“Ronan.”
“Oh, come on! Ronan is not an asshole.”
“All right, he’s just annoying. But he still gets the job done.”
“Problem is, I think Penn has a chance of doing that, too.”
“Being annoying?”
“Of course, but I meant getting the job done.”
Kit tilted his head back and blew out a thoughtful breath. “Assuming he can do what he spends most of his time claiming he can do . . . But now you’re standing up for him?”
“And why not?” Nita said. “We’re mentors; isn’t that what we’re supposed to be doing? This guy has talent. I don’t think there’s any doubt of that. If there was, he wouldn’t be in this at all—the Powers would never have invited him! And he’s got something to contribute here: a good idea. So far, though, that’s pretty much all he’s got. Good spell execution is more than just the outlines.”
“Yeah. If he’s going to make it past the Cull, even, he’s gonna have to fill in a lot more of those holes.”
Nita nodded. “If today’s any indication, then what we’ve got to do is help him learn to navigate around his jerk tendencies. Keep him appropriate, keep him focused. Which is going to be a full-time job.” She shook her head. “But I wasn’t kidding. I’m trying to work out why the Powers even wanted me in on this. Seems like a waste of time.”
“What? Why do you think? Because we’re a team.”
“Well, for one thing, it’s more Dairine’s specialty. Why didn’t they hook him up with her?”
“Because he wouldn’t have survived kissing her hand?”
Nita laughed, but she also rolled her eyes. “If I find out that the Powers That Be have sent me along on this thing to cure somebody of their sexism, they and I may have words afterward. Because this is going to get on my nerves.”
“Well,” Kit said, more quietly, “you know the principle. ‘All is done for each . . . ’”
“Yeah, well,” Nita said. “It sounds good in theory. But when you find out that you’re the tool being used to do the ‘all,’ your perspective changes.” She frowned. “Penn needs serious education. At the very least, he needs to be socialized with other wizards so he doesn’t come off like an idiot! And I don’t know about you, but I was looking at the base schematic for his spell and it was all over the place. I don’t know who taught him to compose . . .”
“Well, we’ve both got the advantage of working with someone who specializes in spell composition. Tom’s been doing that . . . how long now? Decades. Since he wasn’t too much older than us, I think. If Penn is self-taught—working only with the manual and the general style guides in there—maybe it’s no surprise he’s sloppy around the edges.”
Nita sighed. “We’ve got our work cut out for us. Let’s go. I want to wash my hand.”
Kit hesitated, hoping it wouldn’t show. Then he held his hand out to her. “Grand Central?” he said.
Nita looked thoughtfully at Kit’s hand: then took it, with the smallest smile. “Grand Central,” she said.
They vanished.
It was night, and Nita was standing all by herself in the middle of a big, dark field. She could smell grass; fresh-cut, so fresh that a lawnmower might have been by in the last few minutes.
So that’s interesting, Nita thought. But where the hell am I?
The silence around her, though, that got her attention. If I’m outside, she thought, if there’s a lawnmower, then why can’t I hear anything else? If it was nighttime, and there was a lawn to be mowed, then there would be insects. But she couldn’t hear anything of the kind.
Nita held still, and closed her eyes. All right, she thought, one thing at a time. This is a vision. Let’s see where it goes.
You think that’s going to help? said a voice nearby in the darkness. The real problem is that you’re trying to treat this rationally.
And since when is being rational a problem? Nita asked.
It’s not the rationality by itself, the voice said. It’s where it leads you.
Fine. Where should I be going, then?
The way you fear to go, the voice said.
The chill that ran down the back of Nita’s neck had nothing to do with the night, or the dew falling on the cut grass. “Bobo,” Nita said, looking around her, “is that you? Thought we had an agreement that you weren’t going to get into one of these. It gets too confusing.”
As she spoke, she suddenly became aware of a faint light out at the edge of things. She turned to try to get an idea of where it was coming from, and realized that she was completely surrounded by it. She couldn’t see any source, either—it was as if the light was downhill from her in all directions.
Bobo’s not here, said another voice. It wasn’t one that she was familiar with—which somehow the first voice had been. This one was low and sad, and sounded deeply troubled.
She could understand why it was troubled, because Bobo was always here. In fact the idea that Bobo wasn’t answering her began filling Nita with alarm. In the waking world there were times when she could go days without speaking to him, sometimes even without thinking about him; but when she called on him, he never failed to answer. And now that it felt as if he was needed here—
Well, Nita thought. This is weird. But she wasn’t going to start crying for him like a baby missing her toy. She’d coped without him before, and she would do it again.
“All right,” Nita said. “Is there something you want to tell me? I’m listening.”
A second later the light got brighter, distracting her. Nita looked around and realized that the faint radiance encircling her was just that; a circle, sharp and cleanly drawn. It lay faintly glowing on the grass, right out at the edge of her vision, but the circularity of it was plain to see—as if someone had walked around her with one of those chalking machines they use at football games. There were, however, no irregularities or bumps or wiggles in this circle. It was unnervingly perfect. And as she was continuing a slow turn in which she examined it, the blue-white glow of it, for any slightest wiggle or bend, another voice spoke up.
And this one was strange, strange. It was a hiss, almost, like someone speaking with breath but no voice, the breath a soft roar oddly like the roar of flames up a fireplace chimney. But very low, afraid to be heard, almost unwilling to be heard. It’s late, the new voice said. Very late. Too late, maybe.
“What’s the matter?” Nita said. “Let me help!”
You can’t help, the fiery voice said. He’s the only one who can help, and he’s not here. Why isn’t he here? He was supposed to be here. How else can we be freed?
The hair rose on the back of Nita’s neck. This is bad, she thought, feeling the sense of fear and pain that the other voice was trying to hide, and failing. It was too young, that was the problem. It wasn’t supposed to be by itself. He was supposed to be here. Nita swallowed, unnerved. “Bobo?” she said, and then more loudly, not quite shouting it. “Bobo!”
“Where is he?” said another voice in the darkness, and this one she knew: it was Kit. “We need him now, Neets, can’t you get in here?”
A moment later, another voice chimed in. It was Carmela’s. “Not this time, Neets,” she said. “He can’t help. Kit can’t help. You’re the only one. And you have to help find where both of them are. If you don’t find them both, it won’t be any good, they’ll destroy each other if it’s not done right—!”