Impostor Syndrome

by Mishell Baker

  “Besides giving you back your body?”

  “I didn’t ask for that. So I don’t owe you shit.”

  I had a feeling that even though he wasn’t willing to eat me, it probably wasn’t a good idea for me to punch him repeatedly in the eyeball.

  “Well,” I said instead, “we can give you a new facade, which means you can come back to our world, see your Echo.”

  He was quiet for a minute.

  “Can’t she come here?” he finally said.

  We could, technically, arrange for Parisa Naderi to visit Arcadia now that she had a confirmed Echo. But he didn’t know that.

  “Nope,” I said.

  Claybriar opened his mouth, then closed it. Smart boy.

  “So what is it you need from me?” Brand said.

  “We need you to bind all those wraiths again,” I said. “They got out of your book.”

  “I’ll have to see Parisa first,” said Brand. “After what I just went through, I don’t remember the names. Barely remember hers.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “If you weren’t fey,” I said, “I would be a hundred percent sure you’re bullshitting me right now.”

  “And if I weren’t fey,” he said, “I absolutely would be. So jealous you guys get to do that.” He let out a deep sigh.

  “So if we put you in contact with your Echo, do you promise you’ll bind all those wraiths again? Same ones you bound before?”

  “I promise,” said Brand.

  Caryl rose from the sand to stand next to me, so that we both loomed over him. “Say the entire sentence,” she said.

  “Fine!” Brand repeated my phrasing of the promise more or less word for word, though he inserted a few colorful adjectives and adverbs.

  Foxfeather hung back watching, nibbling adorably at her lower lip. “I don’t know what to tell the duke,” she said nervously. “Does this mean the manticore is on our side now? Or not?”

  “He is,” I said, at the same time Brand said, “I’m not.”

  “Damn it, Brand!” I said to him in frustration. Then I looked back to Foxfeather. “Read my mind a second,” I said. “I know you sidhe can do that, right?”

  Her eyes went as wide as though I’d suggested she put her hand in my jeans. But she said, “All right.”

  I looked at her and thought, as hard as I could, You tell the duke I’m still going to make Throebrand swear allegiance to the Seelie Court. I have his Echo; I can make him do anything I want. The manticore is not going to be any more trouble to you.

  “All right, all right!” said Foxfeather, folding her arms in a way that showed off some intriguing, opalescent cleavage. “You don’t have to shout.”

  • • •

  Shock had the facade ready. The kid was a pro, and possibly motivated by a combination of shame at his previous failure and an infatuation with a certain someone. Even only being able to work on the body under the radar, it had taken him just five days. Finding time to slip away and meet us was hard, though; he had to work around not only the watchful eyes of mundane authorities, but also those in Arcadia monitoring the three portals he needed to use to get here.

  Finally, he messaged Caryl that he could meet us on Wednesday after eight a.m. our time, which was after eleven p.m. in Hong Kong. That was an easier time for him to slip away from school using only the tiniest traces of magic to divert attention, and as for his dad, he could tell him that he’d heard a rumor the manticore was active again. He had. I’d told him.

  When he showed up early on Wednesday morning, he surprised us by whipping the lid off a large hatbox and saying, “Ta-da!! Your manticore’s new ride.”

  Caryl and I peered into the box. It was a crow. Not the same type Brand had occupied before, but a big handsome thing with a bold white breast.

  “Shock,” I said. “Do you want to get eaten?”

  The princeling shook his head, grinning. “This is best,” he said. “Brand has months of experience operating a body like this. This one is an African pied crow; they are legal to own as pets in your country. His Echo can walk around with the bird on her shoulder, looking incredibly cool. He should be pleased!”

  He should have been, but he wasn’t. When the three of us arrived in Arcadia to meet him and Claybriar, he took one look at the bird, dug his claws into the sand, and let out a jangling, brassy roar that made me wish I’d been born without ears.

  When Brand started yelling in English, it was actually an improvement.

  “I WILL EAT YOU! ALL THREE OF YOU, AND SPIT OUT THE IRON IN THAT MONSTER’S BONES!”

  “Relax, sir, please,” said Shock, and then began to murmur a few words in the Unseelie tongue.

  Brand interrupted him with a powerful swipe of one paw, sending the poor kid sprawling back across the sand. The hatbox fell; the lid rolled one way and the box another. The crow just lay limply on the sand like something freshly dead.

  Caryl stood for half a second before getting a sort of oh! look and racing over to kneel next to Shock.

  I moved to retrieve the facade, picking up the disturbingly warm, lifeless thing and dusting the sand from its feathers.

  “This is your revenge,” snarled Brand, narrowing his eyes and coming to loom over me in a way that made me very aware of my intestines. I bluffed; Caryl had said something about never letting predators see fear.

  “You think I’m going to be any nicer to you than I have to be, after the way you’ve treated us?” I said, clutching the crow to my chest. “I was operating under the assumption that you and I were friends. But you made it clear we’re not, so you don’t get a damned thing more than we’ve agreed on.”

  Brand actually hesitated. His uncertainty spurred me on.

  “We said you’d get to see Naderi again, and I’ll keep my word, because you know I want the names of those wraiths. But if you ever want to see her after that, you’d better get used to rules, and playing nice, and the Accord—once we get a third one nailed down—because fey who break the rules don’t get fired, they get executed. And I am not going to watch Naderi go through your death a second time. Prove to me that you know how to be helpful, if you ever want to see a Project contract.”

  Brand looked at me silently for a moment with the hatred of two worlds all concentrated in his baleful stare. Then he lowered his eyes to my feet.

  “Tell me what you want me to do,” he growled.

  “Three things,” I said. “Do three things for me, and once you’ve done those, I will start putting the wheels in motion to get you a contract made up. The first,” I said, holding up the crow, “is that I want you to agree to have this facade bound to you by a consenting spirit.”

  “Wait,” said Shock. “I thought I was going to cast an enchantment.”

  “You are,” I told him, passing him the bird. “Enchantments are spirits, Shock. Caryl and Claybriar will explain. It’s the same spell you’ve always cast—you’re just going to ask first.”

  Shock looked uneasy; I turned back to Brand. “You going to play ball?”

  “Fine,” he said. “What’s the second thing?”

  “The second thing is that you’re going to gather an army of commoners willing to destroy the White Rose.”

  “What?” said everyone more or less at once. Brand sounded slightly more delighted than the others, though.

  But then he shook his head irritably. “I doubt we could lure the queen out,” he said, tail lashing. “Although—if we had two like you, one at each of the standing stones, you could unravel the lofting wards and send the whole thing crashing down, wards and—”

  “Brand!” I interrupted in alarm. “I am not actually planning an act of terrorism here! I just need you to find a bunch of commoners who’d be willing. As many as you can. And make sure the rumors get out.”

  “Gotcha,” he said, looking visibly disappointed. “Third thing?”

  “I want you to swear fealty to Claybriar.”

  “WHAT?”

  “Don’t you start roaring again. Remem
ber when Shiverlash took control of you last fall? Remember what she made you do?”

  Caryl silently rolled up her sleeve, showed him the ugly scars on her forearm. His tail lashed again.

  “There’s only one way to release a monarch’s hold on you,” I said, “as I learned last fall with Blesskin. You’ve gotta swear fealty to the other Court. Once all the dust has settled, you’re welcome to go back to the Unseelie Court, if they’ll have you.”

  He began to pace, his great shoulders rolling, his face contorted with feckless rage. “Why would they? They won’t. I’ll be stuck serving the Creampuff Court for eternity.” He growled, deep and menacing, and let me see his three rows of razor-sharp teeth.

  My stomach had just started to tie itself in knots when he suddenly fell onto the sand, prostrating himself before Claybriar. I had never seen the four-legged version of the pose before; it was actually a bit comical, with his front paws outstretched and his hindquarters in the air. But this didn’t seem like the best time for a giggle.

  Claybriar scratched at a horn, nonplussed. “Well,” he said. “I accept your service. Welcome to the Seelie Court.”

  “Now,” I said as Brand heaved himself to his feet. “Claybriar, Caryl, please walk Shock through the process of binding Brand to his facade the Good Guys’ way. I’m going to go catch a couple hours’ more sleep.”

  20

  After a two-hour nap in my room I was actually feeling pretty great, until I caught Caryl and Shock making out on the living room couch.

  Whatever sound of betrayed horror I made must have been pretty loud, as it distracted them all the way from the top of the staircase.

  “For fuck’s sake, Caryl!” I snapped as the two sprang apart. “I know Elliott’s gone, but could you try to act like a regional manager for five seconds?” I’d meant to sound contemptuous, but my hands, my voice, my everything was shaking.

  “I—I should get back to school before people start to wake up,” said Shock, red-faced.

  He passed me, bolting up the stairs two at a time, as I carefully descended, leaning on the rail. He didn’t even look at me. I should have reassured him, since we were supposed to be talking him over to our side, but I was not in a leadership frame of mind. I just stared at Caryl, who met my gaze defiantly.

  “Calm yourself,” she said. She looked way less rattled than I was, and that only upset me more. “You said you and I shouldn’t . . . I didn’t think it was cheating.”

  “It isn’t!” I snapped, moving to stand near the other couch. “But you seriously think I’m going to just—”

  “I am not attracted to that boy in the slightest,” she said earnestly.

  “That’s worse!” I said. “That you would even think it’s better shows how far off the rails you’ve gone.”

  “Sometimes leadership requires morally ambiguous choices.”

  “That wasn’t leadership! And it’s not ambiguous! He’s underage, and he’s got a crush on you, and you’re just—what are you even doing?”

  “Recruiting,” she said.

  “Oh Jesus,” I groaned. I sank onto the couch across from her and put my head in my hands.

  When she spoke again, her voice was softer. “I wouldn’t have done it if I thought it would upset you. You seemed so casual about what happened with us. But you know it’s you I want.”

  I looked up at her. “Caryl. How can you do this to him? This is straight-up supervillain stuff. Do you even care whether or not we’re the good guys? Why are you even fighting on this side of the war?”

  “To put an end to Dame Belinda’s tyranny. But one cannot always achieve an end through spotless means.”

  “But to play with a kid’s heart like that . . . on purpose.”

  “I tried everything else I could think of,” she said. “After telling him what Belinda did to me, what she did to Tjuan, after showing him that the spirits were real . . . he was so close, but he was still hesitant enough that I couldn’t trust him. Now? Now he’ll do anything for me.”

  “This is so fucking twisted, Caryl. I mean, don’t you and his dad have kind of a thing?”

  Caryl made a face. “King Winterglass thinks of me as a daughter. And my feelings for him are . . . complicated, but not sexual.”

  I shuddered. “Are you planning to sleep with Shock?”

  She made another face. “No. I . . . don’t think I like men that way at all, actually.”

  “So you were really just . . . recruiting. What about me? What were you recruiting me for?”

  Her eyes showed a flash of hurt at that. “Millie. I’ve wanted you since before I met you. You know that. How many times do I need to tell you that I love you?”

  I winced, stood up. “It’s been a few too many, actually. This isn’t love. I don’t know what this is. Did you at least manage to link the fucking facade?”

  She blinked, disoriented by my sudden change of subject. “Yes,” she said. “Brand is ready to come here whenever Naderi is ready to meet him.”

  “Then let’s deal with that,” I said. “Because I cannot deal with this. Not even a little.”

  • • •

  Caryl, more familiar with the workings of law enforcement than I was, thought it was a bad idea for us to drive to Valiant to meet with Naderi. If the cops were watching our house, they might have someone check out where we were going and wonder what business we could possibly have with Tjuan’s employer. If she came to see us, though, if anything, it would look like she was conducting a little investigation of her own.

  She came over that evening after work, and when I heard her knock on the Residence door, I braced myself for a blistering tirade about the week’s worth of dodged calls. So when she greeted me with a lopsided, scarred grin and immediately gave me a hug, alarm bells went off like crazy.

  My dysphoria had flared up again after Shock and Caryl’s make-out session, and so I knew better than to trust anything I was feeling. Still, the wave of intense distrust that hit me now was beyond the pale. I physically recoiled from Naderi, but she barely noticed. She breezed in past me in her fuzzy leopard jacket and red blouse, looking like her usual badass self, but that smile—it was all wrong.

  It’s a facade, I thought instantly. A copy. Belinda knows, and she sent a fake Naderi to do something horrible to us.

  Caryl didn’t seem to notice anything amiss; she greeted Naderi with a gloved handshake and an answering smile. “Please, have a seat,” she said. “I will return with Brand.”

  I glared at Naderi as she moved to sit on the nearest couch. “You seem awfully happy,” I said, “for someone whose supervising producer is in the news for shooting a guy.”

  “All publicity is good publicity,” she said, “and to be honest I never liked Miller. You, meanwhile, are awfully hostile for someone who just supposedly went to a lot of trouble to get my Echo back.” There was no real bite in her words.

  “Brand was suffering,” I said. “It was the right thing to do. I didn’t do it to curry favor with you. You’ve been making Tjuan’s life miserable, and now, the second he gets accused of something, you turn on him.”

  “You know where he is, don’t you?” she said. Still calm. She’d nearly ripped my head off for worse before.

  “What, are you wearing a fucking wire?” I said. “What is your deal? Why are you acting so weird?”

  “I’m acting weird?” said Naderi. “You’re the one who started in with the third degree the second I—” She broke off, sitting up straight and looking toward the stairs. I turned to look too; Caryl was descending the staircase with the bird on her shoulder. Brand took one look at Naderi and spread his wings, getting ready to launch himself into the air.

  Suddenly I panicked, rising to my feet. “Don’t,” I said. “Don’t let Brand near her. It’s not her!”

  To my surprise, Caryl actually halted on the staircase and grabbed the bird, holding him in place.

  “Hey!” Brand squawked. He lunged as though to take a big bite of Caryl’s fingers but pull
ed up short at the last minute. “Let me go!”

  “Millie,” said Caryl, holding the struggling bird. “What is this about?”

  “It’s not Naderi,” I said. “This isn’t how she acts.”

  “What,” said Naderi, “you think I’m possessed again or something?”

  “Oh God!” I said. “Or that! She could have been possessed this whole time!”

  “We’ve already discussed that,” said Caryl from the staircase, her irritation showing, “which is why we have limited the information we share with her until the wraiths are recovered. Recovering the wraiths is, in fact, what we are trying to do here, Millie.”

  “But what if it isn’t Naderi at all, if it’s a facade? Then touching Brand won’t do anything!”

  “Millie, you need to calm down!” said Caryl, flushed with frustration herself. “Look at her! She has the same scars that Shiverlash gave her in the fall! And if there were a wraith possessing her, it would not allow her to reunite with Brand, because then Brand would remember its name!”

  Caryl and I both turned to look at Naderi.

  “Whatever,” said Naderi. “I don’t understand half this shit, but come on, if it wasn’t me, wouldn’t Brand just . . . know?”

  “It’s her!” Brand squawked. “Also, Caryl, you are squeezing me way too hard.”

  Caryl relaxed her grip, smoothed Brand’s feathers. “Well then,” she said. “If Brand touches her and gets his memory back, we know it’s not a facade. And if she is possessed, she won’t be for long.”

  “Fine,” I said.

  Brand winged his way across the room to light on Naderi’s shoulder. Her indrawn breath, the light in her eyes, was unmistakable.

  “Brand,” she whispered, reaching up a hand to stroke his white breast.

  “Hi, beautiful,” he squawked.

  Naderi gave a wobbly laugh. “I look like shit. But it’s good to see you again, my friend.” She found what was obviously just the right place to scratch on Brand’s neck, given the way he tipped his head until he nearly fell off her shoulder.