“Fine,” she said. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
Tara wanted to take her shoulders and shake her, but she didn’t. The bird flapped its wings and sang frustration. “You’re happy where you are?”
“Are you?”
“Of course. I’m helping my friends. I’m protecting my city.”
“Seriously, Tara?” She pointed up. The Sanctum of Kos towered overhead, huge and black, buttressed and bubbled with lifts and turrets and bay windows. “Working for a god? It’s cool you have so much authority, but don’t you see this is a dead-end gig?”
“Alt Coulumb’s an important place, and I’m working for the biggest game in town. Doesn’t seem dead end to me.”
“You can’t even fly here. Working in-house at a church, hells, they’ll never pay you half what you’re worth. What kind of career prospects do you have? Will you take holy orders or something?”
“I don’t plan to.”
“There you go. I mean, I’m sure you think you can do good work here. But did you really leave Kelethres, Albrecht, and Ao for this?”
“I saw what my life at the firm would have been. Traveling from city to city without knowing any of them, having clients and colleagues and puppets instead of people. Alt Coulumb’s more than a convention hotel, a handful of boardrooms, and the nice restaurants the firm will pay for. I have friends here. They need me.”
“Friends,” she said, “don’t command gods, or raise the dead, or drink the light of shadows or hunt nightmares or make deals in blood or anything you trained for. I know what you went through to reach the Hidden Schools. Years of wandering the desert working shit jobs, learning whatever hedge magic you could from sun-blind witches and confidence tricksters, all to pass the entrance exams. And once you made it, you worked harder than any of us. Why throw it all away?”
“Because it was rotten. Our teacher was hurting you. Hurting us.”
“That’s not right and that’s not even what I mean.” Her voice rose, and her arms too. Glyphs on her skin glowed and gravel whirled beneath her feet. “You’re so—” But Daphne didn’t say what Tara was. She let her arms fall. The gravel stilled, leaving spiral grooves centered on Daphne’s scuffed shoes. “Damn, I’m sorry. You ran. You were better than all of us, every single one of us, and you ran. I know the in-house rates gods pay, and I know the rent in Alt Coulumb, and the thought of you of all people sitting in a coffin-size studio stressing whether you can pay down your loans this month—it sickens me. If half the stories I heard about what you did last year during Kos’s resurrection are true, you could have written your ticket at Kelethres Albrecht or any other firm. I can’t believe you see your future here, protecting god-botherers from their own dumb mistakes.”
“You want to offer me a job.”
“I want to help my boss. But I asked her, and if you’re looking, we could make room. Not in this matter, of course.”
“I’m not looking for work,” she said. “I know what you’re trying to do. And it’s sweet, Daffy. Tempting, even. I wouldn’t have understood what I’m saying now either, a year ago. I don’t blame you for being who you are, and wanting the things you want. You’re a master of the universe. Congratulations. I thought I wanted that, too. Turns out I didn’t.”
“The schools’ collections department doesn’t care what you want.”
“There are trade-offs, sure. I won’t deny that every few days I want to grab the Council of Cardinals by the neck and shake them until their heads do the bobble doll thing. But I’m doing good work.”
“That’s a god-botherer’s line.”
“The Wars are over,” she said. “It’s not us versus them. There’s room to work in the middle.” She held out her hand. A little help here?
Silver flowed through her mind and down her arm. The bird sculpture hopped twice more, and on the third hop, flew.
“Nice,” Daphne said. “But it proves nothing. Gods took away your wings. Of course they can give them back and call it a miracle.” But her smile was a younger woman’s smile, a smile like the one Tara remembered.
“I was trying to be symbolic,” Tara said. “Hells. I know you want to help me. Thanks. Same goes for you. If you’re ever looking for a change—”
“If I want to crash my career into a mountainside, I’ll give you a call.”
“Deal. I have to get back to work, but there’s a place over by Seventeenth with great frozen lemonade—good for a pickup before an afternoon of doc review.”
“Thanks,” Daphne said. “It’s good to see you, Tara.”
They walked back through the garden. The stone bird flew widening circles overhead.
28