Chains and Memory (12 page)

I took a seat in one of the armchairs, as I usually did when we were in the living room instead of the basement. This time, though, Julian didn't take the chair next to it. Instead he settled on the floor at my feet, leaning back against my knees.

Marcus noticed it, and didn't try to hide his noticing. His eyebrows went up. My angle didn't allow me to see Julian's expression, but I guessed from his stillness and the tilt of his head that he was giving Marcus a level, unblinking look—the sort that asks,
Is there something you'd like to say?
Marcus shook his head, his own expression unreadable, and went to call Toby down.

I got to watch the pattern repeat with variations over the next fifteen minutes as people arrived. Guan came in, blinked in a way that was the highly-controlled wilder version of a double-take, and ensconced himself at one end of the couch. Toby clattered down the stairs, raised his eyebrows the way Marcus had, then sat next to Guan. Really
next
to him: in the middle of the couch, rather than at the far end, the way most people would have done. Their arms and knees were touching. The next wilder who showed up was Inola, who was the next best thing to a total stranger; she shrugged at the sight of me and took the remainder of the couch. Not just that, but she turned sideways, putting her back up against the arm and draping her legs over Toby's lap, feet resting against Guan's thigh.

They really
are
theatre people,
I thought, and suppressed a laugh. Which was easy: I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It didn't take long. Neeya came in, saw me—saw Julian at my feet—and stopped dead in the archway.

No matter how hard I listened, I didn't feel the subliminal tickle of a shielded telepathic conversation. The exchange between her and Julian operated on some other level entirely: the shared intuition of two people who had known each other since childhood, who didn't need words or even psychic powers to communicate. I realized I was holding my breath, and reminded myself to act normally.

Then Neeya jerked her chin, as if to say she didn't care, and flopped down in one of the empty chairs. I couldn't tell whether that was a statement or not. There wasn't room for her on the couch unless she actually sat
on
somebody, and attaching herself to me or Julian seemed like a bit much this early in the game. But she squeezed Marcus' hand in thanks when he brought her a glass of water, and I took that as a sign.

Julian, by the simple act of leaning against me, had issued a proclamation to the rest of the Fiain. And they were listening.

It was a start.

We had twelve people there by the time things got started. Toby and Marcus had a large screen in the corner, which hadn't been turned on at any point during my weeks of visiting. Now Marcus tapped at his port, sending a video feed up onto the screen. The image was of some news anchor standing in what the text at the bottom of the image identified as U.N. headquarters in Vancouver. Fortunately Marcus left the sound off, because it was clear nothing had happened yet; the man on the screen was just talking to fill time.

Much like the rest of us were doing. “It's going to be some kind of agreement,” Inola said. “If it were a declaration of war, we'd have seen the signs long before they made it official.”

That was the closest thing I'd heard to actual news about the sidhe since the president announced the creation of the planar injunction. My mother undoubtedly knew more—as a Ring Anchor, she
had
to—but her work involved classified material often enough that she was very good about keeping it to herself.

Come to that,
I
probably knew more than some of the people here. “Congress is still thrashing through the Otherworld Act,” I said. “I think they wanted to have it done before anything changed on the U.N. front, but, well. It's Congress.” The return of the sidhe had split open every division between the three parties, and even set factions within them at each other's throats. And nobody wanted a repeat of what had happened with the old Psychic Powers Act, back during First Manifestation—the so-called “Apocalypse Act.” That had been rushed through without even enough time for the senators and representatives to read what they were voting on. The results had been predictably bad.

“This will probably send some of the text back to the drawing board,” Toby said, and I couldn't argue with his prediction. It didn't take divinatory gifts to guess that whatever got said today would affect how the U.S. would deal with the sidhe going forward.

We continued to speculate, low voices betraying our unease. I was unspeakably glad that Julian and I had sorted out the touch issue last night. Having him leaning up against my shins kept distracting me in completely inappropriate ways; his head was
right there
, and I wanted to run my hands through his hair, or brush my fingers against his cheek. I kept having to tend my shields. But I was grateful for the reassurance of his warmth against my shins, because nervous tension made the rest of me cold. I leaned forward to put a hand on his shoulder, and he laid his own hand over mine.

He and I, of all the people in this room, knew exactly what the world was facing.

Movement on the screen. Marcus unmuted the feed. “— Security Council members,” the news anchor said. A number of men and women were filing out of the double doors, a heck of a lot more than the Security Council itself consisted of. Bodyguards, I supposed, and clerks, and—

Julian's hand tightened painfully on mine.

The sidhe were there.

Three of them, tall and silver-haired. The best efforts of the world's technomagicians had yet to invent a way to communicate anything other than sound and image over broadcast, so we were spared the effects of their presence, which made your average wilder feel completely mundane. But there were little zones of isolation around each of them, as everyone avoided contact.

As soon as I saw that, I saw something else, too.

More than three people on that platform were being given a wide berth.

I counted fifteen of them, scattered through the crowd. One accompanying each member of the Security Council. But the rest . . . they didn't look like sidhe. Or rather, not like the ones we'd dealt with last fall.

Their appearances varied wildly, sometimes paralleling the people they stood with, sometimes not. Skin shading all through brown to black, different colors of hair—but not of eyes. As the camera panned over the assembled dignitaries, I saw that no matter what else had changed, they still had eyes of emerald green . . .

Or gold.

“The Unseelie are there,” I whispered, staring in horror at the screen.

It shouldn't have been a surprise. It
wasn't
a surprise. There were two Courts of the sidhe; of course the U.N. would have to deal with both of them. Or whoever led them. You kept communicating with the other side, even when you were at war. And we weren't at war—yet.

But it felt like a betrayal, seeing them standing there in peace with the representatives of humanity.

“They don't all look like you described to us,” Neeya said.

Julian shook his head. The movement seemed to remind him that he was crushing my fingers; he released the pressure, but didn't move his hand away. “Those others—I never saw anyone like them. They have to be sidhe, though. The eyes . . . and look at their faces. Look
closely
. They aren't human, and it shows.”

He was right. A certain cast marked all wilders as subtly different; my own face had changed when the Unseelie drugged me. Even in a digital image, the sidhe could not be mistaken for human.

I let my breath out slowly, trying to steady myself. “There's a lot we don't know about the Otherworld. We don't even know whether its geography is like ours, whether it has the same continents, the same kind of weather. They might vary just as much as we do.”

“Or it might be a glamour,” Julian said.

“Or what they showed
you
might have been a glamour,” Neeya said.

Maybe, but— “I saw them when they weren't putting on a show for anyone,” I said quietly. The memories of my time among the Unseelie weren't anything I liked to revisit, but they were still there, and crystal clear. “They all looked like those three on the left.”

Guan spoke up for the first time. I was pathetically grateful to him for it, because his words gave me something to focus on besides my ragged breath. “Look at the one behind the Chinese ambassador. She looks like a fox spirit.”

The sidhe woman in question was as human-shaped as any of them, but I saw what Guan meant. Her hair was red, and the angles of her face gave a vulpine impression. Celtic legends had kept more of the truth about the sidhe because the crossbreeds, the half-sidhe hybrids, had been dumped in the British Isles before the Otherworld passed out of reach. They were kidnapped by the Unseelie, but the Seelie freed them, so that humanity wouldn't forget about the sidhe entirely. But that didn't mean the folklore from other parts of the world didn't preserve their own bits of the truth.

Hakeema el-Bayoumi, the Secretary-General of the U.N., stepped up to the microphone and began speaking. The early part was nothing of substance, just an unnecessary recap of history up until this point: the long-distant past, when humans and sidhe interbred; the departure of the Otherworld; its return last fall, and the reappearance of the sidhe. The woman knew this was a historic moment, and clearly wanted her speech to be remembered. I could barely pay attention enough to parse her words.

But my attention snapped into focus when she finished her introduction and got to the actual point. “In the months since contact between the worlds was restored,” she said, “representatives from human governments around the globe have been in negotiation with the two Courts of the sidhe. Our worlds will merge in time; it is inevitable. We must therefore consider how our peoples, so long separated, may live in harmony.”

The plan she outlined was simple—as it had to be. Nothing complex would survive worldwide experimentation. The two Courts had agreed to register all visitors with the governments of the countries they entered; any violators of this agreement would be subject to the full judgment of the local authorities, with no immunity granted. In exchange . . . they had the right to enter any place that did not deny them access.

“That's going to be a nightmare,” Inola said immediately. “If it's determined on a country-wide level, the states will be screaming bloody murder tomorrow. If a state can block access, though, then what about a county, or a city? Are the sidhe really going to be negotiating with every local hat for permission to walk down the street?”

Toby snorted. “Forget permission. Whatever the government says at any level, there will be chaos wherever they go. Sales of iron nails are up more than five hundred percent in the last three months.”

“It doesn't matter.” Julian's quiet voice cut through the rising chatter. “This is them putting a good face on the inevitable. Even if the planar injunction is keeping them out now—and we've got pretty good evidence it isn't—that won't hold forever. The closer our worlds draw together, the easier it will be for them to step through. The sidhe will come and go as they please, until there isn't any ‘coming' or ‘going,' just one world with two species living in it. But this gives each country a cover. They can follow the ones who register with them, and if anything happens to the ones who don't, they can wash their hands of it.”

Swallowing hurt my throat. “What about humans going into the Otherworld?”
Going, or being taken.

We'd talked over that part of it, but Neeya had kept her attention on the screen. “They can register the intent to visit with the same offices that will be regulating traffic the other direction,” she said. “If they go that route, then they have a promise of safe conduct from the sidhe—which is, in theory, the same thing we're promising to
their
visitors. If they hop through on their own . . .” She shrugged. “They get what's coming to them.”

“And what about those who don't go willingly?” I asked. It came out as a growl, and Julian sent me a calming surge.

Neeya shrugged again. “In theory, their kidnappers get prosecuted.”

Just like the U.N. was prosecuting the Unseelie, who had kidnapped and brainwashed me. Just like SIF was dealing with the Unseelie who had assaulted me on the Metro. They were clearly suffering prosecution to the full extent of the law, standing up there in perfect friendship with the Security Council and the Secretary-General.

My jaw ached from clenching so hard. Months of waiting, and this was what we got: a promise of minor bureaucracy, a passport control office for traffic between the two worlds. Beyond that, it was the Wild West. We could trust the Seelie not to screw us over for fun, but I didn't trust the Unseelie any farther than I could throw the U.N. Headquarters.

And now they were free to come after me as they pleased.

They hadn't done anything since the Metro station, not that I could tell. But the absence only wound my nerves tighter and tighter—which made me more likely to snap, of course, and knowing
that
made things even worse.

In a way, it was a relief to know they would be out in the world now. If they registered, they'd have a tail watching them. And if they didn't . . .

Then I would blow them away by any means I could, and deal with the law afterward.

Of all the things Julian regretted about being out of both Welton and the Center, the lack of practice space was at the top of the list.

He didn't like using Kim's apartment, not with gifted neighbors who would wonder at the power he was deploying. Toby's house was fine in the evenings, but he and Marcus were already being generous in letting people make use of their basement and living room every night; Julian couldn't invade their space during the day, too.