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“Because I saw Rondeau in a dream, too,” B said quietly. “And if he dies, you fail, and
Mutex succeeds, and this city, and then the rest of the world, falls.”
“Oh,” Marla said. “You might have mentioned this before.”
He shrugged. “It was just last night. It was one of those dreams, and I haven’t found a
ghost to interpret it, but it was pretty clear. Rondeau dying, and then you dying, and me,
and everybody.”
“So the fate of the world depends on Rondeau? It just seems so…unlikely.” And maybe
it was a lie. B was an actor, and they were, by nature, convincing liars. Maybe B was
just trying to convince her to save Rondeau. Then again, he hadn’t given her cause to
mistrust him yet, and it wasn’t hard to envision a situation when a quick Curse or a
knife-thrust from Rondeau could affect things significantly.
But how could she save him? Who could she bring in? There was no time to fly anyone
into the city, not even time to find local talent, assuming Mutex hadn’t killed or
frightened off all the sorcerers in the Bay Area. B was willing to try to save Rondeau,
but he was a seer, not a soldier. How could he possibly—
Marla thought of a way. A dangerous, stupid, terrible way. The only way.
She unclipped the silver stag beetle pin from her throat, and removed her white-andpurple
cloak. “Put this on,” she said. “You won’t be able to use it very well, no more
than you could use a katana properly if a samurai handed the sword over to you, but I
can teach you enough to keep you from chopping off your feet. And, in truth, it’s more
like a machine gun than a katana. If you aim it with a little care, the weapon will do
most of the work.”
B didn’t move to touch the cloak. “I saw what you became when you wore that,” he
said. “You became a…thing. Like a jaguar made of darkness. Like a bruise with teeth.”
“Only while the purple is showing,” Marla said. “The white makes you an angel, heals
you, keeps you strong. The purple…” She shrugged. “Darkness. Teeth. Yes. All the
ugly things you have to be, sometimes, to defeat things that are even uglier. Like I said
on Bethany’s train, we’re past simple things like good and bad, and into the realm of the
practical. There’s more to it than that. After you use the cloak, a little bit of what makes
you human is pushed down, suppressed—it might even wear a little bit of your
humanity away permanently. I’ve used the cloak dozens of times over the years, often
enough to be frightened of using it more, but if you use it once or twice, it shouldn’t
damage you forever.” At least, I don’t think so.
B took the cloak and let it drape over his arm, the white showing, the purple lining only
visible in glimpses. “Teach me,” he said.
“Okay,” Marla said. “Only we’d better do this on the roof. I don’t want to have to pay
for damage to the room.”