A Local Habitation

TWENTY-NINE

ELLIOT LED OUR RAGTAG PROCESSION down the halls past Jan’s office. Tybalt and I walked in the middle, with me trying to look as if I didn’t need his elbow to stay upright—like I was just holding it because it amused me—while Alex dogged our heels. We didn’t talk. I was too tired, and I needed to save what little strength I had left for the confrontation ahead.

Tybalt still wouldn’t meet my eyes. I didn’t want to think about what that meant.

The fact that April was probably Gordan’s accomplice terrified me. I’d left Quentin alone with her, and just because she hadn’t killed him yet, that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to. Gordan didn’t like him. That was even more reason to confront them in April’s room, where I could break her server if I had to. They hadn’t killed Quentin. They weren’t getting the chance.

Elliot stopped in front of a pale pink door with purple trim around the edges. It looked like something you’d see in a nursery school. “Here,” he said.

“Good.” I glanced between them. Elliot looked worn out; Alex seemed even worse. Coming back from the dead had revitalized him, but it was a false strength, and it was fading. Only Tybalt looked like he’d stand a chance in a fight. “You three wait here.”

“What?” they said, almost in unison. Tybalt’s eyes narrowed dangerously as Elliot said, “You’re insane if you think I’ll let you—”

“You’re not stupid. You know why I let Gordan leave, and you know why we’re here.” He nodded marginally, acknowledging my words. I continued, “I need to see April, alone, and I don’t want Gordan sneaking up on me. Three men on the door is safer than one, given Alex’s condition. If you see anything funny, scream.”

“And if you see anything ‘funny’?” asked Tybalt, eyes still narrowed.

“Then I’ll scream.”

“April doesn’t know you very well,” said Elliot, in a last bid to accompany me. “She won’t like you being in her room.”

“That’s her problem.” She came to me when she needed to cry. Somehow, I didn’t think it was going to be an issue. “Can you please just wait here?”

“We’ll wait,” said Tybalt, coldly. That, it seemed, was the end of it; Elliot and Alex looked away, no longer willing to argue.

“Good. Elliot, when I come back out, you’re going to tell me what Jan wanted me to know before she died.” I turned and stepped through the door, leaving him staring.

April’s room might have been better termed a generous broom closet. Most of the floor space was taken up by a tall machine that stood on a metal frame at the center of the room, humming contentedly. Cables connected it to power outlets on all four walls; they weren’t taking any chances. It was the sort of thing I’d come to expect. The rest of the room, on the other hand . . . wasn’t. I stopped just over the threshold, and stared.

The walls were pink, with a border of stenciled purple rabbits on a white background. A bookshelf filled with computer manuals and kid’s books was up against one wall, next to a pink-and-white bookshelf piled with stuffed rabbits of every color imaginable. One of the rabbits was three feet tall, not including the ears, sitting on the floor next to the shelf with a red bow around its neck. A heart-shaped sign hung above the bookshelf, proclaiming this to be “April’s Room” in large cartoon letters. Add a bed and a dresser and it would have looked like the room of any normal, well-loved little girl. Damn. Just once, can’t the villains look suitably villainous?

No one was in the room. It took me three steps to reach the machine, feeling more like an intruder with every second that passed. I kept noticing details. The picture of Jan and April on the bookshelf, the geometric precision with which the rabbits were piled . . . the baby blanket wrapped snugly around the base of the server. Someone had worked very hard to give this airy nothing a local habitation and a name. Jan had loved her daughter so much.

“You’re here.” I hadn’t heard April materialize, but I was too tired to jump when she spoke behind me. Exhaustion makes you harder to surprise.

“Hey, April.” I turned slowly, so as not to betray how unsteady I was. “How are you?”

“Why are you here?” she countered. She was scowling, as annoyed as any teenager finding an uninvited adult in her living space.

“I thought I’d come see how you were.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I am fine. Why are you here?”

“I have some questions I think you can answer,” I said, leaning against the wall next to the shelf of plush rabbits. “At least, I hope you can.” I reached over to straighten one worn cotton bunny’s ear.

“Don’t touch that!” April vanished, reappearing next to me with a crackle of static as she snatched the rabbit out of my reach. Glaring over the top of its head, she said, “This is mine. My mother gave it to me.”

“I’m sorry.” I held up my hands, palms outward. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“My mother always buys me rabbits.” She stroked the bunny’s head, looking down at it. “Every time she goes somewhere I can’t follow, she brings me another rabbit. I like rabbits.”

“I can tell.”

“She’ll bring me many rabbits this time, because she didn’t tell me she was leaving.”

“April . . .” I wasn’t sure what to say. There was a good chance that she’d been killing people. Was it still a crime if she didn’t understand what she’d done? “April, you understand she’s not coming back this time, don’t you?”

“Of course she’s coming back.” She looked up, eyes wide and guileless. “We just have to find a way to bring her back online.”

“Honey, people don’t work that way.” I struggled against the urge to comfort her the way I would have comforted Dare or Quentin, and shook my head. “She’s gone.”

“I work that way, and she’s my mother. She’s coming back for me.”

“I don’t think you understand.”

She glared. “No, you don’t understand. It’s going to work this time.”

That was the opening I’d been waiting for. “You killed those people, didn’t you?” I asked, keeping my voice measured and calm.

“I didn’t mean to!” April protested, looking every inch the wounded child. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. It wasn’t supposed to go that way.”

“But you did hurt them. You took them off the network.” I started inching toward the server. If she made any sudden moves, I was going to find out just how fast I could kick those plugs out of the back of the machine. “We never got around to searching the spots where the bodies were found, but that wouldn’t have mattered, would it? What did you do?”

“I didn’t know it would happen.”

“That doesn’t matter, honey. They’re still dead. How did they die?”

“It was supposed to be all right! No one was supposed to get hurt!” She clutched the rabbit to her chest, eyes filling with strangely fractal tears. “I didn’t know you broke so easily. It was supposed to be an upgrade.”

“I need some answers, April,” I said, gently. She probably meant what she was saying; she hadn’t known what she was doing, and Gordan took advantage of her ignorance. That didn’t change what they’d done. “I need to know how you killed them.”

“That’s why you’re here! You’re going to fix things! Bring them back on the network!”

“I can’t. No one can do that.”

“I—”

“You had to know they weren’t coming back. April, you killed your mother.”

The change in her was incredible. Suddenly furious, she straightened, shouting, “I did not! I tried to tell you! That wasn’t me!”

I hadn’t been expecting that. “What?”

“I wouldn’t! I said no! And so . . . so . . . she did it without me. I didn’t help. I didn’t hurt my mommy!” Her voice broke as she began to sob, burying her face against the rabbit.

I stared at her. April thought she was somehow helping the people they attacked. Jan died differently. Jan had time to fight. Of course April didn’t help—she couldn’t have done that to her mother. Gordan killed Jan. April might not understand what they were doing, but Gordan did. When April wouldn’t do as she was told, Gordan acted alone. She killed Jan, and she was somewhere in the knowe, unguarded . . . and Connor was alone with Quentin, unarmed.

“April, where’s Gordan? We need to find her—we need to stop her before she—”

April shook her head, going calm again. “I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. I have to bring my mother back. If I stop Gordan, she won’t help me reinstall her properly.”

“Please. She can’t come back. We don’t work that way.”

“There are flaws in the process and her casing was damaged, but Gordan says the limits of the hardware can be overcome. We can download her to a new server. We can try again.”

“April, please, you have to stop. If you help us catch Gordan, I can make sure you’re safe. It wasn’t your fault. You were used, you didn’t understand.” I meant it, too. She could be protected. It would be hard, but root and branch, I’d find a way. I owed it to Jan.

“I . . .” She hesitated, eyes more pained than any living eyes should be. “I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt anyone . . . but I need my mother. I don’t know how to take care of myself.”

“April—” I reached for her, hoping I could hold her, but it was too late: she was gone.

The stuffed rabbit hung in the air for a moment, seeming suspended. Then gravity took hold, and it fell. April didn’t reappear. I hadn’t really expected her to—she was running away, after all—and that meant I had to run after her. That’s my job. Leaving the rabbit on the floor, I bolted for the door, and I didn’t look back.

I could have disconnected her server, removed her from the playing field, but without Jan to help us turn her back on, I wasn’t sure she’d survive. I wasn’t going to avenge Sylvester’s niece by killing her only child, no matter how misguided that child’s actions had been.

The others were waiting where I’d left them. Thank Oberon for small favors. They all straightened as I reappeared, but it was Tybalt who spoke first, asking, “Toby? What’s wrong?”

“April and Gordan are our killers. Gordan convinced her that it wasn’t murder, it was an ‘upgrade.’ Only the process doesn’t work, and when April refused to help her kill Jan, Gordan did it on her own.” I wheeled on Elliot, stabbing my finger toward him. “What am I missing? What haven’t you told me? Talk fast. There isn’t much time.” I was already starting toward the futon room, taking long, ground-eating strides. “Tybalt, can you take the Shadows?”

“They’re warded against me,” he said, pacing me easily. “I can’t access them.”

“Of course they are,” I snarled.

Elliot was hurrying to catch up, saying, “Gordan and April?”

“Gordan and April,” I confirmed. “April couldn’t do it alone. Even if Peter hadn’t died during a power outage, she didn’t understand what death was. You two had better start talking.”

“Toby—” Alex began.

“No,” said Elliot, cutting him off. I stopped, turning toward him. He met my eyes, not flinching away. “No more stalling. We’ll tell you.”

“But the project—” Alex protested.

“Is over. Yui’s dead, Jan’s dead, and the project is over. We failed. Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.” Eyes still on mine, Elliot said, “Jan brought us here to save the world.”

“Right,” I said doubtfully, starting to walk again. “Keep talking.”

“I’ll need to give you a bit of background. Stop me if it gets too technical.”

“Fine.”

Alex was staring at both of us, looking scandalized. Elliot caught the look, and snapped, “I’m Jan’s seneschal. If April’s a murderess, she can’t take the County, and I’m in charge.” Alex looked away. Elliot continued, “It started when Jan transplanted April. She didn’t know it could be done until she’d done it, but once she had, what she’d found was obvious.”

“What do you mean?”

“The way back to what Faerie should be. Isolated, pure, eternal . . . if she had the right tools, she could change the world and save us all.” Elliot sighed. “She called us because we were the best Faerie had to offer. We came because we believed her.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“Faerie is dying,” said Alex. On his lips, it became a statement of irrefutable fact. The sun shines, rain falls, and Faerie is dying. “We die faster than we’re born, and the humans are winning. The sun loves them. In the end, we’ll be stories for them to forget.”

“You’re fools,” said Tybalt, scornful. “Faerie is immortal.”

“The Gean-Cannah are almost extinct,” Alex said. I didn’t have an answer for that.

Elliot shook his head. “There will always be fae, but Faerie, as a culture and a world, can die. We’ve already lost our regents and most of our lands. We can’t survive like this.”

“We’ve lasted a long time,” I said. “Maybe we’ve had long enough.”

“Nothing is long enough,” said Elliot. I knew he was thinking of Yui. We could have argued for hours. We didn’t have them. We had to reach Connor and Quentin, and the halls weren’t helping—they seemed to be continuing to unspool, long past the point when we should have reached our destination. I was trying not to let that worry me. It wasn’t working.

“How was a computer company supposed to save Faerie?” I asked, lowering my voice to conserve my breath. I had to be missing something in all the circuitry and strangeness. I just didn’t know what it was.

“We were going to take it inside, away from everything that could hurt or change it,” said Alex, expression pleading with me to understand. “We were going to save it.”

“Inside where?” growled Tybalt.

“The machines,” said Elliot, and actually smiled. “April was the key. She’s a perfect blend of magic and technology. Whatever you do to her, she comes back whole. We have her on disk. We can bring her back to life a thousand times, and she’ll always be the same, and she’ll always keep going. Jan looked at her and knew that we could do it again.”

“That is sick,” said Tybalt, looking disgusted.

I didn’t disagree. “You were going to turn us into machines ?” There’s a difference between immortality and stasis. For people who’d been so fast to embrace new mortal technologies, the inhabitants of Tamed Lightning seemed awfully fuzzy on the distinction.

“Not quite. There were problems. We—” Elliot stopped, frowning. “Where are we?”

The room was huge, filled with filing cabinets. Conflicting views of the grounds showed through windows on all four walls, and from the skylight overhead. I’d never seen it before, and it definitely wasn’t between Jan’s office and the futon room. “Elliot . . .”

“This shouldn’t be here,” Alex said. “That hall doesn’t lead to the west sunroom. Ever.”

Elliot’s shock was fading, replaced by resignation. “Jan is dead, and April was her heir,” he said. “April is assuming her mother’s position. The knowe is changing to suit her.”

“Is she doing this consciously?” I asked.

“I doubt it,” said Elliot. “The knowe is reacting to her panic. They’re still syncing up.”

“Great,” I said bleakly, staring up at the glass ceiling. If the knowe was reacting to April, I wouldn’t be able to sweet-talk it anymore. It had a new mistress, and it wasn’t going to listen to some half-blood interloper who owed it no fealty. But somewhere in that changing landscape, my friends were in danger. “Now what?”

Elliot shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“I think . . .” said Alex, hesitantly. “I think maybe I do.”

“So speak,” snarled Tybalt.

“We go out the window.”

Right.