Seven Dreams (30 page)

All Serena’s
composure deserted her for a single, agonising instant.
What
? Was Bron actually, truly, seriously thinking of
courting her? Not as Baron Anserval, in a pursuit as insincere as
his persona, but for
real
?

What in the world
could she
say?
She had caught herself in a neat trap, here.
The new Serena she’d so cleverly cultivated would probably accept,
and as far as her goals went it would be the sensible thing to do,
for she could keep him nicely distracted. But the prospect of
having to spend a lot more time with him was intolerable,
especially since she would have to pretend to
like
it as
well.

The possibility
that this new pursuit was no more sincere than the last floated
through Serena’s mind, but it was of no comfort to her. Pretence or
not, it required the same response. She opened her mouth, summoning
her resolution to say something,
anything
, to deflect the
attack. Nothing came out.

Nothing! Serena
had not been left speechless and resourceless in a very long
time.

Just before her
silence became awkward, she was saved by the approach of Fabian.
His footsteps were recognisable long before he came into view; he
dragged one leg ever so slightly, and his footsteps were
fractionally uneven.

‘
Hi,
Fabe,’ she said brightly just before he came into the
room.

‘
Thought I might find you two here,’ he said, lifting his
brows.

Serena’s heart
sank. Were people noticing when she and Bron were both absent, and
drawing conclusions? Ugh. Intolerable. Worse when it was
Fabian
doing it. He ought to know her better than that! She
couldn’t even glare at him. She could only hope, for his sake, that
he was shamming.

‘
Something weird’s happened,’ Fabian continued, oblivious to
her indignation.

‘
Something else weird, I think you mean?’ said Bron with a
tentative smile. To Serena’s irritation, his manner towards
her
was patronising but he treated Fabian more or less like
an equal. He even appeared a tiny bit hesitant around Fabian
sometimes, as though he were searching for the best way to impress
him and coming up short. It made no sense to Serena, but it
galled.

Fabian smiled
briefly at this mild wit, and nodded. ‘Yeah, so. Tey’s here, and
Egg and Iya.’

Serena stared.
‘Here?’ she managed at last. ‘How?’

‘
Some
Lokant woman brought them.’ Fabian shrugged, as though this
occurrence, and the identity of the Lokant woman in question, were
of zero importance and even less interest to him. ‘I think she
knows Eva.’

Serena relaxed a
little at this news. Anyone Eva knew was probably okay, and
probably
not here to pinch all the keys. ‘Where are Tey and
the others?’ she enquired. The presence of her team was a relief;
it always felt strange to be out and doing without them.

‘
Azure
Glade,’ Fabian replied. In an attempt to find their way around
without getting hopelessly lost, they’d taken to naming various
parts of the island after their predominant colours. The Azure
Glade was characterised by glorious leaves in shimmering shades of
blue, primarily azure, and its flowers bloomed a blazing white. It
was one of Serena’s favourite places in Orlind; she spared a brief
hope that Teyo would like it.

‘
Onward!’ she ordered, pointing imperiously towards the door.
Fabian grinned at her and ducked back out into the hallway. Serena
followed, without waiting for Bron.

‘
So,
you are my great-great-great-great — how many greats? —
grandmother, is that it?’

Eva stood with
arms folded, glaring at a tallish, elderly Lokant woman Serena had
never seen before. Tren hovered just behind, looking uncertain,
while Wrob and Ayla were vigorously interesting themselves in
something on the other side of the glade, their backs discreetly
turned. There was no sign of Teyo, Egg or Iyamar, to Serena’s
disappointment.

‘
Let’s
not dwell on the timeframes,’ said the newcomer with a theatrical
shudder. ‘But I most certainly am your direct ancestor. Isn’t it
marvellous? I have been wanting to meet you for the last
age.
Don’t call me grandmother, though! Gracious, how
lowering. Mae will do.’ She smiled.

‘
Then
why are you only just making your appearance?’ Eva’s voice was
thick with suspicion, and her body language spoke of a total
rejection of the connection. Why might that be?

Mae made a
careless, dismissive gesture and gave a short laugh. ‘Business,
business. There was an anomaly in the Enarior Cluster. They let the
anteropticon drives overrun
again,
would you believe it? It
took me a few oras to sort that one out, and when I next looked in
on you, there you were all grown and married and quite,
quite
busy, I think.’ She smiled.

‘
What
is an ora?’ said Tren. ‘Same question about the — the drives,
too.’

‘
Yes,
sorry. An ora is a unit of time, like a year, you understand? Only
it’s not fixed, the way yours are; it’s more relative. You see,
worlds like yours are awfully small, all things considered, and
your perception of time is very narrow. No offence intended, dear,
we all do the best we can with what we’ve got.’ She began to speak
more rapidly, gesturing occasionally in her enthusiasm for the
topic. ‘But the worlds all have different ways of measuring time,
and often different timestreams altogether, and they are so
vastly
different sometimes that we couldn’t settle on
anything so simple as a week, or a year. So an ora —’ She broke off
as Eva cleared her throat, and smiled a little sheepishly. ‘Ah... a
discussion for another time, perhaps.’

‘
First
we need to clear up the question of who you are, and what you’re
doing here,’ Eva said coldly. Mae began to speak, but Eva held up a
hand. ‘I don’t want to hear any more about my ancestry. Even if you
are my infinitely-great grandmother, I don’t choose to acknowledge
any Lokant as family.’

Mae considered
Eva carefully and seriously, her congenial smile gone. ‘I ought to
have stepped in sooner,’ she decided at length. ‘Perhaps the
Enariors could have waited. Only, you can’t always trust someone
else to do the job right, can you?’

Serena had heard
Eva utter a similar statement once or twice, but her cold demeanour
remained inflexible.

Mae rolled her
eyes and sighed. ‘I have a
lot
to say to Limbane when I see
him,’ she muttered.

That got Eva’s
attention. ‘You know Limbane?’

Mae wrinkled her
nose slightly. ‘You shouldn’t judge all of us by Limbane’s
standards, dear, and certainly not by Krays’s. Although, it doesn’t
hurt to be wary. Some of us
will
stab you in the back at a
moment’s notice. But we’re like humans in that respect, aren’t
we?’

‘
Yes,
and my human family weren’t up to much either,’ said Eva
shortly.

Mae nodded
slowly, a hint of sympathy creeping into her eyes. ‘I
see.’

Eva’s scowl
deepened. ‘As I was saying. What are you doing here? Since you
brought the rest of Serena’s team with you, I don’t think it is
merely a social visit.’

‘
Ah!
No! Yes, exactly,’ said Mae incomprehensibly. Serena received the
impression that Mae, for all her apparent breezy confidence, was a
little unnerved by the demands of this meeting. Having tried a bit
too hard to impress her descendant, she was now becoming
flustered.

‘
This
is weird,’ said Fabian in a low voice, right in Serena’s ear. She
nodded her agreement.

‘
I
don’t think we should be watching, anyway,’ she whispered back,
with a swift feeling of guilt. So absorbing had this strange
meeting been, she had been entirely too slow in remembering her
manners.

Serena stepped
forward. ‘Where
are
the rest of my team, incidentally?’ she
enquired.

‘
They
went looking for you,’ Tren replied. ‘They went in the direction of
the — oh, no, hang on. Here they are.’ He pointed.

Teyo appeared
from between the trees edging the glade. He was clad in his
favourite dark green trousers, enormous boots and loose shirt,
though the pleasant heat of Orlind had encouraged him to leave off
his fur-lined coat. His mid-brown hair was more tousled than usual,
as though he had been fidgeting with it, and Serena detected the
unmistakeable signs of strain around his eyes and mouth. But he
smiled when he saw her, and some of his apparent tension
dissipated.

Egg and Iyamar
were dressed so much alike, only the flame-bright flag of Egg’s
hair and Iya’s icy blonde locks differentiated one from the other.
This was odd. Last time she’d seen the two of them, hostilities had
been high; but wasn’t that Egg’s second-favourite black coat Iya
was wearing? She made a mental note to ask Teyo about
it.

Leaving Eva, Tren
and Mae to their discussions (or squabbles), Serena went straight
up to Teyo and collared him in a bear hug. ‘How’s it going,
deputy?’ she said when she released him. His smile was infectious,
and she found herself beaming in response.

‘
We’re
all very glad to see you,’ he laughed. ‘Poor Egg and Iya have had
ample opportunity to see how awful I am at doing your
job.’

Iya winced in
sympathy and shook her head at Serena, but Egg instantly said, ‘Too
right, Tey, not that you didn’t try hard. Was a good
effort.’

Serena laughed.
‘We missed you as well. Let’s hear the news.’

The team went
into a tight huddle as they rapidly brought each other up to date
with their various ventures. Serena was pleased to observe that
Iyamar, while quiet, was by no means silent, and she took her place
in the group with no sign of discomfort. Her quarrel with Egg
certainly seemed to have eased.

They had mostly
completed this process when they were interrupted by a strident
voice from somewhere behind. ‘Well, Team Carterett!’ hollered Mae.
‘What a charming picture you make! Such congeniality among a team
of colleagues is just what I like to see. Especially in one I’m
planning to hire.’ She strode up to the group and stopped, smiling,
right in their midst.

‘
Oh?’
said Serena carefully. ‘What’s the job?’ She glanced around for
Eva, and spotted her with Tren a few feet behind. They were rapidly
on the approach.

‘
I
need those keys from Ylona,’ said Mae without preamble. ‘Imagine my
delight to find that my clever grand-daughter has exactly the right
sort of people in her employ! I want you to get them back for
me.’

Serena glanced
uncertainly from Mae to Eva, who had drawn level with the group by
this time. Eva merely gazed back at her, her expression revealing
nothing at all.

Tricky. Was Eva
in support of this plan? In accepting Mae’s assignment, would they
be working with Eva or against her? Since Lady Glostrum held two of
the keys, it was an important question.

‘
What,
exactly, is all this about?’ said Serena.

Mae blinked.
‘What?’

‘
The
keys, and the floating riddles, and the bubbles. What’s it all for?
Where does the door lead?’

Mae frowned.
‘We’ve already discussed this.’

‘
Not
that I recall. I can’t and won’t commit my team to any more
assignments relating to these mysterious keys until I get some
answers.’

Mae cast Eva a
brief, annoyed glance. ‘A joint attack, darling? Beautifully
conducted, I admit.’

Serena raised an
eyebrow.

‘
I
said the same thing,’ said Eva, her lips quirking.

Serena grinned.
‘Well, how about it?’ she said to Mae. ‘I think we’re all getting
tired of being used as Lokant puppets.’

Mae chewed upon
her lower lip, her eyes narrowing. ‘Couldn’t you just trust me?’
she said, rather plaintively.

Eva laughed.
‘Trust
you?
No one in their right mind would trust a
Lokant.’

‘
Well!’ said Mae with a touch of asperity, ‘I don’t find it at
all difficult to trust you lot.’

‘
You’re in the stronger position,’ Serena pointed out. ‘It’s
not so hard to trust people from that vantage point. But I don’t
think there’s much trust involved when you won’t confide in your
colleagues.’

Mae sighed. ‘I’m
fighting to keep some important secrets hidden, precisely
because
they’re too dangerous to be spread
around.’

‘
Then
you’ll have to trust us not to spread them around,’ said Serena
with a sweet smile.

Mae pointed a
finger at Serena. ‘You, young person, are far too glib for your own
good.’

‘
Thank
you,’ said Serena modestly.

Fabian turned
around and walked away. ‘I’ve had enough fun in the wilds of
Orlind,’ he called back over his shoulder. ‘Let me know when
something worthwhile comes up.’

Egg rolled her
eyes in disgust and followed Fabian. ‘Yeah, I think we’re done
here,’ she said, pulling Iyamar after her.

Teyo merely stuck
his hands into his pockets and stood, stoic but deeply unimpressed,
his brows slightly raised and his expression somewhere between
incredulous and exasperated.