M.L.N. Hanover: Vicious Grace

“By small steps, we achieve wisdom,” Ex said in a voice that made me think he was quoting someone. Probably ironically.

AS IF the universe knew that Denver made me uncomfortable, the layover took two hours longer than it was supposed to, the second leg of the flight delayed by bad weather in Missouri. The four of us ate a long lunch of pizza and salads at the Wolfgang Puck Express, then scattered to kill time in the shops. Retail therapy—usually one of my first resorts—wasn’t working; I felt like a cat that smelled pit bull. After fifteen minutes, I gave up, headed back to our gate, and fidgeted there instead. I tried meditating, focusing the vital energy called qi in my belly and slowly pulling it up my body. But as I did, my mind kept wandering back to the reasons Chogyi Jake and Ex had taught me this kind of little magic. Like being hunted by cults of evil wizards who could disguise themselves with cantrips or fighting spiritual parasites hidden inside apparently normal people. My focus was for crap.

I tried crowd watching. And then giving my attention to the constant babble of news on the televisions in the concourse. And then going to the bathroom and washing my hands and face. When I got back out, Chogyi Jake was sitting in the plastic chair with one of those Mylar bags of Cracker Jacks. I plopped down at his side, and he tipped the bag toward me. I took a handful. The popcorn’s okay, but I’ve always been a sucker for the caramel peanuts. Something about the salty and the sweet together. The white noise of voices and rattling roll-away suitcases and incomprehensible, garbled PA announcements gave us a kind of privacy.

“All well?” I said.

“Well enough,” Chogyi Jake said. “You?”

“Got a little too much extraneous stuff on my plate,” I said. “But I’ll pull it together. I’m fine.”

The slightest of all possible frowns touched his brow as he popped another cluster of popcorn and sugar into his mouth.

“I’m sorry that the training didn’t go better,” he said.

“Yeah, well. It was worth a shot,” I said. “We can go back later, maybe. For you guys, at least.”

“I’m not particularly concerned with us,” he said.

“You’re worried about me? I’m the one who flipped Trevor the Ninja King into his own wall. I appear to be fine.”

“That’s what concerns me,” he said. “After all we’ve done, there’s still nothing that tells us what protections Eric placed on you. What the parameters were.”

“How to change the oil. When to rotate the tires,” I said.

This was a conversation we’d had before. Magic fades. If we didn’t figure out what exactly Uncle Eric had done, sooner or later it would go away. Probably when it was under stress. Like in the middle of a fight when something was trying to kill me.

“I don’t know what else to do,” I said. “We’re looking, right? We’ve found a lot of stuff. We’ll find more. Maybe we’ll get the part that tells us what’s the right kind of juju. Maybe we won’t. But—”

“But you took us to Trevor so that you could build defenses of your own,” Chogyi Jake said. “Something you understood and controlled. Only the attempt failed.”

From anyone else, it would have stung. If Chogyi Jake had a superpower, it was that he could say things that should have hurt and make them seem like they were just more information. He would have made someone an excellent mother.

“It did,” I said. “I don’t know that it was a bad idea, though.”

“It wasn’t. It seems absolutely the right impulse.”

“And yet,” I said, rooting through his bag for another peanut, “here I am going into fieldwork without actually following through on it.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think I have an option,” I said. “Even if it wasn’t Kim, I don’t see how I can wait until I’m ready for everything before I try doing anything.”

“I understand that.”

“Then what are you telling me?”

“Be aware of what you are. Of what your limitations are. Respect them.”

“You know, that’s really vague.”

Chogyi Jake took a deep breath, letting it out slowly through his teeth. He let his head fall back until he was staring at the ceiling. Behind us, an older woman was scolding a little boy in a loud, grating voice. A pack of five Japanese kids in matching black outfits hurried past, staring at the gate numbers. I took another handful of popcorn and sugar, and I waited.

“I do know,” he said.

“I can try not to count on things I don’t understand, but it isn’t like I’ve been swaggering around looking for trouble. I don’t think of myself as the badass warrior princess whatever.”

He nodded, but I could tell he didn’t quite mean it.

“When I was eighteen,” he said, “I was living in a two-bedroom apartment in South Carolina with five other people. We were taking a lot of drugs, so we were very hesitant to call the landlord if something was wrong. For instance, there was a raised patio outside with a split in the railing. We all knew about it. We respected it. But we were junkies. It wasn’t something we cared about. And it was solid enough. Strong enough. Reliable enough. I knew it was untrustworthy, but every time I leaned against it, it supported me. Every time I put something heavy on the rail—just for a moment, of course, because I knew it was broken—it held.”

“Until it didn’t, right?”

“But by then, I trusted it. Yes, I knew better, but all my experience had trained me to believe otherwise. It was classical conditioning,” he said. “You have won every fight you’ve been in. Even when it ended with you in the hospital, you’ve won. Those successes have an effect. They teach you that you can succeed, and that Eric’s protections are reliable. And you’ll be right. Until you aren’t.”

A man got on the speakers, announcing with mushy consonants that our flight would be boarding in half an hour and thanking us for our patience. Chogyi Jake ate the last of his snack, crumpled the bag, and tossed it neatly into a garbage can four seats down.

“What happened?” I asked.

He shook his head, asking a question with the gesture.

“When the rail broke,” I said. “What happened?”

“I fell over. The patio was only raised by a few inches, and we had a lawn. I didn’t get hurt.”

I laughed. I didn’t know why I’d expected something dark and tragic, but I had. Chogyi Jake’s constant smile took on a rueful cast. Far down the concourse, I caught sight of Ex and Aubrey walking together. Ex was moving his hands in short, sharp gestures while he spoke. Aubrey’s head was canted toward him, listening intently. Despite the fact that Aubrey was my acknowledged lover and Ex his unacknowledged rival, the two of them got along well. Or maybe not despite. Maybe it was because we all recognized the tension but didn’t talk about it that they both made the extra effort. Whatever it was, it worked.

“Look,” I said, “I can try to be careful. Not push my limits. But since I don’t know exactly where my limits are , the only way I can find out for sure is to go too far.”

“That’s what Eric did,” Chogyi Jake said. “He went to the limit of his ability, and past it, and the Invisible College killed him.”

My stomach went a little tighter.

“Yeah, okay,” I said. “So I shouldn’t do that.”

“Not if you can help it.”

THE FLIGHT into O’Hare was ugly. The storm front that had delayed our flight in the first place left enough turbulence behind it to shake the airplane like a terrier. The sun set behind us, and the clouds far below glittered and flashed with lightning. Even in the first-class cabin, people were feeling testy and miserable, myself included. Aubrey, beside me, seemed to be asleep, but there was a green cast to his skin and his hands were balled into fists. My own stomach was unsteady, and I turned away the meal the flight attendants offered.