Lupi 08 - Death Magic

matters to me. They both matter to me. I need to help, but I can’t if I don’t have all the facts, guesses, wild-ass crazy notions.”
    “All right, then. What I suspect is happenin’ is that the mantle keeps healing her . . . only she isn’t lupus. Her body can’t handle the kind of magic it uses. It’s been healing her arm, but that’s slow. It took a while for that kind of healing to strain things so much she had the first TIA. But if the mantle works like regular lupi healing, it prioritizes—and the brain is its first priority. So that TIA created a rush job.”
    “TIAs are by definition temporary. They don’t cause lasting damage.”
    “The symptoms of a TIA are temporary. That don’t mean there’s no damage. Now, that damage is minor enough that the brain establishes a workaround pretty quick, but it’s there. But the kind of healing you lupi do wants to make everything perfect, and it’s her brain, so it heals her as fast as it can, only fast healin’ is harder on Lily than the slow kind. She has another TIA. More rushed healing. Another TIA.”
    Fear tightened his throat. It made way too much sense. For four weeks after Lily accepted the job of host to Wythe’s mantle the only thing that happened was the gradual healing of her arm. Then one very brief but blinding headache. The next day, two headaches—and they lasted a bit longer, weakened her more. “It won’t stop. She’ll keep having TIAs until one of them causes too much damage for the mantle to heal. It will try. And it will kill her.”

SEVENTEEN
     

     
    THE sky was dreary with pending rain when Lily slid her key into the lock, turned it, and shoved open the back door. She wanted Rule and he was not here. About ten miles to the northeast, she thought.
    She could ask one of the guards where he’d gone. They’d probably know.
    Hell with that. She shut the door, locked it, and dropped her purse. And stood there, clenching and unclenching her left hand, staring at a hole in the wall next to the pantry. A fist-sized hole.
    Rule had needed to run, he’d said. When she left to go back to the job, he’d said he needed to run, and with the way his eyes had kept trying to bleed to black, she’d thought that was a good plan.
    Apparently he’d also needed to put his fist through something. She could relate. Lily set her laptop on the table. “Cullen? You here?”
    She heard footsteps on the stairs. “Quiet,” he said as he got closer. “The Rhej is asleep. I was about to order pizza.”
    “No anchovies.” The tight band around her shoulders eased slightly. Maybe it was just as well Cullen was here and Rule wasn’t. Some things might be easier to talk about with him. “And let the guards know about the delivery. Order plenty. Rule’s headed this way.” She hadn’t noticed that at first, but now that she was paying attention she knew he was in motion, headed this way.
    “Rule likes anchovies.”
    “I don’t.” She took out the coffee grinder. She used her left hand. It gripped the grinder just fine. “Maybe the Rhej doesn’t. Did you ask?”
    He snorted as he reached the kitchen. “Did you miss the part where I said she’s asleep?”
    “You could have asked before she fell asleep.”
    “I didn’t. Rule called the Szøs Rho. That candidate he found for the Wythe mantle will be here tomorrow morning.”
    “He texted me about it.”
    “Huh.” He tipped his head. “It isn’t five o’clock yet.”
    “No. It isn’t.” She opened the canister where Rule kept his special-order, fresh-roasted coffee beans. “Did you get a look at the dagger?”
    “I called Sherry and asked to put it off until tonight. We’ll meet up there about eight. You’re taking a coffee break?”
    “I got sent home. One of those damn pain bolts hit me in front of Mullins, and he banished me.”
    Cullen’s eyebrows climbed. “This Mullins guy told you to go home . . . and you did?”
    “I didn’t pass out.” She brooded on that a moment. “I must’ve looked bad, though. I, uh, told him it was a migraine. He gave me a choice. Either I go home or he tells Drummond about my little problem.” Unstated but clear was that Drummond would pull her if she couldn’t pass a medical. The surprising part was that Mullins would cover for her at all.
    Maybe he’d lied. Maybe he’d told Drummond anyway. She’d find out, she supposed. “This one was different.”
    “Different how?”
    “I didn’t get nearly as dizzy, and while I’m