Fear tightened his throat. It made way too much sense. For four weeks after Lily accepted the job of host to Wythe’s mantle the only thing that happened was the gradual healing of her arm. Then one very brief but blinding headache. The next day, two headaches—and they lasted a bit longer, weakened her more. “It won’t stop. She’ll keep having TIAs until one of them causes too much damage for the mantle to heal. It will try. And it will kill her.”
SEVENTEEN
THE sky was dreary with pending rain when Lily slid her key into the lock, turned it, and shoved open the back door. She wanted Rule and he was not here. About ten miles to the northeast, she thought.
She could ask one of the guards where he’d gone. They’d probably know.
Hell with that. She shut the door, locked it, and dropped her purse. And stood there, clenching and unclenching her left hand, staring at a hole in the wall next to the pantry. A fist-sized hole.
Rule had needed to run, he’d said. When she left to go back to the job, he’d said he needed to run, and with the way his eyes had kept trying to bleed to black, she’d thought that was a good plan.
Apparently he’d also needed to put his fist through something. She could relate. Lily set her laptop on the table. “Cullen? You here?”
She heard footsteps on the stairs. “Quiet,” he said as he got closer. “The Rhej is asleep. I was about to order pizza.”
“No anchovies.” The tight band around her shoulders eased slightly. Maybe it was just as well Cullen was here and Rule wasn’t. Some things might be easier to talk about with him. “And let the guards know about the delivery. Order plenty. Rule’s headed this way.” She hadn’t noticed that at first, but now that she was paying attention she knew he was in motion, headed this way.
“Rule likes anchovies.”
“I don’t.” She took out the coffee grinder. She used her left hand. It gripped the grinder just fine. “Maybe the Rhej doesn’t. Did you ask?”
He snorted as he reached the kitchen. “Did you miss the part where I said she’s asleep?”
“You could have asked before she fell asleep.”
“I didn’t. Rule called the Szøs Rho. That candidate he found for the Wythe mantle will be here tomorrow morning.”
“He texted me about it.”
“Huh.” He tipped his head. “It isn’t five o’clock yet.”
“No. It isn’t.” She opened the canister where Rule kept his special-order, fresh-roasted coffee beans. “Did you get a look at the dagger?”
“I called Sherry and asked to put it off until tonight. We’ll meet up there about eight. You’re taking a coffee break?”
“I got sent home. One of those damn pain bolts hit me in front of Mullins, and he banished me.”
Cullen’s eyebrows climbed. “This Mullins guy told you to go home . . . and you did?”
“I didn’t pass out.” She brooded on that a moment. “I must’ve looked bad, though. I, uh, told him it was a migraine. He gave me a choice. Either I go home or he tells Drummond about my little problem.” Unstated but clear was that Drummond would pull her if she couldn’t pass a medical. The surprising part was that Mullins would cover for her at all.
Maybe he’d lied. Maybe he’d told Drummond anyway. She’d find out, she supposed. “This one was different.”
“Different how?”
“I didn’t get nearly as dizzy, and while I’m tired now, I’m nowhere near passing out. Only . . .”
“Keep going.”
“It lasted longer, my vision went blurry, and my hand . . .” She held it out, studying it as if it didn’t belong to her. “It went numb. I dropped my notebook, dropped the damn thing right in front of Mullins, and”—her brows snapped down—“and you’re happy about that?”
“I am.” He patted her shoulder. “That’s excellent news. At least I think it is. Assuming your hand and vision are okay now—”
“They’re fine.” Automatically she squeezed her hand into a fist, proving once again that she could.
“Then it’s good news. Probably. Sit down and I’ll tell you what the Rhej told me. How long did the attack last?”
“Less than ten minutes. More than five. What did she tell you?”
“You aren’t sitting down.”
“Your keen powers of observation are a wonder to all of us.” She spooned beans into the grinder. “I’ll sit when I need to. Start talking.”
He leaned against the counter, arms crossed, and wisely decided to accept that. “Consider what I tell you hemmed in by all sorts of qualifications about it being speculation. That’s why the Rhej didn’t pass it on to you and Rule earlier. First the part we’re sure of. The mantle’s been healing your arm.”
“Slowly, yes.”
“It looks like slowly is better than quickly for you. We—the Rhej and I—think the healing the mantle has been doing on your arm caused you to have that first TIA. The Rhej says that any TIA causes damage. Minor damage, so small that the long-term effects are close to nil, but the mantle doesn’t seem to know that. Lupi healing sets priorities, and the brain’s number one, so the mantle tried to heal that damage quick-quick. But that quick healing was too hard on you, so you had another TIA, which kept the cycle going.”
“Shit.” She slapped the button and the grinder buzzed away. “Double shit. Stupid damn mantle. Can’t it tell it’s screwing with me?”
“No. The mantle is a magical construct. It isn’t sentient.”
“That’s what Rule always says, but it’s not an artifact like that damn staff you burned. I don’t care what you say.” She rested a hand on her stomach, frowning. “It’s . . . it feels like it’s alive.”
“Oh, yes.”
“But you said—”
“I said it’s a magical construct. I didn’t say it lacked life. Artifacts are charms on steroids. Constructs are—pay attention here, this gets complicated—constructed. And sentient means—”
“Capable of thought and reason. Which, okay, I’m not doing so hot with right now.” She scraped the newly ground coffee into the insulated French press she’d bought Rule a couple months ago. “So the mantle’s alive, but it doesn’t think.”
“Let’s not try to define thinking right now. Suffice it to say that mantles can’t be reasoned with and give no signs of reasoning on their own, which is why it’s doing the wrong damn thing with you. But living things are capable of learning or adapting. Some more than others. Plants pretty much suck at learning, but they can adapt to some extent.”
“So what kind of living thing is a mantle? Plant, virus, bacteria, cute little kitten?”
“The immortal kind.”
She stared. “But they can die. That’s why I’ve got the Wythe mantle in here causing all these problems—to keep it from dying.”
“If the holder of a mantle dies without an heir to receive the mantle, the mantle is lost, not dead. The constructed part is destroyed. The living part goes back where it came from. Back to the Lady. Mantles hold a bit of the Lady’s life within them.”
It made a weird kind of sense. The mantles were what kept lupi from being beast-lost. They imbued Rhos with authority that was literally inarguable . . . and the lupi’s Lady was the one authority lupi would not or could not deny. “Why didn’t I know this?” she demanded. “I’ve asked Rule questions about the mantles dozens of times. I’ve talked with the Nokolai Rhej about them. Why didn’t I already know this?”
Cullen’s mouth quirked up. “Because it’s a secret.”
“Ninety-five percent of everything about you people is a secret!”
“This one is secret from pretty much everyone. Only the Rhejes and the mantle-holders know.”