Book 2 The Gods of Light and Liars

Chapter 23: Move and counter

"What makes you think that?" he said. His hand was stiff on her now.

"I met him," she said, very softly. "He was rather abrupt, but he wanted the same thing you do: he wanted us gone." She paused, and stepped around a suddenly flung ribbon favor. This one was gold. "And it struck me that he showed up right about the time you and I ran out of options."

"Well, yes. Let us say, hypothetically, that I called in a favor. That favor may backfire on you if you are not careful."

"He's 'not a tame lion?'" Hawk asked, thinking of brief moments of happiness reading Narnia with her mother.

"I have no clue about lions," the Archon said, "But I met my...friend...when I was tapped to become Archon of Light. For a while, I did not know who he was. Then I did." A pause. "What will you do?"

"You're the only goddamn helpful, kind person in this whole mess. I'm not afraid of Shadow," she said, and then paused. "Okay, I am afraid of him."

"That is because you are not stupid," the Archon said.

Yes, but he has my Alex's face! She wanted to howl. "How much does he want us gone?" She asked. A casual change of subject, there.

"An hour ago? Before he set the beasts on us? It was my request that drove it. But now you are openly defying him by returning to the procession. So now you may do me a favor, and give me an answer: Why did you come back?"

"Because I don't have any light, and there's no fucking sunrise or daylight in this place, and I haven't the first idea how to make my way back to the Nexus in the dark." She said, and found that it was true enough to work on most people.

But the Archon wasn't "most people". He watched her for a few sly minutes, as the noise about them rose and the songs of the main procession began to swell. "I'll ask again, and given how heavily I protect you, Hawk, I expect a straight answer: Why did you come back to the procession."

"I told you. I'm looking for my husband. Either the man himself or..." she could get over the hump here. Saying it out loud wouldn't make it any more true. "Or evidence he's dead."

"You're going about it in an odd way."

"Let's just say your creation myth suggested something to me. Something I don't want to talk about because I do not want to risk deception or someone trying to manipulate me. I think that either your Gods or your Shadow have more information...and if they don't, I'm screwed. Because otherwise it's been too long."

"What do you mean, too long?" The Archon asked.

"Time works differently in our world. Don't call it the God-world please, I can't stand that idea. None of us are Gods. Gods aren't born in that world. Kaiser Willheim's company accidently tore a hole in reality—"

"—and made our hole to the God-World. But how? That way has always been. The Nexus blocked it off, cut the majority of the Gods' powers. But the way to the God-World has always remained, high and out of reach."

They were almost to the main procession. The faces around them were getting less joyful, more stern and frightened, or stoic and soulless. Hawk was running out of time. She dumped a lot of useless information, and said, "Something like that, yes. But here's the important part: Years, here, can pass in minutes, there. Time works faster inside of what we're calling Rifts. And that's what this place is, to us. It's just a dark, magic hole." She swallowed. "Your ancestors—the first humans in this world—were the six hundred missing children. But Alex—my husband—"

"Must be dead after so long," the Archon said.

"Right," she said, while her heart screamed No, and a part of her brain responded with the image of the Shadowmaster with Alex's face. "But I want to find out how, and why. Both for him, and as many of those missing kids as I can. Your Gods might also be living people from my world. They might know what happened to Alex." And she wanted to grab him by the robes and start shaking him until his mask fell off and his teeth rattled. She wanted to scream, It's my only chance! At his face, naked and maskless, so she could see understanding in his eyes. "Do you understand? They might know."