Sunshine

“You want blood,” I said, resignedly. Most wardcrafters made do with something like a dirty apron, which I was sure was what my mother had been using. A few of the more determined or well-established ones will ask for hair or fingernail clippings. But there’s an enormous black market in things like hair and fingernail clippings and the more you’re likely to want a charm the less safe you’re going to feel passing out bits of yourself. Blood’s the worst. Not only is it blood, which is by far the most powerful bit you can hand over for all sorts of purposes, but any concept that contains “magic” and “blood” together makes the majority of the human population think “vampires” and freak out. This is actually totally stupid, since vampires aren’t interested in teeny wardcrafter vials of blood, and a vampire that wipes out a ward-crafter’s shop isn’t going to jones for you because they’ve had this tiny hit like an ice cream stand flavor-of-the-month sample and cross continents till they’ve found you and had the rest of you. But the paranoia behind the general principle is valid.

“Yes,” said Yolande.

I’d never met a wardskeeper, though, let alone had one do up a personalized ward for me. And as concepts go, one that contains “Yolande” and “black market” is going to disintegrate on contact. So that should be fine, right? Except I have this thing about blood, and Con’s little healing number on me hadn’t helped it.

“Um,” I said.

Yolande was smiling. “You may close your eyes,” she said.

“Okay.”

“If you would hold out your hands palm up, and extend both forefingers, and then I am going to prick the center of your forehead.”

The chain round my neck had begun to warm up before I closed my eyes, and I could feel a gentle warmth against both legs as well. Oh, gods, guys, I said to my talismans, isn’t this way below your dignity? I flinched at the sting in my forehead, but the fingers were easy, even for me.

I touched the warm chain with one hand, and fished in my pocket with the other. “Maybe you can translate something else for me. I found this at the bottom of a crumbly box of old books at a garage sale.”

“Well! How extraordinary. This is a—a Straight Way: very clear and plain. Clean and—old—very untainted for a ward so old. It represents the forces of day, of daylight. The sun itself is at the top, then an animal, then a tree. Interesting—the animal is a deer, I think; usually it is a fierce creature, a lion is the most common. This is not only a deer, it has no antlers, and is therefore perhaps a doe. And then round it, round the edge of the seal, do you see the thin wavy line? That is water. With these things you can resist the forces of darkness, or they cannot defeat you. Of course this is only a ward.”

“The peanut-butter sandwich you throw over your shoulder at the ogre,” I said. “So maybe you’ll make it over the fence if he stops to eat it.”

“But this found you. That is important. The forces of day is not a very uncommon ward, but this is simply and exquisitely done and— it found you. Keep it near you and keep it safe. My heart lifts that this thing found you. It is good news.”

Don’t tell me how much I need some good news, I thought. “When do you think your, um, ward will be ready?”

“Soon. Please—please ask your dark ally to wait till it is ready. It will not be more than a day or two.”

Back to the bad news. Yolande and her wardskeeper friends thought Con and I were going to face Bo that soon. Well, I suppose I thought so too.

Later. Upstairs. The balcony door open; candles burning; I sat cross-legged, hands on knees. I wasn’t going anywhere. I just wanted a word.

How soon.

Not tonight. Not…next night. Then…

No sooner. Yolande…ward…me

It was going to take a lot of work before this alignment business replaced the telephone. But I wouldn’t be around to see it, since it looked like I had two days to live.

And I’d been complaining about waiting.

So, what do you do when you know you have two days to live? Wait a minute, haven’t I been here before? No. I was only pretending, last time. I hadn’t known that I was sure Con would save me, last time, till this time, when I knew he wouldn’t. But I had been here before: I was still finding out I had more stuff to lose by losing it. And I already knew I thought this was a triple Carthaginian hell of a system.