Unperfect Souls

3

House staff threw me curious looks as I paused outside the Guildmaster’s door. Whatever his intention, Eagan’s comment amused more than angered me. Implying anything about Murdock didn’t cut much ice with me. I knew where I stood with him. He told me what he wanted to tell me, and we were comfortable with that. Occasionally, my curiosity got the better of me, and I pried. Murdock was a big boy. He ignored it.

I descended the stairs into the shadowed grand hall. Maeve glared from her portrait, influencing events from across the ocean. She was like one of those giant planets that smaller satellites scurried around. Most large planets were big balls of gas if I remembered rightly.

On the bottom step, movement near the fireplace caught my eye. Moira Cashel strolled across the hall, the provocative smile she’d worn in Eagan’s bedroom still on her face. “Will you be coming to the Solstice party?”

The major highlight of the fey social calendar was Eagan’s Winter Solstice celebration. When I was a top agent for the Guild, my attendance was a given. The last couple of years, my invitation seemed to have been lost in the mail. “The hall doesn’t look like a party’s going to happen.”

She stopped a few feet away, her hands clasped behind her back. “Oh, I heard the staff talking. It’s planned. Will you be coming?”

I smiled politely. “I’ll have to see.”

She moved closer and ran her hand along the lapel of my coat. “I seem to remember a young man who liked parties.”

I glanced down at the hand on my coat. “Excuse me?”

Her eyes shone with amusement. “Oh, come now, Connor. Don’t tell me you don’t sense me in your memory.”

With closed eyes, she rose on her toes and kissed me. Surprised, I stumbled back against the elephant. “What the hell, lady?” I said.

She threw her head back and laughed. A chill went up my spine as the sound stirred an old memory. Her face blurred and shifted, her dark hair lightening to a pale brunette, and her face narrowed. “Don’t tell me you don’t remember Amy, Connor.”

She held her hands on her hips, an old familiar smile twisted into a smirk.

I wasn’t buying it. “What kind of game is this? Who the hell are you?”

She released the glamour and resumed her real face and former dark hair color. Cashel chuckled. “I’m sorry. I thought you’d get a kick out of the surprise. It really is me, Connor, Amy Sullivan. Actually, Amy Sullivan was really me. I couldn’t believe it when you walked into that room.”

I frowned. “Forgive me, but you don’t think I believe for a minute that Amy Sullivan was the Queen’s Herbalist.”

She giggled. “I wouldn’t believe that either, now that you mention it. I wasn’t the Queen’s Herbalist back then, silly. What can I do to prove it to you?”

I shrugged. “Nothing. This is some game Maeve is playing.”

A crease formed on her forehead. “What interest would Maeve have in you?”

I moved toward the door. “Now I’m really not believing you. When you report back to Maeve, tell her I said nice try. Insulting, but nice try.”

I yanked the front door closed behind me. At the bottom of the steps, Tibbet waited in the car. I strode down and got in.

Tibbet put the car in gear. “What happened?”

“Do you trust Eagan?” I asked.

She rocked her head indifferently. “He tries to manipulate me constantly and sometimes succeeds, but, yeah, I trust him.”

“Why?”

She glanced sideways at me with a wry smile. “Because more often than not—way more often—his instincts are right. I’ve known him a long time, Connor. He can be a frustrating man, but I wouldn’t have stayed if I didn’t believe in him.”

“How do you know when he’s lying?”

She shrugged. “I assume he is and go from there. It’s easier that way. Fewer disappointments and, honestly, more fun. Are you going to tell me what happened?”

“Eagan implied I shouldn’t trust Moira Cashel. When I ran into her on my way out, she claimed she was someone from my past,” I said.

Tibbet considered. “Are those two things mutually exclusive?”

“No. But if she really is the person she claims, then I’m not sure whether I should believe her or Eagan.”

Tibbet nodded. “Who is she claiming to be?”

“A woman I knew when I was younger.”

Tibbet merged the car onto Storrow Drive and wound along the edge of Back Bay to reach the expressway. She’d lived in Boston a long time. On the map, the route might look ridiculous, but it was the fastest way to the Weird. We slowed as the traffic on the elevated struggled out of the merging of three lanes.

Tibbet smiled comfortingly. She rubbed my thigh. “Connor, I’m not going to ask who she was to you, but if you’re worried about memories being destroyed, don’t be. They’re your memories. If Moira Cashel is this person she claims to be, that doesn’t mean she gets to destroy who she once was to you.”

“But if Eagan is right, maybe she had an ulterior motive for coming into my life then,” I said.

Tibbet coasted off the elevated down to Atlantic Avenue. “Did something bad happen?”

I chuckled. “No. The opposite, actually.”

“Then let it be. Brownies have an old saying: ‘Don’t go bogey until you have to.’ ”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Is that a real saying?”

Tibbet snickered as she pulled the car to the curb in front of my building. “Yes. It sounds more dramatic and true in Gaelic. But you get the point, don’t you?”

I nodded. “Yeah. You’re right. I’ve got enough to worry about without getting all anxious about something this old.”

“Good!” She withdrew a flat round stone from her inside coat pocket. A tingle of essence itched my palm as I took it. “It’s a calling ward. Say my name, and I’ll come pick you up,” she said.

I slipped the stone in my jacket. “Can’t I call your cell?”

She grinned. “Anytime. But if you have something for the Old Man, use the stone. It never drops calls and doesn’t depend on area coverage.”

I kissed her just below the ear. “See you, gorgeous.”

She ruffled my hair. “Later, handsome.”

Tibs and I have never had an argument. We had a strange and wonderful random relationship. We didn’t seek each other out, but we didn’t avoid each other. We never criticized each other, but always knew the right thing to say at the right time to move the other along in a decision, not necessarily the one either of us wanted to make. We used to have incredible sex until we stopped. Seeing each other always prompted smiles.

And yet, as she drove away, I realized that for the first time since I’d known her, she had said something that wasn’t true. Not that she lied. But I knew memories could be destroyed. Mine already had been. I had blank spots. I thought the memory loss started with the damage to my abilities two and a half years previously, but an old friend recently mentioned something from earlier than that, and I had no recollection of it. It made me uneasy. It meant there might be more things I didn’t remember that I didn’t have the slightest notion I’d forgotten.

I remembered Amy Sullivan, though, and the memory brought a smile. I remember seeing her for the first time in a store, lost in thought as she stared at something on a shelf. She was older than me—much older—but that was part of her appeal. She was a woman, a beautiful woman, and when I spoke to her that first time, she became the first adult woman who didn’t dismiss me as a child, who treated me like the man I thought I was. She opened a world to me that my mentors didn’t. Couldn’t, precisely because they were mentors. Amy taught me things about life, and I didn’t understand that until much later. I thought I was in love, and I thought she was, too. I realized afterward that it was something less than that for both of us, yet something important in a different way. When she disappeared without a trace, I was devastated, but even that made me smile in hindsight. Amy taught me that learning wasn’t just about knowing, but growing. Maturing. And the gift she left me was understanding that life had a lot more to offer me than I ever imagined from reading books.

Which brought me back to Moira Cashel. If she was Amy Sullivan all those years ago, nothing sprang to mind that hinted at a hidden agenda back then. If she was playing mind games with me, it worked, but probably not in the way she intended. It wasn’t like she thought I’d trust her because she was Amy. If she was Amy, revealing that she lied to me years ago and oh-by-the-way happened to be a current member of Maeve’s court was not the way to endear herself to me now.

Of course, I couldn’t ignore the Guildmaster’s role in all of it. Eagan typically knew more than he let on and never made a move without a calculation. He wanted both Nigel and Moira to see me at the house and me to see them. Whether I wanted to be or not, he’d put me in play.

My various mentors taught me many different things, but they all agreed that the first move in avoiding a trap was recognizing that a trap existed. The second was deciding whether to step out of the trap or turn it on whoever set it. But first I had to figure out whose trap it was and whether it was for me or someone else.