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gesticulated and spoke, and how submissively the older one nodded and stared down, B
had no doubt that Rondeau was right about the older sorcerer stealing the younger one’s
body. The younger one was really the Celestial, so she was the one B had to destroy.
That meant the apprentice would never get her real body back, and that was sad, but B
didn’t have much choice.
B took a slow breath, preparing himself to reverse the cloak. In that moment, he saw
something glimmering in the room beyond, tiny filaments like the ones spread across
the door, but while those had been golden, these were red. In the red light they were
nearly invisible, even to his eyes, which meant anyone else would have likely walked
straight into them. The filaments crisscrossed the front half of the room thoroughly,
from wall to wall and ceiling to floor, forming a somewhat messy grid that cut B off
from Rondeau and the others as surely as a wire fence would have. He didn’t know
what they did, but he suspected it was nothing good. If the golden wires at the front
door had been meant merely to notify the Celestial of Marla’s arrival, then these red
wires were likely meant for uglier purposes.
What was B supposed to do now? The cloak gave him great power, but of a strictly
physical nature. If he couldn’t get to the sorcerer, he couldn’t hurt him, and that meant
he didn’t have any edge at all.
“Marla!” the Celestial shouted. “I hear you breathing, you sneaking creeping bitch.
You’ve come early. Enter, and bring Ch’ang Hao so that I may leash him.”
There wasn’t much point in trying to run away, and B at least had the element of
surprise—or, at least, bewildering inexplicability—on his side. He pushed open the door
and stepped in, careful to keep far back from the red filaments.
“You are not Marla,” the Celestial said. “But you are wearing her clothes. Don’t tell me
she sent an apprentice to deal with me.”
“Why not?” B said. “You’re talking to me through your apprentice, aren’t you?” He
looked toward the old man. There was no reason to let the Celestial know that B was
aware of his body-swapping tendencies. Marla hadn’t told him much about the ways of
sorcerers, but she had made it clear that a secret was something to be held and valued.
“My master does not wish to sully his lips by speaking the foul bitch’s name,” the
Celestial said smoothly. “Come closer, apprentice, so that I may give you a message to
take to your bitch mistress.”
“I’m okay standing here, thanks,” B said. It occurred to him, distantly, that he was
terrified. His stomach fluttered with something like stage fright, which he hadn’t
experienced on an actual stage in many years. But he kept his posture relaxed, his voice
clear and firm, using the tools of acting that he’d put away but never forgotten.
Rondeau’s eyes were wide, doubtless trying to convey to B that there was a trap here,
don’t come any closer, but B had already figured that out, so he nodded to Rondeau in a
friendly way. “Anyway,” B said. “Marla had some business to take care of, so she sent
me to chat with you.”