"Why didn't you say something to me, when I was growing up?"
That seemed to amuse her. "Would you have believed me if I had tried to tell you that you came from another reality? You thought I was loopy, as it was. And it's not as if I could prove it."
"You sent me to a shrink, Kiva. You let me think I was going mad. You stood there and said nothing when that jerk, Murray Symes, suggested I needed medicating for my self-harm issues."
"What was I going to say, Ren?"
Ren took a deep breath. He'd thought the pain was long behind him. "What was the plan for my future, then? Wait until I was grown and have me father a plentiful supply of brats on a long line of supermodels provided by the
Matrarchaí
's modeling agency, all to preserve my precious bloodline?"
Kiva studied him with a puzzled expression. "How do you know the agency?"
"Long story," he said. "Is that what they had planned?"
"I really don't know, Ren."
He believed her. If what she'd told him was true, Kiva would have had no reason to be privy to the inner workings of the
Matrarchaí
. "What happened to Delphine's modeling agency after she disappeared?"
"I couldn't say. I don't have much to do with ORM any longer. It's still going, as far as I know. I could ask Eunice. She probably knows."
Eunice Ravenel. The lawyer always arriving in the nick of time to get him out of trouble. The lawyer representing the Boyles in their suit to have Hayley declared legally dead. She was
Matrarchaí
. Naturally.
"Have you seen Darragh?"
"Your brother?" She shook her head sadly. "I wanted to, Ren. I really did. But they wouldn't let me. It would have been front-page news if I'd had any contact with him. I've seen pictures of him, though. You're very alike."
"We're identical twins."
"Yes, well, that would explain it. Why are you here, Ren? Do you need money? I could arrange for Eunice to transfer some funds to you."
That made Ren smile. "Really, Kiva. You'll arrange to have your
Matrarchaí
lawyer wire me some money. Are you serious?"
She didn't seem bothered by him calling her out on her blatant attempt to hand him over to her superiors. "What do you want then?"
It was Ren's turn to shrug. He wasn't sure what to say. He just had to be careful she didn't realize he was stalling. "Some sort of closure, I suppose. Some reason for having my life ruined."
"It wasn't the
Matrarchaí
who ruined your life, Ren. That was done by whoever threw you through a rift in the first place."
"Fair enough. What else can you tell me about the
Matrarchaí
?"
"I've told you everything I know."
"Not quite," he said. "Who's running the show these days?"
"What do you mean?"
"Delphine's been dead for ten years. Someone is in charge now. Who is it?"
Kiva was silent for a moment and then she shrugged, as if it didn't matter what she told him. That was a warning in itself.
"Her name is Marie-Claire," Kiva said. "She's Delphine's
eileféin
, I think. I really don't know her well. I've only met her once."
Ren rose to his feet, hoping Plunkett had done what they came here to do. He didn't want to visit again. He certainly didn't want to engage Kiva any more than he had to. His feelings for this woman who'd raised him were complex and unsettling. He wanted out of here so he wouldn't have to deal with them.
"I should be going," he said, as she also rose to her feet. "You need to be getting ready for BAFTA's."
"You know about that?"
"Why do you sound surprised? Didn't your publicist send out a press release?"
She nodded and plunged her hands into the pockets of her bathrobe. "I never meant you any harm, Ren. You believe that, don't you?"
"Yes," he said, a little surprised to discover he meant it. He doubted Kiva bothered about someone other than herself long enough to waste the effort planning to hurt them.
"Then can I offer you a piece of advice?"
"This ought to be good."
"The
Matrarchaí
will come for you, Ren. You're special. More special than they ever suspected. You've even managed to lose the tattoo, I see, and that makes you beyond special. It makes you unique. If you've found another realm to hide in, and they don't know where you are, return there now, and don't ever leave it again. It's the only way you will ever be free of them."
It was possibly the best advice she'd ever given him.
Pity he had no intention of following it. "How long after I leave will you contact them and tell them you've seen me?"
"I'll have to call them as soon as you go."
Ren nodded. He'd suspected as much. Fortunately, Plunkett could short out the phones just by touching them, along with remote controls and almost anything else that had a battery in it somewhere. He wasn't sure how much time that would buy them, but nobody would be calling in or out of the Savoy for a while.
"Well, tell them I said 'fuck you'," he told her pleasantly.
Kiva smiled at that. "I might word it somewhat differently, but I will pass on your sentiment."
Ren suddenly found himself at a loss for words. "I guess this is goodbye, then."
"I suppose a hug is completely out of the question?"
Completely
, Ren thought, surprised she'd suggested it. "We were never that close, Kiva. Don't pretend we were."
"Don't hate me, Ren."
"I don't care enough about you to hate you, Kiva," he said.
"That's harsh," she said, her eyes welling with tears.
He was certain she was acting. Nobody could squeeze out a single poignant tear quite like Kiva Kavanaugh. "Explain that to Hayley," he replied, "when you tell her what the
Matrarchaí
did to her mother."
Ren didn't wait for her to answer. He'd spent more time here than he meant to. Plunkett should have made off with the ruby necklace and shorted out the phones ages ago. He needed to leave. He needed to get back to the Shard and be gone from this world before Kiva could warn the
Matrarchaí
that he was back.
Kiva didn't try to follow him out of the hotel room. She probably reached for the phone as soon as he was out of sight, anxious to call her masters and report she'd seen him.
It didn't matter anyway. He found out what he came to learn. Kiva was
Matrarchaí
. So was Kerry Boyle.
What mattered now was that their time here was critical. Even with the phones shorted out, the
Matrarchaí
would know soon enough that he was in London. He needed to get back to the ninja reality, soak the rubies Plunkett had stolen in the Pool of Tranquillity and get back to Dublin to rescue Darragh before it dawned on the
Matrarchaí
that the easiest way to be rid of him was to murder his brother. And he didn't doubt for a moment that the
Matrarchaí
's long arm reached all the way into Portlaoise Prison.
It was impossible to see the ground from so high up, but Pete couldn't help but try. The sun was sinking rapidly in the west and any moment now the wall would start crackling with lightning and the rift would open.
Pete found himself anxious to step through. Even given its magic and its ninja-
Leipreachán,
its arrogant Faerie lords, psychically-linked twins, pixies and mermen, and gorgeous women who wielded magic and wore mummified body parts around their necks, somehow the other reality made more sense than this one. Although they'd returned to this reality in a different city, even allowing for the obvious differences between London and Dublin, the world Pete had left behind no longer existed.
It wasn't really a surprise to learn he no longer belonged here. He'd had a sneaking suspicion that would be the case. He knew enough about the psychology of the human mind to know that his new reality had become the norm a long time ago, and however much he might pine for the good old days, given what he knew now, given what he could do, what he had seen, he could never go back.
It was good to know that for certain. Interesting, too, that Logan had worked out the same thing with not nearly as much agonized soul-searching, which was probably why he hadn't felt the same need to prove what he felt to be the truth by coming here.
"It be a crazy place, this realm!"
Pete almost jumped out of his skin at the sudden exclamation. Plunkett had appeared behind him without warning, clutching a ruby-encrusted necklace in one hand and a slice of half chewed bacon in the other.
"What is that?"
"It be the rubies the Lord Rónán be after. I stole them for him, just like he asked."
"I meant that," he said, pointing at the bacon.
"That be me dinner."
"Where did you get it?"
"At the hotel where the actress be staying. People be leavin' trays out in the halls with treats on them."
Pete rolled his eyes. "They're not treats left out for
Leipreachán
," he explained. "They're leftovers from guest's room service."
"It be all the same to me," Plunkett replied testily.
"Where's Ren?"
"I don't be knowing that. When I left him he be talking to the actress."
Oh Christ
, Pete thought,
that's all we need
. "She was there? In the hotel?"
"Aye. We had a grand plan, too. Lord Rónán be keeping her distracted while I open the safe and be appropriatin' the rubies." He held the necklace up for Pete to see. "It be a pretty little trinket, don't ye think?" He handed the necklace to Pete, far more interested in the bacon he'd found than Kiva Kavanaugh's priceless ruby and diamond necklace.
Pretty didn't begin to describe it. It was spectacular. If Ren's rather peculiar plan to soak the rubies in magic and then swallow them was going to work, he certainly had plenty to choose from. But the necklace and the desperate ploy to rescue his brother was the least of their problems right now. Ren had promised Pete that Kiva wouldn't be in her hotel. Pete had only agreed to let him go to the Savoy alone because he claimed there was no chance he would run into his adopted mother.
Bastard probably knew she'd be there.
"When did he leave?"
"He not be goin' yet, when I be leavin'," the
Leipreachán
told him. "He still be talking to the actress."
"He saw her then?
Spoke
to her?"
"Aye. Quite deep and meanin'ful a conversation it be too, if ye get what I mean."
"I'm going to kill him."
"Why?" Plunkett asked, rather startled by Pete's angry declaration. "Have ye been recruited by the
Matrarchaí
while we be gone?"
"I'm going to kill him for lying to me," Pete explained, wondering why he was bothering to explain anything to a
Leipreachán
. He glanced at the rapidly sinking sun. "We're supposed to call Logan at sunset."
Before the
Leipreachán
could answer, the fire escape door banged open across the hall. Pete breathed a sigh of relief and turned to watch Ren exit the stairs at a run. "Get Logan on the puddle phone!" he shouted as he ran. "We need to get out of here."
"What the hell have you done?"
Ren reached him and kept running, straight across the echoing hall to the bowl of pure rainwater they'd brought from the other realm so they could scry out Logan with as little effort as possible. Here in the Enchanted Sphere, the water would not have leeched magic into the barren world around it; it was probably still as magically charged as when they brought it through the rift.
"I spoke to Kiva."
"You said she wouldn't be there."
Ren squatted down in front of the bowl. "I was wrong."
"You mean you lied."
"It doesn't matter, Pete. The
Matrarchaí
are probably already on their way."
"Why? What did you tell her? Did you
tell
her where we came through? And why? Or maybe you thought it might be a bright idea to tell her she where could find the rest of us?" It occurred to him then that Ren had just admitted Kiva was
Matrarchaí
. Having discovered his own mother was a key member of that menacing organisation, he felt a fleeting moment of sympathy for Ren.
Only a fleeting moment, though.
Kiva had not, apparently, tried to kill him. Not the way that Delphine had been planning to kill her sons.
"They'll be able to work out where we are easily enough," Ren pointed out kneeling down so he could stare directly into the water. "There aren't too many stone circles in downtown London we could have come through."
"You're a fucking idiot, Ren."
"Bite me," Ren replied without rancour, and then closed his eyes, drawing on the magic of the Enchanted Sphere and the water, to enable him to contact Logan.
For a long while, nothing happened, which Pete found a little odd. Logan was expecting their call. He should have been waiting on the other side to open the rift and bring them home. He certainly should have answered the moment he realized someone was trying to scry him out. Perhaps he just wasn't near any water, although how that was possible, given he should have been waiting on a damp cliff top overlooking the ocean, Pete couldn't imagine.
A few moments later, without any answer from Logan to Ren's puddle phone call, the hairs stood up on Pete's forearms, which was just before the embedded stone circle hidden behind the walls began to crackle with red lightning.
With the rift opening, Ren abandoned his attempt to scry out Logan. He stood up and took several steps back, shielding his eyes against the lightning. Logan must have decided not to wait for their call, but to open the rift the moment he felt someone trying to scry him out ... assuming, rightly enough, that they were ready to come through. A good thing too, given Ren was worried he had the
Matrarchaí
on his heels.
"He not be wastin' time, ye brother," Plunkett remarked as he stepped back behind Pete. "I be guessin' that ye'll no longer be needing me services after this?"
"We'll see," Ren said, with a non-committal shrug. He turned to Pete. "Do you have the necklace?"
Pete nodded, pulled it out of his pocket and tossed it to Ren, who barely gave it a glance before he shoved into his jacket. "If she doesn't set the
Matrarchaí
onto us, at the very least, Kiva's going to call every cop in London when she realises this is missing."