The magic hit Dayna like a blow. Not from the strength of it—it came through as a scant trickle, distorted and warped as were all the spells she'd felt since returning. But she gasped at the impact of it—a noise of surprise beyond mere surprise.
Distorted it might be, but she knew that signature when she felt it. The signature of a dead man.
In the turmoil of the hold, no one immediately noticed her reaction. Like Wheeler and Suliya, she sat in the back of the job room, behind the common-use desk and out of the way of the discussion in the middle of the room; the couriers moving in and out and around them, wincing over the meltdown-riddled map. Carey had been installed in what Dayna couldn't help but call the school nurse's office—the courier first-aid room—although the healer tending him was most assuredly the equivalent of an experienced doctor. There they would have stayed, had they been allowed . . . but they were not. Wheeler left easily, Dayna with more difficulty, and Suliya had to be dragged away despite Simney's assurances that they would be fetched as soon as it was appropriate, for good or bad.
Somewhere along the line Suliya seemed to have acquired loyalty to someone other than herself.
Jaime hadn't even considered staying; she didn't have the choice. She and Linton were already in deep discussion when Dayna and her entourage returned to the job room, a conversation into which Wheeler was all too happy to insinuate himself. Dayna, numbed by the turn of events—unprepared for Camolen's dire state, unprepared for Carey's further collapse and the prospect that no one here could help him, full of self-repercussions for both—sat behind the desk and numbly watched the bustle as couriers responded to the alert, preparing their horses before they even knew their assignments.
Assignments still under discussion.
"These are couriers," Wheeler said as Dayna realized her mouth had dropped in reaction to Arlen's magic; she forced herself to close it, her mind and heart racing, barely able to follow along as Wheeler, incongruous in the red-and-black western shirt, made his point. "They don't have the kind of training it takes to work with the public in a crisis situation. Especially not if they're going to demand that people give up their property."
Natt gave him a withering look—more, Dayna thought through her daze, because Wheeler the outsider dared to speak up than because his comment held no sense. "Gathering the permalight stones is the only certain way to stop their use."
"We can spread the word," Jaime agreed, "but Natt's right—there will always be people who think they're the exception. That it won't matter if they use just one little spellstone. Or that we're wrong. We can't leave the stones out there where they can be used."
Linton crossed his arms, looking tense. "You're right. But Wheeler's right, too. Some of our couriers are burning good at dealing with difficult customers—but this goes beyond."
"Spell it back a level," Wheeler said, his mildly annoyed expression speaking volumes to someone who knew him. "I didn't mean gathering the spellstones was a bad idea. But the couriers should have a backup plan for people who won't cooperate, rather than waste their time trying to make those people cooperate when they aren't trained for it."
"You should know what it takes," Suliya said under her breath, garnering no one's notice but Dayna's—Dayna who smiled wryly in agreement while she frantically and silently hunted for another sign of Arlen's signature, just a small clue to prove to herself that she hadn't imagined his magic . . . or allowed the distortion of Camolen's power to trick her. She had to know for sure—had to—before she said anything in front of Jaime.
"What, then, do you suggest?" Still stiff, Natt leaned over the end of the desk, weight resting on splayed fingers.
Wheeler sat at the other end, one hip hitched over the edge of the desk, a relaxed contrast. Restrained, under the circumstances—here in what could be considered enemy territory. The corner of his mouth crooked aside; he gave the smallest of shrugs. "First of all, make things easy for the couriers, so they can move fast today. They should simply ask everyone to spread the word, and assign each community a spot to turn in the spellstones and receive chits of surrender. That's your first wave. Second wave—that's tomorrow—the couriers go home to home, checking chits and asking for stones. Have them make a list of those people who won't cooperate—and keep in mind some people won't have chits because they didn't have spellstones in the first place. Third wave, send someone with more authority around with the list."
"And eventually, send someone like you?" Natt said, openly antagonistic and earning a worried look from Cesna—a Cesna whom Dayna found changed, never fully recovered from experiencing the Council's death.
But Wheeler only nodded. "Eventually. Until then, accept that you won't get all the spellstones. Their early distribution surpassed any commercial spell up until this point. The goal is to spread the word as widely as possible and make it easy for people to comply."
Jaime gave him a skeptical look. "That kind of thinking isn't exactly what your colleagues led me to expect when they came to visit."
"Force is a last resort, and leads to the poorest possible result."
"Which doesn't mean you're not prepared to use it, as Carey can burnin' well tell you," Suliya said, louder this time.
Wheeler gave her a gentle smile; only in retrospect did Dayna give him a double take, looking for the not-at-all-nice undertone she thought she'd seen. By then it was gone. By then, they'd gone on to discussing details. The ride of the Paul Reveres, Jaime called it, making Dayna snort even in her distraction, her dismay at the complete silence from Arlen. She'd been so certain . . . Maybe it was time to go looking.
Distancing herself from the clamor of the job room, she gently reached for the feel of Arlen, casting her direct communication spell toward the magic she'd felt and keeping the effort to the lowest possible trickle of magic.
His response was so strong, so clear—a whisper zinging straight to her mind like a skillfully shot arrow. Who? Dayna jerked, startled, not expecting it in spite of her hope. "Arlen!"
Silence fell around her; she opened her eyes just in time to see Jaime descend upon her, taking her upper arms in a punishing grip—wild-eyed Jaime, and not someone Dayna thought she knew. "What about Arlen?" she demanded, only inches from Dayna's face.
"Whoa, Jaime—" Linton said, uncertainty on his long features.
"What about Arlen?"
"I—he—"
Wheeler somehow came between them. "Maybe if you stop shaking her," he suggested in a way that wasn't a suggestion at all.
"Dayna!" Jaime said, pleading now.
Dayna knew she should have been reacting to such treatment, defending herself as she was wont, throwing her keep off signs up in Jaime's face. Instead she searched Jaime's bay-brown eyes in wonder and whispered, "He's alive. I just . . . I just spoke to him."
"Magic?" said Wheeler in disapproving alarm.
They all turned on him at once, all of Arlen's colleagues and friends and his lover, all snapping a quick "Shut up!" before turning back to Dayna, a tight semicircle of anxious faces that made her want to run.
"Back off, guys," she said, gaining strength in her tone. "I felt a spell with his signature and I went looking—" She glanced at Wheeler and added, "Don't worry, we're whispering. It may not be smart, but not talking to him would be even stupider. Of anyone, who do you think needs to know about SpellForge? Who do you think can help us out of this mess?"
"Is he okay? Where is he? Where has he been? What's happening?" Questions tumbled out of Jaime; she looked as though she could barely restrain herself from grabbing Dayna again. "Are you sure? Are you really sure? God, Dayna, if you're wrong about this, if you make me believe—" She stopped short, gulping an uncontrollable but silent sob, and spun away from them all, hiding her face in her hands. Linton, Natt, Cesna—all took a step toward her, reaching for her, stopping short with the uncertainty of such strong emotion, of further exposing such vulnerability.
It was Dayna who rose and gently touched Jaime's back from behind, talking to the bowed head, the obscuring fall of sienna-touched brown hair, and the self-striped maroon tunic stretched over her bent shoulders, typical Camolen style. "I'm sure," she said gently. "He's not far from here, that's all I know. He's not far, and he sounded strong. I should go talk to him, don't you think?"
Jaime nodded most emphatically without lifting her head from her hands, drawing a short laugh from Natt; a glance showed him red-eyed, but with hope in his face for the first time Dayna had seen since her return. Cesna, damaged Cesna, had withdrawn to the corner, gripping her elbows tightly enough to whiten her knuckles . . . unable to believe.
"Okay, then." Still gentle, Dayna said as reassuringly as possible, "I'll find out what I can," although already her thoughts were racing ahead to the overwhelming desire not to ask questions of Arlen, but make demands—where the hells have you been foremost among them.
If ever she used restraint . . .
"Ask him—" Natt started, and then the others were all talking at once, suggesting their own questions, hemming her in with noise.
"I can't ask him anything if you don't give me some peace!" she snapped, and they drew back slightly so she could return to her seat—everyone but Wheeler, who had never moved from the edge of the desk in the first place. She sat, glared them all back another step, and closed her eyes to concentrate more easily on the conversation within, easing the spell into place with as little magic behind it as she dared. Arlen?
A long moment passed, long enough that fear tightened her chest—and then she felt his responding tendril of magic, his clear, clear voice. Thought I'd scared you off.
Voices from beyond the grave can do that, she told him, not sparing the sardonic tone. We've thought you were dead—where the hells—
But no. She wouldn't say that.
At least, not quite.
Arlen, never offended by Dayna's blunt outbursts, didn't need to hear the rest of it. He said only, I know. I'm sorry. I had no choice, and beyond that it's a long story.
Where are you?
She got a brief image of woods, random meltdowns, three horses. Lady. Ramble. And an ugly dark gelding.
He said, Not far from Anfeald, but blocked off. On my way to the peacekeepers if I can make it. Dayna, you have to pass the word; the corruptions are caused—
SpellForge! Dayna said, talking right over him. The permalight spells!
Ah. Looks like you've done fairly well without me.
Hardly. She made a face, not even considering what it would look like to those watching her so closely. And quickly, she sketched for him their trip to Ohio, their failure with Ramble, their encounter with Wheeler . . . and the grave condition of his head courier.
He didn't interrupt . . . and then he didn't respond right away. After a moment—just long enough to make her anxious—she felt the faint gust of a sigh. "Carey's got a knack for putting results above survival," he said, and she could tell by the faint echo that he'd said it aloud. Oh, hells, that was a mistake— "Lady, no—no changespell! We already talked about this—no, whoa. Whoa!"
For another long moment Dayna heard nothing but internal silence with a background of faint static, magic with enough wrongness to it that she began to feel queasy. In her physical ear, only faintly, a voice became insistent—she didn't even know whose it was. "Dayna, what's going on? Are you all right?" She held up a hand to forestall the interruption, just in time for Arlen's return. Harried-sounding, he said, I've only got a moment, I've got to deal with Lady—my big mouth . . . listen, Dayna, you've got to take steps to get those light spells under control.
We are.
And you've got to send someone to the peacekeepers, in case I don't make it.
She grimaced, but had to acknowledge the sense behind that move. We will.
And here's the big thing. We've got to come up with some kind of shield to protect people from the—what did you say Jaime called them? Meltdowns? Yes, good name. I've been working on it—
Inverted shields! Dayna blurted without thinking. With the magic on the outside!
You have done well without me, he said, but his inner voice was dry enough to cause her chagrin. I've been working on it. Don't you even try—we can't have raw magic in play. None. You understand that, right?
She nodded, knowing he'd perceive it.
My problem is in making the shield interior free of magic, he told her. I've visited Jaime on your magic-free earth, but I always had a connection to Camolen. I don't know what no magic feels like. In truth—and now she could hear his chagrin—I haven't the faintest idea. And until I do—
There was silence between them, but only for a moment. Only long enough for Dayna to consider and discard the ramifications of letting him go deeper, beyond the surface of her thoughts. You want to borrow a memory? she asked him.
She felt his slow grin.
"I'll be right back," Arlen told Dayna, out loud as well as through the finest pinpoint of targeted message he could send—and even then he examined the woods around them uneasily as he opened his eyes, trying to take in the enormity of the things he'd learned—of Jaime, here and waiting for him and never giving up hope despite all evidence; of Dayna and Carey and Jess gone to Ohio with the stallion who'd seen the ambush, a decision that drove a wedge between Carey and Jess . . . of Carey, now barely hanging on.
And again of Jaime. Never giving up hope . . . What he'd done to her with his attempts to communicate, sickening her every evening as he'd pushed himself into her unskilled mind across such a distance.
Too much to encompass emotionally; intellectually he gently put it all aside and applied himself to the present. Dayna. He should have thought of it as soon as they'd connected—Dayna had lived most of her life in the absence of magic, and now she wielded it freely; she'd even recently developed a mirror spell for use in Ohio. If anyone knew how the opposing states felt . . .
But first he had to deal with that before him, a mare about to burst into changespell and lacking the human reasoning that would prevent it. Although as he eyed her—looming over where he sat on his heels at the base of the tree, its deeply furrowed bark digging into his back through the threadbare coat and the roots framing his feet—he had to admit even human reasoning wasn't always enough to overcome human emotion.
Lady pawed the ground, dangerously close to his toes; she snorted on him.
He wiped off the side of his shave-spell tender cheek and said, "You know you can't. Not until we get this meltdown situation sorted out—and I think we're on the way to doing it. If you want something to distract you, think about getting us to the peacekeepers. That's our first step. Changing here will kill you, and you'll be no closer to Carey."
She shook her head in a snakey threat, flattening her ears.
"You are," he said, "more opinionated in this form than I remember."
She pawed the ground. Damp dirt scattered across his worn buttercorn-colored boots.
"Don't be rude. Do you think I'll change my mind?" He stood abruptly and she whipped her head up to eye him from an eye held high, her nose pulled to a long, very prissy looking expression and crowding him. Unimpressed, he waved a hand at her; she shied wildly away as though expecting to be struck and he was unimpressed by that, too. "Look at me," he said, pointing at his own face. It still burned from the shave-spell, though he hadn't noticed it while spell-talking to Dayna; he forbore to actually touch his sandpapered skin. "Smell it if your eyes aren't up to the job. That little shaving trick of mine may not have triggered any meltdowns, but even a little spell like that is hardly reliable." Unconvinced but warily responsive, she eased up to him and ran her whiskers over his face, whiffing hot breath on painful skin as she took in the odor of blood and serum. "One hell of a brush burn, and I'm lucky it's only that. Never mind the meltdowns—you damn well won't be around to see them if you try to change right now."
She backed a step, snorted hard, and pawed at the ground . . . but this time he felt a difference in the movement. Not Lady being pushy . . . Lady unable to communicate. Bobbing her head at the tree, giving her nose a little flip. Frustrated.
Realization bloomed. "Talking to Dayna is a very minor spell. It takes hardly any magic at all once the connection is made . . . and if it fails, there's not much it can do to us. Besides, if you're settled down enough that I can go back and talk to her, I can get the information I need to build a shield against the meltdowns. And trust me, that's something I need to do. It's something I've been failing to do for some time now." He cocked his head at her. "Let me talk to Dayna, and then we'll head for the peacekeepers. You think you can give a smooth enough ride to keep even me on board without a saddle?"
He couldn't tell if she'd understood; she stood quietly, suddenly looking like nothing more than the average horse—which to judge from Carey's stories, she'd never been. Always his favorite . . . always doing something about which he could brag. With perfect timing, she sidled up to him, lipping his jacket in a coquettish manner, shyly and gently rubbing her brow against his chest. He laughed. "Aren't you just the charmer. No wonder Carey—oof!"
She did it again, bumping hard against him.
"Carey," he said cautiously, following a hunch—and then warded off another shove. Then again, what other way did she have of inquiring? "He came back with Dayna," Arlen told her, waiting for another shove, knowing he'd found the right question to answer when none was forthcoming. "I gather there was some kind of fight—"
Up down, up down; her head bobbed fast enough to make her thick black mane fly. She knew that much, then.
"You know he's been hurt? A remoblade."
She knew. This time she stood quite still, watching him intently, waiting for his next words.
He gave her the truth. "The only way to save him is to stop these meltdowns so the healers can use magic. And that means getting to the peacekeepers. Frankly, when it comes to that . . . you're of more use to me as a horse. If you'll take me there, that is. It's up to you, Lady . . . you can try to change back to Jess, die in the process, and leave Carey to die after you . . . or you can get me to the peacekeepers and help me save him."
Even with her equine comprehension, with her limited ability to follow the arguments he'd made, he was sure she understood the gist of it.
And that meant she had no choice at all.
Jaime hesitated just inside the doorway of the darkened first-floor room, her hand still trailing on the ornate metal door latch; after a moment her eyes adjusted enough to find the cot-sized bed in the back corner of the small room and to convince herself she saw a hint of Carey's dark blond hair on the pillow. She said in a voice that couldn't begin to express her rampaging joy, "Arlen's alive, Carey."
The sheets rustled; she opened the door just a little wider so the light from the window at the end of the hall—a window no longer protected by spells, making them all grateful the weather was warming while the worst of the spring insects hadn't yet appeared—eased into the room along with her, bringing dawn to its simple furnishings without inflicting harsh light on Carey himself.
He gave the undertone of a cough she'd already come to expect from him, a throat-clearing reaching deep, trying to avoid the true cough that would come anyway.
And did.
She went and sat in the chair by the bed, hesitating to reach out to him and doing it anyway, a simple hand on his shoulder. They'd almost always been allies, but they'd never been friends. They understood one another . . . but kept it at that, intersecting mostly because of Jess and Arlen and satisfied to leave it that way.
Satisfied except for moments like this, when she wished she knew just the right words for him. Simney had been blunt enough. Without magic—more than the simple generalized healing spell they'd used to bring him out of shock—
Well. Carey knew it. According to Dayna, he'd known this might happen when he chose to return rather than risk permanent exile on earth. Permanent separation from the one person he'd somehow managed to drive away, and with whom he now needed to try to make things right.
"Arlen," he said, coming up on his elbow to look at her, keeping his voice low, keeping his words short.
"Dayna felt his magic. He's not far from here. He's worked up a shield against the meltdowns." She hunted for the easiest way to sum it all up, the facts he would want to know versus those that would just fill out the story. "We've got couriers spreading the news about the permalight spells." She hesitated. "If you hadn't come back—you and Dayna and Suliya and even that goon Wheeler—we'd never have known in time. Arlen knew, but we couldn't make contact with him without Dayna—and he wouldn't have been able to complete the shield spell without her."
"I'm baggage . . . on that part," he said, the wry tone somehow coming through in his altered voice and interrupted words.
Jaime shook her head, and though she'd never before considered the matter, she felt not a trickle of doubt when she said, "You're the one who always holds everyone together. The nexus. No matter whose idea it seems to be . . . I don't know that we'd be bold enough to come up with our ideas if we didn't know you were there to charge off with them." She wrinkled her nose. "Even if we're usually just heading into trouble."
He snorted, then brought the back of his hand across his lower lip; blood looked black in the low light. Jaime offered him a damp cloth from the small table at the head of the bed. "Anyway," she said, looking away as he wiped his lip and frowned at the cloth, the wood chair creaking under the shift of her weight, "we're heading for the peacekeepers. Arlen wants us backing him up—there are agents after him. I don't entirely understand it, but I gather SpellForge has some goons available through this organization called FreeCast. Like Wheeler, before you lured him to the good side of the Force. And they really don't want him reaching the peacekeepers. They think SpellForge has everything under control. I think SpellForge has its collective heads up its collective butts. And they obviously don't know Arlen isn't their only problem. So we'll make a run for the peacekeepers—at last word, there's a clean patch of woods we can cut through—and I fully intend for all of us to make it." She glanced at him. "You too, by the way. Your job is to hang in until we get things stabilized enough that Simney can use some serious magic on you."
He nodded, but from his expression, he didn't think he was fooling anyone. Sooner or later, Simney had said, that lung's going to fill. That's assuming he doesn't just plain stress out his system before then.
Simney didn't use terms like falling blood pressure or spiking heart rate or any of the medical jargon Jaime would have heard on the cable health channel at home. Then again, she didn't have to. The grey of Carey's face, even in this poor light . . . the blue of his lips. They told enough of the story, along with a struggle for breath so profound he paused between almost every word if he managed to string more than two together in the first place.
Now he took a few quick stuttering breaths and said all at once, "Tell Jess I'm sorry."
Tell her yourself would have been the standard sidekick's reaction, but Jaime was no sidekick and Carey wouldn't have asked if he hadn't needed to know she would do it. Just like Arlen. Just in case. She murmured it out loud. "Just in case."
He gave her a twisted smile. "Just tell her."
Jaime shrugged, gripped by the sudden sadness of the moment, trying to keep it from showing. "It won't hurt her to hear it twice." And then winced, because that had been a sidekick's line and it would only serve to drive home how dire things truly were.
He grinned, real humor, and said, "Bet that hurt. To say."
She scowled at him. "Get better so I can hit you."
"Good," he said, settling back down on the bed like a collapsing feather pillow, sinking in smaller and further than she thought he ought to. "Now I know . . . you're ready to go kick . . . some SpellForge butt."
"You watched too much TV while you were at my place," she told him. But he was right.
She was ready.