“Tch. If Gan did not bring you, then how did you get here? You must have been pulled here by the mate bond.”
That . . . made sense, actually. It had happened before, back when Gan was working for the other side and had dragged Lily into Dis. Rule had been pulled along with her, pulled by the mate bond. And he vividly remembered the Lady’s voice saying steady back in Dis. Even more vividly he remembered what had followed. The mate bond had vanished, then returned, supercharged. At least that’s what Cullen had said—that Rule was suddenly glowing with twice as much magic as usual. “The Lady,” he said slowly. “She arranged it.”
“Very likely. You are muddled from your wounds. This is not surprising. You were nearly dead. Is your memory bad?”
“I remember most of it. I don’t remember receiving this.” His hand lifted two inches to indicate his stomach. The tiny effort exhausted him.
“I think Xitil did that, but I was busy and did not see it happen. Do you remember Xitil?”
“Yes.” A mountain of pink flesh towering over him. A band of blue eyes circling a round head. A mad giggle.
“Do you also remember that the children were not in the audience hall, as we had thought?”
He remembered the doppelg?nger that he’d thought was his son and how it had felt to watch it melt. “He . . . they . . . the children must be in the cells . . .” He ran out of breath and drew in air slowly. Carefully. There were cells off the audience hall where they’d fought demons, a demon prince, and a dragon spawn. He’d seen Xitil emerge from one. “Cells sealed by rock.”
“Not fully rock. When the false Toby melted, Gan thought to look for the children with her üther sense. It is hard to hide üther from one who can perceive it. Rock will block this perception, but Gan tells me the cells were sealed with something like the window we stepped through—ah, but you did not see the window. You may think of it as part-time rock. Part of the time it is rock, part of the time it is not. Gan discovered that, to her üther sense, this part-time rock flickers. When it does, she can perceive beyond it. She did not notice this earlier because the flicker does not happen regularly. Also, she was not looking in the right way.” Madame shook her head, disapproval blending with forgiveness. “She is very young.”
Rule had the impression the former demon was at least twice his age. But as an ensouled being . . . yes, in that sense Gan was very young. “The children? She found them?”
“The cells were empty.”
All the air left the world. For long, terrible seconds Rule was pinned in a dark, airless void. Then his chest remembered its job and lifted, letting in air and sending pain ribboning through his gut.
“This does not mean they are dead,” Madame informed him sternly. “You are not to think so. It is very likely they were taken through a gate. Drink again.”
He let her lift his head again—hell, he probably couldn’t have stopped her. But he wanted answers, not water. “Why likely?”
“There was a gate, although it was closed when we arrived. I perceived this. So did Gan. To her, gates feel like a wind that bubbles instead of blowing. This has little meaning to me, but she is very firm about it. Drink,” she repeated, and this time gave him no choice but to swallow or let her dribble water over his closed mouth. She had pity on him, though, and continued talking as she administered measured sips. “Gan found this closed gate when she came out into the audience hall. She could tell what realm the gate opened onto. It was, she says, very bubbly. To her, this indicated it had been used very recently.” She moved the canteen away slightly, letting him pause in gulping down the water. “She thinks this means the children were brought here through the gate. I think this, also.”
His heart thudded sharply. “They’re here?”
“Not yet. Drink. I will explain.” She held the canteen to his lips again. “When Gan discovered the gate, she believed we would all be killed. I do not know that she was wrong; matters were not going well. Lily had told her she was not to cross until Benedict told her to, but Benedict was unconscious. She believed this made it her decision.
“She wished to live. She wished also for her friends to live. Cynna was closest, so first she brought Cynna here. She returned to the audience hall and grabbed Lily and crossed with her—dragging you along, as I said, to this realm, although not to the same part of it. When Gan came back the last time, she grabbed me. I do not believe she considers me a friend, but I was closest. She could not bring the others because she cannot return to the audience hall at any of the critical moments. She is already in all the other times she might cross to from here.”
He took a last swallow and turned his head so he could speak. “That makes no sense.”
“Obviously there cannot be two of her in Dis at the same instant. You have drunk it all? Good.” She took the canteen away.
“How could there be two of her at the same time?”
Grandmother gave that disapproving tch again. “I have just said that could not be. You are not thinking well.”
“Tired.”
“Too much talking. Rest. I will get more water.” She stood.
Madame looked even more naked when standing, though her dignity was unimpaired by the lack of clothing, just as her spine was unaffected by the tiredness he could see in her face.
“Wait. You said . . . the children are not here yet.”
“Ah. Yes. Do you remember that many realms do not match with each other in time, even when they touch in place? Time is crooked between Dis and this place. This let Gan choose, a little, what time she crossed to. She is not sure what times she brought everyone to, but she is sure we all arrived here well before we left Dis.”
He was too exhausted and hurting to make much sense of that, but he thought he got the important part. The children weren’t here yet. They had some time. “How long?”
“How long until they arrive? One or two weeks. She is not sure. They will not arrive where we are, however.”
“How . . . d’you know?”
“Gan says the gate the children were taken through did not lead to this location. She thinks she delivered Cynna near that gate, and that she brought Lily somewhere near Cynna. But not us. This is her area of expertise. I accept her opinion.”
A gate. That stirred another memory. “Reno. Where is Reno?”
“The question is when, not where. Reno left for this realm, but he made a gate from the construct to do so. Gates are not like crossing the way Gan does. They synchronize the time between realms. Reno will arrive here at the same time he left Dis.”
It was too much to get his tired mind around. His eyes were trying to close. “Not . . . now. He will arrive . . . later. And the children. Later.” Rule was a week or two in the past. Toby hadn’t been kidnapped yet. A terrible tension eased. For now, Toby was okay.