Laura thought about Terryn’s unusual abruptness and anger at her debriefing. “I noticed. Is there anything I can do to help?”
Cress stared. “You know Terryn. He deals with things in his own way.”
The answer didn’t surprise her. Terryn held his emotions close—which was why his obvious level of annoyance at Sinclair surprised her. Cress was the same way, which ironically was what probably drew her and Terryn together. They were friends, but Laura never socialized with them outside the office except for an occasional dinner at their apartment. The dinners tended to be quiet and, frankly, dull. The three of them came together through work, and while they depended on each other more than most colleagues, they all maintained a personal distance that prevented a more intimate friendship
Cress compressed her lips. “Have you ever met Draigen?” she asked.
Laura shook her head. “We’ve never crossed paths.”
Cress toyed with her salad. “She’s rather . . . conservative.”
“Does she know about . . .” Laura was going to say “you” but realized it would be a little tacky. “. . . your relationship?”
Cress didn’t look up. “So Terryn tells me.”
The Inverni were a proud people and a many-times-defeated one. They tended to be suspicious of outsiders, and Cress was about as outside as a fey could get. “Are you worried about something, Cress?”
She pulled her hair back and held it there as she decided what to say. “I’m worried she’ll kill me.”
Laura struggled for something to say. “That’s ridiculous, Cress. Draigen macCullen is not going to kill you. You’re not only a leanansidhe. You’re a person. We know that. Everyone knows that.”
“Not everyone.”
Laura conceded that—to herself. Cress was right. It was hard to believe that a person whose nature demanded she murder others to survive was anything more than a monster. After all these years, Laura had a hard time putting the thought out of her head. But Cress had moved beyond her nature, figured out a way to control it and become a real person. “Have you talked to Terryn about this?”
She shook her head. “He’s worried enough about Draigen’s visit. I don’t want to add to his stress.”
Laura let out an uncomfortable laugh. Cress wasn’t joking, though. “Terryn wouldn’t let anything happen to you, Cress.”
Cress looked away. “He can’t be with me all the time.”
As regent, Draigen ruled the macCullen clan—and, by virtue of that, all the Inverni. The idea that she might put Cress in danger wasn’t far-fetched. Fairies could be vindictive. “Do you seriously think Draigen macCullen is going to kill you?”
She stared. And stared. “No. I think she may want to, but she won’t.”
Laura pointed at her. “Then you need to stop thinking about it. If you want the rest of the world to believe you’re not a danger, you need to stop thinking everyone believes it. You need to live your life, Cress.”
She drew her words out with resignation. “You’re right. Old habits die hard.”
Laura sipped of her iced tea while she considered what further to say. “If you want my advice, you and Terryn both need some time to yourselves and to stop worrying about what everyone else is going to do—including Draigen. I might not know her from a hole in the wall, but Terryn asked her to lead the Inverni because he knew she could handle it. And you have to remember this isn’t the sixth century. She’s not some warrior queen out to kill a ghostly demon.”
Cress bunched her shoulders as she made a decision. “I think Terryn and I need to have a long talk.”
Laura grinned. “Good. When you do, tell him if he doesn’t want my fragile ego shattered, he needs to knock off the cranky.”
Finally, Cress smiled an honest smile. “I’ve been trying to do that for years.”
CHAPTER 12
AS SHE DROVE over the Potomac after lunch, Laura tried to shake off the melancholy from the lunch with Cress. Try as she might, walking in Cress’s shoes was not easy to imagine. Laura had been in plenty of situations where she was either not liked or treated with suspicion. But those were for roles she played. At the end of the day, she went home knowing that whatever had happened had been directed against a glamoured persona. Someone who didn’t truly exist. Cress was real. Her emotions were real. Whatever her history, it was history. If the fey were going to move forward as a people, they had to let go of the deep past. Convergence had changed everything for them, giving them an opportunity to start over. If they didn’t learn anything from Convergence, they might well risk another disaster.
She had to shake it off, though. The afternoon was going to be her first foray into Legacy, and she had to remain focused on impersonating Fallon Moor. Instead of returning to the Guildhouse, she had swapped out the Mariel glamour for the newly created Moor. A short walk up the block to where InterSec had moved Moor’s car, and she was on her way to work, whatever that meant.
The Legacy Foundation occupied offices in a nondescript building in Crystal City, across the river from downtown D.C. Laura drove Moor’s car into the building’s underground garage and found the section of reserved parking spaces for Legacy. She killed the engine and made a fuss of fixing her hair in the rearview mirror. Watching security tapes of Moor tipped her to the nervous habit. Or vain one. She gathered a bulky purse onto her lap and rummaged through it for Moor’s keys and an ID card.
I’ve arrived, she sent to Terryn.
Reconnaissance only, please, unless a viable opportunity arises, he replied.
Despite the fact that Moor kept few files of interest at home, Terryn wanted Laura to keep a low profile the first day in the office, confirm Moor’s data sources, and investigate other avenues to explore. A hard insertion with little prep was risky, but despite Draigen’s imminent arrival, they did not want to blow her cover by moving too aggressively the first time out.
As she walked across the garage, she pictured Terryn working in the Guildhouse a few miles away. In the basement holding area, Moor remained in glass-lined enclosures to prevent her from doing sendings. Terryn waited outside her cell so he could relay Laura’s questions if necessary to Moor by intercom and send the responses back.
A whistled catcall echoed through the concrete space of the garage. At the far end, men loitered in a service area reserved for limos and black cars. They wore nonchalant smirks as they eyeballed her. With his height, Sinclair stood out from the others. He was smirking, too. She liked to think he was doing it to fit in, but it wouldn’t have surprised her if he was the one who’d whistled. Instead of scowling, she smiled self-consciously as she turned away, aware by now that Moor was more than a little vain.
As the elevator doors opened on the twelfth floor, Laura took a deep breath and proceeded down the hall. This moment always gave her a trickle of anxiety. A glamour she created from her own imagination was malleable, with a look, history, and personality able to change according to circumstances. A glamour based on a real person was tougher. She was going to meet people who knew Fallon Moor, and Fallon Moor moved in a high-stakes world. A false step could be deadly.
The hushed quiet of the offices was like other places she had worked—cold, sterile rooms decorated to look fashionable and comfortable but with a manufactured air. No true personality interfered. Over time, the blandness of certain places had become a first indication that something wasn’t right, that something other than the stated business at hand was going on. Secrets were about what was revealed as much as what was hidden. On an individual level, hiding one thing among many exposed ones was easy, but that didn’t work as well for a corporation. Better to hide everything than risk leaving a clue.