Lupi 09 - Mortal Ties

Diego?”
    “It’s connected to the case.” Lily felt the slow, dull throb of a headache begin.
     She rubbed her neck. “Beth, I need to tell you some things you won’t like hearing.
     There’s other stuff I won’t be able to tell you. You won’t like that, either.” She
     patted the couch. “Sit down and let’s talk.”
    Beth didn’t move. “Is this an I’ve-got-bad-news sit down?”
    “It’s an I-don’t-want-to-crane-my-neck-watching-you-pace sit down. Come on. Sit.”
    Beth scowled, took three steps, and dropped onto the couch. “So talk.”
    Lily took a deep breath. “Sean Friar is the brother of a very bad guy named Robert
     Friar.”
    Beth rolled her eyes. “Like I didn’t know that.”
    Lily couldn’t think of one thing to say.
    “Sean and I are
friends.
Maybe I’d like to be more, but the friend part is for real. Of course he’s told me
     about his brother. Half brother, really—same mother, different fathers. Robert was
     adopted by Sean’s father, who was Robert’s stepfather, which is how come they have
     the same last name.”
    “You knew. You knew, and you didn’t say a word to me.” Lily grabbed onto her temper
     and yanked it back. It was not good technique to yell at a witness…even when that
     witness was your own stupid, thinks-she’s-at-the-center-of-the-world little sister who…
deep breath
, she told herself. “What do you know about Robert Friar?” Beth had to know some of
     it. The news had been full of the story for a week.
    “You’re pissed.”
    “Yes. Yes, I am.”
    “I knew you’d react like this! I knew it! That’s why I didn’t tell you about Sean,
     because you’d leap to all kinds of conclusions before you even met him!”
    Lily leaned forward. “Did you stop to think for even one moment that this might be
     about more than your feelings? That maybe, just maybe, I might have more on my mind
     where Friar is concerned than interfering in your—oh, but it isn’t a romance, is it?
     Your
friendship
with the brother of a man who tried to kill thousands, including Toby, and—”
    A warm hand landed on her shoulder. “Lily.” Rule squeezed gently. “May I take this
     for now?”
    Sure. Yes. Because if she said another word, she was going to speak it while shaking
     Beth so hard whatever passed for brains in her sister’s head spilled out.
    Rule took her silence for assent. “Beth, Robert Friar is the man who took me and Cullen
     and several others captive. He attempted to set explosives off at Clanhome, which
     would have killed Toby and many others in my clan.”
    Beth nodded seriously. “I heard about all that, of course—on the TV, since Lily refused
     to discuss it, but it was all over the news. Friar was with that elf, right? I can’t
     think of the elf guy’s name, but they were killed when the elf did some kind of big
     magic and brought the mountain down on them. You and Lily and Cullen escaped in the
     nick of time with—was it Benedict?”
    “And a few others, yes.”
    “That’s horrible, it’s really, deeply horrible, but”—she gave Lily a dirty look—“it
     had nothing to do with Sean.”
    “It wouldn’t, perhaps,” Rule said, “except that we don’t think Robert Friar died.”
    “What? But that—the news said—Sean thinks his brother is dead!” She bounced to her
     feet to glare at Lily. “You let him think his brother was dead!”
    Lily kept her voice steady. “We have no concrete evidence that he survived, but no
     body was found, and we do know…have you heard of patterning?”
    Beth shook her head impatiently. “I haven’t, and what does that have to do with Sean?”
    “Patterning is the ability to manipulate possibilities. It’s a rare Gift and usually
     shows up in its weak form, but it’s known in some circles as the Gift of the gods.
     A really strong patterner can make even highly unlikely events occur—such as surviving
     the collapse of a mountain.”
    Beth followed her meaning well enough. “Except that Sean’s brother wasn’t Gifted.”
    “He didn’t start out that way, but Robert Friar is now a listener and a patterner.
     He received his second Gift just before the node imploded and brought down the cave
     system.”
    “No one can give someone else a Gift.”
    “Old Ones do the damnedest things,” Lily said dryly.
    Beth opened her mouth. Closed it. After a moment she said quietly, “I think I need
     to hear a lot more than I have about what happened.”
    “I think maybe