But he knew her well enough to realize her emotions were already locked into her decision. So he went with logic. “According to the Dresden Codex, the Nightkeepers will need a seer during the final battle.”
“According to the codex, they’ll need Godkeepers and the Triad too. I don’t see either of those things happening.”
“They might.”
“They won’t.” Her eyes had gone hollow. “I wouldn’t do this if I had the faintest hope that we could change what’s going to happen. But do the math. There are too few of us. We’re cut off from the gods.
We don’t have the prophecies or the spells we would need to defend the barrier, if we could even muster enough strength in numbers or magic.” She shook her head. “No. We can’t do it, and we’re making ourselves miserable trying.”
Low anger kindled in his gut. “You’re giving up on yourself.”
Her eyes flashed. “I’m making a choice.”
“A selfish one. You’d rather be playing house with the Dick than working your ass off like the rest of us.” She opened her mouth to fire something back, probably a reaction to his old nickname for her unlikable husband, or an accusation that he was just jealous. But that wasn’t why he was pissed. It was that she had the opportunity to be the sort of savior he’d always wanted to be, the mage he was trying to be . . . and she was just walking away from it. So he steamrolled over her response, saying, “Look, I don’t know exactly what happened to you the night of the massacre, what you saw in your visions. But think about it. . . . That night, the Banol Kax and their boluntiku killed—what—a thousand people?
Try multiplying it by a million. Ten million. A hundred million. What do you think that’s going to look like?”
They didn’t know exactly what form the end-time would take. The Dresden Codex suggested a flood, while Aztec mythology called for fire. And what about the aftermath? Would there be one? The sixth-century Prophet Chilam Balam had talked about mankind turning away from machines, which suggested a massive technology loss. But would humanity survive or be destroyed entirely? Would the earth itself exist in the aftermath? The Xibalbans seemed to be banking on a shift in world order, with Iago intending to be at the top of the proverbial shitheap when everything settled out. The Banol Kax, on the other hand . . . who the hell knew what they were thinking? For all the Nightkeepers could guess, the end-time war would be akin to the Solstice Massacre, only on a global scale.
Anna blanched, but her eyes stayed steady on his. “Screw you.”
“Lucius,” Jade said in warning.
He ignored her, pressing, “How are you going to feel on that last day, when everything starts to go to shit, and you realize that maybe, just maybe, you could’ve helped stop it?”
“Then you believe the Nightkeepers are going to fail too.”
He bared his teeth. “Don’t put words in my mouth. And no, I don’t believe we’re going to fail.” He deliberately included himself in that “we.” “I do, however, believe that we’ve got a far better chance of success with you than without you.”
“Bullshit,” she said scornfully, choking on a derisive laugh. “How have I helped so far? I’ve had a couple of visions that have confused things more than they’ve clarified them, and at that, I haven’t had a vision in months.”
“Because you’re blocking them,” he pointed out, taking a guess and seeing the confirmation in her eyes.
She glared. “I forced Strike to let you live, even after you violated my space, stole my property, and generally acted like an asshole. Remember that the next time you want to poke me about my duty to the Nightkeepers and the end-time war. If I’d been adhering to the writs, I would’ve let them sacrifice you two years ago when you conjured a godsdamned makol!”
“Maybe you should have,” he said bluntly. “So far I’ve done more harm than good. But you know what? That just makes me more determined to get it right from here on out.”
Anna shook her head. “You’ve always wanted to be more; both of you have. Can’t you understand that I’ve always wanted to be less?” She addressed the question to Jade, seeking an ally.
Lucius started to answer, but Jade held up a hand. To Anna, she said, “Is that what you’re going to tell the gods? How about your ancestors?” When Anna sucked in a breath, Jade pushed harder. “What will you tell your father when you meet him in the spirit world?”
Anna’s expression darkened. “Given that I’m the only one of the three royal kids who hasn’t had a conversation with the old man’s nahwal, I’m not sure we’ll have much to talk about.”
“Your old man,” Lucius repeated softly. “Where have I heard that before?”
Her flinch was almost imperceptible, but it was there. And her voice was sharply defensive when she said, “That’s not the point. The point is that we can’t live for our parents’ goals. Sometimes we have to define our own. You guys understand that; I know you do.”
Jade nodded. “Sure. But this isn’t about your father. It’s about you being able to help save the world.”
Anna lifted her chin in a gesture he recognized as a member of the jaguar bloodline getting her stubborn on. “Not anymore it’s not.”
Lucius could see he wasn’t going to win this one. But who among them could? Strike, he thought.
Maybe Jox. “We’re not going to tell the others that you’re quitting.” He indicated the polished crystal skull, gleaming softly amber on the desktop. “That’s what you’re saying by returning this, isn’t it?
That you’re not coming back to Skywatch. Not ever.” Leaning in, he dropped his voice. “Think about it for a moment; really think about it. And trust me: From someone who’s been on the outside most of his life, it’s not a comfortable place to live.”
“It is if you’ve chosen it,” she fired back.
“Fine, then. Come back with us and tell them yourself.”
Her lips turned up at the corners in an utterly humorless smile, as though they’d finally gotten to the meat of things. Nudging the pendant a few centimeters closer to him on the desk, she said, “You owe me, Lucius.”
There it was, he realized. And the bitch of it was that he couldn’t say she was wrong. He owed her.
Big-time. “You’re calling it all in . . . on this?”
“I am. I won’t be square with Strike and the others, I know. But I can at least leave things even between the two of us.” She rose and moved out from behind the desk, then reached down, grabbed his hands, and hauled him to his feet as she might have done before, in order to kick him back to his own office or out to the lab. Now, though, he towered over her, dwarfed her. And she kept hold of one of his hands once he was up, and stayed standing inside his personal space. Jade remained seated, watching with her counselor’s calm wrapped around her and faint panic at the back of her eyes.
Anna palmed a Swiss army knife, seemingly from nowhere. Lucius didn’t move, didn’t flinch as she scored a sharp stripe across his palm. Pain pinched and blood welled, but he didn’t feel any magic. All he felt was failure—his and hers.
“We don’t have to swear on blood,” he said. The ache spread through him as she blooded her own palm and he got that she really meant it. She wanted to leave the Nightkeepers behind. Or she wanted them to leave her behind; he wasn’t sure which was more accurate.
“We’re not swearing. I’m doing something I should’ve done a long time ago.” Clasping his bleeding hand in hers, she recited a string of words.
He caught a few, missed a few; he was far more used to working with glyphs than with speaking a language that had been dead for centuries. More, as she spoke, his head started spinning: a mad whirl of thoughts and blurred sight. He heard the words, glimpsed the fake antiquities, but they glommed together, tumbling around one another in a major Auntie Em moment. Pain slashed in his forearm—a wrenching sizzle that started at his marks and zigzagged up to his chest with a ripping, tearing sensation that left him hollow when it ended.