The Saint (41 page)

“I knew a lot,” Kris agreed with a small smile. He put an arm around her and urged her close. Though there was nothing sexual in his intent, she could still feel the pull rising between them. He added, “It was really loud wallpaper. Even Mugshottz could hear some of it.”

Adora leaned into his arm and started telling him the rest. Kris remained silent, offering comfort with his arms while the last of her tears fell.

“It's autumn, isn't it?” she asked sometime later. Her voice was raspy from overuse and crying. “It seems that I have somehow managed to sleep the summer away.”

“Nearly so. The autumnal equinox is but a week away—but you weren't sleeping. This happened while you were lost on the faerie roads. Some of them are . . . feral. They belong to the goblins now, and are hostile to those of our blood. They couldn't age you, but they could slow you down enough that the outside time changed.”

“So, lots of bad things happen down there.”

“Often,” he agreed.

“Is that why Chloe can't go outside? Because she'd be old?”

“Perhaps. Chloe has many reasons for staying inside.”

Adora nodded. “Did that mess up your plans— spending all that time looking for me?” she asked.

“No, but it brought them forward a bit.”

Adora bolted upright. “It's been weeks! Ben must be worried sick—and my house and the bills!”

“All taken care of. You needn't worry.” He pulled her back. “The Internet is an amazing thing.”

Adora decided she would take Kris's advice. She was too tired to worry anymore. “But . . . I just don't understand how it all works,” she complained. “I just don't get it. How is something like this even possible?”

“There are probably scientific or mathematical formulas to explain it,” Kris said, “but I think of it this way: Every memory we have is tied to a certain time and place. Out here, the rock you touched a minute ago is not the rock you see now. There have been microscopic changes. The wind that touches you is not the same wind of a moment before. It couldn't be, because it would be bumping into itself, constantly crossing its own temporal path.”

“Er, okay.”

“And just as this rock and the wind are different, so too are you. You are not the you that you were an hour ago. And that is as it should be in the human world. But inside the mound, the time-place—or time-space—is different. The mound is a crossroads between this world and another. You can run into things that were, things that are and sometimes things that are yet to be. Usually these things happen just with the mind. Like with Farrar. Or like how Nyssa and Abrial have learned to travel into the Yesterdays. Their minds leave but their bodies remain.”

“And using the faerie roads to travel the length of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in just minutes . . . ?”

“Well, that is something that happens with the body as well,” Kris said.

“It sounds like science fiction, you know.”

“But it's really a faerie tale,” Kris joked. “Well, as they say, truth is stranger than fiction.”

Adora nodded. Then she changed the subject before Kris could go on. “I saw Chloe this morning. I forgot to ask her—what did she and Zayn decide to call the baby?” she asked.

“Shulamite.”

Kris's voice was so expressionless that, in spite of her unattractively reddened eyes, Adora looked up at him. “As in King Solomon and the Shulamite Woman?” she asked, startled by the idea. “The woman who married Solomon but then fled him to return to her one true love, a shepherd?”

“Yes.”

“I guess Chloe isn't up on her Bible reading.”

“Perhaps not. Though it has been said that she lived happily ever after—at least, after fleeing.” Kris was smiling a little.

“That's true. And I suppose I like Shulamite better than Clarissa.”

Kris chuckled. “As do I. I can't imagine calling a child Clarissa. Not even a human one.”

A child. His child. Their child. That's what he meant. The one they would have.

“What now?” Adora asked, looking away.

“I have some plans to set in motion, and you have a book to write.”

“That's still on?” she asked, surprised and a bit relieved. “You still want that biography?”

“Oh, yes. And you need to be quick about it. We've lost a lot of time.”

“But if I tell the truth, everyone will think Bishop S. Nicholas is a kooky wackjob. Or else a total fake.”

“Perhaps. But it amuses me to tell the truth. And it will accomplish other goals by distraction. The book is excellent sleight of hand. It will keep my enemies busy while I get on with my real agenda— which I will share with you soon.” She loved his utter confidence.

“Sleight of hand?” Adora suddenly realized that she should be insulted. She laughed instead. “Is that what this is?”

“Definitely. While also the truth.”

“Okay, I'll get down to work. After all, being a writer is about seeing the possibilities in people and situations. I believe that most of us are—or at least begin—as optimists. I'll probably come up with something semicoherent.”

“That's the spirit. You still look a bit frazzled, though,” Kris said, smoothing back her hair and urging her to look at him again. “You know, it isn't right to be an Indian giver. You gave your dark truths to me. It wouldn't be right to try and take their burden back.”

“You can have them,” she assured him. But she thought to herself:
Frazzled?
That didn't begin to cover it. But Adora didn't complain out loud. After all, Kris was calm and unruffled, and he was the one whose reputation was on the line.

But how was she to write a summation of Kris's life and do him justice? A mere statement of outward facts—crazy as they were—wasn't enough. Yet his interior thoughts and spiritual motivation wouldn't be readily accessible to the average reader. Hell! She was connected to his brain, and
she
didn't understand him completely. In fact, the longer she was with him, the more she realized that she was a footnote to his long existence.

“Not a footnote—a new chapter,” he corrected. “You'll find the way, I promise. We fey are adept at balancing acts of all kinds,” he said confidently. Then: “But that isn't all that's bothering you, is it?”

“No. This plan of yours—it's going to be dangerous, isn't it? There could be more attempts on your life. On mine too.”

“Yes,” he admitted. “But they won't succeed.”

“You picked a lousy time to fall in love,” Adora said. Then, hearing herself, she blushed. Kris had never said anything about love—not specific, romantic love.

He seemed unperturbed. “I know. I'm sorry, Adora. I should have said this straight off—I love you. I love you too much for peace of mind, actually. But I can't love you any less, so . . .” He shrugged. The gesture went oddly with his suit. “Things are as they are. I plan to lie in the bed I made and enjoy it.”

Adora settled back into his arms. It was easier to deal with hard truths there. “I love you too. I think. I'm just having a harder time embracing everything else,” she confessed. “People keep talking about babies, and I'm just not ready to think about those. I may not ever be ready.”

He nodded, rubbing his cheek against her hair. “I know. A child would be a first for me too, you know.”

Adora blinked. She hadn't thought of that. She had just assumed that Kris would be keen to have children right away.

Maybe when you have all the world's children to care for, you don't need your own,
Joy suggested.

“What would you like to do when this is over?” Kris asked suddenly. “The world is ours to explore. I know people, as they say. Want to see the columned halls of the selkies' sunken castle in Scotland? Or see the lost city in the Ecuadorian rainforest where the dark pixies lived?” She looked up, and he smiled a little. “This is a hard job we have, but there are perks. Choose something—anything—and we'll plan a vacation.”

A vacation.

“I'm not sure where I'd like to go. I'll have to think about it,” Adora said. She felt a bit cheered that Kris was making plans for an
afterwards
. Plans that didn't involve children. Or saving the world.

Ask him why,
Joy urged, curiosity getting the better of her.
Why is he doing whatever he's doing?

Do I want to know?
Adora asked, and found that she did.

“Kris, can you explain why? I mean, why it is that
you
have to do this—whatever it is you're doing?” He raised a brow. “Why you're giving me time to adjust when I know the others, and the Goddess, expect us to . . .” She stopped, embarrassed.

“I can explain, but understanding is up to you.”

Adora sighed. “I know. And I'm dense. But try anyway.”

“The children part is easy. You aren't ready, and given your childhood, I'd have to be a monster to ask you to have a baby when your heart isn't sure. The Goddess can just wait. As for the other . . . That's tougher. Goblins . . .” He sighed.

“I know I don't like what I've seen of them. They're violent and cruel.”

“Some are,” Kris agreed. “The leaders, often. You don't know much about the goblins because lutins have chosen to keep to their lives, unseen, much like the fey. We few have walked among humans for millennia, but cautiously, and with our identities unknown. I was an exception, and eventually even I was forced to present myself as human.”

“Because you were in danger?”

“Yes—and still am. The species xenophobia isn't something of the long past, you know. Look at the hate-crime lists of Amnesty International. Many humans kill each other almost without hesitation. What might feys and goblins expect if they walked openly among them, proclaiming their differences and asking for a share of ever-diminishing resources?”

“But surely in this day and age—”

“No. Nothing's changed. There were always humans who welcomed us, and always those who hated and feared anyone different. And consider this: There is no law on the books anywhere in the
United States that says killing a fey or a goblin is illegal. Technically, it isn't even murder.”

“But the Americans With Disabilities Act—”

“We aren't considered Americans. Even if we were, it only says that you can't discriminate against those of mixed-blood. It says nothing about killing them. And pureblood faeries, trolls, pixies or elves—dogs and cats have better protection under the law. In thirty-two states, it's illegal for a pureblood fey to have sex with a human. In two of them, it's a hanging offense—a terrible punishment, as hanging won't kill a pureblood sidhe.”

“‘She?'”

“
Sidhe
—a fey.”

“But Kris, lots of states have stupid old laws on the books. They just haven't changed them because they think the fey are dead.”

“Is that why?” He shook his head. “I'll wager anything you like that, once they know I'm alive, they won't rush out to clean up their archaic laws. The only reason they haven't passed any recent repressive measures is that the mixed human-fey and the goblins have been at pains to present themselves to the public—on those occasions when they can't avoid interaction—as being essentially human. Humans don't know who we are, but since we look like them—walk like them, talk like them—the average man has offered us shelter under their umbrella of goodwill and given the politicians no reason to act against us. Supplied with an excuse, the politicians would be happy to play Us and Them.”

Adora stared at Kris, stricken.

“What the hell are you doing, then—making yourself a target this way?” she asked. “You have
goblins and humans after you, and you have me write this stupid book and expose you further?”

“I'm doing this because I—
we
—have no choice. We either succeed in ending this species hatred and uniting as one new nation or we all perish. Which means we have to stand up and admit what we are and talk about our differences until people stop being afraid of them. We have to all meet at the same table as equals.”

“Kris . . .” Adora shook her head slowly.

“It can be done. An opportunity has presented itself. Remorse is not usually a human political failing, and it's all but unheard of in goblin hives. Molybdenum is a true rarity. It's why I worked with him, and why I must rescue him and his people now, in spite of the risk. He's media savvy, and one of the few leaders who aren't aggressive and blinded by race-hate—and I believe there is a chance he can regain control in L.A. Usually I wouldn't interfere in lutin internal power struggles, but this is too critical to pass up.” He sighed. “I don't know if you can truly understand. So many goblin leaders are angry beyond any hope of reasoning with—beyond even bribery—and I fear they won't be content until they have ripped the belly out of human civilization. And this will happen before Nick and Zee's kid can resurrect the hobgoblins and turn them loose on the world.”

“Hobgoblins?” Adora asked blankly. She didn't know what those were, but they sounded nasty.

“Yeah. Hobgoblins. They're the jokers in the deck who can skew the balance of power for good. The world was made by Gaia, but these days it's being run by some truly evil caretakers.” Kris sighed. “But leave unto the day the troubles therein. We must do
what we can when we can. We fey know that our war hasn't worked. The recent cross-breeding and cultural exchanges haven't helped either. We have to try something else. Something more direct and radical. Closer to my original plan.”

“But what? What could possibly work?”

“A different kind of intervention. You know what the three species have in common?” Kris asked. “The children of humans and lutins and feys all have the capacity to love without judgment. We must teach them to embrace unconditional love while they are still young and uncorrupted by the hate and societal bigotry.