by Dima Zales
When she spoke, though, she sounded calm and rational — not exactly friendly, but certainly not psychotic.
“I’m Gwen. You’re Elizabeth?”
“Yeah. Hi.”
She nodded civilly. “The staff brought both of you some breakfast and some clothes that should fit. Lord Cordus will visit you soon, so you’d both better eat and get dressed.”
She gestured at the untouched breakfast tray on Justine’s lap. A similar one was waiting on my bed.
“Cordus?” Justine said in a strange tone.
Gwen and I both turned to look at her. She’d visibly relaxed, and the expression on her face was sort of vacant.
“You know Lord Cordus?” I asked.
She frowned. “I don’t know.” Her eyes roved around, as though searching for some lost thing. “No,” she decided, “but he sounds trustworthy.”
She started tucking into her breakfast.
“Mmm, this is good.”
I looked back at Gwen. “Did you tell her anything about Lord Cordus?”
She shook her head, looking a little perplexed.
Well, whatever. Cordus could work it out.
As it turned out, he couldn’t. Justine seemed perfectly relaxed in his presence, even happy to see him, yet maintained that she’d never laid eyes on him. She claimed to have no memory of running away or of turning into a deer. The very idea clearly struck her as ludicrous. Such things were simply impossible, and even if they weren’t, she was a normal woman — they were impossible for her.
And yet, when Cordus mentioned returning to Dorf, she blanched and said she couldn’t.
But she couldn’t come up with a reason why not.
“I just can’t,” she said, shaking her head and trembling.
The three of us were perched in the suite’s sitting area. Cordus had shown up about half an hour after I came out of the bathroom. Gwen had opened the door for him, then left. He’d questioned Justine extensively, while politely declining to answer any of her questions or to let her call Ben.
“Would you feel safer,” Cordus said slowly, “if I were to tell you that the green man is dead?”
Justine again visibly relaxed but at the same time said, “Who’s the green man?” A second later she said, “I still can’t go home.”
Then she accused me again of having kidnapped her and flirtatiously asked Cordus to have me arrested.
He sighed, then reached over and casually brushed his fingers over the back of Justine’s hand. Instantly, she slumped over, asleep.
Okay, that’s unnerving.
He sat back, legs crossed, and gently bounced his foot, thinking.
Finally he said, “I do not know what to make of Mrs. Ryder. When she denies any knowledge of me or of what she calls the ‘supernatural,’ she is telling the truth, yet her own body gives signs of the very knowledge she denies.” He looked up at me. “What are your thoughts?”
“You’re asking me?”
“Miss Ryder,” he said with patience, “you are the only other person who witnessed Mrs. Ryder’s transformation early this morning. Thus, you are uniquely positioned to help.”
He leaned back again, waiting for my response.
I didn’t think the transformation had told me anything except that Justine really was a Second, but I tried to put on my thinking cap. It was either that or sit there staring at him, and if I did that any longer, I was going to have to start thinking about why I was staring.
“Well, it sort of seems like someone erased her memory but didn’t get everything. Is that possible?”
He steepled his fingers and watched me. Suddenly I felt like I was being tested.
“There are those who can manipulate memory,” he said, “but none I know would do so incomplete a job. Furthermore, her mind bears no sign of meddling.”
I thought again.
“Well, she seems to be made of those blue ball things. What if they got put back together in the wrong order, and it messed up her memory?”
“An intriguing possibility,” he said. He kept bouncing his foot, though. Apparently, I was expected to come up with a third idea.
“Maybe she’s hypnotized herself not to remember certain things.”
That sounded pretty lame, even to me, but Cordus looked thoughtful. He tapped his index fingers together in time with his bouncing foot for a while.
The way he used his body was striking. He seemed to cycle between rhythmic motions and intense, pointed stillness. The motion hypnotized me. Then I’d get pinned by the sudden, unexpected focusing of his attention.
Even as I had that thought, he uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, freezing me in place.
“None of your suggestions account for all the facets of the situation, Miss Ryder, but they are useful nonetheless.”
I shifted uneasily under his gaze. Talk about lukewarm praise.
“So,” I said, taking the bull by the horns, “what sort of being is she, exactly? I mean, the green man could spread itself all over someone like a second skin, but even it had flesh and blood inside when you … um …”
I stopped, unable to come up with a phrase that didn’t sound judgmental.
He looked at me for quite a while. I started to worry.
Finally he said, “Miss Ryder, you will need to learn that it is considered impolite to ask ‘what sort of being’ a Second might be. We are, each of us, what we are. Some of us are unique in our persons and abilities, while others, such as the green men, breed true and have produced a group of similar individuals.”
I must have looked chastened, because he dismissed my faux pas with a wave.
“I know that you do not yet understand such issues of etiquette. I sought to educate, not to criticize. To answer your question — which is, of course, quite relevant — Mrs. Ryder is likely among the unique. I have never encountered another like her. That said, I am not old, even among human-derived Seconds, so there may be much I have not yet encountered.”
I was surprised by his candor.
“Is it rude to ask someone’s age, too?”
“Yes. Extremely.”
An uncomfortable silence ensued.
After some time, he said, “Do you have cause to believe Mrs. Ryder is the biological mother of her children?”
“Definitely. I mean, my brother was in the room when she gave birth to them. Plus, I think her youngest might be one of us,” I said, remembering how Ghosteater had sought out Madisyn.
“By ‘one of us,’ do you mean the child is a Nolander?”
I nodded and tried to suppress a grimace. No-lander. Kara hadn’t made it up — they really did think of us as homeless floaters. The realization immediately shifted the dynamic between Cordus and me, reminding me that this was not a conversation between equals, or between teacher and student, or even between employer and employee. He was the master, and I had no rights.
“Nolanders account for slightly more than one in one hundred thousand human births,” he continued, “so for another to appear in your small town is statistically unlikely. That said, the potential can run in families, so perhaps your brother is the source of your niece’s ability.”
“I guess.”
I doubted it, though. I was pretty sure Ben couldn’t do anything out of the ordinary. If he could, he’d sure kept it quiet. But maybe the curse could skip a generation or only appeared in the family’s women. Who knows?
After another bout of quiet thought, Cordus stood and told me he expected me to make a court appearance that evening. At first my mind jumped to the idea of legal proceedings, but then I remembered Zion mentioning he had a court, like a monarch. It would be hard to imagine something less up my alley.
“That sounds great, but I don’t have anything to wear,” I said, hoping for an easy out.
“My staff will prepare you appropriately.”
I nodded, trying not to look grim.
“What about Justine?”
“She will be moved to another room and will remain ther
e, under guard, until I understand why she prompted the green man’s incursion into my lands.”
What about Graham? I thought to myself, but I didn’t say it.
Cordus touched Justine to awaken her, then inclined his head politely to me and left.
Surprisingly, I only had to listen to Justine’s accusations and complaints for fifteen minutes before Cordus’s staffers showed up to move her out and get me ready. That didn’t strike me as a good sign — he’d said I’d be going to court in the “evening,” and it wasn’t quite 2:00 in the afternoon. How much preparation did I need?
The answer: a lot. Cordus’s staff was more like an army. At least five people had been working on me, and it had been hours. They wove around one another like needles, darting in and out, stitching together a new me.
Six hours later, I had been given another bath. My hair had been cut, styled, and pinned in a loose up-do. My brows had been plucked. My fingernails, toenails, and cuticles had been shaped and, oddly, oiled lightly rather than polished. Every inch of my skin had been gone over with tweezers, exfoliators, and moisturizers.
I had been made up meticulously. My pale skin was completely even. Every blemish had been eradicated, not with makeup but by an actual healer — I guess Kara wasn’t the only one with that gift. My lips were a muted pink, only a little different from their actual color. What at first seemed like an odd combination of smoky and light pink eye shadow made my gray eyes look arrestingly pale and strange, instead of boring.
The dress they put on me was like nothing I’d ever seen, much less worn. It was made mostly of muted black silk that hugged my upper torso, was belted loosely with a ribbon, then fell in a soft sheath to the floor. A high side slit showed a substantial amount of leg. The thin shoulder straps and the breast were a creamy silver color and were finely detailed with delicate crystal-and-pearl florets. The unadorned black body of the dress made the decorative top stand out beautifully. The top, in turn, made me stand out quite nicely, pressing up my modest breasts and making the most of them with a tastefully small V-shaped central slit. It didn’t so much show cleavage as suggest it.
The dress was matched with a pair of open-back black satin pumps with a slender T-strap. Small leaves created from tiny white gems were scattered down the central strap and across the tops of the toes. The shoes put me within a couple inches of six feet, which was cool. So long as I didn’t fall down.
Despite the obvious expense of everything else, the sheer black thigh-highs were somehow the biggest shock. I’d never worn that kind of stocking before. They felt perverse — like they’d been invented for the sole purpose of letting you have sex without taking off a scrap of clothing.
The stockings exemplified how strange I felt as I stood in front of the mirror, ogling myself. If I’d seen yesterday, hanging on a wall somewhere, a framed picture of what I was seeing now, I truly wouldn’t have recognized myself.
It was disconcerting.
In the last few days, I’d found out that I was someone different on the inside than I thought I was — potentially powerful but flawed, not free, maybe not mentally ill but maybe not quite human. Now, who I thought I was on the outside had vanished as well. I mean, even if I came back to my room tonight, showered, and put my jeans and sweater back on, I’d always know I could look like this.
I turned this way and that. Maybe my womanly sensuality and power had been brought to the fore, giving me a whole new set of weapons.
Or maybe I’d just been gussied up into high-class arm candy.
The latter seemed a lot more likely.
I heard a low whistle from the doorway and looked up. Kara and Zion had come to collect me. Both were gawking.
“You look really different,” Zion finally said.
I wasn’t sure it was a compliment.
Kara elbowed her.
“What Zion means is you look totally hot.”
Zion shook her head. “Not ‘hot.’ ‘Hot’ sounds trashy. That isn’t trashy.”
A tailor was still on his knees making the last alterations to my dress. Zion and Kara stood there watching him work.
I could tell that neither of them had had the benefit of the full “staff” treatment. Kara was wearing a pretty little black cocktail dress and heels. The dress had a slender line of white ribbon running along the neckline. It looked really nice on her, showing off her great curves without revealing too much, but even I could tell it wasn’t an expensive outfit, and it hadn’t been custom fitted.
Zion had probably sunk quite a bit more into her vintage black flapper dress and strappy heels. Plus, she was wearing a truly extraordinary diamond barrette in her long hair. Given the Porsche, I was guessing the stones were real. The dress hung beautifully on her tall, lean frame. Strings of tiny black glass beads tinkled all over it as she moved. It was really striking. She also had a fur coat, whereas Kara’s was wool.
But I had a feeling what I was wearing could buy the best house in Dorf. Maybe the second- and third-best houses, too, with the Porsche thrown in as a bonus. And there was all the special attention to my skin, hair, and makeup, too.
I started feeling like some 4-H kid’s hog going to the county fair. I’d been washed and brushed like crazy, and now I was going to be paraded around so the judges could assess the depth and leanness of my ham. I was Cordus’s latest acquisition. He was going to show me off to my best advantage — or rather, to his best advantage.
Zion must’ve noticed the look on my face. “Court appearances get easier after the first one.”
I nodded, appreciating the effort. Zion seemed like a tough customer. She probably didn’t put on the comforting hat very often.
I noticed Kara didn’t say anything, though she did give me a little smile and a shrug when I caught her eye. She looked pale, actually.
“You okay, Kara? Are you back to normal now?”
“Not really. I mean, I’m okay to be up and around, but I need another day or two to be a hundred percent.”
The tailor finished working on the dress and went over to the huge rolling wardrobe he’d brought with him. He pulled out a coat made of some short, glossy black fur.
“Let’s get this show on the road,” Kara said, squaring her shoulders. The tailor helped me into the coat, and Zion, Kara, and I headed down the hall. After a few steps, I realized Kara was shaking. Either she was less well than she’d said, or she was terrified.
I had imagined Cordus “held court” in some ballroom in the huge house we’d been staying in, but the coats suggested otherwise. Kara and Zion walked me down three floors, into an underground basement, through a tunnel, and then up into a massive garage. We found the Porsche and headed out. Several other cars had left just before us. I could see their tail lights winding downhill as we drove away from the house.
The drive was pleasant — mostly woodlands, with an occasional development or shopping center on the right.
As we drove, Kara gave me some pointers. Some seemed like common sense: don’t stare at Seconds; don’t touch them; be polite and deferential. Some were less obvious: don’t ask any questions, not even in making small talk; don’t withdraw from a conversation without leave; never show surprise; don’t eat or drink unless they do; don’t turn your back on them unless you’re at least ten feet away; don’t agree to do anything for them.
“What if they ask me to point them to the bathroom or to get them a drink?” I said.
She shook her head. “Definitely don’t get them anything to eat or drink. And they can find the bathroom on their own. Just say you don’t know.”
Zion added, “Say something like, ‘I’ll just ask Lord Cordus which of his wines he thinks you would like best.’ That tells them you’re onto their game. Unless they’re looking for an excuse to get into it with him, they’ll back down.”
I’d never felt more like a rube. I’d need luck to get through the evening in one piece.
The traffic didn’t seem heavy, though I knew we must be close to New York City.
After about fifteen minutes, we crossed what Kara said was the G.W. Bridge, then took a highway that put the river out our right window. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see much — just the twinkle of lights on the far side.
We went around a traffic circle and dove into the city proper. I’d never seen anything like it. The buildings pressed in on us from all sides, and there were cars everywhere, especially taxis. They seemed to have no sense of a safe distance from other vehicles. I was constantly sure one was going to clip us.
Although it was night, the streets were brightly illuminated. I found myself wondering how anyone ever got to sleep in such a place. Blackout curtains on every window?
Perhaps strangest to my eye was the lack of greenery. Small trees dotted the sidewalks, or lined the center median, but mostly it was stone atop stone, punctuated with metal. It all looked hard and alien.
Our destination turned out to be an imposing building, massive and boxy on the bottom, but topped with slender matching towers. It curved partway round a big traffic circle. The many lighted rectangular windows gave it a stacked look that reminded me of Legos.
We turned onto a street that ran along one side of the building. I’d thought from the front that it contained commercial space, but the entrance we pulled up to looked residential.
A valet, a buff young Asian guy, was waiting to take the car. He gave me an appreciative look as I stepped out. I felt myself blush.
“Hey, Koji,” Zion said as she got out of the car. “Not going to scratch her up, are you?”
Koji eyeballed the Porsche. “Fugly car like that, you should thank me if I did.”
“Huh. I hear envy.”
“Not even. That thing looks like a station wagon.”
Zion snorted. “You get your GT-R yet?”
“Nah. Almost ready to take the plunge, though. Any day now.”
“Perfect car for you, Koji: a ricer for a —”
“Don’t say it, woman. Your hotness will not save you.”
She grinned.
“Hey,” she said, sobering up, “anything we should know?”
Koji glanced around. “Lady Innin’s up there.”