The Book of Peril (The Last Oracle 2)

by Melissa McShane

  I thought of Chet’s strange words, of how odd his eyes had looked. “I don’t think it was his fault.”

  Malcolm slammed his fist into the wall beside the kitchen door. “Are you still defending that waste of air? Helena, he beat you nearly to death!”

  “Just listen, all right? He acted strangely before he… he said something like ‘you won’t hurt her anymore’ and his eyes were out of focus. Like he didn’t know who I was. Can’t magic do something like that?”

  “No,” said Olivia. “Mind control is impossible.”

  “Or just forbidden.”

  “Impossible. You can’t take away someone’s will.”

  “But an illusion, maybe?”

  “What are you talking about?” Malcolm said.

  I busied myself with my teacup. “I left a message for you to call me about something I learned at the Athenaeum.”

  “I didn’t get a message.”

  “I left it with, um, Andria.”

  Malcolm made an impatient sound. Olivia covered her mouth to hide a smile. Hector said, “I thought you told your girlfriend to stop answering your phone.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend,” Malcolm said as if he were at the end of his patience. “What was the message?”

  I felt lighter than I had in days. “It was about illusions,” I said. I summed up what I’d learned about Inoue Natsuko. “The oracle is still being influenced, and I think it’s like the mirrored maze. If you can find the smaller illusions that are masking it, you can find the big one and shut it down. And maybe work out who’s responsible for it.”

  “Lucia has to be working on it,” Derrick said.

  “She’s not, because she said Inoue didn’t leave any notes on paper magic, so she thought it was a dead end. But I’m sure I’m right.”

  Malcolm examined the wall and seemed relieved his fist hadn’t made a dent. “We can look into it,” he said, “along with all the other origami leads. There are dozens. Everyone has a theory about how the evil Nicolliens or the crafty Ambrosites are trying to destroy Abernathy’s.”

  “What theory do you believe?”

  “Rasmussen would still like to get Judy into Abernathy’s. But in all honesty, I can’t see how this would accomplish that. I’m trying to keep an open mind.”

  “I appreciate that,” I said, and stifled a yawn. Malcolm took the empty cup from me.

  “Bed,” he said, “and try to rest tomorrow. Yes, I realize your job is not restful, but indulge me in giving some meaningless advice.”

  I smiled at him. She wasn’t his girlfriend. “I appreciate the advice, and the tea, and the healing. I’m so glad it was all of you who came.”

  “We were finishing up an invader a few streets over,” Hector said. He stood and stretched with a great popping of joints.

  “Well, I’m happy about it. And, Malcolm?”

  Malcolm wouldn’t meet my gaze. “I’m not promising anything. If Chet could do that to you, he could do it to another woman.”

  “It’s just that it’s so unlike him. I really feel he was under the influence of an illusion. I think he thought he was defending me.”

  “Yet he ran away rather than call for help for you.” Malcolm set the teacup on the antique radio cabinet, the broken one I kept for show. “All right. He lives. But he may wish otherwise when I’m through with him.”

  I shuddered. “It’s the best I can hope for, I guess.”

  “Go to bed, Helena.”

  I saw them all out, then locked my door and turned off all the lights. I got undressed in the darkness and then lay in bed, wishing I’d asked Derrick if I could take medication for the lingering pain. I decided against it. It might make things worse. Besides, my heart was so happy I almost didn’t care about the pain. Andria wasn’t his girlfriend. He sounded like he didn’t even like her. I carried that happy thought with me into my dreams.

  tucked my bundle of pink and purple daisies into the crook of my arm and pushed open the door. Viv had worked at this diner for nearly two years, which was the longest she’d ever held a job, and its turquoise and chrome retro décor seemed a reflection of her personality. The place reminded me of Abernathy’s in the narrowness of its aisles, though it was far more brightly lit. I took in a deep breath. The diner always smelled the same, overcooked eggs and fresh ham, no matter what time of day it was, but it was morning, and the smell matched what was on offer. It bustled with the breakfast rush, so I waited for a server to notice me, which took a few minutes. Finally, a woman dressed in the diner uniform of starched shirtwaist and black pencil skirt approached. “Just one?”

  “Yes, and can you seat me in Viv Haley’s section?”

  The woman eyed the flowers. “You a friend?”

  “Yes.”

  She shrugged and took a menu from the wooden holder by the door. “This way.”

  The booth was cramped, crowded into the back corner near the kitchen, where the smells of eggs and ham were joined by the sweeter scent of hot pancakes and maple syrup. I settled myself and waited.

  “Hi, I’m—” Viv stopped when she recognized me. “Oh.”

  “I came to apologize. And have breakfast.” I thrust the daisies in her direction. She didn’t take them. Great. She was still pissed. Well, I could hardly blame her.

  “What are you apologizing for?”

  This was typical of Viv. She always insisted you acknowledge your specific faults when apologizing. Otherwise it was just aimless groveling. “I’m sorry I insulted your music, and I’m even more sorry I was such a jerk when you tried to cheer me up. See, daisies! They come from the kind of unique florist’s shop you’d love, too.” The Portland access point for the Athenaeum really was open around the clock; I’d picked these up at seven-thirty.

  Viv gave me a flat, uninterested look. “What’ll it be?” She readied her pen and pad.

  “Oh. Blueberry waffles.”

  “You want eggs or toast with that?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Anything to drink?”

  Her flat, toneless voice reminded me of Lucia grilling Judy. “Cranberry juice.”

  Viv scrawled on her pad. “It’ll be right out.” She walked away, ignoring a hand that waved at her from a nearby table.

  “Big argument?” said the portly man sitting across the aisle from me. He looked even less comfortable than I felt, crammed into his narrow bench.

  “Yeah.” I nudged the daisies. “She’s pretty mad.”

  “You sounded sincere. I’m sure she’ll forgive you.”

  “I hope so.” Our fights never lasted long, but this time I worried maybe I’d gone too far. There were things the two of us had agreed, long ago, were never to be fodder for an argument: my love of old movies, and her love of music. I hadn’t exactly insulted her music, but I hadn’t been polite about it, either. I slumped down in my seat as far as the narrow bench would let me and sighed. Viv was right: I’d let myself be so caught up in Abernathy’s troubles I’d forgotten what was important. I hoped she’d listen to me when I admitted that.

  Viv returned with a plate of waffles and a glass of ruby-red juice. She set both in front of me with a definitive clack of glass against Formica. “Anything else?”

  “Viv, I’m really, really sorry I made fun of your music. I didn’t mean it. I felt down and—”

  “I have to go.” She took a few steps away, paused, then came back and swept the flowers off the table. “Thanks.”

  Her grudging thanks was better than nothing. I poured marionberry jam over my waffles and ate, watching Viv as she moved between tables. Her crimson hair was like a flame hovering above the other diners’ heads. I’d asked her once if her hair was a problem for her, working in food services the way she did, and she’d said: “The owners wouldn’t care if I dyed my face red, so long as I can handle seven tables at once and never gripe about the pay.” She was so much bolder than me, never afraid to stand out, and I loved that about her. I washed down a mouthful of waffle with cranberry juice. She
’d forgive me eventually. I just needed to grovel a little more. And leave a big tip.

  When I was almost finished, Viv returned with the check. “I shouldn’t encourage you in your obsession with work,” she said, not meeting my eyes, “but I think you should investigate the Hyperion.”

  “The hotel? Why?”

  “I don’t have time to talk about it now. I’ll come by after two when my shift’s over. Pay at the front.” She was gone again.

  I left a wad of bills on the table—was I buying Viv’s friendship? Or recognizing her excellent service? I’d get her to buy me ice cream sometime, and even it out—and paid the cashier. On the way to my car, my phone rang. “Hello?”

  “It’s Judy.”

  Relief swept over me. “Judy? Where are you? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. I’m under house arrest because they still haven’t proved I didn’t set up that illusion.”

  The feeling of relief faded. “I’m sorry. It’s so stupid.”

  “Yeah. I just wanted to say thank you. For standing up for me.”

  “Well, I know you didn’t do it.” I figured Judy was happier saying thanks over the phone than in person.

  “You don’t know that. I could have accepted the assistant’s position to get at Abernathy’s.”

  “I don’t believe that. Besides, if you had set that illusion up, you wouldn’t have been so stupid as to get caught.”

  Judy laughed. “That’s true. Is everything going well? With the store?”

  “The factions want me to institute a curfew, and the incorrect auguries are still happening.” I decided not to tell her about Chet’s attack. “So, you know, everything’s swell.”

  “I wish I could do something other than sit around in my room. My father is driving me crazy. He’s never here, and when he is here, he keeps going on about the injustice of it all and how Lucia is prejudiced and a secret Ambrosite. I think he’s trying to get the Board of Neutralities to invoke the Accords against her.”

  I’d never felt so irritated with Rasmussen as I did right then. He’d crossed the line from “determined” to “obsessed” if he intended to pursue Lucia rather than solve the mystery. “Malcolm’s team is investigating the origami illusions. They’ll find the truth.”

  “He’s as partisan as Father. Don’t put your faith in him.”

  “He told me he would keep an open mind, and I believe him,” I said. Judy’s dislike of Malcolm came close to making her partisan, too.

  Judy snorted. “Whatever. Look, just hang in there, okay? If you find anything out, tell me. I need something to think about.”

  “I will. I promise.”

  Judy hung up. I pocketed my phone and drove to the store, puzzling over Viv and her cryptic comment about the Hyperion. Me, investigate? I wasn’t a detective. A defunct hotel didn’t have anything to do with me unless I took Ruth’s words about the mysterious happenings seriously. I changed lanes and passed an old Buick, its sides dirty from the spring rains. The new windshield, which had magically (maybe literally magically) appeared sometime last night, was as clean as the rest of my car. It comforted me, feeling so well looked after, and it kept the memories at bay.

  The parking lot behind the store looked very different in daylight, enough that I didn’t feel more than a shiver of fear going from my car to the back door. I’d found a new set of car keys on my kitchen table that morning, along with a note in Malcolm’s elegant handwriting: The alarm has been reset. Try not to need it again. My door key still lay in the bottom of my purse, which told me Malcolm had some other way of entering my building. I’d have to ask him about it. I felt a little uncomfortable with the idea, even though I trusted him not to abuse his power; if there were some kind of magical work-around to that lock, someone else might be able to use it. It might even be how the person who’d set the origami had gotten inside. I shivered again and locked the door behind me, then locked it again, just to be sure.

  As I’d half expected, the only people who came to Abernathy’s that morning were Nicolliens. “Don’t tell me you’re going along with this idiocy,” I said to Harry and Harriet when they showed up around noon.

  “It’s not idiocy to want to keep the peace,” Harriet said. “I thought you’d be relieved.”

  “If we can’t control ourselves against other humans, how can we expect to fight the enemy effectively?” Harry sounded weary, as if this weren’t the first time he’d had this argument with his wife.

  “I’m disappointed in both Mr. Rasmussen and Mr. Parish, that this was the best solution they could come up with.” I stacked up loose books, “false” auguries as well as a handful someone had used to pay for an augury, but left them lying on the counter.

  “Will has everyone’s best interests at heart,” Harriet said. “And Parish isn’t stupid, for all he dresses the part.”

  “I’m surprised Parish went along with it. Thought he would jump at the chance to send some people to the killing fields. That’s a man who loves the taste of blood,” Harry said.

  “That seems unfair to Mr. Parish.”

  “He rose in the ranks by being brutally efficient in killing invaders, but he’s not above fighting humans when he gets the chance.” Harry lowered his voice, though there wasn’t anyone else in the store. “Killed a few of them, too, without one ounce of remorse.”

  “The Long War is a hard mistress,” Harriet said, patting my hand when I looked horrified. “We have to police ourselves sometimes. I’m sure every one of those deaths was necessary.”

  “But he enjoyed them,” Harry said. “I don’t mind telling you I wouldn’t have wanted to go up against him in my prime, and I was no slouch as a fighter.”

  When they were gone, I had my lunch, pot stickers that weren’t nearly as good reheated, and hoped no one else would come in for a bit. I was already behind on the mail-in auguries, and Abernathy’s played tricks with every other one. I no longer hurt from Chet’s beating, but I was tired and wanted a nap. Maybe I could put a couch in the office for times like this.

  The bells jingled, waking me from where I’d fallen asleep with my head pillowed on my arms at the break room table. Groaning, I went into the store, where I found Malcolm leaning against the counter. He wore my favorite of his suits, a charcoal-gray three-piece pinstripe, with a red paisley tie and gleaming black shoes, and I wanted to stay there looking at him for an hour. “You’re not resting,” he said. He made it sound like I’d broken a promise.

  “Maybe if someone hadn’t arrested my assistant, I could rest,” I said. “I mean—sorry. I know you didn’t do that.”

  “I understand your frustration. We are working hard at finding the culprit, whoever that turns out to be.”

  “It’s not Judy.”

  “I believe you.”

  We both fell silent. I longed to ask him about Andria, but that would have been about as subtle as a sledgehammer. “I… visited Chet early this morning,” Malcolm finally said.

  I felt as numb as I had when Derrick had healed me. “And?”

  He looked off into the distance. “We had a… conversation.”

  I shuddered. “I feel there are about a million words in those pauses. You didn’t—”

  “It won’t make you happier knowing the details. I made it clear touching you again would result in permanent injury. He took me very seriously. Being dangled upside down off the roof of a twelve-story building will do that to a man.”

  I covered my mouth with my hand. “You didn’t.”

  “I did say the details wouldn’t make you happy. I have no interest in playing games when your safety is at stake.”

  His candor horrified me, but it was also heartwarming to know he cared. “What did he say?”

  “In between pleading for his life, he claimed he hadn’t meant to hurt you. He thought he was fighting off an assailant before the alarm went off. Then he came to himself and realized what he’d done, and he fled like the coward he is, leaving you dying on the ground.” Malcolm’s f
ist was clenched, and he looked as if he wished he had Chet there in front of him again.

  “So I was right about the illusion.”

  “It seems so. The question is, why would anyone go to the trouble of assaulting you in such a convoluted way?”

  “Why would anyone assault me at all? I’m not that important. Sure, I’m the custodian of Abernathy’s, but the oracle would just choose a new one if I…” I couldn’t bring myself to say died. “It’s not like last November when temporarily incapacitating the oracle would have benefited someone.”

  Malcolm’s gaze came to rest on me, and he leaned against the counter without a care for his suit. “Whoever made the illusion that convinced Chet to attack you knew you and he were on the outs, and that person might have believed your relationship was strained enough that Chet beating you to death would have looked like an ordinary domestic dispute. That would draw attention away from Abernathy’s because we wouldn’t have had reason to look for traces of magic.”

  “If it’s not to get at the oracle—”

  “I’m not convinced of that.”

  I let out a deep breath. “Just say for the moment that it’s not. That means it’s personal, right?”

  “Or you know something someone else would rather you not reveal.”

  I leaned on the counter next to Malcolm. This close, I could smell his aftershave, and it made me want to move even closer. “But I don’t know anything.”

  “You knew about Inoue’s mirrored maze.”

  “I didn’t tell anyone about it. Other than you and the team, and I’m sure you’d be more efficient if you wanted to assassinate me.” I smiled, but Malcolm still looked grim and in no mood for humor.

  “You didn’t tell anyone else?”

  “Only Lucia. But she wouldn’t want me dead either.”

  “As far as you know,” Malcolm said. He sounded as grim as he looked. “You have no idea who else she might have told.”

  I found I needed the support of the counter as my legs went wobbly. “I need to sit down,” I said, moving to the chair by the front door. Malcolm crouched beside me and took my hand. His was warm and firm and much bigger than mine, and I clung to him and hoped I didn’t look like I was clinging.