Chains and Memory (19 page)

“Seems like a safe bet that he wasn't just inept,” I said. “If it were possible, we'd have at least one dictator somewhere in the world with an army like that. Since there isn't, let's assume for the moment that the design of the shield can
only
work on a wilder. Why?”

Julian didn't answer that, and I didn't expect him to. He gave me facts when he had them, but no speculation, and no leading answers. It was frustrating to reinvent the wheel in front of him, though. After a moment's consideration, I said, “Power. If it really is drawing on the wilder's own gifts to make itself go, then a lower blood may not be strong enough to keep it functioning.” I grimaced and tossed my stylus onto the coffee table. “I don't suppose the sidhe have a drug to
suppress
gifts, as well as crank them up? If depowering myself back to normal levels would get me out of this, I'd do it in a heartbeat.”

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to take them back. It was easy for me to say that; I'd only been a wilder since late November. For Julian, though, depowering would be like cutting him off at the knees. I knew he would do just about anything to be free of the shield—but would he give up half his gifts for it?

Judging by the cold consideration he was giving it right now, he might. “A drug like that . . . it's possible. It certainly isn't anything they would want us to know about, though.”

Because we might use it against them.
Might? No, we'd use it in a heartbeat.
I hunched my shoulders into the couch's cushion and bit my lip. “You know what I'm thinking, don't you.”

“You're thinking about asking the Seelie to break the shield for us.”

He didn't say it like a fresh idea. Everything I thought of, he'd gotten to first. Had he already ruled this one out? “Have you asked them?”

Julian sank down cross-legged on the floor, shaking his head. “No. I didn't have the chance last fall. And when Falcon came to see me, I honestly didn't think of it.” He grimaced. “I was thinking of too many other things.”

Like the fact that they didn't actually have faces. “They might refuse,” I pointed out. “Our government wouldn't be too pleased to hear they're trying to undermine the shield. Hell, I doubt there's a government in the world that would like it. If the Seelie are worried about people making nice with the Unseelie, they're not going to want to do anything that might rock the boat against themselves.”

“It's an option,” Julian said. “But not the first one.”

I had to agree, and not just because of the political ramifications. So long as I was gutted, I didn't have any way to contact the sidhe — unless one came and knocked on my door, or they started installing comm satellites and selling ports in the Otherworld. Julian could project his spirit out to look for one of them, but it was a good bet that would attract attention from the people whose job it was to police the connection between the worlds. We'd have to wait for our chance.

The biggest thing that stopped me, though, was the fear I didn't even like to think about. It crept up on me at night, though, when I was lying sleepless in bed and wishing I kept alcohol in the apartment.

I'd stood in front of a dozen news cameras and declared I intended to break the deep shield. And yet the government had let me walk away without so much as a warning.

I doubted they were in favor of me succeeding. With that ruled out, the only possible interpretation was that they weren't afraid of anything I might do—because the shield simply
could not
be broken.

Not even by the sidhe.

Four days after my release from the hospital, I had an appointment with a DSPA administrator to finalize my transition from ordinary citizen to wilder.

For this I went to an unremarkable office building tucked away in a back street not far from the respective headquarters of SIF and the Guardian Corps. It was a depressing place, all fanboard partitions and low-burn lighting. The administrator was named Lualhati Masangga, and the first thing she did was slide a sheet of paper across the desk toward me.

“What's this?” I asked.

Masangga looked like a motherly sort, but she had the brisk manner of an experienced bureaucrat. She said, “Ordinarily the change of surname is handled as part of transferring a wilder child to the custody of the state. Since you are not a minor, and are still a legal resident of Georgia, we need you to fill out paperwork informing the state of your intent to change your name. Georgia law also requires that notice be posted once a week for four weeks before the change takes effect, but we'll take care of that for you.”

She added that last part as if she were doing me a favor. I gaped at her. In all my focus on the deep shield, I'd forgotten that there were other legal effects from being declared a wilder. “You can't be serious. I know wilders are supposed to be called Fiain, but—” Words failed me. “You can't take my last name from me.”

Masangga tried a motherly smile. She wasn't very good at it, despite the soft bun and softer features. “I'm afraid it's a legal requirement, Kim.”

Normally I preferred my nickname to the full “Kimberly,” but I wanted to snarl at her for using it. “What the hell is the point? I'm a grown adult, not a ward of the state. It isn't like you don't have me recorded in the system, regardless of my name.”

“Please don't make this difficult, Kim. It's only a formality.”

And a pointless one. If wilders were free citizens upon reaching their majority, what was to stop them from filing the paperwork to change their names away from Fiain? I wondered if any of them ever had. Probably not. If Julian and the people at Toby's were anything to go by, being Fiain was part of their identity, as much tribal as familial.

But it wasn't
my
identity. The only thing that stopped me from balling up the name-change form and throwing it at Masangga was that last thought:
family
.

If I truly wanted to leave my mother behind, now was my chance.

I looked down at the form, and the pen Masangga placed next to it. I'd been Kimberly Argant-Dubois my whole life, one part of it from my mother, the other from my father. I could cut one of my few remaining ties right now, with just a couple of lines on a form. Become Kimberly Fiain. Or flip Masangga the metaphorical bird and make myself just Kimberly Dubois instead—no. My father would never forgive me for that.

I wouldn't forgive me for it, either. However furious I was at my mother right now, I couldn't repudiate her that way.

What would Masangga do if I flat-out refused?

I stared at the form, the blanks waiting for my new name. I hadn't expected this—hadn't given it any thought ahead of time. Then inspiration came. I scribbled quickly, not letting myself think twice about it, and shoved the paper back at her.

Masangga picked it up and scanned it. Going by her expression, she was expecting me to have written “fuck you” for my new name. Instead she saw what I had chosen for myself.

Surname: Fiain. First name: Kimberly. Middle name: Argant-Dubois.

It meant letting go of my maternal grandmother's name, Annette. I couldn't quite bring myself to swallow the unwieldy prospect of being Kimberly Annette Argant-Dubois Fiain for the rest of my life. But I could live with this for a compromise. If I tilted my head sideways and squinted just right, I could pretend it wasn't something forced on me by the government; it was something more like a marriage.

That thought briefly killed my ability to breathe. In my head, I had just married Julian.

If there was any advantage to being gutted, it was that Masangga had no idea what had just gone through my head. She nodded and filed the paper away. “Next matter. Are you familiar with the requirements of the draft?”

The question helped kick my brain back into gear. As if I were in class and being called on by a professor, I parroted the words I had read a hundred times. “If an emergency situation of a magical nature arises, any Guardian on the scene has the authority to draft my assistance in any manner that does not directly endanger my physical or mental well-being.” Which was a moot point ninety-five percent of the time, because ninety-five percent of wilders
were
Guardians, and the
geas
the Seelie had laid on us would encourage me to pitch in regardless. Not that I would stand back if I could; I'd wanted to be a Guardian long before any of this happened. “Also, if war is declared, the government can conscript me for magic-related duties as they see fit.” That part might be
very
relevant to my future, depending on how things went with the Unseelie.

“Yes,” Masangga said. “Now, there is a wrinkle here as well, in that you have not received the training expected of a wilder. The head of the Division for Special Psychic Affairs has consulted with the Centers for Wilder Education, and together they have formulated a course of study for you to begin as soon as possible—basically as soon as the doctor deems you fit to have the shield lifted.”

My heart began beating faster. “What do you mean? What course of study?” I'd wanted to be a Guardian . . .

“They're making arrangements for you at the nearest Center, which is outside of Philadelphia.”

I knew where it was. Julian had been raised there. “You mean—taking me out of D.C.?”

Masangga nodded, as if it were both obvious and natural. To me, it was neither. “Outside of Philadelphia” meant
way
outside, in the Elk State Forest. The nearest town was the crumbling shell of a place that had been called Emporium, before it was deserted during First Manifestation. Unless they sent Julian with me—which I seriously doubted—I would be in the middle of nowhere, isolated from everyone I knew, and completely subject to the Center's authority and control. Even if they had the best of intentions, it was too perfect a setup for things to turn absolutely awful. “No. Training, sure, but I'm not going to the Center.”

This time she didn't bother with a motherly smile. “Kim—”

“There's absolutely no need, and we both know it. You can't tell me there aren't shielded practice facilities here in D.C. Or on the outskirts of the city, if you want to be extra careful. But I have an internship and an obligation to finish it out; I have an apartment lease. And may I remind you,
I am a free citizen
.” My voice hardened on those words; I had to force myself to speak more evenly. “There is no law compelling training for wilders after the age of majority. I will
accept
it—but on my own terms.”

Masangga looked like she'd bitten into an apple and found a worm. “The DSPA is not ignorant of how you've been spending your evenings for the last month.”

“Good,” I said with a laugh that almost sounded real. It covered for the unpleasant shock that went through me. “Then they're not incompetent. I'll go back to Toby's if the Division wants, or I'll take more formalized training. Whatever you like, so long as it's here in D.C. and allows for the fact that I'm a free woman.”

She was silent for a moment. I let it stretch out. The ball was in her court; I knew the laws around me well enough to know the Division didn't have a leg to stand on. The gun they'd been holding to my head for months had been fired, leaving them with no meaningful threats. If they got Congress to write a new law, that could cause me trouble . . . but until then, I wasn't going anywhere.

“I'll see what I can do,” Masangga said at last, sitting back in her chair. Her tone didn't promise much, but at least it was a start.

“Thank you,” I said, with my best attempt at sincerity. “Are we done now?”

“Not quite.”

I'd already put my hands on the arms of my chair, started to stand up. Those words stopped me in my tracks. What had we missed?

Masangga said, “Are you sexually active?”

I thudded back into my chair so hard it squeaked. “I beg your
pardon?
”

“Are you presently in a sexual relationship with any individual? Including, but not limited to, Julian Fiain.”

“That is none of your gods-damned business.”

She put her elbows on the desk, leaning back toward me with a hard stare. “Unfortunately, it is. If you are sexually active, then I need to confirm that you are using some form of birth control. You may not be aware of this, but wilders cannot bear or sire children.”

There was nothing like that in
any
of the laws. If there had been, I would have known about it months ago, and the ACLU would have sued the living hell out of it years ago. This wasn't like the deep shield; there was no possible justification—

A chill went through me, down to my bones. “What do you mean,
cannot?
”

“You are incapable of it,” Masangga said. “Conception, yes, but not a viable birth. The genetics are poorly understood; possibly we'll get a better understanding of it now that the Otherworld has returned. It operates in a manner similar to psi-sickness, and runs a high risk of killing the mother during pregnancy.”

I couldn't have stood up right then if she'd offered to remove the deep shield as soon as I was on my feet. Not a law. Biology. Some kind of mutation, maybe, a knock-on effect of the original mutation that turned an ordinary blood into a wilder. I wasn't scientist enough to guess beyond that.

Masangga was talking again, my thoughts scrambling to catch up. “Many wilders opt for sterilization, for safety's sake. This is not a legal requirement, but the procedure is covered under federal funding. You may want to consider it.”

I bloody well
bet
it wasn't a legal requirement. That was the kind of thing they did in the twentieth century, as part of the eugenics movement. I was pretty sure it was an actual crime against humanity, in the technical sense.

My body was still limp in my chair. I couldn't wrap my head around this. I'd never really given a lot of thought to kids, whether I would have any or not—I hadn't
needed
to. I was twenty-one. I was barely even beginning to think of myself as an adult.