Borderline (The Arcadia Project, #1)(31)

“Weird. Does it hurt or anything?”

“Only if you touch the archway itself. Even then it is not so much pain as intense discomfort.”

“What does it feel like?”

Caryl seemed to give it some thought. Elliott stirred restlessly in my lap. “Some describe it as similar to the feeling you get when you first begin a free fall.”

“That awful thing in your stomach, like on a roller coaster?”

Caryl gave me a very long look, then shrugged. “Possibly.”

“Have you not used one?”

“A Gate, yes. A roller coaster, no.”

“Of course you haven’t.” I rolled my eyes.

“Millie?”

“What.”

“I find it strange that a roller coaster was the first free fall that came to your mind.”

My mouth fell open, then shut again. I stared at her. “I don’t remember the fall you’re referring to,” I said as evenly as I could manage. “I don’t even remember being on the roof. They had to tell me about it later.” I turned away from her, stared into the empty lobby, and didn’t say, *.

It was quite a while before anyone at all made an appearance. They mostly seemed to be guests checking out of their rooms, and none of them were people Caryl seemed to know. I thought I recognized at least one woman myself; someone from TV, maybe, but I couldn’t place the name.

“Do celebrities come here?” I asked Caryl. “I’m not familiar with Santa Barbara.”

“Most of our human clientele prefer more expensive resorts,” she said. “But fey enjoy this retreat because of the orange grove on the grounds. Fey are obsessed with fruit. Citrus fruits in general are probably the most common smuggling problem we have.”

“Candy, too, to judge by Rivenholt. Fey are weird.”

“The word ‘weird’ descends from the Old English wyrd, by way of the Old Norse urer, meaning fate. So, yes.”

“Have you noticed that you’re impossible to have a normal conversation with?”

“I am not inclined to elect you arbiter of normal.”

Since talking was futile, we sat around some more. Eventually the woman at the front desk was relieved by a man. Elliott got restless and started doing aerial acrobatics. When his attempt to dive-bomb a departing family made me laugh out loud, Caryl recalled him to her side.

“I think I will take a brief stroll about the grounds,” she said. “Stay here, and if Rivenholt appears, find some way to detain him.”

With those vague instructions, Caryl left. Now that Elliott wasn’t around to amuse me, I pushed my fey lenses up onto my head and settled in to people-watch. Having sunglasses that weren’t dirt cheap made me a little nervous; I had already gone longer without losing these than any other pair I’d owned.

I spotted only one other familiar face, a curly-haired Latina from a canceled police procedural. Time began to drag, and my AK prosthetic began to dig uncomfortably into my butt cheek. Trying not to attract too much attention, I rose and stretched, keeping myself out of the eye line of the man at the front desk. I practiced walking, letting my cane dangle in my left hand and seeing if I could smooth out my stride without its help. It was beginning to seem as though Rivenholt would not be spooked enough to check out, so this could be a long siege, and I had nothing better to do.

As I moved, I saw another vaguely familiar man seated at the bar. Messy hair the color of coffee grounds, rough features, a pretentious goatee. I amused myself for a moment by trying to remember what show he was on, and then he turned his head to look directly at me.

From the expression on his face, it seemed he recognized me, too.





15


Shit. My mind raced. Someone from UCLA? Someone who’d worked on one of my films? I looked away, feigning disinterest even as my stomach began to churn. My memory was a little unreliable thanks to my brain injury, but there weren’t many people from my old life who would remember me fondly. I hadn’t just burned my bridges; I’d nuked them from orbit.

After a moment I dared another look at him. He was still staring at me. He stroked his goatee for a moment, then slid off his bar stool and started toward me. He was tall, and I had a sudden feeling he was going to come over and give me a big Hollywood hug. At the thought of being crushed against his rumpled button-down shirt, my palms went damp.

Without thinking, I turned and headed for one of the archways, fleeing the lobby without even trying to be subtle about it. I heard the man working at the front desk say, “Miss?” politely, but I pretended not to hear him.

When my eyes slammed up against morning sunlight and glittering sidewalk, I slid the shades down again, but I didn’t slow until I’d rounded the corner of the nearest villa. I took a few deep breaths and then peeked around the corner back toward the lobby.

He hadn’t followed me.

I wasn’t sure what to do now, though. I didn’t know where Caryl was, but I didn’t want to go back to the lobby again either. So I ducked back around the corner and stood there admiring the landscaping and taking deep breaths of the sea air.

Before much longer I caught movement out of the corner of my eye: a figure wreathed in shadow was headed toward me. Recognizing Caryl’s magical haze, I pushed my glasses back up onto my head so I could see her.