Plus One (34 page)

I looked at the floor. It was true that Poppu and I knew nothing about Gigi while she was in Ciel’s life. I still didn’t know how he’d met her, how long they were together, whether he spent time in Iowa or she in Chicago. I was pretty sure she was his first lover, though.

“I don’t think this will help,” I said eventually, hoping I was doing the right thing. “I’m imagining myself in your position, and I’d need to hear it. But ultimately it wouldn’t help.” That old image of D’Arcy clasping a necklace around the neck of another woman flashed in my mind for a second, as fresh as the first time, and I had to close my eyes.

“What.”

I took a breath and opened my eyes. “Ciel does care about you, he never stopped. Knowing Ciel, he physically can’t stop.”

She shook her head, rejecting my theory.

“It’s true. Listen.” The decision to spill was suddenly easy. “You need to talk to Zen when you get back to Iowa, because Ciel put a tracer on your phone.”

“What the fuck.”

I nodded. “It was his assbackwards way of keeping in touch with you after you broke up. He couldn’t let you go—not all the way.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “I have no memory of her.”

She smiled, crooked, at my macabre humor. “Yeah, sorry about that.”

The baby finished the bottle. She had a mighty little appetite. Gigi wiped her milky chin with a sleeve and carefully put her over her shoulder, confidently thumping her fragile back. She must have taken care of siblings. Or maybe the Noma raised their children like a wolf pack, with everyone helping.

“And here I thought he chose me over Fuzz and Dope because he trusted me,” she said cynically. “I wasted a lot of energy feeling like shit about betraying him.”

“He did trust you.
And
he had a Plan B. That’s Ciel.”

Fleur belched, a little newborn
blurp
that resulted in a mucousy mess on Gigi’s shoulder. Gigi didn’t flinch. She rubbed Fleur’s bottom gently. She lowered the baby so that she was lying on both of Gigi’s strong forearms and studied her. Fleur was out cold, sated.

“Okay, tit for tat, Le Coeur,” she said to me. “One sucky piece of Ciel information for another. I think your loving brother wants the Paulsen boy so he can blackmail the minister for his freedom.”

“What?”

“Jacqueline Paulsen is his boss. Hadn’t you figured that out? She plucked him out of jail to be her own personal computer geek. She probably had him arrested, too.”

“I learned that she was his boss today. But how does that work? She’s a Smudge, and he was transferred to Day.”

“He’s an employee of the federal government under the supervision of the Office of Night Ministry. That’s why she has him on a boat. When they’re both in open water, Night and Day don’t matter and she can ride herd on him. She assigned him the remote programming project a year ago, and he hasn’t produced. She’s starting to question why it’s taking so long.” She smirked, and it was bitter. “Everyone wants Ciel’s magic.”

Ciel had told D’Arcy he wanted to barter Fitz for my reassignment to Day. He hadn’t hesitated with that explanation. His face was earnest; I had seen it myself. I moved toward the only other chair in the room—an outdoor wooden bench so weatherworn it was a mass of splinters. I sat down anyway; I needed to.

“Fuck this,” Gigi said abruptly. “Fuck
all
of this and everyone.” She stood up and strode toward me. I got up defensively; I even lifted my arms to block a blow. But what she did was totally unexpected.

She handed Fleur to me.

Sunday
9:15 a.m.

Gigi led me up and out of the building, and then she ditched me, running north through the quadrangles, not stopping, not looking back once, until she was a speck of a black figure turning onto Fifty-seventh Street, out of sight. I wanted it not to be the last time I would see her.

I needed a moment, so I sat on a bench on the quad holding Fleur. The air was cool but the sun was out, bathing the baby and me in a dry, early-fall warmth. I sat cross-legged so I could cradle her in a nest on my lap. She was a dusty, greasy mess, and I knew I was no better—with smeared makeup, filthy clothes, and limp spikes from the humidity of the tunnels. I took my time composing and sending three texts, the first much longer than the rest, and possibly the most important thing I had ever written in my life. The second one I sent to D’Arcy:

Miracle: I am holding Fleur. Where are you?

The third one I sent to Ciel:

This bundle needs a bath. Remember your promise about Skin’s phone this morning.

Ciel responded first:

Speechless. Thanks are not enough. Kizzie weeping. I didn’t forget.

I replied:

Can’t row with baby. Pull up to 59th Street breakwater again?

Ciel:
Watching for you. Careful.

And then D’Arcy replied to me:

Oh god you’re safe. 2nd Sol-induced coronary averted.

My job done too. I dread Ciel’s wrath. Meet?

Me:
Ciel idling at 59th breakwater. Setting off on foot. Eta 20 min.

D’Arcy:
Will run to make 20 min. Relieved Gigi didn’t gut you.

I was starting to feel the exhaustion of stress, too much running, and not enough food, and even though it was a straight shot down Fifty-ninth Street to the lake, it was still almost two kilometers for my rubbery legs. I didn’t bother to worry about police or Hour Guards. I didn’t have the energy to spare. And there was something about my natural demeanor as a Noma—more secure than Sol but less antagonistic than Gigi—that felt almost like a force field to me. I would be a little sorry to drop my costume and all the superficial strength it afforded.

As I walked, I wondered whether Ciel would already know that the baby was safe at the Paulsen home before D’Arcy got to the ship—whether Jacqueline Paulsen had received word already and was gone, with her Suits and their rifle in tow. I wondered whether she even knew that Ciel was aware that Fitz was missing. The kidnapping was such a guarded secret, and I had no idea what her relationship with Ciel was. And then I worried about Ciel getting angry at D’Arcy. It had been a long time since I’d seen my brother’s cheeks flush and the tendons in his neck flare, and our childhood fights had only ever been over silly things like leftovers and borrowed books, not stolen babies.

My left bicep was seizing, hot and tight. Babies are not meant to be carried in the arms for any great distance. It turned out there was a reason women strapped them to their backs and chests all over the globe, or pushed them in strollers.

As I approached the Fifty-ninth Street viaduct, I looked through it and saw that D’Arcy was at the end of the tunnel, waiting for me. He had seen me. He was walking toward me. An odd flood of joy and confusion washed through my body.

The joy: D’Arcy was like a planet to my meteor. The gravitational pull was similar to a hurtling sensation. My body
needed
to collide with his. And, the universe be praised, this planet welcomed the impact.

The confusion: he had a baby in a sling that draped over his left shoulder and looped under his right armpit.

A baby.
And a crying baby at that. I opened my mouth to say something startled, but before anything came out, two burly men in suits rushed him from the bike path, grabbed him, and hauled him in the direction of the breakwater.

I hurried after them as quickly as I could while still toting a living human being in my arms, and when I emerged on the other end of the viaduct into the bright sunlight, I saw D’Arcy being hustled by the Suits to the end of the breakwater. They forced him onto Ciel’s yacht, one holding each elbow as he climbed aboard over the railings, trying to brace the baby with his hand as he did. Ciel was there; Minister Paulsen was there; the rifle was there.

“Leave him alone!” I shouted. William leaped onto the breakwater and ran straight for me. I turned away from him and squatted instinctively into a defensive position with Fleur folded inside the envelope of my body.

“Get up, Sol,” William said when he reached me. He had the sense not to touch me. “Get the hell up and carry your niece onto that boat.
Do you understand that Paulsen can never know Fleur was missing?
”

I was frozen in place. It was one of those moments when I needed to think faster than I could—to assess my options and find a cleverer way out than the only one that presented itself to me, the one I had committed myself to as the least bad evil. Why couldn’t I ever get exactly what I wanted—
everything
I wanted?

And through it all, there were only three coherent truths bubbling to the surface in the bog that was my brain. First: none of this was Fleur’s or Fitzroy’s fault. Second: Fleur needed to be with Kizzie and Ciel, and Fitz needed to be with the Paulsens. Third: there were things in this world that mattered more than what Sol Le Coeur wanted. I stood up.

“Good girl,” William said.

“Fuck this,” I replied, hugging the baby to me. “Fuck
all
of this and everyone.”

I strode to the boat.

Sunday
10:30 a.m.

D’Arcy was huddled against the cabin wall, holding Fitz away from the Suits, who turned out to be none other than Mr. Thomas and Mr. Jones. Minister Paulsen was bullying D’Arcy verbally, threatening him with a life sentence in jail.

“I won’t let your son go until I know Sol is safe!” D’Arcy yelled. Fitzroy was wailing.

Minister Paulsen ordered the Suits to take a step back.

Kizzie was waiting for me with her arms outstretched, but I still wouldn’t pass a baby across the gap. Ciel and William helped me aboard, with Ciel whispering, “Thank you.” Once I was safely on deck I slid the baby out of my arms into Kizzie’s. She scurried with Fleur into the cabin, with Miho right behind her. The first part of my job was done.

“I’m here,” I called to D’Arcy. To Minister Paulsen I said, “I’m Sol—Sol Le Coeur, Ciel’s sister.”

“Ciel’s sister.” She shook her head, like she’d been a fool for overlooking the possibility.

D’Arcy uncurled his body, and Thomas and Jones kept their distance. Minister Paulsen wiped her eyes with her sleeve and took a seat on the lockers, wincing in pain. I realized she was five days out from major abdominal surgery, and reluctantly acknowledged that it was somewhat badass she was here at all. Fitzroy’s cries had turned to exhausted whimpers. It was palpable to me how much she wanted to hold him.

“Give him room,” she ordered. “He’s not going anywhere.” To D’Arcy she said almost heartrendingly, “Have pity on a new mother.”

“I’ve given you what you asked for,” Ciel said to Minister Paulsen. “I caused your son to be recovered, and you promised me a reward.”

I exhaled, closed my eyes, and allowed myself a wish.

Ciel went on, “In exchange I want my freedom, plus this boat.”

Wishes are stupid and pointless. They’re self-inflicted injuries—open wounds that you have to tend for the rest of your life just to contain them, to keep them from festering and consuming you.

“Is anything you say ever the truth?” I asked my brother.

“I’ve always told you the truth!” he said defensively.

“You
said
you were going to ask for my reassignment to Day.”

“He would never do that,” Jacqueline Paulsen said.

“Right,” I said. “Not when he can get something for himself instead.”

“Bringing you to Day
would
be something for myself, you little idiot,” Ciel hissed. “But it’s also something Jacqui has no power over.”

My brother was on a nickname basis with the woman he once told me had killed our parents.

Minister Paulsen was herself again, in control. “Ciel wouldn’t waste leverage on something out of my jurisdiction. Reassignment is a federal Day directive.”

I hated that she acted like she knew my brother better than I did, after stealing him from me.

Ciel said to her pointedly, “When I stop working for you, I’m leaving Chicago forever and taking Sol with me on this boat, and on the open seas her assignment status will be irrelevant.” And there,
there
was the ambiguity that defined my brother: freeing himself also freed me from the Night. Everything had a Plan B, a redundancy, a fail-safe. Maybe Fuzz was right: Ciel was fiercely loyal. But it was his own brand of loyalty, not mine.

“How can she live on a boat when she’s incarcerated?” the minister asked coolly.

And all at once I saw that poor Ciel was still her lapdog, and the full weight of his two years away began to hit me. It was turning out that I understood nothing of the world except perhaps how to love people with every cell in my body.

D’Arcy stood up, as if on cue. “I’m afraid I have to insist on a different trade.” I suddenly realized that Fitz had grown silent. In fact, he was too silent, and he had stopped squirming. In those moments I seemed to be the only one who noticed it, and D’Arcy caught my eye with an intensity that I had never seen before, which was saying a lot.

“It’s not Fitzroy,” he said to me, as if we were alone on the boat.

“What the hell is going on?” Paulsen demanded, her voice clipped.

“Minister Paulsen,” D’Arcy said, “I respectfully request that you drop the curfew violation against Sol, and arrange to absolve her of responsibility for Officer Dacruz’s accident. I believe these favors
are
within your jurisdiction. I’m not asking a lot. It’s pathetic really: I just want her to be able to go back to square one—back to eleventh grade and her factory job. She has lost so much in the last couple of years. Don’t you think it’s enough?”

“Give me my son and I’ll consider dropping the charges against you,” Minister Paulsen said in a counteroffer.

“Your boy is safe. I have his location entered in my phone.”

It took only a fraction of a second for her eyes to show understanding. “You son of a bitch,” she whispered.
“Where is he?”