“Look, I need to get out of here. There’s a meeting of the Bosnemeton tonight, and I have to do something before that.”
Her eyebrows went up and hid behind her bangs. “Do something?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Keeva’s got the building locked down tight, and I don’t want to be followed.”
“And you’re not going to tell me what it is?”
“Nope.” We had a playful staring contest involving lots of smirking and grinning. At last, Meryl sighed.
“Okay. I’ll show you a way. But I want details later.”
“Deal,” I said.
I stood as she got up from her desk. She started around it, then walked right through the wall of her office. Impressed, I stared at the illusion. The space between an overflowing credenza and an old filing cabinet looked like a perfectly normal wall. It took a lot of ability to maintain, even more when you had to contend with the amount of essence and warding in the Guildhouse. And I hadn’t sensed it there at all. Meryl was damned good at what she knew how to do.
“Coming?” Her voice sounded muffled coming through the illusion, as though she were calling out from a good distance.
I walked through the wall after her, feeling the spiderweb tingle of essence skim over my body as I went through it. Meryl waited on the other side with a small flashlight. We were in a narrow tunnel that looked much like the other subbasement hallways, only without the doors. Behind me, I could see Meryl’s office as clear as day.
“You’re full of surprises,” I said.
“Did you really think I’d have an office with only one door?” she asked. She turned and led the way along the tunnel. The light dimmed the farther we went from her office, and she turned on her flashlight. “I found this tunnel by accident one day. Took me a while to create the opening in the office, but it was worth it.”
I could feel warding along the walls. If I had to guess, I’d have said we were moving between Guildhouse storerooms, which were filled with all kinds of things that had essence to spare. As a chief archivist, Meryl kept it all in check, making sure nothing disappeared or reacted with something else or exploded. By the odd fluctuations in warding, I could tell there had to be more openings, but Meryl didn’t seem inclined to give a tour.
We reached the bottom of a flight of stairs. Meryl paused and held up her hand. After a few murmurs, a small ball of blue light no bigger than a glow bee danced up from her palm. Still murmuring, she tapped my forehead with her free hand, cupped both her hands together, then tossed the light ball. It swirled up into the darkness.
“There. I’ve opened the warding for you at the top. No one will see you leave.”
“You’re a marvel,” I said.
“I know. Just go straight up. Don’t let me catch you using this without me.”
“Thanks.” I kissed the top of her head and started up the stairs before she had a chance to hit me. I’ve given her the top-of-the-head peck before, and she hates it. Or seems to.
As I went higher I heard a low hum that slowly grew louder. The stone steps vibrated beneath my feet.
“Don’t get hit!” Meryl called up from the darkness.
I reached the top. Seeing nothing but blackness, I stepped forward into another warding. And almost got hit. A subway train hurtled past. I jumped back so fast, I almost fell back down the stairs. After surviving an attack by elves, it would be just my luck to get hit by a train. I could hear giggling down below. Shaking my head, I went through again and found myself on the tracks next to the Boylston Street T station platform. The train that that almost hit me was loading passengers. I ran a few feet along the track, slipped between a gap in some fencing, and jumped onto the nearest car before the doors closed.
I didn’t bother sitting since I needed to change lines at the next station. Down the aisle from me, a well-dressed older woman dozed in her seat, her purse clutched in her lap. She wore a large felt hat with a long pheasant feather. I could just make out the tops of two familiar pink wings coming up the other side of her. Joe peered at me from over her hat and put his finger to his lips. Hovering above her, he bent the feather down and tickled her nose with it. She shifted in her seat without opening her eyes. He did it again, and she waved her hand up. As the train screeched on the curve into Park Street station, he knocked the hat off and vanished. The woman startled awake, looked down at her hat, and glared at me. I tried to maintain an air of innocence, but she looked convinced I had something to do with it.
The train pulled into the station. I hurried down a flight of stairs to the Red Line. I used to take cabs everywhere. I used to have a car service at work when I wanted it. Now I take the subway and hope I don’t miss trains. It bothered me at first. But then I learned public transportation is what real people do. Only the fey thought they were too good for it. But sometimes I still missed the car service.
My next train came in, and this time I sat as close to the corner as possible. Right on cue, Joe appeared unobtrusively on the next seat, hiding between me and the wall of the car.
“That was naughty,” I said.
He shrugged and smiled. “It was an ugly hat.”
“I guess you do have a point.”
He stretched out on the seat. “I heard you were attacked. Elves really don’t like you, do they?”
“A lot of people don’t.”
He chuckled. “I have a message from Callin.”
“I was hoping that’s why you were here.” Even though it had been only yesterday since I had called Callin about C-Note, the connections between C-Note and Kruge had become more firm. I really wanted to meet the troll.
He jabbed me with his toe. “Hey, I don’t have to run messages, ya know. I’m not a glow bee.”
“Sorry. I’ve had a long day already. What does Cal have to say?”
“He said C-Note works out of a club in the Tangle called Carnage. Cal said they’re moving a large amount of some drug called Float tonight, so C-Note will probably be there.”
I frowned. “And why does Cal know something like that?”
Stinkwort rolled his eyes. “You guys aren’t happy unless you’re suspicious of each other, are you? Did you ever stop to think maybe he doesn’t like your friends either?”
“Does he like you?”
Stinkwort gave me his ear-to-ear smile. “Everybody likes Joe!”
I laughed as the train pulled into South Station. Joe winked out before anyone saw him. I rode the escalator, an old wooden one with slats angled down that gave just enough traction to keep you from falling onto the person behind you, up to the street.
Light was already fading as I walked along Summer Street. Joe reappeared when I made the bridge, far enough away from downtown so that people wouldn’t gawk at a flit, close enough to the Weird where he might be ignored. I could see a Guild security squad flying an open surveillance pattern above the Northern Avenue bridge.
“Feel like going for a walk?” I asked.
“Sure. Well, I’ll watch you walk,” he said as he fluttered along beside me at shoulder level.
“How do you always manage to find me, Joe? People had no idea where I was this afternoon, but you manage to show up in a subway car.”
He gave me a confused look. “I look for you.”
“No, I mean how do you look for me? How do you know where I am so you can show up?”
Joe pursed his lips. “I look for the nothing with the spot. You’re the only thing like that.”
“Thing?” I asked pointedly.
He laughed and twirled around again. “Everything is a thing. I look for the thing I want to know, and I find it and then I go. You used to have a flavor, but now you have nothing with a spot in it.”
“This is making my head hurt,” I said. If I ever needed to understand why people get so frustrated studying flits, this would be Exhibit One. Flits have an inability to clarify anything they think is self-explanatory.