Down to the Bone: Quantum Gravity Book Five by Justina Robson Read Free Book Online Page A

comment. Lila
     was taking notes on him now, endless, cold notes: I do this, you do that.
    She asked him, ‘How does it feel?’
    The demon flexed one hand, claws suddenly apparent on his fingertips in a way that happened only when he was readying for
     a fight. She’d seen them rip through limbs with a seemingly casualswipe. Their edges and tips were diamond sharp and in the tentative Otopian dawn they shone with a wet look. Then, as readily
     as they’d emerged, they subsided into more of a human nail, blunt and shortened, all the easier to make a fist with. He looked
     at her for a long moment and she saw him struggling to find any words.
    ‘I feel strange tides,’ he said finally, disappointed with his own pronouncement. ‘Things move unseen beneath.’
    Lila appended it to the casebook she’d opened on him and closed it down. ‘I can track your progress, but I can’t say anything
     about it. Only give you the facts.’
    At that moment the waitressing elf returned. Lila expected her to ask them to leave but instead, face firmly steeled against
     their reaction and eyes averted from any direct eye contact, she said, ‘Azrazal Ahriman-Sikarza, someone wishes to speak with
     you privately.’
    Zal opened his eyes and looked up at her without moving. ‘Who is it?’
    ‘I cannot say.’
    Zal closed his eyes. ‘Then I can’t go. Tell them to come here.’
    Lila scanned the entry records, wondering who was there, but as a private club it didn’t have to reveal its data to her without
     a warrant even if she had the highest level of clearance, and she didn’t have one. She considered hacking them but that seemed
     a bit excessive and they’d already strained Zal’s status there to breaking point as it was. She didn’t want to ruin it entirely
     for him.
    The waitress hesitated and it was clear that she wanted to deliver Zal’s message about as much as she wanted to drink poison,
     but after a second she turned on her heel and paced away with that elegant stride that made elves seem to glide easily over
     any ground. Lila found she was glad of the intrusion. Wordlessly Zal reached out and passed her the coffee cup. As she took
     it she felt his thumb brush the backs of her fingers. Teazle saw it – it was right under his nose – and sighed with a strange
     softness. She had no idea what to make of this but there was no time to wonder.
    A new figure came drifting towards them, tall and as narrow as an arrow. It wore a green cloak with a large hood that hid
     its face in a deep shadow. Here and there movements revealed a delicate female body wearing ranger’s clothes in plain materials.
     An Otopian government-issue Tree-pad was attached to her belt, concealed in a tiny leather satchel. Lila thought you probably
     couldn’t do much withoutone of those, hate it as you might, and looked up as the mystery elf’s two long, white hands started to lift themselves towards
     the hood. With slow exactitude they lifted it and swept it backwards.
    There was nothing that could have prepared her for the sight.
    Lila froze. Zal was suddenly on his feet with no apparent transition from asleep to vertical. His eyes were wide, his expression
     grim. Only Teazle sat with an expression of mild interest.
    Before them, as large as life and as pretty as Lila remembered her, stood Arie, the Lady of Aparastil, whom she’d last seen
     disappearing down the gullet of a large dragon in the dark depths of Aparastil Lake.
    It had honestly never occurred to her that anyone other than the humans could become Returners but she supposed that if the
     dead could be brought back here, they must be able to be brought back anywhere. There seemed no law governing who returned
     and who didn’t. Perhaps this was spectacularly bad luck. But looking at Arie’s face she didn’t think so. That confident, preening
     air suggested the same level of calculation was in place that had plotted Zal’s permanent imprisonment and eternal torture
     and