Диана Дуэйн: Games Wizards Play

“Oh,” Kit said.

“Yes,” Irina said with an air of great patience. “So we’re going to have to wait a while to see if that’s the case. In the meantime, we’ve got to recess for a couple of hours and clean this place up enough to do the remaining two demonstrations. And since the live demo of your mentee’s spell has revealed a serious functional flaw, he’s going to have to revise it and submit it for testing before the manual steering committee allows it to be listed for public use. When he’s up to it, anyway.” She glanced over toward where Penn was sitting, being checked over by the medical staff and looking thoroughly shattered. “In the meantime, I’d appreciate it very much if in the next few days you two would make time for me to debrief you, again—” She gave them both a stern look. “And after that, please go home and try not to do anything destabilizing for the next month or so, all right? I have a family holiday planned.”

“My dad’s going to want to barbecue for you again,” Nita said.

At that, Irina smiled. “That I won’t mind,” she said. “Meanwhile, I’d appreciate it if you did a pre-debrief report for me in your manuals. Nothing too detailed . . . five or ten pages each will do.”

Nita and Kit both groaned.

“Sorry,” Irina said. “If you’re going to routinely be a force for good, you’d better get used to the paperwork.”

And she disappeared without even a puff of dust to mark where she had stood.

Kit heaved a long breath of relief.

“Yeah,” Nita said. She rubbed her face. “Come on, let’s go see if Dair’s recovered a little.”

But one more thing apparently wanted to be handled before she left. Matt extricated himself from among the crowd of medical people, and with him, Penn stood up. The two of them, bouncing very shallowly so as to stay stable, made their way over to Nita and Kit.

“Gonna take this one back to San Francisco,” Matt said, “and let him get some rest.”

“But I . . .” Penn was rubbing the back of his neck in a way that seemed to have nothing to do with trying to put his hair to rights. He looked mortified. “I feel so different.”

“I bet you do,” Nita said. “After having what you had stuck inside you for all your life get out all of a sudden . . .” She shivered. “It has to leave behind, I don’t know . . .”

“A lacuna?” Penn said.

Nita had to laugh at that. But the laughter trailed off as she realized Penn was looking at her as if he’d never really seen her before.

“Yeah,” Penn said. “My head feels, I don’t know, a lot less— crowded. ”

“I think you need to talk to our buddy Ronan,” Kit said. “He’s been through something, well, it’s not just like this, but he might be able to shed some light on what it’s going to be like for you now.”

Penn nodded, looking around him in an unfocused way. Then he looked back at Kit and Nita with an extremely unnerved expression. It was like the face of a person of exquisite taste and coolness who had suddenly realized he’d left the house wearing nothing below the waist.

“Have I, uh,” Penn said, “have I been a complete jerk?”

Nita and Kit traded glances and then turned back to him. “ Every waking minute ,” Nita said.

“To both of us,” said Kit. “But mostly to her .”

“No way, more to him! ” Nita said. “You provoked him into a duel!” Then she sighed. “I guess some of your trouble’s been secondary to having a frustrated Exhalation stuck inside you. But I wouldn’t blame her for everything. She had to have some raw material to work with . . .”

A little dejected, Penn looked back and forth between the two of them. “Does this mean you’re not going to mentor me anymore?”

Nita gazed at him in shock and wasn’t surprised to see Kit doing the same. For his part, Kit burst out laughing. “Penn,” he said, “you don’t need us now! You’ve got the full attention of the Invitational’s finals panel, and they’ll put you in touch with wizards who’ll be way better than us at helping you debug your spell for the manual.” He raised his eyebrows at Nita. “Maybe they can set you up with Dairine.”

“Nooooo,” Nita said, glancing sideways at the small crowd around her. “I think Dairine is going to be busy. Better talk to Irina and see who she recommends.”

“Okay,” Penn said. “Well, listen . . . I’m really sorry. I wish this had gone better.”

Nita shook her head and smiled, glancing over again at Dairine. “Penn,” she said, “don’t sell yourself too short. You’ve been a pain in the butt, but this has gone way better than you think. So you get going, okay? And go incredibly well.”

He smiled sheepishly, and looked surprised and pleased when Kit put a fist up to bump. But when Nita moved forward and put her arms around him and gave him a big squeeze, his mouth fell open.

“Go on,” she said as she let him go, noting with amusement Kit’s slightly widened eyes. “Get out of here and go get some rest.”

“Yeah,” Penn said. “Yeah. Dai stihó . . .”

He and Matt moved off together and dropped out of sight. When they were gone, Kit regarded her with astonishment. “You willingly touched him,” he said.

“Yes, I did,” Nita said. “Doesn’t mean I’m ever going to do it again . . .”

“Good,” Kit said, with such emphasis that Nita gave him a cockeyed look.

“Not the jealousy thing!” Nita said. “You have zero need for that. Meanwhile, we have other things to think about.” And she looked around them. “One of them being that I think I’ve got my sister back . . .”

Dairine was sitting up among her own medical people, who were leaving her one by one. She looked white and drawn and incredibly tired, but her eyes were bright, and the grin of absolute joy spread across her face gave Nita a pang of happiness. She dropped to her knees in the moondust and threw her arms around her sister and whispered in her ear, “I am so happy. ”

Dairine hugged her back. “So am I,” she said. “You have no idea.”

“And still in big trouble,” their dad remarked.

Dairine threw her hands in the air. “Okay!” she said. “Okay! I did a dangerous thing! But look how well it turned out!”

Her father covered his eyes and shook his head. “You are plainly too drunk on adrenaline and happiness for us to have this conversation right now,” he said. “And I am too relieved to see Roshaun back, and happy for Nelaid and Miril, and amazed that I have lived to see a Phoenix rise from the ashes, more or less, and blown away that I’m standing on the surface of the Moon while this whole thing is going on, even though I keep falling down every time I try to get anywhere—”

“That would be because your pockets are full of Moon rocks,” Nita said. “They still have mass , Daddy, and when you—”

“Don’t interrupt.—And I’m completely covered with dust and need a shower—”

“Yes, you do. So why don’t you take Dairine home? Nelaid’ll come and get her as soon as they’ve got Roshaun sorted out.”

Nita’s sister was staring at her with a thoughtful kind of astonishment. “And this has been really good for you ,” Dairine said, “because I have never heard you speak so much good sense at any one time in my life.” She leaned up against Nita. “And you were the one who told me to stick with this, even though I was jet-lagged out of my mind. Now I’m wondering if I’d even have made all these connections without being so wired from exhaustion and pissed off at Mehrnaz’s people!” And she laughed wearily. “Maybe not. Maybe the Powers know what they’re doing . . .”