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I laughed. “Well, I rescind the cranky label for now, but only if you rest and eat,” I said. “I know you’re a big bad lord, but you still need food every once in a while.” I dug my thumbs into knotted muscles. “Cripes. How long have you been sitting here?”
“Since we concluded last night,” Mzatal said. He looked back to the floating sigil, dissipated it with a violent sweep of his arm, then sighed. “I should send for food.”
“Way ahead of you.” I smiled as Jekki and Faruk hopped in with a tray and jug. I gave his shoulders a final squeeze, then helped the two faas get the food onto the table. “Eat.”
Mzatal gestured toward my mug as he poured tunjen for himself. “And what of you? You have only had coffee again,” he noted.
“Coffee is the food of the gods,” I retorted as I snagged some cheese and a couple of grape-things.
“You do much enjoy it,” he said, selecting slices of fruit for his plate. “It is ubiquitous to Earth, yes?”
Taking a sip, I nodded. “It’s a huge industry, and there are shops devoted to little more than the sale of coffee in a variety of forms.” I let out a dreamy sigh. “Heaven.”
“It was relatively new to your world at the time of the cataclysm,” he said, “with only a century or so of any significant distribution. Once the ways opened again, I had not considered it until I noted your obsession, then discovered its use to be widespread.”
“It’s not an obsession,” I said, grinning. “It’s an addiction. Get it right.”
Mzatal smiled. “Obsession with an addiction.” He reached over the cheese for the custard. “My favorite,” he said, raising the bowl slightly to me. “Dak lahn.”
I returned the smile, glad to see him eating. “I know.”
He lifted his eyes to mine, held the gaze for a moment. A sense of true appreciation came through to me before he started on the custard. “Idris has completed his work and now awaits me.” He shook his head. “I am no nearer a solution than I was last night.”
“Still on the final series for the beacon?”
He nodded. “The last three sigils are inharmonious, and I have yet to determine the cause.”
“Can’t you take a day and do something else, give your mind a break?” I asked. “You could come out and harass me by the column. I’m soooo close to finishing the damned first ring of the shikvihr.”
“It is likely you would were we to devote the day to it,” he said with an approving nod, then grimaced. “But time is short. If the beacon is not set within the next two days, we will be delayed another month, and that is unacceptable. All else is ready except this last series.”
I frowned. “Another month? Why?”
“The Earth full moon is four days hence,” he said. “The greatest chance of locating and binding Vsuhl is on that day, and the beacon must be completed and tended for at least two days prior in order to be optimally effective.”
I gave him my best utterly-baffled look. The high level of potency in the demon realm meant that rituals weren’t dependent on the moon cycle, and certainly not on the Earth moon cycle. “That makes no sense,” I said, perplexed. “What am I missing?”
He finished the custard and set the bowl aside. “Szerain is unrivaled in arcane innovation,” he said, tone shifting to one of casual conversation, as if he’d decided to discuss the weather. “Should he choose to hide something, it would not only be very cleverly hidden, but also linked to him. It would…resonate with him.” He reached for his mug of tunjen, took a long drink.
“Ohhh,” I said as comprehension dawned. Vsuhl was Sze rain’s blade. “So to track Vsuhl we’re purposefully coinciding with Earth’s highest potency time because Szerain is there.” Because of the stupid oath, Mzatal couldn’t come right out and say Szerain is on Earth, but I could. “Got it.”
“To correlate with the lunar full, I must complete this series today,” he said, a hint of the earlier frustration coloring his tone.
“That’s one hell of a time crunch,” I said with a grimace. “I wish I could help more.”
“You spent half the day yesterday working on it with me. This time it is my aspect that is not aligning,” he said with another deep sigh. But then he gave me a smile. “And today, you have fed me and eased the significant tension in my shoulders. That is much help, Kara.”
“Well I’m going to help even more by grabbing a bath now,” I said. “If Idris is free, I’ll make him run me through the first ring of the shikvihr until I get it. I’m ready to nail that thing.”
“Complete it,” he said with a warm smile, “and I will leave this accursed series to culminate the ring for you.”
I grinned. “Deal, Boss. That’s one way to get you to take a break.”
“Until then, though,” he said with a shake of his head, “I must refocus on this.” He traced a sigil and began adjusting strands on it. I didn’t remember it being in the series we’d worked on yesterday, but it wouldn’t be the first time I had less than a Full Clue.
I stood, picked up my cooling coffee, and took a long sip as I headed off toward the bedchamber. Something about the sigil nagged at me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Yet I could feel, with increasing unease, every modification Mzatal made to it. Heart pounding unevenly, I turned and walked back to the table, set my mug down. Each adjustment of the sigil brought it closer and closer to—
I didn’t ask permission, simply reached out with a shaking hand to shift the axis of rotation of the sigil, then detached an outer strand and set the whole thing into a wobbling spin.
