Chains and Memory (3 page)

“Are you active again?” he asked Grayson.

She shook her head. “I did my tour of duty. I have official status as an advisor, but I'm not going back into the field.”

Which meant she wouldn't be able to pull strings on his behalf. She was just a professor, teaching students who sometimes became Guardians in turn.

The next thought had barely formed in his mind before she shook her head. “No, Julian. I won't train you on the sly. It isn't my place, and if someone found out, it might do your cause more harm than good. I'm afraid you'll just have to wait for the bureaucratic snarl to sort itself out.”

There was an undercurrent to her words. Julian wondered what she wasn't saying. “
Is
it just a snarl? Or is there something else?”

The stream lay just ahead; Grayson stopped before the grass became marshy. She locked her hands behind her back and gazed at the water, not answering him.

Which was an answer in its own right. Julian couldn't keep the bitterness from his voice as he said, “I suppose I haven't really proved myself. I only have more first-hand experience of the sidhe than just about anyone on the planet.”
Anyone except for Kim.

“Look at it from the other direction,” Grayson said. Her breath huffed out quietly, almost a snort. “Think of history.”

First Manifestation? No, something else; he caught a whiff of that from her, though no specifics. Julian's knowledge of history was patchwork at best. It was a lesser priority at the Center than magical education. But with her comment about spy thrillers fresh in his mind, he saw where she aimed.

He supposed it made sense. After all, the Unseelie had managed to suborn Kim for a time, turning her into their willing agent. What if they had done something subtler to Julian himself? The full extent of their abilities was still a dangerous unknown. With a jolt, he wondered if the telepathic interrogation had stopped at surveying his memories. He doubted it had.

“I'm not working for the Unseelie,” he said. The words sounded flat and cold even to his own ears. “Not voluntarily. Not if my life depended on it. And if they planted any kind of trigger in my mind, someone would have found it.”

Grayson nodded. “Indeed. And yet.”

And yet, they didn't trust him. Which was more valuable to them? One wilder, not yet fully qualified to work as a Guardian? Or the assurance that they could trust the Guardians they had?

Julian clamped down on his anger by reflex, then almost laughed. He should be
embracing
the impulse. Weren't his feelings a defense against the sidhe? If they'd left a trigger in his head, his sheer hatred of the Unseelie would have erased it by now.

But the training was too ingrained, the years in which any open display of emotion would have met with disapproval, even punishment. He maintained control, even when he didn't want to.

Grayson said, “You have ways to keep busy, I'm sure. Assisting Kim, for example. And I happen to know that Guan recently came to the city. No doubt you have other friends here, too, who would be glad to see you.”

Julian went still. Grayson's expression was mild, looking out over the water, at the lights of the city. But that hadn't been an idle comment. Grayson didn't
make
idle comments.

If Guan was in town, that might solve several problems at once.

“Thank you,” Julian said.

“I'm sorry I couldn't be of more use,” Grayson said. “Do stay in touch, though.” Without any further farewell, she turned and headed for the nearest path.

Julian stayed by the pond, looking at the water. Then he took out his port and began to search for his old teacher.

~

The rocking of the Metro train threatened to put me to sleep on the way home, but I tried to stay alert. The late meeting with Ramos meant the car was mostly empty, which was both good and bad. Good because nobody had to try to avoid bumping into me; bad because one of the few people there might decide to cause trouble. It had happened two weeks ago, when a group of guys started shouting at me—“Go home, changeling,” that sort of thing. Fortunately there had been enough other people in the car to keep them from really coming after me. But it meant I couldn't relax.

Not that I'd been relaxing much lately, on trains or off them. Going home to Atlanta after Welton closed down should have been a relief. As it turned out, not so much. My mother would never yell “Go home, changeling” at anybody on a train, but her prejudice against wilders was more deeply ingrained than I'd realized.

So I'd fled Atlanta for D.C., persuading my boss at Future Advisory Research to let me start my summer internship a few months early. At least that gave me something to think about besides my own problems—even if that something was other people's problems. Plus, being here made it easier to meet with my lawyer, Ramos, anybody who might be able to help me. I'd testified in front of congressional committees several times, and would have been called in more if my mere presence didn't make people's skin crawl. It was a fine line to walk between reminding everybody who would decide my fate that I was a real live human being, and reminding them that nearly a third of my DNA actually
wasn't
human.

Letting myself think about that was a mistake. It was just a hop, a skip, and a jump from there to remembering how I got this way. My breath shallowed; my heart sped up. I made myself go through one of the calming exercises my therapist had taught me, cataloguing everything on the train.
Nine support poles. Eight seats in each block. Three blocks of seats on each side of the train.
I wasn't in the Otherworld. Hell, this was one of the old train lines; with the steel rails rushing by beneath me, I was about as far from the Otherworld as I could get.

But my nerves were frayed by stress and bad sleep, and it was easy to get worked up over nothing.

It would have helped if I had any social life to speak of. Apart from Julian, the only human contact I got these days was with co-workers, politicians, and my lawyer. Welton had closed for the rest of the academic year, scattering my friends to the four corners of the globe. Robert's father had pulled strings to get him enrolled in the Ardcholáiste na Draíochta in Galway, and Robert feared, not without cause, that he might not be allowed to escape Ireland a second time. Liesel was having a better time of it: she'd been allowed to sit in on an interdisciplinary program for psychiatry, empathy, and social work, even if she wasn't earning credits for any of it. The rest of the Palladian Circle were at various schools — not that I could count myself as a part of that group anymore. The sympathetic connection between us had been severed before I left Welton, as a security measure.

No, that wasn't fair. Michele had sent me a message immediately afterward:
You're still one of us.
That bond was sacred as well as magical, at least to her, and no athame could cut it entirely.

But messages were no substitute for real human contact. At least I talked with Liesel on a regular basis, though it shamed me to admit half of that was because I hadn't yet found a therapist in D.C. Liesel wasn't a professional—not yet, anyway—but she'd been there for the events at Welton, and that mattered. I didn't have to recount yet again how I'd been kidnapped by the Unseelie, my genes rewritten, my spirit bound to fight for their side. I didn't have to explain my mother's prejudices against wilders; I could just tell her how badly my mother was coping with the fact that her daughter had become one. Liesel couldn't work her empathic mojo over a video call, but being able to talk helped.

The PA system announced my stop. Yawning, I got to my feet and slouched out onto the platform. Nobody else got off, which was unusual. I was reaching up to tie my hair back when I realized I'd made a mistake. This was McPherson Square, not Rosslyn—but the train was already pulling out of the station.

I stood frozen, my hands behind my head. I was tired, but not
that
tired. I had distinctly heard the loudspeaker announce Rosslyn.

A glitch, then. I would have to wait for the next train.

But the platform was dim and deserted, and bits of trash made skittering sounds as a draft blew them across the concrete. It was late enough that I'd be waiting quite a while for the next train—much longer than I wanted to. The station was dim and grungy, barely renovated since First Manifestation, and I wanted to be home.

Laughter ghosted through the air.

Every nerve in my body went on high alert. This was all too familiar. Last fall one of the Unseelie had staged a poltergeist scene in Talman Library, starting with books and ending with shards of computer screens. Were they about to do the same here?

There wasn't much to throw, apart from stray candy wrappers. Unless they could rip the benches free of their bolts? I put my back to an information post, trying to look in all directions at once, and cursed myself for not carrying my athame. I still barely knew how to use the ritual knife as a combat tool, but it did give me comfort, and a way to focus my power.

The Unseelie had left me alone since last fall. I'd deluded myself into thinking that meant I was safe.

Or maybe I was deluding myself
now
. That could have been some passenger laughing, somebody downstairs on the platform for the Diamond Line. Just because I'd been their target once didn't mean I would be again. The sidhe weren't supposed to be here anyway; Ring Anchors like my mother were helping to keep them out.

Even if this was just a panic attack, I'd feel calmer if I were ready. I brought my shields up, blessing the fact that I'd been practicing with Julian. Emotion, at least of the more complex sort, helped defend against the sidhe; they lacked our capacity for it, and it could eat away at their magic. But I couldn't stage an empathic assault unless I had a target to aim it at.

With the utmost care, I sent out a tentative probe. The iron in the architecture made it hard to do, but I persevered. If there was a sidhe out there, I needed to know.

Something spun my mind like a top, giving me vertigo. Only my grip on the post at my back kept me upright. What the hell had that been? Some kind of attack? Or just my tiredness getting the better of me, too much energy drained out of me at the end of a long day?

I could run. The signal boards were black and dead; it might be half an hour until the next train. If I left the station . . . McPherson Square wasn't the best area at night, but I'd feel better with people around. Assume for the moment the Unseelie were indeed after me again: would that deter them, or just put innocents in the line of fire?

The wind picked up. I craned my neck, but there was no train approaching, that might account for it. More and more trash blew through the station, as if all the rubbish of McPherson Square had been gathered for the purpose. I wrapped my hands around the post, bracing my hips against them, concentrating on making a telekinetic shield. Newspapers couldn't hurt me, but gods only knew what might be concealed behind them. Did the Unseelie want me dead, for having escaped their grasp?

The sudden blare of the train whistle made me scream. Light flooded the platform, the beams far too bright in the dimness. I flinched away—and that saved me.

A figure had crept up the stairs on my right, shrouded by the whirling trash. Even as I turned, it raised its hands to shove me into the path of the oncoming train.

I reacted on pure instinct. It wasn't a fancy combat trick or anything Julian had taught me; it was just a gout of flame, roaring from my own hands straight toward the sidhe who was trying to kill me.

Toward him . . . and through.

The afterimage burned in my retinas, temporarily blinding me. I blinked it away, and found the station quiet.

No whirlwind of trash. No approaching train. No sidhe.

Just a smoldering sign where my flame had struck the wall at the head of the stairs—and a man collapsed on the steps, arms wrapped protectively over his head.

My breath came in quick gasps.
Oh, gods. A trick.
None of it had been real. A glamour, maybe—several glamours—and I almost hit a stranger . . .

“Are you okay?” I hurried forward, though not without a swift glance around to make sure nothing else was coming. The man started to get up; I reached out to help. My hand touched the bare skin of his arm, and he threw himself back with a cry.

Shit.
I had forgotten.

He stared at me in horror. The light was full on my face; there was no way he could miss the golden eyes. Unseelie eyes, and a wilder's skin-crawling touch—and from his perspective, I had just tried to burn him alive.

“Please, wait!” I cried, but it was too late. The man flung himself past me at full tilt, just like I'd once run from the Unseelie in Talman. “It was—”

He leapt up the nearest escalator two steps at a time and vanished into the station above. “An accident,” I whispered, sagging down onto the filthy floor.

Except it wasn't an accident. I closed my eyes and sent my senses outward again, bolder this time, sweeping the station for any hint of the Unseelie. I found nothing. They had to have been here, and probably more than one; we didn't know all of their capabilities yet, but we knew it was hard for them to make large or full-sensory glamours. What I'd just experienced would have taken several working in concert: one for the train, maybe, another for the trash, a third for the attack. I cursed through my teeth. One
on
the train, to make me get off at the wrong stop, a deserted platform where I could be more easily manipulated.

I couldn't even be sure that man had been real.

No, he was real. Maybe the Unseelie
could
have faked that — but it would entertain them more to make me endanger an actual person.

My breath was still coming in quick gasps. I floundered for a calming exercise, but couldn't think of one.
Fuck.
My focus was in shreds. I got up and started walking in little circles, burning off the nervous energy. The posts around me were not stalagmites, were not Unseelie sidhe lying in disguised wait. The Metro was not the cave where they'd changed me. Where had that guy gone? I wished I could run after him, try to explain what had happened. If he'd even listen. But the only way to find him would be to chase him down psychically, and I didn't think that would help matters any.