He slams his hands down on the desk so hard it cracks down the middle. “Not. Convincing. Me. ”
I glare through my tears. “Not trying to! I don’t convince nobody of nothing. You take me or leave me just the way I am! But I ain’t changing for you or nobody else and I ain’t faking either, and if you think breaking my bones one by one is going to accomplish a thing besides, like, breaking my bones, good luck with that!”
I’m sobbing now and don’t have any clue why. Just that it feels like ever since I came out of the wall with the Crimson Hag and watched it kill Barrons and Ryodan, I’ve been all trussed up in one great big painful knot, and the second I looked at him and realized he was alive, really, truly alive, and I wasn’t going to have to walk around for the rest of my life with his death on my head, never seeing his smug-ass smile again, that knot relaxed, and when it let go, everything in me came apart and my whole self heaved a sigh of relief and somewhere I guess I got a well of tears in me, like maybe everybody has a certain allotment of them and if you never let them out, the second a single one sneaks out, it opens a floodgate and you can’t shut it again. Why doesn’t anyone ever tell me the rules of life? If I’d known it worked this way, I would have taken myself off somewhere private and cried until I’d use up my quota! This is worse than getting off on the wrong foot when I’m freeze-framing. This is emotional careening with no control.
I look at him and I think, Crimeny, if only Alina could have stood back up from what I did to her. Mac could have had her sister back. And I wouldn’t have to walk around all the time, every single minute of every single day, hating myself because even though I’m pretty sure Ro did something to me that night that made me some kind of automaton that didn’t have a will of her own, I was there. I was there! I led her to the spot where she died by lying to her and telling her I had something really important to show her and I’m just a kid so she trusted me! I stood in that alley and I watched Mac’s sister get killed by Fae that I could have stopped with one flick of my sword and I can never undo it and I can never scrape it out from behind my eyes. It’s seared into my soul for the rest of my life, if I’ve even got one after all the shit I’ve done!
I hurt Mac worse than anything in her life ever did and I can never undo it.
Still … there’s a silver lining to this cloud: if Ryodan isn’t dead, Barrons isn’t either. At least Mac still has Barrons.
“You killed Mac’s sister,” Ryodan says. “I’ll be damned. ”
I didn’t say that. “Stay the feck out of my head!”
He’s across the desk and practically on top of me. He shoves me back against the wall, clamps my head between his hands and forces me to look up at him. “How did you feel when you thought you’d killed me. ”
He’s looking in my eyes like he doesn’t need me to answer, just think it. I try to double over so he can’t poke around in my thoughts but he won’t let me. He’s holding me firm, but almost gentle now. I hate gentle from him. I prefer fighting. I know exactly where we stand then.
“Answer me. ”
I don’t answer him. I’m never going to answer him. I hate him. Because when I thought I’d killed him, I felt more alone than I’ve felt in a long time. Like I couldn’t stand walking through this city knowing he wasn’t in it. Like somehow, as long as he was out there somewhere, if I was ever really in trouble, I knew where I could go and while maybe he wouldn’t do exactly what I wanted him to do, he’d keep me alive. He’d get me through whatever it was to live another day. I think that’s the kind of feeling you get from parents when you’re a kid, if you’re lucky. I didn’t get that feeling. I curled in a cage and every time she put on her perfume and makeup and hummed while she got dressed, I worried that she was going to kill me this time by forgetting me. I hoped her new boyfriend would suck so she’d come home sooner. I know that no matter what fecked-up things Ryodan does, he’ll never forget me. He’s meticulous. There’s a lot to be said for detail-oriented. Least in my world there is. Especially when I’m one of the details.
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I can’t look away. How the heck is he alive? I feel like he’s stirring around in my brain. Watching the light go out of his cool, clear eyes in the alley behind BB&B had just about slayed me. I missed him. I bloody fecking missed him.
Ryodan says real soft, “Disappointed or loyal. ”
I got no intention of dying. “Loyal,” I say.
He lets me go and walks away. I slump down the wall, scrubbing tears from my face. I hurt everywhere, face, hands, chest, ribs. “But you’re going to have to—”
“Do not try to barter with me right now. ”
“But it’s not fair that I—”
“Life isn’t. ”
“But I can’t stand working every night!”
“Deal with it. ”
“You’re making me nuts! A person needs some time off!”
“Kid, you just never give up. ”
“I’m like, alive. How could I?” I stand up and dust myself off. My tears are gone as mysteriously as they came.
He kicks a chair at me. “Sit. There are new house rules. Take notes. Violate one and you’re dead. Acknowledge. ”
I roll my eyes and toss myself into the chair, slinging a leg over the side. Belligerence is me. “I’m listening,” I say irritably.
I hate rules. They always screw me up.
THIRTY-FOUR
“Where do you think you’re going?
Don’t you know it’s dark outside?”
I slow-mo Joe it down the corridor cussing Ryodan but keeping it under my breath since he’s walking right next to me.
The new house rules are the biggest pile of BS I ever heard. It’s going to kill me to follow them. Literally result in my death because there’s no way I’ll remember to do everything he wants me to do while also keeping track of everything I’m not allowed to do. In addition to “Report to work at eight every night” is the most offensive rule of all: “You will never leave Chester’s unaccompanied by one of my people again. ”
“So, I never get to be alone, like, ever?” I exploded, flabbergasted. “Dude, I need my private time. ” I been alone most of my life. Too many people in my personal space start to chafe me after a while. I get edgy and weird. And tired, too, like they wear me out just being there. I have to get off by myself, or be with one person like Dancer to recharge.
He didn’t answer me.
Another one that really gets me is that I’m supposed to never question or argue with him in public! I’m going to be dead by morning. Only way I have a snowball’s chance in hell of succeeding there is if I start wearing a muzzle or cut out my own tongue.
“You can say anything you want to me in private,” he said. “Which is way the fuck more than I permit anyone else. ”
“I don’t want no private time with you. ”
“Too bad,” he said. “Plan on a lot of it. ”
“Why do you dick with me? Why don’t you just forget about me and let me live my life. ” It’s weird to think he’s been watching me since I was nine. I never even noticed him. He’s noticed me probably more than anybody else ever has, including my mom.
Again, he doesn’t answer.
I walk with him to the end of a hallway on the third floor. He stops at a glass panel that’s smoked black and pulls a cloth hood out of his pocket. When he reaches for me, I duck back and say, “You’re kidding, right?”
He just looks at me until I snatch the hood from his hand, put it on myself, and let him guide me by an arm.
I suffer the indignity of being blinded in silence, and focus on absorbing every detail I can. I count steps. I sniff through the heavy fabric. I listen hard. When we get on an elevator and go down, I count seconds so I can figure out what floor he’s taking me to when I finally get some time alone, and I will. He can’t have someone on me every second of every day. He’ll get tired of it. I need to get back to Dancer
! I need to talk to Ryodan about getting samples but when I brought up the Ice Monster he told me to stow it.
When we arrive at our destination and he pulls the hood off, I’m floored to see Ryodan’s got his own War Room, and of course it’s top-of-the-line, technological perfection, and makes ours look stupid! Once again I’m jealous. There are computers everywhere. CPUs and monitors and keyboards and I don’t know what half the stuff in the room is, and I know a lot. Dancer would go crazy in here!
He’s got a map up, too, but unlike our paper one, his is electronic, on a glass panel suspended from the ceiling, about twenty feet wide and ten feet tall. It’s something out of a futuristic movie. It’s got lots of lines and dots and triangulated areas marked out in different colors.
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“Sit. ”
I drop down in a chair behind an enormous slab table that faces the map. There are nine chairs at the table. I wonder how long this room has been here, how many centuries these dudes who don’t seem to be able to die have sat in this room and plotted things. I wonder what kind of things guys like them plot. Coups? Economic catastrophes? World wars?
“So, Barrons is alive, too,” I fish.
“Yes. ”
“Dude, what the feck? I don’t know what your superpower is, but I want whatever you’ve got. ”
“You think. ”
“I know. ”
“You don’t even know what it is. Yet you’d take it sight unseen. ”
“To, like, never die? Fecking-A I would!”
“And if there’s a price. ”
“Dude, we’re talking immortality. There ain’t no price too high!”
He gives me a faint smile. “Ask me again when you’re older. ”
“Huh?” I say. “Really? When I’m older I can have whatever you got? Like, how much older? Fifteen?”
“I didn’t say you could have it. I said you could ask me. And no, not fifteen. ”
“Dude, give me a little hope here. ”
“I just did. ”
He taps something in on a remote device and all the sudden I’m not looking at Dublin on the grid anymore. He’s zoomed out and I’m seeing a map of surrounding countries. There are dots pegged in England, Scotland, France, Germany, Spain, Poland, Romania, and Greece. He zooms out farther and I see two in Morocco and one in Norway.
I let out a low whistle, horrified. Dancer and me were only seeing the little picture. “There’s more than one Ice Monster. ”
“Not necessarily. I think if there was more than one, we’d be hearing reports of it all over the world and we’re not. So far, it’s confined to this region. ”
“I need samples from Faery and the first place it iced in Chester’s. ”
“Elaborate. ”
“Dancer and me went through all the evidence. There’s iron in every bag and—”
“No. ”
“You didn’t let me finish. ”
“I don’t have to. Iron has nothing to do with it. ”
“How can you know that?”
“Because there’s not a single drop of iron anywhere in or near Chester’s. ”
“Well, what the feck is this place built from?”
“Irrelevant. Besides,” he says, “if it was after iron, it would have taken the cages at Dublin Castle and it didn’t. It iced the place and vanished. We’ve been studying the map and scenes for weeks. There’s no pattern, no commonality. I put my best man on it, a linchpin pro. He can’t find a tipping point, sees no order in this chaos. ”
“Who’s your linchpin pro?” I want to talk to him. I’m fascinated by linchpin theory. If you know where to make the dominoes start toppling, you own the dominoes! Of course, Ryodan doesn’t answer that question either so I tell him Dancer’s theory about salt water and whales and that maybe it’s drawn by something because it’s looking for something else.
“Possible. But not iron. ”
“You dudes been hosting fairies for, like, millennia, haven’t you? That’s the only reason for a place like this having no iron!”
“There are other things that don’t like iron. Not just Fae. A smart person might find a lot of things missing in Chester’s. ” A faint smile plays at his lips, and I almost get the idea he’s challenging me to figure something out.
“Dude, if I’m stuck here long enough, I will. ” I gesture at the map. “Show me Dublin again. ” When he resets the map, I say, “I need the remote. ”
He punches numbers in on it, no doubt locking systems off from me, then hands it over.
“Let me stare at the map a while. ”
When he leaves, he locks me in.
I’m still staring hours later, no closer to an epiphany, when I start smelling the most fecking awesome smell in the world. I try to concentrate on the map but I can’t. I shove a candy bar in my mouth. It tastes like Styrofoam. I haven’t smelled fresh-cooked beef in longer than I can remember. I never got it at the abbey! Somewhere in Chester’s, some spoiled person is feasting. My mouth fills with saliva. I slide down in my chair, drop my head back and inhale real deep and slow, making lip-smacking noises, pretending I’m the lucky recipient. I smell all kinds of spices! I think whatever the meat is, it’s accompanied by mashed potatoes and some kind of greens. I smell garlic, salt and pepper, butter! I smell onion and oregano and rosemary! It’s almost enough to make me cry, thinking about that kind of food. I’m beyond sick of candy bars and protein bars and canned stuff. I’m so home-cooked-meal starved that not even my chocolate Pop-Tarts hit the spot like they used to.
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When the door slides open and Lor comes in, pushing a cart like you see in hotels for room service, I just sit there and stare, thinking: Is this a new way to torture me? I don’t move a muscle. I’m not going to make an idiot of myself. Ryodan’s probably on his way to eat in front of me just to make me suffer.
Lor rolls the cart to a stop a few inches from the toes of my shoes. I have to grip the arms of my chair so I don’t jump out of it and attack whatever’s in those covered dishes.
“Boss says eat. ”
He takes the lid off the biggest plate and sure enough there’s meat sizzling like it just came off a grill with a side of mashed potatoes, plus a mixed veggie medley! There’s a bowl with bread, hot from the oven. And butter! I almost expire from the sheer excitement of it. Like, the real stuff and a whole carafe of milk! It’s the most beautiful sight I think I’ve ever seen. I stare, holding my breath.
“You’re scrawny,” he adds.
“That’s for me?” I say wonderingly. I still don’t move. It’s got to be a trick. The meat is a rib-eye steak, perfectly marbled. It’s thick and has grill marks on it and looks like it’s cooked to perfection. I’ve only ever had it twice in my life. Once when Mom got engaged—it didn’t work, the dude ditched her, they all did eventually—and another time when she got a new job that she thought would get us out of Ireland for good if she saved everything she made for three years. She got fired after a month and cried herself to sleep every night for weeks. I think she thought if she could just get us out of Ireland, everything would be easier. I know other sidhe-seer families ran. Mac’s did.
Lor nods.
I’m out of the chair and on the cart in fast-mo.
“Kid, slow down. You might want to taste it. ”
My hands shake when I pick up the fork. I go straight for the steak, slicing a big chunk off. The first bite explodes in my mouth, full of meaty juices and sheer succulent beefy perfection. I slump back into my chair and close my eyes, chewing slowly, delicately milking it for every single taste. I fork up a pile of fluffy mashed potatoes and they’re fecking heaven! The bread is tender and warm inside, crusty outside, and kissed with rosemary just like Mom’s. I wonder who cooks around here. I wonder where their kitchen is. I’m going to rob them blind if I find it. I slather butter on the bread then lick it off and slather m
ore. I pour a long cool drink of milk down my gullet. I force myself to count to five between each drink and bite. It occurs to me I’ve never seen Ryodan eat. He probably pigs out in private. Probably eats steak and milk every day!
“The snow’s piling up and the temperature’s dropping,” Lor says. “People are lined up for five blocks, trying to get inside. Generators and gas have gotten scarce. People are freezing to death. It’s June in Dublin. Who’d fucking believe it?”
I chew reverently, listening to him and staring at nothing. “Maybe it’s not after an element like iron or something. Maybe it’s after a feeling. Maybe someone was having sex at every scene, or … eating at every scene, or fighting or praying or … something. ”
“Doesn’t hold water. There was no life at the steeple. ”
I knew that. I just forgot for a sec. “So we’re back to the inanimate. ”
“Looks like. ”
All too soon my meal is over. I’ve got the best taste ever on my tongue. I won’t eat again until I absolutely have to, and I’m not about to brush my teeth for a while. I want to relish the residue from my taste buds till there’s nothing left. I may never get this kind of a meal again. After I sop up every drop of beef juice with the last few bites of bread, Lor takes the cart and leaves.
I could almost pass out from the overload of rich food. Digesting it stupefies me for a while and I stretch out on the floor, staring up at the map.
I can’t shake the feeling that I’m still not seeing the big picture. I’m lying here, staring at an enormous map, and I know there’s something about these scenes I’m missing or reading wrong. I can feel it. Like Dancer, I get hunches and I listen to them. Used to be, when I was little, I couldn’t concentrate because of all the things I could hear around me. When Ro took me in, she taught me to plug my ears, shut out the din and focus. Old witch passed on a few good things but they’ll never counter all the evil she did.
I dig earplugs out of my backpack. Dancer made them for me out of some kind of stuff that absorbs noise way better than the standard plugs. I wedge them in, tune out the world, and begin sorting through my facts.
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One: It’s not after iron. There’s none at Chester’s. I need to get that info to Dancer ASAP.