“You’re goddamned right I will,” I said, because the empirical evidence was pretty tough to dispute. “But if I was as hard-core as you think I am, you wouldn’t be walking off this island with your own mind. And maybe not at all.”
Lara narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean by that?”
I threw up my hands. “Hell’s bells, Lara. Look, if I wanted to do something bad to you, I could right now. You’re standing in the wrong place, I have the advantage, and if I wanted to wreak some manner of skullduggery upon you, you aren’t in a position to stop me from doing it.”
Words could not be more rigid than the ones she spoke. “I am aware.”
“No!” I said. “That’s not … Augh! Look, I’m not saying that because I’m trying to leverage you. I’m pointing out that I can do it, but I’m not going to because it’s just … dickish. And I try to avoid acting like that whenever I can.”
Lara frowned. “What?”
“Look, I know you play the game real hard,” I said. “That’s in your nature. But you also understand family.”
She tilted her head, frowning. “What do you mean by that?”
“That Thomas is my family, too,” I said. “I won’t do anything to knowingly harm him. Um, again. And if he needs me, I’ll be there for him.”
“And,” Lara murmured thoughtfully, “I suppose if anything happens to you, terrible things happen to my brother.”
“Not terrible,” I said. “ Just … nothing.” Unless the next Warden decided to free him. I hadn’t yet finished reviewing the inmates of the island. The filing system of the island, such as it was, was a psychic one. Reviewing the inmates meant reviewing the inmates. The first half dozen or so had left me with nightmares for a couple of weeks, and there’s only so much masochism I can keep all to myself.
“He’s trapped there forever,” Lara said.
“No. He’s safe there until we can find a way to cure him,” I said.
She regarded me with flat eyes. “And as a happy side effect, if I wish to protect his life, now I must invest resources in protecting yours.”
That hadn’t been what I’d been planning at all.
And yet … by Lara’s standards, that’s exactly what I’d done.
There is plenty of daylight between intentions and results. Intentions are fine things, but they don’t stanch bleeding or remove scars.
Or heal broken brothers.
Man. I hadn’t planned it like that.
Had I?
Maybe I’d been hanging around Mab too much.
“Lara,” I said tiredly, “I’ll grant you, yes, that’s how things stand. We can talk all night about how they got there. But I swear to you, I didn’t do it to try to get a handle on you. Of every person you have had to deal with, which of them has tried harder to avoid even touching your … handles?”
She stared at me with that unreadable expression for a good minute. Then she said, “Empty Night, wizard. Either you’re sincere, in which case”—she shook her head, baffled—“I feel I do not understand you very well at all. Or you’re a person capable of using even your brother’s misfortune and possible death to secure gain for yourself while simultaneously cladding your actions in such moral armor as to make them practically unassailable. In which case, I suppose … I admire your skill in arranging matters.”
“I figure you can look at this two ways,” I said.
She arched an eyebrow.
“You can write this down in your little black book and remember it,” I said, “because I took a cheap shot at you when you needed help, when you earned it, and when you came to ask for it, you deserved getting it. And instead, I leveraged you.”
“That is one way to look at it,” Lara concurred.
“Or,” I said, “you can take it as a bit of circumstance that happened because circumstances are bugnuts, absolutely insane, and you and I do not have reasonable jobs for sane and rational people. Both of us are making it up as we go along, as best we know how. Both of us look for the knives coming at our backs, and both of us take action to prevent them. That includes being suspicious-minded enough to take out a little insurance even when you aren’t consciously thinking about doing so.”
Something like grudging understanding tinged her gaze for a second. She let out a soft snort through her nose.
“So,” she said. “You agree with the old man. And decided to be a very clever frog with this scorpion.”
“I respect what you can do, Lara,” I said quietly. “You’re one of my favorite frenemies. But if we both want to survive, a certain amount of moving past these rough spots is going to be necessary.”
She let out a hard little laugh. “I suppose, then, I shall expect a similar amount of tolerance from you when, one day, I have the upper hand.”
I winced at her tone. It was hard, unforgiving.
I’m pretty sure I could have thought of a number of terrible things I could do to Lara Raith that wouldn’t have made her blink. But making her feel helpless was not on that list.
I definitely did not want to think about Lara gaining the upper hand between us. I didn’t want to think about that for more than a couple of reasons.
“Yeah, that’s fair,” I breathed. “When it’s my turn, I’ll have to take it with grace. But look: You got what you wanted. Our brother is safe. He’s hidden from any tracking spells and he’ll at least not be in any worse shape while he’s a guest here. Yes, you’re going to have to watch my back until we can get him out of there, but since Mab’s got me covering yours anyway, that shouldn’t be too much of a stretch for you—and we’ve got bigger fish to fry right now. Let’s survive the night, and we’ll sort out Thomas tomorrow. Agreed?”
She kept at it with those flat eyes for another minute before she shook her head and pushed her dark hair back out of her eyes. “Fine,” she said. “Yes, all right. Your reasoning is sound. We have larger issues to face. They must take priority. I accept your terms. You have my word.”
“Thank you,” I said.
Lara recovered her knife and turned away from me. “And after that,” she said, starting back for the boat, “my first prerogative shall be balancing any scales between us that seem less than level. Beginning with my bodyguard. You will release her, please.”
I gestured, muttered to the island, and felt Freydis’s tension ease as she escaped the sinkhole I’d put her in. The redheaded Valkyrie melted out of the shadows. She paced over to Lara’s side, checking her client for injury, before giving me the kind of steady, cautious look people normally reserve for dangerous animals.
“Shall we return to the city, then?” Lara asked. Her voice was its normal velvet loveliness again, but I could feel the sharp edges underneath.
Fabulous. This was just what I needed. To provide people like Lara with motivation.
“Go ahead and board,” I said. “I need to grab a couple things. We’ll leave in five minutes.”
Lara nodded stiffly and turned to walk back to the ship. She was limping slightly and had been thoroughly muddied. I watched her go.