Undone Deeds

33

I waited for Meryl in the lobby. Eorla didn’t want me to go out the front, but I was tired of feeling like a fugitive or like I had done something wrong. All I wanted was to sleep in a warm bed and not worry about getting shot at or kidnapped. It wasn’t much to ask. People went to bed every night with that expectation.

Meryl’s MINI Cooper zipped up on the sidewalk and under the grand arch of the hotel. An escort of brownies followed me outside. Across the street, people shouted about death and murder. My name was mixed in there. A flurry of bottles and cans flew through the air, but they bounced uselessly against the barrier shield.

Meryl shifted into gear, then rubbed my thigh. “How’re you doing?”

I dropped my head back against the seat. “Tired—no—exhausted. My brain has turned to mush. How’s Leo?”

“I think he’s in shock. He can barely speak. What the hell happened?” she asked.

I gave her the brief version of Gerry’s attack. “I was on the ground at that point. If he had fired again, I would have been dead if Dylan hadn’t shown up.”

She turned onto the Oh No bridge. Normal-sized cars had to creep over the twisted surface, but Meryl bounced the MINI across without any fear. “Dylan macBain? As in, dead Dylan macBain whose funeral I went to?”

“Yeah. It was all a setup for him to go undercover. He’s been impersonating Rand for months,” I said.

It said something about the world I lived in that Meryl wasn’t shocked Dylan was alive and wasn’t furious I didn’t tell her. “Huh. Now I know where all that intel was coming from,” she said with an understanding look.

“You knew Eorla had a spy?” I asked.

She flicked me her trademark of-course look. “Come on, Connor. Everyone spies on everyone. Stop acting surprised.”

“You could have told me,” I said. Suddenly, I felt like I was having the same conversation as with Dylan.

“And what? Eorla would have increased security? Double-checked her advisors? She was doing that anyway. That’s how things operate normally. Saying it out loud doesn’t change it.”

“Still….” I said.

“Oh, please. You’re looking for an argument. How’s this: The Guild has spies in the Consortium, the police department, the statehouse, and, yeah, Eorla’s hotel. By the way, Eorla and Bastian both have spies at the Guild. I don’t know the names of every single mole, but, yes, occasionally I do see reports. Now, what are you going to do about it, and how will it change anything except that I told you what you already know?”

I crossed my arms. “It would be nice to decide on my own whether I would try.”

She slammed the clutch into a downshift. “Really? Tell me more about your little magic bowl, Mr. Transparency. I don’t seem to remember that coming up in conversation. Or how about using it on Manny? I heard about that from Gillen Yor, for Danu’s sake. You want to go down this road, you better be damned ready to answer some questions, too.”

The car rocked as she swerved around a pothole. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me, too,” she said.

“No, really, I am sorry. I’ve been bombarded the last few days, and I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore. Let’s start over. Does Leo hate me?”

“I don’t think he hates you, Grey. Does he associate major hurt with you? Yeah, I think so,” she said.

“How do I fix this?” I asked.

She pulled into a dark alley near the Tangle and parked, not something that would be most people’s first choice. “I don’t think this is something that gets fixed. It’s something that you have to get past. His brother was killed. It doesn’t matter what Gerry was doing when it happened, and it doesn’t matter that it was you it was being done to. Let him grieve.”

We got out of the car. “What are we doing here?”

“We walk the last few blocks. I washed my car, and I don’t want it getting shot at. Ceridwen has the harborfront guarded,” she said. She dropped the strap of her giant bag over her head and wore it across her chest.

I wrapped my arm around her, and we walked amid the burned wreckage of the neighborhood. “Maybe it’s time I left Boston.”

“Yeah, I was thinking I’d dye my hair,” she said.

“Okay, I’ll bite. Meaning?”

We sidestepped a crater in the ground. “Meaning it will reflect my mood, but it won’t change who I am.”

“People don’t die when you’re around,” I said.

“Exactly. People can die as easily somewhere else,” she said.

“You’re not helping my mood,” I said.

We turned the corner into the Tangle. Dead essence rose around us, a haze of blue that lined the streets. Shadows moved among the shadows, and furtive figures appeared in windows and doors. Ceridwen’s people were out in force.

Meryl looked toward the harbor, then up at me. “You see that mist wall out there? That’s Maeve’s doing. Why? Because of something Donor did. Why? Because of something Maeve did. Why? Because of something Donor did. It’s the Wheel of the World, Grey. They play the music, and we dance. I think wherever we are, we’ll hear that music. It might as well be here as anywhere else.”

“You forget. I don’t dance,” I said.

She stopped in front of an old building, its once-beautiful front door scratched and pitted with time, a carved garland of oak leaves chipped and worn. “This is it.”

I could feel the Dead around us, scent the vitniri man-wolves and a variety of solitary body signatures. Ceridwen was taking no chances for me. “Things can’t go on like this, Meryl. I can’t run and hide for the rest of my life. Something’s got to give. I have to find the answers to why this is all happening to me.”

She tugged at my belt loop as she opened the door. “I know, but not tonight. Let’s go upstairs and close the door on the world for a while. Maybe I’ll teach you how to dance.”

I closed the door and followed her up the stairs inside. “Go slow,” I said.

“Not likely,” she said over her shoulder.