Borderline (The Arcadia Project, #1)(107)

“It’s all right now,” I told them both. “Vivian is dead. She’s not going to hurt anyone else.”

Trillhazel looked at me as though she didn’t quite believe me, and Claybriar leaned over to kiss her temple. My chest hurt, watching them, and I hugged Monty close.

“Go with the others,” he said slowly to her in English. “Go get ready; we’re going home.”

She smiled up at him, then rose from the couch and headed for the stairs. Her hooves struck crisp, loud sounds from the wooden steps; I watched her, then turned back to Claybriar. His gaze was on me now, and I wished it wasn’t; my skin crawled with bashful dread.

“You don’t feel it,” he said. His eyes reminded me of the well I’d found him in.

I shook my head miserably. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I . . . care about you, and I think you’re . . . amazing. God, that drawing, I can’t tell you what it meant. But when we met, it wasn’t—it wasn’t like the thing I saw with Inaya and Foxfeather.”

He nodded slowly, then dropped his head and stared at his hands. “I’m sorry too,” he said. “I looked for you, for years. Felt you go west, and followed you. I was so close. But I didn’t get to you in time. If I had—”

“No,” I interrupted fiercely, staring in dismay at the top of his horned head. “No, it’s not your fault. And—I was supposed to end up this way. You’d still be in that well if I weren’t.”

He looked up at that, and although he didn’t make a move toward me, there was so much love in his eyes I didn’t know what to do with it all.

“Why did you leave those drawings everywhere?” I asked instead.

“I’ve been doing it all this time,” he said. “Like messages in a bottle. Everytime I’m stuck on this side waiting for anything, I make a sketch and leave it behind. I had to believe you’d find one eventually. And in the end fate puts you a few steps behind me, hunting the same guy.”

I smiled sadly. All those drawings I’d never found, little slices of Claybriar I’d never see.

I thought of Officer Clay, with his gray T-shirt and his caffè mocha. He didn’t scare me. I pictured sitting astride his lap, his hand curled around the scarred end of my thigh, his mouth soft against mine. But of course it couldn’t be like that. He couldn’t even touch me.

“I should go,” he said, standing.

“Don’t give up on me,” I blurted.

He looked at me, startled, one ear twitching back. “Of course not,” he said.

“You’ll come back sometime?”

“Of course.” He lingered a moment, then turned without saying good-bye. I averted my eyes from his hooves as he walked away.

I felt a twinge of guilt for judging his appearance—who was I to be choosy about legs—and it was that guilt that made me realize with a shock what had just happened.

When I’d imagined us together, he was the only one I’d changed. For the first time since my fall, I had imagined something beautiful happening with me in it. The real me, missing pieces and all.

? ? ?

Rivenholt was executed in Arcadia with great ceremony, according to an e-mail from David Berenbaum. When I tried to reply, my e-mail bounced back to me—no such account. The next day the trades reported that David had packed it off to some emu ranch in New Mexico with Linda, leaving Inaya West as the sole proprietor of Valiant Studios. As David had promised, she offered me a job as her assistant, and I accepted it.

Since Teo didn’t legally exist, and Vivian was being treated as a missing person, only Gloria got an obituary. Gloria Day, freelance script supervisor and missionary to the needy, killed in a tragic accident, service to be held at St. Brendan Church. It wasn’t until I heard the Latin hymns at her funeral that I realized why I’d never been able to find anything about her online. Gloria dei was more than likely not the name on her birth certificate.

I wheeled myself out of the service a little early—I still hadn’t replaced my broken AK—and found Caryl lurking outside, leaning against the church.

“Well, hello,” I said. “You’re still basically human, you know. You can probably enter holy ground.”

“Funerals make me uncomfortable,” she replied evenly.

“Tjuan and Phil are up front; I don’t think they saw me. But I’m sure they’d like to sit with you.”

“I am only here because I didn’t know where else to find you.”

“I’ve got an apartment in the Marina; you can have the number if you want. I’m going to be Inaya’s assistant at Valiant. How about you? Still have a job?”

Caryl was silent for a moment, then pushed off the wall and moved in front of my chair so I had to look at her. For some reason she’d cut off all her hair; it lay close to her head in well-groomed curls.

“National has put me on probation,” she said. “Which means I still have the authority to hire you back, if you wish. Tjuan needs a new partner.”

“Having employee turnover problems?”

“Millie.” Her tone was flat, but I knew a rebuke when I heard one.

I sighed and ruffled my hair. “I can’t imagine anything less fun than having Tjuan as a partner. And I have a roof now, and a job.”