“Yeah, afraid so.”
Brian’s voice was weak, strained. Rule turned.
Brian wasn’t a large man, no more than five-ten, and had always been slim, full of energy. Now he looked gaunt, his cheekbones jutting out sharply.
Rule crawled over the unconscious José to reach Brian. He gripped his friend’s hand. The stink of illness was so wrong, blended with a lupi’s scent. “You’re hurting.”
“Dya’s kept me going, but I think … not much longer. Oh. She’s Friar’s servant or slave or something. She doesn’t like being called a slave, but he for damn sure controls her. She’s, uh, she’s not from our realm.”
Rule nodded neutrally. Best, maybe, if he didn’t mention Arjenie. She wasn’t with them. He prayed that meant she’d somehow escaped whatever knocked them out, that she was okay. There were other possibilities, worse ones. For now, he wasn’t going to think about them. “Is she the one who called Isen?”
“I shouldn’t have asked her to. She got caught, and you …” His face spasmed. Sweat popped out on his upper lip and forehead.
“The pain’s bad.”
“Comes and goes.” His voice had sunk to a thread. “More coming than going lately. Rethna likes to experiment. Gado and … variations. He wants to control the Change. Not just shut it off, but call it up when he pleases.”
“Rethna?” Rule said sharply, glancing over his shoulder. The elves were still busy with their odd tasks. “What about Friar?”
“Friar’s around. Rethna’s bigger and badder, though. He’s an elf. Not one of those three—they’re flunkies. He’s some kind of big muckety-muck. Likes to be called ‘my lord.’ I told him he wasn’t my lord.”
Rule smiled. It hurt, but he did it. “Bet he didn’t like that.”
“Not much.” The ghost of Brian’s usual cocky smile crossed his face.
“How long have you been here?”
“I think … ten days? Hard to tell, underground.” He squeezed Rule’s hand. “There’s things I need to tell you. Rethna and Friar aren’t exactly partners, but they’re working together. They’ve both made deals with her. The Lady’s enemy. ”
“I knew about Friar and her. I’ve been trying to convince the others …” He thought of his most recent attempt. Of his father, who must be fighting for his life by now. Of Brian’s older brother, who’d fallen to a complicated madness. “I’m so sorry about your brother, Brian.”
Brian closed his eyes. “Felt it, of course. When what Edgar carried came to me, I knew he was gone. I haven’t told them about that.” He opened his eyes. They glowed with sudden intensity. “About the Lady’s secret. They’ve done things to me, but I haven’t told them the Lady’s secret.”
The mantles, he meant. “Good. You’ve done well.”
Brain snorted, sounding so much like he always had that it pinched Rule’s heart. “No, I haven’t. I told them too much, but he—the elf—Rethna can do things you wouldn’t believe. He calls it body magic. Mostly it’s pain. Good thing he doesn’t have much mind-magic, or …” He shook his head. “Never mind. I need to tell you before they come. The deal Friar made—he gets paid tonight. They’re setting up this big ritual to give him some kind of major Gift. I don’t know what. Once that’s done, Rethna will clear out. Now that he’s got you, he’ll go home. He means to take you—all of you he caught—with him. To sell.”
Nastiness twisted in Rule’s gut. “It was a trap, then. Dya’s phone call. They were ready for us.”
“No! Dya didn’t … she’s a friend. She didn’t trick you. But Friar knew about the call somehow … maybe one of Soshi’s pets. Soshi’s one of Rethna’s flunkies. They’d planned to lure some of you down here soon. Dya didn’t know how, but she thought if you got here quickly they wouldn’t be ready yet.” He grimaced. “They were.”
“Soshi’s pets?”
“Spiders. They’re big, the size of a tarantula, but they aren’t from our realm. Soshi links with them, sees from their eyes.”
The spider that had run across Arjenie’s foot—had it been watching them? “You’re sure this Rethna plans to sell us? We, ah—we had reason to think Friar and a sidhe allied with him were breaking something called Queens’ Law. The one about genocide.”
Brian’s eyebrows lifted. “You know about Queens’ Law?”
“Cullen knows a little about all sorts of things he shouldn’t.” True enough, but a lie in the way he meant it to be taken.
“Oh, Seabourne. Sure. No, genocide’s the one they don’t want to break. Don’t want to attract the Queens’ attention. Keep a few of us alive and it isn’t genocide when they kill the rest.” He licked his lips. “The law Rethna’s breaking involves a name. Call on that name and the Queens get totally pissed. It’s a name we don’t use, either.”
Rule’s eyebrows lifted. “Our ancient enemy is anathema to the two Queens?”
Brian nodded weakly. “It’s all about power. Rethna wants more. He thinks he can get it from her, but he has to cut his realm off from the Queens. I don’t really know what that means, but it takes time and planning and if the Queens find out, he’s toast. That’s why they won’t kill all of us. Someone might notice.” He licked his lips again. “Sorry. I need …” He fumbled for something at his side—a hide sack with a metal nozzle.
“You’re thirsty.” Rule picked up the primitive canteen and held the nozzle to Brian’s lips. Brian drank greedily.
“Thanks,” he said when Rule lowered it. “Hate that you’re here, but it’s been hard, thinking I’d die alone. Only now, Wythe …” His face twisted with worry or grief. He spoke subvocally. “When I die, the mantle’s lost. There’s no one else, only my son, and he’s too young. Much too young.”
Losing both Rho and heir almost always meant losing the mantle. Clan history said that twice a Rho had died without an heir and the mantle had passed to someone from the founder’s bloodline anyway, but the Spanish massacre in the seventeenth century proved how rare that was. And a mantle couldn’t pass to one who hadn’t yet Changed. Rule squeezed Brian’s shoulder gently. “You’re not dead yet. With what you received from your brother, you may postpone that moment quite awhile.”
“Rethna won’t take me with him. I’m too damaged to sell. When he leaves, Friar cuts my throat. I’m no use to him.” He swallowed. “We have to try.”
“Try … ?”
Lucas’s voice was drowsy. “Knocked out twice in one day. No offense, Rule, but I have to stop hanging out with you. What happened?”
“Sleep spell,” Brian said. “Rethna set them himself along the routes to this place. They’re targeted to us—to lupi—and to humans, so his people don’t trigger them accidentally.”
Would a sleep spell intended for humans and lupi leave a part-sidhe woman unaffected? Had Arjenie managed to escape?
“Rethna?” Lucas sat up. “Who the hell is …” His gaze locked on Brian. “Brian. Shit, man.”
Brian tried to grin. “Look that bad, do I?”
“You’ve looked better.” He switched his gaze to Rule. “I guess we got where we meant to go.”
“If not quite the way we meant to arrive. We’re near the node. Our hosts have added a new touch to it—a gate. I’m guessing it goes to the home realm of the elves you see out there.”
“Elves.” Lucas said flatly as if forcing himself not to sound incredulous. Then he looked out through the bars. “Elves. Son of a bitch.”
“The chief son of a bitch seems to be a fellow named Rethna, a sidhe lord who’s fallen in with bad company. So bad we don’t name her. He wants to take us home with him … as merchandise.”