Undone Deeds

32

Seeing my old partner Dylan macBain dressed as an elven officer was strange. Stranger still was realizing he had been undercover for months, and I had no idea. Dylan and I stood alone on the roof of the hotel. When we reached the open air, he dropped the Rand glamour. The muffled sound of protesters echoed through the financial district.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

True regret showed on his face. “It’s complicated.”

I leaned on the parapet, staring out over the harbor. The entire inner harbor was now cordoned off by the mist, the essence barrier rising from the sea like a wall of fog. “Uncomplicate it.”

“I don’t know if I can. There was concern you would expose me,” he said.

“Whose concern? MacGoren’s?”

He pressed his lips together, glancing down. “I don’t work for macGoren.”

I faced him. “Maeve? You’re working for her?”

He inhaled deeply and rubbed his face. “We’re not going to play a guessing game. I’m not going to tell you.”

Anger burned in my chest. Dylan and I had been Guild partners. Beyond that, we had been more than friends. “Did you kill those undercover agents?”

“No,” he said. He wasn’t upset. He knew it was a fair question under the circumstances.

“If you don’t work for Maeve, who do you work for?” I said.

He nodded. “An explanation wouldn’t help. Suffice it to say this was the highest-placed agent we’ve ever accomplished, Connor. You have to appreciate the delicacy of my position.”

“I would if I understood the purpose,” I said.

It was his turn to be angry. “That’s just it, Con. You don’t have to understand.”

“You killed my friend’s brother, Dylan. I think that entitles me to something. You’re not the one who has to face Leo,” I said.

“What I said before stands true. Gerry made his decision. You would have done the same thing in my position,” he said.

I would have. If Dylan were being attacked, I would have done the same thing. I did do it. I killed fourteen people when I thought he had been killed. “You don’t seem remorseful,” I said.

“I’ll deal with it in my own time. I’m not like you,” he said.

“Damn right you’re not,” I muttered.

I didn’t know what to make of him. We had been so close, and now this wall was between us. Maybe it was inevitable. Dylan had remained the good Guildsman. I had gone my own way. Maybe two people can’t always be what they once were to each other. I grunted in amusement. Maybe that wasn’t always such a bad thing.

“What’s so funny?” Dylan asked.

“Meryl and I used to hate each other. It’s funny how things change,” I said.

“The Wheel of the World turns as It will. Sometimes that’s good,” he said.

Sometimes it wasn’t. Sometimes life put you in a corner and dared you to come out. Briallen taught me that I had to change to meet new challenges and accept it when I couldn’t. Nigel taught me that I didn’t have to accept anything I didn’t want to and that I could push life in the direction I wanted. Somehow, they were both right and both wrong.

From the top of the hotel, I could see destroyed buildings. I could imagine the destroyed lives. I had helped stop some of that, keeping it from being worse than it was. I couldn’t shake the feeling, though, that a lot of it happened because of me.

“What’s Eorla going to do?” I asked.

“She said it didn’t matter if I stayed or left. She’s going to handle things the same either way,” he said.

“So your lying was pointless,” I said.

“I don’t think so. I learned a lot,” he said.

“Like not lying?” I asked.

He chuckled. “No. If I hadn’t done this, Con, if I hadn’t fooled everyone, I wouldn’t have met Eorla. Regardless of everything else, I learned from her that sometimes doing the wrong thing can be in the service of doing the right thing.”

“Is she in danger?” I asked.

He leaned both hands against the parapet. “Of course she is. She’s the Unseelie Queen.”

“Have you compromised her, Dyl? I want to know if something you said or did is going to hurt her,” I said.

He didn’t answer, so I glanced at him. He was pensive, a bit bemused. Then he smiled. “I’ll tell you this, Con. I stopped reporting on Eorla weeks ago. I’ve seen what she wants, and it’s not terrible. I’ve been helping her.”

“Sounds like you have a need to lie to someone all the time,” I said.

He flicked his eyebrows. “That’s the business, I guess.”

“That sounds cold.”

He shook his head. “I saved your life. I didn’t have to.”

And I had saved his. He had had a knife in his heart. I had saved his life because he was dying for trying to help people. More than that, I saved his life because I couldn’t imagine a world without Dylan macBain, the guy that made me laugh, the guy that made me feel like I could do no wrong. He was in love with me then, maybe still was, but I was the one who didn’t want to change what we had. “You know what, Dyl? I think I figured out why I left New York. You said you saved my life but didn’t have to. You know what? When the situation was reversed, I saved your life because I did have to.”

His face went tight. “Ouch.”

I nodded, staring at the mist wall. The level of essence in it was higher than that of any druid fog I had ever encountered. No good would come of it. When it did whatever it was going to do, I wanted to be someplace good. “Yeah. I think I’m going to go home now.”

“You’re going back to your apartment?”

I shook my head. “No. I said home. I’m going to Meryl. She’s home now. Thanks for saving my life.”

I left him alone on the roof.