I didn’t want to leave him alone. I didn’t want anyone to be alone in this death trap of a company. And yet, somehow, I couldn’t deny him the right to grieve. “Sure,” I said.
Elliot nodded once. “I’ll meet you there.” He turned to exit the office, shoulders bowed. We watched him go, silent. What was there for us to say? I couldn’t promise justice. If there’d been justice in the world, I could have given him Yui back. As it was, all I could do was try to avenge her.
He was barely past the doorway when April appeared, her arrival sending the smell of ozone and electrical fire washing over the office. Elliot stopped, turning back to face her, but her attention was focused on me.
“Are you available to receive a message?”
I blinked. “What?”
“Are you available to receive a message?” she repeated, tone exactly the same.
“That means you’re being paged,” said Elliot. “Yes, April, we’re available.”
“There is a visitor at the front gate.”
I glanced to Quentin. “Sounds like your ride’s here. April, who is it?”
“Identity presented as Connor O’Dell. Purpose presented as ‘beat Toby’s ass until she agrees to get the hell out of this death trap.’ ” April’s neutral expression didn’t flicker. “He is currently held at the front gate. Shall I permit him to enter?”
“Please. Quentin, come on.” I grinned, unabashedly relieved. “We’re getting you out of here.”
EIGHTEEN
“WHAT MADE YOU THINK you should come without a car?” I stared at Connor, aghast.
He shrugged, spreading his hands in apology. “I thought you’d let us take yours.”
“Ignoring the part where you just assumed you could commandeer my only means of transport, is there a reasonyou didn’t ask the cab to wait until you’d checked with me?”
Connor shrugged again, looking helpless. “I didn’t think you’d let me in if I had a mortal cabbie with me.”
“He’s right,” Jan said, looking between us. “We wouldn’t have.”
I rolled my eyes heavenward. “Great. Just great.”
Connor’s arrival had triggered an impromptu assembly in the cafeteria; after notifying us of his arrival, April had gone off to tell her mother, who had, quite naturally, summoned Gordan. Recent events meant that it wasn’t a good idea for nonresidents to walk around without an introduction. Only Terrie and Alex had failed to show up, which Jan attributed to the coming end of Terrie’s shift. Quentin looked unaccountably disappointed by Terrie’s absence. I might have been upset over missing Alex, but Connor’s announcement that he’d been planning to take my car had quashed that emotion, covering it with irritation.
“I couldn’t have known that you were planning to blow up your car!” Connor protested.
“I wasn’t planningto blow up my car! It just happened!”
Connor blinked at me. I blinked at Connor. Then, almost in unison, we started laughing. The absurdity of it all was too much. People were dying, Quentin’s ride came without a car, I was exhausted and preparing to summon the night-haunts . . . my choices were “laugh” and “cry.” Laughter seemed healthier.
Jan and Elliot exchanged a look before she cleared her throat and asked, “Should I be concerned by all this? Because if you’re going to have hysterics, I’m going to scream.”
“I think this is normal,” said Quentin, uneasily. “I mean. They’re always like this.”
“Shadowed Hills must be a fascinating place,” said Elliot.
Quentin sighed deeply. “You have no idea.”
I wiped the tears from my eyes, getting myself back under control. “I’m fine. Honest. Connor’s a moron—”
“Hey!”
“—but I’m fine.” I dug my wallet out of my pants pocket, flipping through it until I found Danny’s business card. “Well, you can’t take my car, since it’s sort of ashes right now, but we can call for a nonmortal cabbie. It’ll just take him a little while to get here.” I smiled, rather sharply. “You can tell Sylvester why we had to put a round trip from San Francisco on his tab.”
“Doesn’t anyone here have a car that I can borrow?”
“I rode my bike,” said Jan, apologetically.
“I need my car,” said Elliot. “I’ve been asked to raid the local florists, and that’s difficult to do on the bus.”
Connor blinked. “Raid the local florists for what?”
“I’ll explain later,” I said.
“Toby’s summoning the night-haunts,” said Quentin.
“. . . or not,” I said, as Gordan and Connor exclaimed, in unison, “What?!”
“You can’t be serious.” Connor looked alarmed as he stepped toward me, raising one hand to brush the bandages on my cheek. “You’re already hurt. What if they go for you?”
“The Luidaeg gave me a ritual to keep them from hurting me.”
“This is supposed to calm me down because . . . ?” he asked. “She’s ancient and oh, right, crazy. She’s going to get you killed.”
I reached up, catching his hand and holding it firmly. “I trust her. It’ll be fine.”
I’m a good liar—I’ve had years of practice—and I’ve been lying to Connor longer than I’ve been lying to almost anyone else. He searched my face for a moment, and was apparently reassured by what he found there, because he squeezed my fingers, raising our joined hands to rest his knuckles very lightly against my cheek.
“You look like shit, Daye.”
“You don’t look so good yourself.” I was lying again, but at least this time I didn’t feel bad about it. Connor O’Dell is capable of a lot of things. Looking “not so good” isn’t one of them.
He was tall, lean, and still managed to be fairly compact; if Alex was the magazine cover-model version of the California surfer, Connor was the real thing, right down to the calluses on his hands and the cut of his hair—long enough to be attractive, short enough that the waves wouldn’t plaster it down over his drowningly dark Selkie eyes.
“Yeah, well. When His Grace decides to ship me off to Fremont at a moment’s notice, I get a little worried.” He held my hand where it was for a moment more before releasing it and turning to offer Jan a wry smile. “It’s good to see that she doesn’t just cause collateral damage at home.”
“It’s been educational,” Jan agreed, holding out her hand. “Toby, you want me to call that guy for you?”
“Please.” I passed her Danny’s card. “Tell him it’s for me, and he’ll come. I mean, he’ll bill through the nose once he realizes I’m not going to be the one in the cab, but that’s why Sylvester has a bank account, right?”
Jan grinned. “Right.”
“If you’ll all excuse me, I’d like to get started on those errands,” said Elliot. “The sun should be up any moment now, which will herald the opening of the flower shops. Gordan, would you mind accompanying me?”
For a moment, Gordan looked like she was looking for an excuse to refuse. Then she shrugged, scowling, and said, “Better than hanging around this mortuary.”
“April will stay with me,” Jan said. “That way, I can get some work done, but I won’t be alone. Fair?”
“Fair,” I allowed. “If you see Terrie or Alex, tell them we’re setting up base here in the cafeteria. We’ll just get my things from Colin’s office.” I didn’t want to try cramming Connor, Quentin, and myself into the relatively small office for any length of time; someone would wind up with a bloody nose. Since it would take Danny at least half an hour to get to us, we needed to move to a bigger space.
“Got it,” said Jan, giving me a small half-salute. And with that, we scattered.
For once, I was awake at dawn and didn’t really mind that much. The sun came up when we were halfway down the hall, and Quentin, Connor, and I stopped where we were, leaning on each other’s arms until the moment passed and we were able to breathe again. Connor grinned goofily, taking a little longer than was necessary to let go of me as he straightened.