Adonis’ face twisted into something like a child’s smile; its eyes grew bright and happy.
“Good. Let’s pack. We have a lot to do.”
Joseph looked up into the eyes of the man he held over his head. Whiskers Okerry, his face twisted with pain and effort. Above him, ceiling beams burned and gray-and-white flame licked off in search of more victims. All Joseph had to do was hold Okerry a little higher and the man, too, would begin burning.
He didn’t. It didn’t matter that he didn’t want to. He hadn’t been told to.
He exerted himself and heard the meaty crack of the man’s back. Okerry’s eyes widened. From pain, from realization that nothing he could ever do would fix what had just been broken, Joseph didn’t know.
Almost tenderly, Joseph set him in the room’s one corner that fire had not yet touched.
Speak, he told himself. Tell him you would rather be dead than do this. Speak. The words welled up in him. But he could not utter them, could not give them to the dying man as one last comfort.
Duncan wouldn’t let him.
The words got bigger within him.
Speak.
Scream.
Joseph thrashed and heard himself shout. In the first moments of wakefulness, he felt his legs somehow hampered by cloth, felt his foot hit the footboard of his bed. Wood cracked and fell to the floor with a bang; the end of his bed collapsed.
He sighed. He’d kicked the footboard off again. He opened his eyes. A little light lurked behind his bedroom curtains.
He should be sweating, the way real men did.
“Joseph.” A woman’s voice from the other room.
Not alarmed—what could hurt him?—he rose and, naked, walked into the front room. Before he even faced it, he could see the glow shining from the screen of his talk-box.
It had been off when he went to bed last night. He moved to stand in front of it.
A woman stared back at him from the screen. She was beautiful, solemn. He could not determine the color of the dress she wore; even if his were not a gray-shade talk-box, his eyes did not offer him the range of colors that human eyes did.
She did not react to his nakedness. “Joseph,” she said, “Duncan Blackletter is looking for you.”
“He’s dead,” he said.
“No. He’s just been living on the grim world.”
He knew it was the truth. The gods did not love him enough for Duncan Blackletter to be dead. “Who are you?”
She hesitated. “My name is Gabrielle.”
“Leave me alone.” He turned off the set, and she faded to a tiny white dot.
Harris, still blinking sleep from his eyes, walked into the laboratory with the new box in his hand.
Doc, Alastair, and Gaby sat on bar stools at one of the tables. Gaby was wearing a belted knee-length dress in dark green, obviously one of the fair world styles, and black pumps. Doc looked like his former self, with weariness in his eyes and darkness under them the only visible signs of what he’d gone through. Seeing Harris, Doc smiled and smacked his hand on the tabletop. “It works.”
Harris looked at him, confused, and waved the box, a black metal thing about the size of a VCR tape. “I found this on my bed when I woke up. The note said to turn on the switch and come to the lab.”
“My note,” Doc admitted. “And my box. Yours, now.”
Harris moved over to join them. The table, he saw, was piled with food—more of the meat-filled pastries, a big platter of cold cuts and bread.
Alastair waved a hand over the mass: “Care for anything?”
“My stomach isn’t awake yet. God, I must have slept almost a whole day. I’ll take some of that chocolate drink if you’ve got it.” Harris took an unoccupied stool. “So what’s the box?”
Doc gestured at the volt-meter on the table before him. “I rekeyed this to show you, as it did the first night. But it doesn’t. Not while you carry that box. It’s something I’ve made to conceal your presence.”
“Great.” Harris slipped the box in his jacket pocket. “You whipped this up just today?”
“During the night.”
“Should you even be out of bed?” Harris peered at Doc’s hands, but they were back to normal. Doc obligingly turned them over so he could see both sides.
Alastair paused with a silver container filled with milk poised over Harris’ chocolate. “He should not. He’s still dragging his feet out of his grave.”
“That’s what I thought. I’ll take it black, thanks.”
Alastair blinked. “But you asked for milk.”
“I did?”
Gaby looked amused. “I’ve already been through this once today. The nasty chocolate stuff is called ‘xioc.’ So when you put milk in it, it’s ‘xioc au lait.’ Get it?”
“I’ll take your word for it.” Harris took up the mug and sipped, winced once more at the drink’s harshness. “I’ve changed my mind. I’ll take the milk.” He turned back to Doc. “Does this mean that Duncan Blackletter’s people can’t find me now?”
“I think so . . . at least, not by using a device like this. Now I need to make another one for Gabriela. Unlike you, she registers on both settings. Her Tallysin Aura has elements like yours, an outsider’s, and elements like one of the Gifted.”
“Meaning they get to track me down on both worlds,” Gaby mock-grumbled. “Between that and the fact that they tell me they don’t have any blue jeans on the fair world, I’m getting pretty annoyed.”
Harris smiled. “You loved this place yesterday. You fall out of love fast.”
The words were out of him before he realized what he was saying. He saw her expression of hurt surprise. He suppressed a wince and waited for the moment to pass. “So, what’s on the schedule for today?”
“Tests,” Doc said. “We know Gaby is Gifted. We know she must be tied up with Gabrielle somehow. But she says she’s never manifested any sign of the Gift. We have to find out what that means.”
“You going to put her in the big glass tube and fire lightning into her brain?”
Gaby’s eyes got big.
Doc nodded, oblivious. “Yes, the Firbolg Valence is first on the itinerary. And you? What would you like to do?”
“I don’t know. Do you know where I can find a weight room?”
“A what?”
“A gymnasium, maybe?”
“Ah. Down three, next to the gun practice range. Private, for the use of Foundation associates; use the Foundation elevator.”
“Doc, is there anything this building doesn’t have?”
“I don’t think so. Suggest something. I’ll have it put in.”
The gymnasium had a wooden parquet floor that hadn’t seen a lot of use. Only one of the banks of lights against the high ceiling was on; this gave the place an air of emptiness and gloom, like the sports arena of a losing team after the crowds had gone.
Most of the way through his warm-up stretches, Harris lowered himself into a front split, right leg forward, left leg back as straight as he could manage—which wasn’t as straight as he’d like. He used to be a little more limber. He held the pose, then bent to touch his forehead to his knee in spite of the protest from offended muscle groups. He reversed his pose, bringing the left leg forward.
The chamber’s dim atmosphere was fine with Harris. He’d always liked prowling around where he wasn’t supposed to be, and being here felt like that. It was a habit that had gotten him in trouble with school officials and police a couple of times when he was younger.