“You shot first, though. We were just standing talking, by the side of the road. He shot back in self-defense.”
“I know. But everything seemed to indicate that you were in peril. He’d taken you to a perfect spot for an execution, at an ideal time-“
“No,” I said. “Your shot went wide, and you left yourself open for what followed.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“You solved the problem of possibly having to shoot Luke by setting up a situation where he shot you.”
“I couldn’t do that, under a geas.”
“Maybe not consciously,” I said. “So something stronger than the geas found a way.”
“You really believe that?”
“Yes, and it’s all right for you to admit it now. You’re released from the geas. My mother told me. You told me-I think.”
She nodded. “I don’t know exactly when it came undone, or how,” she said. “But it’s gone-though I’d still try to protect you if something threatened. It’s good that you and Luke are really friends, and-“
“So why the secret?” I interrupted. “Why not just tell him you were Gail? Surprise the hell out of him-pleasantly.”
“You don’t understand,” she said. “He broke up with me, remember? Now I’ve another chance. It’s like it was, all over again. He-likes me a lot. I’m afraid to say, ‘I’m really the girl you once broke up with.’ It might get him to thinking of all the reasons why, and make him decide he was right the first time.”
“That’s silly,” I said. “I don’t know what reasons he gave. He never told me about it. Just said there’d been an argument. But I’m sure they were specious. I know he liked you. I’m sure he really broke up with you because he was a son of Amber about to come home on some very nasty business, and there was no room for what he thought was a normal shadow girl in the picture. You’d played your part too well.”
“Is that why you broke up with Julia?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
“Sorry.”
I noticed the black trail had widened about a foot since we’d begun talking. I was in the market for a mathematical problem just then.