Strange Attractors - Kim Falconer [91]
‘I can.’ Teg straightened. ‘I’m just focusing on the strategy. We are about to be surrounded by hundreds of Corsanon warriors. It’s on my mind.’
‘Always the practical one!’ She blew hair off her forehead. ‘Fine. All business then. Drayco’s presence signals us as Dumarkian, but it’s incredibly strange seeing as the temple was in ruins before we were born.’
‘But you’ve seen it. You’ve been there! When you met the other Nell?’
‘I have.’
‘Rosette, how can we tell if this is our Gaela, in our time?’ He rubbed his brow.
‘It’s safe to say it’s not. Temple Dumarka, Teg, doesn’t exist in our time. And neither does Clay.’
‘Unless Makee actually did stop the wars from ever happening. We don’t know how far back she went.’
‘Or how far forward.’
They both groaned.
Look at what you do know, Maudi, not what you don’t. That always works best for me.
She turned to Teg. ‘We know that we have lost Jarrod and, temple wars or no, we have to get him back.’ Rosette felt a chill run up her spine. The coach slowed.
‘Nice-looking horse,’ Teg said, staring out the window. ‘She’s almost a blue-black.’ He tilted his neck to see around Drayco. ‘What’s the breed? Desertwind?’
Rosette followed his gaze. A black mare rocked back on her hindquarters, rearing as they passed. The boy handling her stole a glance, his eyes penetrating even with the brief touch. Her forehead broke out in a sweat. ‘It’s…’
Teg nudged her and smiled. ‘A nice-looking lad as well. I see you don’t disagree.’
Rosette couldn’t breathe.
Maudi?
Drayco, did you feel that?
I always feel that when you talk about Jarrod.
She nodded. ‘We were talking about him, weren’t we? That’s all.’ As the coach rolled on she closed her eyes, thinking of her childhood friend, her lover, her companion—the quantum sentient her family line lived to protect. ‘We’ll find him. He’s got to be near. I feel it in my bones.’ When she opened her eyes, she found herself leaning out of the coach, looking back the way they’d come. She lifted her finger in a small wave but the lad was too busy with the mare to see. When they crested the second hill, she felt a whisper at the edge of her mind.
Hello, beautiful witch…
‘Teg, did you just say something? Drayco? Did you?’
Not me, Maudi.
‘Say what?’ Teg asked.
She pushed her hair away from her face. ‘I must be imagining things, is all.’ She leaned back in her seat and the coach rolled on.
An’ Lawrence sat at the long table, his leg on the opposite chair. He was getting comfortable with using the computer database. He’d grasped the basic structure of its complex systems and felt close to pinpointing the code. Richter had hidden her notes, embedded them in other applications of the computer. There were so many password protections he was certain she assumed Jarrod would be there to run the numbers and open them. But Jarrod wasn’t there and An’ Lawrence was sure the techno-witch would have left hard copies somewhere, and a key to finding them as well. ‘Have you come up with anything, Kali?’
Her head popped up, looking over the stack of books piled high around her workspace. ‘It’s fascinating. There is so much here about the last century before the tectonic shifts.’
‘Anything about Jarrod, I mean?’
‘Not yet.’ She closed a book and set it aside, bringing another down from the stack. ‘What about you?’
‘I’ve split all the apps into front and back ends, and I’m running searches through every generic code, form, report, query, table and update I can find. So far, it keeps sending me around in circles. Janis Richter didn’t want this information found by anyone.’
Kreshkali raised one brow. ‘I knew you’d be good at this.’
‘Not good enough.’ He lifted his splinted leg with both hands and stood. ‘We need another approach, Kali.’
‘The horary chart was unreadable. Not enough degrees on the ascendant. Too soon to tell. You know we can’t ask the same question twice.’
‘But we could weave a calling spell. If she had her hands on those notes last, they’ll respond.’
Kreshkali