and do nothing more, Iwillspend all my time busy being chased by High Earth, she’ll get what she wants from them, and ultimately High Earth will overwhelm us. In maybe a few years if we’re lucky, everything will be back to how it was before. And I didn’t do all this for it to be temporary, Ayaka.”
Ayaka and Brook are both quiet and watching me, absorbing that and thinking it through. Ayaka looks more serious than I’ve ever seen her.
“You wouldn’t risk magic for a man,” Ayaka says, a test.
I grit my teeth against the internal rush of anger.Not her fault.“If I would, he’d still be here.”
“That is not an answer,” Brook says.
Brat. Admittedly, a correct brat.
“Magic was always the most important thing in my life,” I say. “Now there is more. If I risk magic, I promise you it is because I am very sure it is important.”
“Important to whom?” Ayaka asks. “Will you make your personal vendettas problems for the whole world?”
I know what answer she’s looking for. I ought to be politic.
I glance at Brook, and back.
I am who I am.
