The Hippocampus food was on the shelf beneath the fish tank. Giving me one last sidelong glance, Quentin opened it, shaking bits of dried kelp and barley into the water. The tiny horses flocked to the food, their wariness forgotten as they chased it around the tank. I smiled faintly and flipped the first folder open.
They liked records at ALH: everything from employment history to diet and heritage was recorded, like they were trying to paint portraits of their employees on paper. Even though was it helping us research, I couldn’t figure out why they’d bothered in the first place.
The first page of Colin’s file included a listing of family members. I found myself wondering who was going to have to tell them he was gone. Disgusted by the thought, I slammed the folder down on the desk and pushed it away. “This isn’t helping.”
Quentin looked up from feeding the Hippocampi. “What do you mean?”
“They were normal.” I indicated the folder. “All were purebloods less than three hundred years old, all lived human at some point without cutting their ties to the Summerlands—nothing out of the ordinary. Barbara was local, and Yui was from Oregon, so there’s a West Coast pattern . . . only Colin was from Newfoundland, and Peter’s last listed residence was in Indiana.”
“So what connects them?” Quentin asked, returning the Hippocampus food to the shelf where he’d found it.
He was obviously expecting some ingenious, Sherlock Holmes-like gem of wisdom, and I hated to disappoint him. Unfortunately, I had no other options. “Nothing but ALH.” That worried me. Unless our killer was basing his moves on a factor I couldn’t see, we were dealing with someone whose only motive was “here.” That didn’t bode well. For one thing, it was a strong indicator that we might be looking for a crazy person.
Insanity is dangerous. All fae living in the mortal world are at least a little nuts; it’s a natural consequence of being what we are. We have to convince ourselves that we can function in a place that’s run by people whose logic looks nothing like our own. When we do it well enough, we’re even right. The problem is that eventually, the lies stop working, and by that point, it’s generally too late to run.
“Oh,” said Quentin, sounding disappointed.
“Yeah,” I agreed, “oh.”
Something crackled in the air behind me. I didn’t pause to think; I just whirled, scattering file folders in my rush to put myself between Quentin and any potential threats. April’s outline flickered as the papers passed through her, fluttering to the floor. She watched impassively as they fell, finally asking, “Are you well?”
“Don’t dothat!” I said, dropping shakily back into my seat. Quentin looked as shocked as I felt. Good. That made him less likely to laugh at me later.
“Why not?” She tilted her head, showing a flicker of curiosity. The fact that I’d just thrown several sheets of paper through her upper torso didn’t seem to bother her. Dryads are weird, but April was going for the grand prize.
“Because it’s not polite to startle people.”
“I see.” April looked to Quentin. “Is she correct?”
Wordlessly, he nodded.
“I see,” April repeated. After a moment’s consideration, she asked, “Is it my materialization you object to, or my doing so outside your immediate range of vision?”
Quentin and I stared at her. She gazed back, bland curiosity in her yellow eyes. Now that I was looking more closely, I could see that her irises lacked normal variation; they looked almost painted-on. Her lack of small detail was making her seem more and more like something that was created, not born. That probably explained a lot about her, even if it didn’t change the fact that she’d just tripled my heart rate by deciding not to use the door like everybody else.
“I object to having you appear behind me without warning,” I said.
Quentin nodded. “That’s, um, pretty much my problem, too.”
April smiled, an expression that looked entirely artificial. “Acceptable. I will refrain from abrupt materialization in your immediate vicinity without prior notification of my arrival.”
It took me a moment to puzzle through that one. “So you won’t appear suddenly?” I guessed. I wasn’t going to make assumptions with someone who seemed to view silly things like “physics” as a mere convenience.
“Yes.”
“Good.” I glanced back toward Quentin, and saw that he was starting to relax again. “Can I help you with something?”
“Mother says you are going to assist us.”
“We’re going to try.”
“Mother says you are here about the disconnection of the residents of this network.”
Silence was becoming a major punctuation in this conversation. I looked to Quentin, who shook his head and spread his hands to show that he hadn’t understood it either. “What?”
“The ones that have gone off- line. You will determine what has caused them to remain isolated from the network.”
Oh. She was talking about the murders. “Yes. We’re going to find out why people are being killed.”
She frowned, looking puzzled. Then the expression faded, and she asked, “Why?”
I shrugged. “Somebody has to.”
“That makes no sense,” she said, frowning again.
“I rarely do. It’s one of my best traits.”
Quentin snorted, trying not to laugh.
“Gordan does not trust you,” April said.
“I knew that, actually.”
“Mother trusts you.” She shook her head. “I still do not know whether I trust you.”
“I’m glad you can be honest about that,” I said. She was starting to unnerve me. There were too many little inconsistencies in the way she behaved and the way she was made, and it was getting harder to resist the urge to wave my hand through the space her body appeared to occupy just to find out whether or not she was there.
“Honesty is the only sensible option.”
Maybe for computer-powered Dryads, but the rest of Faerie seemed to be having a bit more of a problem with it. Slowly, I asked, “Why are you here?”
“Mother requested that I notify you if any company personnel exited the presence of their assigned partners.”
“And?”
“Gordan and Terrie have departed from one another’s company.”
Swell. “Message received. Where are they?”
“Gordan is located in her cubicle. Terrie is located in the cafeteria.”
“All right. Why don’t you go take care of whatever else you need to do, and I’ll see if I can explain to them why this isn’t okay, all right?”
April gave me a long, measuring look, expression alien as ever. It was like watching an anthropologist trying to figure out a foreign culture—and who knows? Maybe that’s what she was doing. “Understood,” she said finally, and vanished in a flicker of static and ozone.
“Right,” I said, eyeing the space where she’d been before turning to pull the keys out of my pocket and toss them to Quentin. He caught them without pausing to think; good reflexes.
He gave me a bewildered look. “What are you giving me these for?”
“I need to go knock some heads together. Repeatedly. I want you to lock yourself in.”
“Uh.” Quentin’s eyebrows rose, expression turning dubious. “Have you never seen a horror movie in your entire life? Splitting the party is never a good idea.”
“I got that. I also got the part where if I’m creeping around the knowe worrying about you, I’m even more likely to do something stupid. Stay put. Lock the door, and don’t let anyonein, even if they sound like me, unless they know the password.”
“April isn’t going to use the door.”
“I don’t really think April is particularly dangerous, unless you’re threatening her mom. Maybe you should see if you can get her to come back. Asking her some questions might be good for you.”
“Toby—”