The shrewd look from years of dealing came over Belgor. “I am sure we will both know that moment when it arrives, Mr. Grey.”

We stared at each other in the gathering gloom of the store. The sun had gone down, leaving the sallow, dirty bulbs as the only source of light. The scene could have been any one of several Belgor and I had acted our way through over the years. This part of our interaction infuriated Murdock. While he understood the game of looking the other way to further the greater goal, Murdock thought Belgor crossed the line too often without consequence.

“Is there anything else in here you have to worry about?”

Belgor shook his head. “As I’ve always told you, Mr. Grey, I am a legitimate business owner.”

I sighed. “Take it out of the box and mask it with a dampening glamour. Make it strong enough to last at least until tomorrow morning.”

He didn’t smile or gloat but got down to business. He flipped the box lid onto the love seat and gathered the torc in its tissue wrapping. As he muttered under his breath, little flashes of green slid off his fingers and wrapped themselves around the packaging. I opened my essence-sensing ability but could no longer feel the torc. A fey who could sense essence—and, more importantly, Dylan—would pick up nothing but the ambient essence of the Weird. Belgor handed me the package, and I slipped it inside my jacket. I flexed a thin smile. “Let’s invite them in, shall we?”

9

Murdock had arrived while I was inside with Belgor. He and Dylan eyed each other in front of the store with wary professional courtesy. The Guild and the Boston P.D. didn’t have the greatest rapport in the best of times. With the Guild alternating between ignoring minor essence fights in the Weird and coming down hard on major ones, and consulting the police or the city on neither, these were decidedly not the best of times. They both looked relieved when I stepped into the street. “I see you’ve met each other.”

Dylan extended his hand to Murdock. “I didn’t realize you were that Murdock. I’ve read interesting things about you.”

Murdock didn’t smile back, but he did shake. Dylan didn’t let it faze him. “You’re in homicide, aren’t you? What brings you down here?”

Murdock shrugged. “I work the Weird. I heard the words ‘Belgor’ and ‘Guild’ and figured something interesting might be up.”

Dylan glanced at the Boston patrol officer who stood to the side. “I couldn’t guess where you might have heard the words.”

If there’s one thing policing organizations hate, it’s jurisdictional disputes. If there’s one thing policing organizations love, it’s irritating each other over jurisdictional disputes. The Boston patrol officer had probably called Murdock a fraction of a second after arriving on the scene and seeing Guild operatives. Murdock looked at the missing window. “Belgor bite off more than he could chew this time?”

I leaned against the building opposite the shop. “Hard to tell. He claims a nutcase attacked him.”

Dylan frowned. You were in there a long time.

I gestured to the store. “We can go in. He’s just shy.”

Dylan and Murdock exchanged glances. The problem with working with partners is they knew how you operated. They knew the kinds of corners you liked to cut. They knew what your sarcasm meant. And they knew when you were up to something. The look they exchanged said as much. It also said neither was sure how much the other understood me.

Murdock, I knew, would cut me some slack. He wouldn’t push it in front of Dylan without knowing who he was and where things stood between the two of us. Dylan would be thinking the same thing. He would wonder how far Murdock had gone to cover my back, as he himself had covered for me in New York. Those were things I knew because I’d been partners with both of them and knew them just as well. Dylan strode into Belgor’s shop with an air of command. He kept a professional detachment that reminded me of someone observing a museum exhibit, Late-Twentieth-Century Commercial Pigsty, with Elf.

Murdock and I stayed out of the way by the counter. I had no official capacity to help, and Belgor wasn’t dead enough to motivate Murdock to flash his badge.

While he examined the scorched aisle, Dylan let his underlings run the routine questions by Belgor. He scanned the space with an investigator’s eye, stopping here and there to examine merchandise as if he were shopping. About three-quarters of the way down the aisle, he crouched. “Mr. Belgor, could you join me, please?”

Hearing that, I realized I had no idea if Belgor was his first name or last or only. Belgor moved up behind Dylan, blocking my view, so Murdock and I walked up the main aisle to the front and came around the other way.

Dylan pointed. “Is this yours?”

Belgor stretched his fleshy neck to see the item in question. In the kick space below a bottom shelf lay an old gold dagger with a black hilt. Dylan’s question was moot. The dagger had elf blood on the tip and, given its freshness, Dylan and I had no problem sensing the blood was Belgor’s. Belgor’s hand fluttered to his chest in mock-surprise. “Most assuredly not. You flatter a humble shopkeeper, Guildsman, to imply I could afford such a thing.” He liked to pour it on thick. Dylan gazed at me from under his brow. Despite the interference I had run for Belgor on occasion, the Guild had a hefty file on his history. Dylan wasn’t naïve enough to think Belgor was anywhere near that humble. I didn’t need to look at Murdock to know what he was thinking. Dylan spread his fingers above the dagger. It rocked a bit, then left the floor. As Dylan stood, the dagger rose higher until it hovered above his hand. The light in the room gave it a soft glisten except near the tip, where Belgor’s blood dulled the shine.

“Breton,” Dylan and I said at the same time. We shared a comradely smile.

“I’ve seen its mate in the Guildhouse storerooms,” I said.

Dylan let the dagger drop lower. “Can you sense the druid essence?”

I suppressed a small flutter of annoyance. I couldn’t tell if he was asking out of curiosity or condescension. “It’s druidess, if you want to be precise.”

He let the dagger settle back to the floor. “You’re ability is more fine-tuned than mine. I’ve never been able to sense gender.”

I smirked. “No comment.”

He met my eyes, and we both grinned like schoolkids. He turned to Belgor. “I’m sorry, Mr. Belgor, but we’ll need to search your shop.”

Belgor backed toward the counter. “Sincerely, Guildsman, there is no need. She was a troubled soul to be sure. I have no desire to press charges.”

Dylan slid his hands into his coat pockets. “Very kind of you. Unfortunately, we have to follow procedure. If you do not wish to cooperate with the investigation, you can discuss that later with an advocate. In the meantime, we should collect evidence in case you change your mind.”

Belgor rubbed his lips and looked at me. “As you wish, Guildsman. I want no trouble.”

Dylan smiled. “Good. Please let me know if you have any questions.”

I didn’t look at Belgor as we left the shop. Dylan stared at the slice of night sky above the small lane and tugged his collar up. “Getting nippy. Do either of you want to go for dinner?”

“I’m on duty for another hour, thanks,” Murdock said.

I hesitated. “Sure.”

Dylan extended his hand to Murdock. “It was a pleasure to meet you.”

“Same here. I’ll catch up with you later, Connor.” Murdock shook and walked back to his car without another word. He’s not big on the hello and good-bye. Dylan watched him leave without comment, not amused so much as curious.

A black car with Guild diplomatic plates pulled into the lane. Dylan opened the back door and slid inside, while I got in on the opposite side. A brownie in plain Guild security uniform manned the driver’s seat. Dylan leaned his head back against the seat. “I’m starving. Do you like No. 9 Park?”

I snorted. No. 9 Park Street was one of the best restaurants in the city. Not liking the place was like not liking air. “Who doesn’t?”

“You heard the man, Loddie. No. 9 Park.”

The brownie pulled away from Belgor’s shop.

“Interesting guy, that Murdock. Have you worked with him long?” Dylan asked. I gave him a knowing smile. “Like you haven’t read the files to know.”

He smiled with warmth. “You were always better than me at asking a question you already knew the answer to.”

I made myself more comfortable as Loddie pulled onto Old Northern Avenue. “So what do you want to know? He’s a good guy, a good cop. He cares about what he does and doesn’t like bullshit. He started asking me to take on consulting jobs when we met at the gym. That’s about it.”

“The gym? So you’re friends as well?”

That was what he really had wanted to ask the first time. “Yeah, I’d say we’re friends. We work out together and occasionally have dinner. We don’t really socialize beyond that.”

Dylan nodded. “And this Belgor. Do you work out with him, too?”

Dylan goes for a clueless dry humor that always made me chuckle. Especially because with him, more often than not, Dylan’s faux cluelessness is not so far from the real thing. “The only reason Belgor would be in a gym is if someone wanted to try lifting him. He’s an institution in the Weird. He could find out what you had for breakfast, and you’d never figure out how. Murdock hates him because he usually covers his tracks too well to get arrested. I tolerate him mostly. One of these days he’ll go too far, and he’ll end up spending time behind bars.”

Dylan pursed his lips. “Fencing stolen antiquities might be too far.”

I looked out the window. “Yeah, well, you’ll have to catch him doing something like that. You never know, though, he might surprise you and help your investigation.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dylan glance at me. “I don’t think I’d be surprised at all.” His tone was amused and matter-of-fact and confirmed he knew damn well something was up at the shop. I would have been disappointed if he didn’t.

I didn’t respond. The city glittered by, deep red and amber streaks of light on the other side of the glass. The soundproofing of the car kept noise from intruding. The seat—the luscious leather seat—gave comfortably beneath me. It smelled new. Every Guild car I’d ever been in smelled like new leather, always. I could smell the faint cologne Dylan wore—he still liked sandalwood apparently—and the almost dusty scent of the brownie in the front seat. I closed my eyes for a moment, and, for that moment, I felt like it was ten years ago, cruising around New York with my best bud, in the soothing comfort of a chauffeured car on the way to a party.

“We’re here,” Dylan said.

No. 9 Park is housed in an old townhouse on Beacon Hill. Its high-end design makes what would be cramped under normal circumstances feel cozy. The black-clad staff moves with polished smoothness, trained to glide in and out of service without startling the diners. Crisp white tablecloths glow against the muted taupe walls, soft candlelight warming the blemishes away from patrons’ faces. Even though Dylan had been in town only a couple of weeks, it didn’t surprise me in the least that the host knew him. When she offered to take my jacket—which in a place like that is more a subtle directive than a suggestion—I was relieved Dylan had his back to me so he couldn’t see my face. He’d be suspicious if I insisted on keeping my battered leather with me. Left with no opportunity to slip it out unseen, I let the torc go with it. I doubted coat-check theft was a problem at such a place, but such things do cross your mind when you’re smuggling stolen goods.

Dylan ordered wine and leaned back against the banquette. “I love this place. It reminds me of the city.”

I chuckled. “Check the stats, Dyl. Boston is a city.”

He twisted his lips in an exaggerated smile. “You know what I mean. New York misses you, you know.”

I rolled my eyes. “New York misses nothing, and, before you ask, no, I don’t miss it. You’re doing well by it, though.”

A waiter appeared with the wine. “It’s been good,” Dylan said. “The Guildhouse is a challenge, but I’ve managed to make my way.”

I sipped the wine. There was a time when I would never consider how much something that good cost.

“Something tells me this assignment is a stepping-stone.”

The edge of his lips twitched. “Of course. I get to use a visit to Auntie Bree as an excuse to further my career.”

That made my eyebrows go up. “I can’t imagine Briallen would be pleased to hear you phrase it like that.”

He snickered. “She’d laugh and call me a naughty boy. She’d be hard-pressed to claim innocence as to where I learned to lie honestly.”

I laughed, too. If Briallen had taught me anything, it was always to appear innocent to further my own ends. Of course, I had taken that too far and confused innocent with oblivious. People hadn’t called me arrogant for nothing. Some still did. “So what’s next? Department Director?”

Dylan lounged back. “Oh, I’m already that. I’m looking to move to a more elite position.”

He was too young to mean Guildmaster. “Black Ops?”

He looked around the restaurant. “You know Black Ops are mythical, Con. It would be an exciting thing to do. If it existed, I mean.”

I poked my cheek out with my tongue. “Of course. What was I thinking?”

The waiter placed a small collection of breads on the table. Dylan ran through several questions with him about the menu, convinced he was missing something, before making a final selection. The waiter topped off our glasses as he left.

Dylan’s eyes shifted back and forth as he looked down. It was a behavioral tic that meant he was sorting through his thoughts. I remembered it well. He glanced up at me. “You know the Weird pretty well, don’t you?”

“Sure. I live there.”

“Have you . . . have you noticed anything . . . different lately?”

I exhaled sharply through my nose. “In the Weird? How about every day? Ask me what you want to know, Dylan.”

“What do you know about the Taint, and have you noticed any particular people connected with it?” he asked.

I eyed him for a long moment. “This sounds like Ceridwen’s hearing.”

He gave an indifferent shrug. “The Seelie Court is very worried about the Taint.”

“Everybody is.”

“Come on, Connor. You asked me to be up-front. Return the courtesy.”

I sighed. “What we’ve been calling the Taint is the remnants of the essence from an out-of-control spell. It provokes hidden impulses and desires, usually violently. The only person who had any control over it is dead.”

“Have you noticed anyone trying to control it?”

I knew my smile had an annoyed curl to it. “Only the Guild.”

Dylan ignored the gibe. “What about the Teutonic Consortium?”

I rubbed my hands over my face before answering. “No, I haven’t. Now, can I ask you something? I know you’re loyal to both the Guild and the Seelie Court. If you’re trying to understand the Taint, can you please not assume it has some nefarious Teutonic plot behind it? You sound like Nigel, and he let that assumption blind him to the truth.”

He pursed his lips. “I’ll let you in on a secret, Con. Part of the reason I am here is to track Teutonic spies. That part of my job led me to the Taint, not the other way around. I’m seeing a correlation. I’m not making any assumptions yet.”

“Fair enough.”

Dylan twirled his glass, watching the light reflect in the deep ruby wine. “You’ve had a rough time here.”

I gave an embarrassed shrug. “It’s been a roller coaster. I was pretty bitter about losing my abilities, but I think I’m getting over it.”

Dylan’s eyebrows gathered. “You keep saying you’ve lost your abilities, but you seem to end up pulling off some heavy-duty spells. You either have abilities you never knew you had or you sure as hell have some new ones.”

I hunched forward, cupping my wineglass. “That’s the big question. Most of what’s happened this past year seems lucky, but lately I’ve been starting to wonder. I know I’m blocked from doing lots of things I used to do. At the same time, I can do things I never could before.”

“Like sensing gender in essence,” he said.

I nodded. “Yeah. It goes deeper than that, though. Sometimes I can sense what species initiated a spell even if personal essence isn’t left behind . . .” Dylan looked surprise. “. . . yes, exactly like a troll. I had a run-in with a troll not so long ago, and I seem to have gained a faint duplication of his ability.”

“So, the question is, did you always have the ability to sense like that and never knew it, or do you have a new ability to absorb others’ abilities,” he said.

“That’s what I’m trying to understand.”

Our meals arrived, and the conversation drifted to reminiscing. We laughed over shared history as I ate quail with figs and steak au poivre. A decadent chocolate thing appeared for dessert. I relished every bite, marveling that I had forgotten how much I loved high-end food. Now that I knew about Dylan’s relationship with Briallen, I understood where he had developed his taste for expensive port.

“Do you have many solitary fey here?” he asked, as I finished telling him about the odd essence I had encountered on my way home from Briallen’s the other night.

I scraped little lines with my fork in the remains of the chocolate sauce on my plate. “Sure. More than most people realize. I certainly didn’t until I started living in the Weird.”

“Maybe a solitary you’ve never encountered before produced the presence.”

I shook my head doubtfully. “It wasn’t corporeal, though. With my essence sensing off the scale, I think I would have felt a body present, but it was more vague, like an afterthought. It was like fairy essence, but the whole thing felt random.”

Dylan leaned on his hand. “This is the type of thing I was talking about earlier. Do you think it could have been someone using the Taint to create a spell?”

“No, it wasn’t the Taint. I know what the Taint feels like. This thing felt odd and somehow directed at me.”

Dylan took on a serious look. “You know, you’re right. If I wanted to attack you, I’d send a blobby thing to point at you.”

I leaned back and shook my head. “You’re hopeless. How anyone promoted you is beyond me.”

He wore the patented Dylan macBain rogue smile as he met my eyes. “Good luck and charm.”

I smirked. “You’re half-right.”

Still smiling, he sipped his port. “Really? Which?”

I chuckled. “I lied. Neither.”

When the bill arrived, Dylan didn’t mention it as he slid a credit card into the check folder. There was no question who would be paying in that restaurant. Loddie waited at the curb when we came out. “Take the car, Con. I’m going to walk back to Auntie Bree’s.”

The sleek black town car idled in the chill night air that surrounded us. “I’m not going to object,” I said. Dylan laughed, then became serious. “Come to New York, Connor. Name what you want, and I’ll make it happen.”

I searched the sidewalk as though an answer might be there. “The Guild tossed me, Dylan. You’d have to expend a lot of political capital to do that.”

He shrugged. “No, I wouldn’t. I’ve looked at your file, Connor. Your expulsion is on a pretty technical point. The Boston Guild may claim they’re afraid of the liability because of your loss, but they make exceptions to that all the time. Someone wanted you out. There’s a smoking gun lying on a mantel somewhere. Come to New York. We don’t have to abide by Boston’s decisions.”

I gave him a sheepish grin. “I’ll have to think about it. Can I take a rain check on the offer?”

He gave my arm a squeeze. “Of course. Take as long as you need.” He pointed at the car as he walked away. “Enjoy the ride, buddy.”

His maroon coat swayed as he strode up toward the statehouse and turned the corner. Briallen lived a couple of blocks farther. I slid into the passenger seat of the car. “Mind if I sit up front, Loddie?”

His neutral expression didn’t change. “Whatever sir prefers.”

I snorted. No one had deferred to me like that in a long time. As he drove me back to the Weird, I resisted the urge to play with the stereo system. I slumped in the seat and let the heat lull me into a doze. Dylan could do what he said. He always came through on a promise. I wouldn’t be a full field agent, though. The Boston Guild was right about one thing—my lack of ability would be a liability in the field. I could leave Boston, set myself up as a prime researcher. I would be willing to work for Dylan like I never would work for Keeva macNeve. I’d be able to pay my bills again. Have a nice apartment again. I let myself imagine living that life again, racing around the streets of New York in black cars and taking calls from power brokers. I could have more tales to tell like the ones Dylan and I had spent the evening reliving.

As the car pulled up in front of my building, a depression settled over me. I could do all that, but it would leave too many questions behind me. I had lost my abilities in Boston. I had lost my memory here. I had lost a way of life I enjoyed. If I went to New York, I would always wonder if I’d walked away from finding the answer to what had happened. Maybe I’d even be giving up the chance to figure out why it happened. It was tempting, yet . . .

But then there would be Dylan. I left New York because of things that happened involving him, and he knew that. Despite the evening and the ease in which we fell into our old familiarity, I didn’t know if either of us could work with the other again. And if I felt that, he had to be wondering the same thing. We hadn’t been partners for nothing. We had the same concerns and drives. Well, up to a point. And that was the point I left.

“Sir? Would you like me to take you elsewhere?” said Loddie.

I had been woolgathering while the car waited at the curb. I looked up at the crumbling facade of my building. “No thanks, Loddie. I think I’ll stay home for now.”

I let myself out, and he drove away. I felt rooted to the sidewalk as I stared at my desolate street. I pulled out my cell phone and hit speed dial. It picked up on the second ring.

“Hi. I really need to see you right now,” I said.

“I’ll be right there,” Meryl said.

10

Sunlight crept into the living room, spreading across me as I sprawled on the futon. Meryl unconsciously moved into shadow. As a die-hard moon daughter, she preferred to revitalize her essence at night. She looked at me intently, curling sideways. “So, you’ve told me what you loved about New York. You’ve told me what you love about Boston. But you’ve avoided what happened with Dylan. I think we’ve come to the point where you let it out.”

I stretched and rolled off the futon. I turned away from her, knowing full well physically turning away was more evasion. I refilled our coffee mugs without speaking, putting sugar and cream in mine. Meryl took hers black. I handed her the mug and sat in the chair opposite the one she had occupied most of the night.

I sipped the coffee. “This isn’t quite the way I pictured you in my apartment first thing in the morning.”

She grinned. “Really? It’s exactly what I pictured.”

I shook my head, smiling, and sipped the coffee again. “Coffee’s good, huh?”

Meryl propped her feet on the edge of the futon, her big, chunky thigh-high boots scuffing the sheets.

“And the weather’s lovely. Get on with it, Avoidance Boy.”

I sighed. “Have you ever seen a Staten Island Ferry?”

She cocked her head at me. “Nope.”

“They go back and forth from Staten Island to the Battery in lower Manhattan twenty-four hours a day. They’re huge. The larger boats can carry six thousand passengers. The Pride Wind was one of the smaller ones, only about three thousand five hundred capacity. Still big.”

Meryl dropped her feet to the floor and straightened in her chair. “You were there that day?”

I nodded. Everyone knew the Pride Wind and what happened. It was a major disaster averted, but still a disaster. “Dylan and I were on Governor’s Island that morning running security for the diplomatic reception that never happened. We were checking the perimeter of the island when we saw the first explosion on the ferry. A Danann fairy from the Washington Guildhouse was with us, and he flew us out.”

Meryl’s jaw fell open. “Wait! You were on the ferry?”

I let my head fall back against the chair. “Yep. The records were sealed because of national security. I’m not supposed to talk about it. Anyway, the Danann dropped us on the stern, then went back to get help. We never saw him again.

“At first, we didn’t know what had happened. Remember, this was ten years ago. No one really thought

‘terrorists’ then. It was in the backs of our minds, though, because of our security job for the diplomatic reception. We didn’t know the reception and the attack were connected until later. The terrorists intended to blow up the ferry in view of the reception because they knew news crews would be filming. The reception was supposed to be outside, and the attack was supposed to happen as the ferry passed, but the terrorists screwed up their communications.

“After the initial explosion, the captain stopped the ferry. Dylan and I guessed something had blown in the hold. People panicked, pushing their way to the port side to get away from the smoke. We tried to keep things calm. We did sendings among the passengers to find more fey to help, but very few were on board that morning. Dylan decided to go to the bridge to find out what was going on. I stayed behind to keep the passengers away from the smoke coming from the starboard side. Then the second explosion went off on the port side.

“Chaos broke out. No one knew where to run, so people were running everywhere. I managed to get the crowd to go to the stern. That’s when the bridge blew. The whole boat shuddered and began to list to port. It was hard to see through all the smoke. People were screaming and crying and fighting over life jackets.

“The next thing I knew, I heard essence-fire. I pushed my way through the crowd midships and found Dylan. Two fairies were attacking him, which confused me. I thought they were panicked or something, or that maybe Dylan had tried to press them into service, and they’d refused. Then they started firing into the crowd, and my instincts took over. I deflected what I could of that first barrage, then flanked Dylan and struck back at them. I was the more aggressive offense fighter, so Dylan let me coordinate our defense.”

I paused, realizing where my need to talk about this had come from. Talking to Dylan, who was on the Pride Wind with me that day, and telling him about the strange attack in the alley had dredged everything up again. Maybe that was why I had gotten so down last night, given how it all ended in New York. Meryl waited while I gathered my thoughts. “In the middle of all this, Dylan managed to tell me what had happened. The fairies had blocked his access to the upper decks and the bridge. They were lookouts, protecting three druids who were detonating the bombs. Unfortunately for them, preventing Dylan from going up to the bridge saved his life and sealed their own fate.

“When the fight started, anyone who could get away did. We had a large span of the middeck to ourselves. The fight with the fairies was at a stalemate until the druids showed up. They had good coordination and pushed us back toward the stern, where the passengers were.”

I stopped talking but didn’t look at Meryl. She kept silent and let me have the moment. It was at that point in the fight that I’d made my first hard decision. I took a deep breath and continued.

“We were already outgunned, and still another fairy turned up. Six against two with no help coming yet. A couple of low-powered druids and solitaries among the passengers took occasional shots at the attackers, but they weren’t enough. They were civilians. Office workers and families. They’d probably never used their abilities to fight like that in their entire lives.

“I knew Dylan and I couldn’t protect the passengers much longer, so I told him to build an airbe druad behind us. I figured a druid hedge would at least buy us some time and stop the essence strikes from hitting anyone. Dylan couldn’t split his essence to form the hedge and continue the fight. I couldn’t let up my defense to do it myself. I had the command, so I ordered him to use the passengers’ essence. That was hard. I had never drained the essence from bystanders to power my abilities. I had never needed to. It was the lesser of two evils at that point, drain them and hope they didn’t die, or not drain them and watch them die.

“Dylan didn’t hesitate. He trusted my decision and acted on it. He has an amazing command of essence control. Not a single person he tapped that day died from the spell. The entire time, he shot back at the attackers whenever he could. He was incredible.

“I kept firing. I deflected their shots, wove nets of essence out of them and threw it all back at them. They didn’t give me a chance to rest, and I did the best I could to return the favor. We reached another stalemate. I lost all sense of time. I remember wondering why no one came from shore to help. When I saw the case report later, I couldn’t believe that the entire event transpired over twenty minutes from the time the first bomb went off to when . . . to when it all stopped.

“When I thought it couldn’t get worse, the strangest thing happened. Human normals showed up with guns. They weren’t there to help us. They were with the fairies and the druids. They fired at the airbe druad , trying to kill passengers. But Dylan . . . Dylan held the hedge. The fey passengers still standing did their best to help him.

“But we were losing. I couldn’t stand much longer by myself. I had been forced all the way back to the hedge. Dylan blazed with essence, keeping the barrier up with one hand and firing at the terrorists with the other. He was burning out. The essence channeling through him was tearing him apart. But he didn’t stop.

“Another bomb went off, the last one, but we didn’t know that then. We both fell to the ground. The druids and the human attackers fell, too. The fairies were airborne and continued firing, pinning us to the floor. I managed to get to my knees.

“Something flew through the air toward me. I thought it was debris. I couldn’t do anything about it without taking my attention off the fairies. Dylan shouted and pushed me out of the way. A second later, I heard this sound, this wrenching groan, come out of him. I knew something was wrong. He was sprawled on his back. It wasn’t debris that had flown by me. It was a knife. A cheap, stupid knife. It had struck him in the chest, right in the heart.”

I stopped speaking again. My face felt warm, my heart pounding in my chest as I remembered the moment. I closed my eyes, steeling myself to finish. I had told the whole thing only once and never said a word about it again, but I needed to finish it for Meryl. And for myself.

“I don’t remember what the terrorists were doing at that moment. I just don’t remember. I wasn’t looking at them anymore. All I saw was this dark red stain pouring across Dylan’s shirt, this dark red stain against a red shirt. The look of horror on his face is etched in my mind forever. I leaned over him. He reached up for me, his hands shaking uncontrollably. I will never forget the shock and fear in his eyes.

“Everything seemed to stand still. Everything seemed to fall away from me, nothing but me and Dylan on a blank white canvas. To this day, I don’t understand how I knew to do what I did, but I must have released a huge pulse of essence into him. The next thing I knew, Dylan gave a strangled gasp. I had stopped his heart, frozen it in place, and shut his whole body down into a deep trance state. My own essence wrapped into his. I felt the pain of the knife, felt what he felt as he lost consciousness.”

I was breathing faster, avoiding looking at Meryl. Heat rushed into my face, and I knew I wasn’t going to be the stoic, emotionless man telling a story. I opened my mouth to speak, but closed it again. After another long pause, Meryl shifted in her seat. “It’s okay, Connor. Finish it.”

I met her eyes. They brimmed with tears.

“I killed them, Meryl. With a single, searing thought, I killed three fairies, three druids, and three humans. They were mind-linked to others, and I killed them, too. I killed fourteen people in an instant with my mind, burned them to empty husks. I saved over two thousand people that day, but I did something I can’t ever take back.”

Meryl didn’t hesitate. She got up from the chair and curled in my lap. Wrapping her arms around me, she buried her face into the side of my neck. I felt tears on my cheeks, felt her tears on my neck. I held her tightly against my chest. “For a few hours with Dylan last night, I really wanted it all back. But then what happened came back in a rush, and I didn’t know what to think. I thought of you. I don’t know exactly what happened to you that night at Forest Hills, Meryl. But when I saw you standing there, blazing with essence, I knew what you had to be going through. I knew and was horrified for you. Don’t think for one moment I don’t understand something of what you gave up that night.”

Her body shuddered against mine as she sobbed. We held each other, and I rocked her, wanting to hold her against everything, keep out everything out that might hurt her. She brought her face up, vibrant red blush against her white skin, tears clinging to her eyelashes.

I closed my eyes. Our lips met and parted, and she didn’t pull away, but held me tighter. Her hands gripped my head as we kissed, my arms encircling her as our mouths met, no more words, but a sharing of what we couldn’t express. I stood, lifting her in my arms as she wrapped her legs around me. Refusing to let go, I lowered us both onto the open futon, tangling into each other, kissing and kissing until it was no longer a kiss but a hunger, an urgent need for connection.

She began to glow, essence coiling off her slick skin and surrounding us both in an aura of white light. My skin burned with electric intensity. The thing in my head shifted, a firm pressure against the back of my eyes, not pain, not pleasure. My body shields activated, but they didn’t repel Meryl. They reacted to her essence and what I was feeling, trying, but not quite merging. I heard a high whining sound and it was me and it was Meryl and it was the power of our joining. The light filled my vision, urging me on, urging both of us, deep rasping breaths as we surrendered to the rush of emotion. We sprawled away from each other. Chests heaving, we stared at the ceiling. My jeans were twisted around my ankles, and my sodden shirt had ridden up to my chest. Meryl lay with her boots planted on the bed, her skirt flipped up onto her naked torso.

“This isn’t how I pictured it,” I said.

She laughed. “Me either.”

I laughed, too, like I hadn’t in a long time. I rolled toward her and traced a spiral in the moisture of her cleavage.

She trailed her fingers through the thick stubble on my head. Neither of us spoke for the longest time, spooned together and lost in thought.

Meryl cleared her throat. “You never said why you left New York.”

“I couldn’t bear to hurt Dylan after saving him like that.”

She rolled her head toward me. “Why would you hurt him?”

I looked into her eyes. “When I bonded my essence to him, I felt what he felt. I didn’t realize Dylan was in love with me.”

She propped herself on one elbow and leaned her face over mine, her crazy orange hair tickling my cheeks as she gave me a lopsided smile. “Gods, you’re freakin’ clueless sometimes.”

I kissed her again.

11

After some clothing adjustments, Meryl and I dozed off a couple of times. The final time I woke up, I was alone. No note. She didn’t return the messages I left on her cell. The lack of response was making me anxious.

I hadn’t expected what had happened with her to happen. Sure, I wanted it. Her. But when Meryl wasn’t dismissing my attempts at seduction, she was laughing at them. I was beginning to think her lack of interest was more than teasing. And yet, last night, when it was the farthest thing from my mind, when I felt so alone on the sidewalk in front of my building, she was the first person I thought of, and she responded. Never in my life had I had sex with someone out of grief. I didn’t know what to think about it. It didn’t give me pleasure or pain. Release. It felt like release, but from what I couldn’t quite figure. Maybe she was upset with me. Maybe she thought the whole evening had been a ploy to get her into bed finally or that I had taken advantage of her at an emotionally vulnerable moment. Maybe I was a bad lay, and she was in shell shock. I threw the last one in to amuse myself. I hoped. Beyond all the anxiety of what the sex meant in terms of our relationship, I needed to talk to her about my dream again. It had changed. I still saw the stone and the rippling waves, but the two red and black figures at the end appeared to tangle and merge as they fought. In the dream, they were too distant to recognize any features that would identify them as real people. I couldn’t tell if they were related to the stone or the ripples or even each other.

The next day, the door buzzer jolted me out of my chair like an electric shock. Unannounced visitors to my apartment were rare. I didn’t live in a drop-in part of town. No one I knew who would visit me lived in the Weird, except maybe my brother Callin. He wasn’t likely to ring my bell without calling. Given that, my anxiety spiked whenever someone knocked on my door. I was supposed to be living in a secure building, which was kind of a joke since my neighbors were art students and dwarves with crazy schedules. When the door buzzer went off, at least that meant the front door was closed for a change. I pressed the intercom button. “Yes?”

The old speaker crackled with a male voice. “Connor macGrey, Her Highness, Ceridwen, Queen, requests your presence.”

When someone uses the “mac” in my name, it’s a sign they don’t know me at all. “When?”

“Now, sir.”

I leaned on my shoulder against the wall. The hearing wasn’t going to go away. The Seelie Court could drag it out for as along as they wanted, or at least until they were sure that I—or any druid—posed no threat to its power. The fact that Maeve had sent an underQueen to investigate showed how seriously she took the matter. A lesser queen to be sure, but still a queen. I pressed the intercom. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

My sweatpants and T-shirt were not much of a royal audience outfit. I swapped into black jeans and threw a black button-down shirt on and my usual boots, the ones that have one occupied knife sheath each. It wasn’t formal, but I’d be damned if I was going to make myself any more presentable than that on such short notice.

The liveried driver waited outside my building. He opened the rear door of a limo for me.

“I prefer to ride up front,” I said.

He inclined his head and closed the door. “As you prefer then, sir.”

Even though I was basically telling him I was giving up the privilege of being pampered, he walked with me to the opposite side of the car to hold the passenger door for me. He guided the limo back to Old Northern and turned toward the channel bridge. A police squad car sat at the end of the bridge. The lone officer waved as we passed him.

Boston hates limos. The old streets are short and narrow and don’t afford much turning space. People still want their luxuries, though. Two days ago, I had been in a black town car with Dylan. Now, I was in my second limo in as many nights. One could argue I was moving up. I knew better, though. Even when the ride is free, there’s a price to be paid. Besides, I didn’t think Carmine’s pimp limo counted as moving up.

We didn’t travel far but pulled up to the Boston Harbor Hotel. If I’d thrown a rock out the window of my study, I’d have hit the place. Before I could get out, another liveried brownie opened the rear door on the driver’s side. I couldn’t help smiling at the confused look on her face when she saw the empty backseat. I thanked the driver and let myself out.

The second brownie rushed to my side. “I’m sorry, Druid macGrey. The driver should have let you sit in back.”

She hurried to keep pace with me into the lobby. “I insisted on the front. Are you my escort?”

“Yes, sir. This way, sir.” Two more liveried servants flanked an elevator. I stepped inside with my anxious escort, and she pressed the floor panel for the Presidential Suite, the best rooms in the place. Despite its name, more royalty than democratically elected officials stayed in the suite. The elevator escort turned me over to yet another servant in the suite’s foyer. He was in what might be called uniform casual since he didn’t have a cap or epaulets. If I’d been dealing with anyone else but a royal member of the Seelie Court, I’d have suspected someone was trying to either impress or intimidate me. But I knew the Seelie Court. They took this level of servitude for granted and didn’t care what I thought.

The house servant bowed and left me in the living room. I supposed the room made some people feel at home, but it looked nothing like my place. The room was decorated in soft shades of blue and beige, with vaguely Asian accents. It had three sofas in a space larger than my entire apartment. The lamps had been lowered to let the harbor lights twinkle in the windows. Quiet music played, a traditional harp-and-flute melody that I assumed was meant to be soothing.

Ceridwen stepped into the room, stopping in front of the windows to face me with a soft expression that grew into a small smile. She wore casual clothing, a flowing tunic in rust with loose pants. She had gathered her hair in a loose knot at the middle of her back. “I’m glad you came.”

I strolled to the center of the room, still taking in the surroundings. “I wasn’t sure I had a choice.”

She laughed, not loud but too long, as she turned to the wet bar and filled two small glasses with whiskey. She handed one to me, held hers up, and we tapped.

“Sláinte,” she said.

“And yours,” I responded.

We sipped. She didn’t say anything but stood with a slight glimmer of the whiskey on her deep maroon lips before gesturing to the sofas. “Let’s sit.”

She draped herself along the end of a couch, pulling her bare feet up off the floor and toying with her glass. “We seem to have gotten off to a bad start.”

I leaned back into one of the other sofas. “Are we at the start of something?”

She smiled through another sip. “We offended . . . I offended you. I apologize.”

I chuckled. “You must really want something if you’re willing to apologize.”

Ceridwen stared at her glass, perhaps deciding how to respond. “I am here for the truth of what happened at Forest Hills. No one here has been cooperative.”

“Maybe you should try a little less emphasis on commanding presence and a little more on diplomacy.”

She laughed again, this time honestly. “Yes, well, there is that. I’m not used to having my motives questioned. At Tara, the knowledge that I desire an answer is sufficient to produce results.”

“This country has a problem with that attitude. We had a little revolution over it.”

She nodded, continuing to affect a bemused smile. “Yes. I noticed you said ‘we.’ You consider yourself a citizen here?”

I leaned my elbows on my knees, rolling the glass between my palms. “I’ve never sworn fealty to Maeve, if that’s what you’re asking. Have you?”

She slid from the couch and retrieved the decanter. She topped off my glass before sitting again. “Of course. All the underKings and -Queens did after Convergence. It was necessary.”

I eyed her over my glass. “Necessary, but not sincere?”

She pursed her lips in amusement. “Oh, I don’t think you know me well enough to dare that question. The events of Forest Hills were felt at Tara. There was a dimming of essence. Do you really not remember anything else from Forest Hills?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“What if I said I don’t believe you?”

I shrugged. “What if I said I don’t care?”

The appearance of amusement finally slipped from her. “You don’t know what you’re dealing with, Connor macGrey.

A druid with no abilities means nothing to the players involved.”

I smiled broadly to annoy her. “And yet here is a queen of Faerie serving me drinks.”

She gave me a measured look, then turned on her bemused smile again. “So it would seem.”

She rose from the couch and went to the windows. The music played as she stared off to the harbor. One of the ways I can distinguish the difference between the fey and human normals is by the strength of their body essence. The fey have a more pronounced aura around them and, as Ceridwen stood looking out the window, I felt her withdraw hers into herself as much as she could. “Call the spear.”

I stood. “Why?”

She didn’t face me, but her eyes shifted to my reflection in the glass. “I want to see if you were able to take it from me because you were in a place of concentrated power. It’s at the Guildhouse now. If it responds to your call from there, it’s bonded to you.”

I debated whether she was leading me into a trap. I couldn’t see how it would be any more of a risk than walking into her suite. She didn’t need the spear if she were going to overpower me. I lifted my hand. “Ithbar.”

I felt the coolness of activated essence, and the spear appeared, cold and slick in my hand. The faint odor of ozone tickled my nostrils.

Ceridwen did not turn but lowered her chin. She held a hand out. “Ithbar.”

The spear shivered out of my hand and into hers. I clenched my stomach as she turned and planted the butt of the spear on the ground. “We are not pleased by this. The spear is ours, Connor macGrey. It would be foolish of you to forget that.”

“If you own it, tell it to ignore me,” I said.

“This spear is key to the defense of Tara, Grey. Maeve is under threat; perhaps the entire Seelie Court is. If you interfere with our security, you could doom yourself as well.”

“What threat?” I asked.

She compressed her lips, annoyance flaring in her eyes. “Bergin Vize. That is all you need to know. That should be enough to tell you the danger of Maeve’s situation. I am appealing to your honor as a druid of our people. You must tell me how to control the Taint.”

I wondered if the mere mention of Vize’s name was expected to throw me into a panicked rage. Maybe a few weeks earlier it might have worked, but at the moment, Ceridwen’s motives were too suspect for me to buy into it. “That’s a pretty clumsy attempt to get me to cooperate. I’ve already told you everything I know. I know nothing more about the Taint and even less about the spear. You brought the spear into this, not me. I have no idea why it bonded to me, but obviously you don’t have the control over it you thought you did. Don’t blame me, and don’t threaten me.”

Her eyes went cold, the fathomless cold of an ancient fey. “We make a better ally than enemy.”

As unsettling as her stare was, I wouldn’t let it cow me. “So do I, Ceridwen.”

I sensed her essence surge, but she held it within instead of releasing it on me. It ebbed away. It probably had occurred to her that a dead body in such a nice hotel would wreck the carpet. A faint bitterness crept into her face. “You wouldn’t last long at Court.”

I gave her my back and walked toward the foyer. “Maybe Court wouldn’t last long around me.”

I let myself out. The liveried servant startled when I appeared at the elevator. He must have been expecting a sending to tell him we had finished. The elevator opened on the same anxious woman who had ridden up with me. “Sir,” she said.

We didn’t speak until we hit the lobby. I held my hand up and said, “Ithbar.” The spear materialized in my hand. I handed it to the brownie. “Please delivery this to Ceridwen. Tell her to be careful; the point can be sharp.”

I hated when royalty acted like royalty. It was why I never considered the diplomatic corps. Briallen might have felt comfortable playing their annoying games of privilege, but they made me want to hit the players. If I hadn’t gotten the point across to Ceridwen that she couldn’t intimidate me, she sure as hell would get it when her servant got back upstairs.

One of the lobby servants started to lead me across the thick carpeting toward the front doors. “This way, sir.”

At the back end of the lobby, doors led out to the harbor. “No, thanks. I’ll walk.”

I strolled the dock overlooking the channel. Luxury yachts rested at the pier behind the hotel. In nice weather, the plaza hosted everything from movie nights to concerts to weddings. I could see and hear them from my apartment. Across the mouth of the channel, the Weird shimmered with a rainbow light of essence. I picked out the faint blue glow of my computer in the upper window of my dilapidated warehouse apartment. No boats docked beneath it, but a fair amount of sea wrack clung to the pilings. I glanced up at the hotel. Either Ceridwen didn’t have essence-masking security, or she didn’t feel she needed it. I found her suite with no trouble. Her tall figure blazed as she stood at the window, the spear in her hand. I couldn’t make out the details of her face, but I had no doubt she was staring at me. I continued along the dock.

A cold wind came up the channel as I turned onto the Old Northern Avenue bridge. It’s a swing bridge that pivots to allow boat traffic. Rusted steel beams form trusses in a complex pattern that, depending on your aesthetic, is picturesque or an eyesore. Either way, it makes crossing the channel on foot convenient.

Someone walked in the roadway about midway across. As he came toward me, I noticed he wore a collared shirt and long pants, a little underdressed for the cold weather. He glared at me, like someone in a bad mood looking for an excuse to get into it with someone on the ass-end of town. A gust of wind rushed from the harbor, stirring up sand and debris. Grit flew in my face, and I shielded my eyes against it. The wind moaned across the bridge, the many gaps and crossbeams in the trussing acting like a pipe organ. When the eddies of sand settled, I crossed the bridge. The guy was gone. I checked for essence nearby in case he was a drunk lurking in the shadows, waiting to jump me. Nothing. I chalked it up to his thinking better of it.

On the Weird end of the bridge, a police car blocked the road leading back into the financial district. A lone patrol officer wearing official outdoor gear stood by the car. We nodded as I passed. A car pulled up, and the officer signaled it to turn back into the neighborhood. Behind his patrol car, a police barrier had been set up with a sign that said BRIDGE CLOSED TO INBOUND TRAFFIC. I looked back along the bridge. I’d come across on the outbound lane and hadn’t noticed anything unusual except the walker. My curiosity piqued, I retraced my steps.

“Bridge closed, sir,” the officer said.

“I just walked over it. It’s not blocked on the other end. Is it safe?” I said. The officer kept a professional look on his face. “It’s safe to walk on.”

I cocked my head. “Are you saying I can’t use it from this direction?”

He gave a curt nod. “No one can use the bridge to enter the financial district without clearance. Order of the police commissioner.”

I exhaled sharply. “You’re kidding.”

A subtle change came over him, a hardening of features that cops get when they think they’re about to have trouble with someone. He stared at me, not speaking. I smiled and nodded again. “Thank you.”

I wasn’t going to argue with him. The guy was only doing his job. If Commissioner Scott Murdock thought barricading the fey in the Weird was going to help, he was the idiot, not the poor patrol officer who had to enforce it. I shook my head. It was window-dressing security. Blocking the bridge might stop foot traffic, but plenty of fey flew and swam. The police would have their hands full trying to stop them. I stepped around the police car, glancing back at the officer, the bridge stretching long and empty behind him. I paused again and looked back. The bridge was empty. The officer stared. “Move along, sir,” he said.

“Did you see anyone else on the bridge?”

“Sir?”

“A guy on the bridge, walking out of the Weird. He didn’t pass me on the bridge. Did he come back this way?”

The officer’s hand nonchalantly dropped near his weapon. “You’re the only person to come through, sir. Please move along. That’s a direct police order to clear the area.”

I held my hands out and down. “No problem, Officer. Thank you again.”

I made for my apartment on Sleeper Street. Something about the guy on the bridge felt familiar. I have a good memory for essence signatures of people I know, but he had been too far away for me to sense him. By the time I reached my apartment building, I had convinced myself that the look he gave me meant he knew me, knew me and didn’t particularly like seeing me. I didn’t particularly like not seeing him then, not knowing where he went and why the cop hadn’t seen him. I kept a sharp ear and eye out all the way down Sleeper, but no one followed me.

No fancy yachts or doormen or limos waited outside my building. The Boston Harbor Hotel glowed with yellow light across the channel. I didn’t bother trying to see if Ceridwen was still watching. She had likely gotten bored by now and moved on to some other power scheme. I hadn’t helped myself by irritating her, but at this point, there wasn’t anything she could do to me. If Ceridwen continued hassling me, I’d have to figure out a game plan to get her off my back. And if Commissioner Scott Murdock thought he could keep people from the Weird out of the city, he was in for a surprise. I didn’t know what I would do, but I wasn’t going to sit back and take it. I thought I’d let the two of them play it out, then cross that bridge when I came to it. And no police officer or Faerie queen was going to stop me.

12

Murdock lay on his back, sweat glistening on his forehead as he breathed with exertion. As I looked down at him, he gave me that smirk, the one that says, “Yeah, I can do this.” His arms came up, his chest expanding with a last burst of energy, and he dropped the bar on the rack. Rolling up from the bench, he shot his elbows out and gave his body a twist first in one direction, then the other. I slipped a couple of plates off each end of the bar and took his place on the bench press. He came around to spot me. Again with the smirk, he held one hand above the bar to make the point that he wouldn’t need two hands to lift it off me if I lost it. I finished the set and sat up, running a towel over my face. “Are we going to talk about this?”

He grabbed the chin-up bar, lifted himself in the air, and talked without missing a beat in his set. “Why does everyone feel the need to ‘talk about this’?”

I shook my head. “Aren’t you the least bit concerned?”

He dropped to the floor. “You have one more set.”

I lay back. The last two reps threatened to fail, but I would be damned if I let him get the satisfaction of pulling the bar off me. Again. I stood and stretched.

Murdock and I worked out together. It was how we met. Jim’s Gym is low-key, on the edge of the financial district, just over the bridge from the Weird. It wasn’t so far that I talked myself out of going and not so near that I obsessed about working out. Murdock didn’t care where it was because he drives. He parks in front and puts his little “I’m a police officer and can park wherever I want” card on the dashboard. Once we started on a case together, we didn’t discuss it during workouts. It kept some normalcy in our friendship.

We worked our routine at the empty end of the gym. Late afternoons tended to be quiet, and the only other people exercising were out of earshot.

“Murdock, you’re bench-pressing twice your weight.”

He stood at the dumbbell rack re-sorting the weights by size. “I know.”

I leaned against the rack and crossed my arms. “I’m just saying, I think you’re awfully accepting of it.”

He gave me a lopsided grin and picked up a dumbbell set. “What do you want me to do? Go to bed and pull the covers over my head? I got zapped with an essence-bolt that should have killed me and instead made me stronger. What does it mean? Beats me. I can either accept it unless it becomes a real problem, or I can freak out. I’m accepting it.”

He curled the dumbbells with little effort, as if he were only doing toning exercises. With fifty-pound weights. He replaced the dumbbells. “Want to see something?”

I gave him a noncommittal shrug. He faced a wall about fifteen feet away. One moment he stood still; the next he ran full tilt at the wall. Just before he hit, essence flared around him in a full-fledged body shield, stronger than most I had seen. My jaw dropped. He rammed the wall with a crunch, but the crunch came from the cinder blocks cracking. He wasn’t even breathing heavy.

“How the hell did you learn to do that?”

He smiled. “Nigel Martin. He reached inside my mind and somehow switched on the body shield when he needed me to run point for him at Forest Hills. I sort of saw how he did it in my head and figured out how to do it myself. Cool, huh?”

I chuckled. “You know what you just did? When they figure out how to work their body shields, probably every fey runs into a wall to prove it. Usually they’re about twelve years old, though.”

He grinned. “I feel like a kid.”

He pointed at the dumbbells, and I picked up much—much—lighter weights than he had. “Does your father know?”

Murdock scowled. “Now who’s acting twelve? No, my father doesn’t know. You know he doesn’t like the fey. I’m willing to accept what’s happened. He would freak out.”

I let it drop. Murdock kept an open mind until he came to a conclusion. It took an act of Congress to change it after that.

Murdock had dinner plans, so I slipped on my running shoes and waited outside while he hit the showers. An inland breeze took the bite out of the air temperature. When everyone else starts wondering when the weather’s going to change, it’s already changed two weeks earlier in the Weird. Between the channel and the ocean, it’s the first place in the city to get cold or muggy. Murdock exited the gym smelling like a date. He wore his hair gelled, a department-store cologne, and his camel-hair overcoat. His eyes shifted left and right, taking in the immediate vicinity. I don’t think the cop thing ever turns off for him. We jumped in his car. I tossed his gym bag into the backseat. “Where are you off to?”

He tilted his head to the side to watch the red traffic light he had stopped under. “No place special.”

“Uh-huh.”

He didn’t change his expression. “Uh-huh.”

One of these days, Murdock will tell me about his social life, and it will be a revelation. I can’t complain too much. I hadn’t said a word about what had happened with Meryl. As soon as I could figure it out myself, maybe I’d say something. He drove over the Old Northern Avenue bridge, waving to the cop on duty as we passed the checkpoint. We stopped dead in our tracks behind a traffic jam.

“How ridiculous is it that you had to escort me to the gym?” I asked. He nodded. “I know.”

“Can’t you say something to your father?”

“I did. Didn’t make a difference.”

People gathered in the street a few car lengths ahead. Two elves, a fairy, and dwarf had tumbled into the street, blocking traffic and drawing a crowd. They were going at one another with fists and the occasional essence-bolt.

“What did he say?”

Murdock drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “He said the Weird is a threat to the city. Pass the carrots, please.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

The brawlers looked awkward, as if they had never been in a fight before. I guessed that was possible, but not for four different people in the Weird. Murdock leaned on his car horn. “Two more minutes and my siren’s going on.”

“I feel like we should be eating popcorn.”

He sighed. “We’re seeing this almost every day.”

My essence-sensing ability confirmed my suspicion. Green essence with black mottling wafted around the fighters. “They’re in a cloud of Taint.”

The two fairies hit the dwarf with a white bolt of essence, and he barreled down the street. The blow knocked him out of the Taint’s field. He got to his feet in confusion. Taking a step back toward the fight, he shook his head, then walked away.

Murdock nodded. “We’ve been given orders to stand down if fights involve the fey. When the Taint hits, they lose control. A couple of patrol guys have ended up in the hospital.”

“Your father must be fuming.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Yeah, I’m kinda torn about that. On the one hand, I agree with his frustration. On the other, it’s nice when he’s in a froth about something that has nothing to do with me.”

At least I could count on Murdock for some indignation about the situation. Even if it was the dry, sarcastic kind.

One of the fairies drifted out of the green haze and seemed to come to her senses because she didn’t rejoin the fight. Her companion flew up beside her. They hovered in the air arguing. They must have both realized what had happened and flew off. The elf looked ready to take on someone else, but at that point the traffic began moving again, and we drove around him.

Murdock pulled to the corner of Sleeper Street. He stretched his right arm behind my seat and retrieved a folder. “Liz DeJesus found this in Olivia Merced’s apartment.”

The file held document photocopies of an old case dating back at least twelve years. I glanced at the first few pages, then at Murdock. “Merced filed for divorce because her husband was a con artist?”

Murdock nodded. “It gets better.”

I flipped through more pages, but didn’t see anything more than an exhaustive list of contempt charges detailing the case against Liddell Viten, Merced’s husband. The last page held the “gets better” part. The Boston P.D. investigation had been suspended and the case turned over to the Guild. “The husband was fey?”

Murdock made the turn onto Sleeper Street. “Yep. He had everyone fooled with a glamour that made him appear human. His real appearance was anything but.”

I raised an eyebrow. “A solitary?”

Murdock pulled up at my building. “Right again. Something called a kobold. There’s nothing else in the archives because that’s what happens when something gets booted to the Guild. I did some digging in the newspaper morgue. The Guild found Viten. He died in detention. Guess who was the Guild agent in charge of the case?” I shook my head. Murdock flashed me a self-satisfied smile. “Keeva macNeve.”

I dropped my head against the seat. “Great.”

“Now, I could go through channels and request the Guild file, which might take weeks . . .”

I looked at him. “. . . or I can ask Keeva.”

He gave me an innocent look. “Not that I’m asking.”

I laughed. “Oh, no, not that you’re asking. Fine. I’ll ask her. Just don’t expect her to be all that forthcoming. Given her suspension, two dead human normals related to an old case she had a prisoner die on won’t be high on her priority list right now.”

“Guess you’ll have to charm her.” He pulled away.

I jogged up the stairs to my apartment, dropped my gym bag and the file, and ran down again. As tempted as I was to read the case, if I started, I wouldn’t do my run. I needed to do my run. I used a telephone pole to do some warm-up stretches.

Running at night in the Weird was more common than one would think. Most of the time, though, healthy exercise was not the reason unless you counted running for your life. If someone is moving fast down here, they’re either running from someone or after someone. It attracted attention, if only from spectators waiting to see if a fight would break out. Lately, that’s becoming more the case. If the Boston P.D. was avoiding the essence battles, the Guild still had security agents patrolling the skies. They interfered only when large groups gathered, but other than that, they were more for show. I decided on a short route, taking the straight shot up Old Northern Avenue. “Oh No,” as the locals called it, was in its commuter mode. It didn’t have the rush-hour jams of other parts of the city because the Weird isn’t a shortcut to anywhere except maybe Southie. Office workers wandered down after to work for an esoteric errand. The few restaurants that the mainstream knew about had their Samhain specials running. Early Halloween parties would rev up later in the evening, and the neighborhood would do brisk business.

I made it to Harbor Street without incident. I passed the boarded-up offices of Unity, a neighborhood help center that had closed with the murder of its founder, Alvud Kruge. After his widow, Eorla, joined the Guild board as his replacement, the help center had closed. This Samhain would be tough going for her. I didn’t know her well, but I knew she loved her husband and missed him. Between that and her recent travails with the Guild, she had a lot to put behind her.

To shake up the run, I chose an alley route back. The alleys were the most unsafe parts of the Weird—but they made a fun run if you were vigilant and kept out of them too late at night. Lanes weaved in and out and appeared to go nowhere, only to open up into more twists and turns. It was early enough that I wasn’t likely to run into anything nefarious.

The back sides of warehouses sported a riot of graffiti. All of the Weird was gang territory to some extent, and gang members tagged the walls with their sigils to warn off rivals. Lately, the gangs had been in transition. Lots of strife from recent deaths and retaliations. New symbols had cropped up in the past few weeks, blotting out the old, challenging the existing rulers of the streets. The Taint wasn’t helping. New gangs formed, old ones merged, but the rivalries were still the same old petty posturing and grievances.

The alleys represented what people feared about the Weird, the signs of decay that threaten an entire city. Politicians claimed that the poverty and danger down here made the well-meaning citizens of the city vulnerable, which was why they did stupid things like put up police checkpoints. In reality, poverty and danger were filling the void left when prosperity and hope receded. The battered warehouses stood as forlorn reminders of better times. Shattered glass littered the ground, the evidence of windows no one cared to maintain or replace. It was all part of the life-and-death cycle of a neighborhood. What had once been vibrant and alive was now dark and still. Someday it will change course, but not today and not soon. And as with all cycles of change, pain would feed the process. I heard the first whisper about a quarter mile from home. When you’re running, and you hear a whisper, you know it’s not natural. I reached a desolate stretch of alley paralleling Stillings Street, a dumpster-lined gauntlet behind bars that catered to the down-market crowd. At first, I thought it was the wind. Then it became louder, words on the edge of hearing. My skin prickled, and I slowed to a light jog.

The alley angled in such a way that I couldn’t see far in either direction. A limp breeze moved, barely enough to rustle the papers and garbage that lined the building foundations. The whispers rose, a run-on of voices tripping over one another almost rhythmically, like they had that morning in the Guildhouse storeroom. I turned in place, trying to locate the source of the essence. Nothing registered. The whispers faded.

I started running again. My skin prickled, and I had the sensation of someone coming up behind me. I dodged to the right and flattened myself against a wall between piles of trash. Empty alley. Not a sign of anyone. In my peripheral vision, flickers of essence moved, but whenever I looked toward them, they vanished.

I felt foolish, jumping at shadows among shadows. The whispers resumed, rising and falling in a pained cadence. Twice I jogged backwards a few feet, and still saw no one. The strange sensation faded. I relaxed, chalking it up to the general atmosphere. The Weird has a history and sometimes it likes to remind people. On the corner of the last block before my apartment, I skidded to a halt. A fairy hovered in the air in front of me, his face suffused with anger. He blazed with an indigo essence, so intense he looked translucent. It took me a moment to realize he was an Inverni, a powerful clan the Dananns had conquered when they took over the Seelie Court.

The temperature dropped as the field of his essence swirled near. He folded his sharp wings back and dove at me. I threw myself to the ground as he swept over. My body shields flickered on, small patches of hardened essence softening my impact with the asphalt, but not by much. I scrambled to my feet. My body shields were no defense against an Inverni. I ran, knowing it was pointless. I couldn’t outrun him, but I didn’t want to be another dead body in an alley in the Weird. The main avenue was less than a block away. My lungs burned with cold air as I sprinted, hoping he would leave me alone in front of witnesses.

He came up behind me, his essence preceding him like a fog. At the end of the alley, he hit me between the shoulder blades. Pain lanced through my torso as something pierced my spine, burning with cold fire. I stumbled against a wall, unable to draw breath. The pain intensified, and I watched in shock as the Inverni emerged from my chest. His forward momentum carried him into the air. He looked back at me with hatred and faded from view.

Clutching at the sore spot in my chest, I staggered the last few feet to Old Northern Avenue. Reality reasserted itself in a blare of traffic noise. People walked by as if nothing were amiss. I gulped for air, easing the tension in my lungs. My sweat-damp face felt cold as I made my way on unsteady feet to Sleeper Street. Leaning against a light pole, I glanced back. No one took an interest in me, no furtive looks or unnatural nonchalance. I had been attacked, and no one had seen it. Baffled, I walked the last stretch of sidewalk to my apartment. Inverni fairies couldn’t make themselves intangible. And they didn’t teleport like flits. I had no idea what to make of it. Whatever mess the Taint was creating with essence was getting worse if stuff like this was happening. I scanned the empty street one more time. Whoever it was had vanished. The security ward snapped into place as I closed the vestibule door behind me. It didn’t make me feel any more secure. If someone could literally slip through my body, I had my doubts a warding spell would keep anything out of my building.

13

The only thing more surprising than getting an appointment with Keeva macNeve on short notice was getting an appointment that did not require me to get up before noon. I wasn’t a morning person, and I didn’t apologize for it. Keeva, on the other hand, played the corporate game and was at her desk before most people got out of bed. She liked rules. That didn’t mean she always followed them. She’s more subtle about getting around them. Me, I break them if they’re in the way. As I crossed the central lobby, the line for help looked like it hadn’t moved since the day of the hearing. But that was cynical. The line had moved at least twenty feet.

In the two years since my accident with Bergen Vize, I had regained minor essence abilities. For most of that time, I’d moped and whined about not being a top Guild investigator. I was over that part. I couldn’t go back. Not with Keeva in charge of my old department. I was bitter and angry with the way the Guild booted me out and kept me out. That part I wasn’t over. If I knew myself as well as I thought I did, I never would be.

A surprisingly long line led to the appointment desk. The elf receptionist had managed to personalize her security uniform by adding a bright yellow scarf. She probably wouldn’t get away with it for long. While I didn’t care for the style, I had to give her points for simultaneously matching her eye shadow and sticking it to the Man.

A motley group going to the hearing waited at the elevators. A surprising number of solitary fey mixed in with fairies and elves. Solitaries usually avoided the Guild. Even though a bunch of them had tried to kill me, I felt bad about the number of bruises and bandages I saw. Like everyone else, they had been provoked by a spell to do what they did. Most people aren’t at their best when they’re on a murderous rampage.

When the elevator arrived, a brownie security guard waited inside again. Before anyone else could board, four brownie security guards hustled me into the elevator and the doors closed. One of the guards grabbed my arm. “Connor Grey, you are ordered held for questioning.”

Despite my inclination to clock the guy, I simply pulled my arm away. I hate being manhandled. The four brownies positioned themselves around me.

“Ceridwen can’t just grab anyone she pleases,” I said.

The lead brownie glanced at me and away.

“What am I being held for?” I asked.

They stared straight ahead. Even the lead guy didn’t bother looking at me. “You are on Guild property and are being detained for questioning.”

I glared at him. “That’s not what I asked.”

The elevator doors opened. The lead brownie waved off someone trying to board.

“I’m not putting up with this.” I pushed forward. The two brownies behind me grabbed my arms. The doors closed.

“Fine. You’re just making this worse. I’m going to sue Ceridwen for unlawful detention, and I’m going to name all of you.” They did a good job of being unimpressed. Whatever Ceridwen was up to, she wasn’t going to get any cooperation from me if she thought this was the way to get what she wanted. Especially after her little game in the hotel.

The elevator opened on a quiet lower floor. The brownies escorted me down an empty corridor. The Guildhouse had entire unused sections. The lead brownie opened a door and stuck his head inside. He motioned for me to enter. I pushed open the door. The small, spartan conference room held a table with four chairs around it. Two of them were occupied. On one sat the brownie I had left in the basement storeroom. On another, Meryl sat with her face in a cool, neutral pose. She folded her hands on the tabletop. “Have a seat, Mr. Grey.”

I dropped in the seat and crossed my arms. “Very funny,” I said.

Meryl looked at the brownie. “Did I say something funny? I don’t think I said something funny.” The brownie had a hangdog expression.

Meryl turned back to me. “Let me introduce you, Grey. This is Tobbin Korrel. Tobbin has been a security guard at the Guildhouse for three years. He has an excellent employment record and is well liked by his coworkers. Not two weeks ago he managed to prevent a mentally ill selkie from drowning a receptionist in the lobby without anyone getting hurt. He has a wife and three kids. He gets up every day, comes to work, goes home, pays his bills, and maybe occasionally takes the family out for ice cream. When he is asked to do something at work, despite whatever utter stupidity it may involve from his superiors, he complies as long as he isn’t asked to do something illegal. In short, Grey, he’s a nice guy who does his job. What do you have to say to that?”

I frowned at her. “Hi, Tobbin.”

She arched an eyebrow at me. “Is that really all you have to say to Mr. Korrel?”

I sighed impatiently. “Look, I’m sorry, Korrel. I have a problem with rules that make no sense, in this place in particular. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.” I glared at Meryl. “Satisfied?”

She pursed her lips. “That covers your behavior in the elevator. There’s the little matter of the storeroom.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, trying not to be angry. “I’m sorry I trapped you in the storeroom.”

“And?” said Meryl.

I couldn’t think of anything else I had done. “And what?” “And if there’s anything you can do for Mr. Korrel to make up for it, you will be glad to, right?”

I gave in. “Yes. I really am sorry, Mr. Korrel. I was a jerk. Call me anytime.”

Meryl slid paper and pen toward me. “Now give him your number.”

My face felt hot as I wrote it down. Meryl intercepted the paper as I handed it to Korrel. “It’s the right phone number, Meryl.”

She smiled as she passed it to the brownie. “Just checking. Is that satisfactory, Tobs?”

He nodded. “Really, this wasn’t necessary.”

Meryl tapped his arm. “You have no idea how necessary this was. I apologize for wasting your break time.”

“Thank you.” He nodded with a nervous smile and left.

Meryl and I stared at each other. I counted to ten before I trusted myself to speak. “That was a nasty thing to do.”

Her blank expression vanished behind an angry frown. “How’s it feel?”

I stood, the chair skittering back a little more dramatically than I intended. “I got your point. I’m not a child, Meryl.”

She shrugged, indifferent to my anger. “You think? Then don’t act like one. Here’s the thing, Grey. You knew I wouldn’t leave you in that storeroom. You knew I’d be right back. He didn’t. He also knew those rooms are warded, and no one would hear him. He had to take a sick day to recover from the boggart mania. I have no sympathy for you right now.”

I bit back what I was going to snap at her. I hadn’t considered that. I sat again. “Okay, now I really feel like crap.”

She compressed her lips. “Good. Karma’s a bitch.”

I rubbed my fingertips across my scalp. “Okay, okay, I hear you.”

She lifted a huge black pocketbook onto her shoulder. “Good.”

As she came around the table, I took her arm as gently as possible. “Will you have drinks with me later?”

She checked her watch. “We both have meetings. Call me, and I’ll let you know if I’m free.”

I smiled. “It’s a date.”

She rolled her eyes. “Here we go with that again. I’ll call you.”

She outpaced me down the hall. When I reached the elevator lobby, the stairwell door was closing. I didn’t know what to think. First we have sex. Then we have a disciplinary meeting. If that was Meryl’s idea of hot, I sure as hell was baffled.

I took the elevator without further incident to the Community Liaison Department. The user-friendly name implied it was some kind of fey boosterism group. In reality, it’s a crime unit, pure and simple. It used to be the center of my world, but not anymore. I could probably get a research position with the unit. In fact, Keeva macNeve had even offered me one. I turned it down. I didn’t want to define myself by my job anymore. Not after I realized that it could all be taken away without any say from me. Besides, with Keeva in charge, I’d go insane answering to her.

The department buzzed with activity. A few people acknowledged me, but no one made the step of engaging in conversation. When I worked there, I tended to socialize only with other high-level agents, the ones who had the option of not being nailed to their desks. It was an elitist division that I had no problem with. Of course, the payback is that people I considered underlings no longer have to give me the time of day.

The Guildhouse had dampening wards everywhere to keep the ambient essence levels down. The side effect was that you couldn’t always sense who was coming your way. Dylan didn’t realize I was standing at the door, watching him work. He had been moved into an office that last I knew was being used as a storeroom. The storage boxes were cleared out, and the original office furniture was rearranged so the desk angled in the corner, facing both the window and the door. I knocked. He looked up as though rising from a deep pool of concentration. When his gaze reached me, he smiled broadly and started to stand. “Hey! I didn’t know you were here today.”

I waved him back down. “I just stopped by to say hello.”

He gestured at a guest chair. “Sit. Sit.”

The chair was not as comfortable as I thought it would be. Dylan rocked back in an oxblood leather chair that coordinated perfectly with the expensive mahogany credenza behind him. “What are you up to?”

“I stopped by to ask Keeva some questions about a case.”

He gave me curious look. “I didn’t know you were working together.”

I shook my head. “It’s an old case that’s related to the thing I’m working on with the Boston P.D. You look like you’ve settled in.”

“They gave me a great space. Check out the view.”

I didn’t need to look out the window. “I like how you can see the fairy hill on Boston Common and the dome of the statehouse at the same time, sort of a metaphor of the city.”

Dylan started to say something, but stopped as sudden realization came over his face. “Danu’s blood, this is your old office.”

I laughed. “Yeah. How do you like the chair?”

Grinning, he swiveled in it. “I should have known. Extremely comfortable and expensive.”

I nodded. “I tried to take it with me when I left, but they wouldn’t let me. It’s probably for the best. I would have sold it by now to pay bills.”

I glanced down. Dylan had several open files and a number of photographs scattered about the desk.

“Are these the missing museum pieces?”

He picked up a stack of photos. “I’m trying to figure out why these particular pieces were taken.”

He pushed a photo toward me, a shot of a torc. The one Belgor had given me. The one hidden in my kitchen cabinet. I hate lying to Dylan, especially when he knows I’m doing it. He knew something was up at Belgor’s. I didn’t want to linger on the topic. “That’s pretty.”

Dylan nodded. “Expensive. Probably from an old Irish king.”

He examined another photograph. “This one’s odd. It’s a Saxon ring. It was in the Celtic collection because an old fairy donated it.”

He handed it to me. The gold ring was a classic design of the ouroboros, a scaled snake biting its own tail. The snake eyes were set with small rubies. It was as nice as Belgor said it was. The remaining photos were of three fibulae, antique brooches for holding clothing together: a horned serpent in gold, a tree made of silver with tiny gold apples, and another gold one that looked like mistletoe. “The fibulae all have druidic symbols. That could be a connection.”

Dylan nodded. “Arguably, it’s all druidic. I think the motive is most likely profit. Boston’s Samhain draws a lot of people, so the market’s here.”

I slid the fibulae photos to the bottom of the stack. “Which is why you were staking out Belgor. You mentioned your agents were distracted when he was attacked.”

He looked out the window in thought. “They didn’t see the attacker enter the store. A distraction spell must have been used on them to lull them into inattention.”

“They were spotted,” I said.

“They’re very good agents. I’d be surprised if both of them were seen,” he said.

“Then I’d say whoever the attacker was knew Guild operations, either through experience or a leak.”

He sighed loudly. “Yes, well, the organization here is lax, if you ask me.”

It’s funny. I had issues with the Boston Guild, but hearing Dylan criticize it made me bristle. “Guildmaster ap Eagan has been sick for a long time,” I said.

“Yes, well, I don’t get why Maeve hasn’t stepped in sooner.”

“Maeve doesn’t do a lot of things she should,” I said.

He smiled to soften the tone of the conversation. “Okay, buddy, calm down. I was only making an observation. Auntie Bree said you have issues with the Guild, and obviously I don’t know them all.”

“Sorry. Bad habit. How’s the rest of the show going?”

Dylan rocked his head. “Busy. Incredible number of assault and batteries in the last few weeks. The Boston P.D. is staying out of it, which is and isn’t helping. The police are much more cooperative in New York.”

“We have Commissioner Murdock to thank for that. He would like nothing better than for the Weird to break off and float out to sea,” I said.

Dylan chuckled. “Yes, I’ve talked to him. Walks the line a hairbreadth from insulting.”

I saw an opening to take Meryl’s advice and spread a little more good karma. “Keeva can help you with him.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Really? I didn’t think diplomacy was one of her skills.”

I had to laugh at that one. Obviously, he had been on the receiving end of one of Keeva’s barbed comments. “She and the commissioner are two sides of the same coin. She can help you.”

He pursed his lips. “You know she’s on suspension.”

“She’ll be cleared. She’s good at what she does, Dylan. Let her do it.”

The sly smile came back. “Why the support? I don’t get the sense she likes you.”

I shrugged. “I owe her a couple of favors. Putting in a good word for her is a no-brainer.”

His smile became a little more genuine. “I’ll take your word for it, then. I’ll cut her as much as slack I can.”

I stood. “Thanks. I should let you get back to work.”

From another folder, he took out more pictures, grainy shots of a building interior, and slid them across the desk. “I shouldn’t show you these. Security photos from the Met.”

It took me a moment to realize the same person appeared in them, a small, blond-haired woman with a rather plain face. He spun the photos back toward himself to examine them. “We haven’t identified her yet. I was hoping you might recognize her. She entered the U.S. three weeks ago and visited the museum twice before the robbery. We know she met with Bergin Vize at least once in the month before she left Germany.”

In addition to being the thug who either accidentally or intentionally destroyed my fey abilities, Vize was an international terrorist, part of a group of people intent on bringing down the Seelie Court. He’d helped plan a major attack in Boston the previous spring and manipulated a mentally unstable fey man into nearly causing a cataclysm. I killed the plan, and High Queen Maeve apparently executed the perpetrator.

“Why didn’t you arrest her?”

“We wanted to track her movements. We lost her in New York, but we believe she came to Boston. She’s the reason I’m here. I thought you should know,” Dylan said. I don’t have proof, but the fact that Vize had been involved in two terrorist plots that also almost killed me was no coincidence. “Do you think she could be behind the odd attacks against me?”

He shook his head. “I don’t see any connection to you at all other than Bergin Vize, and he’s connected to a lot of stuff. I’ve never heard of spells that work the way you’ve been describing. But there’s more going on than just that. We suspect a major terrorist operation is in the works. Her friends in Europe have gone into hiding,” he said.

“You mean the Guild has lost Bergin Vize again,” I said.

“You’re not supposed to know that,” he said.

I didn’t know what to think. First Ceridwen dangled Vize in front of me, then Dylan. Ceridwen I didn’t trust. Dylan I wanted to. He surveyed the piles of paper on his desk. “You can be part of this again.”

I shook my head. “Freelancing suits me for now.”

He looked at the photos, then back at me, slight disappointment on his face. “Okay—for now. If you hear anything related to this, let me know?”

I don’t know why he trusted me. “Sure thing.”

I walked the corridor on the opposite end of the floor until I reached Keeva’s office. She had two nameplates outside her door. The top one had most of her full name with its old country spelling, CAOIMHE AP LAOIRE MAC NIAMH AES SIDHE. Fairy commoners often ended their names with their clan affiliation, like Danann Sidhe. The monarchy, though, used the simple Aes Sidhe. Everybody knew they were Dananns. Americans had a hard time with the old spellings and diphthongs, so like a lot of fey, Keeva anglicized her name for easier pronunciation by the local folks. Hence, the bottom plate read a simple KEEVA MACNEVE.

Her door was ajar. I pushed it open with my foot and found Keeva staring out the window. She had a great view of South Boston and the harbor beyond it. When I knocked, she pivoted her chair slowly toward me, an annoyance on her face that did not change much when she saw me. “How do you do it?”

Without waiting for an invitation, I took the guest chair. “Do what?”

She pulled her chair up and leaned across her desk blotter. “How do you not work here and still manage to make my life miserable?”

I tried an apologetic smile. “It’s a knack?”

She glared. “I’m not amused.”

“Why don’t you clue me in to the problem?”

Her eyes flicked to the door for a fraction of a second. “Dylan macBain.”

I shrugged. “I’m not responsible for him.”

She rubbed her neck in frustration. “If I have to hear one more story about what great fun it was working with you ‘back in the city,’ which I assume he means that slab of concrete and garbage on the Hudson River, I will not be responsible for the removal of his tongue.”

I exaggerated looking up in pleasant memory. “Yeah, it was fun working with me back then.”

She growled. “You must have used up all the fun part before you came here.”

“So, I’m guessing you’re not happy with the current job share?”

She huffed and turned back to the window. “It’s only procedural. It’ll be cleared up in another day or two, and Mr. Wonderful will be on his way back to the city.” She used her fingers to make air quotation marks when she said “the city.”

I leaned back. “He’s just doing his job, Keev. He’s good at it. Like you said, he’ll be gone soon.”

She didn’t move. “How’d you like me to sign off on that visa request?”

I had been banned from entering Germany. For more than six months, I had been trying to persuade Keeva to let me have a diplomatic visa from the Guild to go there and hunt down Bergin Vize. The Germans weren’t pursuing him, and I wanted to see him face justice. Besides being responsible for my loss of abilities, he had a litany of terrorist crimes to his name. Keeva had denied my request every time I asked, so I decided not to sound enthusiastic. “Sure.”

Keeva whirled back to her desk with a sarcastic smile. “Sorry, my signing privileges have been revoked.”

I disappointed her by chuckling. “At least you made me laugh this time. I thought you were going to bribe me to do something.”

She narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. “Hmm. Interesting. Let me get back to you on that.”

“Come on, Keeva. It can’t be that bad.”

She sighed. “Not only does he talk about you incessantly; he shadows me on everything I do, which is very little.”

I had sympathy pangs for her. I knew what it was like to be sidelined by the Guild for reasons beyond my control. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s fair you’re on suspension. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I know that. I don’t understand why Ceridwen’s being such an ass about it.”

Keeva is always careful about appearances and her political gamesmanship. “Oh, my, my! Did I just hear you insult a queen?”

She gave me a smug smile. “Even if you do tell her I said that, I doubt she’d listen. She’s not exactly on your list of admirers at the moment.”

“Word travels fast.”

“All joking aside, Connor. You should be careful. She is a queen. If you must annoy her, please leave me out of it.”

That was the Keeva I knew, always watching her own back. “I’ll keep that in mind. Anyway, I have something you can do without permission. I need a copy of a Guild file.”

Keeva’s expression brushed up against a sneer. “Why don’t you ask your little friend in the basement?”

Meryl wasn’t one of Keeva’s favorite people, precisely because Keeva didn’t impress her. I didn’t rise to her bait on that. “Because I thought you could give me a little insight on the case. The Boston P.D. file says you were the agent in charge.” Appealing to Keeva’s vanity tended to work like a charm, and Murdock did say I should charm her.

“Which one?”

“Olivia Merced.”

Keeva considered, then nodded as she remembered. “I know the name. She was part of the Ardman case. Liddell Viten.”

Typical of the Guild to name the case after the fey victim and not the human one. “Merced is dead. So is a guy named Josef Kaspar.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Murder-suicide?”

I frowned. “No. Why would you say that?”

“He was her fiancé before Viten showed up. Never got over it. I think he was homeless. In fact, he figured out Viten was fey and turned him in to the Guild hoping Merced would go back to him. That woman annoyed the heck out of me with her constant calls about him. I told her to call Boston P.D.”

Once again, the Guild took a case only to screw over the human-normal element. Merced never got her justice. I ran down the basic details of the current case. “They were ritually murdered the same way. You probably have the report from Murdock here somewhere.”

“If that’s an ogham curse, I’ve never heard it.”

“Well, you’ve connected the two murders. We definitely should look at the file.”

She sighed. “I’ll send the report to Murdock. I’m so depressed, it wouldn’t be any fun to say no.”

Keeva glanced out the window. “Boston wasn’t the only place Liddell Viten scammed women. He had a partner in New York named Rhonda Powell. He killed her for some reason. When we were transferring him there for a court hearing, he overpowered his guards and escaped into the storerooms. He seriously injured three people before he was taken down.”

“You took him out?”

She shook her head, a curious and smug gleam in her eye. “She didn’t tell you? Meryl Dian killed him.”

14

Meryl wasn’t in her office. Given our conversation in my apartment, I was surprised she hadn’t mentioned Viten. I searched the subbasement, but the storerooms were all closed. I called her cell. She still wasn’t answering. I kept pulling my cell phone out to check the ringer volume, but it was fine. She wasn’t calling. Yet. I hoped “yet.” No one I ran into at the Guildhouse had seen her. I tried searching the building, but security spotted me and showed me the door.

I wondered why Meryl hadn’t told me about Viten. Everybody has at least one thing they don’t share. Briallen hinted about dark things in her own past, things she didn’t want to talk about. I kept repeating that to myself. There were things in my own past I hadn’t told Meryl. But I did tell her the worst thing I ever did. She had to know that. I had to shake off the feeling she didn’t trust me. Maybe after Forest Hills, she didn’t think anything else needed to be said.

Which brought me to huddling in the Guildhouse garage bay to see if I could catch her leaving the building. The security guards down on the ramp checked on me at irregular intervals. At some point, they decided I wasn’t a threat, but they still kept tabs on my movements around the garage door. The weather had turned cold, enough to threaten frost in some places around the city. The wind made it feel colder, so I used the building to protect myself as much as I could, which wasn’t much. I was cold. The evening exodus of Guild employees had passed by at least an hour. Car after car had driven up from the deep basement garage. Drivers eyed me like the security guards had, probably wondering who was the nut with the too-thin leather coat who was bouncing on his heels. Someone handed me a dollar, which was nice.

A high-pitched engine whine echoed up from the garage, and Meryl’s black MINI Cooper appeared. I stepped in the travel lane when the car hit the bottom of the ramp. Meryl’s orange hair was hard to miss in the lurid glare of vapor lights. The car engine revved, then the car surged upward. Meryl’s face was expressionless as she sped toward me. Instinctively, my pointless body shields flashed on as the car neared the top. Meryl slammed on the brakes and stopped within inches of my knees. She waved. I ignored my racing heart as I walked around to her window. “If I pay, will you go for a drink?”

She grinned. “Get in.”

Meryl kept her car immaculate. She didn’t say anything, but I knew she checked out my shoes as I got in to make sure I wasn’t tracking in dirt. She turned into traffic through Park Square, tore around the monument in the center, and parked in the loading zone in front of the Craic House, an old pub that attracted a lot of Guild employees. We got out of the car, and Meryl tossed her keys to a guy who looked like a bouncer.

“This place has valet service now?” I asked.

Meryl looked at me like I was insane. “No.”

She didn’t elaborate, leaving me to conclude she had a private arrangement with the guy. No surprise. At almost every bar and pub I’d been to with Meryl, she knew either a bouncer or a bartender. The after-work crowd had thinned, so we landed a table easily. Within moments, the waitress delivered two pints of Guinness. The Craic House, then, was one of those places where she knew the bouncer and the bartender. Meryl could put it away with the best of them, but she never got drunk that I could see.

“We haven’t gone out for a drink in weeks.”

Meryl sipped her beer. “Ceridwen’s pulled me into the hearing four times.”

I smiled down at the table. “It’s not like you don’t enjoy irritating her.”

She made a funny snarl face. “I hate it. I come in to work every day not knowing whether I’m going to be filing or defending myself.”

“That’s a lie. I’ve seen your office. You never file.”

“You sound like Nigel,” she said.

Meryl and Nigel Martin had recently become friends, or at least friendly. I found the situation a little suspicious on both sides. For all her denials about playing Guild politics, she was good at wiggling into the power structure without looking like she was up to anything. Nigel, on the other hand, had motives for everything he did. His sudden interest in Meryl could have been coincidence. It could also be about the fact that he and I were not on the best terms and that Meryl was an available resource for an old mentor to keep tabs on his wayward protégé.

“He must be loving all this court intrigue,” I said.

She snickered. “Gods, yes. Ceridwen’s spear is like catnip for him. He calls me constantly.”

I gulped some beer. “Any clues why it likes me?”

“The spear?” She shrugged. “It’s a pretty powerful artifact. From what I can tell, its original purpose was that of a silver branch.”

“A key to the Magic Kingdom?”

She nodded. “Yeah, you can use it to get into Faerie. Well, maybe once upon a time you could. Since Convergence, there hasn’t been any opportunity to use a true silver branch, so the Seelie Court has been using it for its other capabilities.

“It has properties independent of the holder—like the truth detection. Ceridwen made me touch it when she was interrogating me. When I told the truth, the spear was reacting, not Ceridwen. She just watches for the reaction signs. Nigel’s worried about its being in the hands of the Seelie Court.”

“Are you saying it has a mind of its own?” I asked.

She pinched her lips. “I wouldn’t go that far, no. But it reacts to things on a level I don’t think we’re capable of understanding. Whoever made it was either a genius or a madman, and whoever tinkered with it was just plain stupid.”

“Tinkered?”

She nodded. “Nigel’s been very intrigued, so he asked me to research it. The spearhead was either changed or added later. The silver filigree was bonded even later, and it also has silver-branch properties on its own. It fades in and out of history. You wouldn’t believe where it’s been. It was probably with the elves in Alfheim at one point. The elven armies do love their spears. I think they were the ones who changed the spearhead.”

I leaned back, impressed. “How do you find this stuff?”

She flipped her hands up at the wrists and batted her eyelashes. “I’m just a girl with a computer.”

“Yeah, right. With more stealthware than the Pentagon.”

She checked to see if anyone around us could listen in. “I almost got caught in Austria. I hacked a museum server, and the next thing I knew, I was chased across the Web. It was cool. They were good.”

I knew that wasn’t the end of the story. “But not good enough.”

She shook her head, clearly proud. “Nope. Before I lost the connection, I was able to confirm the filigree was done in Britain after the spear disappeared from Germany. The spear has its own silver-branch properties, but someone decided to enhance them with the silver filigree. If I had to guess, it was for a spell that allows multiuser interface functionality with a primary dimensional portal via a single active administrator.”

I laughed out loud. “You so just overgeeked yourself.”

She made this cute I’m-so-embarrassed face. “Um . . . I meant to say that there was probably a spell that allowed whoever used the spear for a silver branch to take as many people as they wanted across a veil between the realms.”

“Much better, thank you.”

She scrunched up her nose. “So, how’s your case going, Mr. Smart Guy?”

I swirled the dregs of my beer. “Strange. Unlike you, the most exciting thing that’s happened in my search is bumping into a crabby fairy in a bookstore. I have a rune spell I can’t figure out. I was wondering if you could look into it for me. It might distract you from Ceridwen.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, golly, Mr. Grey, really? I’d love to do your consulting work for you. When can I start?”

I pouted playfully. “Hey, I’m paying for the beer, aren’t I?”

She pursed her lips. “It’ll take more than a round to convince me.”

I doodled the rune spell on a bar napkin, breaking the runes across two lines to keep them from accidentally activating something. Like Meryl said, even though I didn’t have my abilities anymore, sometimes tools simply react to their environment. “Two dead bodies with the same ogham runes. They read like ‘grave denied’ or ‘the way to death denied.’ Considering the dead bodies, I don’t get what they’re supposed to accomplish.”

Meryl circled three runes. “You’re probably being too literal, which is how the modern mind works. You’re translating those runes as ‘death-home,’ which logically means grave or graveyard. But the word used here for death is not a definite form—it’s more like ‘not mortal living,’ which could be an invocation to a god or goddess.”

I turned the napkin toward me. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

Meryl nudged her glass. “Ask me about kennings.”

I signaled the waitress for another round. “I know what kennings are.”

Meryl hummed and bobbed her head as if she were listening to music. When the waitress delivered the Guinness, she stopped humming and leaned forward. “And we’re back from our commercial break. Every dru-kid knows kennings are poetic metaphors, but that’s different from figuring out whether you’re looking at a kenning and what it could mean. There’s intuition and cultural context to take into account. This is the part where you say, ‘That’s bloody brilliant, Meryl. You should have some hot, spicy chicken tenders.’ ”

To prove I’m not dense, I waved the waitress back. “That’s bloody brilliant, Meryl. You should have some hot, spicy chicken tenders. In fact, let me order and pay for them.”

She winked and lifted her glass. “Excellent. I don’t usually like ad-libbing, but that’s good. Anyway, given what I know of the cultural context of the Old Irish, and this ogham spell looks Old Irish in form, I’d say death-place is a kenning for Mag Mell.”

She downed the remainder of her beer as the waitress arrived. “Another round, please, and I believe the gentleman is adding onion rings to his order.”

I added onion rings to my order. “Why Mag Mell?”

She shrugged. “It’s a place-name kenning from the text position, and given that you found it at a painful murder scene, the type of otherworld would be the opposite of pain. Mag Mell—the plain of joy—where the dead living is easy. Plus, it’s Samhain. Murderers aren’t very creative about their timing.”

Impressed, I shook my head and smiled. “You really are brilliant.”

She stood. “Yes, well, now I have to pee. When I come back, remind me to tell you about the time I killed Liddell Viten.”

She walked off into the crowd. My entire body felt like it was sinking into the chair. I couldn’t speak when the waitress served our order, but stared at the food and wondered what to say when Meryl came back.

Meryl returned, took an onion ring, and chewed it with a caustic smile. I licked my lips. “You talked to Keeva.”

She shook her head and gazed up at the ceiling. “No, I didn’t. I got several messages from you and a request from macNeve to send the Ardman file to Murdock. Whatever could have occurred in the complex mind of Connor Grey for him to be calling me so frantically?”

“Why are you acting so offended?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Are you going to tell me you weren’t going to ask me about it?”

I felt like a schoolkid caught skipping out. “No, but I don’t know why you’re making me feel guilty about it.”

She piled some chicken on her plate. “You’re right. You shouldn’t feel guilty about asking. You should feel guilty about being passive-aggressive. You could have left a message about it or asked me when we first sat down. Instead, you do this ‘please, please, call me’ crap and ‘aren’t these interesting runes’ crap when I know damned well all you really want to do is ask about how I killed someone.”

I reached across and grabbed her arm as she was stabbing a chicken tender. Someone might call me brave. “Hey! Knock it off! You are being so out of line right now. First off, I’ve been calling you since before I knew about Viten. And second off, excuse me for respecting the fact that you know a helluva lot more about runes than I do.”

She tried to pull her arm away. I made her work at it before releasing her. “You don’t know anything, Grey. All I’ve ever done is my job, and I don’t think it includes watching coworkers injured, or killing an escaped prisoner, or getting attacked by flying knives, or feeling like I did something wrong because I happened to be in the wrong place at the right time and helped stop a major interdimensional meltdown.”

I stabbed my finger at the table. “You work for the Guild, Meryl. It’s in your job description under

‘other duties as necessary. ’ ”

She threw herself back against her chair. “That’s not even funny.”

I still had my fingertip jammed against the tabletop. I took a deep breath and let my hand fall flat. “Why are we arguing?”

Meryl rubbed her hands up under her bangs. “You’re right. It’s not your fault. It’s the Guild’s. I’m just tired that after all these years, I’m still looking for recognition. That place owes me, big-time.”

I put a sickly-sweet smile on my face. “I can’t fault them. Your attraction for me started because of our mutual disgust at the Guild.”

She leaned her head on her hand and popped a piece of chicken in her mouth. “Now that’s funny.”

“Tell me about Viten so we can drop it,” I said.

She toyed with a water ring on the table before looking up at me. “There’s not much to tell. I was in my office alone. It was just after I had been promoted, actually.”

“That’s recognition,” I said.

She shrugged. “Sure, if getting the job only because the chief archivist left is considered recognition.”

“Anyway . . .”

She smiled grudgingly, which faded. “Anyway, I heard a scream, then I heard essence-fire. When I reached the door, I saw a body in the elevator and two more down in the hallway. I didn’t know if they were alive or dead. Coming toward me was Viten. I didn’t know his name then. In fact, I didn’t think he was the attacker. He seemed so calm, I actually thought he was some kind of security guard coming to evacuate me. He acted like he didn’t see me. I asked him what was going on. All of sudden he grabbed me by the neck. My body shields came on, and he started to lose his grip. I could feel him charging essence into his hands.”

She took a deep breath. “I grabbed him by the head and let loose with everything I had.”

She frowned, playing with the water rings.

“You essence shocked him,” I said.

She met my eyes. I saw no doubt, no trauma. Just the direct stare of someone who had done something to survive. “If I had to do it again, Grey, I would do it exactly the same.”

I nodded once in agreement. I had been there, too. You did what you had to do to get through. “I’m sorry. It’s not just morbid curiosity, you know. I have a murder investigation, and I need to cover all the bases.”

“I get it. You need to work on your delivery,” she said.

I fussed with an onion ring to avoid making eye contact. “So, I was worried you weren’t returning my phone calls.”

“Yeah, sorry about that, too. It really has been crazy.”

I played my index finger across the back of her hand. “Yeah. Yeah, sure. I thought, you know, after . .

.”

A slow smile cut across her face. “Oh, shit. It was a day-after call, wasn’t it?”

I hoped I wasn’t blushing. She’d never let me forget it. “Yeah.”

She leaned across the table and kissed my cheek. “Thank you. That was sweet.” She settled back and began eating again.

“That’s it?” I asked.

Her eyebrows went up. “What?”

“Meryl, we had sex.”

She nodded. “I was there, remember? I’m not going to turn into some kind of call-me, call-me chick, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’m not holding you to anything for it.”

I took a deep breath. “What if I want to be held to something?”

Her face became unreadable. “We had a moment, Grey. We needed each other. It was good for both of us, but I don’t want it to get blown out of proportion.”

I nodded, knowing I was nodding too much and feeling stupid. “Sure, sure. Fine.”

She took my hand in hers. “Will you stop? Geez, we’re not virgins here. Lighten up.”

I forced myself to smile. “Okay. I don’t want to play games.”

She lifted her beer, and a vicious curl came to her lip. “I wouldn’t think of it.”

I had no idea why I wanted to be with this woman.

15

The Boston Police Area B station house down on West Broad-way had the look of a grizzled survivor. Even though the Boston P.D. paid my bills more often than they knew, I never felt welcome at the station house. I worked on cases because they didn’t. I helped close cases they couldn’t. They tolerated me because of Murdock, but I was under no delusion they liked me.

As if to demonstrate the point, everyone in the detective bullpen managed to be on the phone as I waited at the counter. A full fifteen minutes passed before someone offered to track down Murdock. He appeared in the hallway and motioned me to follow him. He opened the door to a dingy conference room with a table, a few scarred wooden chairs, an empty watercooler, and peeling paint. An open file box sat on the table.

“MacNeve sent the Ardman file,” he said

“She must really be bored to move this quickly.” I tilted the box and removed the files. Folder after thick manila folder slid onto the table, and Murdock tried hard not to look panicked that I was making a mess. Except for his car, he’s tidy. We each grabbed a stack and began reading. The Merced investigation had been referred to the Guild when the fey connection had been made. Given Viten’s history and the Guild’s usual interests, he must have scammed an important fey or two. Otherwise, the Guild wouldn’t have taken that kind of case for a human normal. Murdock slid an old file photo across the table. “Rosavear Ardman. She’s still in Boston.”

The woman in the picture looked petite, but strong. She had a pleasant enough face, not particularly beautiful. Part of a wing was visible behind her, the sharp and narrow profile of the Inverni fairies. The Inverni clan had a power struggle with the Dananns eons ago, literally, and they lost the rule of Faerie. Ardman had looks, money, and, most importantly, royal connections. It’s no wonder the Guild grabbed the case.

Murdock straightened the folders. “Viten scammed Ardman. He lived with her at the same time he was married to Merced. Neither knew about the other. Josef Kaspar apparently put the two con jobs together and went to the Guild.”

“Why would he go to the Guild and not the police?”

Murdock shrugged. “It happens all the time. The Guild may not take the bait on a human case often, but when it does, it bites hard. If someone thinks they’re getting nowhere with us, they try the Guild.”

I shook my head. “I had no idea.”

Murdock gave a small smile. “You didn’t think just because the Guild is manipulative that it couldn’t be manipulated, did you?”

I hadn’t thought about it, but it made sense. Bureaucracy was bureaucracy, no matter what species was involved. I whistled and slid a financial summary sheet to him. “Viten had millions.”

Murdock didn’t look. “He scammed over a dozen women. Most of the money disappeared. His typical con involved marrying money, getting his name on the assets, then moving them before the women found out. He would vanish before that, take a new name, and select a new target.”

Viten was a fraud, all right. The Olivia Merced divorce file documented a trail of financial gymnastics that Wall Street wished were legal. Merced caught on to him earlier than the others. Still, he managed to seduce a fair amount of money from her. He must have suspected he was caught, because his assets started disappearing before Merced filed papers on him. The money was never recovered.

“Keeva told me he had a partner,” I said.

Murdock sorted through the files and handed me one. “A druidess named Rhonda Powell. Unconnected as far as I can tell. They ran different scams together. Powell usually posed as an heiress, and Viten would act as some kind of father figure looking out to protect her money.”

I flipped through the file. Powell had been as bad as Viten, bilking lonely widowers out of millions as well. A New York City police report deep in the file caught my attention. I showed it to Murdock. “He killed her.”

Murdock nodded. “Things apparently went sour between them. If I had to guess, she wanted money. Viten handled the cash. As far as I can see, she needed his access to get it. When Viten died, the case was assigned to the fraud unit.”

He frowned and flipped back and forth between several pages. “He shot Powell at Rockefeller Center, in full view of several witnesses. It was an execution.”

I nodded in understanding. “Her abilities would have been a match for him, but her shields couldn’t stop a bullet. He probably had enough ability to keep the bullet path from warping.”

Murdock shook his head. “Still, why so public? If they were partners, he must have had ample opportunity to kill her and not be seen.”

I leaned back in my chair. “Maybe he wanted to send a message to someone. Maybe she threatened him, and he didn’t have time for anything else.”

He moved the file pages aside. “I’m putting this on the odd list. The only murder. The only partner. Public. It doesn’t fit what else we know about Viten.”

“Did the victims get their money back?” I asked.

Murdock shrugged. “Some of the cases were years old. They targeted elderly people who were . . .”

He paused, searching for words.

“. . . not fey,” I finished. The Guild always lost interest when the essence level plunged. Murdock didn’t respond. He knew the story.

The New York angle surfaced when Viten was arrested in Boston. Once his glamour had been stripped, it was evident he was a Teutonic kobold—thin lips, hooded eyes, and a small, flat nose. The skin tone tends to a pale tan, the hair a drab, wispy white. They’re cousins in a way to the Celtic brownies, only their manic sides are more integrated into their personalities. Sometimes that’s a good thing, sometimes not. All kobolds bear an uncanny resemblance to one another. With such subtle features, they were expert glamourers. It doesn’t take much to hide their true selves under an illusion. Viten played on that when he was arrested, claiming mistaken identity.

Murdock handed me another set of papers. “Do you know how Viten died?”

I pulled out investigation reports with Meryl’s name all over them. “I just found out yesterday.”

Murdock kept his eyes on his file. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I glanced at him. “Meryl told me what happened. It was a legit takedown.”

He let it drop. I found an evidence receipt. “What’s in this?”

Murdock opened a file. “Personal effects. There’s a list here somewhere.”

I sat back and folded my arms. “You’ve read this entire file already, haven’t you?”

“Not the whole thing. You sleep late, remember?”

I looked out the window. “I had a busy night.”

“Everyone’s dead,” said Murdock.

“What?”

“Everyone’s dead. The only living person related to the Ardman case is Ardman. She was a victim. Other than Viten, I don’t see a connection to Merced and Kaspar. I don’t see a motive.”

I shrugged. “Maybe Ardman needs an interview.”

Murdock gave me a thin smile. I closed my eyes. “You’re going to ask me, aren’t you?” I opened my eyes. Murdock hadn’t changed his expression. “She might not agree to do it.”

He shrugged. “Hey, not my fault the fey avoid the police.”

I crossed my arms. “Hey, not my fault the police avoid the fey.”

He did not lose the smile. I sighed. “Fine. I’ll ask Keeva to set up a meeting with Ardman. I hate you, by the way.”

16

After much fawning and charming on my part, Keeva agreed to arrange an interview with Rosavear Ardman. I understood Murdock’s desire to talk to the only living person related to the old Viten case, but I didn’t see any connection to the current murders. Murdock was meticulous, though, and liked to worry his way down every side street of an investigation if the main road was going nowhere. The late-October sun warmed my face as I waited for Keeva on the lower end of Boston Common. From my bench, I had a straight-shot view of the tall trees that surrounded the fairy ring next to the Civil War monument. This year an enormous mushroom crop had sprouted. The local news broadcast pictures, and the ring had been inundated with visitors ever since. Schools made field trips to see it; shoppers from Downtown Crossing made a side trip to check it out; office workers ate their lunch on the hill to watch the activity. Once word spread, anyone who knew the least bit of essence manipulation wanted mushrooms for spells and potions.

A few dozen feet away from me, midday traffic raced down Charles Street after being freed from the congestion in front of the Guildhouse on the next block. Security barriers narrowed the road there to one lane, annoying everyone who drove and pleasing politicians who thought it made them look tough on terror. Fairies flew above the Guildhouse, mostly Danann security agents in their black uniforms with the chrome helmets. So typical of the powerful to worry about themselves. Granted, the Guild board directors had been attacked, but the Guildhouse was an impenetrable fortress. A small nuke might penetrate all the bound-up essence. Might. But human normals can’t see a fey essence shield. A concrete Jersey barrier, on the other hand, apparently was a comforting sight. Keeva shot into view about the Guildhouse, her slender form and voluminous head of red hair easy to recognize. You get used to seeing fairies fly. What you never get used to is the allure of their wings in motion. The gossamer-thin membranes moved on unseen currents of essence, mesmerizing pinpoints of light in delicate veinings winking on and off. The wings looked so fragile, yet they had an incredible power to shift and shunt enough essence to lift a body in the air. Keeva landed lightly in front of me. I nodded at the hill. “When was the last time you danced in a ring?”

She gazed up and smiled. “Not since I was very young.”

We walked toward Beacon Hill. “Did you ever make it through the veil?” I teased. She chuckled. “I thought I did. I spent a few summers at Tara with friends when I was young. The ring there is very powerful, but even it doesn’t open to the other side anymore. We used to pretend, though. A weird fog formed if we did the dances right, but no one could ever see through it.”

“That’s more than I ever saw.”

She shrugged. “It was only fog in the night. When you’re a kid, you can turn that into the veil between the living and dead if you have your best friends spooking you into it.”

Charles Street wound around the western base of Beacon Hill, an area known as the Flat. It was the retail shopping district for the well-heeled, not so impressive an address as Briallen’s on Louisburg Square , but most Bostonians would have a hard time making the rent there, never mind owning an apartment.

“Thanks for arranging the interview. I’m surprised you wanted to come,” I said. Keeva paused at the window of an antique store. “I was getting stir-crazy. I made macBain let me go.”

“Made him? I wasn’t aware anyone could make Dylan do anything.”

She smiled at me. “I discovered your Number One Fan hates memos. I’ve been burying him in them. I think he wanted a break.”

For a moment, it felt like old times, Keeva and I actually relaxing around each other. We did that back when we were partners. Which was not to say we let down our guards, but we could be social on occasion. On Pinckney Street, Murdock pulled up in front of the Ardman townhouse and met us at the door.

“I thought I was going to be late,” he said.

Keeva gave him a curt nod. Their polite animosity reflected the reality of their competing agencies. “Let me take it from here, gentlemen. Rosavear knows me.”

A young human-normal woman answered the doorbell. Most fey preferred other fey clans to act as servants, old habits from the days when servant was a code phrase for conquered slave. “Guild Director Keeva macNeve and guests. Lady Ardman should be expecting us,” Keeva said. She grasped Keeva’s hand. “Sophie Wells, pleased to meet you, Director macNeve. These are the gentlemen from the police department?”

Keeva introduced us, and Wells shook hands with sincere attention before stepping back to let us in. The Ardman house was grand yet small-scale. Old movies shot on soundstages gave people the impression Boston brownstones were enormous. Most were smaller inside than the run-of-the-mill Mc-Mansions in the suburbs these days. A small foyer paved in black-and-white stone tiles opened onto a comfortable, tasteful parlor decorated in ochre and maroon.

Wells gestured to the room. “Please have a seat. I’ll let Lady Ardman know you’re here.”

Keeva and I sat on opposite ends of the couch while Murdock wandered to the window. Despite my typical experience with fey royalty, Lady Ardman appeared without the usual cooling-our-heels waiting time. She was a small woman, strongly built with a blunt attractiveness. Her long, narrow wings glowed a faint indigo, darkening to almost black at their sharp tips. Keeva had dropped the glamour hiding her wings when we entered the house, and they undulated behind her in soft gold-and-white folds. Inverni fairies tended to be smaller than their Danann cousins, but they still packed a punch in the essence department. They made no bones about reminding each other.

Keeva and I stood. I didn’t know many Inverni, so I took the opportunity to get a decent imprint of the species essence, especially after my strange experience in the alley during my run. As I shook her hand, her essence felt odd, not at all Danann but powerful in its own right. Species essence resonated similarly from person to person. She didn’t feel like my alley attacker. My attacker’s essence was a shadow of Ardman’s.

“I’m sorry to bother you, Rose, but these detectives were hoping you might help them with a case,”

Keeva said as the three of us took seats. Murdock remained attentive beside an armchair.

“You’re no trouble, Keeva,” Ardman said, her smile a bright flash of white.

“It’s about the Viten case.”

And the smile disappeared. “I see. What could possibly have happened after all these years?”

I took that as my cue. “Lady Ardman, two people have been found murdered recently. They had a history with each other and the Viten case. We’re concerned their deaths might be related to it. My first question is have you noticed anything out of the ordinary lately that might concern you?”

Ardman straightened in her seat as her wings darkened. “Murder? Am I in danger?”

Keeva shot me an annoyed look. “Mr. Grey is asking as a precaution, Rose.”

She didn’t seem to believe her. “I haven’t noticed anything. Is there something I should be looking for?”

I softened my apparently insensitive tone. “I was hoping you could tell us. Our files do not show any living associates for Viten. We were wondering if your memory was different.”

“Lionel didn’t have any friends that I knew of, if that’s what you’re asking,” she said.

“Lionel?” Murdock asked.

Ardman looked at him as if she were only now realizing he was in the room. “That’s the name he used with me. I never knew him by his other names.” She paused, looking at Murdock with an uncomfortable expression. She approached him and lifted her hand to his face. “May I?”

Murdock looked down at the hand and nodded. Ardman touched his cheek. After a moment, she regained her composure and withdrew to her chair. “Have you walked the Ways, Mr. Murdock?”

Murdock glanced sharply at me. “She wants to know if you are fey,” I said. He gave a tentative smile. “No, ma’am.”

Ardman considered him. “Are you sure? Perhaps you don’t remember. Your essence reminds me of the fey friends of old.”

Keeva cleared her throat. “Detective Murdock is human normal, Rose. He was involved in a fey event that disrupted his essence.”

Ardman looked about to say more but remained silent.

“Did you ever meet a woman named Rhonda Powell?” asked Murdock. A little out of left field, but the Powell murder obviously still bothered him.

Ardman stiffened. “It is rude to mention her to me, Detective Murdock. That affair was a private pain to me for years that I never wanted revealed. But to answer your question, no, I never met her. Lionel kept her in New York as far as I know.”

“You don’t know anyone else who might have an interest in your old case?” Murdock asked.

“Are you doubting my word, sir?” Ardman asked.

Keeva glared. “I think that’s enough, Detective Murdock. Lady Ardman has answered your question. Other than ensuring she feels safe, I believe we are finished, don’t you?”

Murdock didn’t react to her. “That’s fine. I just have one more question: Where were you last Thursday and the Tuesday before?”

The surprise on Keeva’s face made my day. Ardman laughed. “I supposed that is a polite way of asking me if I have an alibi on the days of these murders. I was here, Mr. Murdock. Both days. My staff’s loyalty does not extend to lying if you would like to verify that.”

Murdock nodded. “Thank you.”

“Thank you for your time, Rose,” said Keeva. Sophie Wells reappeared to let us out. As soon as the door closed behind us, Keeva whirled on Murdock. “That was way out of line, Detective.”

Murdock’s eyebrows went up. “What?”

“You don’t accuse royalty of murder, even if she is an Inverni,” she said. I frowned. “Lay off, Keeva. He didn’t accuse her of anything. He was doing his job—even if she’s ‘an Inverni.’ What makes you think the Boston P.D. care whether she’s royalty or not?”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re welcome for the help.” She launched herself into the sky with an angry buzz and disappeared over the roofline.

I shook my head as I watched her go. “It never lasts.”

17

I sat on a concrete block overlooking the fairy ring, waiting for Dylan. The trees on the hill had dropped their leaves in a thick carpet around the mushrooms. The air felt damp, cool, not cold. The fairy ring gave off its own warmth, a residual effect of its power. Gargoyles crouched among the trees, humming to themselves as they enjoyed the concentration of essence. They gathered around the fairy ring like an odd bunch of people watching the grass grow. I was curious why Dylan had asked me to meet him there instead of at a bar.