20
The street was quiet and sunny, homey, with leaves piled at the curb, and I frowned at the truck parked outside of Keasley’s old house. A new sapling had been planted in the front yard, and it somehow made me feel left out. I missed the old man who had stitched up my vamp bites and gave out wise-old-man crap when I needed to hear it, but he’d vanished shortly after I figured out who he really was, which was probably safer—for him. “Have you been to visit Jhi?” I asked Jenks, now huddled on my shoulder for the quick trip from Trent’s borrowed car to the church.
“No.” Jenks’s wings pressed cold against me. “She wasn’t sure there’d be anyone in the house by winter, much less if that person would like pixies. She’s hibernating this year.”
His worry was obvious, and I forced a smile. “She’ll be fine. She’s young and in good health.” Fatigue pulled at me as I took the stairs to the front door, weaving through the offerings left by thankful freed familiars. And then I stopped, shocked to see the doors wide-open before I remembered that I’d magicked them that way when catching Zack.
“Great, they’ve been open all night,” I whispered, grimacing at the coming heating bill. “Sorry about that, Jenks. You want to check for squatters while I get these shut?”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, and then he was gone, inside to do a quick perimeter.
Let go! Let go! I thought as I grabbed one of the doors and tugged, finally unsticking it with a swift yank. Mood bad, I slammed the doors shut behind me, boots crunching on the leaves that had blown in. Frowning, I tapped the thermostat, satisfied when I heard it click on.
“No squatters downstairs, Rache,” Jenks said as he came back and slammed both feet against the light switch to turn it on. “I’m going to check the belfry.”
“Thanks,” I said, but he was already in the foyer’s stairway. My bag slipped from my shoulder, jerking the to-go cup of coffee I’d gotten at Junior’s and making it spill. I sighed at the brown puddle among the wet leaves, tempted to leave it, but I could hear Ivy in the back of my thoughts clearing her throat.
I was tired, and it didn’t help that I’d had to borrow one of Trent’s cars to get here. No-doze amulet swinging, I strode to the stage. My purse and the bag with my new spelling robe went on the couch, and the dripping paper cup on the slate table. There was a sawdust-covered box of tissue on one of the end tables, and after I pulled a few, I went back to blot up the mess.
There wasn’t enough caffeine to get through today.
Soggy mess in hand, I headed for the fifty-five-gallon trash barrel only to slide to a halt when Jenks darted right in front of me, wings clattering.
“Watch the hole,” he said, and I blinked, two feet from walking right into the crawl space.
“Maybe I should cover that back up,” I said, and Jenks nodded.
“Belfry is clear,” he said, his dust a dissatisfied green as he rose through the hole in the ceiling to inspect the narrow space between the roof and the false ceiling. “They haven’t done a slug-slimed thing! There’s still only eight inches of insulation up there.”
“That happens when you don’t pay them.” Depressed, I tossed the soggy tissue into the trash barrel and returned to the stage. It was the story of my life. I was among the most powerful people in Cincinnati, and I was basically broke, had no real job prospects, and was living on my dead, former boyfriend’s boat. “Maybe I’m doing this wrong,” I whispered as I brushed the sawdust off Ivy’s couch and sat down.
Jenks’s sparkles dimmed as he dropped to the rafters. “There’s no right way to live, Rache. It’s just a bad patch. You need anything from the belfry?”
“Um, magnetic chalk?” I said, remembering I didn’t have any, and he darted off, content.
But I was anything but. The silence was oppressive as I unpacked what I’d brought from the boat. The feeling of being displaced was hard on me, and my fingers felt clumsy as I set my snips and hunk of beeswax from Trent’s hives on the table. I should have been able to jump here, not have to borrow Trent’s car. I felt stunted, lacking, and my mood darkened as I ran one of Trent’s silk handkerchiefs over the table to remove stray ions. But feeling as though I wasn’t good enough wasn’t anything new. Deal with it, Rachel, I thought as Jenks returned.
“There’s a shoebox full of ley line stuff up there,” Jenks said as he skidded to a landing on the table with a broken stick of magnetic chalk. “You want anything from the garden?”
“Isn’t it too cold?” I asked.
“Not for a quick trip,” he said confidently, but my phone said it was, like, fifty out there, workable, but not if he got damp. Still, a quick foray would tell me his limits.
“I’m not sure yet.” I unwrapped my ceremonial knife as I thought about what I might need. “Do you know if the ivy growing by the trash cans survived the fire? I’ve always had good luck with the aerial roots.”
Jenks rose back up. “I’ll go see.” He touched the hilt of his sword and flew to one of the boarded-up windows and out a crack. Slowly the dust he left behind faded.
“Maybe a ten-pointed star,” I muttered as I took up a stick of magnetic chalk and drew one for practice right on the table. Ten points ought to double the sensitivity of the original curse, but going from a pentagon to a ten-pointed star would be tricky. I could draw a ten-pointed star easily enough, but the space made from the star’s lines was too large and disconnected from the center point, where the lines running point to point touched.
Unless I add a pentagon inside it, I thought, drawing one in the center of the star, the ten crossed lines marking the points and midsections. And like that, I had it. It wasn’t a ten-pointed star I wanted, but two five-pointed stars, one shifted a few degrees widdershins. The curse would use the original pentagon start point, and if I could manage to turn it without losing the first star, I’d get a ten-pointed star.
“Oh, this has potential,” I muttered, wondering how I could get it to turn. There were lots of ley line charms to turn things—just as many earth-magic fixes to do the same. Between the ley line stuff in the belfry and the herbs in the garden, I bet I could do it.
Hunched over the table, I began to make a grocery list of possibilities, listing on the slate everything I had that turned or evolved. Cedar, I thought, chalk whispering. It was a sun plant, and it was good for getting rid of bad dreams, too. I could use that as a stylus. Chicory, which also belonged to the sun and was good in charms that unlocked doors and hearts. The moon turned. We had wintergreen out there, and wintergreen was linked to the moon. It was good for breaking hexes. I wasn’t breaking a hex, but splintering an aura might be close, and I added it to the list. Dandelion because of its tenacity and divided nature, a straw from a broom for its nature to push together, and a drop of water from a spiderweb, as it reflects the world. All good choices.
From the ley line side of things, I probably had a crystal in the belfry to refract my desires. And there was the glyph itself, the ten-sided figure stemming from a five-sided glyph. Combine that with the blood samples Ivy was bringing over, and it might be enough. But even as I finished my list and began to think about how to put it all together, I wondered if maybe trying to use a dollop of elf magic might be in order. Not that I was lazy, but asking a deity to mesh everything together would make it easier. More powerful, too. I’d already modified the spell Trent had once used to temporarily contain my soul to capture Nina’s so as to give it to Ivy. But I wasn’t sure it was safe to swim in that pool anymore.
I looked up at Jenks’s soft wing hum to see his low, dully glittering path just above the sanctuary floor. He was cold, and I held out my hand to give him a warm place to land. “Damn, it’s like Tink’s titties after a snow out there. Is this enough, Rache?”
A handful of long rootlets was in his grip, and I nodded. “Plenty. Thanks. Are you going to give me any flack about sitting tight as I get the rest?”
Jenks looked at my list, his brow furrowed. I cleared my throat, and he hesitated. “No,” he finally grumbled, and I smiled.
“Good.” I stood, and he settled on the rim of my cooling coffee. “Back in a minute.”
“Slug snot. I’m guarding the church,” Jenks said morosely as he sat on my cup, heels thumping and dust making an oily sheen on the bitter brew.
“At least you’re not the librarian!” I said over my shoulder as I strode to the front door, snips and black gathering scarf in hand. My heels clunked on the old wood in a familiar sound as I skirted the hole in the floor and slipped outside. The street was quiet as I hustled down the steps, arms about my middle as I dodged the plates of food and vases of flowers. The slate path leading to the back gate was covered in leaves, and the squeak of the hinges went right through my head. But then I was in the garden, and a smile found me as I worked my way through the traditional witches’ garden and into the more traditional witches’ garden among the tombstones. This was where I’d harvest the dandelion and cedar, where death and transition made them stronger.
I lost myself among the fallen leaves smelling of both earth and sky as I lifted soggy, cold, stunted plants to find the still potent sheltered rosettes, gathering what I wanted and folding them into the scarf. A soft glint of gray turned out to be one of my stone spoons, and pleased, I rubbed it clean and dropped it in a pocket. I’d probably be finding stuff for years, scattered when the vampires of Cincinnati had blown up my kitchen.
The fading scent of zombie among the tombstones brought me up sharp, and I wondered how Glenn was going to deal with this wrinkle. I knew he was withholding information from both me and Ivy. Not to mention from his dad at the FIB. His last words were not inspiring: trust him and keep a low profile? The trust I could handle, but when had I ever kept a low profile?
Thoughts swirling, I spun to go inside, halting when I saw the burned back of the church. The missing kitchen and living room had been added on in the seventies, and the original stone wall was scorched and ugly. Only the fireplace remained, but it was cracked and would have to be torn down. It was easy to see where pipes and conduits ran, and as I picked my way over the low wall separating the graveyard from the more ordered flower garden, I wondered if it might be possible to make an inspection-solid tulpa of my kitchen. If it was like any other tulpa, it would be real. Really real. Permit and inspection real.
But as with all things, I’d pay for it. Making a tulpa the size and complexity of the kitchen would put me out for a week. Al was the only demon I’d trust to pick through my mind and separate the construct from my psyche, not to mention watch over me as I recovered. We hadn’t made a construct since the mystics had talked to me. He seemed okay with how things were, but I wasn’t sure he was comfortable with being in my mind anymore. But as I looked at the ruin of my church, I decided I’d ask him after Thanksgiving.
If we both survive, I thought, my anger with Hodin rising up again. Damn it, I had really believed I’d be able to help Al for a change.
A familiar bumm of sound pulled my attention to the street. It was Ivy’s cycle, and I headed for the gate as the engine died and the soft click of her kickstand going down sounded in the new stillness.
The feeling of Camelot lost pricked my soul as I reached the gate, watching her from over the damp wood. Motions smooth and unhurried, she got off her cycle, scrubbing her long black hair into disarray as she set her helmet on the seat and took a small paper sack from one of the small side trunks. Somehow, even after a night under the I.S. tower dealing with red tape and hungry vampires, she managed to look svelte and sexy. The paper bag crackled as she strode to the church’s door, her long legs eating up the distance and her boots hardly making a sound.
I took a breath to call her, but then she stopped, heel grinding as she turned right to me.
“Hey, hi,” I said as her eyes found mine, and I stifled a shiver as I pushed through the gate and kicked it shut. “I thought that was your cycle.”
“Hi, Rachel.” Her voice was low and throaty, and my pace slowed. She’d had a hard night by the look of it, meaning she’d be on edge, quick to jump to conclusions, and hungry. “Sorry I’m late. It took me more time than I planned to convince everyone involved.”
Hands full of chicory, dandelion, and wintergreen, I halted before her. “You didn’t . . .”
She smiled, flashing her sharp canines at me, and I knew she was fine. “Oh, all the accused were amenable after I told them you were trying to prove they were innocent. It was getting everyone else to look the other way.” She flexed her free hand as if it hurt, and her brow smoothed. “Nothing I couldn’t handle. Nina got a kick out of it. You look tired.”
“I didn’t sleep last night,” I said, deciding not to tell her about the latest baku attack. I’d handled it, and she’d only side with Trent about me sitting this out.
“Six samples.” She handed me the bag, frowning at my dirty fingers. “And six donations to make sure you’re seeing what’s there and not inventing results. They’re all labeled.”
“Donations?” I questioned, and her expansive smile returned.
“Vampire mostly, but I got a witch and a Were, too.” Stretching her shoulder, she winced.
I peered into the bag to see twelve neatly labeled vials. Ivy knew her job. “Thanks. I’m not getting you into trouble, am I?”
“Not any more than usual,” Ivy said wryly, and I looked up, waiting for the rest of the story. Her gaze went to the steeple after a faint thump from inside, then dropped to me. “I was warned off,” she said, anger marring her complexion. “Told that the situation was being handled and to keep my fangs out of it.”
“Crap on toast,” I whispered. “It’s the Order, isn’t it.”
“That’s the impression I got. They’ve been around long enough to know how to bring down one of the old undead without getting caught, and no one will stick their neck out. Homebody cowards. All of them.” Ivy’s eyes went to the church at the muffled peal of sound from the belfry.
“Bis?” Ivy guessed, and I shrugged. What the Turn is Jenks doing up there?
“If you’re good here, I need to get home,” Ivy said, her thoughts clearly somewhere else. “An old undead is coming in from DC tonight, and I need to clean.”
And there’s the cherry on top of my crap-day sundae, I thought sourly. But with Rynn Cormel less than effective, the old undead would want someone they knew—as in someone they could control—in charge of Cincinnati’s vampires. Paper bag crackling, I put my arm around her and gave her a half hug. “Thanks for this.” It meant a lot that she not only believed in me, but that she was right there supporting me the only way she could.
“Anytime,” she whispered, and then she pulled away, taking the delicious, dusky scent of vampire incense with her. “Let me know what you find out,” she added as she began to walk backward, toe to heel. “I don’t think the I.S. is going to let these people go even if you prove it wasn’t them. My boss nearly popped a vein when I brought up the baku.” She winced, stretching her shoulder again. “Someone really wants this quiet. No more murders last night, though.”
“Really?” I frowned, worried. “That’s good,” I said, but it wasn’t. It meant the baku was done messing around. It was coming for me—had come for me. I’m never going to sleep again.
Ivy hesitated beside her bike. “You okay?”
My wandering thoughts returned. “Yeah . . . ,” I said slowly. “Jenks is with me. Tell Nina there might be one more for Thanksgiving. Zack Oborna. Almost sixteen. Elf. Dewar runaway.”
Hair swinging, Ivy put her helmet back on. “Of course he is,” she said as she fastened it. “See you at home.”
I nodded as she started her bike and tooled serenely down the street, back to her life.
Cold, I turned to the church, my eyes following a sparkle of bright dust that shot from the crack in the boarded-up window and arrowed straight up. From inside, a bellow of anger rose. Someone was in my church, someone pissed by the sound of it, and suddenly the bell sounding earlier took on new meaning.
I whistled for Jenks. Immediately he got a bead on me and dropped like a stone. He was laughing, which wasn’t much comfort when I saw his garden sword in one hand, a tuft of dark hair in the other. “Who’s here? David?” I guessed from the hair, and Jenks grinned.
“Hodin,” he said, laughing merrily. “He showed up, shouting about you stealing his curse. I don’t know what his problem is. His hair grew right back. Almost as fast as his ear.”
“Always making friends, eh, Jenks?” I muttered as he landed on my shoulder. I took the stairs, having to weave through the plates of food and frozen flowers. “Hodin?” I called as I shoved the door open. “I can hear you yelling all the way out to the street. I have to live with these people, you know.” Damn it back to the Turn. He was still spying on me.
The warmth of the furnace going full force hit me, and my hair blew back to send Jenks up in a wash of dust. Hodin was at the stage, clearly angry as he looked from the writing on my table. His long hair was in disarray, and a black-and-gold sarilike garment draped all the way to the floor. His right hand glowed with unfocused energy, and I slowed.
“Where is that pixy?” he snarled. “He cut my hair.”
“Aww, it was just a little chunk, moss wipe,” Jenks taunted, hovering close so Hodin wouldn’t be as likely to throw the ball of unfocused energy at him.
“You little bird smear!” Hodin exclaimed, furious. “Get away from that witch!”
“Yeah?” Jenks hummed forward, slow from the cold but willing as he drew his sword. “Here I am. Smite me, oh powerful demon.”
“Stop!” I barked as Hodin wound up, and much to my amazement, the demon’s hand dropped. “Knock it off, both of you. Or I’ll make both of you leave. Jenks, don’t you have some inventory to do for me in the belfry? I’m sure Hodin and I can have a nice chat without any mashing, pulping, or cutting off of any more parts.”
Jenks sheathed his sword with a noisy flourish. “I’m watching you,” he threatened.
“Do I look as if I care?” Hodin said, and when Jenks’s wings hummed a threat, I pointed at the belfry. Jenks’s laugh sounded like wind chimes as he flew a low path back to the vestibule and vanished up the narrow stair.
“He’s four inches tall—,” I started.
“That is no excuse for cutting off parts of my body,” Hodin interrupted, expression dark as he rubbed his ear.
“No,” I said patiently. “I mean, if you want any hope of besting him, you need to shrink down.” Hodin furrowed his brow in thought, and I added, “And if you so much as bend his wing back, I’ll . . . be dead to you, too.”
Hodin glared at me and shook out his black robe. “You will not live long if you keep that much stock in a pixy,” he said, but he wasn’t shouting anymore, and I edged past the hole in the floor and onto the stage. I set Ivy’s bag and my collecting scarf on the table, wary. The faint scent of burnt amber was coming from him, and I breathed it in, finding it pleasantly rich with memory.
“Jenks has saved my life more times than you have rings,” I said, making a fist around the one of his that I still wore. “You did enter his space uninvited. He owns the church.” Standing carefully sideways to him, I shook out the spelling robe he had given me and put it on over my jeans and sweater, doubly glad I’d brought it now. “Or didn’t you know that?” I said, voice muffled.
“No.” Hodin was looking at me as I shimmied the robe into place and tied the sleeves back, bells jingling. My God, it felt nice, all silk and elegance. Sure enough, Hodin’s mood eased even more. The robe was a subtle show that he was needed, appreciated. I was just about desperate for his help now that he was here, but if working with Al had taught me anything, I knew if I asked for it, he’d want something. I was hoping that he’d volunteer out of curiosity.
“Why are you here?” I asked, and Hodin’s anger returned full force.
“You have no right to steal my work,” he said, eyes narrowing.
“I’m not stealing your work,” I said, and when Hodin pointed indignantly at the slate table with my listed ingredients and ten-pointed star, I added, “Drawing a ten-pointed star is not stealing your work. And even if it was, we have a deal. You agreed to stop spying on me.”
I jerked as Hodin strode forward. A wall of haze sprang up between us, and when he walked through it, he came out dressed in black jeans and a T, boots on his feet and wavy hair in disarray. “What are you trying to do?” he said, doing a bad job of hiding his fluster as he stood across the table from me and looked at my sloppy star. “Trying to get a wider spread? It can’t be done. I’ve tried.”
Sitting would have given him the advantage, so I put my hands on my hips and stared down at it. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do, but how did you know I was doing it?” Hodin flushed, and I squinted. “Damn it, Hodin. Stop spying on me!”
“I am not spying on you,” he said shortly, and when I cleared my throat, his eyes met mine. “I’m not, but that’s my work you’re building on. Everyone steals my ideas. First the elves, and now you—everyone taking credit for my innovation and leaving me with not even a footnote of thanks. I’m tired of it. I taught you how to explode a pentagon. What are you doing with it?”
“I’m doing whatever the hell I feel like with it,” I said. “And you are spying on me. I guess that means I can tell Dali about you, then, huh.”
Hodin’s anger shifted to frozen panic. I reached to get my scrying mirror from my bag, and he made an odd gurgling noise. “No, wait,” he said, and I put my arms over my middle. “I’m not spying on you. I, uh, put a mirror on the table when I turned it to slate.”
“A what?”
He sat down, a hand running over his head to muss his hair. “A mirror,” he muttered. “Whatever is scribed on it shows up on the parent table.”
“Which is in your living room, eh?” I said, feeling myself warm. “Take it off.”
“I won’t.” Hodin looked up. “It’s my table. I made it, and you’re stealing my work.”
“Bullshit,” I barked, and Jenks zipped in, drawn by my loud voice. “It’s my table. You turned it to slate, but it is my table. Take it off. Now!”
“Jeez, Rache. Can’t I leave you for five minutes?” Jenks said as he helped himself to another mug from my coffee before perching on the rim to make an oily dust on the surface.
“Tell me what you’re doing to my curse,” Hodin insisted.
“Take the mirror off, and I will,” I countered, and Hodin glared up at me.
“Fine. Speculum speculorum,” he muttered, making a gesture over my table. I would have questioned it, but I felt a drop in the ley line, and the words loosely translated to mirror of mirrors.
“Rache. Look at what he did to my wing,” Jenks said as the caffeine hit him and he rose in a swirl of dust. “Scorched it with his lame-ass line energy. I can hardly fly. See? Look at it.”
But he was hovering so close, I couldn’t. “Then perhaps you shouldn’t have cut off his ear. You look okay to me. Hang tight, okay?”
Jenks turned in midair, spilling his coffee as he looked Hodin up and down. “Hear that, Home Slice? She wants me to hang tight.”
“Keep your dust off the table.” Hodin eyed me uneasily. “What are you trying to do?”
Gotcha. Smiling, I sat before him with a little flip of my robe to make the sash bells ring. “I’m trying to see the inner shells of the aura.”
Hodin’s lip twitched, and what I thought was guilt crossed him. “I’m sorry, Rachel. Even if you could, it wouldn’t help Bis reach you through your adjusted aura.”
“That’s not what this is for.” I shoved the heartache down. I could feel Jenks looking at me, but I didn’t dare meet his eyes as I took Ivy’s vials from her bag and stood them up in a row on the table. “It’s for the baku. Zack said he could see the accumulated damage from the baku in Landon’s aura. Bis couldn’t see any evidence of its attack in my outer shells, but if it shows in my inner, and I can find the same damage in the people it attacked, then I have reasonable cause to blame the baku for the murders.”
“I can vouch that the baku caused their actions,” Hodin said, and I nodded, carefully opening up my scarf to show my snips of cedar, wintergreen, chicory, and tight dandelion buds.
“Fair enough, but I can’t prove it. This might.” I glanced at the ten-pointed star. “Or at least prove the accused were goaded into it, possessed maybe.” The memory of wanting to kill Trent sifted through me, and I stifled a shiver.
“This is what comes from trying to live within a human system,” Hodin said darkly. “You are a demon, Rachel.”
“So I should take and do what I want?” I said, weary of the good old boy’s privileged mind-set, and Jenks snickered. “This isn’t only for them. Landon is using the baku to get me to kill Trent, and though I’m sure all the demons would be thrilled,” I said with a bitter drama, “it would put me back in Alcatraz and Landon in power.” I arched my eyebrows. “Or rather the baku when it takes Landon over. All the progress we’ve made integrating demons into reality won’t mean goose slip. I like you all here. I don’t know why. All of you seem dead set to ruin it.”
Hodin frowned, slumped as he looked at the table. “I just told you you’re right. Why do you have to prove it?”
“It’s what we do here,” Jenks said. “All are innocent until proven guilty. Even demons.”
Hodin’s feet scuffed the old wood floor. “How . . . quaint.”
“And sometimes a pain in the ass, but it keeps me from being lynched.” I used my ceremonial knife to whittle a tip on the cedar stick and set it on the table. “Want to help?”
“Help you steal my work? No.” He pushed back into the chair, settling deeper into its sawdust-laden comfort. “But your efforts are sure to be amusing. You can’t open a decahedron. There’s too much distance between the All candle and the connecting threads.”
“Ass,” Jenks said, and I shifted my hair from my shoulder to lure him off the table.
“Then you won’t mind if I try,” I said as I took up my magnetic chalk.
“What’s your plan, Rache?” Jenks asked as he landed on my shoulder, a muffled swearing coming from him when he slipped on the slick pixy-dust silk and fell into the air.
“Playing it by feel,” I said, eyebrows rising when Jenks warily perched on the back of the couch instead. “I’m hoping that all I need is to double the candles and open a closed pentagon into a decahedron. If Hodin’s curse is worth the salt to circle it, it will function the same.”
“My curse,” Hodin said possessively as he looked sourly at Jenks, now four inches from his ear. Then he added, softer, “A double pentagram?” He shifted, either to get closer to the table or farther from Jenks. “How do you propose to get a ten-pointed star from a five-sided pentagon?”
“Like this,” I said as I drew a pentagon with the usual radiating lines from the center, then added five additional lines running through the midpoints of the walls. I guesstimated how far I needed to go for the proposed star points, and Hodin’s eyes widened in interest. “What were the words you used to open it?” I mused aloud, then brightened. “Obscurum per obscuris,” I said, strengthening my hold on the ley line and letting it fill the glyph.
I hadn’t set any candles, so I didn’t know what I expected, but with a thrill, I felt a drop of energy in me, and on the table, a perfect five-pointed pentagram ghosted into existence, the lines more visible energy than anything else since there was no candle ash to give them substance.
“Okay . . . ,” Hodin said hesitantly, eyes intent. “But it’s still only five points.”
I bit my lip, then went for the cedar twig still holding half a dozen frost-dark leaves. “It just needs to be shifted a few degrees,” I said, reaching out.
“Rachel!” Hodin shouted as I breached the glyph. Jenks’s wings clattered in warning, but then his eyes widened as I gave the lines-not-there a nudge, and they shifted, the points setting at the freestanding lines like a roulette wheel clicking to a stop. Left behind was a ghostly image of the original placement. I had my ten-pointed star.
“Looks like a ten-pointed star to me,” Jenks said smugly as Hodin pushed forward.
“Seal it,” Hodin said, and I drew back, the bells on my sash jingling. “Name what you did, and register it in the collective so you can do it again!” he exclaimed. “Latin. Bind the motion with a naming. Do it, Rachel. I can’t. I’m not in the collective. This can’t be forgotten.”
“Oh!” I stared at what I’d done, only now realizing how rare it was. “Um.” Turning. I had turned it. What was the Latin word for turn? “Ah, Wee-keh Wehr-sah. Evulgo, Rachel Mariana Morgan,” I said, the last words imprinting it on the collective.
“Vice versa?” Hodin’s long face screwed up. “You jest. That’s hardly Latin anymore.”
“Which is why I stuck with the original pronunciation,” I said, embarrassed. “Ut omnes unum sint,” I said, and with a slight pull on my awareness, the ten-pointed glyph vanished to leave only the original pentagon. “Look, if you don’t like it, leave. I’m doing the best I can here.”
“Mmmm.” Hodin’s fingers twitched as if looking for chalk. He took a slow breath and exhaled, his eyes touching on my no-doze amulet, then dropping to the wilting vegetation on my gathering scarf, and finally on my fingers still holding the dirt from the garden now mixed with a smear of magnetic chalk. “I’m impressed,” he finally said, and Jenks nearly choked, inking a startled silver. “Will you show me your ideas, Rachel?”
My gaze flicked to Jenks, and seeing his shrug, I nodded. It was a request, and somehow that was more worrisome than a demand. A demanding demon I knew what to do with.
One who thought I was smart . . . That was a whole new game. And I smiled.