As I approached the first bright square, Jacks shifted, moving away like he didn’t want me too near, but never fully turning my way. Attention still on him, I glanced out the first small, shining pane to see what he was studying. It was obviously another room, though fogged, with dull shapes weaving in and out of the wispy layers. None drew close enough to identify, and though obviously human, the movement reminded me of fish in an aquarium. Odd, I thought, as the shimmering landscape rippled, gray where it was nearest, melting into opacity farther away.
I moved to the next window, thinking maybe this was why he was here. Maybe there was something else he was searching for…plus, it had the added benefit of bringing me closer to him. But I halted when I discovered this was a different scene entirely. A bustling cityscape I didn’t recognize until I spotted the triangular, Art Deco building looming across from me. There was only one early-century building like that and it was in Manhattan. The stairwell I was peering from was obviously a subway station, and a steady stream of people barreled by in a full-throttle thrust before disappearing underground.
The next window, still closer to Jacks, offered up a half view of an ornate mosque, and in the following one I immediately recognized Buckingham Palace, the guards immobile like human statues. I had no cultural moorings on which to plant myself for the one after that, except to know that the concave tiles and dramatic, sweeping eaves meant it was somewhere in Asia. But if those exotic sights perplexed me, I was absolutely astonished by what I saw next, though not because it was unfamiliar.
This, I thought with a gaping mouth, was a cityscape I recognized all too well. As if through the lens of a periscope, I found myself peering out on the faux settings of New York, Monte Carlo, and a make-believe castle. It was unmistakably Vegas.
“The pipeline,” I whispered, making out the spot where I’d entered minutes before. I leaned heavily against the wall, my thoughts of Jacks momentarily diverted. What were these things? Pipelines from around the world? “Oh my God.”
I’d been right. Midheaven was a way around the restriction about leaving the Las Vegas valley once we were full-fledged troop members. This, I was suddenly certain, was what Warren had been keeping from us. This was what the Shadow agents, and Jacks, had long known. This was why there were so many lanterns spaced along the wall below.
Which explained the varied agents in the Rest House, the full bloom of women behind lacquered doors, their differing races and colors and backgrounds…yet other questions bloomed in their place. What was at the other end of each pipeline? A candle, as it was for me? And while the Old West was appropriate for Vegas, it didn’t hold for Asia or London. So was it hypothetically possible for me to get to London this way? To China?
Jacks had taken the opportunity of my distraction to place himself between the exit and me, and he smiled when I glanced sharply at him. We began to circle one another in that way, each keeping our back to the wall.
“Pretty from a distance, huh?” he said, jerking his head toward the Vegas window.
“Pretty from up close,” I corrected.
“You think?” He pursed his lips in disagreement. “I’ve always thought it looks like an old lady who went to bed without taking off her makeup. A bit sad, and in need of a good scrubbing.”
I tilted my head, continued my careful sidestep. “That why you came here? Take a little vacation from it all, play some poker…strip away part of your soul?”
I was looking for a reaction…but all I got was an admission.
“All but the last part,” he said coldly.
My heart rate snapped to attention as I stared, but I tried to play it cool, though it was taking all of my formidable acting abilities to stand in the same room as him and not swing. “She’s making you wait,” I said, like I wasn’t thinking of planting a boot-or a grenade-in his chest.
“It’s what women do.” The shrug was in his voice. He was looking at me, waiting for her, and standing in a world where he was a second-class citizen, yet he didn’t look a bit concerned. He’d killed at least two mortals so he could bounce between worlds, and it weighed upon him like cigarette ash. I inhaled, expecting to find a deadened rot, similar to a Shadow’s, but the scent emanating from his giant body was green, like money or opportunity, and so round on the air it was almost three-dimensional.
Not like the men downstairs, I thought, breathing in deeply again. Scent appeared to be attached to energy here; maybe the others had bartered away too much of both, and what was left had been watered down into an imitation of its former odor. This man’s blood was rich, like elixir, and it didn’t seem fair. It was also probably vain of me to wonder in that moment what exactly I smelled like, and if it was this heady and dizzying too.
But Jacks was here to see Solange. Beautiful, dangerous Solange, who had knowledge of the stars, who smelled sweet and frosty like ice wine, and who was also of our world.
Which reminded me. “I have a question for you.”
He began to smile, already knowing I was going to ask how to fix the changeling. Everyone in my world knew what was happening there. “And you’ll give what for the answer?”
“Your life,” I answered coolly.
He laughed, but I couldn’t tell if it was because or in spite of the threat. “And if I want yours in exchange?”
I thought of the sky falling over Vegas.
Skamar’s desperate plea for power.
An unstoppable infection festering on Li’s ravaged baby face.
It wasn’t an entirely unreasonable request.
I swallowed hard.
Jacks began circling again, and this time I stood my ground. He folded his arms when he drew to a stop in front of me, so close his body heat lapped at my skin. His rich eyes had darkened in the depths of the dim room and now resembled dry sap, with life still caught within. “Here’s what we’ll do,” he said, voice so low only the rumble escaped his throat. “We’ll trade answers for answers. But I get to ask as many questions as I want. You only get the one.”
I opened my mouth to agree, but hesitated again. What if Jacks returned to Vegas and used whatever information I’d given him against my troop? What if he asked who I really was, and my Olivia Archer cover was blown? What if he returned and told the Tulpa everything Regan was still holding close to her shredded chest?
What if I went back with nothing and the sky fell, and Li Chan died at the age of eight?
I leaned against the London window, where it was-surprise-raining. “A dance for information, then?”
“A tango,” he replied with a twist of his lips, “for things we can use to harm one another later.”
“How dysfunctional,” I remarked lightly.
“Most relationships are.” Another light sparked in his beautiful eyes. “Note, I saved you the trouble of falling in love with me first.”
“Only because you know the separation will be a bitch.” I gave him a broad smile. “Did you have an actual question?”
He cocked his head to the left. “I’d like to know what you think you’re fighting for?”
I drew back before I could stop myself. “What kind of question is that?”
His grin was an unnecessary reminder of our agreement. “One that will tell me what you risked to get here.”
It was clever. Big guy. Body like a weapon. Yet Jacks already knew, as I was learning, that not every battle was fought with bow-and-arrow, or fists. “You should be able to guess at that if you’ve done your homework. I mean, don’t you know who I am?”
“You sure that’s the question you want to ask?”
“No,” I said immediately, retracting it.