“I know your tells. Your thumbs. Your hands are in your pockets, but you have restless thumbs.”
“There. Tell hidden.”
“And your shoulders, Sandra. No, not like that. You square them and raise your chin just an angle when you’re challenged by something. I think it’s the troll influencing you. Hildr has the same body language.”
“Ah, if something challenges a troll, they traditionally respond by fighting, breaking bones.”
“Exactly.”
“Hildr doesn’t do that. She’s a little more clever.”
“Is that because that’s how she survived this long, or is it because you’re influencing her in turn?”
“Good question. When I think back to the hunting of the troll, being hunted in turn… hmm.”
“I’m only telling you so you can fix it,” he said.
She reached up to squeeze his arm as they passed me. I only saw it in my peripheral vision, but I still tensed. Every connection mattered.
I skipped ahead, to stay away from the crowd, who looked a little too inquisitive, and had too many pairs of eyes for my liking. I’d already been spotted by an old man. These guys seemed like an even bigger threat.
I waited in a car, eyes still forward. I could make out the Satyrs, well behind, peering at the car I’d just left. I’d made a small noise or something.
“…Fret,” Jeremy said, again. “You and I, we make a good team. You do well so long as things are under control, while I-”
“Thrive in the midst of madness. Don’t upset things. No chaos for now.”
“I agree, no chaos for now,” he said. “Only enough pressure to get the results we need.”
“Good,” Sandra replied. “Keep an eye out for the mirror dweller. We still don’t know enough, and he is a priority.”
I felt my heart pound in my chest, more a head against a wall pounding than a throb. Alarming on several levels. It was a connection between me and her, threatening my cover, she knew, and it made Jeremy’s objective here pretty damn clear.
“Wouldn’t mind more details,” Jeremy said.
“Then barter with the Sorcerer and Faysal, see what else they’re willing to divulge. You have more access to them than I do.”
Ah. What else they’re willing to divulge.
Damn it.
My greatest asset in all this was quickly being stripped away because my enemies were talking.
“I’ll make do. Whatever happens, I’ve got protection,” Jeremy said, offering Sandra a wry smile. “I’d rather act in concert. This may be our only window to deal with the Thorburns.”
“It won’t, but it’s the first one, and it’s the best window, before anything is underway between us and our other enemies. This is win-win,” Sandra said, “Provided we act decisively, we can safely clear one problem from the board. Pity. I really didn’t want to do this, but, well, we each choose our paths. Hopefully the girl hasn’t committed.”
“Speaking of,” Jeremy said. “This would be where we part ways.”
Something in his tone… I dared to look.
That tall, rumpled, faintly wrinkled, plain looking man with too much beard and circles under his eyes, perpetually weary, looked down at the woman who looked like a PTA bitch, too fastidious, too cold and hard-nosed.
But Sandra didn’t look cold. She looked sad.
She reached out, putting one hand over Jeremy’s heart. “We both do what we do best. No apologies.”
“No apologies,” he said.
She gave him a light push, and he turned away in the same motion, raising one hand, snapping. “Hey, you hooligans. Get a move on!”
His enthusiasm and call for action seemed somehow false.
“What are we doing?” a man asked as he caught up. I caught a glimpse of his features as he moved across patches of light. Curled horns, a curl of beard, and hooves, not steel-toed boots.
A satyr.
“What are we doing?” another voice chimed in, excited.
“We’re crashing a party,” Jeremy said. “Barriers or no, when you ask a god to open a door, that door gets opened.”
The direction they were traveling. Hillsglade House. My friends.
And Sandra?
I snapped my head around, no longer concerned with the idea of being caught. She had a sense of who I was. Faysal Anwar had told her.
What was Sandra doing?
Only one idea stood out.
Molly. Mags.
Acting against the Thorburn wraith while the Drunk kept Rose occupied.
Mags might have lost her neutral standing after all.
And I was left having to choose.
10.06
Mags and Molly on the one hand, my friends on the other.
My first instinct was to break a window, get their attention while they were together.
The old me would have, as far as I was ‘old’ at all. The ‘me’ that I’d been around the time that I’d approached Evan, up until Ur had inadvertently cast me into the Drains. I’d been getting more confident, and my ‘trust my gut’ approach to this whole thing had given me momentum, while leading me headlong into disaster.