29. In Which Plans Change
29
IN WHICH PLANS CHANGE
Now I am driven from my acres,
In lonely cold without friends
— ANONYMOUS FOLK SONGWRITER, “SEAN O’DWYER OF THE GLEN”
H e looked completely out of place standing in my apartment. I was fairly certain the inside of this place hadn’t seen a man in a tailored suit since the early sixties, much less someone who wore it with Jonathan’s particular brand of haughty dignity. On top of that, it was in a bit of disarray, strewn with my moving boxes, half filled with belongings.
Jonathan shifted uneasily between leather-soled feet, glancing curiously around the tiny living room. Then he paced the apartment while I texted Reina and located a pitcher of iced tea from the fridge.
“Did one of you…make…this?” he asked, stifling a smile as he picked up what could kindly be called a bowl that sat on the table and held spare change.
One edge was at least a half-inch lower than the others, and my attempt at a crackled robin’s egg glass looked more like some kind of terrible mold. I rolled my eyes. Sorcerers. So good with their hands that they thought it was hilarious when anyone else struggled.
“You’re not so great, you know,” I said, pouring a couple of pint glasses. “Some of us can’t tell the clay what to do. Some of us have to use our hands the old-fashioned way.”
“Do I want to know what happens when you cook, then?”
I put the tea back in the fridge. “Not really.”
“This is your room?” He poked his head into my bedroom at the edge of the hallway.
I walked to where he stood in the doorway and looked in with him. Good, not too many clothes tossed across the bed. “Home sweet home,” I said. “At least for another few days.”
A set of dark brown furniture was still in the all-but-empty room, including a desk and several bookshelves. The rest of my belongings were either packed or in piles, with the exception of my clothes and a few things I had bequeathed to Aja. The walls were painted the periwinkle blue I had chosen when I first moved here. According to the color swatch at the hardware store, it was called “Ocean Lullaby.” It reminded me of the waves in Oregon on a bright summer day.
“Iced? Hmm.” Jonathan accepted his tea and entered the room, examining the wood furniture with a few knocks here and there to test its quality. “That’s a decent set for a post-grad.”
I shrugged. “Penny’s doing. When I first moved to Boston, I slept on my roommate’s futon for two weeks, waiting for my stipend to start. One day, I was walking down the street and Gran called to say a man a few blocks away was leaving town and getting ready to abandon his furniture on the side of the road. Two blocks down, and all of it there, in pristine condition. I’ll leave it here for the next student.”
Jonathan whistled, impressed. “She always did have amazing range.”
I smiled grimly. “It was best on sunny days when the weather was clear from coast to coast. Didn’t happen often, but every now and then…”
Jonathan nodded as if he understood perfectly. “I’m surprised you’re not keeping it all, then.”
“They’re just things.”
We returned to the living room, where he started examining the windows and the blinds. His eyes blazed just a bit, and he murmured a brief spell under his breath. I looked around the room. Nothing happened, but I suddenly felt more contained in the place than normal.
“What did you just do?”
He turned. “Muffled the sound waves and darkened the windows. Like being in a soundproof office while it lasts. Will your roommate be joining us anytime soon?”
“No, she and Nick are going out tonight,” I said. “Jonathan, what are you doing now?”
He looked over from where he had been staring at a corner of the ceiling. “Just checking for anyone who might have left something. A device. Or a spell, perhaps, to record our conversation. Then I can secure against unwanted listeners, should there be any.” He glanced at me. “Don’t you need to sain?”
Would I have known if someone had invaded my apartment? I was now a PhD, but in the world of the fae, I was a novice when it came to magic, a fact too easy to forget.
Again, that icy shiver slid down my back, despite the cloying greenhouse effect of the large windows on hot days like this. I took up one of the bundles of juniper and the bowl of water at the fireplace for my ritual. It was too hot for a fire. This would have to do.
“Penny’s precautions have held up nicely,” Jonathan remarked once we had both finished. “No one knows you’re here.”
“She set precautions?” I asked, earning a roll of the eyes from Jonathan at my ignorance.
Of course, she set precautions to hide me. I now knew that was what Penny did.
I sat down on the couch and pulled one of the ratty throw pillows into my lap. “So, what’s going on? Why are you here?” Also, why am I so happy to see you?
Thankfully, he wasn’t touching me when the thought crossed my mind.
He turned from his place at the window to face me. “When do you leave for Portland? Two weeks?”
I shifted uneasily on the couch. I hadn’t even told Reina yet. “I actually turned down that position.”
Jonathan balked. “Did you really?”
His reaction was similar to the faces of my committee members when I had given them the same news. Professor James was unable to comprehend why I would commit career sabotage.
“I’m not sure it’s what I want to do anymore,” was all I said. “Gran’s endowment has given me some freedom. I plan to do some traveling. Maybe to London…and Ireland.”
Both of his brows lifted. “Do you now?”
I looked up. “Surprised?”
He set his glass on the coffee table. “I admit, I arrived here thinking I had to talk you into going. But you’ve done my job for me.”
“What do you mean, you were going to talk me into it?”
He removed his hat and placed it next to his glass. “Some things have happened since Manzanita. Two more people on the Council were murdered last month. Both of them strangled, their memories erased.”
The word murder made the hairs on my arm stand straight up. I couldn’t not think of Penny’s terrible death, of my own close call. I wished I had one of her afghans to pull around my shoulders, but they were already safely stowed in one of the moving boxes.
“Your father?”
Dread lay heavy over his shoulders. It couldn’t have been anyone else.
Jonathan sighed and sat up, running a hand through his hair. “Yes. It’s a coup, plain and simple. He’s killing original members in pursuit of the Secret and obviously planning to seize power. You and I both know he is responsible, but no one else has been able to figure it out. Nor is there any proof beyond what we know. But I don’t believe that now is the time to reveal that Penny had a daughter. Or a granddaughter. Not until we know who we can trust on the Council.”
“You haven’t gone to them at all?” I was appalled. I didn’t know what he had been doing in the last few months, but I would have thought that reporting a crime to the fae authorities available would be at the top of the list.
He exhaled heavily. “Cassandra, first of all, I’m not an agent of the Council. I’m acting on behalf of Penny and her interests because she…well, let’s just say I owe her a great debt, and I care deeply about avenging her murder. I should hope it goes without saying how appalled I am that my family is responsible for it. Second, while I don’t think—yet—that the Council has anything directly to do with the murders, I also don’t believe they’ll take an accusation against one of their own seriously without investigating the accuser. It would be like telling Scotland Yard the commissioner is corrupt. You’re not prepared for that kind of scrutiny.”
I cupped my tea in my hands, thankful for the condensation building on the outside of the glass. It wasn’t a cup of water, but it was something to balance the turmoil inside me as he spoke. Through the window, I watched a woman across the street hang her laundry from her fire escape, taking periodic moments to tilt her face up to the sun, eyes closed in pleasure. She looked so happy, despite the menial chore.
“So what now?” I asked. “Clearly, our timeline has been moved up. What am I supposed to do with this information?”
I didn’t move my gaze from my neighbor. Though I knew she probably couldn’t see us due to Jonathan’s spell work, the woman smiled in my direction as she clipped a blouse to the line. I thought I could hear the gentle tones of Ella Fitzgerald crooning through the glass.
“He’s been asking questions too. I’ve heard rumors of a raven searching the cities. Looking for traces of a lost seer. He knew, from her memories, of course, bits about you and Sybil, but she was careful. She didn’t remember your name, where you were, or hardly anything about you. And he hasn’t been able to find her anyway.”
I balked. “She did have a terrible memory at times, but it’s not that bad.”
Jonathan’s mouth quirked. “Don’t you think that was by design?”
Now that he said it, it was obvious. If Gran was keeping a secret, and she knew someone was coming for her, of course, she would wipe her mind clear. She was ruthless. Her death had taught me that, if anything.
Still, the man had gotten some memories out of her. That I had Seen for myself.
“She didn’t get everything,” Jonathan said gently. “Unfortunately, that means my father knows a bit too. And now, because of the deaths of the original members, some Council members fear the Secret has been lost for good if they can’t find you. Cass, Penny’s protection is growing weaker; it can’t last forever now that she’s gone. They are going to find you, one way or another, so you need to make the decision about your future now, not in another year or two.”
Worry and urgency creased Jonathan’s forehead. I didn’t know what to say—while I had intended on going to Ireland, it had been less about my strange “inheritance,” and more because I wanted to know about my grandmother’s past. The mystery of her origins. And what she had left behind.
“I’m sorry,” he said gently. “I know this isn’t what we planned.”
“No, it’s not. You said I had years to decide. Not months.” I frowned. “And you just said I’m not ready for that kind of scrutiny.”
“You’re not, but you can be. You’re smart to go to Ireland now—it will be relatively safe there, and you’ll learn what you can. If you don’t have a ticket yet, I’ll have it arranged.”
“You don’t waste time, do you?” My tone was sharper than I intended, but that same feeling of helplessness that had overcome my life three months earlier was back.
I knew Jonathan wasn’t the direct cause of it, but I had worked hard to find control, even if it was quarantined to the far corners of the library. Now I was back in the dark and about to reach blindly into it. Who knew what insidious creatures might grab my hand?
“It won’t be like before. You’ll get proper training from Caitlin and Robbie. You won’t be alone, Cass.”
Sympathy flooded my thoughts. Along with surprise at my fear, and some probing, searching for more. I looked down and realized that Jonathan had touched his knee to mine. On purpose.
“If you want to know what I’m thinking, you can just ask, you know,” I said. Is this what everyone felt when a seer was around? It was annoying.
Jonathan sighed and pulled his knee away. “I’m sorry, but you were gone, and I needed to bring you back. I need to move fast with all of this, and so do you. The Assembly has already begun its search.”
I narrowed my eyes. “And how do you know all of this, if you’re not in the Assembly?”
“It’s my business to know. For Penny’s sake and yours, if nothing more. Let’s just leave it at that, shall we?”
“No, we shall not!” I said. “Jonathan, I deserve to know what part you play in all of this. You want me to follow you blindly, but it’s not going to happen.”
His green eyes zeroed onto mine, pupils dilated the way a cat’s might when it focuses on prey. The hairs on my forearm rose again, and I had to fight to maintain contact.
“Cassandra,” he said, voice as low as a lion’s purr. “Do you trust me?”
The question hung in the air for a moment, as if the apartment itself knew that my answer would change the direction of my life from this moment on. I thought of the shadowed man, Jonathan’s father. I thought of all the secrets that Jonathan acquired and kept to himself.
But I also thought of how he had saved my life more than once. The way he had stood by me as the ashes of my childhood fell through the trees. And I thought of his touch against my cheek near the reservoir.
The fragile wall of self-reliance I had built for myself began to crumble again.
“Yes,” I breathed. “I trust you.”
In part because I had no other choice.
“Then, please. I’m asking you to let it be. If I can give you the answers you need, I will. I promise.”
I sighed, and released my hands from the fists they had been making, flattening my palms out onto my knees. “Okay. But,what do they want ? This Secret? Do you even know what it is?”
Jonathan’s gaze flitted around the room like he thought he might catch something. “Cass, I didn’t want to ask in February, but now I must. Did Penny ever send you anything? A package? Ever ask you to guard something?”
I bit my lip. “I—yes. She sent me a box the day before she died. She asked me to protect it, to keep it to myself. It was a secret.”
As soon as the word “secret” erupted from my tongue, I clapped both hands over my mouth as if to stop anything further from coming out. Gran’s letter. Her command. Secret , I thought. No, I wasn’t supposed to tell.
Jonathan looked slightly abashed. “I’m sorry I had to do that,” he said. “I know you weren’t supposed to say anything.”
I gaped. “That was you?”
“I told you, procuring secrets is a talent of mine.” The corner of his mouth turned up. “They listen to me, sort of like how I can summon other forms of energy. I only have to ask the right questions.” He shook his head. “Caitlin will need to teach you better shielding. In the meantime, rest assured that I already suspected it was the recipe box in the will. I just needed confirmation.”
Before I could ask him just how he had managed to force the truth from my throat, he stood and picked up our glasses to get us more tea. The ice crackled as the tea trickled over it, and when he returned, I accepted mine gratefully, gulping down the cool liquid to avoid saying anything else I might regret.
“What about my mother?” I asked a moment later. “Won’t they go after her first? She’s Penny’s daughter, not me. Shouldn’t she go to Ireland?”
Jonathan looked uneasy at the mention of Sybil. Vaguely, I wondered if she made him as uncomfortable as she made everyone else.
“Honestly, it’s unlikely anyone would suspect she’s a reputable seer, much less the daughter of the Lost Mage.” His brow furrowed. “She’ll be safe enough. I put additional protection on her when I delivered the will. But I’ll be going there after this to shore things up.”
I looked up. “You’re going back to Seattle?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Then I’ll be going with you.”
His eyes widened. “Why?”
I’d thought a lot about it. “My mother. There’s something you should know about her. She does have some talent. One, in particular.”
It was hard to talk about it without shivering.
“I should have mentioned it in February, but I was so overwhelmed.” I took a deep breath. “She Sees death. Years ahead, in great detail. She saw my father’s the moment she met him. Knew their entire life what was going to happen. She probably Saw Gran’s, too. I bet that’s why Gran knew he was coming for her and prepared the way she did.”
“Sybil’s a banshee?”
I nodded. “It’s the only power she ever had. Although I’ve never personally heard her shriek.”
He smiled grimly. “It’s a valuable talent, though not much loved.”
“Only if you don’t use it to help people.”
He didn’t press, and I was glad. Since learning of my mother’s skill on the day my father died, I had never been able to forgive her for it. Because if you had such a skill, why wouldn’t you do everything in your power to help the ones you loved avoid their terrible fates?
“We need more answers about what exactly your father did,” I said. “The house burned, and its knowledge floated away the ashes. My mother is the only one left who might know anything else. If you’re going to see her, I am too. She has some answering to do.”