Opening the front door of the Liaison’s Office, Monty nodded to Nathan, who watched him but didn’t challenge.
“Lieutenant.” Meg came out of the sorting room and stood at the counter. “You just caught me. I was about to close up for the midday break.”
“Could you give me a couple of minutes before you go?” he asked.
“Of course.” Meg opened the go-through so that Monty could join her in the sorting room. She closed the Private door partway—the most privacy a human male could have around Meg.
“There’s something I need to know,” Monty said. He raised a hand as if she’d reached for her silver razor. “It’s not crucial enough to ask for a cut. I had hoped the cards might provide some guidance.”
Meg studied him, and he studied her. He saw her desire to grab at the excuse to make a cut, to feel the euphoria that came from speaking prophecy. He saw her struggle with the knowledge of how Simon Wolfgard and her friends, both terra indigene and human, would react to her making a cut when she’d managed to hold her addiction at bay for several weeks.
“I could try the cards,” Meg finally said. She opened a drawer and removed a carved wooden box. She opened the box, removed the stacks of cards, and spread them over the sorting table. Then she placed her hands just above the cards. “What is your question?”
“What will happen if Cyrus James Montgomery, aka Jimmy, comes to Lakeside? Speak, prophet, and I will listen.” He wasn’t sure if those words were needed when Meg used the cards, but it was part of the ritual of prophecy when she used the razor, so he said the words.
Meg closed her eyes. Monty waited. Then her hands moved as if she was searching for something by touch. She chose one card, but she frowned and her right hand kept moving over the cards scattered on the table. Finally she chose a second card and sighed, as if freed from a discomfort.
Meg turned the cards over so they could see the answer.
The first card showed an explosion. The second card was a hooded figure holding a scythe.
“I drew that card yesterday.” Meg pointed to the explosion. “I asked a question about Lakeside, and that was the action card.”
Monty had learned enough about how Meg used the prophecy cards to know she usually selected one card for a simple answer to a question and three cards for a complex answer requiring subject, action, and result. He suspected drawing two cards was unusual. “When you selected the cards yesterday, what was the subject card that preceded the explosion?”
“A travel card—train/bus/car. The action card was the explosion.”
“And the result?”
“Future undecided.” She looked troubled.
Monty felt equally troubled. “Thank you, Meg.”
“Miss Twyla came by this morning. She mentioned him too. Cyrus James. She said I should stay away from him because of what I am.”
“Unfortunately, that’s true. Jimmy would try to use your . . . talent . . . for his own benefit. If you obliged him even once, the next thing you know he would be bringing friends around and pressuring you into reading the cards for them—or making a cut if the cards weren’t providing a satisfactory answer.”
Meg looked alarmed. “Bringing strangers into the Courtyard would be dangerous and cause trouble.”
“Yes, it would.” Jimmy had a knack for starting something, squeezing what he could from it, and then walking away just before things went sour and escalated into real trouble. Starting something that involved Meg wouldn’t be trouble; it would be lethal.
Meg put the cards back into the box, forming stacks that fit the space but not trying to put the decks together. “I’d better close up. I’m meeting Simon for lunch.”
Monty waited for her to lock up, then walked with her to the back door of A Little Bite. Simon wasn’t there yet, and Monty felt relieved. He wasn’t ready to have a chat with Wolfgard yet.
First he would talk to Kowalski and Debany, would be honest with them about the potential damage his brother could do if—or when—Jimmy arrived in Lakeside. Then he would talk to Captain Burke and Agent O’Sullivan, would tell them about the cards Meg had drawn in answer to his question. And finally he would talk to Simon about the brother who obeyed the law only when it suited him. Of course, human law didn’t apply in the Courtyard, and Monty already knew the hard choice he would make—would have to make—if the Wolves went after Jimmy.
To: Tolya Sanguinati, Urgent
Officer Debany is concerned because Barbara Ellen is moving into a house with a male named Buddy. Do you know him? Is he a suitable mate for her? Please reply as soon as possible.
—Vlad
To: Vladimir Sanguinati, Urgent
Buddy is a suitable roommate for Barbara Ellen, but he is not a suitable mate. Buddy is a parakeet.
—Tolya
Dear Meg,
These are sketches of my friend Amy Wolfgard. Whenever I’m outside drawing, she tries to steal my pencils. I thought she was going to chew on them, like Wolves chew on twigs to clean their teeth. Then, just this week, she shifted to (mostly) human form, and I discovered she’d been trying to indicate her interest in what I was doing. She wants to draw too, and trying to take a pencil was her request for me to play, to share. I want to show her how to draw, but I don’t know how. I can’t explain what I’m doing or how she can do the same thing. No one taught me; I just hold a pencil and things get drawn on the paper.
Grace Wolfgard went down to the Intuit village here at Sweetwater to see if their little bookstore had any books about how to draw, but they didn’t. Jackson and some Intuit men even went farther down the road to Endurance, the human town. What’s left of the human town.
Where do the people who survived the Elders go if they want to leave the place where they live now? Jackson said the people in Endurance were fools for packing up their cars and sneaking off in the middle of the night. He said they should have left at dawn and traveled during the daylight hours because all the humans had been warned that there is no safety in the dark. But some of the people didn’t listen, and now the Ravens and Eagles are flying over the roads and telling the Wolves and Intuits where to find the cars—and what’s left of the bodies.
The people who remained in the town are going to stay. They told Jackson and some of the Intuits that this was never a kind place to humans, but they would endure as their ancestors endured. That’s what I overheard Jackson tell Grace.
Nothing feels different in the terra indigene settlement. Well, Jackson and Grace have decided all the youngsters should have some book learning. They’ve hired an Intuit teacher to come up to the settlement to teach everyone who wants to learn how to read and write and do sums. So every morning, the Wolves haul a rolling blackboard to a shady spot, and youngsters from all the gards—Eagles, Ravens, Hawks, Wolves, even one of the Panthers—gather to listen to the teacher. Most don’t shift to a human form; I don’t think most of them have ever tried. But we all listen. Grace said that even if this is simple for me and something I learned before, I need to pay attention because I need to set an example for the rest of the youngsters about how to behave during school. I think I’m doing a good job most of the time, but sometimes when I’m listening to the teacher I slide to a different place where I still hear her voice but it’s far away. And then I blink and there’s a drawing filling a page of my notebook and everyone is watching me, including the teacher. But no one says anything. No one threatens to cut off my fingers like they did when we lived in the compound. Jackson just comes over to where we’re having class and removes the drawing from my notebook, and the teacher starts talking again.