Deceptions
Page 72

She lifted her thin shoulders. “Who knows? It’s never happened. Now, you need to go.”
“I have more—”
“You aren’t worried about him anymore?” I followed her gaze. The meadow faded into the Cainsville park. I saw myself on the bench, sweat pouring down my face, soaking my shirt as I stared glassy-eyed. Gabriel crouched in front of me, his hands on my shoulders.
When I squeezed my eyes shut, I could hear his voice, feel his touch.
“Olivia. Damn it, Olivia.”
My eyes snapped open.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Gabriel was right there, his face taut. He moved away, releasing me fast.
“I couldn’t get you back,” he said, as if in explanation.
“I know. I was just sitting here and . . .” I inhaled. “It’s over now. I got the whole story.”
“I couldn’t get you back,” he said again, and there was a different note in his voice now, almost angry. “You would not come back. Your temperature kept rising, and you were gone.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I—”
“I’m not accusing you of anything, Olivia,” he said as he stood, snapping his shades back on. “I’m telling you that I could not bring you back. It keeps getting worse, and I don’t know . . . I couldn’t get to you—” He bit off the sentence, and I remembered the fire, the terrible fire between the worlds, Arawn shouting, Gwynn shouting, trapped on their opposite sides, Matilda lost in the middle, screaming, as she burned.
They couldn’t save her. Couldn’t get to her.
Gwynn . . .
I closed my eyes. Gabriel wasn’t Gwynn. Thrust into the role, but not the same person, not bound to the same fate, not feeling the same emotions, the same bonds. I had to remember that. Otherwise . . . well, otherwise, I thought I’d go mad, trying to reconcile it, Matilda and Gwynn, me and Gabriel.
“I think it’s over now,” I said. “I’ve seen it all.”
“And you’ll tell me.”
I hesitated.
“Olivia.”
“Of course.” As much as I can, as much as I dare. “Not here, though. We should go someplace. Maybe . . . Shit! Ricky.” I checked my watch.
“I heard his bike a few minutes ago.”
“He’ll be wondering where I went. Did you text him?”
A cool look. “At the time, I was a little more concerned with snapping you out of a trance state before fever short-circuited your brain.”
I texted, telling Ricky I was out for a walk with Gabriel and heading back now. Then I rose, my knees shaky as I started for the gate.
“We aren’t discussing it, then?” he said.
“Not while Ricky’s waiting with pizza.”
“I should think this is more important than pizza.”
Now I was the one giving him a look. “It is, but he just rode twenty miles to get it for me, and you want me to say I’m too busy to eat it? Or that I’m busy talking to you about things that I can’t tell him . . . when he thinks I’ve told him everything? Unless you want me to tell him everything.”
“Fine. But I expect to speak to you tonight about this.”
I nodded and headed out the gate. We’d just reached the walkway beside my building when I heard Ricky’s voice along with another I recognized.
“Patrick,” Gabriel murmured.
Patrick was, technically I guess, one of the Cainsville elders, though the form he took didn’t look much older than me. That was even more disconcerting, given that he was Gabriel’s father. Not that Gabriel knew that. Rose did, and we’d agreed that was one secret we were keeping for now.
Patrick was a bòcan. A hobgoblin, which didn’t mean some kind of troll-like creature. The best-known example of a hobgoblin is Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which about sums up Patrick.
I hurried down the lane. Ricky kept glancing over Patrick’s shoulder, clearly eager to be gone but not wanting to be rude.
When he caught sight of me, he grinned, pleasure mixed with relief.
“Hello, Liv. Gabriel,” Patrick said. “We were discussing motorcycles. I might buy one. They look like fun.”
“Isn’t there some kind of rule against that?” I said. “Crossing into enemy territory?”
There was, for one split second, the most wonderful look of surprise on Patrick’s face before he covered it with a breezy grin.
I turned to Ricky. “Gabriel’s joining us for pizza.”
“Actually,” Gabriel began, “Olivia and I need—”
“Can you take it over to Rose’s?” I asked Ricky. “I’ll meet you both there. I’d like to speak to Patrick.”
I waited until they were gone, and then I said to Patrick, “Leave him alone.”
“Which him? You have so many.”
“One fewer now.”
His lips pursed. “I wasn’t going to say that. It seemed rude.”
“I’m making a point. James’s death had something to do with this Mallt-y-Nos nonsense.”
“Nonsense?”
“Oh, I know, it’s life or death to you. But to me? It’s a whole other kind of life or death. The kind that is getting people I care about killed. And other people I care about charged with murder.”
“That is unfortunate.”
“Unfortunate?” I choked with sudden rage. “He’s your son. I know that doesn’t mean fuck-all to you, but could you at least have the decency to acknowledge he’s in trouble?”