Gideon smiles, showing even white teeth. A movie star’s smile. Or a charlatan’s. “You are Maggie Hoskie, correct? I’ve been waiting for you,” he says. “I wasn’t sure if the messengers I left behind would be enough to pique your interest, but I am certainly glad they did.” He lifts the tray. Breathes in the aroma of the pie. “I made this for you. And the whiskey, of course. Kai told me it was your favorite. He told me a lot of things about you. I hope you don’t mind. Because, frankly, it just makes me that much more excited to meet you. It’s not every day one gets to meet a godslayer.”
Is he trying to flatter me? “Nice speech,” I say, bringing the Glock up to eye level, “but I’ve got a gun.”
“Ah, now,” he says, his grin shifting to disarming, “you wouldn’t shoot a man who baked you a pie, would you?”
“Didn’t anyone tell you, Gideon?” I growl, as K’aahanáanii rolls through my veins. “I’m the crazy one in the girl gang.”
I pull the trigger.
Time slows. The air thickens to molasses, the calling card of Honágháahnii. The silver tray slides from Gideon’s hands, the pie tilting toward the floor. Sound rolls from his mouth, thick as raw honey. It fills the room, a physical thing, and that telltale sweetness of a summer memory pours over me, trying to tug me under. I resist. Pull the trigger again. Both bullets seem to slow in the heavy air. Impossible. But it’s true, and they catch in the locust song like a drop of dew in a spiderweb, hanging suspended between us. I’ve never seen anything like it, and for a moment I gape, stunned.
Gideon’s still moving. He flicks his wrist in a downward motion. The bullets drop to the floor just as the pie explodes against the tiles. A matter of milliseconds.
He moves his hand again, and my gun flies from my grip so abruptly it takes a layer of skin with it. I stumble, start to fall. Catch myself on one knee that goes out from under me, and I slide sideways on the white tiles, skidding through the pie filling.
I draw my throwing knife. Obsidian, not silver, because I think I understand Gideon’s clan power. I release the blade, and a pain tugs at my arm. The wound from the canyon outside Knifetown. I forgot. It throws off my aim, and the blade grazes his neck instead of landing true. A line of red opens across his skin. The locust song cuts off. Everything speeds up to normal in a breath-stealing second, and Gideon roars, “Enough!”
But it’s not enough. I gather my feet beneath me and lunge forward, Böker in hand. Aiming for his chest. He gestures with his hand, knocking my knife away with crushing force. I cry out at my fingers bend and crack, my raw palm stinging.
I feel something heavy hit my chest. It knocks me back, leaves me fighting for air. Another strike, across my belly. Something sharp, and cold metal cuts into my skin. Again. Again. And I realize I’m being wrapped in chains. Around and around they circle me, like a living serpent. They pin my arms to my sides until I can’t move. Something solid shoves at the back of my legs, and Gideon dumps me unceremoniously into one of the metal dining room chairs. He glares at me, all the calm civility of moments ago torn away. His jaw clenches, and a vein in his forehead beats with the force of his anger.
“What is wrong with you?” he spits, his voice vibrating with barely contained rage. “I offered you food and drink. You don’t try to kill someone who offers you hospitality!”
I’m panting, some of the blowback of using my clan powers catching up with me. It takes me a moment to answer. “That’s not hospitality. That’s bait.”
The pulse in his forehead grows more pronounced. “I am not—” He stops. He’s winded too, no doubt from using his powers. He takes a deep breath and starts again. “I am not your enemy.”
“You kidnapped Kai!”
His smile is pained, strain showing around his eyes. “Does Kai look kidnapped to you? He is here by his own volition, I assure you. Whatever lies he told you tonight at the party are exactly that. He was trying to protect you from me, which is admirable but unnecessary.”
“I won’t leave here without him!”
“My dear,” he says, somewhere between bemused and exasperated, “I don’t want you to leave at all.”
Gideon moves around the remains of the pie on the floor and settles himself in the chair across from me. Touches his fingers briefly to the scratch on his neck and looks at the blood in disgust. He opens the whiskey bottle and pours himself a glass. Holds it to his nose and inhales. And then sets the glass down again, untouched. He folds one hand around the tumbler and rests the other on the table. Steadies himself before he starts talking again.
“I don’t want you, or Kai, to leave because I am afraid I need you both.” He rattles his glass, sending the whiskey sloshing around inside. He studies me, intelligent eyes moving over my face. “I can certainly see what he likes about you.”
“Can’t say the same.”
He smiles briefly at the easy insult. “Can we agree to set aside the bravado, hmm? Speak to each other openly? You see, I was hoping”—he hesitates, face lighting up again, excited—“I was hoping that you would join me. Join us.”
“Is that why you put me in chains?”
“Not my first choice.” He glances meaningfully at the pie strewn across the floor.
“I won’t help you flood Dinétah. I saw Kai’s room. The maps, the books. I know what you’re using him for.”
His face remains pleasant, but his hand tightens around the whiskey glass. “I could not have done all of this without him. I admit that. I had a vision, but Kai’s unique power showed me how to manifest that into reality. I am indebted. But to suggest that I don’t care for that young man . . .” He takes a deep breath, visibly calms himself before he continues. “Kai is precious to me, truly. But he still doesn’t quite understand the forces at play here. His vision is limited. You, however . . .” Now he grins, big and generous. “You and I are different, Godslayer.”
I scrutinize Gideon’s face. Aaron said his brother was Diné. From a distance, with the light brown hair and the light eyes, he looks bilagáana. But this close I can see it. A subtle shape of the eye, the bridge of his nose. “Clan powers?” I ask.
He lifts his eyebrows.
“The way you control the metal. The statues, the wings, my guns. It’s a clan power, isn’t it? You’re Diné on your mother’s side.” And then it occurs to me. “No, you’re Diné two ways. That locust song—that’s a clan power too.”
His surprise turns to something else. Loathing. But I’m not sure if it’s directed at me or at himself. “And why would you say that?” he asks, voice low.
“Do you know your clans?”
His nostrils flare in irritation. “I’m afraid my mother didn’t do me the honor of sticking around after I was born. As for my father, I can’t really say much about him, either.”
“I met your foster brother, Aaron.”
His whole demeanor shifts. The muscles in his face seem to harden, the line of his mouth thins to nothing, and his eyes—whatever light they had before—snuffs out. “And how is my dear brother?” he asks in a brittle voice. “Not dead yet, unless you did the honors?”
“Not dead.”
“Well, if you have met Aaron, then surely you have met Bishop and the whole viper’s den at Knifetown. You have seen it with your own eyes, what has become of humanity in this Sixth World.”