Blood Challenge (24 page)

To risk Rule.

It could have been him.

Her head clear, her hands icy, Lily left the bathroom. She got in the wheelchair Rule had waiting for her and let him push her forward, since everyone was convinced she couldn’t walk on her own.

They were right, weren’t they?

TWENTY-NINE

LAUGHTER
is not musical. Music is, by definition, an art form; real laughter is artless, unconstructed. Nor does laughter have the musical quality of some natural sounds—the rhythmic wash of waves, the patter of rain, or the hoot of an owl. It’s contagious and appealing, but it’s not music.

When Rule wheeled Lily into the great room, Arjenie was laughing, her head tipped back as if to open her throat better to let the laughter out. And it sounded musical.

Lily had noticed that before. Even over the phone, Arjenie’s laugh had made Lily think of clichés about bells. She just hadn’t associated it with the sidhe. Why would she? Sure, like a lot of six-graders, she’d been forced to memorize that stupid poem by Keats or Shelley or someone with the famous lines about elven laughter:

… a quiet music haunts my sleep

nor rain, nor wind, nor night, were night to speak—

yet a crescent moon, or a stag mid-leap

a chuckle of clouds, the converse of blades

recall the laughter of the elven maids.

Huh. She actually remembered that bit. Point to Mrs. Mc-Cutcheon. The thing was, she’d never associated the poem with anything real, maybe because she’d never heard an elf laugh.

Only it turned out she had, and hadn’t known it.

Isen and Nettie were at the rear of the room, seated on one of the big couches. Arjenie was curled up in an armchair near it. Isen rose when he saw her. “Lily.” He was delighted. “You’re feeling better.”

“And you’re in the damn wheelchair,” Nettie said, amused. “Good for you.” She stood, too.

Lily grimaced. “Rule persuaded me that was a better thank-you than flowers. Whatever you did this last time, it seems to have worked.”

“I put you in sleep, that’s all.” Nettie came to them and crouched. “That’s all I can do with you. Your Gift doesn’t let me in.” She took Lily’s hand, turned it up, and laid her fingers on the pulse at the wrist.

Lily understood why Nettie couldn’t heal her directly the way she could one of the lupi. Lily’s Gift blocked magic, period—even the good sort. What she didn’t understand was why Nettie
could
put her in sleep, or how that worked. Nettie said
in sleep
let her body do its own healing, only faster and more fully than it could on its own. This had something to do with the difference between magical and spiritual energies. According to Nettie, the “in sleep” trick was a spiritual practice, not a magical one, so it wasn’t blocked by Lily’s Gift. That’s also why Lily had to give permission before Nettie put her in sleep.

Lily could repeat this explanation. She knew from experience it was true—spiritual energy did affect her. She just had no idea what that meant.

“Good news,” Nettie said, releasing Lily’s hand. “You’re alive.”

“Always nice to have a hunch confirmed. Can I get out of the chair now?”

“No.” Nettie patted her shoulder. “But if you’re good, I’ll give you a cookie.”

“You’re enjoying this way too much.”

Nettie had a lovely smile when she used it. “I take my moments where I find them. You should be glad I’m not insisting on bed rest.”

Lily shuddered. “Oh, I am. Trust me.”

Cynna, Cullen, and Benedict were sitting around the patio-sized dining table at the other end of the room. It was getting louder down there. “… no friggin’ way you can equate the Etruscan
kah
to the Raetic
ktah
!” Cullen said. “The similarity of sound has nothing to do with their runic function, which you ought to—”

“And you,” Cynna said, pushing to her feet, “have a sadly simplistic grasp of runic magic. Plus you don’t listen. I didn’t say they were identical. I said the
kah
could be replaced by the
ktah
in that particular spell to increase congruity. Clearly you’d have to rework the placement.”

“Placement.” Cullen’s brows snapped together. He looked down at the table, muttering under his breath, and began sketching with one finger … a finger that left a glowing line behind. “Right. Higher, you mean? In the line invoking Air?”

“You’re the one who can see magic. You figure it out.” The words were curt. The look on Cynna’s face was fond, amused. She scrubbed a hand from the base of Cullen’s skull to the crown, making his hair stand up.

“Hey!” He looked up, grinned, and grabbed her hand, then tickled her palm with one finger. Lily couldn’t hear his murmured words, but she saw the wicked look he gave his wife.

She grinned back. “Later, you romantic fool.” She withdrew her hand and started toward the rest of them. “Hey, Lily. You look like crap.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“It’s almost like you’d been shot and then operated on and then insisted on flying across the country.”

Cynna was tall and buff, with strong shoulders, shapely arms, and long, muscular legs that Lily envied. She was also stacked—at least, Lily assumed that somewhere beneath the shapeless dress and mound of nearly due baby Cynna’s usual shape lay waiting to reassert itself. Her blond hair used to be short and spiky. It was still short, but lately she’d been leaving off the gel and letting it frame her face more softly. That face, like much of her body, was decorated by lacy whorls and patterns drawn in spiderweb-thin ink.

Well, not exactly ink. Cynna wore her magic on her skin. Beneath that filigree, though, she looked pale and tired.

“You don’t look full of vigor and vim yourself,” Lily said when Cynna reached her. “You okay?”

Cynna snorted as she bent to give Lily a hug. “I’m pregnant, for God’s sake, not ill.”

“Grouchy, too.” Lily hugged back quickly so Cynna could straighten. It wasn’t easy for her to bend these days. “But I was thinking about the memories, not your pregnancy. You’ve been … what’s the right word? Assimilating or absorbing them awfully quickly.”

“Oh.” Cynna grimaced. “That. I’m … this was the last batch from the early days, you see. The Great War and just after. Those are really important memories, and really awful.”

“A lot of death,” Rule said quietly.

Cynna nodded, a crease between her brows, her eyes unfocused. As if she still saw something terrible that had happened three thousand years ago, though from what Lily understood, the memories were supposed to be packed away somehow.

“That’s the last of them until after the little rider makes his appearance,” Cullen said firmly, coming up behind Cynna and slipping an arm around what used to be her waist. “Cynna’s got one hell of a good elevator—”

“She what?”

“It’s symbolism for how I store the memories,” Cynna explained.

“But she has to live the memories before she can put them away, which leaves her exhausted and heartsore. She needs distraction, which you have thoughtfully supplied with your mind-reading trick.”

Lily frowned. “It was not mind-reading. I’m no telepath.”

“Whatever.” He waved that aside. “Admittedly, you probably couldn’t have done it if Arjenie weren’t a broadcaster.”

“Is that what that was—broadcasting?” Lily looked over at Arjenie, who’d been oddly silent. Lily didn’t know her well, but
silent
wasn’t an adjective she associated with Arjenie. “It felt like you’d turned the volume up to sonic boom.”

Arjenie spread her hands apologetically. “The broadcasting happens all the time, whether I want it to or not, but normally it doesn’t matter. The extra boost—I thought I was supposed to do that. Of course, I also thought the only person who could hear me was Eledan.”

“I’m getting this scattershot,” Lily said, and looked at Benedict, who still sat at the table. He was good with reports. “Can you give me a summary?”

For some reason that made Arjenie giggle.

NETTIE
didn’t join them for the summarizing. She was tired and wanted her bed, she said, and Lily didn’t need her, so she’d head home. Since the combination clinic and cottage where she lived was only a mile away, she left on foot.

Everyone else gathered at the table. Lily decided she liked it there. With everyone sitting, she could almost forget what kind of chair she sat in. Not about her arm, though. She couldn’t make notes left-handed. It bugged her intensely.

It was interesting to see how everyone grouped themselves. Isen sat at the head of the table. The chair to his right was for Rule, who’d gone to the kitchen to make coffee. Lily’s chair was wheeled into place next to his. Isen motioned for Cynna—the Rhej’s apprentice had high status—to take the spot on his left. Cullen sat next to Cynna, of course, and Arjenie took the seat on his left. Benedict sat next to Arjenie, leaving Lily and Rule alone on their side of the table.

What does Arjenie know?
Lily wondered. Not just about those potions and Robert Friar, but about why Benedict stayed close to her, why he kept watching her. Did she know about the mate bond? Lily was pretty sure she didn’t. But they were all speaking openly in front of Arjenie, as if she were already clan, and trusted.

Was that wise? Something—someone—had bound her. They were assuming it was her father, but they didn’t know that, did they? Lily tapped her fingers on the table, thinking.

“Ready?” Benedict said.

“Go for it.” Rule would be able to hear just fine from the kitchen.

“All right. Arjenie possesses half of an ability the sidhe call by a word that translates as
kinspeech
. Though it is mind-to-mind contact, they don’t consider it mindspeech because of its limitations. Kinspeech requires physical contact and occurs only between close kin, most often parent and child. It’s common among middle sidhe; less common but not unusual in low sidhe. Her father can both send and receive. Arjenie can only send, like a radio transmitter without a receiver.”

Lily glanced at the woman who’d been her favorite researcher at the Bureau. She was watching Benedict as closely as if she’d never heard any of this before. She must have felt Lily’s eyes on her, because she turned a wry smile on Lily. “It took me thirty minutes to say that. I don’t know how to boil things down.”

“It’s a learned talent,” Lily said. “Is that true for this kinspeech?”

She shook her head, but it was Benedict who answered. “No, it’s an innate ability. Though she did have to learn how to put more power behind her thoughts for her father to ‘hear’ them.”

“He wanted her to yell like that?” Lily asked, startled.

“Essentially, yes. When she realized you were picking up her thoughts she boosted the output, as she’d been taught. This was apparently too much power for the form of mindspeech you use.”

“No kidding,” she said dryly.

“I didn’t know,” Arjenie said earnestly. “I had no idea it would hurt you.”

“No, you couldn’t have, could you? Why didn’t you mention this ability?”

She shrugged. “I never think about it. I mean, the only time I ever experienced it was when Eledan visited me years and years ago, and I didn’t really experience anything then. He did, because when he touched me he could hear me, just a little, so he taught me how to turn up the volume. But I’ve never heard anyone’s thoughts, and as far as I knew Eledan was the only person in all the realms who could hear mine. Well, except for dragons, but that wouldn’t be me doing it. That would be them.”

“If you … ah.” Lily broke off with a smile.

Rule entered bearing a thermos-style pot and a fistful of mugs. He set the mugs down and poured one of them full of hot, fragrant coffee and set it in front of Lily.

“Thanks.” She grabbed the mug and inhaled the scented steam, then sipped, gesturing for Benedict to continue.

He did. “The first question, obviously, is why you were able to receive what Arjenie broadcast. Clearly it has to do with your potential for mindspeech. Beyond that, our various experts disagree—though they do all believe that kinspeech must require a good deal more power than the dragon form of mindspeech you’ve inherited.”

“You’ve explained to her that I can’t actually use mindspeech yet?”

“Several people explained,” he said dryly. “Frequently all at the same time, on different topics. But yes, that was touched on. The second question is whether and how you can repeat the event or connection. The third question is whether it would be safe to do so.”

Lily glanced at Rule, who’d poured his own cup and was sipping it. His eyes met hers over the rim of the mug. They were about the same color as the coffee he sipped. About that revealing, too. “It didn’t hurt until Arjenie turned the power up. I don’t see a problem.”

Cullen leaned forward. “If kinspeech draws on a fundamentally different form of—”

“Cullen,” Isen said mildly.

Cullen scowled but fell silent. Benedict continued. “There are three clear differences between the two forms of mental contact. One is, as I said, the amount of power involved. The other two involve the way contact is achieved. Kinspeech requires physical contact, but doesn’t require training. With mindspeech, the requirements are reversed. Or so we’ve assumed?” He raised his brows.

“You assumed right,” Lily said. “Sam won’t tell me much because, according to him, I’d try to fit my experience into his words. Apparently that would be bad. But yeah, while the ability to use mindspeech is inherited, actually using it has to be learned.” Slowly. Very slowly.

Benedict nodded. “Seabourne believes this means that mindspeech doesn’t function like a Gift, but kinspeech does.”

“We don’t know that,” Cynna muttered.

Benedict slid her an opaque glance. “We’ve arrived at a point of disagreement. Seabourne believes the two forms of mental speech may be fundamentally different—enough so that you risk being harmed when you attempt to ‘listen’ to Arjenie. Using the radio analogy, he says the frequencies may be so different that kinspeech could damage you. That, in fact, you may have already sustained damage, and that’s why you couldn’t repeat the experience. Cynna disagrees. She believes the two are essentially the same, but kinspeech is far less efficient, thus requiring more power and the added boost of physical contact. She thinks you unconsciously threw up a shield when Arjenie’s broadcast caused pain, and that’s why you weren’t able to ‘hear’ her anymore.”