Again, I confirmed. She had picked a rather empty section of the store, so it wasn’t all that hard to see who she was talking about. “Of course, but how is this supposed to help—”
She shushed me with a wave of her hand. Her voice was still so low that I could barely hear her. “Is there anyone else around us?”
“No, just those three. But why…” I trailed off as the light-bulb went on.
The astonishment must have shown on my face. She grinned. I had never seen such an open and genuine look of joy overtake her. “It was my idea. Granted, it’s not exactly high techy-tech but I think it should work. It might take us some time to get the rhythm down, especially to where we’re in sync and quiet enough not to sound like crazy people, but I think we can do it.”
I nodded slowly. It was a good plan. Simple, but good. My handler could point out the people around us and I would keep my eyes open for someone they missed. Even the most powerful glamour wouldn’t keep the Lynx safe from my eyes—and if I saw someone my companion did not, whether he looked like the lone picture we had or no, we would finally have a lead.
When Mairi bumped my hip and steered me down the aisle toward the next section of the store, I followed. It was hard to keep up with her skipping pace when my own was still the limp of the walking wounded, but I did an admirable job. Even as we fell into a unhurried rhythm of quietly identifying each passersby, I couldn’t escape that nagging feeling that everything wouldn’t be peaches and roses forever. For the moment, however, it felt good to be doing something useful. Bat crap crazy, but useful.
After all, the quicker I helped these people find their quarry, the quicker I could be rid of them. And I, for one, would have jumped for joy never to see Gannon’s smug face ever again.
~*~
An hour later, we had done two passes through the store and found ourselves back at the second floor railing. Our search yielded nothing, but we had gotten into a good rhythm quicker than either of us expected. I wasn’t sure I’d have quite the ease with my other hunting companions the first time out, but Mairi and I had found a way to seamlessly blend our queues into banal chit-chat. I regretted my snap decision of her character upon our first meeting. Appearance aside, she was a funny, quirky little spitfire of a girl. Had our outward ages not been so disparate, I probably would have befriended her immediately.
“—and I knew Kaine would need me. So, I left and here I am,” she said. She heaved a heavy sigh that appeared too large for her tiny frame.
The story of her involvement in the exile that had trapped her here in my world boggled me. How one who looked so young and flippant could have such an unexpected depth to her truly took me aback. She was dressed in an ankle-length, layered black skirt and a long-sleeved fishnet shirt over a pale pink tank-top. Her shit-kicker boots were old and scuffed, their laces half tied. She looked so young—so much like me, trying to rebel at sixteen—that it was hard not to treat her like a child.
My jaw had damn near hit the floor when she had told me she was about to turn forty. She had laughed long and hard at my cold coffee snorting shock, until tears had streamed down her face. Little brat. After she had composed herself, she had kindly taken the time to explain how the full-blooded fae aged differently from humans. For all intents and purposes, she was little more than a teen by their standards.
That didn’t change how brave her actions had been. She had walked away from everything she knew, everything she had ever been taught, to help a stranger all on the strength of a single vision. That was more conviction than I had ever showed anything in my life. The thought humbled me. I mirrored her sigh. “Won’t they miss you? And what happens when you go back?”
She shrugged again. Her eyes were far away, looking at something beyond the physical. “They’ll get over it.” She smiled at my burst of laughter. She had a wicked sense of humor, which I appreciated. “Besides, I’m hardly the prodigy they were hoping I would be.”
“How so?”
“I have a lot of premonitions; little visions about inconsequential things. Helpful from time to time, sure, but not exactly what they expected from an Oracle of my family line. Some of them blamed it on my father being a shape shifter. Muddied the bloodline or some crap like that.” She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Either way I’ve only ever had two of the real big ‘grand mal’ type visions in my life: the one that landed me in the cloisters and the one that got me back out.”
I was intrigued. “The one that told you Kaine would need you during his exile.”
She nodded. “Yeah. So, I’m sure they’ll punish me for leaving without permission, but I don’t think anyone was all that sorry to see me go. It’s not even like I’d be the first to run off to follow a vision. Happens more often than you’d think, actually. My granddame was one of the most reputed Oracles in her generation and they still tell stories about all the rules she broke. A lot of Oracles have come from my family.”
“You must be proud.”
She shrugged. “I guess. I never met her. She passed away before I was born. People used to tell me I looked a lot like her though.”
“Do you miss your family, being stuck here?”
“Yes and no. I was young when I was sent to the cloisters. Sometimes I hardly remember them.”
I rifled through my purse for some gum as I asked, “They’re not allowed to visit you?”
She took the piece I offered her, folding up the silver wrapper into a tiny square. “They are. My parents came a few times at first. I think I embarrassed mother, crying and asking to be taken home each time. Father came once or twice without her, but the last time was years before the exile.” She was still focused on the crowd below us, though neither of us had taken back up the game of calling out faces since we had returned to the banister. Something told me she was seeing a whole different gathering in her mind. “It hurt when they stopped coming, but only at first. Mother and I were never close. I think she was jealous that the Gift skipped over her.” Her laugh was hollow. “I think my resemblance to granddame upset her. With me cloistered away, she didn’t have to look at me anymore. Sometimes, I think she’s forgotten I exist.”
Well, that hit uncomfortably close to home. Mommy issues were something I could completely relate to. Without thinking, I reached an arm out and slung it across her shoulders, squeezing her tight. She stiffened at first and I questioned whether I had overstepped a boundary. After the initial surprise faded, however, she leaned against my side. I wondered when the last time someone had hugged her was.
Hell, if not for Jenni, the last time someone had hugged
me
would have been a distant memory. Maybe I was projecting, desperate to feel some sort of kinship with someone in a world gone crazy, but I felt a connection to the strange little fae girl at my side, occasional whiskers aside. We just stood there for a few minutes, listening to the dwindling bustle of the shoppers around us, breathing in the paper-and-ink smell that permeated the air.
“I’m glad you turned out to be the Warder,” she said, so softly that I almost missed it. “You’re a good person. I like you.”
I’ll be damned if my eyes didn’t well up when she said that. I knew she couldn’t read my mind, but she had an uncanny knack for knowing just what I was thinking. Maybe her heightened intuition could still brush against my psyche just a bit. I didn’t care how she did it. At that moment, it just felt nice to be complimented; to feel wanted. I hadn’t been feeling that much since the night Goliath crashed into my life. A tiny piece of my heart twinged at the thought, as if I were betraying Jenni by making a new friend—one I wouldn’t have to keep secrets from. One I wouldn’t have to lie to. I firmly told that part of my heart where it could shove that guilt.
I squeezed her again, before I let my arm drop. “Thanks. I like you too.”
She fixed me with a sly sidelong glance. “All of us?”
“Hardly,” I snorted. A scowl jumped to my lips like a diva who had been waiting in the wings, ready to take stage. Mairi cracked up at my expression, laughing harder the narrower my eyes got. I stuck my tongue out at her. “Ha, ha; laugh it up there, chuckles. You wouldn’t find it so funny if your body was the one aching like an arthritic granny’s.”
“Oh come on, lighten up.” She wiped her eyes and nudged me in the ribs until I cracked a sheepish smile of my own.
“I like you and Seana. Kaine is…”
“Kaine.”
I chuckled. “Exactly. I can’t quite get a handle on him, but that doesn’t bother me so much as I thought it would. It’s like work: you don’t need to
like
your boss, you just need to respect that he
is
the boss.” Although the overwhelming urge to drop my pants every time my “boss” walked into the room was a problem I had never had before. Budding friendship or no, that was certainly not something I intended to reveal to Mairi. That left me with only one more; the one I was trying my best not to think about. I fought to keep the scowl from reemerging. “Let’s just say that Gannon is far,
far
from my list of favorites.”
Mairi’s pout was far too cheeky to be sympathetic. “I told you he was tough.”
“Tough does not begin to cover it.” I distinctly remembered lying awake the night after Lesson One, feeling like my body was one big top-to-bottom bruise. I hated nothing more in the world than a warm pillow when I was trying to fall asleep but I had been too sore to consider reaching up to flip it over. That, my friends, was hell.
“He was pretty rough on you.” She sounded clinical, like she was examining the issue with a professional eye. Maybe there was a hint of mild concern in there, but not much. I strongly reconsidered our new found rapport in that moment. “Seana was absolutely livid, you know. She really laid into him that night at dinner.” My eyebrows must have shot up in surprise, because she assured me, “She can be quite the momma bear when someone hurts her cub. Healers don’t approve of fighting in general, but she was especially pissed at him for being so rough on you that night.”
That cheered me up a bit. “Good. I know it’s my own stupid fault for asking for the lessons in the first place, but… He could have lightened up on me just a bit when he saw how badly he was beating my scrawny ass—literally.”
Mairi leaned her head on my shoulder. “Yeah,” she drew out the word, “Gannon isn’t really the ‘lighten up’ type. He’s really good at what he does though. There’s no better teacher this side of the Veil. It won’t be fun, but he’ll make sure you can take care of yourself by the time he’s through with you.”
The thought alone made me groan. I didn’t want that maniac making sure of anything. In fact, I wanted nothing more than to punch him in his stupid, smug face the next time we crossed paths. A time that I sincerely hoped would be the day after never, however impossible that was. I said as much to Mairi and concluded with a bitter, “—assuming he ever lets me step one foot in his precious ring again. I think he made it pretty damn clear that he sees me as a lost cause.”
She shifted, leaning one elbow on the railing as she fixed me with something that was stuck half-way between a pout and a scowl. Her eyes were on the floor as her fingers fiddled with the strap of her purse. I knew that look, those fidgets; I had similar ticks. She was dreading telling me something. I stiffened. “What?”
She took a folded piece of paper out of her bag and held it out to me. “Sorry.”
I took the note with the tips of two fingers, so delicately you’d think I was handling live explosives. I unfolded it and read the short letter, written in deeply grooved, decisive cursive, aloud. “Saturday morning. 9am. Same place.”
My eyes darted to Mairi’s face. She nodded, still looking chagrined for being the bearer of bad news. That alone answered the question I hadn’t asked. She really didn’t have to. I already knew who it was from. I don’t know why it surprised me. Maybe a part of me really had thought he’d refuse to waste his time trying to train me. My deal was with Kaine, after all; his lackey hadn’t smeared my hand with blood. Granted, he had smeared his own hands with plenty of mine in the ring last week…
The pit of my stomach settled somewhere around my knees. Remembered pain and embarrassment made me flash hot then cold. I couldn’t decide if I was angry or scared out of my pretty pink panties. Maybe it was an equal measure of both. One thing was certain though. I was pretty damn screwed.
Chapter Twelve
I dreaded that next Saturday morning like none ever before.
Saturday and I have been bosom buddies since childhood. I wait for it all week long, counting down the days until it comes back around like someone anticipating being reunited with a long lost lover. All through the week I day dream of spending the morning curled up in my bed with my favorite fuzzy blanket, lost among the pillows. There are few things in life that make me happier than sleeping in, especially on a cold, dreary late October morning in New Jersey.
This time? Not so much. Instead, I found myself growing antsy for an entirely different reason as the week drew on. My desire to stop the nasty fae bottom feeders out there from snacking on the people I loved hadn’t changed but now I knew how high the deck was stacked against me. I didn’t have an ounce of enthusiasm for my next meeting with Gannon, but there was no way I could think of to avoid our next play-date without losing face. Never mind that I was the idiot who had demanded it be included in Kaine and I’s bloody pinky swear in the first place. I sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to break the pact first. I didn’t know what would happen if I did, but I didn’t want to find out.