Promises to Keep (9 page)

Ellen wasn’t happy with the fatae hanging around, but she acknowledged that he had as much right - maybe even more, being a relative - as she did. And if anyone came after her, or the baby, it would be some defense, anyway, even if just the “it’s not kidnapping, look, here’s grandpa” sort.

But Danny had better show up,
soon
.

The three of them made an odd grouping in the elevator; the gryphon barely fit, even with his wings furled tightly around his body. Once inside the office, the wings relaxed a little, and he took up the far corner of the front room, his golden eyes watching them carefully. Cautious, alert to anything that might happen.

“It’s a baby,” she said in disgust. “Just a baby, not even a toddler, which is when they get really scary.” She’d babysat enough of them when she was a teenager to remember that. The gryphon just lurked, and watched, and didn’t say anything.

“Yeah, all right. The coffee’s on the counter behind you, if you want some. There’s soda in the fridge. Just… Don’t talk to me right now.” Not that there seemed much chance of that.

She pulled her sweater off the back of the chair, and created a nest of sorts on the desk, weaving current into it so that it stayed in the right shape. If there was a small protection charm woven in as well, it wasn’t as though anyone would be able to tell. The baby scrunched her face again, and let out a little sigh, and a tiny bubble of spit formed at the corner of her mouth. Ellen wasn’t sure if that was adorable, or disgusting. “Hello, sweetie, aren’t you a sweetie?” She unwrapped the blankets, wondering if maybe the boss had stopped to pick up diapers and formula, because otherwise someone was just going to have to turn around and go out again. “You look human… ten fingers, ten toes…”

The door opened behind her, the sound of Danny’s cowboy boots a familiar noise against the linoleum. She risked a glance away from the baby, and saw that he was carrying a bag from the drug store down the street. Good.

He put the bag down on the floor with a soft-sounding thunk, and looked over her shoulder just as the baby opened her eyes.

“Huh. Well, there’s that then,” Danny said, an odd tone in his voice.

“Definitely not human,” Ellen agreed. She lifted the now-awake baby in her arms, and turned, stepping away from Danny as she did so. “Your granddaughter,” she said to Faosullvaant. “I don’t suppose you know her name?”

The gryphon looked like he wanted to be anywhere but there, but Ellen didn’t let him escape, stepping forward just enough that the baby caught sight of him. Chubby little arms flew out to the side, fingers working as though she was trying to grab at him.

The gryphon looked at her then, two pairs of golden eyes meeting for the first time. Something in him seemed to break, quietly. “Her grand-dam’s name was Marciad.”

“That’ll work. Hello, Marciad”

“Still think she’s an abomination?” Danny was leaning against the desk now, watching all three of them.

That beak clacked again, and Ellen though that maybe she was starting to “read” gryphon, because she knew it was thought, not irritation, that was behind it. “Yes. But it is not her fault that she exists. My daughter bears the blame for that, and she has gone beyond responsibility.”

Dead then, or somewhere out of reach forever. Ellen wasn’t sure which might be worse.

“She can never know what she is,” the gryphon went on. “No-one should be able to use her, ever.”

Danny nodded immediately, although she suspected he had his own reasons that had nothing to do with whatever grandpa was afraid of. “Agreed. Although if she starts to show -“

“A problem for another day?”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Great, now that you’ve got her life all planned out for her, where’s she going to go?” Ellen would have called them on their typical male BS, saying what Marciad could or couldn’t be, but the chubby little hand trying to grab her nose now had all of her attention. “Don’t do that, baby-girl. Stop. Help?”

Danny removed the fingers from Ellen’s nose, and lifted the child away from her. “Hello, sweetness,” he cooed at her, and she went right for his horns. He laughed, like they were ticklish, but didn’t remove her hands. “You’re going to be a handful and a half, aren’t you darling?”

“What are we going to do with her? I mean, I don’t think grandpa there wants her, and her parents…”

“Mom’s gone, and dad’s not really set up to handle this, no.” Danny coaxed the baby into settling down, letting her grab at his own fingers. “Her mother’s people said they’d take her. They’re pretty mellow, as breeds go, and she’ll be safe there.” Isolated, he meant, and she heard, even unspoken. “And they always have kids running around, so one more won’t raise eyebrows. If our gryphon buddy says she won’t manifest feathers or a beak, I’m willing to take that on trust, but other breeds mingle a little less obviously, and those eyes are always going to be a question mark. Besides, she may not seem very Lilin-like right now, but better she be there when she hits puberty, just in case.”

He went into the inner office, baby still in his arms, and she heard him sit down, and pick up the phone. Presumably to call the Lilin House. Or maybe to order pizza…it was Friday, right? She checked the calendar: yeah it was Friday.

They’d managed a happy ending, despite the odds. Their missing man was home, and Lilin House would take the baby in: they’d said so, knowing what the baby was, and Danny thought they were telling the truth. Whyever she’d been born, whatever her mother might have thought would happen, whatever she grew up to be, they would take her in, protect her. They’d make sure that Marciad doesn’t spend her life being looked at oddly, as a freak, forever out-of-place. Danny would call that a win.

Ellen walked past the gryphon and reached down to pull a soda out of the fridge, taking it back to her desk and sitting down to sort through the mail. She slit open the first envelope, smiling. Boss might call it a win, but she called it a promise, kept.

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