“Yeah,” I said. “There is no way Dame Belinda is going to take this gracefully.”
“Go to Alvin first,” said Caryl. “He is still grieving and angry, but reasonable. Tell him whatever you feel will not incur further punitive measures. Test the waters. See if we can get him on our side. If not . . .”
I waited a moment to see what Plan B was. But she couldn’t seem to come up with one.
“I’ll convince him,” I said. “I’ve been talking a lot of people into a lot of improbable stuff lately. Just leave it to me.”
“Go now, if you can,” said Caryl. “In the meantime, I shall stay here and wait for Elliott to return. There is a great deal I would still like to know . . . and to apologize for.”
• • •
I checked in with Tjuan first to find out the situation with Naderi. He’d had Brand turn the wraith into a nice, subtle maybe-you-should-go-somewhere-else ward on the soundstage door, and Naderi was recovering in Inaya’s office. Also writing, apparently. Charged up by contact with her Echo, she’d already churned out forty pages of new script on her tablet, much to Tjuan’s obvious, visceral envy. That was Naderi for you. No time to bellyache about possession or reality being turned on its ear; she had work to do.
There was no way I could meet with Alvin and still have time to attend group therapy that evening, so I used up my last allowable absence and texted the facilitator to let her know I wouldn’t be present. I felt a twinge of anxiety about it, especially since I’d left early the week before, and if you wash out of DBT they don’t let you back in. Best not to think about that now.
To my surprise, when I called Alvin, he didn’t ask why I wanted to talk to him without his boss present. I felt a twinge of hope that maybe his nose wasn’t as firmly wedged in her posterior as it seemed. There were a limited number of places we could speak freely about Arcadia Project matters without worrying about other Project people overhearing us, so we ended up meeting at his room in the Omni while he had room service deliver dinner.
“It’s just us,” he assured me as I settled into the chair opposite him with a Caesar salad. “Dame Belinda’s all wrapped up trying to keep the king and queen from killing each other, or maybe making out. French fry?”
“Thanks.” I nabbed one off his plate, buoyed by his friendly manner.
“So what’s on your mind that you can’t talk to the others about?”
“I’ve been working,” I said. “Talking to the manticore in Arcadia, talking to wraiths. Talking to people who know things about things. And I’ve discovered some stuff that’s beyond huge.”
“About the revolution?”
“About the reasons for it. It’s kind of an everything-you-know-is-wrong situation, and I’m freaking out a little. I thought maybe you could help.”
“I’m glad you came to me,” he said, and smiled in a way that gave me some much-needed confidence.
“Do you know why the wraiths are rebelling?” I asked.
“Not a clue.” He took a bite of his burger. It had avocado on it and looked really good. I felt suddenly displeased with my salad but took a few bites anyway before I dropped the bomb.
“The sidhe have been doing a really bad thing, Alvin. For a really long time. So have we.”
“What kind of bad thing?”
“Casting spells.”
Alvin set down his burger. “Come again?”
“Arcane energy is alive. It’s spirits. People.”
“I know the commoners believe that, but—”
“I’ve talked to the spirits, Alvin. A wraith told me about this, a wraith that used to be a ward on the soundstage. I went back to Caryl, and she let Elliott go, and he voluntarily came back to corroborate.”
“What the actual fuck, Millie?” I’d been expecting shock, but he looked more wary than anything.
“Apparently most of them aren’t quite as . . . clearheaded as the ones who have been exposed to human thought patterns. Vivian let some of them into her brain and imprinted them, made the wraiths.”
“Just stop a second,” said Alvin. “Forgive my skepticism, but you seem to spend a lot of time explaining things to people who have worked at the Arcadia Project most of their lives. Why is that?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe because I’m the only one confused enough to still be asking questions. Or because Caryl hired me right when the shit was about to hit the fan, and threw me directly into the splatter. Does it really matter who delivers this message?”
“It does. I want to trust you, but try to see this from my point of view. Every time I hear your name it’s because there’s trouble. Do you have evidence? Are there others who can vouch for what you’re telling me?”
“Caryl could, but you wouldn’t believe her. Elliott could, but you think he’s just a spell she’s casting. Then there’s the manticore, Throebrand.”
“Yeah, I’m not keen on chatting with terrorists even if they’re not likely to eat me.”
“As terrorists go, he’s pretty helpful.”
“Want to confer with Baroness Foxfeather on that? I spent about three hours last night trying to convince Duke Skyhollow to give her and her people asylum.”
“I get it. Brand’s done terrible things. But he also knows the true name of every wraith that worked with Vivian. The wraith I just mentioned? He turned it back into a ward. That’s what spell casting is. It’s knowing the name of a spirit and forcing it to do your bidding.”
Alvin pushed his plate away and rested his elbows on the table. “Even if this is true,” he said, “what could we possibly do about it that won’t dismantle the entire Arcadia Project?”
“Maybe the Project needs dismantling.”
“The fact that you’d even say that shows how badly equipped you are to make these kinds of decisions. Human progress is dependent on the fey, and their progress is dependent on us. But it’s a dangerous relationship. We’re playing with fire, and the rules are there to keep people safe.”
“It’s the definition of ‘people’ that’s starting to concern me. In what way does the manticore, for example, not qualify?”
“Even people can sign away their own rights. Those who endanger the Project lose the Project’s protection. That’s not classism; that’s your standard social contract.”
“But the manticore has only ever given back what we dish out. When we started negotiating instead of hunting him, he started cooperating.”
“But make him mad and he starts eating people.”
“He’s a carnivore. Are you evil for eating a cow?” I gestured to the burger on the table, and resisted the urge to ask him if he was going to finish it. Instead I grabbed another French fry.
“It’s turkey, and I didn’t eat it to get revenge on it. Some would call it murder anyway, but that’s beside the point. My point is, I am basically the commander in chief of the United States of Supernatural. My job is to protect American citizens, not monsters or spirits from another world. I take my job very seriously.”
“Does that mean blindly following rules?”
“Why do you assume ‘blind’? The rules of the Arcadia Project are centuries in the making, honed by the trial and error of thousands of people. They work, but only if no one decides they’re a special snowflake. It’s a constant state of emergency martial law, because we’re staffed by people even less stable than average, and iron discipline is all that keeps us from war against creatures who can melt our brains.”
“Fine then. We don’t have to break rules. If the rules are meant to be reasonable, let’s revisit them. Let’s adjust them to allow for, you know, not trapping the entirety of a species in a big dark room indefinitely.”
Some of the tension in Alvin’s face eased. “So that’s where you’re going with this,” he said. He ruffled a hand through his hair, his eyes fixed on a random spot on the wall.
“Now it’s your turn to try to see things from my point of view.”
“I am,” he said. “I can see why you’d be
concerned. Given enough time, we could probably find a better way. But if we wait any longer, the wraiths are going to go ahead and perforate Arcadia.”
“I have another plan. Throebrand. He can punish them specifically. Summon them one at a time by name, bind them into spells.”
Alvin scoffed and pulled his plate back toward him. “Even if what you say about spells is true, that sounds like an impossible project for a fey, especially a fey who isn’t sidhe. In the wild, even sidhe don’t have much in the way of declarative memory, and names are exactly the sort of—”
“He has an Echo.”
34
For a moment, Alvin seemed taken aback, but then he just exhaled and picked up his burger again. “He wouldn’t be the first commoner to say that,” he said, turning the thing in his hands to find the best angle of attack. “Around fifteen years ago we let an ifrit through on that pretext, but apparently he just wanted to burn down a nightclub in Scotland.” He took another bite.
“It’s no trick, Alvin. I’ve introduced them.”
The burger landed on Alvin’s plate with enough force to fall completely apart.
“It’s Parisa Naderi.”
Alvin pushed abruptly back from the table and strode to the other side of the room, putting his back to me.
“You brought another uninitiated human to Arcadia?” he said to the wall.
“No, I didn’t.”
Alvin turned around, eyes blazing. “You are not about to tell me that you brought that monster here.”
“You saw him, actually. The dog I brought to Residence Four, remember? Take it up with Winterglass, who had his son make the facade.”
“I knew it!” Alvin exploded. “I knew that dog was suspicious, and I knew there was something going on with Winterglass. He’s been a basket case, and Belinda has no idea why.”
“We followed procedure as much as we could,” I protested. “Brand got a little training, and he’s always been supervised. But we couldn’t go through the proper channels, because like you keep saying, there wasn’t time. It would take months for his entry forms to get approved, if ever.”
“It’s like a waiting period for a gun. If you can’t wait, it’s for the wrong reasons.”
“Not this time! You have to understand what’s happening! Caryl didn’t kill Tamika, and you’re not going to catch the real murderer unless you let Brand work!”
Alvin’s eyes went dead for a moment, and he stood still, taking audibly deep breaths. When he spoke again, his voice was too calm.
“I’ll bite,” he said. “Who killed Tamika?”
“She was killed by a wraith.”
“Who can’t possibly be caught, tried, or punished without giving a terrorist free rein. How convenient.”
“We have the wraith. It’s possessing Stevie right now.”
“What?”
“It doesn’t know we know. For once, we have the advantage.”
“If no one can see wraiths, how can you possibly know where it is?”
“Spirits are as distinguishable to each other as people are to us. Elliott recognized the wraith in Stevie as the same one Tamika brought to Los Angeles.”
“You’re trying to say that Tamika was possessed?” He ran both hands through his hair, violently, making it stand on end. “Before all this?”
“I’m sorry.”
“No. Just stop.” His face reddened. “I’ll listen while you tell me that energy has feelings and man-eating monsters are reasonable, but you do not get to tell me that I failed to notice my best friend was possessed by an evil spirit. That I sat beside her on a plane for five hours without knowing it wasn’t even her.”
“Wraiths have the ability to lie dormant in the—”
“No. Shut your mouth.” His hands were shaking now, and he balled them into fists. “Your desperation is showing, Roper; you wouldn’t stoop to slandering a dead woman if you had a leg to stand on.”
On any other day, his choice of words might have struck me as hilarious. On any other day, I might have been sure it was an accident. But I’ll be the first to admit that the last several days had begun to take their toll on my mental health.
There’s an interesting phase in dialectical behavior therapy where you’ve learned to pinpoint the moments where your Reason Mind takes a vacation, but you still haven’t quite mastered the art of stopping it. This was one of those moments: like stomping on the brakes as you crest a long steep hill and finding that the lines have been cut.
It wasn’t anger this time. I would have given a great deal for anger.
No leg to stand on, he’d said. Because it was understood shorthand for impotence. And that was me; he’d hit the nail square. Without my prosthetics, I couldn’t stand. Without my DBT, I couldn’t think. Without this tyrannical supernatural cult I’d joined, I couldn’t eat. Toss me in the water with everyone else in the real world, and I’d sink like a stone. Good of him to remind me, because for a few days—thanks to Claybriar and a few small victories at Valiant—I’d started to think I was worth something.
I saw him realize what he’d said, too late. I saw a spasm of sickened regret cross his face, but he was too angry for apologies.
“I’m done babysitting you,” he said. “Deal with your baggage and your mistrust of authority on your own time, but deal with it. Don’t bring it to me when I’m trying to keep the world from ending. This is not about you. Bigger things are at stake, and this is when all of us need to be falling into line. So get the fuck in line, or get out.”
I nodded at the floor.
“This is your last chance,” he said. “The next time you so much as bruise a rule, the next time you make this situation even slightly more complicated, I’m handing you over to Dame Belinda. And if you think I’m a heartless bastard, just you wait. Just you try to make her feel sorry for a terrorist and a handful of ghosts.”
“Understood,” I said. My voice sounded strange, even to me. Carefully I levered myself up off the seat. He turned his back on me again as I walked past him to the door.
I’d skipped therapy for this.
As I was walking down the hotel hallway toward the elevators, more aware of my prosthetic legs than I’d been in months, I heard him say my name from his doorway. But I didn’t turn around, because I was crying now, and I was damned if I was going to let him see.
• • •
“I wish I had a scuba suit,” said Claybriar later that night as he lay on the floor next to my air mattress in the darkness of room 6. “Then I could spoon you at least.”
I gave a shaky laugh, blew my nose again, and tossed the tissue in the trash on the other side of the mattress. I had my clothes on tonight; it wasn’t warm enough to sleep in the nude even if I’d wanted to.
“I know it’s hard to tell,” I said, “but just having you here helps. If you really want to be hands-on, though, a scalp massage would be awesome.”
Almost before I’d finished the sentence, I felt latex fingers easing through the roots of my hair from behind, careful not to catch or pull. My hair was still damp from my evening shower, which had calmed me a little but done nothing to ease the heavy feeling of dread that had settled in. Claybriar explored the slight irregularities of my skull, the long scar on the left side where they’d put in the steel plate.
“Want to hear something ironic?” I said. My voice was hoarse from crying.
“Sure.”
“Nobody really uses steel for surgery anymore.”
“What?” He moved his fingertips in gentle circles over my scalp. “How’d you end up full of it, then?”
“Luck.” I managed another laugh. “Nah, it was more—they had no idea if I was going to be able to pay. They used scraps and leftovers that did the job at minimal loss. Obsolete stuff they wouldn’t have used on anyone who’d filled out insurance forms.”
“What the fuck,” said Claybriar with gentle indignation.
“The irony is, I had shitloads of money socked away; my dad’s inheritance. Mos
t of it’s gone now, but paying the bill wasn’t a problem at the time, once I was conscious.”
“That sucks,” he said. “Ever think about having it replaced?”
“That’d make me a much easier lay, wouldn’t it.”
“That’s not what I—”
“I know,” I said bitterly. “But I blew all my money on DBT. Plus, there’s just so much they’d have to yank out. So many little bolts and pins and—I’m doing okay, you know? Scars fading, a lot less pain. Better to leave well enough alone.”
We lay in silence for a while. Claybriar laid the gentlest of kisses at the edge of my ear, turning my bones to jelly.
“You stopped crying,” he said. “Doing better?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I feel okay right now, but I also don’t feel much like getting out of bed in the morning. Or ever.”
“There’s still time to stop them,” said Claybriar, “but not much. They’re doing the ritual tomorrow afternoon at one o’ clock.”
“Ugh.”
“I know Alvin hurt you, Millie, but we need your devious brain.”
“No,” I said. “My devious brain is the problem. I’ve been reckless and arrogant and stupid. I can’t bluff my way through a war; if we’re going to stop the wraiths, we need to do it by the rules.”
“Since when have you cared about rules?”
“I can’t get fired, Clay, I can’t. They’ll wipe my brain. And I can’t get by in the real world anyway; I’m not strong enough.”
I waited for him to be a sap about it, to tell me I was the strongest person he knew. That was the boyfriend’s role, right? But he just kept massaging my head and said, “By the rules then. Let’s find a way.”
“My options are basically, what? Talk them out of it? Tried that.”
“You’ve only tried Alvin.”
“And Winterglass, but I’m pretty sure we broke him. Going over Alvin’s head to Belinda seems like a terrible idea, so who does that leave? The Seelie Queen, and we’re basically insects to her.”
“Well . . .”
Phantom Pains Page 28
