Morgan listened to the boy’s quick footsteps fade away. Leaning back against the pillows, he watched with pleasure as Sidonie slipped out of bed. She was perfectly built all over. As she bent to scoop up her tunic from the floor, the graceful curve of her spine caught at him. He couldn’t look away from the perfection of her fluid movement until she had pulled the tunic over her head and the fabric had settled over her torso.
Padding to the door, she unlocked it and brought the breakfast tray in. Pausing to lock the door again, carefully, she carried the tray to the bed. There was sausage, egg, and potatoes, hot tea, and a flaky, buttery biscuit.
She climbed back under the covers and they shared the food. He paused between taking bites to press kisses at the back of her neck, which made her murmur with pleasure as she cuddled against his side.
A small thump sounded out on the balcony, and a black cat strolled into the room. Once it had passed within the sheer curtains, it changed into Robin.
“It’s about time you both woke up,” the puck said. “I was beginning to think I might have to walk on your heads.”
Sidonie heaved a sigh and leaned back against Morgan. She murmured, “I suppose it was too much to hope the peace would last.”
“No, it wasn’t. We could have taken a day before facing everything else. Just one damn day.” He slipped an arm around her waist as he eyed the view out the balcony doors. Even in daylight, he couldn’t fault the puck’s choice of rooms. The inn was built high enough none of the windows from neighboring buildings provided line of sight. The only way Morgan could be spotted was if he stepped onto the balcony without a cloaking spell. “What do you want, Robin?”
“Have you told her yet?” With no apparent sense of shame or discretion, Robin sat at the food of the bed and swiped the last of the biscuit from the breakfast tray.
“I haven’t had time.” Pouring the last of the tea into the single cup, he handed it to Sidonie, who cupped it in both hands.
“Oh, you had time.” The puck’s eyes gleamed. “You just had other priorities.”
“Our priorities are none of your business,” Sidonie snapped. She looked adorable when she was cranky. Her short black hair stood in tufts like a bird’s feathers. Scowling, she buried her nose in the cup.
Robin did not appear as charmed by Sidonie as Morgan was. “No, they’re not,” the puck snapped back. “Unless they interfere with what we all need to see done.”
“What is he talking about?” Sidonie twisted to face him. “What haven’t you told me.”
Morgan sighed. “Robin thinks Isabeau’s Hounds might actually be from Azrael’s Wild Hunt.”
Her expression went blank. “Okay. I’m sure that’s not comfortable.”
“I’ve told you this already, human. You have no real knowledge of the gods, their Powers and aspects, and how they move through this world,” Robin said, giving her an irritated glance. “Lord Azrael leads the Wild Hunt at the death of each year, or at least he did. The more I have considered this, the more I have grown convinced he has not called the Wild Hunt for a very long time, perhaps even as long as Isabeau has been in possession of his knife.”
“You were imprisoned for a long time,” Morgan told him. “Maybe you missed it.”
“It’s possible.” Robin acknowledged as he ate the morsel of biscuit in quick, clean bites. “But I think my explanation rings truer. There were also a great many years I was not imprisoned, and I still did not sense the Wild Hunt.”
“What does this hunt do, and why does it matter?” Sidonie asked.
Robin looked exasperated, so Morgan answered. “Some believe the hunt is to chase unclean spirits from the earthly realms. Others believe Azrael is hunting down souls that have escaped his domain. Still other tales make mention of random prey, such as a lost maiden, or unwary travelers. From what I understand, no one knows for sure.”
Closing her eyes and hunching her shoulders, Sidonie sipped her tea. She said, “So what?” Robin’s thin face sparked with ire, but before he could say anything, she opened her eyes and looked at him. “I mean that as a serious question. So what? Half what you’ve said is supposition, and the other half sounds like folktales. What is the useful bit? Give me the condensed version.”
Morgan told Robin, “She doesn’t know about the Deus Machinae.” As Sidonie twisted to look up at him inquiringly, he explained, “There are seven indestructible God Machines active in the world, put here by the seven gods. For a while, I thought the knife might be one of those. Robin thinks otherwise.”
“Which is good news,” Robin said. “Just not easy news. If it is literally Lord Death’s Knife, it’s still an item of immense Power that was created by a god. But if it isn’t one of the Machines, perhaps it can be destroyed. And also, unlike the Deus Machinae… wouldn’t Lord Azrael want his knife back?”
Morgan felt the shiver that ran through Sidonie. She whispered, “But he’s a god. If he wants his knife back, why wouldn’t he just take it?”
Morgan pressed a kiss to her temple. “Perhaps because he’s not the only god. Will is also one of the seven Primal Powers. He’s the god of the Gift, which can mean anything from individual gifts, or gifts of the spirit like your talent for music, to acts of sacrifice and philanthropy. He’s also the guardian of free will, which is one of the linchpins in the universe. The gods must respect we all have free will to act as we choose. Azrael might not be able to take back the knife if Isabeau doesn’t want to give it to him.”
“So…,” Sidonie said slowly as she looked back and forth between the two males. Her gaze settled on Morgan. “We have free will too. Our choices are to try to break the knife—which you can’t do.”
“No, I can’t,” he said.
“Or,” she continued, “we try to take the knife—which you can’t do.”
He replied, again, “No. The freedoms I have to act must be oblique ones as I find ways to work around the geas. I can’t do anything to act directly against Isabeau.”
“You might not be able to,” she said, tapping a thumbnail against her bottom teeth. “But I can.”
Chapter Nineteen
Before Morgan had a chance to react to that, Robin said, “And I can too. We can achieve more when we act together.”
“Gods help us,” Morgan muttered. With the puck on their side, they might not need any enemies.
Robin told him, “What you can do, sorcerer, is find a way to summon Lord Azrael. Perhaps we can enlist his aid. After all, we too can act of our own free will—or at least, two of us can.”
It was an audacious suggestion. In all his years as a sorcerer, Morgan had never attempted to communicate with one of the gods. He rubbed his mouth as he considered it. Would the geas allow it, or would the action be too direct?
He needed to check the texts back at the cottage to see if any of them offered a ritual for contacting the gods. Reading did not activate the geas. If the texts didn’t contain anything useful, he would either need to look elsewhere or construct the summoning himself. At that thought, he could feel the geas’s coils shifting uneasily and knew he was skating very close to the edge.
Both Sidonie and Robin were watching him for his reaction.
“I don’t know if I can,” he said. “But I’ll work on it. My biggest concern right now is I’ve only got one bottle of hunter’s spray left. Either I need to curtail my movements drastically until we find a solution to this problem, or I need to slip back to Earth to get more.”
“How big are the bottles?” Robin asked.
In answer, Morgan reached for his bag of supplies, pulled out the bottle, and showed it to the puck. Robin scratched his spiky hair with both thin hands as he considered it.
Finally he said, “I can’t smuggle something as large as a human across the crossover passageways, but I might be able to hide a few bottles of that in one of the cargo caravans. Unfortunately, the caravans aren’t very frequent.”
Straightening her spine, Sidonie exclaimed, “Kallah is going to arrange this morning for the acquisition of a violin and a guitar for me! There’ll be some kind of caravan coming from one of the passageways this week! But… I guess that might not call for a caravan. Someone could bring those instruments on the back of a horse.”