But someone else was determined to control the lake—someone with little power, unable to oppose Jewel directly. So they got others to ruin her, encouraging other mages to draw on the lake, running her down until Jewel was too weak to stop them. And so long as Willow was on the run, she wasn’t likely to grab the power back—she didn’t even know it was hers to take.
“Geoff, who knew you’d given me the key to Steven’s cabin?” I asked.
“No one. I didn’t tell anyone.”
“Jewel must have known.”
He gave a hard shake of his head. “No. Not even her. I—I wanted you nearby, in case . . .”
“You never wanted me here.”
“I didn’t. At first. But once I couldn’t stop you, I thought . . . well, I thought I ought to get you on my side and get you close at hand, in case things got worse. But you didn’t trust me. I didn’t know you were at Steven’s house. I swear. And neither did Jewel. I didn’t tell anyone I’d given you the key because I can’t trust any of them, either.”
I couldn’t see any sign that he was lying in his body language or his aura. Neither of those is foolproof, but Newman hadn’t been a very good liar earlier and I had no reason to believe he’d suddenly learned how. “Well, one of them figured it out.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t say anything and I don’t know what to do now.”
I pitied him, but I was also a little angry that he’d snuck around and manipulated and not told me the truth earlier.
“I don’t know who tumbled to it, either. But I can find out. Talk to Jewel. Tell her she’ll have to lure the other mages here so I can see them all.”
“Why would they come?”
“Because your wife is the queen bee. Ridenour told me she runs the community. She’s still the nexus keeper, even if she’s not in complete control, and they are still afraid of her. She can’t trust any of them, but they’ll still come, even if they’re just curious to see how sick she really is. I don’t think the ley weaver to the south will come, but I already know about that thing and it doesn’t seem interested in human struggles. She shouldn’t waste her energy on it, but the rest . . . Tell her they need to be here tonight. Even her sister. Even Ridenour.”
“Why?”
“Because I can solve her problem if she’ll do this. It’ll be over by tomorrow night if she does.”
“You swear?”
“What do you want me to do—prick my finger and sign in blood? Yes, I swear.”
I was lying through my teeth, but if I couldn’t fix it all by tomorrow, we might have a bigger problem. Whoever was killing people had learned to send the monsters to do the dirty work, which meant he or she didn’t have to bash in heads in person anymore. No one was safe.
TWENTY-NINE
From the Newmans’, we headed toward the Lyre River and Elias Costigan’s house. Although I’d see him later, I still needed to figure out how he’d known about the house, and it wouldn’t be safe to try once the sun was heading down. down.
“What do you think the anchor does?” I asked.
“Um . . . anchors things?” Quinton replied.
“I mean, how does it work? Something to do with its piezoelectric properties?”
“I’m not thinking so, but I can’t speculate without data. You’re talking about the field interactions of an energy state for which there are no scales or standards. We can theorize based on what we know, but it’ll be a pretty rough theory.”
“Then what do you roughly theorize?”
“Well . . . is there more than one anchor?”
“Apparently, and I’m led to believe there’s a total of four in and around the lake. When they were all in place, the lake’s energy was contained and channeled into the nexus where two major leylines crossed—about where the Newmans’ house is now, so that would be the top of the T or the middle of the X, depending on how you see it.”
“Do we know if the other three anchors are in place?”
“Not by eyewitness, but the general belief is that they are, and my observation of the leylines leads me to agree.”
“Hearsay is not very convincing, but I’ll accept your observation as being persuasive enough. So one is out of place, and merely putting it close to its proper location—unlike in horseshoes and hand grenades—wasn’t good enough. I’d hate to see what happens when more than one of the anchors is pulled.”
“But that’s not going to happen.”
“We hope. Because if it did, the system would have no guidance. Huh . . . could it be part of a waveguide?”
“Unknown term, geek-boy. What’s a waveguide?”
“Waveguides restrict the radiation of electromagnetic energy into a linear direction. They’re kind of like pipes, but not really. Energy naturally radiates in spherical waves—outward in all directions at the same time and rate. That’s fine if you want an omnidirectional antenna for radio or television transmission, but some kinds of energy, like, say, microwaves, need to be a little more restricted or they dissipate and do damage. The waveguide has to be specific to the type and wavelength of the energy you’re managing. Broadly—and this is really generalized and a little squishy—by pairing the right conductive materials at the right distance, you essentially create an electrical trough for the energy to flow down that constantly reflects the waves back into the trough, rather than letting them radiate outward.”
“OK. I’m not sure I get the details, but I get the idea.”
“All right, so, if the anchor is part of a waveguide for Grey energy, it has to have an opposite polarity mate creating the ‘walls’ of the pipe. Removing one of the pair for either directional leyline basically lets the energy at that end radiate without proper control or direction. Since it’s anchored at the other end by the nexus and partially directed by its other half, what you get is something like a firehouse that’s hooked up to the hydrant at one end and flopping around loose at the other, spraying energy everywhere. With the way this particular energy is influenced by water, I’d guess that the lake itself acts like a conductive sink and lets the energy flow around until the lake’s too saturated, and then the magic starts leaching up through the ground wherever it can. Or wherever the thrashing pipe has hit the ground, creating transient hot spots and upwellings.
“Normally, this system around the lake is restricted and the crossing leylines probably created a single sort of wellhead at the nexus. Once the anchor was gone, the magic became fair game for anyone who could use it. But, and here’s the slippery bit, the wellhead still exists and instead of pumping energy out to whoever’s in charge of the nexus, it’s now able to suck it back from that person when demand is high, which is why Jewel Newman experiences the sensation of drainage when someone else uses it or when it rains and the lake overflows, pulling more energy out of the sink.”
I nodded. “That certainly sounds like our situation.”
“You know it’ll kill her sooner rather than later if the anchor isn’t replaced.”