Severn nodded.
Kaylin poked the familiar, whose wing had dropped when she’d taken off up the stairs. Teela would have had her hide if she’d headed upstairs without backup, the way Severn had. The wing rose, and this time, there was no accompanying smack.
There was, however, accompanying cursing, all of it Kaylin’s.
Margot didn’t speak. She opened her mouth, but no words escaped. Her eyes were round and wide and not at all her normal eyes; her hair was a wild mess of tendrils that seemed to move with a life of their own.
This was not good, but it was in line with what Kaylin expected of Shadow possession. The familiar squawked, dropping its wing; Margot, without his aid, looked normal—for a variant of normal that involved enraged beyond belief.
“Shadow,” she told her partner.
Controlled?
She hesitated.I don’t think so.
Can you get it out of her?
The general answer to that question had always been no. The more specific answer was she’d never tried. Not when someone was as far gone as this. But no—that wasn’t true, either. To normal eyes, Margot was not—yet—consumed. The Shadow was in her, and clearly someone, somewhere, was manipulating it.
Kaylin looked at the statue she was carrying in her hand. She set it on the floor. The familiar squawked, his voice rising on the last syllable, such as it was.
“Yes,” she told him. “Breathe on it.”
* * *
The small white clouds had the kind of shimmering opalescence that Shadow did. Kaylin had noticed this before, but had avoided really thinking about what it meant. She considered it now. The familiar’s breath had some transformative power—she’d seen what it could do to Shadows with her own eyes. She knew that the immortals considered it very dangerous.
She watched him breathe on gold and rubies.
She watched the pale stream that left his open mouth gain weight and color as it made contact with wingtips of gold, and she watched those wingtips melt. There was no heat; as the gold continued to melt, the rug and the floor did not catch fire.
Margot screamed; there were words in it. Kaylin registered them as a protest, but ignored them; even if she had wanted to pull the familiar back, it was too late. Margot rushed at Severn, and Severn, realizing that she intended to impale herself on his blades, moved; he let her momentum carry her, and gave her a little shove; she spilled onto the floor, twitching, shouting and struggling.
Severn caught her arms, pinning her in place with one hand and one knee. “She’s still in there,” he said.
Kaylin nodded. “I think they meant to kill her with our help.”
The gold congealed in an uneven circle that looked more like a spill than anything else. Somewhere in that mess were rubies. Neither were important. There was a small nexus of Shadow that looked, to Kaylin’s covered eyes, like a hole, a rip in the fabric of reality.
The small dragon circled it, breathing steadily until it suddenly snapped shut.
Margot slumped instantly, unconscious.
“Can we alter the report so that you didn’t head up here without backup?”
“We could if you were a better liar.” Severn reached out to touch Margot’s throat; Kaylin caught his hand, pulling it back.
“Let me.”
* * *
Margot was alive. Her pulse was steady, her breath even. She looked like she’d fallen out of bed and had avoided the many mirrors she owned, but she appeared to be healthy, if sleeping.
The small dragon was, once again, slumped across Kaylin’s shoulders, but he was muttering like an annoyed bird. Severn made use of Margot’s mirror to report to the Halls of Law; Kaylin could hear Leontine cursing from the other room.
“Teela’s coming.”
“Why?”