by Kim Harrison
People cried out. Trisk cowered, arms over her head as the broken crystal rained down on them in a weird chiming clatter of noise and sensation.
Shouts rose, and the hall exploded into sound. Trisk straightened from her instinctive hunch, her aura about her hands still glowing with the energy she had freed but not loosed. Her lips parted and fear slid between her soul and reason. The eastern representative of the elven enclave stood before them, his hands on his hips and a scowl on his face. Broken crystal crunched under his dress shoes, and a mass of excited people hemmed them in.
“What happened?” he demanded, and the hall grew silent. Faces ringed them: her classmates, their parents, prospective employers. It felt like the third grade all over again, and Trisk was silent. Kal stared malevolently at her, his face smeared with blood and someone’s frilly handkerchief over his mouth. His nose was clearly broken, and Trisk stifled a smile of perverse satisfaction that he’d have to get it fixed.
“You know there’s no use of ley lines this close to the city,” the bald man said, a tie pin the only show of his enclave status, but it somehow elevated his suit above the surrounding business attire and cocktail dresses. “That’s why we have the place charmed.” His attention rose to the few crystals still holding. “Or at least we did.”
“It was an accident, Sa’han,” Kal said, using the elven honorific, as he clearly didn’t know the man’s name.
“Accident, hell,” the man said, clearly irate. “You’re both too old for these kinds of pranks. I want to know what happened.”
Trisk dropped back into Quen’s warmth. They would never believe she hadn’t broken the spell. She’d been the butt of too many jokes, taking the blame for all of them because to do otherwise would only increase the torment. She had a rep, even if none of it was true.
“Felicia?” the man said, and she started, not knowing how he knew her name.
Trisk licked her lips. “I punched him, Sa’han,” she admitted. “I didn’t tap a ley line until he did.”
“And yet the result is the same,” the man said regretfully as he turned to Kal. “Your temper is still getting the better of you, eh, Trenton?”
“She has no right to be here, Sa’han,” Kal said haughtily. “There are only three offers on her table. The center is for the best, not slag.”
Trist worked hard to keep her breathing even. He was only saying what they were all thinking. Behind her, she could feel Quen’s slow anger building, but it was too late. He’d signed the contract, and it was binding.
But the man only handed Kal a spell with which to clean his face. “And your tongue still doesn’t check in with your brain before waggling,” he said as Kal used the very blood from his broken nose to invoke the charm, and in a wash of aura-tainted magic, his face was clean. “You think she copied her way to her grade average?” the man said, and Kal’s face flashed red. “You are drastically lacking in the art of stealth and misdirection. Your emotions and wants are as clear as a child’s. Learn what you lack or forever be the shadow of potential that you are today.”
Trisk felt herself pale as he turned to her. He could see right through her, all her grand hopes looking like a foolish pretend. “And you need to find out who you are before you bring your house any more shame,” he said, his rebuke hitting her hard.
Her chest hurt, and she dropped her head. In the near distance, the loud voices of Kal’s parents became obvious as they tried to force their way through.
The enclave member sighed, gathering himself. “Kal? Trisk? As neither of you have signed with anyone, you’re allowed to remain on the floor, but you’re confined to your tables. Quen, you have your placement. Go wait in your room.”
Trisk’s head snapped up, suddenly frightened. Quen would likely go through hell now, seeing as Kal would blame him for everything she’d done. “Quen, I’m sorry,” she blurted, clutching at his arm as he turned to go.
Quen’s mood softened as he faced her, managing a smile. “Me, too,” he said softly. “Don’t worry about it,” he added as he gave her arm a squeeze, but what she wanted was for him to take her in his arms and tell her nothing would change between them. “I’ve dealt with worse. I’m proud of you, Trisk. You’re going to do well. I believe in you.”
He was slipping from her, and she could do nothing. “Quen . . .”
He looked back once, and then he was gone, the colorful dresses hiding him as the band started up again. The enclave dignitary had vanished as fast as he had appeared, and people began to disperse.
Trisk’s eyes rose to find Kal standing with his parents. His father was trying to straighten Kal’s swollen nose, and his mother was smoothly trying to distract the man from NASA, who was frowning at the shattered remains of the hall’s protection.
No one was venturing across the pile of crystal, and Trisk winced when her father’s tall form stumbled to a halt at the fringes, hesitating briefly as he found her eyes and then turned to make his way around it. “The Goddess protect me,” she whispered, nudging a stray crystal out of her way and collapsing in her interview chair. There was no way to make this look good.
“Trisk? Tell me this wasn’t you,” her father said as he worked his way into her booth.
A surge of self-pity rose, and she blinked fast, refusing to cry. “Quen signed with the Kalamacks,” she said softly, her voice cracking.
Her father’s breath came in, but then he exhaled with a knowing, forgiving sound, the shattered chandelier and rising argument at the Kalamack booth suddenly making sense. “I’m sorry,” he said, his hand warm on her shoulder. “I’m sure he knows what he’s doing.”
She looked up, his quick understanding making her feel worse. “I just wish he would know what he’s doing with me.”
Her father dropped to a knee before her and took her into a hug. Her throat closed, and it was as if she were twelve again as he tried to show her all was not lost, that something good would come from it. “Have you made a choice?”
She knew he wanted her to take a position and move forward, but accepting anything other than what she’d worked for felt like failure. His arms still around her, she shook her head.
Slowly his grip eased and fell away. He stood, silently watching as a special crew began to sweep the crystal into shipping boxes for off-site decontamination. “I’ll get us some coffee,” he said softly. “You’ll be okay for a moment?”
She nodded, knowing it wasn’t coffee he was after, but the chance there might be someone who owed him a favor. Her breath rattled as she exhaled. There were no more favors to be had. He had spent them all getting her this far. She could probably be excused for the effrontery of trying to make it in a man’s field if she looked like their ideal, her efforts excused in her probable goal of finding a better husband. But she didn’t even have that.
He was gone when she looked up.
Numb, she sat in her chair as the conference took on its normal patter and flow, everyone seeing her but no one making eye contact. “Let me explain,” a plaintive voice rang out, and she looked up to see the NASA rep walking away, Kal’s mother trailing behind, her steps short and heels clicking. Kal met her gaze with a murderous intent, jumping when his father picked up one of his contracts and shoved it at him.
“Sign it,” the older man demanded. “Before they all withdraw their offers.”
“Father,” Kal complained, clearly not liking that Trisk was seeing this.
“Now!” his father thundered. “Sa’han Ulbrine was right. You showed a disturbing lack of control and common sense over a woman you will never see after tonight. Sign.”
Motions stiff, Kal took the pen and signed it. His father all but jerked it out from under him. “Go wait in your rooms,” the tall man said coldly, then turned and walked off to register the contract before midnight when the gala would be over.
Trisk couldn’t help herself, and she made a mocking face at Kal across the aisle.
Kal’s eyes narrowed. “You cost me my dream job,” he said, his
melodious voice clear over the surrounding conversations.
“You went out of your way to hurt me,” she said bitterly.
He stood to go, glancing over his booth as if only now seeing it as the vain display it was. Saying nothing more, he walked away. A cluster of young women nervously flitted behind him, ignored.
Trisk exhaled, tired. She watched him as long as she could, and then he was gone. The final hours passed, and in groups of three and four, smiling parents and happy graduates left the hall on their way to private parties hosted by their new employers, and from there, off to a new life, a new beginning. She slowly realized she was alone. The tables were empty, the family banners drooping unattended amid the stray cups of cold coffee and tea. Still she sat, her attention fixed on a glint of crystal left on the floor.
The click of a shutting door roused her, and Trisk stirred, muscles stiff as she rose and went to pick up the forgotten crystal. It was cool in her hand, smooth but for one rough edge. There was no tingle of magic left—it was just dead crystal. The time to record her contract had come and gone. It didn’t matter. She had no intention of accepting any of the offers. There wasn’t much available for a twenty-six-year-old woman in 1963, but she’d find something. She couldn’t ask her father to continue to support her.
A pang of guilt almost bent her double. He had tried so hard to give her what she wanted, and she had failed. The studying, the practice, the sacrifice—all for nothing.
A soft scuff brought her head up, and her fist closed tight on the shard. A suited official was moving slowly among the discarded chairs and scattered papers. It was the man from the enclave who had chastised her, and a familiar feeling of defiant guilt rose high.
“What a mess,” the man said as he drew close, and she stiffened, feeling stupid in her new dress suit, bought for one day.
“Good evening, Sa’han,” she said, wanting to leave but unable to now that he’d addressed her.
“I think we’re going to lose our cleaning deposit,” he said as he wearily sat against Kal’s table, left for others to break down and pack away. “But we usually do.”
She said nothing, waiting for him to dismiss her, but he only leaned back, balancing precariously as he found a copy of Kal’s transcripts, his bushy eyebrows rising as he looked it over. “Did you know your GPA is higher than his?” he asked, and she blinked in surprise.
“No,” she said, not having cared beyond acquiring a spot under the chandelier. “But it doesn’t matter.”
The man slowly bobbed his head, his thin finger tracing a line down Kal’s last eight years. “My mother had dark eyes,” he said softly. “When I complained to my father that she should get them fixed to be like everyone else’s, he told me they helped her see past the crap most of us drape ourselves with. I was never more embarrassed of myself than that day.”
He pushed off from the table, and Trisk backed up, confused.
“I saw what happened,” he said, coming close. “You never used your magic, though you were ready to. The audio was out. What did he say before you punched him in the nose?”
Trisk flushed. “I made an error in judgment, Sa’han. My apologies.”
The man smiled. “What did he say?”
She lifted her chin defiantly. “He called me a second-rate security grunt, Sa’han.”
Nodding as if not surprised, the man reached into an inner robe pocket and handed her a card embossed with the enclave’s symbol. “If you have not accepted any of your fine offers, I would suggest you put in your application at Global Genetics.”
Trisk took the card, seeing it had his name and a PO Box on it. Sa’han Ulbrine, she thought, confused. “In Sacramento?” she said. Global Genetics was a human-run lab, generations behind what any of her people were doing. The enclave was kicking her out.
But Ulbrine put an arm over her shoulder and turned her to the door. His mood was one of opportunity, not exile, and she didn’t understand. “Occasionally a lab we have no affiliation with makes a breakthrough, and we want to know about it before they publish it.”
They weren’t kicking her out, then, but kicking her to the curb, reminding her of her place. “Sa’han . . .” she said, drawing to a stop.
He was smiling when she looked up, his mix of anticipation and amusement unexpected. “Your excellent grades and background give you a unique ability to infiltrate by taking a job as a genetic researcher. The enclave will pay you a small security stipend,” he said, handing her a contract rolled up and tied with a purple ribbon. “And that is what your title will be on the rolls, but you will have your wage from Global Genetics to supplement your income to where you will not need a spouse to maintain yourself.”
Her reality shifted, and she stared at him, shocked. She’d be free, as few women were in the sixties.
“You will work in a lab,” he said, drawing her back into motion again. “It’s where I think you ought to be, and I usually get what I want. You will, of course, maintain a façade of job performance for your human employers, but your primary focus is to inform us of any unusual developments.” He chuckled, rubbing his bald head ruefully. “Sometimes the humans get lucky, and we want to know of it.”
“But you said I needed to learn where I belonged,” she said, stunned.
“I said you needed to learn who you are. You are a dark elf, Felicia Eloytrisk Cambri. And I’m giving you the chance to do that. Will you take it?”
Her heart pounded as she realized what he was offering her. On paper, being forced to work outside of an elven lab was a harsh punishment, but in reality, she’d be doing what she enjoyed, what she was good at, and working somewhere where she could make a difference.
“Well?” Ulbrine asked, hesitating at the door to the hall. She could see the contract had been time-stamped an hour ago, legal and binding even if she signed it now. Beyond the door lay the world, and now she could be what she had always wanted, had striven for. Quen was right. It didn’t matter what anyone else thought.
Her hand trembled as she reached for a pen, her pulse fast. “I’ll take it.”
MYRA KLARMAN PHOTOGRAPHY
KIM HARRISON, author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Hollows series, was born in Detroit and, after gaining her bachelor’s degree in the sciences, moved to South Carolina, where she remained until recently returning to Michigan because she missed the snow. When not at her desk, Kim is most likely to be found landscaping her new/old Victorian home, in the garden, or out on the links.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Kim Harrison
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ISBN 978-1-5011-4991-7
ISBN 978-1-5011-4992-4 (ebook)