Shivering, I rose swiftly and scrounged about for clean clothing. There wasn’t much; I’d been neglecting laundry lately. Would the Unseelie come after me in the laundry room?
“Gods,” I swore, and pressed one hand to my head.
The dreams only indicated danger. Not death, not injury. There was no sign at all that I wouldn’t come out okay. I couldn’t even say for sure what the reversed Knight meant; it might not mean I was going to break down, at least not in the way I thought.
What was it Shard had said? The one Julian loved would be lost. Ignoring the inevitable blush, I tried once more to analyze that. My mother had seen me going into the woods, oblivious to my path. Well, the Unseelie could lead me astray; a glamour would account for me not seeing the trees. And then if everyone else tried to come after me, that would match Michele’s dream. Although I didn’t know what the mist was. And this was assuming I could interpret the dreams literally—which I couldn’t.
And somehow I doubted Shard would have predicted something as minor as me getting lost in the Arboretum.
My little outline also failed to account for my own dreams. I sighed and sat down heavily on the edge of my bed, sweater in my hands. What had I dreamed, anyway? A lot of them seemed to involve choking in one way or another. Maybe I’d be deprived of oxygen and lose my higher brain functions. That could qualify as “lost.”
Several of the dreams were washed in a faint tinge of gold, or featured the color at one point. As if I couldn’t guess the danger came from the Unseelie. One time I’d looked at everything around me and not recognized any of it, though shortly before it had all been perfectly familiar. If that foretold danger, maybe my guess about brain damage wasn’t so far off. Maybe the Unseelie would take away my memory. Except that still didn’t fit with everything else. No pattern I could think up matched up with all the details.
Temporarily abandoning the exercise as useless, I applied myself to getting dressed. I should have enough time to get breakfast—or lunch, or whatever—before going to Banishing.
Facing the door took willpower.
Liesel must have left for her nine o’clock psych class on time, or she’d have woken me. How had she managed to leave, alone? All I could think was that within the room, I was safe, protected behind shields that could withstand a serious amount of damage. Outside, I’d be on my own, with the Unseelie lurking gods knew where. How could Liesel face that?
She hadn’t fought them yet. She’d been there at the second summoning, but that was different, less … personalized. The attack in Talman had been aimed at me. They knew where I was, and what I was doing.
I snarled and nearly yanked the door off its hinges when I opened it. I refused to cower in my room.
In the dining hall I sat with my back to the wall and scanned the crowd constantly. I kept my psychic senses reined in, but I did close myself off telepathically and listen for anything foreign. A pair of guys two tables over were carrying on a heated argument in what sounded like Mandarin, but even unshielded I couldn’t understand a word of it.
Outside it was worse. They could approach from any direction, and I couldn’t look everywhere at once. By the time I reached Adler, I felt as though I’d run a circuit around campus carrying all of my textbooks. I was sweating despite the cold air, and had just enough time to compose myself before class began.
Grayson’s entrance into the room came as a relief. Muscles I hadn’t known were tense relaxed. There were probably students who could give the Unseelie a nasty time of it, but that was assuming they got over their shock in time to act. Grayson was combat-trained, and she knew the situation as well as I did.
Her eyes rested on me no longer than they did any other student, but I knew she’d marked my location within two seconds of coming in. If trouble came, she’d be ready.
Thus reassured, I was able to open my notebook and at least attempt to concentrate on the lecture.
Lesser banishing rituals. They might work on ghosts and imps, but I bet they wouldn’t faze the Unseelie. Ever since my encounter in Talman, I found myself evaluating everything I’d studied for its potential usefulness in a crisis. What use was necrodivination right now? I couldn’t call up the spirit of anyone who had faced the Unseelie the last time they were here; I’d need a name or a piece of bone, and even then the time elapsed was too great for me to bridge it. I wanted combat training so badly I could taste it.
No—I wanted to be a Guardian. Not in the future, not as some hypothetical career, but right now, so I could defend myself and my friends. But wishing wouldn’t make it so.
When Grayson adjourned class, I packed my things up slowly. My gaze kept going to the bottom of the lecture hall, where the professor stood answering questions. I couldn’t bring myself to beg for escort, but I could walk with her back to her office, on the pretext of asking about the checkout boy. That would get me closer to Wolfstone, dignity more or less intact.
I didn’t even have to say anything to Grayson. She saw me standing there, finished off the rest of the questions my classmates had, and nodded for me to follow her.
“What happened to the guy in Talman?” I asked as soon as we got away from other people. “I heard what the campus rumor mill had to say, but what really happened to him?”
“He was unconscious in a back room,” Grayson said. “I blocked the memory of the Unseelie, and had the imp lock him in.”
Much simpler than our Rube Goldberg notions. Rather than creating the appropriate memories out of whole cloth, she’d merely staged the entire thing. Logical, but I doubted I could think that well under such stress. Then again, Grayson hadn’t been the one dodging glassite.
“So the Dean still doesn’t know?” I asked.
“No. I haven’t been given clearance to tell her.”
Clearance from the Guardian Ring, I assumed. “Who else knows, then? Besides us and the Guardian Ring? Who else have they told?” The Guardian Ring was an agency of the government, according to Julian—most countries had something similar—but I knew well enough that not all government departments talked to one another.
Grayson shook her head. “I don’t know.”
Apparently they didn’t talk to their underlings, either. “But do you know anything about their plans? Are they going to send people here? I mean, Welton is the locus, at least for now. Can they get more Guardians up here, to help hold back the Unseelie?” More Guardians. I still classed Grayson with them—and Julian as well, I realized.
Two Guardians, against all of the Unseelie.
“It’s not that easy, Kimberly,” Grayson said. “Welton is the locus, yes, but bloods all over the world are beginning to sense that something is coming. They have to prepare for the broader future.”
But Welton was the front line of what was shaping up to be a war. “They can’t just surrender us to the Unseelie.”
“They haven’t,” the professor said in a tight voice. “They’re working on a plan.”
I tried to take comfort in that, and failed. It meant those of us here were still where we’d been four days ago: dodging danger, with only one retired Guardian and one not-fully-trained wilder to defend us. The only difference was that now bureaucrats in D.C. were arguing about what the next step should be.
Grayson didn’t look any happier about it than I was. What could she do, though? Deal with crises, sure—the woman was damn good at that. But she couldn’t order an Army regiment up here, or shut down the university, or make a bunch of politicians stir themselves over the weekend to get something done. I mean, didn’t they believe the threat?
Maybe they hadn’t. Not at first. A lot of time could be wasted in brushing this off as troublemaking or gullible students. Then they’d go to their diviners, who would get the same muddy crap I had. No hard intel on which to base a plan. I wondered if the President had a briefcase somewhere containing emergency instructions to be followed in case of sudden Otherworld. It didn’t seem like she did.
I couldn’t do anything about th
at. The people making those decisions weren’t here—but we were. Me, Julian, Robert, and Liesel. We’d all seen the sidhe with our own eyes. Three of us were thoroughly outclassed when it came to power and training, but we had brains, and experience. If anybody was going to come up with the edge necessary to defend against the Unseelie, it was just as likely to be us as anybody in the Pentagon. And if not—if somebody came waltzing up from D.C. to announce the Guardian Ring had it all figured out—well, I’d lead the hallelujah chorus without hesitation.
I didn’t want the glory. I just wanted to feel safe again.
I split from Grayson before we even got to her office, no longer clinging to her protection. My entire posture had changed. Straight back, lifted chin; instead of scuttling across campus like a frightened rabbit, I was walking with purpose—and confidence.
The flash of determination I’d felt when I left my room today was back, and stronger.
I wasn’t about to take on the Unseelie single-handed. But temporary flight wasn’t a dishonorable option, and I’d remember that the next time they came calling. I’d made a mistake, hiding under that desk in the library. I should have just bolted for the door. I should have kept thinking.
My mother had brought me up believing that no problem could withstand the assault of sustained thought. Mine, and everyone else’s—in this case, most especially that of my friends.
This was our problem.
I didn’t believe in immutable fate, didn’t believe we’d been singled out for a reason. But this was magic, and certain principles held true. When this became our problem, we formed a connection to it. That connection just might help us.
We had to try.
~
Julian had to knock twice before he made himself heard over the music playing in Kim’s room. He felt her scan him; then she opened the door. “We should come up with a secret knock,” she said, smiling as he came in. “Something to let me know it’s one of you guys.”
He raised an eyebrow at the pile of books surrounding her desk. “You’ve been busy.”
“Yeah. I figure every bit of knowledge helps.” She looked both ways down the corridor before closing the door and waving him to a seat. “Why are you walking around alone?”
Julian lowered himself onto her desk chair. Kim’s PK textbook lay open next to him. Not a bad choice of subject to study, given their current circumstances; it was the closest thing to a combat skill she could learn on short notice. “Have you had an escort all day?” he asked her.
“Touché.” She grinned and sat on the couch. “No, I haven’t, and I’ll bet neither Liesel nor Robert has, either. We are sorely lacking in self-preservation instinct.”
She was probably right, at least about Robert. “I was wondering if I could borrow the carving,” Julian said. “The one Falcon gave you. I think I might be able to figure out how to reach the Otherworld without it, but I need it as a reference to start.”
“Sure,” she said. It was still in her coat pocket; she fished it out and gave it to him. “No way in a million years I’ll be able to learn to work without it, but you might as well try.”
He examined it again, wondering why the link was embodied in such an object. A concession to the human need for ritual props? Or something else?
Kim had settled back onto the couch, curling her legs beneath her. Now she spoke again, breaking him from his thoughts. “Julian….”
He glanced up. She was biting her lip. When she caught him watching her, she released it. “Last night … you figured something out, didn’t you? What Falcon said, about the Unseelie choosing Welton, it made you think of something. What was it?”
Julian closed his eyes. So she’d noticed. He wasn’t used to anyone paying such close attention to him, not anymore. Not like that.
“If you don’t want to tell me, then say so,” Kim added.
“No … it’s not a problem.” Julian opened his eyes and looked straight at her. “Have you ever wondered why I’m here?”
She nodded. Of course she had. There wasn’t a single person on campus who hadn’t.
Julian let the ghost of a grin show, knowing it was self-mocking. “So have I.”
Kim blinked. “What? You—didn’t you want to be here?”
“Yes. But I didn’t know why.” He laughed softly, without humor. “Which made convincing the necessary people a bit difficult. Wilders don’t bother with college; we can get the education we need much more efficiently from our own teachers, and most of us do just that. It’s easier than trying to fit in at a place like this.”
Her mouth quirked in rueful acknowledgment. Julian wondered sometimes if she had any idea how difficult it had been at first. The students were bad enough—either going out of their way to avoid him, clearing sidewalks and leaving empty seats around him in lecture halls, or seeking him out like a carnival sideshow. The professors were worse, in their well-meaning way. Welton had a wilder on campus. They’d fallen over themselves to question and test him, until he felt like a lab rat in a cage.
“I knew it wouldn’t be easy,” he said, which was true, if insufficient. He’d underestimated the difficulty. “But—do you remember what I said to you on Samhain? Before the attack. When we were talking about Guardians.”
Kim followed his train of thought. “Guardians like Grayson get sent to deal with problems. Guardians who are wilders are just there when the problem comes up.”
“Exactly. None of us have ever really known how that works, but it does.”
“So you’re saying that whatever it is that puts you—” She broke off in mid-sentence, mouth falling open. “The geis. It’s got to be the geis.”
Hearing her arrive at the same conclusion without prodding wasn’t confirmation, but it came close. “I think so.”
“You’re saying that it knew, years ago, that this was coming?”
“Can you think of a better explanation? There aren’t any other wilders in the area. And precious few Guardians; Grayson’s the nearest. They’re mostly in the cities, where there’s more need for them. In an emergency, that isn’t enough.”
“But that’s circular,” Kim said, frowning. “If what Falcon said is true, then it’s chance they chose this place, over the alternatives. But the geis sending you here increased that chance—a self-fulfilling prophecy. Unless other wilders got pulled to the other possible locations?”
“I don’t think so,” Julian murmured, only half-attending. She was right; it was circular. Something had to have tipped the balance. Otherwise, why would the geis choose him, and Welton? With all the hurdles along the way?
Grayson.
He’d scarcely even let himself think about it at the time, for fear someone would seize on it as a reason not to let him go. Grayson, who’d retired from active Guardianship to teach the most comprehensive set of shielding courses offered anywhere in the world.
It was right after he heard about her that he felt the compulsion to go to Welton.
Unaware of the rapid-fire progress of his thoughts, Kim had abandoned her own reasoning with a sigh. “Well. Normally I don’t believe in fate—not in the sense of ‘this is your destiny’—but on a more limited scale, I guess you’re fated to deal with this.”
Julian thought about softening it, but knew what Kim would say to that. Instead he spoke bluntly. “There’s no guarantee I’ll be able to. Wilders have been sent to deal with problems that ended up killing them. I was just the most available.”
He couldn’t watch her assimilate those words. It was easier to face that possibility when he didn’t think about it affecting other people. They’d all been raised that way, prepared to sacrifice everything for the good of others. Just like the geis wanted—but it didn’t feel imposed. It was just who he was.
Fingers curled around his own and gripped tightly. Kim had reached over the back of the couch, and fierceness put color into her otherwise pale cheeks. “You’re not alone,” she reminded him forcefully. “Whatever sent you here also put you where you’d f
ind the support of friends.”
Friends, and more. Julian managed a smile, though the tightness in his throat made it difficult. Kim met his gaze for an instant, then lowered her head, as if unable to continue. “What is it?” he asked.
“Nothing.” Unsteadiness belied the word. “It’s just … you don’t usually talk about your past.”
Her hand was still in his, a point of unaccustomed contact. Julian hesitated, then returned the grip, until she faced him once more. The words came out more easily than he expected. “Would you like me to?”
She drew in a sharp breath, and nodded.
“All right,” Julian said, but before he could continue, he felt a presence outside. His head came around to face the door. “But not right now.”
The door opened. From behind Liesel, Robert proclaimed grandly, “I have been thinking.” He entered with a flourish, either oblivious to Kim’s lack of composure or ignoring it. More ominously, Liesel said nothing, either. She went straight to a chair and sat in it, hands clasped around her knees. “More to the point,” Robert continued, “I have been considering what Falcon said last night. And now, my thinking done, I have a theory.”
“Congratulations,” Kim said dryly, her attention half on her silent roommate.
Robert remained standing, the better to pontificate. “Ah, but wait until you have heard the substance of the matter, my lady. I was, you see, considering his words regarding travel between their world and ours, and the restriction to Welton, and the manner in which this connection would expand—”
“Get to the point,” Julian said, his patience fraying.
Robert bowed floridly. “As you wish. Falcon said the link between here and there would expand outward from Welton. I do not think this was quite accurate. I think it is expanding from you.” And he pointed at Julian.
Given what he and Kim had just been discussing, it made sense. “Go on.”
“Allow me to recreate it from the beginning, if you will.” Robert began to pace in front of them. It had been weeks since he’d had such a chance to grandstand; clearly he wasn’t going to waste it. “Samhain is a night long said to have special characteristics, a night when the Otherworld and our world are closer than they are on other days. The veil separating them thins. Contact became possible. And the Unseelie, searching for a suitable location to concentrate on, chose Welton. More specifically, they chose Julian.”
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