Untitled

“I see you’ve been taking notes.”
“So what’s the good news? Or is this a bad-news/ worse-news sort of situation?”
“Temporarily good news. I’ve been granted a stay of execution.” Marla was marginally
cheered, just thinking about the kind of day Susan must be having, checking her spells,
finding them sound, checking her components, finding them flawless; and then falling
into a depressed contemplation of the great intangible quality that drove all magic, from
the merest cantrip needed to light a cigarette to the great spells that could cause
earthquakes and raise leviathans: the sorcerer’s will. Susan would have no choice but to
assume her will was the weak point in her spell, that her attempt to destroy Marla had
failed because Susan didn’t need, want, deserve it enough.
But Susan would try again. Because, in truth, Susan’s will was not a weak thing, and
once the inevitable bout of self-doubt had passed, she could gather her strength and cast
the spell against Marla again. Marla had another day, perhaps, to secure the
Cornerstone, her only hope to thwart Susan permanently.
“My rival, Susan, tried to cast a spell last night,” Marla said.
“The spell to depose you, which will lead to the downfall of your city? That spell?”
“Ah, right, I told you about that on the ferry yesterday.”
“True. Though Rondeau told me most of it before then, actually, while we were on
Bethany’s train, before we found the freezer full of hearts.”
“I can’t leave that boy alone for five minutes,” she said, and then came a pang, because
Rondeau was probably being tortured right now, and she couldn’t save him. She
couldn’t. Like she’d told him before, if it were within her power to save both Rondeau
and herself, she would. But if she had to choose between them, she would choose to
save herself. Killing Mutex and retrieving the Cornerstone were the only ways to do
that. Saving Rondeau from the Celestial instead would only be putting off his death
anyway, since once Mutex raised Tlaltecuhtli, they would all die. Gods, this city. It had
killed Lao Tsung, and now it threatened to kill Rondeau. She would destroy the
Celestial when this was done, make him suffer a thousand times whatever he inflicted
on Rondeau, but that thought was no comfort at all; it was just what she owed Rondeau
for his friendship and service, and it wouldn’t bring him back to her.
“So Susan’s spell didn’t work?” B said.
Marla blinked. “No. I doubt the spell failed. Susan is a craftsman, and anal-retentive as
hell. She wouldn’t try to cast a spell without making a list and checking it twice, dotting
her i’s and crossing her t’s and other such metaphors. She’s a perfectionist, in the truest
sense of that word—she does things perfectly. No, the spell worked, only it didn’t work,
because I wasn’t here for it to work on.” Marla began to do a simple knife kata with her
dagger, working out the kinks from a night of sleeping rough in a score of different
worlds.