Page 16 of Snag
I lay my palm on the center of the gryphon shifter’s chest, and he settles into a glower. Rather than beating Coda into submission.
I once again ignore the inappropriate thrill that runs down my spine at Rought’s display of dominant possession. Over me, about me.
No one protects me. Not outright like that. Not even my aunt did so.
The awry tech completely disregards the pissy shifter. “Stop blocking me.”
“I’m not doing it,” I say calmly, understanding that being at all cut off from their tech — or at least restricted in reach — is going to upset Coda on a visceral level. “You said it was a blank spot, remember? When I first called you from here? Even with one of your phones.”
“Tech works here,” Rought says, just a little unhelpfully.
“Maybe well enough for your insignificant reach,” Coda snaps back at the gryphon shifter, spinning in the chair to turn their back on us.
Rought opens his mouth to retort, but I shake my head at him. He huffs, then nods with a grimace.
I close the space between Coda and me, ignoring that I’m suddenly chilled in all the places that were previously pressed against Rought. Because while I might be willing to entertain the idea of a soul bond, that reaction is just irrational.
Stacked against the walls with wires running overhead, tech hums around us at different frequencies. I have noidea what any of it is or does. Batteries? Hard drives? Servers?
“Don’t touch anything,” Coda mutters, fingers clacking across the keyboard directly in front of them.
The first few times I met or visited Coda in person, I inadvertently dispelled months of the tech’s work with a brush of my arm or hip. Even before I was the Conduit, my essence instantly canceled out the power of the other awry. Despite the fact that little trick is usually reserved for spells and such with malicious intent.
I always suspected it was the same reason that made me near impossible to track via tech. The same reason Rought was unable to find me, no matter the years he spent searching across his own screens and keyboards.
“I know,” I murmur soothingly. To Coda. I’m still not managing to keep my own whirling mind from perpetually hovering at the edge of what feels like unhinged chaos.
Back turned and still ignoring me in favor of the monitors, Coda huffs belligerently.
“Thank you for coming.” Following a whisper of a knowing, or maybe it’s just my subconscious stepping in to defuse the tension, I gently lay my hands on Coda’s shoulders. “Thank you for being here for me when I needed you, but didn’t know how to ask you for something so … personal.”
Coda shudders under the touch of my energy, and the tech awry’s fingers fall still on the keyboard. It’s rare that I touch anyone without invitation, and Coda might honestly be touch-phobic. But they don’t flinch away from me, so I maintain the contact.
Their head drops forward, hair falling all around their sharp-edged jaw. “I should have come sooner. I’m sorry. I … I knew something was wrong, and I didn’t even … ask. I felt it,under my fingers, in my mind … not a disturbance but a shift in the fundamental energy that …” Coda trails off, but out of reluctance to continue rather than confusion or a lack of understanding.
“I wasn’t ready then.” I level my gaze on the glitching screens arrayed on the three walls surrounding us.
“Tell me what you need of me,” Coda says hoarsely, almost pleading.
And for a moment, it sounds like more than a simple request.
It sounds like … prayer.
I push that sense away. I want to be Zaya with Coda. Not the Conduit. Not some goddess to be worshiped. “Find me the dire mage. Chains called her Bellamy.”
Energy shifts under my hands, spreading across Coda’s shoulders.
The tech awry shudders again, fingers twitching.
The screens before us blink awake. Or at least that’s how it appears.
Coda lurches forward, excited and instantly focused.
My hands fall to my sides.
The energy of the intersection point settles into a quiet hum under my feet. It’s difficult to distinguish between that endless reservoir of power and my own essence while I’m on the property — or perhaps those two energies are now so enmeshed that I can’t feel the difference without reaching for it. Either way, I didn’t realize it was so agitated before.
Perhaps Coda, being awry, needed a more formal invitation onto the estate.
