But Susan would try again. Because, in truth, Susan’s will was not a weak thing, and once the inevitable bout of self-doubt had passed, she could gather her strength and cast the spell against Marla again. Marla had another day, perhaps, to secure the Cornerstone, her only hope to thwart Susan permanently.
“My rival, Susan, tried to cast a spell last night,” Marla said.
“The spell to depose you, which will lead to the downfall of your city? That spell?”
“Ah, right, I told you about that on the ferry yesterday.”
“True. Though Rondeau told me most of it before then, actually, while we were on Bethany’s train, before we found the freezer full of hearts.”
“I can’t leave that boy alone for five minutes,” she said, and then came a pang, because Rondeau was probably being tortured right now, and she couldn’t save him. She couldn’t. Like she’d told him before, if it were within her power to save both Rondeau and herself, she would. But if she had to choose between them, she would choose to save herself. Killing Mutex and retrieving the Cornerstone were the only ways to do that. Saving Rondeau from the Celestial instead would only be putting off his death anyway, since once Mutex raised Tlaltecuhtli, they would all die. Gods, this city. It had killed Lao Tsung, and now it threatened to kill Rondeau. She would destroy the Celestial when this was done, make him suffer a thousand times whatever he inflicted on Rondeau, but that thought was no comfort at all; it was just what she owed Rondeau for his friendship and service, and it wouldn’t bring him back to her.
“So Susan’s spell didn’t work?” B said.
Marla blinked. “No. I doubt the spell failed. Susan is a craftsman, and anal-retentive as hell. She wouldn’t try to cast a spell without making a list and checking it twice, dotting her i’s and crossing her t’s and other such metaphors. She’s a perfectionist, in the truest sense of that word—she does things perfectly. No, the spell worked, only it didn’t work, because I wasn’t here for it to work on.” Marla began to do a simple knife kata with her dagger, working out the kinks from a night of sleeping rough in a score of different worlds.
B’s eyes widened, even as he stepped back, well away from her flashing knife. “She cast the spell while we were in another universe,” B said. “So it didn’t affect you!”
“Oh, it gets better,” Marla said, producing another dagger (this one was simple steel and wood, but weighted to match her dagger of office) and beginning a more complex two-knife kata, weaving a net of glittering steel. “Did Rondeau mention what Susan’s spell was supposed to do to me?”
“No.”
“Because he didn’t know. I keep secrets. It’s a habit. Sorcerers need secrets the way fishmongers need fish. But there’s no good reason not to tell you, and it’s funny, so: Susan’s spell is supposed to delete me from this universe.” That phrase—“delete me”—was the one her consiglieri, Hamil, had used when warning Marla of Susan’s plot, but now it reminded Marla of mad Dalton’s notion of the world as computer simulation. Maybe the other worlds they’d traveled to were other simulations, running on vastly powerful networked computers. After a moment, Marla decided that the idea wasn’t really all that interesting. Whether the universe was a computer simulation or not, it was still a world of concrete, sewage, and unexpected moments of grace—debating the nature of reality didn’t change the fact that she had to live in it.
“Delete you?” B said.
“Erase me,” Marla said, tossing her knives up and catching them before starting another routine. “Snip me out of the tapestry of reality like a snagged thread. See, even if she killed me—assuming she could, which she couldn’t—that wouldn’t necessarily help her take over the city, even though she’s the strongest sorcerer there, apart from me. She’d have to deal with my vengeful associates, and possibly my very psychotic ghost, so instead she wants to cast a spell to cut me out of the world entirely. It’s big bad magic, subtle and strange. First, the real, physical me will vanish, poof. Then, slowly, the other proofs of my existence will fade away. Within two weeks my friends will forget about me; within three weeks my enemies will. The things I’ve done in my life won’t be undone, but every record and memory of who did those things will grow vague and eventually disappear. Soon I’ll even drift out of people’s dreams. And I won’t even have a ghost, because I won’t die, I’ll just stop being alive. And if, gods forbid, there’s an afterlife, I won’t see it. I’ll just be gone.”