Between Frames (The City Between Book 4)

by W. R. Gingell

  “Yeah, but—”

  A stirring of Between around the front door tripped my heartbeat up a notch, and the faintest thread of JinYeong’s voice murmuring through the softness of it sent chills across my neck.

  Ah heck. I was too late.

  “Sit down,” I said to Mr. Preston, who had stood in his emphatic refusal to leave, and was now staring at the less-than-solid front hall. “And for pity’s sake keep it polite when they come in.”

  I stood in front of him to block his view, but he just leaned around me anyway, and I reckon that’s what Zero must have seen when he walked through the door.

  “Pet,” he said, in a voice of ice. “What are you doing?”

  “Had an accident,” I gabbled. “Went out to get some groceries and tripped over a bloke. He sorta just fell in through the door so I gave him some milk.”

  “He just fell into the house.”

  Close enough. “Yeah.”

  “No one answered when I knocked,” said Mr. Preston. “I came back two times, and this time I waited all night. You need to help me.”

  I mean, it wasn’t like he was a nice bloke or anything, but he did need our help. S’pose we’d been lucky so far that the people who actually needed our help were nice ones, but even horrible people need their lives saved sometimes. Especially horrible people need their lives saved sometimes.

  I pointed at Zero and said, “He’ll help you. Zero, Mr. Preston. Mr. Preston, Zero.”

  “Pet,” said Zero, through his teeth. “Coffee.”

  “Don’t be scared,” I told Mr. Preston. “He just growls sometimes. He doesn’t bite.”

  “Pet.”

  “Coffee. Got it.”

  I hurried off to the kitchen, eager to be there and back before too much conversation could happen without me, but I didn’t realise Athelas had followed me until I turned around from the cupboard to see him leaning on the kitchen island where JinYeong usually leans.

  “Pet,” he said amiably. “I’m certain there has already been some conversation on your lamentable desire to bring home other pets with you.”

  “Didn’t bring him home,” I pointed out. “He was already here. Reckon he must have followed one of you blokes home last night, so…”

  “I suppose that’s a fair enough point,” Athelas conceded. “Still, he doesn’t seem the most…sensible sort. Was he very rude to you?”

  “Yeah, a bit,” I said. I found that I was grinning a bit.

  Athelas’ eyebrows went up the tiniest bit, and I saw an upturn to the corners of his mouth that had been very straight until now. “Then I take it he also didn’t threaten you.”

  “Nah, he’s just a condescending git who doesn’t know how to speak to people.” I mean, I had a lot of experience with people like that.

  “Very well,” he said. “Kindly don’t give me that sarcastic look, Pet.”

  There were creases beside his eyes as he said it, though, and I couldn’t help laughing. “You want biscuits?”

  “Naturally. I shouldn’t bother to make tea or coffee for your Mr. Preston, however.”

  “Nah, he wouldn’t drink it anyway,” I said. “He’s afraid of water.”

  “That’s not exactly what I meant,” said Athelas.

  Of course it wasn’t. I hurriedly gathered up all the tea and coffee things onto a tray and dodged around him back into the living room, just in time to hear Zero say, with finality, “We do not take on outside cases. We have our own area of interest.”

  “You’ll regret it!” Mr. Preston said, his face pinched in a rictus of anger, disdain, and fear. None of those emotions covered the fact that I could see him shaking.

  “C’mmon, mate,” I said, leaving the tray on the coffee table. “That’s not the way to get people to help you.”

  “I said I’d pay you well!” he shot at Zero.

  Oh man. He needed help, because he definitely wasn’t helping himself.

  “I don’t care about money,” said Zero. “I’ve got enough.”

  “What about them?” Mr. Preston pointed rather wildly around at JinYeong and Athelas.

  “Quanshimi obseo,” said JinYeong, shrugging. He didn’t say it to be understood, but I knew enough Korean to understand when he added, “Ah, hyeong, he’s so noisy. Throw him out.”

  “No!” I protested. “He needs help!”

  “You told me you’d talk to them!” Mr. Preston said furiously to me. “All you’ve done is make coffee!”

  “You can thank the Pet that your limbs were not removed immediately when we arrived,” Athelas said, smiling pleasantly at him. “JinYeong smelt you long before we got in, and the Pet was kind enough to mention that you hadn’t…damaged anything.”

  That wasn’t exactly what I’d said, but whatever. “I told you I can only do so much,” I told Mr. Preston. “You’re not really helping yourself, mate.”

  “I should have known not to go to you first,” he said bitterly. “I should have gone straight to the fae.”

  Athelas’ eyebrows went up, and I reckon I must have been a mirror image of him.

  “You know a bit more than you told me you knew,” I said.

  “Leave now,” Zero said.

  “The people who employ me will not be happy!” snapped Mr. Preston.

  “Out,” said Zero, in such a commanding voice that it didn’t surprise me to see Mr. Preston wheel about, his face furious and frightened, and march himself to the front door.

  “Pet. The door.”

  I didn’t feel the same kind of compulsion as I could see around Mr. Preston, but you can bet I flaming jumped for the door. I was already in enough trouble. I got there before he did and pulled it open just in time to prevent him bloodying his nose on it. He glared at me on the way through, but I said softly, “I’ll talk to them. Just—try not to die in the meantime, okay?”

  He didn’t answer me, but I wasn’t sure if that was because Zero was doing something, or because he didn’t want to answer. I shut the door behind him and went slowly, reluctantly back down the hall to the living room. My coffee was waiting for me, so I took it, avoiding Zero’s eyes, and flopped down into my seat with my fingers wrapped around the porcelain warmth.

  Zero said, “Are you tired of living in this house, Pet?”

  A sick warmth of fear sank deep into my stomach. I was so close to having my house back. I just…needed to be more careful. Quietly, into the steam of my coffee, I said, “He needs help.”

  “He needs some lessons in manners,” murmured Athelas, helping himself to tea from the tray. “Something with which I would be more than happy to provide him.”

  I huffed a breath. “Yeah, he’s a galah. But he still needs help.”

  “He knows more than a human should know,” JinYeong said, making himself plain. He dropped down beside me on the couch, reaching around me for his own coffee and making a brief, welcome shield from Zero’s icy blue eyes as he gathered biscuits.

  “Yes,” said Zero. “JinYeong, you have enough biscuits.”

  I saw the edge of JinYeong’s dark, sharp grin. “Hyeongeun ssaugo shipeoyo? Kuraeyo. Ssauja!”

  “What are you fighting about now?” I demanded, whacking his arm. “Stop picking fights!”

  “Wae?” complained JinYeong, looking across reproachfully at me. “Yah, Petteu—”

  “I’ll make you some blood snacks instead,” I told him.

  JinYeong’s eyebrows flew up, and after a still moment, he sat back against the couch cushions with his coffee.

  “This is more important,” I explained. “Mr. Preston is a galah and a twit, but someone’s trying to kill him. He’s scared. He obviously knows a bit too much about something, but we’re exactly the right people to help him.”

  “We are not a unit to assist humans,” Zero said. “I’ve told you that, Pet. I won’t tell you again. And if you invite another human into the house without my express permission, I will consider our agreement reneged upon, and throw you out of the house.”

  There wa
s a bitterness at the back of my throat, but I tried to push it down. I remembered times Zero had helped me—had helped other humans, even though he said he wouldn’t. As much as Athelas couldn’t be listened to only by his words, was Zero more communicative through his actions than his words.

  I wanted to trust him. I could trust him. He wouldn’t kick me out—he would help Mr. Preston.

  So I said, “He said it’s something in the water. Something he can’t see until the water’s running, and then it comes up behind him.”

  Athelas looked distinctly interested, but Zero’s eyes went a shade cooler. “Mr. Preston told me that himself,” he said.

  “So what is it?” I asked. “The thing that does something like that?”

  “There’s no need for you to be knowing about such creatures.”

  “There is if they’re doing stuff to humans!” I protested. “Maybe we could have told him how to keep safe until—”

  “There is no until,” Zero said impatiently; and without so much as an I’m going out, he turned and stepped into a sudden dissipation of Between.

  I sat staring at the space where he’d been, my mouth open, caught between fury and helplessness. He didn’t even argue—didn’t even engage. He just left. How was I supposed to fight against that?

  Eventually it occurred to me that both JinYeong and Athelas were watching me—Athelas, faintly amused as always and JinYeong smirking—and I shut my mouth.

  “Thus the charm of authority,” said Athelas.

  “Is that what it is?” I said sourly, sipping my coffee. “I thought it was—”

  “Careful, Pet,” Athelas said softly. “I would not like to have to prove my loyalties.”

  “What, you’ll kick me out of the house on Zero’s behalf? Thanks.”

  “I think not,” he murmured. “You’ve such a convincing way about you. I’m sure you’ll manage to find another way to discuss the matter with my lord.”

  “That won’t do any good if he just walks away while I’m still talking.”

  “But then, you are the pet,” he gently reminded me.

  I was surprised at how much the poniard point of that soft remark hurt. “I know that!” I snapped. “He could have at least told me what’s bothering Mr. Preston, though! I could have warned him. The bloke’s just trying not to die.”

  “Rudely.”

  “Yeah, but just because he’s rude, doesn’t mean he deserves to die! And what if something like that happens to me? I wanna know what to look out for!”

  “I believe I’ve mentioned it before, but your education is sadly lacking.”

  I grumbled, “We don’t get taught about Between and Behind in school, you know.”

  “Perhaps it would pay you to read more, Pet.”

  “Yeah, like there’s a library of Between and Behind stuff I can go look at.”

  Athelas’ eyes rested briefly on Zero’s shelf of books; fat, tall things, all of them.

  “I can’t read those,” I protested. “They aren’t even in English!”

  “Nado mothae,” said JinYeong, leaning forward for more biscuits.

  “Nobody asked for your two cents!” I told him, but he only grinned. That was annoying. It meant that my instinctive feeling for Athelas’ meaning was probably right. “Let me guess—the books are like Between. You have to see ’em the right way to be able to read them.”

  “You managed to arrange them in order,” Athelas reminded me, rising from his chair to prowl in front of the bookcase.

  Yeah, but only because I hadn’t realised they were in a different language until I’d started arranging. I didn’t think I could do the pretend not to look at it until it forgets about you kind of thing that worked with birds at the park and titles in fae script for as long as it would take to read a whole book.

  “Moggo,” JinYeong said, throwing one of his biscuits at me. Maybe he was tired of the conversation.

  I stuck out my tongue at him, but I caught the biscuit, too. My coffee was starting to get cold, and I was hungry. I’d forgotten while I was annoyed.

  “Fine, I’ll study,” I said. “But if this is just you trying to tell me stuff without telling me stuff, I’m gunna start doing that with your flamin’ video surveillance.”

  “How dreadful,” said Athelas complacently. “Start with these, Pet.”

  I took the books he gave me, aware of JinYeong’s smirk, and accidentally-on-purpose swung my elbow a bit too close to his nose as I turned back around.

  “I do suggest that you confine your studying to those times when all your other chores are done,” Athelas said, returning to his chair. “And I suggest that despite your reservations, you prepare yourself to be…appropriately forthcoming about the surveillance footage when Zero asks you about it.”

  JinYeong threw another biscuit at me, and this one bounced off my head. I threw it back at him, but I must have been weak from lack of sufficient coffee or something, because he only caught it in his mouth and smirked at me yet again.

  “Fine,” I said. “But I’m not gunna like it.”

  “Oh, there’s no expectation of that,” said Athelas, smiling into his tea.

  Chapter Five

  JinYeong mustn’t have had anything to do, because he spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the couch beside me, alternately throwing biscuits at me and putting his feet up on the coffee table right where they’d be the biggest annoyance. And yeah, it would always have been annoying, but while I was trying to pay attention but not too much attention to my book, it was even more annoying.

  As soon as I got up to make dinner, though, JinYeong sprang to his feet and followed me into the kitchen, which made me think he was just making sure I followed through on my promise to make him blood snacks.

  “All right,” I said. “But I’m getting dinner ready first.”

  “Ne,” said JinYeong, and leaned against the kitchen bench.

  “You don’t have to watch me,” I protested, but he must have thought he did, because he didn’t go anywhere.

  Zero, the big, sulky fae, didn’t come home for dinner at all. I put aside his dinner in the fridge, twitching it out from under the hands of JinYeong, who tried to eat it himself. There wasn’t enough food in the house to make another dinner for Zero if he came home hungry.

  JinYeong glared at me, but he didn’t try to take the plate out of the fridge; just came and sat down on the couch with his fresh blood snacks to annoy me again. I ignored him and tried to read the books without scaring the meaning out of them by too much attention, but it was hard to balance the proper amount of attention with JinYeong flicking crumbs at me.

  “Gunna put something nasty in your room again,” I said, below my breath.

  I didn’t think Athelas heard what I said, but he smiled, anyway. Maybe he caught the tone of voice I used. Maybe he was just smiling at whatever was in his book.

  JinYeong looked smug and sat back against the cushions, though I wasn’t sure what he was being smug about. I was trying so hard to ignore him and pay just enough attention to the book that I didn’t notice when my head began to drop toward the coffee table. I didn’t notice when I curled back up on the couch, either, bare feet making dusty patches on JinYeong’s trousers, and fell asleep.

  They were all talking when I woke up the next morning, probably about their case. Unfortunately, the first thing I heard properly when I woke up was Zero’s voice saying, “It’s awake. Breakfast, Pet.”

  I groaned, my eyes still closed, and sat up. “Yeah. Breakfast. Got it.”

  “Aish,” muttered JinYeong, and I heard the light slapping of someone dusting themselves off. “Dirty Pet.”

  I rubbed my eyes and looked blearily at him to find that he was brushing off his trousers where my feet had been. Wearing sandals meant I gathered a lot more grime on my feet than usual.

  “Sorry,” I yawned, tottering on my feet. “Put it on a hanger later and I’ll brush it off.”

  I staggered off to the kitchen to make toast, but I must
have needed coffee a bit more than usual, because I forgot to put the drip pot on. I left the psychos to the toast and wandered back into the kitchen, still yawning, and felt a sudden buzzing in my pocket.

  My phone was vibrating. I pulled it out of my pocket and squinted down at it, confused. Somehow during the night I must have turned the sound off; I could see the tint of orange on the off/on switch.

  In my peripheral, I saw Athelas look up, and climbed up the two steps to the kitchen as I unlocked my phone. Nice and casual, that’s it. There hadn’t been a sound, after all; I was just…I dunno, messing with a game or something. Just so long as I didn’t pause, or look guilty, I’d be fine.

  Because the message that had flashed up on the screen as I tilted my phone, was, It’s me, Morgana.

  I grinned. I still had the pictures she’d sent; they were sitting in the chat above her message. I knew who it was.

  What’s up? I replied, then poured my coffee.

  We got a problem. That bloke came back and they let him in.

  Ah heck. I didn’t dare look in Athelas’ direction to see if he was watching me through the doorway, but I caught a reflection of him in the screen when I turned it a bit, and he was talking with Zero. I slipped my phone back into my pocket, and made up another tray for the tea and coffee.

  Looked like I wasn’t getting any coffee this morning. I trotted back down into the living room to put the tea and coffee beside the toast pile, and went for the front door.

  “I’m off to get some groceries!” I called.

  “Don’t take long,” said Zero. “You have training, and I want a report on the surveillance footage.”

  “Yay,” I said gloomily, and left the house, my sandals rubbing against the raw patches they’d already made. I waited until I had crossed the road toward the Brooker Highway and gone down one of the sideroads before I pulled my phone out again.

  Morgana picked up before the first ring sounded all the way through.

  I asked tersely, “Did they get Daniel?”

  “Um, not exactly.”

  “What does not exactly mean?”