“But I—”

“Not one more fucking word, Marguerite, have you got it? This isn’t the Convent and it’s not the Seers Fortress. We have all the liberty in the world around here, which means we have to be civilized. So for starters, just keep the fuck away from the warriors who are mated with their brehs and you and I will do just fine.”

Marguerite shifted her gaze between Medichi and Jean-Pierre. “So these two are spoken for?”

“Yes.”

At that, however, Thorne turned back to Marguerite. If ever a man’s ego had just been flattened into the flattest point on the face of the goddam flat earth, Thorne’s was crêpe-thin right now. Worse, Marguerite didn’t even seem to notice—which begged the question, what the hell was wrong with this scarlet variety of obsidian flame? Sweet Jesus, what a goddam fucking mess that her beloved Thorne had somehow gotten tangled up with a horn dog female like Marguerite.

Oh, goody! More fun times ahead.

Marguerite dropped down into her seat and started to examine her nails. “Fine,” she said. “No mated warriors. Whatever.”

“Fine,” Endelle said.

She finally set Parisa on her feet, but held her pinned against her side. Parisa’s face was dark red but it wasn’t from embarrassment. Whatever had just happened had tripped some internal mechanism of warning in her woman’s instinctive heart and she wasn’t going down without, apparently, a battle to the death over this one. “You gonna be good for me?” she asked, trying to catch Parisa’s gaze.

But Parisa was breathing hard and glared at Marguerite.

Endelle looked at Medichi, wondering how the hell this warrior was taking everything. But the moment she saw the look on his face, his eyes at half-mast as he watched Parisa, and the flush on his cheeks, and his lips actually swollen with lust, she knew how to resolve the whole situation. “Medichi, I think you’d better take Parisa to your villa … right now.”

“Oh, yeah.” His voice rolled through the room, deep, resonant, and with almost as much gravel to the timbre as Thorne employed.

The sound of his voice, however, had a very powerful effect on Parisa. She jerked her head in his direction and her body stilled, then relaxed. Endelle wasn’t sure, but she thought Parisa might have murmured, “Sage.”

Medichi crossed the few feet that separated him from his woman, pulled her into his arms, and kissed her, a demonstration of interest that honest-to-God sent shivers down all of Endelle’s wing-locks. The couple vanished, and the tension in the room just fell away.

Jean-Pierre said, “If you do not have need of me, I believe I will excuse myself. I wish to speak with Seriffe.”

“I’ll send Fiona to you when we’re finished here.”

He nodded. He leaned down and kissed Fiona as well, but he didn’t just put his lips to hers; he settled his hand on her face as well, which made Endelle sigh. Then he was gone.

Endelle waved Fiona forward and told Thorne to take a chill-pill. Thorne retired once more to the east window.

To Fiona, she said, “I believe you know Marguerite, but you haven’t met her. But first, I guess I should ask: Fiona, are you going to behave for me?”

At that, Fiona laughed. “Yes, of course. I didn’t quite have the same reaction that Parisa did, but then”—she looked at Marguerite—“Parisa hasn’t had the advantage of having Marguerite pull her ass out of the fire a couple of times. I have.”

“Well, good. Now make friends, because we’ve got one motherfucker of an ankle guard to bust through.”

In the mythical stories of the breh-hedden, the precipice preceding the union of body, mind, and blood was considered as significant as the act itself. But then all life-altering decisions are made while standing on a precipice.

Only the view is different.

—Treatise on Ascension, by Philippe Reynard

Chapter 22

As Fiona met Marguerite’s laughing gaze, the gold of her obsidian flame vibrated very gently deep within her, the recognition of a kindred power.

Marguerite’s brows rose. “Do you feel that?”

Fiona nodded.

Endelle looked from Fiona to Marguerite. “Feel what?”

“A connection,” Fiona said. “Obsidian connection.”

Endelle clapped her hands together. “Oh, shit, yes.”

Marguerite stood up. “I’m Marguerite Desplat, Twoling out of Iowa 1891.”

“Fiona Gaines, mortal out of Boston, ascended 1886. Sort of. I didn’t complete my ascension until a few months ago.”

Marguerite nodded. “I hear you got Rith.”

“We did. Jean-Pierre and I.”

“And you’re sure the Upper ascender got away from the arena theater?”

“There’s no doubt that he escaped. I watched him dematerialize before I contacted Endelle.”

“Good.” Her expression grew clouded, even distant, as though she was sifting through her memories. She was at least five inches shorter than Fiona, which seemed strange because all the women who surrounded Endelle approached six feet.

But she had every confidence that what Marguerite lacked in relative stature she made up for in sheer force of personality.

“So, what are your plans,” Fiona asked, “now that you’re free?”

Marguerite’s gaze shifted only the tiniest bit in Endelle’s direction, a sly glance she wasn’t sure Endelle even noticed. Then Marguerite shrugged, a delicate almost flirtatious movement of her shoulders. “I have very strong Seer abilities and I want to help out with the war effort as much as I can. I’m very much beholden to Madame Endelle.”

Endelle slapped her hand against her red-feathered thigh and gave a shout. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about. Marguerite, I’ll treat you right. You can live wherever you want to live, just do a good job for me in the future streams, that’s all I ask.”

Marguerite turned very liquid brown eyes on Endelle. “That sounds wonderful.” From across the room, Thorne groaned.

Fiona thought she understood why. Marguerite was saying all the right things. She even looked like the model of sincerity, which itself sent warning sirens shrieking through her head. But Fiona hadn’t dealt with hundreds of women over the years without knowing when the column of numbers didn’t add up.

The thing was, she understood what Marguerite had suffered because of a hundred years of incarceration, so if the woman was lying, she so got that. She did wonder, however, if she ought to alert Endelle.

Endelle, however, was a big girl, a feathered big girl right now, and she could take care of herself.

“So, how about we get this goddam ankle guard off you.”

Marguerite smiled once more. “And that’s what I’m talkin’ about.”

A grunt-like groan now slid through the air from the east side of the room. Fiona glanced at Thorne. His gaze was fixed on Marguerite and there was so much pain in his expression, so much anticipated loss and grief, that Fiona once more felt an urgency to warn Endelle that something wasn’t right. She even looked in her direction, but Endelle’s eyes glittered as she waved Marguerite back into her seat. Then she knelt in front of her. Fiona joined her.

“All right, Goldie,” Endelle said. “Let’s do it.”

“Goldie?” Marguerite asked, her eyes once more alive with laughter.

Fiona explained about the color of her variety of obsidian flame.

“That’s right.” Marguerite nodded. “Your ribbon in the future streams is a gold color, really beautiful, vibrant. I get it now.” Almost to herself, she added, “And mine is red.” She even frowned a little.

Fiona had a powerful instinct to follow up on this frown, to coax her to give expression to whatever thoughts might be flitting through her brain, but Endelle intruded. “Enough with the fucking chitchat. Ankle guard. Off. Now.”

As Fiona closed her eyes, she realized that there were many reasons why Endelle’s rule as Supreme High Administrator tended to teeter on its profane, fashion-challenged foundation.

She focused on Endelle, settling herself in a preternatural way, shoulder-to-shoulder, hip-to-hip, so that she could feel the most essential vibrations of the woman’s being.

I’ll take possession, Endelle sent, then we’re going to do a carefully aimed hand-blast.

Ready when you are, Fiona sent.

Power flowed through Fiona as Endelle began to push against her shields and move into her. She had a unique signature to her being, like a warm exotic river, something so comfortable that she was surprised all over again. The earlier possession had been full of such immediacy that she hadn’t really paid attention to the experience.

Now she did.

Instead of feeling crowded, she felt as though a good friend had just sat down in her living room and now shared a glass of wine with her. The sensation was easy, even comfortable, which led her to the simple conclusion that she trusted Endelle. Despite the woman’s fashion choices, her sailor’s mouth, her impatience, the woman could be trusted.

As Fiona settled her gaze on the ankle guard, she looked through both pairs of eyes simultaneously. She moved in concert with Endelle’s thoughts and placed her forefinger on the thick plastic. The energy flowed, white hot and precise, as the highly focused hand-blast began cutting. The only real problem was the stink of the plastic. Good Lord, that was a vile smell. Endelle worked hard to keep the beam aimed right where it was needed, but the final cut also brought Marguerite screaming out of her chair, blood flowing down her foot.

Fiona put both hands on Marguerite’s foot and felt a different kind of energy from Endelle this time. Healing warmth flowed, and Marguerite let out a deep groan of relief. “Thank God,” she whispered. “Wow, that’s power.”

When the wound was completely healed, Marguerite turned around to kneel in the chair, then extended her leg so that Fiona and Endelle could cut through the opposite side of the guard.

Faced away from Thorne, Marguerite let a few tears slip from her eyes and down her cheeks. But it wasn’t because of the cut from the controlled hand-blast. It was knowing what she was doing to Thorne that was beating the shit out of her.