bottom shelf, either first or second jar on the left.»
I opened the first jar and looked inside. Coffee. The label said BORAX.
«What's up with the labels?»
Dali shrugged. «You're in the house of a cat whose job is to spy. He thinks he's clever. I'd be
careful with the silverware drawer. There might be a bomb in it.»
I extracted a small pot and set about boiling coffee.
«How's Derek?»
«I don't know. The door's still closed. They've been in there for hours.»
The coffee foamed up. I held it away from the fire, put it back, and let it foam a second time.
Dali got the cups. «I found out more about the jewel.»
I poured coffee into her mug. Dali watched me do it. «I always spill half of it,» she said. «Mine
always runs down the side of the pot.»
Manual dexterity-just about the only thing I was good at. «So what about the jewel?»
«A couple of old texts say that Rudra Mani has the power to calm beasts and take away the
suffering of man.»
A deeper meaning hidden in the description: the power to suppress a shapeshifter's animal nature
and keep him locked in his humanity. «Does it? Take the suffering away, I mean?»
Dali looked into her coffee. «Having a shard in you is like having part of you cut off. It's a
terrible feeling. I would prefer to be killed.»
So would I in the same situation. It was akin to surrendering my magic. I hated the man who'd
given it to me. Aspects of it repulsed me and I refused them. But it was a part of me. With it, I felt
whole for better or for worse. Using magic made me the person I was born to be. Keeping people
from being themselves drove them insane.
«Rudra is a one of Shiva's names,» Dali said. «It means 'strict' or 'uncompromising.' «
How fitting. That was what the shapeshifters were, a compromise between beast and man. The
gem forced them to become one or the other. I had been thinking about this on the way to the house,
while riding the ley line. By then I had grown too numb to worry about Derek-I had described his
condition for Julie and it had been like opening an old wound. At first there'd been the sharp slash
of pain of a scab being ripped off, and then I'd bled, and the wound had gone numb.
I thought about the Order instead. About Ted and his true believer's inability to compromise.
Ted wanted humans to remain human no matter the cost.
A dark storm gathered on the horizon of my mind, with Rudra Mani firmly in its center.
«Does the name 'Sultan of Death' sound familiar to you?» I asked.
Dali paused, considering, and shook her head. «I have no clue who that is.»
That reminded me-I still hadn't checked on the analyses of the molten silver the rakshasas had
poured onto Derek's face. The magic had fallen while I was asleep. I pulled the phone to me. Dial
tone. Finally. The phone was one of those erratic devices that sometimes worked during magic.
Most people had no idea how it worked. To them, it was almost magic, and sometimes magic waves
shared that view.
I punched in Andrea's home number. She answered on the second ring. «Hey.»
«Hey.»
«I've got your results right here,» she said. Not a hint of humor in her voice. «It's not silver. It's
electrum.»
Electrum, a naturally occurring alloy of silver and gold with a pinch of copper thrown in, was
incredibly potent magically. It was also extremely toxic to shapeshifters.
«You don't rank high enough to know the rest, so they won't tell you,» Andrea said, «but I do.
This particular alloy is very old and very poisonous to shapeshifters. You know how high my silver
tolerance is. I can't even hold it, Kate. Do you remember the agreement we made during the flare?»
«Yes.» We had agreed that I would never reveal to the Order that she was a beastkin and she
would never reveal that I knew enough specific information about Roland to induce a collective
seizure in the entire Order.
«There is only one person who has access to this alloy in a large quantity. The composition is
very specific. It's-«
«About fifty-five percent gold, forty-five percent silver, three percent copper, and the rest is
random crap.»
«Yes.»
Samos electrum, from the coins struck on a small Greek island in the North Aegean Sea in 600
BC. My heart dropped. Logic had lost and my unreasonable paranoia had triumphed.
«I guess you know what that means, then,» she said.
«Yes. Thank you,» I said.
«Be careful.»
I hung up.
Roland. Only he had a large supply of the ancient Samos electrum. No doubt he meant for it to
be used sparingly, perhaps as bullets or stakes, but instead the rakshasas had melted the lot of it just