The calm was gone. There was only tension.
Yet Green Eyes looked positively rosy with good cheer.
“Which place is this?” I asked. “It’s not the bridge. Not the woods, unless I got really turned around. Goblin shack?”
“No,” one of the satyrs said.
The scene came into view. I stared. “God dammit, why can’t it be simple?”
It was, in large part, an ordinary section of street. A dead end, with a house at the far side. The eclectic decoration around the house, which included a tarp-covered fountain and several rather elegant little statues standing in a snow-covered garden, pretty much told the entire story.
The Duchamps had gathered. They had spread out, occupying the end of the street. Several sat on car hoods and bumpers.
The Spellbinder, as it happened, was easy to pick out. He looked so ordinary, if a little stone-faced in expression, with drooping cheeks and larger ears betraying his age just a bit. His hair was parted to one side. I could have figured his identity by process of elimination, after stalking the Duchamps enough times tonight. I didn’t have to.
A diagram sat at the far end of the street. The simple, stark, straight-line-and-geometry diagrams were to this what printed writing was to cursive. Flowing lines, curving, like elaborate musical notes or calligraphy, all with a pattern in mind.
Which was fitting, given the Faerie in the center of the circle.
At least, I hoped it was a Faerie.
There were two girls in red-and-black checkered scarves. They were identical in appearance, but different in dress. Both had unruly curly hair that was only slightly more manageable because it was damp with snow, both had earmuffs, albeit with different styles. One knelt in the center of the circle, slumped over. The other stood between Sandra and Needledick the goblin king.
Each possibility worse than the other.
The entire group was arranged to protect the spellbinder.
Except he was no longer my focus.
“Mags,” I said.
The girl standing between Sandra and the goblin king shook her head slowly.
My eye flickered to the girl sitting slumped in the circle.
I thought of the story I’d heard of the spellbinder.
He’d bound his wife. Enslaved her mind, spirit, and body.
Mags?
The girl standing between Sandra and the goblin king shook her head. “No, Blake.”
“No?”
“That’s not Mags either. Well, unless he decides to call himself that. It’s not like the name belongs to one person in particular.”
I looked between the two girls.
The girl beside Sandra raised a hand, and pointed at the spellbinder. “He got the faerie for me.”
“You might consider it a gift,” Sandra said, “for goodwill. My family has long dealt with faeries, and Padraic is a bastard. I’m content I can smooth over any hurt feelings.”
“I’m Maggie again,” Maggie said. She smiled, but it wasn’t the smile that should have gone with the statement. She hugged her arms close to her body.
“The ambassador is supposed to be impartial,” I said. “You can’t side with them.”
“Mags is the ambassador,” Sandra said. “She doesn’t have the name, she doesn’t have the title, or the obligations. If she takes on any bad karma due to any lingering ties to the title, that will be dissolved when I become lord and do away with the job. Maggie, of course, will be free to go. No consequences.”
“It’s almost everything I wanted,” Maggie said.
“And your family?” I asked.
Maggie hugged herself a little more. “Like I said. Almost everything I wanted.”
I nodded slowly. “I was assuming you were talking about this, us. Will I be the second Thorburn you kill?”
“Harsh,” Maggie said, her voice cracking a bit, as she dropped to a whisper. “You don’t hold back.”
There was a pause. The tolling of the bell continued in the background. I could only assume Molly was resting, or she’d be here.
“Screw this!” Evan piped up. “You were cool!”
“I’m still cool,” Maggie said. “Believe me.”
“Nuh uh!”
Needledick took a step forward. He drew a weapon, and laid the handle in Maggie’s hand. A trench club, not unlike a short baseball bat, with spikes at the tip, to lend it a bit more oomph.
Maggie gripped the weapon in both hands, the leather of her gloves squeaking against the handle. In this short dead end of a street lit only by two streetlamps, I could make out the tension at her jaw.
“Is this how this plays out?” I asked.
“You’ve had a good night,” Sandra said. “Picked off several of ours, striking out of the cold and the darkness, from several angles, disappearing from even our ability to see you. Winning over Jeremy was an especially good bit of luck on your part. There’s a lot to be said for momentum, and this was the best way I could decide on to break yours.”
“Well, it’s a good way to do something,” I said.
Maggie nodded.
“Once, I mused on how similar we were,” I said. “We might have even talked about it. Do you remember?”
“You’ll have to be more specific,” she said, staring down at the weapon.
“We both want the hell out of this town. I think it stems from the same desire. We want to be free, and this place sucks.”
She reached up and grabbed the fabric of her shirt, right over her heart. “Believe me, I wouldn’t have done this if I didn’t want to be free of this place for good.”
“The key difference, though,” I said, “Is that you wrap yourself up in more bondage to get free, while I… lose myself, I guess.”
“Bondage?”
“You’re their puppet, doing what they say. Doing things the way they want you do to them.”
“Yeah. I am,” she said. She couldn’t make eye contact.
“Part of my success tonight is due to the fact that I’ve started to play my role a little better. I’ve defined who I want to be and why, and I’m following that path. Can you say the same? Is this who you want to be? Or are you their pawn, again?”
She stared down at the weapon.
“Moving speech,” Sandra commented. “But a deal’s a deal. She already agreed to our terms.”
“A benefit of changing identities,” Maggie said, “Is that you get to leave consequences behind.”
She straightened, and looked me in the eye. She turned on Sandra, backing away, moving in our direction.
“Yes!” Evan said.
“Breaking a deal makes for bad karma,” Sandra said. “Doing it when you’re in a precarious position-”
“Drat you,” Maggie said.
She swung the club.
The ground and air shimmered, tremoring, and many of the Duchamps stumbled backward.
“Yes!” Evan cheered.
She’d avoided attacking in the direction of the circle.
“Get back,” Sandra said. “Use the circle for cover. She won’t-”
“I might,” Maggie said. “Take it from me, Sandra, you do not want to get on his bad side. I know.”