Four Roads Cross (Craft Sequence #5)(58)

“From a Craftswoman’s perspective, sure. But no Craftswoman would be caught dead kneeling to a god.” It sickens me, Daphne’d said. Was Tara a Craftswoman anymore? She had her glyphs. She had her power. What else was there? “You have to weigh the options yourself. But the Cardinal’s right about the danger.”

The lift arrived, bearing a trio of maintenance monks headed down. One of them, a large woman, worked the beads of her rosary until the lift reached the twelfth floor, and the trio left together. Abelard did not speak until they reached ground level and stepped into an empty hall. “I know you’ll do the right thing,” Tara said, “whatever that is. You might as well stop fretting. You’re not binding yourself to a contract, or incurring debt.”

“You’re more confident than I am.”

“That’s what friends are for.”

“Thank you for last night,” he said, “for the encouragement. I was selfish when we talked. I didn’t realize how hard this is for you.”

There was a cold breeze in the narrow hall. “What do you mean?”

“You’re out here on your own. I have the church, and Kos. Cat has her force. You should have a firm, Craftswomen and Craftsmen at your side. But you don’t. It’s just you, and you’re not even from here. You’re so good at what you do that it’s easy for me to think you don’t need anything or anyone. But that’s not true. Whatever you were doing in the library, it was dangerous.”

“Not for me.”

“What if your wards didn’t work as well as you hoped? What if the demons were stronger?”

“It was a calculated risk. My calculations skewed when you dropped in, that’s all.”

“I’m not questioning your abilities.”

“That sure sounds like what you’re doing.” A door opened and closed. Footsteps trickled over the nave’s stone floor. A men’s choir sang. The sound seemed to come from everywhere at once. Tara couldn’t make out the words, but the harmony was close and smooth. She made herself smile. “I can do this,” she said. “I just need to be smarter than everyone else. So what else is new?”

“Cat and I are here for you. You’ve spent the last year working and sleeping, outside of one poker night that didn’t go well. If you wanted to, you know, have a beer, or anything—well, I’m here. That’s all I wanted to say.”

Her watch chimed. “I have to go.”

“See you later,” he told her retreating back.





29

Daphne met Ms. Ramp on the roof of the Alt Coulumb Arms a half hour before sundown, on schedule. Ramp was eating pistachios from a bag. They cracked in midair in front of her, and the nutmeat floated to her mouth. The shells crisped to ash and rained as a fine powder to the roof.

“How did you find your meeting with our dear Ms. Abernathy?” Ramp said.

Daphne sighed, and set her briefcase on the gravel. “Went about as well as you expected. I don’t get it. The Tara I knew would never be satisfied with these conditions.” The brass latches popped and the briefcase clamshelled open, whereupon she opened it a second time, space unfolding from within until a three-meter pallet heaped with fabric and rope lay before them. “You think they got to her? Religious experience triggers an endorphin rush, which leads to dependency. Gods push inside your head. Like distributed Craftwork, but for everything at once.”

“Possible.” Ramp knelt, gathered striped fabric in both hands, and dragged it back over the gravel. “But you can’t assume mind control every time someone’s goals differ from your own.”

“She wanted to get out of her hick town. She wanted to be somebody.”

“And she’s ended up in Alt Coulumb, which is hardly a hick town. She is a person of local importance. I bet she even thinks she’s doing the right thing, in that wonderfully abstract language young people use, as if there were a ‘right thing’ independent of context, interest, or timing.” She fluffed the fabric. A cloud of packing dust cracked from its taut surface. Daphne connected a hydrogen tank, and the balloon inflated. “If you build a roof without walls, it will fall. Build walls before foundation, and they will collapse. Lay a foundation without digging out the soil, it will crumble. Does that mean it is wrong to build roof or walls or foundation? Not at all. Whenever we build, we must dirty our hands first.”

The balloon bellied up, straining against the ground lines Daphne tied. In the gilded afternoon, its white-and-red curve seemed obscenely medical. Daphne pondered the exact source of her fear of that shape. A memory bubbled from deep nightmare: her hand sawing silverskin from a knob of flesh. But the hand wasn’t hers at all. The flesh, though—and somewhere, in the dark, she heard a man’s laughter. Her knees went slack. She slumped against the balloon, which bobbed and swung.

“Daphne. Come back to me.”

“I don’t,” she said. “I can’t.” The ghosts of laughter wouldn’t fade.

Cool gloved fingers touched Daphne’s temple through the layer of sweat. Daphne felt a small blade enter the side of her neck and twist, and she heard a dubious hum. The seesaw pitching of the world resolved, and colors lost their bite. “There,” Ramp said, and drew the blade away. A drop of blood dried on her gloved fingertip. “I’m sorry if meeting Tara was too much for you.”