“Chat later!” Lily yelled up at them. “Your brothers are about to try to kill Reno!”
The two enemy spawn had seen their brothers. One of them gave a roar a lot like Dick Boy’s and shook his spear. The other whizzed off—and as he did, the grass fire went out. On the ground, the Fists started jogging this way—two full squads with three extras. Thirteen of them, four still paired up so they could carry two of the spears, the rest with their swords out and ready.
Kongqi called out a word Lily didn’t know and zoomed over to the Fists. He grabbed one of the iron spears and tossed it to Dick Boy—who had followed, but was still at least thirty feet back and twenty feet higher up. Then he grabbed the last spear.
“What are they doing?” Cynna cried. “I thought they were defending Reno.”
“They will attempt to do so.” Alice sounded certain. “The spears are very dangerous, however. They carry death. I wish the Zhu Kongqi had paused long enough to give new instructions to those Fists, however. I do not want Lily Yu to shoot any more of them.”
I would if I could, Lily thought. Thirteen Fists coming, and she was out of rounds. Grandmother still sat with her head in her hands. No ward coming up anytime soon. Rule and Toby still slept. A single swordsman could slice open both their throats.
“Does anyone see my clips? I need my damn clips!”
“Not over here,” Cynna called back.
She could defend Rule and Toby against unarmed men. Not against swordsmen. They would kill Rule. They would kill Toby, who wasn’t useful now that he’d Changed. She shook Rule. He didn’t stir. “Alice, can you help Grandmother get over to Cynna?” Cynna was the only one who could offer any sort of protection right now.
“No. I will assist Cynna. They will send the greatest number of Fists to retake the boy, I believe. What clips do you seek?”
“The ones you sent for my gun. They fell out. Grandmother—can you walk if I help you?”
Grandmother muttered without looking up. “Not yet. Lily, wake Rule.”
Alice went on in her unruffled way as she walked over to Cynna. “I didn’t send your weapon and ammunition to you. The Zhu Kongqi did.”
“He—” Lily cut that off and stole a quick glance upward. The spawn’s white robes almost glowed against a sky gone creamy pink in the west, where Kongqi had intercepted Tú’àn. The two of them were dueling with those oversized spears that “carried death”—whatever that meant. Shuǐ was darting around Reno, pursued by Dick Boy. “He didn’t just now change sides?”
“Surely you are aware that he has been helping you since you passed his test. The Zhu Dìqiú has, also, although his aid has been more deeply hidden.”
“Dìqiú?” Lily’s voice was sharp with disbelief. She shook her head. If they had a “later,” they could talk about it then. “I can’t wake him up, Grandmother. I’ve tried.”
“Use your mind, child,” Grandmother snapped.
Use her . . . oh. Mindspeech. Maybe she could wake him with mindspeech. Easily, fluidly, she touched Rule’s mind. Rule. Wake up. We need you. Toby needs you.
“Did I get the time right?” Gan’s high-pitched voice was squeaky with excitement or anxiety. “I kept poking until I found a time close to when I left, but I couldn’t tell how close it is. Why is everyone asleep? Did we win?”
“Not yet,” Cynna said grimly. “They’re safe? Ryder and Sandy—they’re okay?”
“Sure! I stayed there awhile because I could, you know, with the times being so crooked. It isn’t now yet in Edge. It will be when I go back, but it isn’t yet. The gnomes are taking care of them.”
Cynna let out a single, harsh sob. “Okay. Okay, good. Here, take Noah. I’ll get Diego.” She thrust the sleeping baby into Gan’s arms.
The Fists were nearly here. Lily kept calling Rule. She’d never tried to mindspeak someone who was asleep before. She knew the pulses of her words were sinking into his mind . . . which felt/looked softer than his waking mind. The forest colors were the same . . . no, not quite. They were darker, and there was a little smudge of solid blue right here . . .
“I can incapacitate four of them,” Alice was saying. “I do not know your capabilities, Cynna. How many can you stop?”
Lily ran her mindsense over the blue smudge. It was both slick and sticky, like double-sided tape. It felt wrong, yet familiar . . .
“I don’t know,” Cynna said tersely. She picked Diego up. It took both arms, and the boy was utterly limp. “I can kill some, though.”
“I do not wish them killed.”
“I don’t wish us killed,” Cynna snapped. “Gan—”
“I can’t take him like that!” Gan protested. “You have to wake him up!”
. . . the stickiness felt like the magic that had patted her face when Grandmother sang. Yes. The blue smudge had to go. But how to get it off?
“I can’t,” Cynna said. “Why can’t you take him when he’s asleep? Noah’s asleep.”
Fingernails were good for peeling off tape. She thought about fingernails as she reshaped her mindsense.
“Because I’m already holding Noah and that one’s bigger and he’s all droopy and I can’t hold him up against me! I have to have lots of him touching me or all of him won’t cross with me!”
“Diego should wake soon,” Cynna said, “but don’t wait. Take Noah to Edge now. Come back for Diego as close to now as you can.”
Lily pried up one edge of the sticky blue. The rest of it came loose and evaporated.
THIRTY-SIX
CYNNA stood over a sleeping boy and readied herself to stop a man’s heart.
She’d killed demons before. Not people. Not beings with souls and confusion and loved ones and lives that they badly wanted to live. But she had no other weapon, no gentler way of stopping the men who would take Diego so that the spawn could destroy him. And no way could she let them do that.
She couldn’t hold the heart-stopper spell. It had to be discharged as soon as it was invoked or it would stop her own heart. And the range was only about ten feet. So she waited as swordsmen charged toward them, toward her and Diego, the silent Alice, and the sleeping Kanas.
No, she realized—the mostly sleeping Kanas. Some of them were stirring, the sleep spell wearing off. How long until the other Fists awoke, too?
She’d fantasized about killing two of the spawn, burned and ached to do just that. Especially Dick Boy, who’d killed that other boy with such offhand cruelty, like swatting a fly. But now it seemed that Dick Boy and Kongqi were on their side, or were at least trying to keep their brothers from killing Reno. And now that Cynna could kill, she wished badly that she didn’t have to.
Life was one big, fat, confusing bitch sometimes, she thought, and prepared to shout the words of the spell.
? ? ?
LILY was calling him. Rule’s eyes opened as his nose flooded him with scents.