“All right,” said Morgana. She added a little wistfully, “I know you don’t have to tell me anything about your job, and maybe you can’t tell me everything, but do you think you’re getting somewhere?”
“Yeah, we’re getting somewhere,” I said, exchanging a look with Daniel. “But I don’t know where it is we’re getting. I had some more info this morning, and I keep thinking I almost know how it fits together, but it’s not sitting right yet.”
“Maybe you should try talking it out,” said Daniel, with a pretty pointed look.
I grinned at him. “Sorry. I was gunna have a word with you but JinYeong was a bit under the weather. We’ll have a chat when I get back home later, yeah? I have something I need to take care of first.”
“All right,” he said. “But if you’re gunna make a habit of taking care of the v—JinYeong instead of talking to me, my feelings are gunna be hurt.”
JinYeong would have come out with me that morning, but I managed to persuade him otherwise, and perhaps he was still recuperating, because he didn’t try to push it too much. Daniel was inclined to try and come along, too, but I didn’t have any clear idea in my mind of what I wanted to do, other than hide the glass USB somewhere that Zero wouldn’t think to look for it. Obviously, Morgana’s house was out of bounds until I knew he wouldn’t hunt me down and make an all-out attack with Athelas for company. But mostly I needed to think about my next step in North’s job, and bar sitting down on my own kitchen bench with a cup of coffee, walking was the best thing for thinking.
I’d only gotten to the top of the street when I realised I’d come out without having even a cup of coffee this morning. I sighed, and mentally weighed the necessity of coffee against the ridiculousness of spending my hard-earned money on shop coffee again when there was some at home.
Then I thought beggar it, I’m gunna, and marched toward the closest chain store instead of going to my favourite shop with the amazing coffee and mysterious, smiling stranger. It was probably better if I didn’t visit that shop more than once a week—I didn’t know if I could survive being smiled at more than once a week. I was also more than slightly suspicious of the owner of that smile, with his steady coil of Between that seemed to seep into his laptop.
I ordered a latte by way of a change, and when I turned around to carry it to a table, the first thing I saw was Athelas, leaning back in a window booth with his legs elegantly crossed and a steaming pot of tea in front of him.
I slid into the booth across from him and glared at him. “What are you doing here?”
“May I point out, Pet,” said Athelas gently, “that I was here first? If either of us should be put out at the other’s presence, I really do think I have more right to be so. I came here merely for a cup of their very excellent tea.”
“Yeah? Well, I think you knew I was gunna be here. I don’t have the USB on me, so if you’re trying to pinch it, you’re too late. I gave it back to my client.”
I mean, I didn’t know where North was, but neither did they. They didn’t know I didn’t know, either. Hopefully Athelas didn’t guess I was lying about having the USB on me, either.
Athelas’ brows rose. “Dear me! Your client! How very business-like of you, Pet!”
“What do you want?”
“Shall I point out again that I was here first?”
“You can point it out until the cows come home,” I told him. “Doesn’t mean I’m gunna believe you came here just for the fun of it.”
“I believe I mentioned it was the tea I came for. Our pet recently left us without so much as a by-your-leave, and my lord is really not very good at making tea.”
“Neither am I.”
“Ah, but you are a quick learner, Pet,” he said tranquilly. “Very well, if you will have it, I wished to ask you to refrain from causing quite as much trouble as you have hitherto caused. You’re causing some difficulties at home, which is perfectly understandable, but difficulties abroad are a much harder harm to mitigate.”
“What a shame,” I said, without trying to disguise the sarcasm in my voice.
Athelas looked at me over his teacup and said, “Bitter mockery does not suit you, Pet.”
“I ought to kick you in the shins!” I said indignantly. “You and Zero both!”
“I really urge you not to become too fond of Behindkind,” he said. “We are not in the habit of self-sacrifice.”
“Is this the part where I tell you not to change the subject, and you tell me you weren’t changing it?”
“Even so.”
“Then let’s skip this part, because I already want to kick you in the shins.”
“I wonder if you know what it is you had?”
“Do you? Why would I have taken it if I didn’t know what it was?”
“I assume, Pet,” he said gently, “that you took it because you were doing what you usually do—sniffing at something with the tenacity of a terrier until you uncover something. I should hate to think it was merely to annoy my lord.”
“That was just a bonus,” I said.
Athelas raised his brows. “Indeed. I wonder if JinYeong felt the same way last night?”
A deep stab of regret and shame pierced me. He was right—I shouldn’t be joking about stuff like that when I wasn’t the one who’d paid the price for it.
“All right,” I said, clearing my throat. It wasn’t like he was really going to help, but I might as well ask, because sometimes he did. “What’s on it that’s so important?”
“You shouldn’t have allowed JinYeong to help you,” he said, instead of answering the question. “Zero doesn’t approve.”
I opened my mouth to say that I couldn’t care less what Zero approved of, but Athelas wasn’t finished.
“If it comes to that, I find I don’t approve, either,” he said. “Really Pet, has so little of my instruction remained with you since you left?”
“Instruction? Is that what you call it?”
Athelas’ eyes dropped back to his tea. “Hm. Perhaps not. However, I really do caution against putting yourself in debt to the vampire.”
“There’s no bargain,” I said.
He blinked once, and looked up again. “I beg your pardon?”
“No bargain,” I told him again. “JinYeong’s doing it without pay. I’m not in debt to him because he did it freely. So you can’t go objecting to it.”
“On the contrary,” he said, straightening. “I object to it even more in that case, and I’m absolutely certain that my lord will be excessively unhappy about it.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well, you can feel however you like, but I’m not at home anymore and JinYeong’s not coming back either. You two try and hurt him again and you’ll have to deal with both of us.”
“Then I take it the vampire is still clinging to life?”
There was something in his vanilla voice that made me look sharply across at him. “You came out to make sure he was all right, didn’t you?”
“I repudiate the idea utterly.”
“He’s fine. I gave him some blood a couple of times and he’s started asking for his cologne again, so he must be doing okay.”
“I thought you said that you didn’t owe him anything,” said Athelas, very, very gently.
“I don’t. I gave him the blood because he needed it, and because I could. I didn’t have to do it.”
“Do you really think so? I fancy you’ve merely traded one kind of balance sheet for another, Pet.”
“Yeah?” I didn’t believe it, but it seemed to be the only way Behindkind were capable of thinking. “Well, at least it’s a human balance sheet.”
Athelas looked down at his tea once again, this time meditatively. Then taking me completely by surprise, he asked, “If I asked you to come back, would you come back?”
“Can’t,” I said. “What’s the point? What’s changed?”
“You have unbalanced our existence.”
“I didn’t do anything,” I protested. “I just left.”<
br />
“Even the house is trying to bring you back,” he said, and now he was looking at me steadily. He was trying to tell me something—trying to tell me something in his usual, tortuous, brain-worm-tricky way.
On the spur of the moment, I said to him, “There’s no brain worm. You can just say stuff, you know.”
Athelas’ teacup clattered a little in the saucer as he set it down. “Ah,” he sighed. “So you did meet my lord’s father.”
“Reckon so. Big bloke, no wrinkles? Puts a little worm in your brain to eat out the truth?”
“Pet, it really is the height of foolishness not to accept our protection if you’ve attracted the notice of one of the most powerful fae Behind.”
“Have a biscuit,” I said, sliding one across the table. They were just the free ones from the jar at the counter, and I’d taken two.
Athelas smiled faintly, but he accepted the biscuit. “Are you changing the subject, Pet?”
“Sorta,” I said. “Actually, I haven’t got much time to talk this morning.”
“Ah, your client.”
“Sorta,” I said again.
“If it were me,” said Athelas thoughtfully, “I would be wondering exactly why it is that this little human is so important to Upper Management. Not to mention your flighty friend North.”
“I’ve been trying to figure that out,” I told him. “North either doesn’t know or isn’t telling. There’s gotta be something about her that worries them or interests them enough to keep tabs on her instead of killing her.”
“Indeed,” Athelas said.
I opened my mouth to add, “I mean, it’s not like people just wander in and out of Behind, is it? You lot are always telling me that”, but the words caught in the back of my throat in a startled intake of breath.
A bright, sparkling thought crystalized in my mind. Who else did I know who had escaped from Behind and come back to the human world, who had also been targeted by changelings?
The old bloke. The old bloke that Zero and Athelas suspected could be the harbinger. The old bloke that Upper Management and the Family both thought was dead.
What if Upper Management thought that Sarah Palmer was the next harbinger? I’d been told that whoever the harbinger favoured as heirling was most likely to become the next ruler of the Behind world. What if Upper Management and the Family had been fighting over the current harbinger until they had (as they thought) killed him? And now Upper Management thought they had the drop on the Family by finding the new harbinger.
I pulled in a very slow and steady breath through my nose, blinking away the brightness of my realisation and hoping that it hadn’t been as obvious as I thought it must have been to Athelas.
I had it. I knew how I could leverage Upper Management into releasing Sarah Palmer and her parents from their contract.
It was going to be dangerous—for the Palmers and North as well as me—but it was doable.
Maybe Athelas saw a bit of that reflecting in my eyes, because he said, “We can protect you if you come back, Pet. No matter what you’re up to, no matter what you’re planning, if you come to Zero and ask for help, you’ll get it. Despite all your efforts, didn’t we protect you before?”
“Only from getting killed,” I said. “And don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful you did. I’d rather not die. But I’m not the only one in danger.”
Athelas gazed at me over his teacup, and it seemed to me that he watched me in wonder, as if I was some species he couldn’t quite fathom. “Do you expect us to help every imperilled human?”
“No,” I said, sliding toward the edge of the booth. “Just the ones you find along the way. Just the ones who are in trouble because of Behindkind.”
“And what of the danger while you’re living alone? What of my lord’s father?”
“I’m not alone,” I said. “And even if I was, how am I supposed to come back? I told you: nothing’s changed.”
“You can’t expect us to change all at once, Pet,” he said. “I would have said you can’t expect it at all, but it would seem I have been wrong in that. How can you expect a change when you’re not there to bring it about?”
I felt a tug of desire to help, and that made me look at him suspiciously. Right; so tricky Athelas was back, was he? The glimpse of soft Athelas had been far too brief.
“I’m not medicine,” I told him. “You can’t just take a pet pill and get better. If you’re not capable of changing by yourselves, you’re not capable at all. Anything else will just be a lie.”
I’d already been made gut-wrenchingly aware that the changes I thought I’d seen in Zero—the softening, the kindness, the care—hadn’t been real. Despite Athelas’ assurances that I would get help if I asked, I knew that any such help would come with a balance at the other end of it. Not to mention that any influence I had on them for the better could only be restricted while they still thought of me as an it instead of a person.
Athelas said on a sigh, “Then stay close to JinYeong—and do try not to get too attached, Pet! His teeth are sharp on friend and foe alike.”
“Zero’s teeth are pretty flamin’ sharp, if it comes to that,” I retorted. I would certainly trust JinYeong over Zero.
“What of your scraggly, bearded friend?” Athelas asked, without responding to that.
“Haven’t seen him,” I said. It wasn’t quite true: I hadn’t seen him for sure, but I was pretty certain I’d had a glimpse of him last night at least. Definitely not as much as I was used to seeing him, though. “Maybe he lost me when I moved.”
“Perhaps,” said Athelas, in a mild sort of way that suggested to me that he didn’t agree with me. “Perhaps you have merely not seen him.”
“Maybe,” I said. I stood up and put my leftover biscuit in the well of the latte’s plastic lid. “But I usually see him.”
“It’s unlikely that you would have seen him if he didn’t want you to see him,” said Athelas, sipping his tea. “harbingers are notoriously hard to see when they don’t wish to be seen.”
“Maybe he’s decided to hang around Zero instead, then,” I suggested. “Wouldn’t that be a good thing? You said the favourite of the harbinger is usually the one who winds up on the throne.”
“I have the distinct impression that my lord isn’t as eager for that outcome as yourself,” Athelas said, smiling faintly. “I believe he hopes the harbinger has chosen elsewhere.”
“Oh. Well, even if the harbinger chooses him, he doesn’t have to be the next king if he doesn’t want to be, does he?”
Athelas smiled at his own reflection in the tea. “Certainly, he can refuse—and has so refused—to acquiesce in training for the role, but there are methods and methods of persuasion, Pet!”
“Yeah? Well, if you’ve taught me anything, it’s that there are methods and methods of getting other people to do what you want them to do, so I s’pose you’ve got your own thing going on.”
“I believe we’ve discussed your suggestions that I’m working under anything other than my lord’s orders,” said Athelas gently.
At one time, his tone would have frozen me. Since then, though, I’ve been killed by him about six times, and I was pretty sure I wasn’t the only one who came out of that with scars.
So I said, “Don’t worry, I won’t tell Zero I think you’re up to mischief all the time. Reckon he already knows, anyway.”
Then I kissed him on the cheek, feeling the movement of that cheek in a smile beneath my lips, and trotted away with my coffee. He’d come to tell me something, and I was grateful for that. I was also not planning on going back to the house: not unless Zero came to tell me the same thing, that is.
And I knew that wasn’t going to happen.
I waited until Zero’s huge, leather-and-denim figure strode down the street before I sneaked in through the window on the second story of my old house again. The house sort of folded around me as I slipped in, and this time I knew it wasn’t just nostalgia flooding my senses: it was the house itself, we
lcoming me back as though it was alive.
“Pretty sure this isn’t normal,” I said to it, since none of the psychos were there to say the same thing.
I would have borrowed from North’s repertoire by filling a glass of water and dropping the USB in it, but I was afraid that might be too much water exposure, so I dug it into a bowl of marbles in my room instead, and put the red USB in the tiny chest of drawers that sat on the same shelf.
That done, I pinched JinYeong’s bottle of cologne with the feeling that I was going to regret it, and left by the window again, feeling the tug of the house at my heart and limbs as it tried to get me to stay.
“Definitely isn’t normal!” I panted. I worked my second leg free, nearly falling, and said into the empty living room, “Don’t worry, I’ll come back. I’m gunna get you back off Zero as soon as I can.”
It seemed to surrender reluctantly, and I was able to climb to the ground safely. From there, I headed toward Detective Tuatu’s place, still vaguely unsettled and wondering what the outcome of the house’s evident fondness for me would be. Appearing faintly to me while I was in another house was one thing—trying to keep me there indefinitely when I visited was another.
I was still worrying about that when I reached Detective Tuatu’s house. There was a kind of soft greenery to the feeling of the front door, but it opened for me without complaint, and I felt a draught of fresh air sweep down the hall toward me. I smiled without meaning to, the scent of forest and bright skies clear and refreshing around me. I didn’t stop to think what it meant until I was in the kitchen and saw North sitting on Detective Tuatu’s kitchen table with her tiny, bare feet perched on the back of one of his seats.
“Flaming heck!” I said explosively.
Detective Tuatu jumped compulsively and dropped the toast he’d just taken out of the toaster. “Pet! How did you get in here!”
“The dryad let me in! How come you pinched my client and didn’t tell me?”
Between Homes (The City Between Book 5) Page 17
