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“I will try to keep you alive, so that when I have fulfilled my other responsibilities, I
may return, and take your life myself.”
“How do I know you won’t try to kill me while I’m distracted with Mutex?”
“You have my word that I will not attempt to take your life on this day,” he said
solemnly. “On another day, yes. But not this one.”
“I’d hoped we could get past this,” Marla said. “That I could make you understand why
I’ve done the things I’ve done. That we could be…friends.”
“The moment you used me as a tool, you closed off any possibility of the two of us
becoming friends. Did you never think that, had you set me free out of kindness, I
would have counted you a friend, and helped you out of kindness in return? Instead, you
bought me. And now you’ve killed one of my children, and ornamented yourself with
his skin. Imagine if I had killed Rondeau before your eyes, and dressed myself in the
torn remnants of his flesh. That is what I have just watched you do. I know you had
your reasons, but that does not change my response. No, Marla. We will not be friends.”
He shifted his huge bulk on the seat. “This space is confining. I will be outside.” He
opened the van door and stepped out, into the afternoon sun.
Marla looked out the windshield. “This is no kind of January,” she said. “There should
be wind, snow, ice. Look how clear it is.”
“I grew up in the woods of Canada,” Cole said. “I cannot say I mind the lack of snow
here.” He glanced out the passenger-side window, to where Ch’ang Hao stood
impassively near some bushes, on the edge of the vastness that was Golden Gate Park.
“You are a brave woman, to make a god your enemy.”
“I didn’t mean to make him my enemy. But I guess I didn’t come close to doing enough
to make him my friend.”
“Regret is a heavy burden,” Cole said.
“If I feel regret, that means I’m still alive, so I’m all for it. We should get going. The
Tea Garden’s that way, according to the map.” Rondeau had circled the Tea Garden on
the map—it was one of the places he’d wanted to visit. I should have let him come,
Marla thought. I shouldn’t have given him such a hard time. And that was the closest
she would let herself come to mourning for now.
“And you’re just going to…rush in?”
“You know another way to get where we’re going?”
“It might be worthwhile to observe our enemy’s position from a distance, don’t you
think?”
Marla shook her head. “I wish. Mutex has hidden himself well. That’s part of why he
kept getting the drop on the other sorcerers—they couldn’t tell when he was coming or