The aide escorted the fairy to the side of the room as I approached the table. “Not that I’m against it, but how long can you afford to do this?”
Eorla looked up at me with amusement. Many fey, including elves, had skin tones that diverged from the human norm. Sometimes it was disconcerting. Eorla’s skin glowed with a subtle green light, a result of containing the spell that had driven people to riot. Green wasn’t a color that appealed to me; but on Eorla, it had a strange effect of enhancing her beauty with a warm tone that accentuated her upswept dark hair and deep brown eyes. “You’d be surprised at the income resources that have appeared. More than a few people support what I’m doing—even among the Celts.”
Many people supported her cause, but the big money was waiting to see how Donor Elfenkonig would handle what was essentially Eorla’s personal revolt against his rule. “I hope it’s enough.”
She gestured at the paperwork on the table. “I hope it’s temporary. After everything that’s happened here, I hope the Guild and the Consortium see the error of their ways and change.”
“What are the odds?”
Eorla chuckled. “I have more hope than you do, Connor. Change works faster when it’s a long time coming. How did things go last night?”
I shrugged. “Couldn’t catch a break. No one’s talking down near the Tangle. I saw the essence everyone says shows up before people go missing. It moves fast. I haven’t been able to get a good tag on it yet, but there are definitely some of the Dead involved.”
“They do continue to be a problem,” she said.
The Dead had harassed the city for months. They had arrived from the Celtic land of the dead and become trapped in Boston. They were a rambunctious lot, prone to violence—no surprise since each day they woke fully healed of their wounds from the previous day, even fatal ones. People who were already dead had little to fear. They didn’t like authority figures either. “I think they’ve retreated to the Tangle. I haven’t seen them in other parts of the neighborhood.”
Eorla glanced at Rand, her bodyguard, who kept tabs on everyone near her. I didn’t count many elves as friends, and, while I didn’t know if Rand was one, I respected the hell out of the guy. In the short time I had known him, he had stepped up in ways I hadn’t expected. Consortium guards weren’t known for defying the king, no matter if they were attached to other royals. A flutter went through the air, indicating that Eorla had done a sending, a mental communication much like telepathy but keyed to personal essence. Rand ushered everyone out of the room, then took a relaxed stance facing the door halfway down the carpet.
“I’m having trouble bringing people in that end of the neighborhood to my cause. I was hoping you could provide some insight,” she said.
I sat on the corner of the desk. “No one has ever had much luck with the Tangle, Eorla.”
“Our goals are aligned, are they not? The Tangle wants to operate outside the influence of the Guild and the Consortium,” she said.
I shook my head. “The flaw in your thinking is that you’re assuming the Tangle doesn’t want to be the way it is. It already operates outside the law. That’s its point, and no matter who’s in charge—even if it’s you—it will still fill a need outside the rules.”
She leaned back and steepled her fingers. “I hadn’t thought about it in that way. I wonder, though, that they would not prefer to operate as they do with the knowledge that they won’t be interfered with?”
“Maybe. But it really is a free-for-all down there. You have no one to make a deal with,” I said.
She arched an eyebrow. “Connor, I think you are a smart man, but you are not a warrior. When a group has no leader, that is the perfect time for one to arrive.”
When Eorla made a comment like that—or any of the Old Ones who lived in Faerie—it reminded me that I was dealing with people who had lived in warring, often brutal, times. Growing up in Boston, in a democratic system, I tended to forget that majority rule wasn’t the only way to gain power, only one that did it with a lot less bloodshed than war.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said.
She rose from her seat and went to the window, gazing toward the horizon. To the east lay the harbor, sparkling in the midday sun. To the south was the Weird, dim, gray, and sad, a jumble of warehouses and office buildings that had seen better days.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” she said.
“It’s what gets me up in the mornings,” I said. I didn’t always believe that. Once upon a time, the Weird had no more concern for me except as a place to get a little down and dirty. The lives of the people who lived there weren’t an issue when I was flying high and having fun. I used to think people lived their lives by choice. Losing my job and my abilities—my world and way of life—changed all that. Not everyone in the Weird was there because they wanted to be. Not all of them chose to put themselves in a failing situation. Discovering how much the power elite caused their plights made the matter worse to me. It didn’t have to be this way.
Eorla slipped her hand into mine. “I check on her every day.”
She meant Meryl. Eorla and Meryl had worked together to stop the rioting in the Weird. They succeeded at Meryl’s expense. When Meryl volunteered to help Eorla, she made me promise to take revenge if she died. She didn’t die. She didn’t live either. I didn’t know what to do about it. I wasn’t sure Meryl would appreciate the nuance. She’d want me to kick someone’s ass. The fact that Eorla followed Meryl’s progress despite everything else she had to deal with told me that she cared. Whether she cared because of me, or on principle, didn’t matter. She cared.
“I know,” I said. I squeezed her hand, and she returned the pressure.
3
Outside the hotel, a bus trundled up Atlantic Avenue toward Avalon Memorial Hospital. I hitched a ride, deciding to visit Meryl earlier in the day than usual. I didn’t like being at the hospital when lots of people were around. Too many people and too many rumors flying around the floors dragged me down, so I visited people after hours.
The dark underbelly of the elevated highway slid by above, sunlight peering in through the occasional gaps between girders and nearby buildings. The highway formed an enormous barrier across the city, cutting off the North End from the rest of the neighborhoods. It stood ten stories high, double-decked and rust-cancred green—the other Green Monster in Boston. The more well-known one was the wall towering over left field at Fenway Park. At the ballpark, you could get beer. Under the elevated, you could get mugged.
The bus cut through an intersection and rocked side to side as it settled in at the Haymarket stop. Like so much Boston transportation, the route didn’t quite take me to where I wanted to go. Waiting for a connection would take longer than hoofing it, so I walked the final blocks to Cambridge Street.
An old brick building overlooking the river had been home to Avalon Memorial Hospital for decades. When the fey got sick, they went to Boston for the best healing expertise. Gillen Yor was chief of staff, and no one knew more about fey medicine than he did. He had been High Queen Maeve’s personal physician until he left for the States. She wasn’t happy about that. He didn’t care.
I passed through the main entrance, its lintel carved with apples dangling from trees in a nod to its Faerie namesake. Avalon was an island, a place of healing, shrouded in mystery. The island didn’t come through during Convergence, when other parts of Faerie merged with reality. The fey did the next best thing and opened hospitals that specialized in essence-related maladies and injuries.