A Local Habitation

by Seanan McGuire

  “And no birds sing,” I said, horrified. Keats didn’t know much about Faerie, but he knew enough to get some things right. Gean-Cannah—the Love Talkers. I’d never met a changeling Gean-Cannah before, only heard rumors, so I hadn’t been able to recognize their blood. True Gean- Cannah were shapeshifters, entirely protean creatures who changed their faces and genders with a thought. Only their changeling children were tied to the movements of the sun, split forever into different people. I should have known when I saw their eyes. I should have known. But I didn’t.

  Gean-Cannah were common once. They preyed heavily on the mortals. Too heavily. There’s never been any shame in hunting humans. The shame is in getting caught. It’s all right to be a monster, but it’s not all right to be sloppy. The Gean-Cannah took what they wanted, and they were noticed. Oh, were they ever. They were heavy victims of the war with the humans, and the Love Talkers have never bred fast; they can’t stand the company of their own kind, and most fae are too canny for them. They’re rare these days. I’ve only seen a single pureblood, and he was on the other side of a royal Court. Not exactly close enough to learn the attributes of the blood.

  The Gean-Cannah will become your perfect lover, and it’ll be your last. They pull the life out of you, leaving you drained of everything but the need to keep loving them, to keep feeding them every ounce of strength you have . . . until it’s over.

  Most affairs with the Gean-Cannah end in suicide.

  Tybalt was getting over his surprise, looking even angrier now. I stepped forward, taking hold of his arm while I glared at Terrie. “The night shift.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, lowering her inhaler. “I would have told him not to, but he didn’t leave me a note until it was too late.”

  “So you couldn’t have killed them all.”

  She shook her head. “I wasn’t awake.”

  “This . . . thing . . . touched you?” asked Tybalt, tone gone dangerously quiet.

  “Her day-self did.” I looked at Terrie. “Do you have any control?”

  “I . . .” Terrie paused, sighing. “You want to know if Alex forced your attraction to him.”

  “Yes.”

  She looked away. “Yes.”

  For a long moment, I just stood there. Then, turning to Tybalt, I said, “Do whatever you want. I’m done.” Terrie’s head whipped around, eyes gone wide. I ignored her, attention swinging toward Elliot. “You let him.”

  “Toby, I—”

  “Do you know what happens when you lie down with the Gean-Cannah? Do you?” None of them said a word. Not even Tybalt, although the growl was beginning again, low in his throat. “You get tired and your thoughts get fuzzy and you stop thinking about anything but when you’ll see your lover again. You lie down on the cold hillside, and you die. And you were just going to let me stumble into his arms, without a warning?”

  “Toby, it wasn’t like that—” Terrie began. I glared at her, and she stopped.

  “I don’t care what it was like, and I don’t care what your reasons were,” I said. “This is too much. I’m taking my people, and we’re getting out of here.” I turned and stalked out of the cafeteria, letting the door swing shut behind me.

  They didn’t follow. If the look on Tybalt’s face meant anything, he wasn’t going to let them.

  I made it as far as the hall before my knees buckled and I sank to the floor, starting to cry in vast, exhausted gasps. How dare they? How dare they? I cried until I ran out of tears. It took a frighteningly long time. It wasn’t until I stopped to wipe my eyes with the back of my hand that I realized someone was leaning against me. I froze, realizing I’d just broken my own cardinal rule for surviving: I’d gone off alone. It would be a beautiful, annoying sort of irony if I got killed right after making my dramatic exit.

  Whoever it was wasn’t making any hostile moves; they were just leaning. Most psychopaths seek blood before cuddling—it’s a trait of the breed. And no, I don’t think they’d have killed less if they were hugged more. I just think that by the time they start killing, they aren’t necessarily looking for a pat on the back.

  I looked down. April was huddled against me, eyes closed, tears rolling down her cheeks in fractal patterns. “April?”

  She didn’t open her eyes. “I didn’t think my mother could go off-line.”

  “Oh, April.” I bit my lip, not sure what to say next. It was easy to forget her origins and focus only on her strangeness. Maybe she wasn’t normal, but Jan was her mother—probably the only one she’d ever had. Dryads don’t exactly come from nuclear families. I settled for the most inconsequential, least hurtful words I could find: “I’m sorry.”

  “She was supposed to take care of me, but she left the network without me. How could she do that? She has to take care of me.”

  “I’m sure she took good care of you.” I winced as soon as I spoke, realizing how patronizing that had to sound.

  April realized it too, because she raised her head, expression fierce. “She did take good care of me. She always did.” She paused, continuing more quietly, “People said she only cared about me because I was new, and she’d forget me when she found something else new. But they were wrong. She took care of me. When I was hurt or sick or confused or anything, she took care of me. She always . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “She always what, April?”

  “She kept my systems operational,” she said. “She loved me.”

  That surprised me more than it should have. I knew April was devoted to Jan. I hadn’t realized she understood what love was. Quietly, I said, “I think I understand.”

  “Do you?” she asked, pulling away. It was hard to get used to the emotion in her voice. She’d been sounding steadily more alive—more “real”—since Jan died.

  I only wished her mother could have seen it.

  “I think so.”

  “I would never have let anything hurt her.”

  “I know.”

  “I hope so,” she said, and shook her head. The tears on her cheeks disappeared like they’d never been. “There aren’t many choices left. I have to go now, and you have to think. It’s important.” Then she was gone in a haze of static, leaving me alone.

  “April? April, come back—what’s important? April!” I stared at the empty air, hoping she’d reappear and explain herself. No such luck. “What was that about?”

  Picking myself up off the floor, I raked the fingers of my good hand through my hair, looked toward the futon room door, and turned, with a sigh, to walk back toward the cafeteria.

  I couldn’t go. I wanted to, and I couldn’t. If it had just been Jan, maybe I could have left the mess for Sylvester, but April . . . April needed someone to find out what had happened to her. I owed that to her, and I owed it to her mother.

  To my surprise and mild disappointment, the cafeteria was not the site of further carnage. Terrie was gone, and Tybalt and Elliot were at opposite sides of the room, Tybalt glaring, Elliot trying to look like he wasn’t uncomfortable about being glared at. Tybalt straightened as I entered, attention refocusing on me.

  I moved until I was standing nose-to-nose with Elliot, and said, “We’re staying until Sylvester gets here. Not for your sake. For Jan’s. And if Alex comes near me again, night or day, I’ll kill him. Do you understand?”

  He raised his hands, supplicating. “We weren’t trying to endanger you.”

  “You could’ve fooled me.”

  “Terrie can’t help what she is—it’s her nature to make people love her, just like it’s your nature to pull answers from the dead.” He paused. “I’ve always wondered why the Daoine Sidhe have that gift. You’re Titania’s children. Why are you so tied to blood?”

  “Because we’re also Oberon’s, and no one else was willing to take the job. Cut the crap, Elliot. Do you want my help or not?”

  He looked at me blankly. “Yes. We do.”

  “Then you need to follow my rules. Can you do that?”

  “I can,” he said
slowly, like he found the words distasteful. Tough.

  “Good.” I stepped away from him. “First rule: no one goes anywhere alone, no matter how secure you think the area is or how certain you are that nothing will happen. There aren’t many of you left. I’d like to keep the ones we have.”

  Elliot nodded. “I’ll order everyone that’s still here to travel together.”

  “Can you make them listen?”

  “I think so.”

  “Good. Second rule: if I ask a question, I want an answer, not an excuse and not a string of technical terms you know I won’t understand. A real answer. Can you promise me that?”

  “I promise.”

  “Swear.”

  “Toby, do I really need—” He saw the look on my face, and stopped. “Fine. I swear by root and branch and silver and iron, by fire and wind and the faces of the moon. May I never see the hills of home again, if I deceive.” He paused. “Will that do?”

  “For now.”

  “And you’ll help us?”

  “We will. Let’s go give Connor a status, check on Quentin, and . . .” I paused. “Where’s Terrie?”

  “She left,” Tybalt said, sounding satisfied. “Best she stays gone.”

  “So she’s alone?” If she wasn’t our killer, she might well be a target. I didn’t like her. I didn’t want her dead.

  “I suppose,” said Elliot.

  “Oh, Maeve’s teeth. Tybalt? Can you find her?”

  He nodded, barely, and took off at a run. I followed a beat behind him. I didn’t know that anything was wrong—not really—but I knew that every time I’d gambled with fate in this place, I’d come up snake eyes. The house always wins.

  Tybalt hit the door Alex had led me through earlier, rushing out into the warm night air with me and Elliot at his heels. The smell of blood hit me even before I saw Terrie lying loose-limbed and still in the grass. The cats were gone. It was the first time I’d been outside ALH without seeing cats.

  “Oh, you poor thing,” I said, glancing to Elliot and Tybalt. “Tybalt, go find the cats. See if they saw anything.” He nodded. “Elliot . . .” Elliot was pale and shivering, shaking his head from side to side. I sighed. “Stay there.”

  Tybalt turned, vanishing into the shadows as I walked toward Terrie’s body. Kneeling beside her, I turned her head to the side, revealing the puncture just below her jaw. Similar punctures marked her wrists, exactly where I expected them to be. “Jan really was a fluke,” I muttered. Our killer was back to the normal pattern.

  Terrie’s skin was still warm, even warmer than Peter’s had been. We’d almost made it in time. Too angry and exhausted for delicacy, I lifted her arm, raised her punctured wrist to my mouth, and drank.

  Blood is always different. It has a thousand tastes, spiced by life and tainted by memory. Take away those flavorings and all you have left is copper, cloying and useless. Terrie’s blood was empty. I prepared to spit it out, and paused, licking my lips. There was something there. Ignoring Elliot’s choked-off gasp, I took another mouthful. Yes; there was definitely something there, something not quite gone. It was just a flicker of memory, a distant whisper of clover and coffee, too faint to tell me anything . . . but it was there.

  I sat back on my haunches, frowning. What was different here? What distinguished this death from the rest? The others were purebloods; Terrie was a changeling. Maybe that was it. Or maybe it was the fact that she was two different people . . . and only one of them had died.

  “Elliot? What time is it?”

  “A little after eight.” He hesitated. “Why?”

  I smiled, and he blanched. I could feel the blood drying on my lips. “Let’s move her to the basement. I want to check on Quentin, and then I’m going to sleep until Sylvester gets here. I need to be alert in the morning.”

  “Why?” he asked. He didn’t sound like he really wanted to know.

  Tough. Still smiling, I said, “Because at sunrise, I’m going to wake the dead.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  WE WAITED FOR TYBALT to return before moving the body. His mood had grown even worse while he was scouring the knowe for cats; someone, he reported, had driven them away with a high-pitched sound, leaving them skittish and miserable. Someone was going to pay for that if he had any say in the matter.

  He and I carried Terrie’s body through the knowe together. Ignoring Elliot’s disturbed stare, we moved Colin’s body to the floor, settling Terrie in his place. I’d need easy access to her body, and Colin wasn’t in a position to object. The dead are usually pretty mellow about that sort of thing. The basement was getting crowded. Most of the bodies looked like movie models, too pristine to be real; the only body that seemed even halfway natural was Jan’s beneath its mottled sheet of red and brown. I still didn’t understand why Jan had been killed so differently from the others. What was I missing?

  “You can go,” I said, glancing toward Elliot. “Call April, and stay with her. Make her take you to Gordan.”

  For a moment, he looked like he might argue. Then he nodded, heading up the stairs without another protest. I watched him, trying to ignore the pain in my head and hand. I was so tired. I needed to sleep before the morning’s work, or I wasn’t going to survive it. And there were still things I had to do.

  Tybalt remained silent until Elliot was gone. Then he swung his head around to look at me, asking, “What do you intend to do?”

  “Something really, really stupid.” He narrowed his eyes, and I shrugged. “Look: Terrie and Alex share a body, but they’re not the same person. If Terrie’s dead, and Alex isn’t, I might be able to jump-start him somehow. That could wake the blood back up.”

  He paused. “I don’t know whether that’s brilliant or suicidal.”

  “That’s all right.” I offered him the ghost of a smile. “Neither do I.”

  “Charming.” He walked toward me, fingered the collar of the jacket I was wearing, and said, “It suits you, I think. You should keep it.”

  “Tybalt, I—”

  “Not that I would have it back, after the amount of blood you’ve doubtless shed on it.” He pulled his hand away. “You’re about to ask me for something. I recognize the look.”

  “I am.” For a moment, I wanted to catch his hand, just to have something to hold onto. The moment passed. “I don’t know where Sylvester is, and he shouldn’t be taking this long. Can you go and try to find him?”

  “Not until I’ve seen you safe.”

  I shot him a sidelong look. He looked imperiously back.

  Finally, I sighed. “Whatever.”

  We walked the deserted halls in silence. At the futon room door, I knocked, and Connor let me in, only looking slightly askance at Tybalt. Quentin was asleep, his face pale in the gloom, while the Hippocampi frolicked in their tank, unaware of the dangers around them. Lucky things.

  Tybalt nodded to Connor, then to me, before turning and melting away into the shadows of the hall. I closed the door, locking it, and looked at Connor. “Wake me half an hour before dawn or when Sylvester gets here, whichever comes first.”

  “Do I want to ask?”

  “Probably not,” I said, wearily. He nodded, hugging me briefly before letting me stretch out on the floor in front of the futon. I fell asleep almost as soon as my eyes were closed.

  If I had any dreams, I don’t remember them.

  “Toby, it’s time.” Connor’s voice, only inches from my ear. I jerked upright, nearly smacking my head into his, and stared at him.

  “What?”

  “It’s time.”

  “Sylvester—”

  “Tybalt can explain.” From the grim set of his lips, it wasn’t good.

  I nodded. “All right. Just a second.” I stood, taking my time getting to my feet, and reached over to feel Quentin’s forehead. He wasn’t hot enough to worry me, and his breathing was even. Infection was a risk—it’s always a risk—but he wasn’t going to die in his sleep.

  Tybalt was waiting in the hall, along with El
liot. Connor stepped out with me, keeping his hand on the doorknob. I looked between them.

  “Well?”

  “Your monarchs are such charming people,” said Tybalt, not bothering to hide his disdain.

  I groaned. “Riordan.”

  “She won’t believe Duke Torquill is here for valid reasons,” Elliot said. “I called her seneschal as soon as I heard, but . . .”

  “But she’s stopping them at the border?”

  “Indeed.” He nodded grimly.

  “That’s just . . . damn.” I sighed. “All right, where’s Gordan?”

  “In April’s room, with the door locked. Everyone’s accounted for.”

  I knew where everyone was. So why didn’t I know where to point the finger? April was Jan’s daughter. Gordan lost her best friend and Elliot lost his fiancée—who was left? Unless there was somebody else in the building, I was almost out of people, and completely out of suspects.

  “Fine. Connor, stay with Quentin. Eliot,Tybalt, come with me.” I started for the cafeteria before Connor could object. “I need coffee.”

  “You’re so charmingly predictable,” said Tybalt, dryly, and followed.

  Elliot looked between us, asking, “What are you intending to do?”

  “Just what I said: wake the dead. Don’t ask for details. I don’t have any.”

  He stopped, staring at us before managing to ask, in a hushed tone, “All the dead?”

  Oh, oak and ash. I hadn’t intended to make him think that . . . “No,” I said. “I can’t do that. I’m sorry. I don’t have it in me. But there’s still a chance for Alex.”

  Elliot looked momentarily heartbroken, and I wanted to slap myself. I’d been mad at these people for being so damn vague, and now I was doing the same thing to them. “I see.”

  The bloodstains had been cleaned off the cafeteria floor, and there was already a pot of coffee waiting on the counter. I headed straight for it, snagging a mug.