There’d been a brief time, early in their friendship, when Marella had been bothered that Sophie had left her out of all the Black Swan–related stuff—but then Marella saw how dangerous it all was and hadn’t seemed the least bit interested in joining anymore.
Marella shrugged. “Felt sort of inevitable at this point. Plus, the Council could come after me any day and try to shut down my ability training, so I figured it might be good to have some powerful people on my side who have no problem breaking rules when they need to.”
“And I’ll be part of the order as soon as I speak to the Collective,” Maruca added, tilting her chin up defiantly. “We all know that once I show them what I can do, they’ll let me join—even if you tell them not to, Sophie. But I’m hoping you won’t do that. In fact, I’m hoping you’ll put in a good word and speed things along. I know you made a promise to my cousin—but Wylie will get over it. I’ll make sure of it. He needs to understand that just because he wants to keep me safe, it doesn’t mean he gets to control my life. I’m not a little kid. I get to choose how I use my ability. And I choose to fight. So if he wants to protect me, he can fight beside me—or get out of my way. And if he doesn’t? I’ll knock him into a pile of mastodon poop and put a force field around him so he can spend some quality time with all that stink.”
Sophie couldn’t decide if she was intimidated or impressed.
Probably both.
“See why she’s our secret weapon?” Marella asked with a huge grin. “She can handle this. And so can we. But we have to strike now, while the Neverseen are weak and unprepared and won’t expect anything.”
“Riiiiiiiiiiight,” Sophie said, stalling again as she tried to find a nice way to word her next argument. “I mean, not to be the downer, but… I think you’re forgetting that we don’t actually know where the Neverseen are right now.”
Linh stood, sending Wynn and Luna scattering. “Not yet. But I can find them.”
“How?” Sandor demanded, beating Sophie to the question.
“Through Tam,” Linh told him. “If Sophie will help me reach out to him.”
Sophie’s palms turned sweaty under her gloves. “You know Gethen will hear everything you say to Tam.”
“But he won’t understand it,” Linh insisted. “Tam and I have a code. It’s nothing fancy, just two ‘I’m in trouble’ phrases—one for me and one for him—plus some words we assigned other meanings to, in case we needed to communicate something beyond danger. And I think I’ve come up with a way to use that code to find out where he is without anyone knowing.”
Sophie ignored the less-than-reassuring “I think” in that statement and focused on the bigger issue. “Okay, but… Tam doesn’t know where he is.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t,” Linh agreed. “But he doesn’t have to. I’m going to ask him to send a signal that will lead me to him.”
“What signal?” Sandor demanded as Sophie started picturing disastrous ideas, like super-conspicuous puffs of smoke.
“It’s really hard to explain,” Linh said quietly, “and I’ll need Sophie’s help to make it work. But… I think I can find him through the water.”
Sophie glanced at Marella and Maruca, surprised by how readily they were nodding, as if what Linh had just said made perfect sense. “What water?”
“Any water.” Linh raised her hand and curled her fingers, forming a tennis ball–size sphere out of the moisture in the air.
“Yeah… the thing is… it sounded like Tam was in some sort of dry desert cave the last time I talked to him,” Sophie hated to tell her.
“Even if he is, there’s always water.” Linh wiggled her fingers, letting the sphere she’d formed unravel with a soft splash. “I realize this won’t make much sense to you, but… when you enhanced me in Atlantis, I became very aware. It felt like I was connecting with water on a whole other level—like I was part of it, and it was part of me, and my consciousness had no beginning or ending because the water was everywhere and in everything. And I think, if you enhance me again, I can use that awareness to find Tam. I just need him to let his shadow touch water while I’m listening—and in order to tell him to do that, I need you to reach out to him