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“I suppose not. You could say I’m a little anxious about what’s happening here.” She glanced from one woman to the next, finally landing on Grace. “So you have the ability to acquire any of my skills.”
“That’s right.”
She smiled. “You’re very sure about it.”
“Yes, I suppose I am.” She explained about practicing with Alison and about reading souls.
Endelle actually smiled. “Okay, so tell me what to do.”
Grace felt uneasy. “I think I should warn you that I’ll have to go deep to get to this particular power—as in, I’ll be descending into your soul.”
“Fine.”
“You mean, just like that? You don’t mind?”
“Hell, no. Just do it, Grace. What the f**k do I care? All I want is to finally get the upper hand over Greaves, get his fat balls in my hand, squeeze hard a few dozen times, then send him to perdition. If that means you do some soul diving, it’ll be worth it.” When Grace still hesitated, Endelle added, “Aw, for shit’s sake, just jump inside my mind, or wherever the hell my ‘soul’ is”—she made air quotes—“and let’s get this damn thing done.”
“Okay, fine.” Maybe not the most brilliant response, but Grace was very surprised. She had thought that the Supreme High Administrator of all of Second Earth would be more protective of her deepest parts. But then Endelle wasn’t exactly known for her boundaries.
She moved just a little closer to Endelle, closed her eyes, then pushed into Endelle’s mind. She hadn’t expected the entrance to be so easy, but then Endelle had motivation to cooperate right now.
Grace allowed herself to sink through the deepest layers of Endelle’s thoughts. Because the entrance into her mind had been so easy, Grace had thought she would move swiftly into the woman’s soul. But this layer of her mind was deep and it was dark.
She continued to sink. At last, she found what turned out to be a brilliant turquoise field of light that seemed as broad as it was high. There was so much beauty in the center of Endelle’s domain that she could hardly contain her wonder.
She focused on Endelle’s folding ability, and as before a kind of lock appeared. Grace focused her thoughts, shaping them into a blue key, and inserted.
With a powerful rush, Endelle’s folding ability covered her. There was so much power that she was thrust out of Endelle’s soul. She flew outward so that when she opened her eyes she was ten feet away from Endelle and flat on her back. She opened her eyes to stare up at the enormous steel girders that supported the roof.
She took deep breaths, but closed her eyes. She thought about Endelle, how beautiful her turquoise soul was, how vast, as though it would take millennia to know her, really know her.
She saw Endelle’s stilettos, then looked up to smile at her. It was strange knowing her in this way, the loveliness of her soul, all that beauty covered up with her odd fashion choices, her profanity, and her deep cynicism.
“I take it you were successful?”
“I was.” Grace rose to her feet. “But I wanted to tell you that your soul is very beautiful. I mean it’s an elegant turquoise color, which I realize makes no sense, but you have surprising depths.”
Endelle’s mouth turned up on one side. “You mean, for a scorpion queen?”
Grace grinned. “Yes. Exactly.”
Endelle chuckled. “Just don’t tell anyone. It would ruin my rep.” She glanced at Marguerite and Fiona. “I guess I’m done here.”
She lifted her right arm. Thorne reached out for her, to stop her, but she vanished anyway with a smirk and an “Oops.”
Grace covered her ears because the alarms were incredibly shrill and loud.
Thorne rolled his eyes and withdrew his phone from his pocket once more.
When the alarms stopped, Grace knew the time had come to begin practicing the mass folds. Her heart thumped now. This was what she had put into motion, a spectacle event featuring obsidian flame as a subterfuge for stealing Greaves’s army away from him.
But could the triad carry it off? Could she really do what she had promised? Only one way to find out.
* * *
Leto stood in the palace command center and glanced at his watch. Six-thirty. Thorne had promised him that he’d call a halt to the obsidian practice by seven-thirty. He had only an hour left; then he could head to the villa and make sure everything was ready. He had a certain plan in place involving wings and an empty house. Having checked in with Parisa, he knew she was working at the rehab center through the night, and of course Medichi was working the Borderlands with the rest of the Warriors of the Blood.
It felt strange not to be including the rest of the brothers in the war plans, but Greaves hadn’t let up on the Borderlands and a constant flow of death vampires was keeping the WhatBees and the Militia Warrior squadrons working hard every night. And that had always been a significant part of Greaves’s strategy: to wear down the most powerful warriors on the planet, thereby reducing their effectiveness. The plan had worked well until the breh-hedden started bringing strong women to the warriors, changing the focus of each of their lives and adding all sorts of new powers to Endelle’s arsenal.
Leto had lived a long time, and he had noticed that when evil tried to forge a wall against that which was essentially good, then life would respond and provide a countermeasure. Maybe it was spiritual in nature, or maybe it was just the immense life force inherent within the spirit of man to ensure survival above all things. In his opinion, the arrival of the breh-hedden was one of those countermeasures.
And he and Grace were part of that.
He focused once more on the separate grid that Thorne had brought in for the purpose of mapping that portion of the army that would submit to Leto’s command. Leto was satisfied with his progress. His biggest concern involved those warriors among the ranks who would prefer to be with Greaves. Most of his conversations with the Division Leaders ran along that line, but the general consensus was that each leader would remove those warriors to a separate area for a specified duty. That way, when the time came for the mass fold, then those staunch supporters of Greaves would remain behind.
Because he had trained the army, especially the leadership, the troops had tremendous loyalty to their Regiment and Division Leaders. Those whom Leto contacted chose pretty quickly to align with Endelle. The generals had caused so much suffering among the divisions that the five months since Leto had left Greaves’s service had created exactly the right atmosphere for a mutiny.
