“Tegelgor!” the demon squeaked. “Abandoned it? No, even crazy she wouldn’t… all her demons? I didn’t… I wasn’t called to her. I felt a tug, but not a summons. She’s got all my names. If she wanted me—”
You, too, have diverged, little demon.
What did that mean? Never mind. They were running out of time. “Where’s Max, dammit?”
“Wait a minute, Lily.” Cullen walked up to her. “I hate to admit it, but the dragon is right about one thing. I should check.”
“How?”
He made a graceful gesture with one hand, murmuring something in that liquid language he’d used before, and frowned. Then he turned to the other one, the other her, and repeated it. He lost all of the color in his face. “Hell. The gate’s jumping between the two of you. Oscillating.”
“Then if we both do it—if we stand together and cut our palms—”
He was shaking his head. “When it’s in her, it’s stuck in the closed position. She’s got your… she’s a sensitive.
You’re the only one who can open the gate, but when it’s in her, you can’t open it. Your—her—Gift won’t let you.“
“But if she’s close enough to being me for the gate to jump between us, why wouldn’t my Gift know me?” she cried. “It is me.”
Because, as the sorcerer said, you have diverged. A spell, even one wrought by ritual, is a crude working compared to your Gift, Lily Yu. Your Gift recognizes differences between you that the gate cannot.
Her Gift didn’t recognize her? She rubbed her forehead. “I’m out of ideas, here.”
Then accept some of mine. I will do my best to shield you from—
He broke off in mid-thought. With unbelievable speed for so large a creature, he sprang for the sky. The wind from his wings knocked her down, so in that first second she didn’t see what he was springing at.
Then she wished she hadn’t.
It was long and red, the color of blood that’s not quite dry. It had way too many short legs on the back two-thirds of its wormlike body, every one tipped in claws. And though its body was smaller than the dragon’s, its wings were every bit as large, veined like a bat’s.
The front third of its body was jaws. laws rimmed with teeth like the red-eyes‘, and when it opened those jaws and screamed, she saw all the way down its gullet.
It had the advantage on the dragon, swooping down at him from above, those jaws gaping. Sam flew straight at it. At the last second, he twisted. His jaws closed on one of those enormous wings and he twisted his neck, shredding the membrane. His wings beat hard, and he started to pull away.
Rule howled. Lily spun around even as he raced past her—raced to where the other Lily was even now turning, staring up at one of the red-eyes perched on a ledge above her, jaw gaping in evil imitation of the fanged worm battling the dragon overhead.
It leaped. And collided with Rule in mid-air.
They fell in a snarling, slashing tangle. Lily raised her weapon, but there was no chance to get a shot in without hitting Rule. She moved closer. Blood sprayed out, spattering her.
Rule’s blood. Oh, God, his side—
“Get back!” Cynna shouted.
“You can’t shoot! You’ll kill him!”
“I’m not using a gun! Move, dammit!”
She looked over her shoulder—and moved quickly away.
Cynna stood just behind her with one arm straight up, the other straight out, pointed at the rolling mass of wolf and demon. Her lips were moving, but Lily couldn’t hear her over the snarls and howls. And there was a bloody light streaming from her hand.
It didn’t travel like light. The ugly red glow crossed the space between her and the battling animals sluggishly— too slow, too slow! Rule was down—he wasn’t moving. Lily pulled her weapon to her shoulder again—
And the light hit. The demon stiffened and fell down dead.
“Sonofabitch,” came Cynna’s shocked voice. “It worked.”
Lily raced to Rule.
So did Lily.
Blood covered his side, so much blood she couldn’t see how bad it was. But it was bad. She knew it. His breathing was labored, his eyes closed. She looked up. A shock went through her as she met her own eyes.
“Leave now,” the one in blue said. “You have to go right away and take him where he can heal. To a—a hospital.” She said the word as if it was new to her. “He’ll die here.”
“The gate—”
“Sam told me how to fix it.”
All at once she knew. Without knowing how, she knew what the other woman meant. Her mouth went dry. “There has to be another way.”
“Funny.” Her lips quirked up, but her eyes shone with tears. “That’s what I said.” She reached up and ripped the chain with its dangling charm from her neck. “There isn’t, though. You’re the gate.”
Slowly—knowing what she was doing, what she was accepting—Lily held out her hand.
And Lily dropped the toltoi into it. “Tell him…” She looked down and caressed Rule’s head. “Tell him how glad I was about him. How very glad.”
Lily’s fingers closed around the necklace. She could only nod as her throat closed up.
And the other one—the other her—sprang to her feet. She tugged at the top of her sarong, and it came open. “Bind him with this. He’s bleeding badly.” She tossed it to Lily—and started running. Naked, barefoot, she ran full out.
For the cliff. Straight for the edge of the cliff.
It was the little demon who understood first. “No!” it howled, and started after her, short legs pumping. “No, Lily Yu! Lily Yu, I do like you! I do! Don’t—”
She leaped.
Lily felt the air rushing past, air heavy with the scent of ocean. No, she was standing, standing on her feet, tears streaming down—down and down she fell, too far, so far from Rule—
A hammer smashed her, smashed her everywhere at once. And she died.
THIRTY-FOUR
And blinked her eyes open.
It was Cullen’s face she saw first. His arm supported her. “God,” he whispered. “Lady above. Why? Why did she… and you. Are you—”
“Not… all right, no.” Her tongue was thick. She swallowed. “The gate will work now.”
Now would be good. They are in the pass, waiting for their lord to reach it and widen it. Xitil has grown somewhat stout recently. The dragon settled to the ground near the cliff’s edge, but he didn’t fully furl his wings.
Then came another voice, small, uncertain—Gan, standing at the edge of the cliff. “I’m alive. She died, and I’m alive. That’s not right, is it?” Then, even more softly, “I did like her. I did.”
Lily sat up. The toltoi was still clutched tight in her hand. She hadn’t lost it when she… fainted. “Sam, we accept your deal. And I agree. Now is good.”
Cynna finished tying the blue cloth around Rule’s wounds. “Has anyone seen Max?”
Max turned out to be lying on the ground not far from the ledge the red-eye had leaped from. He was unconscious, but alive—the red-eye had probably thought it killed him when it flung him from the rocks. But gnomes are notoriously difficult to kill.
Two dragons landed. Each took off with a rider and a patient. First Cullen, who held Rule in front of him, his blood soaking the indigo cloth that had been Lily’s sarong. Then Cynna, balancing Max’s unconscious body in front of her. Then…
“You have to take me!” Gan came running up. “I’ll die. Xitil will kill me slow. She’ll pull out my eyeballs and—” The demon stopped dead in front of her, eyes wide. “You—you’re-…” She looked down at her chest, rubbed it, and looked up at Lily again. “You’re Lily Yu,” she whispered. “I feel it. The bond. Only it’s not the same.”