Between Family: The City Between: Book Nine

by Gingell, W. R.

  “That’s what I’m told,” I said.

  “I don’t know which side threw the spell that did the damage, but it did for the rest of the scene.”

  “Was there much to answer for when you got back?” asked Zero, leaning over her arm and looking it up and down as if sizing up the damage.

  “Not for the destruction of the place,” said Palomena, blotting at another stream of blue that tried to evade the cloth and dribble down to the floor. “I’d already taken the evidence needed to verify the scene. But there was a fair bit of consternation at anyone else knowing where the scene was.”

  “Ah,” said Zero, one huge hand supporting Palomena’s arm from beneath with his fingers gently and carefully avoiding the worst of the damage. “I see.”

  “I’d prefer you didn’t do that,” Palomena said, twitching her arm away with decidedly more decision than she spoke with.

  Zero’s hand dropped at once. He said expressionlessly, “I wouldn’t have harmed you.”

  I’m not sure if he meant to do it, but he turned away, too; he didn’t turn away fully, and I don’t think it was conscious, but he definitely pulled away with the shoulder of the arm he’d reached out to her—an almost physical sign of perceived rejection.

  That was interesting. Zero had always been very good at hiding his emotions in general. The weight of Athelas’ betrayal was obviously still there, taking its toll. I wondered what would happen when the weight of it all became too much for him.

  “I don’t think you understand,” said Palomena, her dark eyes resting on his face with some consideration. “It’s been decided that I should experience the full effects of my ah, incompetence.”

  Zero’s head jerked back very slightly. “My father still does that, does he?”

  “Not ostensibly,” Palomena said. “But it flows through the channels, so to speak, and comes out in the ranks. If I allow anyone to heal me, I’ll receive a worse punishment than this little thing.”

  “We really oughtta have a word with your dad,” I said to Zero, my voice as snubby as my throat felt. Of Palomena, I asked, “You gunna be all right? Sit down, I’ll get you something to eat. That’s not a little thing. Flamin’ heck!”

  She actually sat—I think it was the first time. Zero backed away a bit more and even pulled out the chair for her, and she sat down with the faintest of nods up at him. JinYeong, his dark eyes still dancing, sauntered back across from the wall and slid into the stool he’d been sitting on earlier to observe the scene more thoroughly.

  I fought off the grin that tried to come out, and asked Palomena, “Any rule against bandages?”

  “No,” she said. “But there aren’t many of them Behind, given what we normally use. I wasn’t going to ruin another one of my shirts—I might have decided otherwise if I knew it would do that to my uniform jacket, though.”

  “Right,” I said. “Bandages first, then some food.”

  I let Zero do the actual bandaging—and so, to my surprise, did Palomena—and went back to making breakfast. It wasn’t like Palomena’s presence made the gaping hole left by Athelas’ betrayal any less of a jagged tear in the atmosphere, but it did help fill the room up a bit, and it looked like it was giving Zero something to focus on, which was nice.

  I started pouring pancakes onto the skillet, leaving a space on the side. I didn’t know how fae bodies worked, but I knew from experience that human bodies did well with steak and eggs after a decent amount of blood loss. I took a steak from the fridge and left it on the bench to rest for a while, and sat a few eggs beside it.

  As I cooked, Zero said, “We had nothing to do with whatever situation you walked into. We don’t have a lot of friends that aren’t already dead.”

  “I see,” said Palomena. “Then I suppose you’d like me to tell my commanding officer that you have no knowledge of how a group called Upper Management found our scene?”

  Zero thought about that for a while, bandaging slowly and carefully along her forearm. Finally, he said, “We have knowledge of them: we’ve faced up to them a few times in a fight. We have no friendly connections with them, and we certainly didn’t tell them where to find the humans’ headquarters.”

  “Oh well, that’s more information than I expected to get.” Palomena half-shrugged and winced a little. “There were quite a few of them and only three of us, which makes me think they knew what to expect. I don’t like the thought that they’ve got so much information when we don’t have anything on them.”

  “That seems to be their specialty,” Zero said.

  “Yeah, and it’s a flamin’ bad habit,” I added. “We’ve managed to get the drop on them once or twice, but that was mostly by accident.”

  “Your father isn’t going to be happy about this,” said Palomena to Zero.

  She said it so directly and offhandedly that it was a bit of a shock when her actual words settled into my brain and made sense. It must have taken Zero by surprise, too, because the way his eyes snapped to her face in shock and confusion was something to see. He’s not a bloke who shows much emotion, even when he’s still knocked sideways by the betrayal of the person closest to him, but the confusion was clear enough that even Palomena must have been able to see it.

  She added, “If I had a guess, I would have said that your father was deeply involved in bettering your chances to get to the throne, and the fact that there are other behindkind out there who have obviously been colluding with humans is something of a shock to him. I don’t know what the king knew about Upper Management, but there are now suspicions that they’ve been sponsoring heirlings. I’m sure you can see why your father is disturbed.”

  “My father’s feelings are not interesting to me in the slightest,” Zero said, the words swift and savage.

  I hadn’t heard him speak with that level of rage before, and I wasn’t sure it was all directed at his dad, either.

  “We only don’t care about his feelings if he’s not trying to kill us!” I protested. I didn’t see any point in stopping Palomena from talking just because Zero needed to vent his feelings.

  I approved of Zero working out his feelings in a healthy way, but I didn’t want it to cost us information we might need.

  As if she hadn’t heard Zero say anything, Palomena continued, “Lord Sero was concerned enough about it to send us back there to rework the scene and see what the humans had come up with. We weren’t able to find anything at the scene before Upper Management arrived, and then everything went to pieces, so we went straight to the human police to gather what we could there.”

  “What did the cops find at the scene?” I asked. I couldn’t help the thread of hope that pulled at a wobbly place in my heart that was stuffed too full with blood and Athelas and shadows. I could ask Tuatu later, but I needed to know now. “Was there anything weird about it?”

  “They matched up the body parts with each of the humans that were said to be a part of that group. The human police were surprised that there was a group living there when they all came from such different backgrounds, but they’re tentatively working on the suspicion that it was a death cult. They said no one could have lived through what happened there.” Palomena hesitated, and then said, “The only weirdness I’m aware of in recent events is the fact that you’re alive. I don’t mean to say that I’m sad about it, but I was given to believe that you would be dead at this stage and I’m happily surprised to see that you’re not.”

  “Not to worry,” I said. “There are a few people who are gunna be surprised by that, I reckon.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ve got an idea about why it didn’t work, do you? It’s not something I’m supposed to report on, but I feel as though I’d like the information to get back to Lord Sero for a number of different reasons.”

  “We’re inclined to think it was the pet/master contract,” Zero said, surprising me. “We were discussing it before you got here.”

  Oh, that was weird. He didn’t usually offer information that wasn’t necessary for
the other person to have—he didn’t always offer it even if it was—and it was interesting to see him starting now.

  Mind you, I thought suddenly, plating Palomena’s steak and eggs; he wasn’t the only one sharing more information than usual. I took the plate to Palomena with a knife and fork and put it down in front of her. “You’re being nice and useful today,” I said.

  She didn’t pretend to misunderstand that, either. “I’m usually limited in what I can do and say to be useful,” she said, her eyes on Zero. “But for some reason, Lord Sero seems to have decided that I’m to make myself very…approachable. As a result, any information I can provide you with, outside of a few topics, is completely allowable.”

  Her gaze didn’t drop from Zero’s as she spoke. There was something being said here that I didn’t have enough information to understand, but by the look on Zero’s face, he understood it.

  His eyes lightening with amusement, he said, “He expects you to seduce me in order to keep me close?”

  “I was told that you prefer humans, but you could try not to look quite so amused,” Palomena said, one brow quirking up. Now that she’d made sure Zero understood what she was saying, she seemed pretty happy to dig into the steak and eggs.

  “It’s not a preference, it’s a coincidence,” Zero said, but although the amusement had faded from his face, he didn’t seem angry.

  I gave him a pile of pancakes and patted him bracingly on the shoulder as I went back for my own and JinYeong’s pancakes. “I won’t let her accost you; no need to worry.”

  “I am not worr—Pet, eat your breakfast and be quiet!”

  Palomena grinned and got stuck into her steak again. She waited until I sat down at the table next to JinYeong and had a few pancakes on my plate before she asked, “You know your steward is back with Lord Sero, I suppose?”

  This time I was the one who dropped the grin pretty fast, though Zero looked a bit sick, too. Suddenly my pancakes didn’t seem quite so appetizing.

  “Of course he is there,” said JinYeong, reaching over me for the maple syrup. “There is no need to update us on that one. We have all the knowledge of him that we wish to have.”

  A silence fell at the table, but Zero surprised me by breaking it to say through a mouthful of pancake, “I find it odd that my father accepted him back with no questions. I had been under the impression that my father wanted the Pet alive for his own reasons. I can’t see that Athelas would have fared well after trying to destroy one of my father’s avenues of use.”

  JinYeong shot him a look across the table beneath his lashes but he must have been content with what he saw, because he went back to eating pancakes without protest.

  “Lord Sero had words with him about it but was pretty quickly placated,” said Palomena. “Suspiciously quickly, I would have said. I’m not sure how he’s going to react to the news that she’s still quite lively, given that development.”

  “Your dad probably told him to do whatever he needed to do if he was discovered,” I said. “One dead Pet is safer than one alive, useful one.”

  “There was some discussion at the time about your usefulness being as assured as Lord Sero had hoped it would be. I’m very much afraid that you’ll have to take precautions after I report back to him.”

  “Life as usual, then,” I said grumpily.

  “Jaemisseo,” JinYeong said, leaning back in his chair with one arm slung over the back of my chair and his foot elegantly propped against the table leg. “Life is boring when everyone is too friendly.”

  “Want me to start putting banshees in your sock drawer?”

  “Do not put things in my sock drawer. Do not touch my ties.”

  “Too late,” I said, feeling a bit more cheerful.

  JinYeong followed my gaze and caught sight of the tie frog hopping over into the kitchen in its usual search for sultanas. The banshees had started feeding it a few days ago, and it seemed to have developed a taste for what it was given.

  “That one is allowed,” he said. “No more.”

  “What are you gunna tell Zero’s dad about the human group?” I asked Palomena. I would make no promises when it came to JinYeong’s ties.

  “That it’s no use hoping for information from them. To the king—or at least, my commanding officer—I will report that there’s no need to worry about information leakage from that direction any longer. Upper Management is another matter.”

  Zero nodded as if unsurprised, and I went back to my pancakes gloomily.

  “At any rate,” said Palomena, releasing her knife and fork with something of a contented sigh, “I’ve spent about enough time here to please Lord Sero. Thank you for the food and the bandages, Pet.”

  “I thought you were supposed to seduce me?” said Zero. It didn’t seem like a complaint—more of an interested observation of someone who has had previous experience in what to expect in similar situations.

  “I like to take things slowly,” Palomena said, pushing away from the table. “It’s no use scaring off the skittish ones.”

  “I beg your pardon?” said Zero, his face utterly astonished. “Did you say skittish—?”

  “I’ll see you all again soon,” said Palomena, taking back her uniform jacket and folding it carefully over her uninjured arm. “No—no need to show me out, I know the way.”

  Zero, rather grimly, said, “JinYeong will show you out anyway.”

  He was probably just cranky about being called skittish. I reckon he likes to think of himself as big and impervious—which, yeah, he is. But he’s also definitely skittish.

  JinYeong showed Palomena out anyway. It was my job, but I had pancakes to eat and washing up to do, so I did that instead. Zero continued to eat pancakes with a dedication that was almost as terrifying as his dedication in training.

  As I passed by the opening between kitchen and living room with my hands full of dishes a few minutes later, I caught JinYeong staring narrowly at Athelas’ chair with his hands shoved in his pockets.

  “Don’t get rid of it,” I said. “Not yet.”

  JinYeong jumped a bit, as if he hadn’t realised he’d been staring at the chair—or perhaps as if he’d been startled to be read so accurately. He said, “Tomorrow, then.”

  “Tomorrow,” I agreed, but I’m pretty sure that neither of us actually believed that was going to happen. “Definitely not today.”

  It couldn’t be today, because today I had to go up to my parents’ room—the room that Athelas had been using for nearly a year—and rid it of every piece of him that was still there. I might not be able to bring myself to let the chair downstairs go, but I was going to make sure that Mum and Dad’s room was cleansed of everything that their murderer had left there.

  It was something I’d been putting off for the last couple of days. No one else had volunteered to do it—no one else probably thought about doing it—but this wasn’t their house. It wasn’t their parents who had died, either.

  So after I finished the washing up and Zero had gone outside to begin his usual exercise session, I trudged upstairs with a sick stomach. It took me a good five minutes of standing outside the door before I could bring myself to open it and go in—and when I finally made myself go in, I very nearly turned and bolted for it again.

  I didn’t expect Athelas to have permeated every bit of the room with his magic, or his essence, or whatever it is that fae have. I didn’t expect to still be able to sense him there with my human senses, either: the scent of Athelas, the clothes of Athelas, the pocket watch I never saw him use but knew he had. His little tin of human brown shoe polish that he used despite the fact that he could have shined his shoes with magic instead.

  When JinYeong came upstairs and found me I had sunk to the carpet in a hot, sick, overflowing bewilderment of tears, clutching my knees to my chest. He sat on the floor beside me and made a warmth against my side that was uncomfortably hot but that I didn’t seem to be able to pull away from.

  I heard him snap something in Korean at a
couple of banshees that peeked out to see what all the fuss was about, but it mustn’t have been rude because when they came back to throw things at us, what they threw was the box of tissues from downstairs.

  JinYeong caught the box before it could clock me in the temple, then waited for me to finish sobbing before he offered it to me.

  “This job is for tomorrow,” he said. “Today you bandaged a friend; you should bandage this tomorrow. It will need salt to take away all of that.”

  All of that was the eau de Athelas fae trace, I figured.

  “Reckon we’re gunna need more salt than we’ve got if that’s what it takes to cleanse this room,” I said shakily, sniffing into my elbow. “I’ll go out and get a proper bag of it. Yanno; for tomorrow.”

  “I will buy it,” JinYeong said. “That fae woman said Hyeong’s father will soon know you are not dead. I think you don’t want to leave the house.”

  He wasn’t wrong. Despite the steadily-growing feeling of claustrophobia that staying in the house had brought with it over the last few days, I didn’t feel safe going outside, either. It was too easy for flowers to pop up through the concrete around here and there was the king to watch out for, too. Athelas had had a pretty good try at killing me and I was going to stay alive, even if it was just to spite him.

  To my surprise, JinYeong actually went out to get salt. I’d half thought that he was just distracting me, but maybe he wanted to get out of the house as well. Whatever the reason, he left me in the kitchen with a cup of coffee and a banshee that was far too interested in snotty tissues when I stopped leaking tears.

  He hadn’t been gone more than five minutes when the coiling burl of magic and Between that had been building in the backyard without my conscious notice grew too big to be ignored. What the heck was Zero fighting against so furiously out there?

  Probably his emotions.

  The thought made me smile just a little bit and sniff into my coffee. Then something big and explosive made me jump and yelp, sending coffee everywhere as I instinctively covered my head despite the fact that the explosion was more energy than anything that could be stopped with limbs or cover.