‘‘Admit what?’’ Red-Boar said, picking up on the thought because they were so close. ‘‘That you’re the king? Not until you fucking act like it. Not until you accept the Manikin scepter and say the words. Until then, you’re just Scarred-Jaguar’s son, as far as I’m concerned. A weak, whiny little boy who hid underground with his sister and their babysitter while the rest of us fought.’’
‘‘I was a child,’’ Strike gritted, chest tightening on a hard, hot ball of grief, of denial.
‘‘You were a prince,’’ Red-Boar countered, as though that made all the difference in the world. ‘‘If you want to be king—and I’m thinking that’s a big ‘if’—then stop screwing around, stop letting other people tell you what to do, and make some godsdamned decisions!’’
They were very close together, arguing low-voiced so it wouldn’t carry out into the hall. Strike was hyperaware of Anna lying there, motionless save for the regular rise and fall of her chest. The doctors said they couldn’t do anything more. Red-Boar said he couldn’t do anything, period. Now, Strike wondered if that was the truth.
‘‘Wake her up,’’ he said. ‘‘Now.’’
Something flashed in the other man’s eyes—surprise, maybe, or fear. But he shook his head. ‘‘I can’t.’’
‘‘Can’t or won’t?’’
‘‘Can’t,’’ he insisted. ‘‘Not here, anyway. Not even I can fog that many memories.’’
‘‘Then start fogging the ones you need to, because we’re leaving in five minutes.’’
‘‘But—’’
‘‘You want me to start making some fucking decisions? ’’ Strike leaned in, lowering his voice to a hiss. ‘‘Consider this one made. You’ve got five minutes to work your magic, mind-bender. Either the doctors and nurses think she’s being discharged and there aren’t any problems, or I’m leaving you in the barrier. Got it?’’
Red-Boar didn’t say a word. But damned if he didn’t do exactly as Strike had ordered. He made a circuit of the hospital floor, shaking hands and touching shoulders, spending the most time on Anna’s doctors and the nurses running the computers.
When he returned, he nodded. ‘‘It’s done. Everyone here thinks she was discharged to a rehab facility. Anyone coming on later will get the same info from the computers.’’
‘‘Good. We’re out of here. I called Jox to give him the heads-up.’’ Strike lifted Anna, cradling her against his chest. Then he touched Red-Boar, completing the circuit. He was pissed enough, the route to Skywatch familiar enough, and Leah’s pull strong enough that he didn’t need a blood sacrifice to power the three-person transport—he was already there. All he had to do was close his eyes, find the thread, and yank.
The great room materialized around them, the floor slapping against the soles of his boots. He staggered and nearly went down, and then Jox was there, shoving a shoulder into his armpit to get him stabilized.
They were all there, Strike saw as his vision cleared. The winikin. The Nightkeepers. And Leah. His people. His responsibility.
‘‘I’ve got her,’’ the winikin murmured, taking Anna’s limp form with surprising ease, given that she was a full head taller than he and probably close to the same weight. He bent close and murmured, ‘‘Poor child.’’ The endearment should’ve seemed ridiculous given that she was closing in on forty, but somehow it was exactly right.
Strike reached out for Leah, took her hand. At the touch of her skin on his, he felt the zing of connection, the flow of energy that was theirs alone. And as the golden spark of the two of them together crackled in the air, Anna woke up, sucking in a deep breath and opening her eyes.
Only they weren’t her eyes, Strike saw with dawning horror. They were flat obsidian black.
‘‘I have a message for you,’’ she said, but it wasn’t her speaking. It was the nahwal, staring up at nothing and speaking with its emotionless, multitonal voice.
Everything inside Strike went cold and hard in an instant. ‘‘Tell me,’’ he grated.
‘‘The creator god dies because you have not acted.’’
Leah dug her nails into his palm. Strike tightened his grip on her and said, ‘‘Tell me how to save them both, the god and the woman.’’ Please, gods, let there be a way.
‘‘For the god to live the woman must die. There is no other way.’’
‘‘There must be,’’ he rasped. He refused to believe the gods had set him up only to fail her, only to force him to make a choice between the life he wanted and the duty he’d been born into. There had to be another way.
‘‘There is not.’’ The nahwal locked its flat black eyes on him. ‘‘Make your choice, Nightkeeper. Make it well.’’
With that, the nahwal’s time was up. Anna didn’t know how she knew that, but she did, just as she knew that she’d be going with the creature when it returned to the mists. They were bound now. Inseparable. She hadn’t just come close to dying back at the temple; she had died. The nahwal had simply kept her alive until the god-bound power of Leah and Strike together had triggered the message.
Now, it was time for her to leave.
The gray-green mist swirled around her, forming a funnel, a vacuum that drew her away from the reality of Skywatch. She felt herself being sucked down, felt herself accelerating without moving.
The outside world dimmed, and her heart cried out for the people she’d loved—for Dick and Lucius, for her brother and the others.
She heard Strike call her name from far away, heard the crash of furniture being overturned, and men shouting. Arguing. Then pain flared in her palm, bright and white amidst the deepening dark gray, and a hand gripped hers.
Power blasted through the connection, jolting through the mist, and suddenly that someone was there, inside her head, shouting at her.
‘‘Gods damn it, this way!’’ He tugged her away from the funnel, away from the nahwal’s might, and she heard the creature roar in denial. Then the vortex collapsed.
And she woke up staring into Red-Boar’s eyes.
That night, which was the night before the equinox, Leah eased away from Strike’s sleeping form and watched the faint light of the desert starscape play across his strong features.
Something lodged tight in her throat: a wish, maybe, or a prayer.
Don’t make him choose, she wanted to ask the gods, but didn’t know how. Besides, the nahwal had already said the choice was his to make.
Or maybe, in the end, it was hers, too.
She touched his face and the strong line of his shoulder, and saw his fierce expression lighten, as though he’d felt her caress even in sleep. Her emotions shuddered very near the surface, strong and frightening. Technically, they’d known each other for nearly three months, since the summer solstice. If she believed that what had happened before would happen again, then by her relationship clock their time was up. But she didn’t want it to be, damn it. She wanted . . .
She wanted the impossible. She wanted him to choose her even though it meant going against logic, against his advisers, hell, against the gods.
Restless, she rose from the mattress, pulled on a pair of loose yoga pants and one of his T-shirts, and padded from the room, headed for the kitchen. The halls were dark, the mansion quiet around her, suggesting that everyone else was asleep, or close to it.
It was a freeing thought. She’d grown used to living with the others and having to create the illusion of privacy. Now, it felt good to be alone in the night.
Until she stepped into the kitchen and saw Jox.
The winikin sat at the marble-topped breakfast bar, with his skinny ass perched on a stool and his pointy chin in his hands. His eyes were closed, and a small pipe sat in a saucer nearby, emitting a thin curl of copan-scented smoke.