“No!” Anneeta squeals again. But this time, there is no spark display. She respects him. Maybe even fears him. Because she has her emotions under control. “You can’t go!”
“We have to.” Tyse isn’t looking at Anneeta. “I didn’t tell you last night because we were… having a good night, ya know? You were happy, and you had fun, and I didn’t want to spoil it. But they know a Spark Maiden came through.”
“It wasn’t me!” Anneeta yells. “I swear on myself that I didn’t tell them!”
I’m confused for a moment, but then I figure it out and look at Tyse. “She’sthe god?”
He nods. “She’s the god. A new one, I guess. They’re trying to grow a new god for the tower and they needed Spark Maidens to get her to mature.”
“That’s why they kept ringing the bells.” I look at Anneeta. “They were feeding you.”
“And when you say ‘they,’ Clara,” Tyse continues, “you understand that the ‘they’ is Stayn and all those men who were at the party last night? They let some things slip. They don’t know it’s you, not yet. But they’ve been thinking about it all night now. And I’ve got a nine AM meeting on Monday morning. What do you think he wants to talk to me about? We need to get the fuck out of this city today. Like right now.”
“You can’t leave!” All of Anneeta’s bravery disappears with these words. And part of me understands that she’s not a child, she’s some kind of god. And she’s very in control and not at all confused and conflicted. She knows what she needs—the spark.And she knows the tower is the only place to get it, so she’s stuck here.
At least she was, until I showed up.
But she plays this part of innocent childverywell.
“Tyse!” Anneeta walks over to him, looking up. He is a tower compared to her. “You don’t understand. We aresomethingtogether.” She points to me, then herself, then Tyse. “We are the Looking Glass.”
“What?” That’s Tyse.
“What?” That’s me.
Tyse bends down again, placing both hands on her shoulders. “What do you know about it?”
She looks him in the eyes. “I know everything. I’m a god, remember?”
“Then explain.”
“The Looking Glass is a way to see things. It covers all worlds at once. That’s where you come in. You’re the overlay, Tyse. Because you’re the augment.”
Anneeta directs her gaze to me. “But the overlay is only visible inside the spark. That’s you. You’re the spark.”
Then she points to herself. “But you have to have a god to interpret the symbols. I’m the only one who can read it. So you see, to have a Looking Glass you need all three of us. Once those men figure out that we’re the Looking Glass, they’ll come for you. For both of you. Because they will already have me. I’m trapped here. It’s much easier to find an augment and a Spark Maiden than it is to grow a god. They will never let you go if they have me. They will always have hope. They will hunt you until the ends of the world and they will never stop.”
Tyse and I are both silent. Because we understand this is probably true.
“But if you take me,” Anneeta continues, “to the right place, then they will lose all hope and they will give up.”
Tyse sneers. “Right place, huh? And where, exactly, is this right place?”
Anneeta smiles at Tyse. “A place you already know. A place with a god who will let you in.”
“Delta?” Tyse is shaking his head. “You want us to take you to Delta and give you to my old god?”
Anneeta shrugs. “He’s not a little boy. He doesn’t eat spark anymore, hemakesit. And he will let us in because you belong to him. You’ll always belong to him. There is no one in Tau City who could hurt him and that means if we’re under his protection, there is no one in Tau City who could hurtus.”
Tyse huffs. “Your plan has a critical flaw in it, little god. You can’t leave the tower.”
“But I can.” Anneeta smiles at me. “All Clara has to do is feed me along the way.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
It’s not… lovemaking.
It’s certainly notlove.
