“Pony Barn,” Jester said.
“It’s Simon. If you wanted to keep a bag of jewels away from bad humans but didn’t want them to know you kept the jewels, what would you do?”
“Go to Sparkles and Junk and replace the jewels with sparklies that are about the same size and color,” Jester replied promptly. “Of course, if I was planning to give the real jewels back to someone in the future, I wouldn’t leave them with the Crows.”
Good point. “Thanks, Jester.” Simon ended the call and looked at Burke. “Maybe, after the Lizzy is asleep, someone could drive Boo Bear to the Courtyard to visit his kin. And maybe that someone could pick him up again before the Lizzy is awake.”
“Maybe someone could,” Burke said, smiling. He stepped away from the minivan. “Thanks for all your help.”
As soon as Simon got in and closed the door, Blair backed the minivan out of the driveway and drove back to the Courtyard.
He’d had enough, and all Simon wanted now was to get out of this skin. But as they pulled into the Courtyard’s Main Street entrance, Meg rushed out of the Liaison’s Office.
“Is Nathan with you?” she asked, sounding breathless. “I haven’t been able to find him anywhere.”
“He’s in the back,” Blair said.
“Can I talk to him?”
Simon turned enough to look in the back of the van. <Nathan? Up to you.>
Nathan sighed, but he stood up. <You have to open the door and move the boxes.>
Simon made room for the Wolf to hop out of the minivan. He watched Meg go back into the office with Nathan. Then he sighed, closed the doors, and said to Blair, “I’ll meet you at A Little Bite.”
He walked down the access way and over to the coffee shop’s back door, resigned to being human a while longer. He might as well check in with Vlad after talking to Tess.
There were plenty of things he still needed to do before going home. So no one would think he was waiting around to find out why Meg wanted to talk to Nathan.
Meg let Nathan out the back door of the Liaison’s Office and watched him hustle over to the back door of Howling Good Reads.
Reporting to Simon, naturally.
After closing the door, she went into the bathroom to wash her face.
Anger. Wariness. Distrust. She didn’t have any training images to identify emotions on a Wolf’s face, but she spent enough time around Nathan that she could interpret his expressions.
Had the cut been unnecessary? Everyone else thought so.
Meg turned on the taps, splashed water on her face, then remained bent over the sink.
The pins-and-needles feeling was irritating, often painful. But it was a kind of dowsing rod that had been evolving since she’d come to the Courtyard. So maybe if she had walked away . . .
No. No, no, no. There had been danger for someone at the Pony Barn. That painful buzz had been a warning about an enemy. . . .
Meg clenched her teeth against the sudden buzz that filled both her arms. She jerked upright and saw her face in the mirror above the sink.
The buzz faded.
Meg stared at her reflection.
“It was me,” she whispered. “I was the enemy.”
She took a step back from the sink, laid a hand over the bandage at her waist, and thought about what Merri Lee had said: And then Meg, the Trailblazer, should think about what you would want other blood prophets to learn from what happened today.
“No one else has the right to decide if or when we cut our skin, but if we don’t learn to interpret the warning signs that tell us if we really need to cut, we can become the enslavers as well as the enslaved. We can become our own enemy.”
That was the second lesson Meg, the Trailblazer, had learned today. The first lesson—the harder, more important lesson—was that she wasn’t the only one who was hurt when she cut.
Simon came around the desk when Nathan appeared in HGR’s office doorway.
“That didn’t take long.”
Nathan approached him slowly, reluctantly. Not typical behavior for the enforcer—unless he’d done something wrong.
Simon leaned over the other Wolf, but he didn’t have to lean far to catch the scent. “Why do you smell like Meg?” he demanded.
<She cried on me,> Nathan said. <I couldn’t understand most of what she said, but she cried until my fur was wet.> He sounded baffled and upset.
“I guess she feels bad about making a cut and scaring you. Scaring all of us.”
Nathan said nothing for a moment. Then, <There’s nothing in my fur, is there?>
Simon gave the other Wolf a careful look. “No boogers.”
<Good. I hate washing boogers out of fur.>
“Who doesn’t? What comes out of human noses is disgusting.” Simon sat on the floor, his back against the desk. Nathan sat next to him. “Do you want Blair to assign someone else as the watch Wolf for the Human Liaison’s Office?”
<No. Watching the humans is interesting, and I like Meg. But we need rules about the razor. Today . . . That was wrong. Meg was wrong, and the Lizzy was wrong. It wasn’t fair that I couldn’t nip either one of them when they both deserved it.>
“I know.” Simon closed his eyes and waited until he sensed the tension draining out of both of them. “Do you still think it’s a good idea to have some of the Addirondak Wolves visit the Courtyard? We’ve got humans doing work for us who don’t know how to behave, but we can’t attack them and drive them off like we would an enemy.”
<If it hadn’t pushed Meg into cutting, the Lizzy’s mistake would have been annoying but nothing more. And our pups make mistakes too.>
Of course, who could say how long it might have been before anyone discovered the jewels inside Boo Bear if Skippy and Sam hadn’t pulled off an arm and a leg? That had started some of the trouble. Then again, Burke and Montgomery wouldn’t have known why the Lizzy was in danger if the jewels hadn’t been found.
Simon climbed to his feet. “Go home. Go run. Tomorrow is Earthday, and we’ll pretend humans don’t exist.”
<Except Meg.>
“Except Meg.”
Nathan rose, shook out his fur, and left.
Simon shut down the computer, turned off the lights, and felt like a weight had lifted off him as he walked out of Howling Good Reads. He couldn’t shake off everything human. He wouldn’t shake off Meg, who waited for him at the back door of the Liaison’s Office, her eyes all puffy and skin all blotchy.
He ran a hand over her short black hair and gave her a scritch behind the ear.
“Simon?” she said in a small voice. “Can we go home?”
“Sure. Let me get the BOW.”
He found one of the bakery boxes in the back of the BOW. Since he didn’t think Meg had eaten much today, he welcomed Tess’s thoughtfulness.
As he backed the BOW out of the garage and waited for Meg to shut the garage door, he glanced toward the efficiency apartments, then shook his head.
He’d had enough. They’d all had enough. The Owlgard would keep watch tonight, but for the rest of this day, Lieutenant Montgomery would have to take care of the Lizzy on his own.
CHAPTER 29
Watersday, Maius 12
While Monty had been at his apartment dealing with the break-in, and Ruth Stuart had been watching Lizzy, his team had brought a mattress from one of the other efficiency apartments so that he wouldn’t have to spend another night in a sleeping bag on the hard floor. They’d brought enough food for him and Lizzy for the next couple of days. And someone had selected five movies that he hoped would be suitable for a seven-year-old human girl.
Distractions. Diversions. Care.
Monty sat in the stuffed chair and put his arms around Lizzy when she settled on his lap.