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The skirmish crawlers roar, kicking a rapidfire clattering of rocks up against the bottom of the wagon. The wood groans alarmingly under Imogen and the whole thing seems close to breaking apart as it shudders over the uneven terrain. It makes her nauseous and it makes her head hurt. Were the damn things this loud during the race? In her memory, there’s the wind and the nerves and a heady rush. Now there’s just desert screaming away behind them and dust kicking into her eyes.
The trailer jolts as a stone hits the wheel, and Imogen swears. Again. It’s a far shot from the last time she and Laudna were in a caravan together, crossing the Highlands. She remembers grass rushing and swishing under their feet as they trailed their legs off the back. The big sky and mountains rising up around them. Laudna’s hand in hers. Yeah. There’s a thought she should probably ignore.
Ashton banks the bike hard to the right. The wagon swerves with it and it tears Imogen’s concentration into pieces. A ride like this, they’re not gonna have the time to talk that she thought they might. She shouldn’t feel relieved about that, she knows. But—and—the more time goes by before they do, the less likely she’ll have to bring up Yu.
She should. She knows she should. She just doesn’t—doesn’t fucking want to.
That cheery, awful face melting away into bright manipulative darkness. Gods, how could she have been so stupid? Imogen’s heard of spells that can wrap someone’s mind in silence. Of course she has, after so much time searching in and out of libraries. They make rings that can keep everyone’s voices out and your own inside, and she’s coveted one for as long as she’s known about them. So when she’d tried to listen to Dusk’s thoughts and heard that uneasy, unnatural silence, she’d let her eyes fall to their many-ringed fingers, choked down another blistering lump of jealousy, and let it go. Watched Dusk laugh with Laudna and let something inside her curl in on itself like the desiccated, brittle legs of a dead bug. Told herself to let it go. Hated herself for it.
And of course that’s what could’ve killed them all. The way Imogen feels, knowing that the only reason it wasn’t might’ve been—could’ve been—She hears Yu’s slippery voice telling Laudna, Oh, I meant it. She feels sick. It’s all fine, she tells herself, trying to breathe deeply through her nose as the crawler jerks and the wagon judders to the side. They’re fine. Laudna’s fine. Yu’s fucking fine, even. Not by any choice of Imogen’s. Given the chance, she’d still want to tear them apart.
She feels Laudna touch her hand, then, the press of long, cool fingers into her palm. It pulls her out of it, same way it always pulls her out of it. Steady and grounding and sure. She drops the nose breathing and lets her hand curl around Laudna’s and tries not to feel anything about it, fails. Looks at Laudna. Ignores the heady flip of her stomach.
She can’t keep feeling this way. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Imogen? The shadowy curls of Laudna’s voice tendril into Imogen’s mind. Oh, Imogen loves that whispering sound, the way it makes everything else fall back. It’s a stone dropped into the water, ripples nudging the background roar into silence and floating her thoughts away. Can she tell, one whispers dangerously as it recedes, does she know, does she see the way you feel when she touches you? Stop it, she tells herself, stop it. You’ve got it under better control than that, you’ve got to, you’d fucking better. She shoves the thought back down and takes a deep breath and lets Laudna fill her mind as she opens their connection.
Yeah?
I was just thinking, you’ve been a bit quiet. I won’t pretend it isn’t rather deafening out here, but is everything all right?
It’s on the tip of her tongue. It’s on the tip of her tongue. It rises in her throat like vomit. How are you feeling about Yu. How are you feeling about Dusk, about what they asked you. About the way they wanted you. It would be so easy to let the words out. So much easier and so much worse. Imogen bites them back.
Laudna’s said already: she doesn’t think of anyone that way. She was only being herself. Extending warmth, over and over, even to people who don’t ask for it, even to people who don’t deserve it.
If Imogen asks about Dusk again— She knows, by now, not to open herself to things she doesn’t want to hear. She’s spent the past ten-odd years learning how to make her mind a fortress against them. All the ugly thoughts of every person in every town, papered with smiling razor-thin lies. But Laudna—
Laudna won’t dissemble. Laudna will say perfect, open, honest words, and it will hurt.
Yeah, Imogen says, and tries to smile. Yeah, I’m fine.
Big news! Laudna says, her voice upbeat, hopeful, reassuring. Meeting someone who knew her. Imogen tries to catch up, to square the cheer in Laudna’s tone with anything about the last few days.
Your mother, Laudna clarifies, when Imogen is slow to respond.
My mom, Imogen says, relieved and not relieved. It’s a thought she’s been avoiding looking at, same now as before talking to Hondir. Same as she’s been avoiding looking at it for more than two decades. Yeah, it’s pretty big.
This is good, right? Do you think it could mean she’s still out there? Laudna’s voice is all fervent optimism and Imogen tries, as always, to let the feeling catch, to let Laudna bring that sunshine into her own mind. Sometimes it works, a little bit. Occasionally she even believes it.
It might. Twelve years is a long time.
And she had your gifts! Laudna says. She squeezes Imogen’s hand.
Sounds like it, Imogen says. Yeah. It sounds like she did.
Not for the first time, Imogen tries to picture her mother. She’s never known what to envision. A gentle blur, when she was younger. Sometimes later on an angry, jagged one. Recently, a woman looking as much like her as Fearne does like Birdie. For the first time, she has a real detail to add to it: purple lightning scars licking their way up the woman’s arms. I’ve been thinkin’ about… I just can’t believe I never knew she was like this too.
Your father never—
No, Imogen says, feeling the weight of it on her like a boulder. She thinks about that first time she woke up with voices in her mind. Her panic. The impossible, pained Liliana in his thoughts when the two of them figured out what was happening, the word there and gone and never coming back. The first and last time she caught her mother’s name on his mind. No, he never.
A poison thought strikes Imogen then, burns its way toxically outwards. Her mom had these powers too. That means her dad must’ve recognized them the minute they began. Might’ve even expected them. How could he not tell her? Was he anticipating this—fearing her—every time he looked at her, right from the start? She’s been telling herself for years that he tried his best. Did the best with the unpredictable hand he’d been dealt. But if her mom had these powers too, and he knew—he knew—
He’d been with her like this. Stayed with her like this. And he hadn’t been able to do it again for Imogen.
Was it her own inadequate control? Her white-knuckle grip on herself too imperfect and slow to build? Her self-isolation too entire, its whispery, suspicious backlash too great?
The shame builds in her, and before she can hold herself back, she asks Laudna, Do you think that my mom knew? What would happen to me?
You know, I don’t know, Laudna says thoughtfully. She pauses, and then there’s an enormous lurch as the crawler hits a hole in the road.
“HEY, HEADS!” Ashton yells back to them belatedly as the cart vaults inches into the air. It lands with a crunch on one wheel. Imogen curses, reaching to brace the two of them.
It wasn’t like this during the race, she thinks to Laudna in frustrated, nauseous distraction.
The crawler doesn’t swing nearly so much as this wagon. Here, darling, let me— Laudna puts her hands gently on Imogen’s wrists and massages circles at the spot where her gloves end, spidery fingers pressing deeply into the skin. It distracts Imogen, the feeling of Laudna’s hands on her own. She thinks, glancingly, about taking off her gloves. She thinks, glancingly, about Laudna’s hands elsewhere.
Pressure point for nausea, Laudna says, her voice affectionate.
Thank you, Imogen says, feeling horrible for the way she’s enjoying the touch. She tries to shut out the thought. Shut out the guilt. Focus. I just… keep thinkin’ about what I saw in Birdie’s head. She loves her so much, Laud. Whatever she’s actually doin’, she really does think it’s for Fearne. Ira and all.
Are you wondering whether your mother might’ve left to do the same for you?
Stupid, right? Imogen looks away from Laudna’s gentle eyes, from the knead of her fingers. She didn’t even know me.
Hondir did imply she had some kind of—foresight, Laudna says, moving her hands to the flesh between Imogen’s thumb and first finger. She presses there and Imogen’s nausea actually does abate for a second. She exhales and Laudna looks at her questioningly, then seeing the relief in her face kneads the spot again. It sounds possible that she knew what was coming for you.
Foresight. Imogen shudders, remembering the vision of Bertrand stepping into the storm’s churning clouds and vanishing. Thinks of the sound of her mom’s voice, urging her to run. An embarrassing, wishful thought occurs. What if it’s really her and not some twisted desperate echo from Imogen’s mind? Her mom reaching out, somehow, to help? She’d joined the Grim Verity’s study twelve years ago, when Imogen’s dreams were on the precipice. She could’ve been searching for ways to protect her daughter from Ruidus, from what would come. When she left in the first place, could it have been for Imogen?
Or because of Imogen. Her mother, looking down at her infant daughter and seeing the onslaught of her own suffering reduplicated. Rushing to leave it behind. To escape it. Escape her.
She could’ve known. Yeah.
Laudna must see it written on her face. She always sees it written on her face. Her voice is gentle and cautious. I know you don’t like to reach out to your father. But I wonder if he could have some answers, if you did.
I could, Imogen says. But, you know. She probably should. She’s been telling herself it’s better to let him stay safe from the press of voices from nowhere. Not to damage his life now that he’s probably just started to repair it. And now, she thinks bitterly, now. If he knew, all along, about this magic—if he’d kept his thoughts under that tight a leash, let her feel that alone—
Yeah. Well. Then he understood early what Imogen’s had to learn: if you let something close enough to bite you, it always will.
I understand, Laudna says, and she rubs Imogen’s arm. It’s been a lot.
Because Imogen is weak, she lets herself lean into Laudna’s shoulder. She braces herself for the euphoric wave that crashes in her stomach when Laudna folds an arm around her. Lets herself enjoy it for a half a second. One half of a second to relax into the feeling of being loved.
Stop it, she tells herself, stop it, stop it, stop it. She can’t keep doing this. Letting Laudna give this affection willingly and wanting like this in return. Not when Laudna already gives her so much more than she could have any right to expect. Don’t want more than you have, she tells herself severely. Don’t want that from her. Don’t.
She pictures Laudna’s face as Yu was leaving, her face when she said I thought I was special. The memory stings and Imogen pushes herself deeper into it. Easier this hurt than a new one. This simpler, familiar pain. Dusk, linking arms with Laudna. Twisting into Yu. Brushing their lips against Laudna’s hand. An ache lights inside Imogen and catches into a spark of anger. She curls her hands into fists and lets the fury corrode the guilt. Yu, her mother, her father, herself.
The edge of the ravine is there so fast that she scarcely has time to fear it coming. As they plunge off of it, it reveals itself to be a bridge, on which the crawler lands with a clatter and crack. The whole thing bucks and weaves and it’s a million times worse than the gondolas. Imogen shuts her eyes against the nausea biting at her throat and braces herself into the cart. What a terrible fucking way to travel. What a terrible fucking day. What a terrible fucking city. She thinks, with a stab of wild and unfair longing, of their room at Zhudanna’s.
She’s almost caught her breath, and it’s then that they hit the trip wire.
The cart buckles into the air behind the soaring skirmish crawler. For a second, it feels almost slow-motion. Imogen grabs for Laudna on instinct—no time for hands, a telekinetic shove—and pushes her back towards the wagon to keep her from being thrown to the ground. The impact of the bike landing almost ricochets Imogen out herself. She scrambles up and looks around and sees Laudna, disheveled and alarmed, and the fierce, protective fury that surges in Imogen’s veins—she has no patience for whoever did this to them. Hasn’t it been enough? Haven’t they been through enough, today?
She remembers now why she’d loved the feeling of the Death Wish Run, why it had overpowered the nausea and the anxiety and the fear. It had felt good, so good, to fucking—blast anyone who got in her way—people die on Death Wish Run all the time. It’s the way the thing works. It’s not her responsibility. If you die, you don’t win, and if you want to win, people are going to die. Imogen doesn’t get to win very often.
They’re going to be making it to the Calloway Layaway and she doesn’t fucking care how anymore.
The massive Ruin-Crawler towers over them. From it, someone blusters about leaving their shit. Her friends strategize and scramble and the solution comes to her easy. Cold and easy. You want our shit? Sure. Fine. She climbs from the cart and scoops up the backpack she’d cradled throughout the race. She approaches the enormous machine. She places it against the leg.
To Orym and FCG, she says, very calmly, back up a little.
And then she triggers the bomb.
Stone and shrapnel fly. It drums harmlessly against her mage armor and the satisfaction tears through her. Let it all come down. With delicious fury she pictures Yu again amidst the rubble. Fuck them and their slick sly promises and their drawling words—fuck their impression of her, she’d wanted to end it right there, to grab the edges of the situation and force them under her control. Fuck all of this, all of it. Lightning builds in her palms. She pictures flinging it into the heart of the crawler. She pictures her mother walking away from her into the storm.
There are flashes of movement around her. Orym is tearing forward, springing upward onto the damaged machine, quick and lethal. The barrels of guns wheel and click under him and the lightning in Imogen’s hands is growing violent against her skin. Oh, she wants to let it out, let it go. She wants to make these petty, overarmored thieves pay. She wants it to hurt.
A thought pierces her suddenly. Has she always been like this, or is the gnarlrock still tugging alluringly on the electricity in her veins? The sick satisfaction of watching someone burn, and burn, and burn? She closes her fists tightly over the angrily surging energy, her arms shaking with the effort of containing it. She has to keep it under control, she struggles to think—if she snaps, and it blows back—
Somewhere behind her, Laudna screams as a bullet tears into her, and Imogen is done. She’s done. She’s started this fight someone else has set up and she’s going to end it. She’s sick of holding back. She’s sick of restraining herself and letting people around her get away with everything while she holds herself rigid with tension and fear and lets it happen. So what if it bites her. So what if it comes back like a scorpion’s tail and lashes at her, tears into her, leaves her open and bleeding on the ground. That’s fine. That’s fair. She watches as Laudna Hellish Rebukes flaming black powder into a man’s face and her stomach blazes with vindictive pride, the feeling of watching someone get what they deserve.
It’s fucking victorious.
Imogen steps out in front of the enormous crawler. Casts her eyes over its black powder pipes aiming violence at her skull, at her body, at her stupid goddamn vulnerable heart. She doesn’t know if it’s a loss of control or the utter, final culmination of it when she braces herself and lifts a hand with exact, furious focus. Levies it at the thing in front of her. Lets the lightning tear from her, willing it from her fingertips in a crackling destructive burst of rage up the barrel of the enormous gun. Through its sights. Into the heart of anyone who tries to hurt her. Hurt Laudna. Hurt her.
The explosion hangs in the air for one reeling moment of triumph, and then the gun tears apart and rains its vengeance back.
The sound is nothing like the bomb. It’s a hundred explosions at once, the uncontrolled and targetless wrath of a machine pushed to its limit. Pain licks through Imogen and she realizes that bullets are tearing into her, tearing around her. A firestorm of agony screaming around her. Of course it could never just be her, it could never fucking just be her. If she gets close enough, someone else always has to suffer.
The air is filled with smoke and her mind is filling with panic. She drops her mental defenses, frantic for Laudna, and everyone’s pain is in her head. It’s her fault. She searches through it, finds Laudna hurting, and the fury drains from her and all that’s there is anguish. It’s her fault. There’s pain in her head. The bullets have come back to bite her and rip into her and tear it all apart.
This was her that did this.
She doesn’t know what else she expected.