Borderline (The Arcadia Project, #1)(32)

Only it wasn’t Caryl.

The woman looked around forty or so, but a Beverly Hills forty. Her lustrous chocolate-syrup dye job had little gleams of raspberry where the sun caught it. I’d have called her handsome rather than beautiful; even her plump garnet-glossed lips did nothing to soften the severity of her features. Frankly, she looked like the kind of person who might cheerfully break my neck and toss me in a closet.

She didn’t notice me until she was about to stride directly by me, and then she only gave me a vague smile before continuing past me toward the lobby. I shuddered involuntarily as she passed.

I’m not sure how long I stood there trying to make sense of this before I felt a familiar tingling on my shoulder and lowered my glasses to find Elliott sitting there.

“Where’s Caryl?” I asked him. He responded by launching himself into the air and doing a little twirl to see if I was following.

Elliott headed straight over the lobby, but I decided to walk around it rather than risk running into Goatee Guy or Ms. Scary again. Once I made it to the other side of the building, I spotted Elliott bobbing impatiently. I followed him until I found Caryl. Her haze wasn’t as thick as the other woman’s; I could easily recognize her through it.

“I just returned to the lobby looking for you,” she said. “Why did you leave?”

I evaded the question by describing the woman I’d seen. Elliott collapsed on my shoulder, hiding his eyes in my neck.

“I know who that was,” Caryl said. “If she is here, something is deeply wrong. She was not in the lobby just now, but if she is still on the grounds, I can track her.”

She hesitated.

“What?” I said.

“It requires me to support another construct, and as badly as I drained myself hiding the car, I cannot do it unless I reappropriate the energy I used to make Elliott.”

“You mean unmake him?”

“Temporarily.”

“It’s nice of you to warn me, but I think I can stomach it. He’s just a spell, right?”

Another hesitation. “I apologize in advance.”

From her warnings I expected Elliott to be torn limb from limb, but he just winked out like the beam of a flashlight. The incoming rush of magical energy seemed to disorient Caryl, though; she wobbled like a newborn foal. I reached to steady her, then remembered and retracted my hand. Caryl flushed, clearing her throat.

“I use Unseelie magic,” she said, her voice unsteady. “So does she. I can cast a construct that will be drawn toward the nearest source of the same. The disadvantage is that our target will feel the spell too and will know we are coming. It can’t be helped, though; I refuse to believe this woman’s presence is coincidence. It’s likely she is the source of the trouble Rivenholt is in, and if so—” She broke off ominously.

“Caryl. Do you need to rest from the . . . Elliott thing? Your hands are shaking.”

She looked up at me, and her eyes were so nakedly terrified I actually took a half step back. “I’m fine,” she said.

She moved to brace her back against a wall and murmured more of those disturbing Unseelie words. Even prepared for it, I couldn’t stop the primal wave of unease that made my skin go clammy. When she finished, a vaguely spherical blob hovered in the air, visible only through my glasses. It was paradoxically dark and glowing, like the afterimage from a camera flash. After a moment it began to drift away.

“Now we follow it,” Caryl said.

At first the shadowy sphere floated across the lawn with all the urgency of a bit of dandelion fluff, but then it slowly began to gather speed and direction. Caryl had no trouble keeping up, but by the time it had reached the villas on the other side of the pool, I was starting to feel twinges of pain in my lower back and my gait was faltering.

As the spell disappeared around the back of a four-story villa, Caryl glanced back at me, looking torn.

“You don’t have to wait for me,” I said.

“It will be fine,” she said. “We’ll find it.”

It took a bit of searching, but we finally looked up and spotted the construct on the third floor, bumping gently against an exterior door. You’d think that people trying to relax would want elevators, but apparently not. I leaned on the stair railing with the hand not already gripping my cane, and Caryl hovered next to me looking fretful during the entire climb.

When we arrived at the door, Caryl knocked gently. She was pale, and the palm of her glove was dark with sweat. No one answered.

“Fantastic,” I said. “That was worth the effort.”

“She’s in there,” said Caryl. She dispelled the construct and laid her gloved hand on the crack of the door, right where the latch would be.

“You know a spell to unlock it?”

“Not exactly,” she said. She left her hand there and muttered something under her breath. A stink like a septic tank wafted toward me, and through the fey lenses I could see a web of brownish cracks appearing around her hand. Curious, I pushed my glasses to the top of my head; the wood of the doorframe looked normal for a moment but then slowly darkened, warped, and split as though it had undergone decades of decay. The latch slipped free of its slimy purchase as she pushed, -taking splinters of rotten wood with it.

“Charming,” I said.

She turned to me, and without the faint haze from the lenses veiling her face, her fear was even more apparent. “I have known this woman for years. I have exacted certain promises from her that should keep me safe. But you must do exactly as I tell you at all times, and if I ask you to leave, do so without questioning me.”