At that, she hesitated. “You’ll call me?” she said. I heard her voice catch on “call,” and she was already turning away even before I answered.
“Of course I will.”
She just nodded without turning back, got in her car, and slammed the door.
Caryl showed up not long after she’d left. She didn’t even get out of her SUV, just waited for me with the engine running. I got in, carrying the towels I’d fetched from the downstairs bathroom while I waited. Caryl was still storing her emotions in the construct; it made for very safe driving.
“How did the meeting end?” I said.
“Much as it began,” said Caryl. “Unless we’re willing to consider another king, Queen Dawnrowan will have nothing to do with us. Also, apparently Barker has some sort of file on you that ‘proves’ Claybriar has been tainted by your rebel influence or some such nonsense.”
“Well, great. My walking out in the middle probably didn’t help. But I’m going to fix this. All of this. I promise.” Just as soon as I came up with the tiniest inkling of a plan.
As soon as we got to the motel room, I put the towels beside the sink and tried to dazzle both my coworkers with my deduction.
“I think Shock is working with Belinda, and I think he made a fey look like Tjuan so it could commit that crime.”
Caryl met my brilliance with a flat stare, and Tjuan sat silently by the window, glaring across the room at the fluffy blue towels as though they’d personally insulted him.
“I wish I could subscribe to your theory,” Caryl finally said, “as it would focus our response, but clearly you did not read the entirety of the news story. The police said the weapon was a blue steel revolver; they named the exact model. We can see it in the bare hand of what you claim is a fey.”
“Oh,” I said. “Steel. So the facade wouldn’t have held?” Shit. I clawed at my hair. “But that weapon could be anything. Maybe the fey cast a spell to make it look like steel.”
“Camera, Millie. One cannot charm electronics.”
Tjuan waved a hand irritably. “Anyway. It’s the shooter who vanished,” said Tjuan, “not the victim. He’s a legit civilian. Article says he’s in the hospital, so they pulled an actual damn bullet from him. Cops wouldn’t name the gun if they weren’t sure.”
I sank down onto the motel bed. “What the fuck, then?” I said.
There was a long silence.
“Wait,” Tjuan said. His eyes were still empty.
“What is it?”
“Remember the wraith that murdered Tamika? Qualm. Dame Belinda brought it to that meeting.”
I tried to think back. “Yeah. And?”
“I think the body had iron shackles on.”
Caryl snapped her fingers. “Qualm’s facade was possessed, not enchanted. Possession isn’t spellwork, so iron doesn’t disrupt it. We kept running into that problem.”
I got to my feet, excited. “So if a facade of Tjuan were possessed by a wraith? By fucking Qualm maybe? Who’s operated a human body before and might have a grudge?”
“How many wraiths were in that book that Barker walked away with?” said Caryl.
“Three hundred sixty-four,” I said, suddenly feeling less excited.
“Decent army,” Tjuan said darkly.
“But she doesn’t know their names,” I said. “Only Brand knows them.”
“She wouldn’t need their names,” said Caryl. “If she has King Winterglass on her side, he can compel them; they are his subjects. Perhaps more concerning, if the wraiths are no longer bound, anyone who has ever been possessed by them could potentially act as a Gate for them to reenter this world. They’d be bound to that body, but could still do a great deal of damage. We need to make a list of anyone who may be currently possessed.”
We both looked at Tjuan.
“No,” he said. “Even if you don’t think I’d be aware, which I absolutely would, King Winterglass specifically ordered mine not to possess anyone again during his reign. He didn’t even put in ‘unless I say otherwise.’ I was there, I remember. That one’s not coming near me again.”
“Naderi, though,” I said with a sinking feeling. “She might have had one sitting there dormant inside her the whole time I was just talking to her.” I frantically tried to remember what all I’d said to her.
Caryl sighed and rubbed at her forehead. “I shall do my best to make a list of potential possession subjects and distribute it to anyone who may encounter them. But to return to the subject of Tjuan’s doppelganger, King Winterglass could have commanded any one of those wraiths to possess an unlinked facade. We know it has been done at least once before, with Qualm.”
“And his son happens to be a brilliant facade crafter,” I added.
“But how’s that kid meant to have made a perfect facade of me?” said Tjuan. “The fey have to get the image from a human mind, right? Nobody in that camp has done much more than glance at me, and the thing on the news looks exactly like me, even to me.”
“I may have an idea about that,” Caryl said hesitantly. “But it verges on conspiracy theory.”
“This is Dame Belinda we’re talking about,” I said. “She had Vivian kill everyone who knew about your abduction. Please tell us your conspiracy theory.”
“Blood magic,” said Caryl. “We use blood to sign the contracts, yes?”
“Yeah. I kinda wondered about that.”
“DNA, for a human, has a similar effect in arcane processes to a fey’s true name. It is binding.”
“But it just binds me to the stuff in the contract, right?”
“Yes. But . . .” She looked uncomfortable. “There is blood left over. They take more from you than is needed for one signature.”
“Yeah. I remember. What happens to it?”
“We seal it in arcanely prepared vials and send it to London for processing.”
“Processing,” I said, making air quotes. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“I was told they go into storage somewhere, as a fail-safe. If employees go missing outside the perimeter, the blood can be used to locate them. This much is fact; I have seen it done. This knowledge was leaked, and has led some disgruntled employees to speculate that blood could also be used to summon humans or to compel obedience in any way that a fey’s true name can be used.”
“I doubt it,” said Tjuan. “Belinda would be jerking all our strings to make us dance at this point, not fucking around with facades.”
“Without knowing how blood magic works, or doesn’t,” said Caryl, “I can’t speculate. But she does have your blood, and with your genetic material it seems plausible that at the very least a wizard or warlock could ‘read’ it in order to create a perfect mental image of you that Shock could use in his spell crafting.”
“Why Tjuan?” I said. “The fuck’s he ever done to her?”
“I was standing right there when we rebelled, Millie.”
“So was I! So was Alvin and Caryl!”
“DNA,” said Caryl calmly.
“Right,” said Tjuan. “Millie’s wouldn’t show anyone what she looks like now.”
“Mine wouldn’t recreate the whole of me, either,” said Caryl. “Only the part that is human.”
“And Alvin’s DNA would be female,” said Tjuan.
“Holy shit,” I said.
Tjuan tried for a slight smile, but it was ghastly. “So I got the short straw.”
“What do we do?” I said. “How do we stop this?”
“This is all just speculation,” said Caryl. “I’d need to talk to a crafter to see if it is, in fact, even possible to create a facade of someone from his blood, and if so, if it could be tracked and caught. But unfortunately all the facade crafters are attached to one High Court or the other, and the sidhe control both Courts.”
I blew hair out of my eyes. “I think—I think I could get Shock here.”
Tjuan lifted a brow. “Are we not assuming he’s the exact one that did this to me?”
“
He doesn’t know we know. And there’s a situation at Residence Four; he screwed up with Brand. If I tell him, if I act like we’re friends and like I’m worried he’ll get in huge trouble for his mistake, maybe he’ll sneak over here to sort it out. And then we can . . . I don’t know, hog-tie him and beat the truth out of him?”
“Millie,” said Caryl. “He’s seventeen.”
“If he’s old enough to frame my partner for murder,” I said, “he’s old enough to get punched in the face a few times.”
“No punching,” said Tjuan firmly. “But we can find some way to get him talking, I bet. How would we even get a message to him, though? His dad’s not going to help us here, and it’s not like the Crown Prince of the Unseelie High Court carries an iPhone.”
“Maaaaybe,” I said, pulling out my own phone and sifting through my various junk apps. “Maybe not. He’s at a boarding school in Hong Kong, and I don’t know what the hell kids use over there.” After a moment’s searching, I found what I was looking for, turned the screen toward Tjuan. “But he sure loves the hell out of Snapchat.”
8
On Wednesday, for the second time that week, I was awakened before sunrise. This time, at least, it was to a knock on my bedroom door, rather than a siren sitting on my bed.
“Dress and come downstairs,” said Caryl from the other side of the door. Her voice was fluid and expressive, which meant she’d dismissed Elliott, but she sounded no higher than a 4 on the stress scale. Why so early, then?
I checked Snapchat as I got dressed. I’d sent Shock a “You still use this?” message the night before to test the waters. Now it seemed not only had he not responded, but he’d blocked me. Shit.
I pried Monty off my bed and took him to the upstairs bathroom. I could tell who had been in there last, because the faucet was dripping. Stevie was the only one who either couldn’t understand or didn’t care that you had to turn it not quite all the way to keep it from leaking. Once I’d addressed the faucet, I shut Monty in there with the litter box so he wouldn’t bother Caryl. He’d belonged to her mentor, whom Dame Belinda had ordered Vivian to murder five years ago, and so the very sight of the cat could sometimes set Caryl off into storms of sobs.
When I went downstairs, I tried to get a good read on her. Her gray pantsuit was flawless, but her eyes suggested she’d been up all night. The apparent lack of tension in her voice may have been exhaustion; I had to recalibrate. She’d driven over here in the dark, sleep deprived? I fought back a twinge of unease and settled myself on the smaller of the two couches that faced each other in the large living area.
“I checked the census ward,” Caryl said. “The number of fey in the area is exactly as expected.”
“What does that mean?” I searched her face, trying to figure out if this was good news, bad news, or what.
“All it means for certain is that our shooter is not a corporeal fey or warlock who breached the perimeter from elsewhere. Which makes sense, as the perimeter alarm was also not triggered.”
“Wait, but an incarnated wraith entering from outside would still trigger the alarm, right? Because of the norium in the facade’s blood?”
“The facade itself has human blood. The census ward reads the blood of the true form.”
I let out an affronted snort. “Uh, Claybriar’s facade sure as hell has norium in it. Remember what a big deal it was when he bled all over the tracks at Union Station last summer?”
Caryl grimaced slightly. That event had left a scar in Skyhollow, which she’d seen and told me about, but I hadn’t witnessed. “Once the blood leaves the facade,” Caryl explained, “it is no longer subject to the enchantment. A trickle down the arm will remain human. . . . The moment a drop falls free, it becomes fey again.”
“Ahhh. This goes along with that thing where we don’t like to send fey to hospitals.”
A firm, resolute knock sounded on the front door.
I watched Caryl shoot straight to 7: Frazzled. The antique clock hanging crookedly on the far wall said eight minutes to seven; the light outside was still wan and purplish.
“The hell?” I said.
“I didn’t think they’d come this early,” said Caryl, climbing quickly toward stress level 8. Not good. At Fractured, her thoughts started to fragment and her motor skills got wobbly.
“What is it?” I said. “Who’s here?”
“I came here to try to talk to you before—” She took a couple of slow deep breaths, and her eyes filled with tears.
Another knock. “Police,” said a strong voice from outside the door. “We have a search warrant.”
Okay, now I was at stress level four million or so.
“Elliott?” whimpered Caryl. He must have been standing by, because her expression smoothed immediately. “I shall answer it,” she said. “Try to calm yourself.”
The cop at the door told Caryl to assemble everyone in one spot, so she sent me to wake the others. In an adrenaline-soaked haze I went from room to room, knocking on doors. I waited to make sure each person actually got up, got dressed, came out. I kept seeing the house through cops’ eyes, all the shady stuff I’d stopped noticing. The vicious slashes across the finish of the grand piano. That gun-shaped water stain. The coy edge of an anarchy symbol by Alondra’s door where the wallpaper had peeled.
Four cops were in the living room by the time I got back. Two in uniforms, two in ties and dress shirts and blue windbreakers.
“Nothing,” said one of the uniforms. The other one spoke into a radio; I didn’t hear what he said, because at the same time one of the suits was asking Caryl to come with him, and my heart was drumming in my ears. Both the suits went with her to the back of the house.
“What’s going on?” Phil hissed in my direction as I approached his couch.
I took a moment to consider what, if anything, Phil should be told. “It’s probably just—”
“Ma’am,” broke in one of the uniforms. “Please wait until the detectives have a chance to talk to everyone. We’ll get through this as quick as we can.”
Song looked terrified, holding Sterling against her chest. He whined, kicking and trying to get down. Stevie sat on the floor rocking back and forth while Phil spoke to her in a low murmur. Alondra sat still and serious on the opposite couch; I remained standing.
When the suits came back, they beckoned for me. Nothing in Caryl’s expression helped me; she simply went to sit calmly next to Phil. I followed the two men to the empty bedroom, the one where a woman had been murdered four months ago. My breath started to come fast; my hands shook.
“You seem rattled,” said the taller one. Lean white guy, iron-gray hair.
“I get upset around cops,” I said.
“Why’s that?” he said in a tone that suggested he already knew I was a hardened criminal.
“Because the last time I talked to any was when I woke up in a hospital after a suicide attempt.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said the other one. Shorter, stocky, Latino. A friendly tenor voice that reminded me of Alvin. Good Cop, then. Off this conclusion, I gave the taller one a wary once-over.
“Tell me about Tjuan Jamal Miller,” said the one I assumed must be Bad Cop.
“I work with him,” I said. “And we’re roommates. And I know what you think he did, but it’s not possible. He was here at lunch Saturday, and then went straight back to work.”
“He was here when, exactly?” said Good Cop.
“From around a quarter to eleven until maybe one thirty?”
Bad Cop didn’t seem to like my answer. He made a show of writing something down.
“It was her birthday—Caryl’s,” I babbled, unaccountably panicking at the sight of the pen. “Tjuan got a cake.”
“From where?” said Good Cop.
What the hell did that matter? I curtailed my smart-ass instincts.
“Let me think,” I said. “My memory’s not that great; I have some brain damage.” God, I sounded like the worst liar in history, and I
wasn’t even lying yet. “It was a weird name. I remember thinking it sounded like a disease. But the box is gone; we demolished the cake by the end of the day.”
“Was Mr. Miller behaving at all unusually?” said Good Cop.
“Buying a cake was unusual. But it was her birthday, and they’ve known each other for years, so I guess it’s not that unusual.” Shut up, Millie. Just shut up.
“Did he seem confused? Distressed?” Good Cop persisted.
“No.”
“Does he own any firearms that you know of?” asked Bad Cop.
“No. I’ve never heard him even talk about guns.”
“Have you been watching the news?” Bad Cop said.
“Yeah, that wasn’t him.”
Bad Cop tipped his head with a weird smile. “What makes you so sure?”
“Because they said it happened while he was here. Also, I know him. He doesn’t go around hurting people. Also he barely has time to shower, the way they work him at Valiant.”
“Huh.” Bad Cop’s smile vanished. “I heard he’d been skipping out on work.”
Once again he made me feel like he’d caught me in a lie, but I wasn’t lying. I could feel something rising in me, between rage and panic. “You’ll have to ask Caryl about that. He was helping her with some stuff.”
“We’ve spoken to her,” said Bad Cop. “I’m asking you.”
I felt a rivulet of sweat run down my side. “I don’t know what to tell you about that; I’m sorry. You’ll really need to talk to her.”
“All right,” Bad Cop said slowly.
“You say it was a birthday party,” said Good Cop. “Anyone take pictures?”
I shook my head. “Tjuan’s not really a selfie guy. And it wasn’t a big deal; it was mostly just another day. I only remember the time because I kept worrying about how long he was gone from work.”
“Why were you worried about that?” Good Cop asked.
“Just, you know. High-pressure job. And it was a big deal that they hired him.”
With no warning at all, I started crying.
“The best thing for an innocent man to do,” Good Cop said gently, “would be come talk to us.”
Impostor Syndrome Page 6