The Witch With No Name (The Hollows #13)(129)
Author: Kim Harrison

Becoming. The Goddess had said that as well, but she’d feared it, as it would destroy her.

“Dali, we can reopen the lines before sunrise with elven magic.”

Trent’s hands on my shoulder tightened. “I’ll rally the dewar and the enclave.”

“No.”

Dali’s word was soft. He never looked up, his mien holding regret as he stood against another man’s desk, in another man’s house, in a world that didn’t want them while the prison they’d desperately tried to escape stood poised to crumble and destroy the very world they wanted to live in but were afraid to.

“You’d have us live like this?” Newt said bitterly, pulling at her clothes as if the tattered and stained remnants were their pride and power. “We can reopen the lines, but it must be done before sunrise. I’ve been talking with the Goddess—”

“What!” Dali’s head snapped up. In the corner, Al clinked several glasses together, and my mouth became dry at the sound of water being poured into them.

Undeterred, Newt lifted her chin. “She’s actively looking for Rachel, but she knows that if the lines stay shut, she’ll have reduced sight. She’s already starving. The only access she has to reality is through failing pixies and Weres who don’t even know she exists. She’s not listening to the elves anymore thanks to Landon tricking her into destroying the lines.”

Interesting, I thought, wondering if this was why elven magic had failed. A tiny wisp of possibility took hold, pulling me straighter in my seat. I could do this, maybe. I had wrestled control of the mystics’ individual power from the Goddess’s will before. Several times before.

And every time, I ended up fighting to disentangle myself from her so my thoughts wouldn’t kill her, change her beyond recognition, make her . . . become something new.

“I cannot live by reality’s rules without magic to make it tolerable,” Al said. “Dali, we have a chance to not only survive, but in the doing, the world will thank us. Perhaps give us a place again.”

“Give us a place?” Dali thundered. “We are demons! We don’t take charity, we take what we want!”

“Well, what I want is to belong!” Al suddenly yelled. “I want to try it this way for a while. What the hell, Dali. If you don’t like it, you can go back to bartering souls to fill your waitstaff, but I think we can do well here with other people’s rules.” He hesitated, eyebrows rising wickedly. “Finding our ways around them. Making them squirm within their own . . . laws.”

Newt’s face was flushed. “But first we need to reopen the lines.”

I held my breath, waiting. There was more being decided here than if we should try to save the ever-after.

“We lack the strength,” Dali said.

“Then we join our strength with the elves.” Newt put her hands on the desk and leaned toward him.

Dali’s disgusted gaze flicked to hers from under a lowered brow. “No,” he growled.

Trent stepped from me, his breath held and color high. His eyes were bright, and he looked like a leader of people even torn and bandaged as he was—maybe because of it. “Why are we even considering not doing this? The dewar is disillusioned with Landon. They’ll listen to me. Let’s reopen the lines and be done with it!”

“Because she lies, elf!” Dali pushed Newt back off the desk with his voice alone. “The Goddess lies! She tricks! She will kill Rachel outright before allowing the lines to be reopened, and then doom the rest of us to a slow, ignoble death to give herself something to play with for another thousand years. The Goddess will not grant power to us to do this even if it expands her reach. She’ll kill us, then do as she will!”

“But we don’t have to rely on the Goddess’s will,” I protested, feeling left out as I leaned forward on the couch. “I can simply take the power we need from her and be done with it! I just need someone to weave the curse and give it direction.” And maybe save my ass afterward.

Dali seemed to freeze, only his eyes moving as he looked at Al first, then Newt. Both of them seemed to center in on themselves, avoiding him as he slowly gathered his presence. A chill slipped down my spine, but I’d only said the truth.

“The way is that firm already, then?” Dali said, bewildering me even more.

Al’s head bowed, ignoring the question. He looked ill, but Newt’s chin lifted as if taking on a burden.

“Rachel almost caused a new becoming on the Goddess twice now and still managed to extricate herself, saving both their lives. The Goddess will strike her dead on sight, but there will be a span where Rachel is unrecognized, and in the battle for supremacy, Rachel could spin enough magic from her to reopen the lines if we were there to take advantage of it.”

It was what I already knew, but hearing Newt say it made it sound risky.

Dali’s expression was wary. “It would leave her vulnerable to the Goddess’s wrath.”

As if he cared. He was calm, scaring me more than if he had been shouting. “I can handle it,” I said, shaking inside.

“I’ll be there with her,” Newt said, making me feel worse.

“And me,” Trent offered, and I took his hand as he extended it. Seeing us thus, Dali’s expression twisted and he looked away.

Al remained pointedly silent, clearly unhappy. His silence was noted by Dali. Hell, it was noticed by everyone, and he set his glass of ice and liquor down with a sharp snap.

“You both together,” Dali said, lip curling. “With her. Trying to take over the Goddess.”

“It’s what we have,” Trent said loudly.

My heart thudded as I saw the possible end of my days laid before me. “I can’t sit and do nothing if there’s a chance. If this works, magic will be restored, the undead will still have their souls in a parking orbit until they fully die, and the thousands of familiars you’ve got tucked away in the ever-after will still be alive. I’m going to want them to be freed, though.”

Dali sniffed. “Of course you do,” he muttered.

“Even if the lines hold for only a short time, we can get the familiars out,” Newt said. “They will undoubtedly be gathering in the largest space and be easy to move.”

But I didn’t want a rescue. I wanted a resolution.

“This is a bad idea,” Dali said, unconvinced.

“But it is an idea,” I said. “Bad or not, we have to try. If I can steal the energy, will you spin the curse? All of you? I can’t do it.”