Oh.

Oh.

I understood, and did not. Many combinations in existence had meaning, and meaning has always imbued power — whether purely of an existential nature, or materially, or magically. There were the Three, of course, omnipotent on the infinitely rare occasions that they worked together. Twins. Male and female. God and mortal and the demons between.

But there was no reason for this. No precedent. They’d changed the universe. A pair of mortals.

They’d changed the universe to heal me.

They had changed the universe.

I stared at them. They stared back. Around us the chaos continued. All the other mortals seemed oblivious to what had happened, which was unsurprising. To them, it hadn’t happened. There was no blood on the ground where I’d lain. My clothes weren’t torn, because there had never been a wound. If I tried to remember, my mind conjured a glimpse of the crimson masker, hand poised before the blow, flying backward as Deka’s blast of raw magic struck. But I could also remember the blow happening first.

A moment later Nemmer appeared, dropping something heavy to the ground. A body. I blinked. No, a masker; one of the white ones. Trussed up in what looked like huge writhing snakes formed of translucent shadow. This was Nemmer’s magic. The instant she appeared, half obuef Wrath’s soldiers moved to attack, and the other half realized the mistake and tried to stop them. There was a flurry of shouts and aborted lunges and then a great deal of confused milling. I suspected that if Wrath got through this day with his position intact, he would soon put his soldiers through a heavy training course on Gods, the Quick Recognition and Not Attacking Of.

“Got them,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. She glanced at me and grinned. “Tell your mortals to stand down, Sieh. The danger has passed.”

I stared at her, mute with shock. Her grin faltered. She glared at me, then snapped her fingers at my face. I jumped.

“What the hells is wrong with you?” Her smile turned vicious. “Were you so frightened by your first taste of mortal danger, big brother?”

I felt no real anger at her taunt because I had been in mortal danger a thousand times more than she had ever been. And I had far stranger things to occupy my thoughts.

But I was not the Trickster for nothing, and my mouth moved automatically while my brain continued to churn. “I was frightened by the incompetence I saw down there,” I snapped. “Did you plan to let them nearly achieve their goal, or were your much-vaunted professionals caught napping?”

Nemmer did not lose her temper, but it was a near thing. At least she stopped smiling. “There were ten of them,” she said, which broke some of my shock and brought me back to the present. “Counting the one your pet scrivener killed. All coming from different directions, all unstoppable — unless their bodies are completely destroyed or the masks are broken. You’re lucky only one got through. We weren’t prepared for a strike of this magnitude.”

Ten of them. Ten mortals, tricked into donning the masks and turning themselves into living weapons. I shook my head, sickened.

“All the mortals up here are fine?” She spoke in a neutral tone. We were back to the unspoken truce, then.

I looked around, noting Shahar and Dekarta standing together nearby, listening to our conversation. Not far beyond them was Canru, looking uncomfortable and alone. Across the courtyard, Remath had stopped on the steps and seemed to be arguing with Ramina. Wrath faced us, his hand on his sword hilt, his gaze riveted on the masked creature at Nemmer’s feet.

“The mortals who matter are fine,” I said, feeling weary and full of grief. Ten who did not matter had died. And how many soldiers and innocents among the crowd? “We are all fine.”

She looked uneasy at my wording but nodded, gesturing at the trussed-up man in the white mask. He was not dead; I saw him fighting the bonds, panting with the effort. “This one’s for you, then. I figure the scrivener boy might be able to figure out something about this magic. Mortals understand how mortals think better than I ever will.” She paused, then lifted her hand; something else appeared in it. “I’ll give you this, too. Be careful of the intact masks, but once they’re broken, the magic dies.”

She held it out: the broken halves of the crimson mask.

I felt hard fingers punch through my flesh.

I took the mask pieces from her.

“Got to go,” she said. She sounded just like a common mortal, right down to the Wesha accent. “Things to do, secrets to gather. We’ll talk soon.” With that, she vanished.

Remath was walking back, unhurried, as if she strolled through the aftermath of an attack on her family every day. While I could speak without her hearing, I went to Shahar and Dekarta, handing the pieces of the mask to Deka. He did not take them with his bare hands, quickly pulling his sleeves down to take the halves, gingerly, by the edges.