Shadowlands (15 page)

I let the doorman at the Royal York’s entrance put me in a cab, and concentrated on not picking up too much from the last person who’d sat in the backseat. Just the same, I might almost have welcomed someone else’s psyche at that moment. I was glad to be in public, even if only in a cab, with the excuse it gave me to control myself. I wanted to push my hands into my hair and grab tight. I was so frustrated, tears kept brimming up into my eyes. I could feel them at the edge of my lids, and only my clenched jaw and tilted head kept them from spilling over.

I actually pulled out my mobile and found Nik’s number, but I didn’t call him. I didn’t even send a text. Call me if you need anything, he’d said, and then he’d sent Yves instead of coming himself.

Wolf and Alejandro had been focused so closely on each other that both of them had stopped listening to me, stopped paying any real attention to me at all. And yet they were only in the same room together because of me.

That was what frustrated me. Neither of them had been willing to listen, and I was the only person who actually had the answers both of them wanted—at least the Collector had listened to what I had to say.

I stiffened, enough that the cabbie glanced at me in his rearview mirror. The smile I gave him must have looked halfway normal, and he turned his attention back to the road. I shivered and hunched my shoulders as a chill ran its fingers up my spine and took hold of the back of my neck. Was I really comparing Alejandro to the man who took me from my parents? Who used me as a lie detector and a spy? Being with Alejandro was
nothing
like that. Nonhuman though he was, Alejandro actually had my welfare at heart, my real welfare, not just how my health and happiness made his life easier.

So what had come over him this afternoon? It couldn’t be it just the Sunward/Moonward thing. Could it?

The cab had pulled up in front of our house and I had to apologize as I searched through my wallet for the fare. I hopped out and went down the lane between our house and Barb’s, letting myself in through the gate. I was just resetting the latch when there was a SLAP! of displaced air and Alejandro was there, his arms around me.

“I am so sorry, my dear one,” he said. “Please forgive me.”

I backed off, my hand on his chest, until I could look him in the eye. “No.” My voice trembled, but I had to make a stand. “You’re sorry I got so upset. But you’re not sorry for upsetting me. You don’t believe you did.”

Alejandro released me and took a step back himself, squeezing his eyes shut and holding the tips of his thumb and index finger to his brow, as if he felt a migraine coming on.

My anger flared up again and I shook my head, long slow swings from left to right. “You believe I know
you
,” I said finally. “So why don’t you believe I know
him
?”

“It is not that I do not believe you,” Alejandro said. “It is that you may be mistaken.”

The calm I’d gained from my trip home vanished in a heartbeat, and I felt all hot with anger and disappointment. I propped myself against the patio table, my arms crossed in front of me. I know my face didn’t show very much, but Alejandro must have felt something; he moved away and sat on the edge of the small deck at the back of our house.

“Since
when
might I be mistaken?” Finally, my throat unlocked enough to let me speak. “Am I mistaken about you? Was I mistaken about the Collector?”

He was in front of me, his hands on my shoulders—gently, very deliberately
not
drawing me into his arms, though that was what he wanted to do. I was so upset I actually got a read on him, as if he had another self superimposed on him.

“My dear one, no.
Querida
, no. You are not mistaken about me. You are my
fara’ip
, my own blood. I will never harm you.”

Not knowingly
—but to be fair, that amendment was only in my own head, not in him. No one can guarantee that they won’t hurt you by accident—or that they won’t hurt your feelings.

Well, maybe
I
could. But that wasn’t important just then.

Alejandro didn’t see that by doubting me he
was
hurting me, that his skepticism made me smaller. He took the one skill and talent I had and made it nothing. It wasn’t what he intended, no. But this was a clear case where intentions and outcome didn’t match, and it’s the outcome you have to take responsibility for. I took a deep breath and released it slowly.

“I was thinking about this on the way home,” I said. “Do you realize that until now we’ve never disagreed? That’s what makes this so difficult.” I shifted under his hands, and Alejandro released me. I crossed the patio on stiff legs and sat down on the edge of the deck. “Until now,
my
observations have always agreed with yours. But now, when what I’m telling you doesn’t match what you already think, it’s
now
you believe I’m mistaken.”

Alejandro sat down on the steps, so our heads were almost on a level, and we could speak more quietly. “I suggest a possibility only,” he said. “‘What if?’ is all I’m asking.” He raised his shoulders and turned up his hands. “
What if
you are mistaken? You have explained to me something of what you sense, and you have told me that your observations, or rather your interpretations, your own understanding, is sometimes limited because of what you do
not
know.”

Well, I hadn’t put it quite like that.

“You will admit that your experience, even of human life, is limited and these—the Outsider, the Rider—they need not think nor feel nor act in the way that you might expect. It is possible that you may misunderstand them.”

“You mean the way I misunderstand you?
You’re
not a human being.” This was the meanest thing I’d ever said, and I wished the words back as soon as they were out. Alejandro didn’t turn away, but
he shut his eyes tight. He must have had this type of argument before, I realized. Maybe with one—or more—of his own partly human descendants.

“You are my
fara’ip
now,” he said finally. “It is too great a risk for us to trust this Rider. We know nothing of him. It is the risk that makes me speak this way.”

I couldn’t help thinking how lucky it was that I hadn’t told Alejandro everything I knew—if he didn’t trust Wolf now, he would certainly never trust him if he learned Wolf used to be a Hound. Still, I owed it to him to consider what he was saying. When Wolf had first touched me, I’d been startled, but now that I had the context to understand what it was I felt about him, the contradictions in him…

“Alejandro, what Stormwolf says about the new High Prince, all of that is true. I have the context for that—you gave it to me yourself, and I can’t be mistaken about it. I’m in no danger personally from Stormwolf—or from Nik and his people for that matter.” At least not the kind of danger Alejandro was worrying about. “There’s no risk there, I
know
it. It’s
you
Nik needs to help him and the others, not me.” With luck, Alejandro wouldn’t notice that I was shifting the emphasis off of Wolf. “He doesn’t even know I’m psychic.

“Of course there’s interpretation in what I do; you know there is. But if—” I searched through my experiences for an example. “If a man believes he’s getting away with cheating on a business deal and he isn’t, I’m going to know, whether he does or not.” I tapped the signet ring Alejandro wore on his left index finger. “When I touch an object, I can see who made it, who it once belonged to, and who it belongs to now.”

“You knew the name of the Solitary who forged my
gra’if
blade.” Alejandro’s gaze was turned inward, remembering. He began to nod. “Even though I had long forgotten it.”

I felt a smile coming on. “I see what’s really there, even if I don’t always understand the whole truth of it.” I thought about Wolf calling me a Truthreader, but I thought I wouldn’t mention him just now. I put my hand on Alejandro’s arm. “When I first met you, I didn’t know you were a Rider, because I didn’t know that’s what your people call yourselves. But I knew you weren’t human, and I knew what it was about you that was different, the Moving and…and—” [How he still hears his wife’s voice singing to him in the wind; hears
her voice and feels the touch of her hand and that’s why he won’t go back, won’t ever want to be in a place that did not know her.] I blinked and swallowed. Another thing I would never say aloud. “And I know that you would never harm me, or let me come to any harm.”

Alejandro rubbed his face with both hands. He’d been doing that a lot more since we’d arrived in Toronto. He wasn’t exactly regretting we’d come, but almost.

“I apologize,” he said. “I am sorry both that you were upset, and that I contributed to the cause of it.” This time he meant it.

“And you believe me?”

“About the message the Moonward one brings? Yes, of course. But you must understand, I trust
you
. Him I cannot trust so easily. Not without knowing him better.” Alejandro stood and put out his hand to pull me to my feet.

“But you trusted Nighthawk right away, when you didn’t know him.”

Alejandro shrugged. “Nighthawk is a Sunward Rider.”

I blinked at him as he held the screen door open for me. I’d known about the different Wards thing—I just hadn’t realized how big it was.

“But come,” he said walking ahead of me toward the kitchen. “There is food to prepare, dinner to eat. And—who knows?—telephone calls to make.”

Okay. I followed him into the kitchen. He was letting me get refocused on our normal lives; putting the other stuff on hold. Saying that his problems with Wolf were really just Rider politics, something he hadn’t paid attention to in generations—and something I didn’t have to pay attention to at all.

I realized I’d been expecting him to reopen the “let’s get you somewhere safe” discussion, and I was relieved to know that wasn’t going to happen. Maybe I wasn’t going to be put at risk again in the fight against the Hunt, but I wasn’t going to be sent away.

I thought of the warmth of Wolf’s skin, the strength in his hands.
Good
, I thought.

L
IGHTBORN THE GRIFFIN LORD rode half a length ahead of the mixed group of Riders accompanying him, barely gaining on the magenta-clad Riders in front of them. The landscapes flashed by as they Rode, now a soft wooded path, now the cropped grass of a tended lawn, now the hooves of the Cloud Horses plashing hock-deep in cold surf. Lightborn smiled, aware, as always, of the liquid slide of muscle as his Cloud Horse galloped.

“They are heading for the Portal,” Windwatcher said from just behind his elbow. “Why?”

Why, indeed? There were five guards at each Portal, which meant these seven Riders had not a chance of taking them out before Lightborn and his Riders fell upon them from the rear.

“Come, my Clouds! Faster!” Lightborn could not let his people slacken their speed. They must keep on the heels of their quarry, harrying them, breaking their concentration, so that they would be unable to Move.

They were close enough now that Lightborn could see two Starwards in with the other Riders. Unusual. It was the Basilisk’s Sunward followers—most favored by him and therefore most twisted
from the true—who made up the bulk of those who were resisting the rule of the High Prince.

Abruptly, the scene around them changed to a dense wood, and they slowed, some in both parties cursing. Lightborn knew immediately that these were Trees—Naturals—and he shouted out: “I am Lightborn, son of Honor of Souls, cousin to Dawntreader, the Prince Guardian. Hear me, Trees, and help me. Stop these, my quarry, hold them safe for the High Prince’s justice.”

There was more cursing, but now it came only from ahead of them, along with one long drawn-out sound that was more howl than curse.

“Lightborn, what passes?” Windwatcher was at his right hand in an instant, his Cloud Horse finding the path suddenly easy.

“The Trees assist us,” Lightborn said. “Our quarry will be waiting for us ahead.”

“The Trees can do this?” The voice came from behind them.

Lightborn glanced around. The young Rider who spoke looked around her, shoulders hunched. There had been an edge of fear in her voice. Windwatcher, his Sunward face ruddier than usual, had opened his mouth to answer this breach of discipline, but Lightborn stopped him with a raised hand.

“A straight question,” he said. “And deserves a straight answer.” There had always been tensions between Riders, Naturals, and Solitaries—something Cassandra was trying to eliminate. “They can do this, and more. But you will see they only defend themselves, or answer the call of the High Prince, as now.”

“And that is lesson enough for today,” Windwatcher said. The younger Rider wore his colors, and she was his to discipline. “Our business is now before us.”

The path the Trees had left for them widened into a clearing, where their quarry was held. Five were still mounted, kept on horseback more by the vines and branches that twined around them than by their own inclinations. Two had attempted to flee on foot before the trees had stopped them as well. One of these spoke up immediately as Lightborn came into view.