“Nothing a bucket of aspirin won’t help,” I said. “Um. Are you okay?”
He blinked. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I thought … you know. You’d been captured as a spy.”
“Well, sure,” he said.
“I thought they would, uh. Make an example of you?”
He blinked again. “Why would they do that?”
The door to the bedroom opened again, and a female svartalf appeared. She looked a lot like Etri—tiny and beautiful, though she had long silver hair instead of a cueball. She was wearing what might have been Thomas’s shirt, and it hung down almost to her ankles. She had a decidedly … smug look about her. Behind her, I saw several other sets of wide, dark eyes peer out of the shadowy bedchamber.
“Oh,” I said. “Oh. You, uh. You made a deal.”
Thomas smirked. “It’s a tough, dirty job …”
“And one that is not yet finished,” said the female svartalf. “You are ours until dawn.”
Thomas looked from me to the bedroom and back and spread his hands. “You know how it is, Molly. Duty calls.”
“Um,” I said. “What do you want me to tell Justine?”
Again he gave me a look of near incomprehension. “The truth. What else?”
“Oh, thank goodness,” Justine said as we were walking out. “I was afraid they’d have starved him.”
I blinked. “Your boyfriend is banging a roomful of elfgirls and you’re happy about it?”
Justine tilted her head back and laughed. “When you’re in love with an incubus, it changes your viewpoint a little, I think. It isn’t as though this is something new. I know how he feels about me, and he needs to feed to be healthy. So what’s the harm?” She smirked. “And besides. He’s always ready for more.”
“You’re a very weird person, Justine.”
Andi snorted, and nudged me with her shoulder in a friendly way. She’d recovered her dress and the shoes she liked. “Look who’s talking.”
After everyone was safe home, I walked from Waldo’s apartment to the nearest parking garage. I found a dark corner, sat down, and waited. Lea shimmered into being about two hours later and sat down beside me.
“You tricked me,” I said. “You sent me in there blind.”
“Indeed. Just as Lara did her brother—except that my agent succeeded where hers failed.”
“But why? Why send us in there?”
“The treaty with the Fomor could not be allowed to conclude,” she said. “If one nation agreed to neutrality with them, a dozen more would follow. The Fomor would be able to divide the others and contend with them one by one. The situation was delicate. The presence of active agents was intended to disrupt its equilibrium—to show the Fomor’s true nature in a test of fire.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me that?” I asked.
“Because you would neither have trusted nor believed me, obviously,” she said.
I frowned at her. “You should have told me anyway.”
“Do not be ridiculous, child.” Lea sniffed. “There was no time to humor your doubts and suspicions and theories and endless questions. Better to give you a simple prize upon which to focus—Thomas.”
“How did you know I would find the bomb?”
She arched an eyebrow. “Bomb?” She shook her head. “I did not know what was happening in any specific sense. But the Fomor are betrayers. Ever have they been, ever will they be. The only question is what form their treachery will take. The svartalves had to be shown.”
“How did you know I would discover it?”
“I did not,” she said. “But I know your mentor. When it comes to meddling, to unearthing awkward truths, he has taught you exceedingly well.” She smiled. “You have also learned his aptitude for taking orderly situations and reducing them to elemental chaos.”
“Meaning what?” I demanded.
Her smile was maddeningly smug. “Meaning that I was confident that whatever happened, it would not include the smooth completion of the treaty.”
“But you could have done everything I did.”
“No, child,” Lea said. “The svartalves would never have asked me to be their guest at the reception. They love neatness and order. They would have known my purposes were not orderly ones.”
“And they didn’t know that about me?”
“They cannot judge others except by their actions,” Lea said. “Hence their treaty with the Fomor, who had not yet crossed their paths. My actions have shown me to be someone who must be treated with caution. You had … a clean record with them. And you are smoking hot. All is well, your city saved, and now a group of wealthy, skilled, and influential beings owes you a favor.” She paused for a moment and then leaned toward me slightly. “Perhaps some expression of gratitude is in order.”
“From me, to you?” I asked. “For that?”
“I think your evening turned out quite well,” Lea said her eyebrows raised. “Goodness, but you are a difficult child. How he manages to endure your insolence I will never know. You probably think you have earned some sort of reward from me.” She rose and turned to go.
“Wait!” I said suddenly.
She paused.
I think my heart had stopped beating. I started shaking, everywhere. “You said that you know Harry. Not knew him. Know. Present tense.”
“Did I?”
“You said you don’t know how he manages to put up with me. Manages. Present tense.”
“Did I?”
“Auntie,” I asked her, and I could barely whisper. “Auntie … is Harry … is he alive?”
Lea turned to me very slowly, and her eyes glinted with green, wicked knowledge. “I did not say that he was alive, child. And neither should you. Not yet.”
I bowed my head and started crying. Or laughing. Or both. I couldn’t tell. Lea didn’t wait around for it. Emotional displays made her uncomfortable.
Harry. Alive.
I hadn’t killed him.
Best reward ever.
“Thank you, Auntie,” I whispered. “Thank you.”
Carrie
