Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 434
leaving Axel and Marya. It was not, she told herself, that she
was afraid of the Winds; if she were, she would have agreed to
his plan to leave Ventus as quickly as possible. No, she had
come here for a purpose; her resolve was greater than his, that
was all.
She chewed on the reasons for her leaving him as she
rode. It was easy to suppose that she was saving Axel and
Marya from unnecessary risk. It was also true that every day
they left Armiger alone, he moved a step closer to taking over
the vast and invisible machine that surrounded her. What it
finally came down to, however, was that she and Axel could
never work together as a team. Calandria liked to pass like a
ghost through the worlds she visited. She was the perfect
chameleon, adopting personalities and appearances as they
suited her. By tomorrow she would have changed, and no one,
possibly not even Axel, would recognize her. This was the
right way to do the job she had come to do: by dancing around
the edges of the human world, darting in only for the quick
surgery that would remove the cancer she had come to kill.
Axel wanted to marry every woman he met, and get
drunk with every man. He was probably headed for some inn
now, to drown his anger at her in a tankard or two. Well.
When they met again it would be apologies all around, she was
sure. She would have to plan how to conduct those. She didn't
want to lose Axel's friendship, after all. Certainly not over
their work.
Jordan... Once she killed Armiger, the link, and with it
the thing that made the Winds interested in him, would be
gone. He would be just a normal man again. And with any
luck, he would use what she'd taught him to get rich.
She was doing the right thing.
Her thoughts turned easily to Armiger. How to pursue,