I waited. After a few seconds, I thought, Gaps. Leaks. Seal the cracks.
That was where I’d heard that phrasing before. “You’ve said that before,” I said aloud. “I don’t understand what it means.”
The oracle’s attention became oppressive, and I had to force myself to stand upright against the pressure. Force increases. Seal the cracks. Many holes, few holes, one hole. They fall. The guardians remain.
“Force increases…many holes…” It still didn’t make any sense, unless… “What comes through the cracks?”
Power. The oracle’s voice thundered through my body, blurring my vision. Seal the cracks. Then it was gone.
I clung to the nearest bookcase until my vision cleared and my knees stopped wobbling. “Thanks,” I said, though I hadn’t gotten anything to be thankful for except, possibly, not being crushed.
I left the oracle and went to let the Ambrosites in. “Great day, huh?” the woman at the head of the line said. “Those Nicolliens finally got what they deserved.”
My head still ached from the oracle thinking through me, and I remembered the devastated face of a woman kneeling beside her fallen familiar. “Excuse me?” I said icily.
The Ambrosite didn’t react to my sharp tone. “They should have destroyed their familiars a long time ago. This just proves how wrong they were. They ought to be grateful the creatures just died and didn’t turn on them the way they did two years ago.”
I snatched the augury slip out of her hand. “That’s right,” I said. “Because they’re all idiots who don’t actually care about winning the Long War. Not the way you sainted Ambrosites do.”
“What?” The woman sounded puzzled. It made me angrier.
“Look,” I said, pitching my voice so the whole store could hear me, “I hate familiars. If it turns out they really are all destroyed, I won’t be sad. But at least I’m not so full of self-righteousness that I take pleasure in other people’s pain. And unlike the lot of you, I’m not so obsessed with defeating other humans that I can’t see who the real enemy is!”
The woman had gone totally still. Everyone had their eyes on me. “You people have serious problems, you and the Nicolliens alike,” I said. “At what point did you all decide it mattered more to put one over on your fellow humans than to work together? It’s disgusting. And I’m sick of it.” I waved the augury slip in the woman’s face. “I swore to be impartial. So I’m impartially declaring Abernathy’s a faction-free zone. You do whatever the hell you want when you’re out there, but in here, I’d better not hear anything against either faction. And yes, I’ll tell the Nicolliens the same thing. Now, get your augury slips ready, and I’ll be back.” I turned on my heel and stomped away into the oracle.
As if it had been waiting for me, the oracle’s attention bore down on me instantly. “I’m in a bad mood, so whatever you have in mind had better not be cryptic,” I snarled.
Guardians fall. Guardians remain. Seal the cracks.
“See, that’s exactly what I didn’t want to hear. Who is sealing what cracks, and how?”
There was a pause. There is an ending. I will end. Helena will end.
I bit back a furious shriek and closed my eyes, practicing my calming breathing. “All right,” I said when I finally felt capable of speaking in a normal tone. “You and I are going to end. I don’t understand why you keep telling me this when you won’t say anything else. I don’t know if it’s something we can prevent, or if it’s inevitable, and either way I don’t know how to prepare for it. Can’t you please give me something else? Some hint?”
Nothing happened, but the oracle’s attention was still present. Finally, I thought, Lose the battle. Win the war, and the oracle retreated.
I did some more calming breathing as I thought about this. Losing battles did not seem the way to win a war, and even if it was, I still had no context for the cryptic remark. We’d already lost battles—was that the key? Losing the right battles?
I rubbed the bridge of my nose against the headache forming behind my eyes and looked around for the woman’s augury. I hoped it was a book called Stop Being Stupid. Probably there wasn’t any such book, but I could hope.
It was actually a book titled Driven to Distraction, which was almost as good. I certainly felt the factional nonsense had driven me to distraction. I handed her the book with a narrow-eyed stare. “$650. Judy will take payment.”
The woman had the decency to look embarrassed. I accepted the next augury slip and walked away.
When I returned, there were more Ambrosites, and all of them were whispering as if they were in church. The whispering increased when I appeared. With luck, that meant all of the ones who’d been present for my angry speech were telling the others about it.
After the fourth augury, I came back to find Viv and Wallach waiting near the counter. “Hi!” I said, feeling much more cheerful. “I’m afraid you’ll have to wait your turn.”
“We’re in no hurry,” Wallach said. He looked awfully relaxed, as did Viv. She wasn’t bouncing the way she had yesterday, though she still looked as chipper as always.
She still looked chipper when I finally reached their augury, despite how bored she must be at waiting. I unfolded the paper. Where can we find the right joints? “Interesting,” I said.
“It’s starting to come together,” Wallach said. “Faster than I expected, actually.”
I nodded and went into the oracle. The bright blue light of an augury glowed very nearby, bright enough that it made the rest of the room look dim. I edged through the narrow aisles until I came to the shelf where the augury lay.
Except it was two auguries. A year ago, that would have sent me into a panic. Now I knew it was just the oracle being helpful. I took the first, a fat, oversized hardcover titled…I blushed. The Complete Illustrated Kama Sutra. I hoped Wallach was as hard to embarrass as Viv. I opened the cover to see Darius Wallach, $2250 written inside in silver ink. I closed the book and tucked it securely under my arm. There wasn’t anything salacious on the cover, but I still felt its contents would be visible to everyone in the store.
Then I reached for the second augury, which was on a higher shelf and required me to stretch. Most likely, this meant Lucia was on her way. The oracle seemed to anticipate her requests more than most people.
The book was a slim paperback with a colorful cover depicting a transforming teen. Animorphs. The title was The Warning. “I guess you never know,” I said, flipping the book open.
Inside, the silver ink spelled out the words Helena Davies, No Charge.
12
I riffled through the pages as if more information might leap out at me. “A warning,” I said. “Why do I need a warning? I’m already prepared for the worst.”
The oracle didn’t respond. “And maybe it’s not that. Maybe it means something else.” It reminded me that I had yet to interpret the Old Tin Sorrows augury, though I’d finished reading the book last night. It had been intense, and disturbing, and I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it. Now I had two auguries to deal with, and no guarantee that they were related. “All right. Thanks.”