A Local Habitation
Page 10

“Is Elvish a language?”
Colin considered this, and then said, “Well, Gordan speaks it.”
“Is that a yes or no on the Elvish?” demanded the brunette. She looked annoyed. I understood how she felt.
“It’s not a language; Klingon is, and she just switched to Italian, which makes six.” A new man stepped out of one of the walkways, hands tucked into the pockets of his impeccably tailored suit. His hair and goatee were clipped close, not a strand out of place. “That work?”
“Hey, Elliot. Yeah, that works,” said the brunette.
This was worse than trying to watch opera without a program book. I cleared my throat. Quentin gave me a stricken look, but the crowd didn’t miss a beat, continuing to debate foreign swear words. I cleared my throat again; either they couldn’t hear me, or I was being ignored.
“Excuse me?” I said, finally.
Elliot looked up and smiled, taking his hands out of his suit pockets. Quentin shrank back. I’m sure the expression was meant to be reassuring, but few things are less reassuring than a smiling Bannick: their teeth are sharp and mossy, and they look perfectly equipped for a nice dinner of young Daoine Sidhe. The teeth are misleading—the Bannick are actually very friendly people. They like to live in bathhouses and on coasts, and unlike the Kelpies, they don’t kill travelers. Well, not often. “I’m sorry; are you lost?” he asked.
“No, I’m not,” I said. “I’m looking for Countess Torquill. Is she here?”
“Sorry, no,” said the brunette, eyes still on her clipboard. “Can we help you?”
I bit back a sigh, saying, “I really need to talk to January. Will she be back soon?” Inwardly, I was fuming. It wasn’t her fault Sylvester hadn’t told her we were coming, but I’d still expected her to be there when we arrived. No one ever accused me of being logical.
She glanced up, smiling. “Probably not.”
“Damn.” The multilingual cursing was still going on. I looked toward it. “What is that?”
“That would be Gordan,” said Colin.
“Why is she screaming like that?” asked Quentin.
“Because she found a flaw, an error, nay, a veritable bug in her code,” said the blond, with obvious relish. “I think her poor obsessive heart may break.”
I blinked. “Does she do this often?”
“Every time,” he said, winking. For some reason, I felt my cheeks redden. Quentin scowled.
“You can set your clock by it,” Colin added.
“If you bother to set a clock at all,” said the brunette. The shouting stopped and she looked at her watch. “Twenty-one minutes, eight languages. She’s right on schedule.”
Talking to the entire group at once was making my headache worse. “Is there somewhere we can go to wait for the Countess?”
“Sure—have you eaten? You’re welcome to wait in the cafeteria.” Elliot glanced to the brunette, who shrugged and offered another brilliant smile. “You can get something in your stomachs while you wait for January to come talk to you.”
“Great,” I said, and realized I meant it. Headaches make me hungry. Next to me, Quentin perked up. Teenage boys are almost always ready for another meal. “Food would be wonderful.”
“All right, then. Follow me.” Elliot started down one of the paths into the maze, waving for us to follow. I shrugged and did as I was bid, nodding to the others as I passed. I had nothing else to do, and Quentin was looking almost pleasant for the first time since we’d arrived. Maybe after he ate something he’d stop glaring all the time.
“Later, Elliot,” called the blond, joining Colin at the water cooler. The brunette had gone back to her notes, and Peter was wandering calmly down one of the aisles. It seemed this really was just “business as usual.”
“See you,” Elliot said, waving again. “Keep walking,” he advised, more quietly. “They can smell fear; they’ll be on you like hawks if they know they make you nervous.”
“You’re pulling my leg . . . right?” Quentin glanced to me, anxious.
“He’s kidding,” I said. People who stand around taking notes while their friends scream usually aren’t dangerous to anyone but themselves.
“Yes, I’m pulling your leg,” Elliot said. “You both look so serious.”
“I’m on official business,” said Quentin, tone going stiff and formal.
I shrugged. “I just have a headache.”
“Some food and a nice cup of coffee will clear that right up.” Elliot stopped at a blue steel door and pushed it open, letting sunshine flood into the area. From behind the wall, the woman that had been swearing earlier shouted, “Turn off that damn sun!”
“Sorry, Gordan!” Elliot called back, leading us outside. The door slammed behind Quentin, vanishing into the brick wall like it had never existed. If I squinted, I could just make out the handle. Elliot caught my expression, and smiled. “We like things tidy.”
“Right,” I said. Quentin was standing as close as he could manage, nearly touching my elbow. Shaking my head, I turned to consider the grounds—and froze.
The landscaping was better than the interior decoration, possibly because it didn’t exist in the real world. The sky was a nonoffensive shade of blue, and the lush green grass was studded with a froth of tiny white flowers that I recognized from my mother’s estate. Only the cats were the same. They were everywhere, watching us from picnic tables and the crooks of the carefully trimmed trees. At some point between entering and leaving the building, we’d crossed into the Summerlands. That did explain at least part of why the place seemed to be so deserted—someone inside the knowe would be invisible to someone outside of it, and vice versa. I doubled my estimation of the local feline population. If half of them were inside the knowe and half of them were outside . . . that was a lot of cats. They probably avoided the buildings because they didn’t want to transition between worlds again.
Why would a computer company have an unannounced gate between their mortal and fae locations and a cat population the SPCA would envy? I glanced at Elliot. He was continuing blithely, not seeming to see anything strange. Right. If he wanted to play things that way, that was how we’d play them, for now. Keeping my voice level, I asked, “Is everyone here so . . .”