A Local Habitation Read online

  “Great.” She walked back to her desk, setting her mug on an already dangerously cluttered corner. “Do you need someone to walk you out?”

  “We can manage.” I wanted time to consider my options before I approached her again. If that meant finding my own way back to the cafeteria and out to the car, fine. I was a big girl. I could handle it.

  “Great.” With that, I was dismissed. She sat down on the desk next to her mug and retrieved the computer she’d been using when I arrived, attention already focusing on something else.

  It’s always fun when your allies are the ones you want to slap. I left the office without another word, somehow managing not to slam the door, and walked back the way I was pretty sure Alex and I had come. I almost regretted refusing Jan’s offer of an escort; maybe I could have convinced her to send for Alex. Of the people I’d met so far, he seemed the closest to normal. Besides, I wanted to figure out what he was—a little mystery can go a long way, and he had just enough to be interesting.

  After half an hour of wandering the halls, I was ready to admit that I was lost. Every window showed a different view of the grounds, giving me absolutely no help with my navigation. I considered climbing out one of the ground-floor windows, but dismissed the idea; with my luck, exiting that way would make it impossible to find the cafeteria again, and I needed to take Quentin with me.

  I finally spotted the familiar sky-blue door at the end of a series of sterile white halls that looked like something out of a soap opera hospital. The cafeteria. “About time,” I muttered, hurrying to reach it before it could find a way to disappear. If the hallways in the knowe were actually capable of movement, I wouldn’t put it past them to change just to spite me.

  The cafeteria was still almost deserted, save for a single addition: the woman sitting across from Quentin, her chin resting on the balled knuckles of her left hand. He had a wide-eyed, almost stunned look of infatuation on his face, like he’d just figured out what the female gender was for. I’d never seen him look that much like a stereotypical teenager.

  I let the door swing shut, clearing my throat. Neither one turned. “Hello?”

  Now the woman looked around and smiled. She had a pale, pointed face, framed by straight black hair in a pageboy cut. Her eyes were orange—the same poppy-bright shade as Alex’s—and a scar marred one cheek-bone, almost invisible against her pallor. If she’d seen the sun in the last three years, I’d be surprised.

  “Hi!” she said, still smiling. “We were starting to wonder if you’d show up.”

  Quentin shook himself out of his daze and gave me a small wave, half-smiling. “Hey, Toby. Did you find Countess Torquill?”

  “It’s Countess O’Leary, actually, and yes, I did. Who’s your friend?”

  “Oh—sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.” The woman stood, offering me her hand. The top of her head only came up to my shoulder. “I’m Terrie Olsen. Nice to meet you.”

  “October Daye.” I took her hand and shook, once. “I see you’ve met my assistant.”

  “Quentin? Yeah. He’s a peach. Where did you find him? He wouldn’t say; he’s such a man of mystery.” She grinned. I didn’t.

  Quentin reddened, giving Terrie another adoring look. I frowned. “Shadowed Hills; he’s one of Duke Torquill’s fosters. He’s here to help me check in on the Countess.”

  “Really? That’s sweet.” She glanced over her shoulder, smiling. “He’s great company.”

  “I’m sure,” I said, frown deepening. “Did you say your last name was Olsen?”

  “Uh-huh. Just like my big, dumb brother.” Terrie flicked her hair back, adding, “You’ve probably met him. Tall blond dude, goes by ‘Alex’?”

  “Ah,” I said, nodding. “That explains the eyes.”

  “Got them from Mom.” Terrie’s grin broadened until a dimple appeared in one cheek. “There’s a family resemblance.”

  “I . . . guess that’s true, yes,” I agreed. Dare and Manuel—the last brother-sister team I’d encountered—also had matching eyes.

  “Terrie was telling me about computer programming,” said Quentin, in a dopey, adoring voice. I looked back as he added, “She’s really good.”

  “I’m not that good,” Terrie said, with a laugh.

  “Right,” I said. “Quentin, get your things and come on. We’re getting out of here.”

  “But, Toby—”

  “Don’t argue. Terrie, it was nice meeting you. Quentin, we’re leaving.” I started to turn.

  Behind me, Terrie said, “I bet you got lost in the knowe.”

  “What?” I stopped, looking back.

  “I bet you got lost in the knowe. Everyone does, at first.”

  “I got a little turned around, yes,” I admitted.

  “It happens to everyone, honest. Want me to show the two of you out?”

  This woman had set me on edge faster and more skillfully than anyone I’d met in years, Jan included; I was afraid that if we spent too much time with her, Quentin was going to propose, just before I decked her. At the same time, my migraine was back with reinforcements, and I just wanted to get out and find the hotel before I killed someone.

  “I would love to be shown out of the building,” I said.

  “No problem. Terrie to the rescue!” She winked at Quentin and stepped into the hallway with no further fanfare, motioning for us to follow. Quentin started after her, and I followed, watching them speculatively.

  Quentin can be a lot of things, but I’d never seen him be fickle. Not that long ago he’d been blushing over his mortal girlfriend, and now he was panting after some strange changeling like a puppy in heat. It didn’t make sense, and it was irritating me. I was sure I was overreacting—Terrie was probably a perfectly nice person who wasn’t trying to toy with my underage assistant—but it was weird. Really weird.

  After about ten minutes, Terrie pushed open an unmarked door, exposing the lawn outside. “Ta-da!”

  The outside lights were on, and cats lounged in the lit areas, watching us with detached interest. The only flowers in sight were normal, mortal clover. We had left the knowe. I stepped past Terrie and Quentin, taking a deep breath of the cool air and relaxing as I felt my headache loosen. “This is wonderful.” It was dangerously close to saying “thank you,” but I was too absorbed in my speculations to care.

  “Don’t mention it,” Terrie said, shrugging off my near-slip. “Are you guys sure you’ve got to get going so soon? The night shift has hours to go.”

  “Well—” Quentin began.

  “We’re sure,” I said. “Quentin, come on.”

  He started to protest, but stopped, catching my expression. Sighing, he turned to face Terrie and executed a deep, formal bow. “Open roads and kind fires to you.”

  That was the last straw. Whatever this was, it was moving a bit too fast for me to be even remotely happy about it. “Right. Good night, Miss Olsen.”

  I grabbed Quentin’s shoulder and hauled him off. Terrie watched, hiding a smile behind her hand. I did my best to ignore her. Quentin craned his neck for one last look, protesting only when we were out of earshot. “What did you do that for?”

  “ ‘What did you do that for?’ ” I mimicked. “Did you see yourself back there?”

  “I was being nice!”

  “You were being a creepy little ball of hormones! She’s twice your age!”

  “You’re like four times my age.”

  “But I, at least, am not hitting on you.” I let go of his shoulder, letting him try to smooth his wounded dignity as I stalked toward the car. “We’re here to work, remember?”

  “You left me alone. I was gathering information.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Yeah! Did you know that ALH only employs faeries? They hire changelings and purebloods, and that’s it—no humans of any kind. Not even in service capacities.”

  “Since most of the company is in the Summerlands, that makes sense. What else?”

  “Most of the management staf
f has been with the company since the beginning. January and her daughter basically run the place, only Elliot does all the staffing. And—”

  “Hang on. Daughter?” Sylvester hadn’t mentioned a daughter.

  “That’s what Terrie said.” I motioned for him to keep going, and he said, “The daughter’s name is April.”

  “Interesting. Any mention of a father?”

  “No.”

  “Huh. Did you notice how empty the place was? I wonder where everyone is.”

  “Maybe it’s just a small company?” Quentin suggested, brow furrowing. We had reached the car, and I dug in my pocket for my keys, shooing cats off the hood and roof.

  “Or maybe something’s going on,” I said, and unlocked the driver’s side door. “Those weren’t unused cubicles, just empty ones. There were papers on the desks, and most of them had computers. There were more people working here not all that long ago. Go check your door.”

  “So something changed,” he said, as he circled the car to peer through the windows. I did the same on my side. Last time I got into a car without checking whether I was alone, there was a man with a gun waiting for me. There are some lessons you only have to learn once.

  “Exactly,” I replied. “Did you find anything else?”

  “Not that you’d want to hear.”

  So the rest was flirting: got it. “Well, maybe you weren’t just screwing around,” I said, sliding into the car and leaning over to open the passenger door. Once Quentin was in the car and buckled up I handed him the folder with the directions. “Here. See if you can get us to the hotel.”

  He sighed. “Yes, O Great One.”

  “O Great One? I like that. You can stick with that.” I started the car and drove back up the path from the parking lot to the entrance. The gate was apparently equipped with motion sensors on the inside, because it creaked upward as we approached.

  Something flashed gold in the underbrush. I hit the brakes, peering into the darkness. Whatever it was, it was gone; there were no further signs of motion or light.

  “Did you see that?”

  “Huh?” He looked up from the directions. “See what?”

  “Nothing.” I shook my head, restarting the car. “It was probably just a raccoon.”

  We drove through the gate and out onto the street with no further delays. The business parks on either side were dark—the sensible people had gone home, leaving the night shift for the lunatics and the fae. That’s how the world has always worked. The night is ours.

  “Head for the freeway,” Quentin said.

  “Got it.” I turned toward the nearest onramp.

  “So did you meet her?” Quentin asked.

  “Meet who?”

  “January.”

  “Yes, I did. So did you; she was the brunette with the clipboard when we first got here.”

  “That was her?” His nose wrinkled. Quentin was young enough to be very aware of his own dignity, and his dignity wasn’t the sort of thing that allowed for judging swearing contests.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What was she like?”

  “Distracted. But a little bitchy at the same time—I don’t think she wants us here.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Not very. She seems pretty comfy with all this tech, so she was probably born no later than the eighteen eighties.” For a pureblood, anything less than two hundred years is basically adolescence. One of the more ironic things about immortality; the immature period lasts a lot longer. “Tamed Lightning is probably her first ‘real’ regency.”

  Quentin frowned. “Do you think something’s really wrong?”

  “I think it’s too early to say, but it’s possible,” I said. “Which exit?”

  “Next one.”

  “Got it.”

  Fact: Sylvester was worried about something “going wrong” at ALH. Whatever it was, it was real enough to spook Jan. She wasn’t happy to have us there. So what was she trying to hide? Fact: ALH Computing wasn’t anything I was used to. It’s not that I don’t approve of modern technology; I just don’t understand it, and that makes it hard to appreciate it. What were Jan and her associates hoping to achieve?

  Quentin was saying something. I glanced toward him. “What?”

  “So are we staying for a while?” he repeated.

  “It looks like we may be, yes.”

  “Oh,” he said. He didn’t sound disappointed; in fact, he sounded pleased. Not a good sign.

  The hotel was coming into view up ahead, and I turned toward it, angling toward the promise of material comfort. The idea of a bed—any bed—was suddenly compelling.

  “I am so ready for bed,” I muttered.

  Quentin glanced at me. “The Duchess asked me to pass you a message.”

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  “She says, ‘try to get some sleep, and have anything you want off the room service menu if it means you’ll actually eat.’ ”

  That was Luna, all right. I grinned. Sometimes having a collection of surrogate mothers can come in handy—between Luna, Lily, and Stacy, I was almost starting to eat regularly.

  “Cool,” I said. “You need anything before bed?”

  “No. Wait—what time is it? I promised Katie I’d call.”

  “Almost nine. Calling Katie, huh? You sure you’re not going to call Terrie instead?”

  Even in the dim light of the car, I saw him redden. “Katie’s my girlfriend.”

  “So you were flirting with Terrie, why?”

  “I . . . I don’t know. She was cute, and I was bored.” His blush got worse. “It didn’t mean anything.”

  “Uh-huh.” I busied myself with pulling into the hotel parking lot and looking for a space.

  Unbidden, another fact rose to my mind: Alex was definitely cute. I paused. That wasn’t a thought I needed to have, especially not when I’d just been scolding Quentin for thinking the same about Alex’s sister. But it was also a thought that didn’t involve Connor, or Cliff, and I needed to move on to someone who was neither married nor mortal. Really, who was it hurting? I scolded Quentin because of the age difference. Alex and I didn’t have that problem, unless he was a lot older than he looked.

  I don’t usually move that fast. Devin was my first lover, and I was with him for years before I left him for Cliff. The only person I’d so much as looked at since then was Connor, and he and I started flirting when I was still living under Amandine’s roof. I don’t get crushes. It’s not my style. Still, it could be time for a change—and something was telling me Alex would be the perfect change of pace. So what if it was unexpected? That made it more appropriate. Out with the old, in with the new.

  Quentin was silent, lost in his own thoughts. Probably thinking about how he was going to explain his sudden absence to Katie. Maybe we’d get lucky, and the only thing wrong at ALH would turn out to be some sort of computer error . . . but somehow, I didn’t think so.

  Whatever it was, I had to hope it was something we could handle on our own. Sylvester would never have sent me with nothing but a half-grown fosterling for reinforcements if he thought we’d be in any real danger. Right?

  SEVEN

  MELLY ANSWERED ON THE THIRD RING. “Shadowed Hills, how can I help you?” Her voice was broad, accented with the sort of jolly American drawl that thrived in the middle of the country about two hundred years ago. I’ve known Melly since I was a kid—she’s Kerry’s mother, and she used to sneak us sweets from the kitchen at Shadowed Hills—and just the sound of her was enough to relax me.

  “Hey, Melly. Sylvester around?”

  “Toby! How are you, darling? Did Himself really ship you off to Tamed Lightning with naught but a foster to keep you company?”

  “Quentin’s not so bad.” Quentin was presently being “not so bad” in his own room, where he was hopefully going to get some sleep. ALH seemed to operate on a diurnal schedule, and we were going to be clocking a lot of daylight hours before we went home. “Put the boss on? I’ve got an
update for him.”

  “You’ll visit soon?”

  “I will.”

  “All right, then. Hold on a second.”

  Sylvester must have been waiting for my call, because I was on hold less than a minute before he picked up, breathless. “Toby?”

  “Here,” I confirmed. There were a few cold fries left on my room service tray. I picked one up, swirling it in a puddle of ketchup. “We’ve arrived safely, and I met your niece. You should’ve told me she was twitchy and paranoid.”

  “I would have, if she normally were. Did she say why she stopped calling?”

  “That’s the funny thing. She says she’s been calling, and that you haven’t been answering her messages.”

  “Wait . . . what? But that’s ridiculous. Why would she say something like that?”

  “You say she’s not paranoid. She says she’s been calling. You say she hasn’t been. This sounds to me like something’s up.” I popped the fry into my mouth, chewing quickly. “Is there any chance you can send reinforcements without causing some sort of diplomatic incident?”

  “Not without more to go on, no. Did you talk to her?”

  “Yeah. It was about as productive as talking to Spike. Maybe less. I mean, at least Spike makes an effort. It could be because she’s not sure I am who I say I am, and she’s trying to be careful. Has she been having a lot of issues with Dreamer’s Glass recently?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.” Sylvester hesitated. “Are you comfortable continuing?”

  “To be honest, no, but if she’s not getting messages somehow, I don’t think swapping me for somebody else is really going to make her less twitchy.” I sighed. “I’ll go back tomorrow and see what I can find. If you need to pull me out of here, we’ll reassess the situation from there. All right?”

  “All right. Just keep me informed.”

  “Of course.”

  We chatted for a few minutes about inconsequential things—Luna’s latest gardening projects, my cats, Quentin’s performance so far—before I hung up with another promise to let him know if we needed anything. I was out as soon as my head hit the pillow.

  My dreams were fuzzy, tangled things that faded when the sun came up. I rolled over, wrinkling my nose at the smell of ashes, and peered at the alarm clock. The first digit was a five, which was all I needed to see; groaning, I buried my head under the pillow and went back to sleep.