“I’ve experienced their hospitality,” I admit. “Didn’t care for it, either.”
He stares at me a minute, eyes narrow, before he barks a harsh laugh. “Hospitality,” he sneers.
“I mean, they didn’t bake me a pie or anything. But I got out in one piece.”
Something ugly crosses his face. “One piece? Are you in once piece?” He lays a heavy hand across my knee. “One need not dismember a woman to break her into pieces. I think you know that.”
A deep uneasiness radiates from his touch, and I shake him off. He doesn’t force it, instead folding his fingers around his glass. He sighs, and now the look he gives me is all sympathy.
“I don’t think you’ve been in one piece for a very long time, Maggie. But I can help you be whole again. Just like I’ve helped Kai, as I’ve helped all my dear friends. I can help you find the one thing that eludes you.”
“And that is . . . ?”
“Purpose.”
“What?”
“Purpose. Isn’t that what you need? If you are no longer Neizghání’s apprentice, who are you? Isn’t that what you’ve been asking yourself?”
“How did you know that?”
“Kai told me of your troubles. No, don’t be mad at him. He has troubles of his own, and my song is very persuasive. You are the first person that has been able to resist it. Did you know that?”
“Is that how you get your ‘Swarm’ to follow you? Promise them things that only exist in their imaginations?”
He fingers the metal insect on his bolo. “The locust has much to teach us. They are resilient creatures, dormant most of their lives. But when they rise, they rise in number and they are unstoppable. They change the world, reorder entire landscapes.”
“They are devourers.”
“Oh yes,” he admits. “But where they cleanse the earth, new life grows. They destroy to make room for the new.”
“I’m not interested in destroying anything or anyone.”
“Says the girl with the gun.”
I say nothing to that, and he takes a small sip of his whiskey. “Are you sure you don’t want any?” He lifts the glass in my direction. “It’s a rare vintage from the cellars here. Better than anything you’ve ever tasted, I assure you.”
I shake my head.
“Suit yourself.” He takes another sip before he leans forward, intent. “But answer me this, Maggie, since we’re talking. Why do the Diyin Dine’é play favorites? Do you know?”
“No idea what you’re talking about.”
“No? You’ve spent most of your life around them. I was hoping you had some insight. For example, why do they build a wall to keep some men out? Why do they favor one woman over another? If all Diné are their children . . . if even I am their child, as you so kindly pointed out, and we all belong to the land, then why am I left to suffer and rot while others prosper?”
“Kai said he met you at the All-American. You’ve been inside the Wall.”
The chains around me tighten, and I gasp. “That is not what I mean.” The vein in his forehead swells again. He dips his head and takes a deep breath. “You’re certainly no philosopher,” he says dryly.
“Sorry.”
He laughs a little under his breath. “I have to admit that now that I’ve met you, I begin to understand.”
“Understand what?”
“Not so much the what, but the why. Why your gods have taken an interest in you.”
“I don’t think it works that way.”
“You don’t know the way it works,” he hisses, his rage bubbling up again. “Or you don’t want to admit it. I have been a pawn in their games, just as you have. So please, please, don’t presume to tell me how it works.”
I want to challenge him, tell him that Dinétah is a place just like any other, with bad and good, and that the Diyin Dine’é have nothing to do with whatever offenses he’s suffered to bring him to this place. But I’m not sure I believe it. At the very least, he’s right that the Diyin Dine’é were instrumental in building the Wall. They instructed the medicine men and the lathers. And rumors have always swirled that Ma’ii or someone else had something to do with the Big Water. And he’s right about one other thing. The Diyin Dine’e certainly haven’t been shy about interfering in my life. Is it so hard to believe that even now they play favorites?
Gideon’s been watching my face, and now whatever he sees there makes him lean back, grinning.
“So, you do see the truth in my words. You feel that frustration, that unfairness inside just as I do.” He touches a hand to his chest. “And now you see my real vision. The flooding of Dinétah is only the beginning. I plan to challenge the gods themselves. And you are the perfect vessel through which to do that.” His eyes shift to the lightning sword on my back. “With the perfect weapon.”
“The Diyin Dine’e are sacred beings. More powerful than anything you can imagine. You can’t defeat them.”
“Didn’t you?” he asks. “Haven’t you, more than once? It’s remarkable what you’ve done, really. I don’t even think you appreciate it.”
“And I don’t think you appreciate how certifiable you sound.”
His mouth twists, amusement flickering back to anger just like that. He picks up his glass of whiskey and drinks it down in one swallow. Slams the delicate crystal onto the wood table so hard it fractures. He squeezes, and it shatters, sending shards flying from the table. Something strikes me above my eye, and I wince. Blood trickles through his fingers, but he doesn’t seem to notice.
“No more, Godslayer,” he grinds out between clenched teeth. “No more will I be a victim. I am going to do what should have been done a long time ago. I’m going to destroy Dinétah, and you are going to help me do it.”
He leaves me there, chained in the metal chair. Disappears down a hallway without another word. I try to put the pieces of information together in my head, but a headache is starting to build and I can’t focus. Something brushes my eyelashes, and I try to blink it away, my hands still chained to my sides. Drops of blood fleck the table. I must have gotten cut when he broke the whiskey glass. I lean my head back to try to keep the blood from getting in my eyes. Rattle the chains a little, checking to see how loose they are. Not loose enough to get free.
I look around the dimly lit room for something to help me. Some kind of weapon besides wasted bullets and cooling pie filling.
I brace my feet against the floor and rock the chair. It tips up on one thin leg and then swings back to the other. Again, with more force, and I’m falling to the floor. I hit the tile, my shoulder and hip taking the brunt of the impact. I feel shards of glass dig into my thigh through my leggings. I ignore it, using my weight to shift the chair closer to the spot where I can see my Böker against the wall.
My heart is pounding. I can feel the seconds ticking by, knowing Gideon could come back any moment. I wriggle awkwardly, pulling myself across the tiles, feeling the blood flowing faster from the cut on my head, glass grinding as it rolls under my hip and shreds holes in my leggings. The metal wiring cuts into my arms, pinching the skin. But I’m almost there. I almost have my knife.
I’m inches away when I hear Gideon’s footsteps. Feel him pause in the doorway, the same one I first saw him in, taking in the scene.
“Remarkable,” he says, wonder in his voice, and I think he means it. I make one last awkward attempt for my knife before he reaches with his power and drags the chair, and me, across the room. I slam into the wall of windows with a scream. The glass above me shakes and sways, rippling in its frame.
The chair settles, and I realize that not only is my head throbbing, but my vision is hazy with blood and I’m twice the distance from my weapons as I was before I started.