Borderline (The Arcadia Project, #1)(59)

I glanced at Caryl’s face, forgetting for a moment that I would read nothing there to tell me the relative seriousness of the matter.

Gloria craned her neck to see. “And it’s been doing this for days and days?”

“Not precisely this,” Caryl said. “The numbers have changed as fey have come and gone, but the difference between them has been constant, and the base number has always exactly matched the number of expected Seelie in the area. Until now.”

“What should it read?” I said.

“Eighty-nine. One Seelie fey who should be in Los Angeles is not being counted.”

I stared at the eighty-eight, chewing my bottom lip.

Teo was the one to say what I was afraid to speak out loud. “Does that mean Rivenholt is dead?”

Caryl shook her head slowly. “Normally that would be my first assumption. When the number drops without record of an exit through the Gate or perimeter, it signifies a death.”

“You say that as though fey have been killed here before,” I said. “Wouldn’t that have broken the whatsit? The treaty thing?”

“The Accord? No. There are ways a fey can die bloodlessly. There are consequences, of course, if a human does the killing, but it’s the shedding of blood in particular that is the Accord breaker.”

“That seems like a fairly stupid technicality.”

“It is not. Spilled fey essence is of more concern to Arcadia than any particular citizen. The short explanation is that when norium touches the earth—”

“—or a train platform,” Teo cut in.

“—or a train platform, it exerts an arcane pull on the corresponding spot in Arcadia. Norium is what designates a thing ‘of Arcadia’ rather than ‘of Earth.’ So when our ground is tainted with norium, it acquires . . . strange properties, and we have to seal that area off from the public. Worse yet, the corresponding location in Arcadia essentially . . . falls through into the space between worlds. Leaves a hole.”

“Holy shit.” I ran a hand through my hair. “So I’m assuming the Arcadians already know about the bloodshed this afternoon.”

“It will take a while for the rupture to occur, but no more than a few days. I would prefer that we had some sort of explanation, at the very least, by the time that happens. The iron in the tracks may help mitigate the effects, especially on our side, but there is no telling what the extent of the destruction in Arcadia will be.”

I stared at the screen again as though it would help. It didn’t. “You said you don’t think Rivenholt is dead? Why?”

“Look.” Caryl pointed to the Seelie number as it flickered. I squinted at it but still couldn’t make out the other number.

“Ninety-four,” said Tjuan.

“Does that number have some significance?” I asked.

Caryl nodded. “When the anomaly began, the difference was always five. For example, if the base number was eighty, it would flash eighty-five. If the base number dropped to seventy--nine, it would flash eighty-four. This is the first time the two numbers have had a difference of six.”

“Which means—?”

“That somehow there were five ‘half-present’ fey before, and now there are six. Given that the change took place sometime after I checked the census this morning, logic suggests that the new half-present fey is Rivenholt.”

“What does half-present mean? Maybe fading, becoming human?”

Caryl shook her head. “A life-form that organically contains even a trace of norium is counted by the census, which is why the Unseelie number reads five instead of four. It is counting me.”

“The, uh, norium—it’s in their blood, right? So, what if Rivenholt’s last bit spilled out onto those railroad tracks?”

“Then he would not be counted at all, the same as if he had died.”

“So, what then? There are six fairies just standing in a Gate somewhere?”

Caryl shook her head. “You cannot stand in a Gate; the body’s reaction to being between worlds is a violent repulsion to one side or the other. Also, there are only three Gates in this perimeter, and I have inspected all of them daily.”

“I give up then. What exactly is going on?”

“I have been preoccupied with that question for over two weeks now.”

Gloria spoke up softly. “This is why y’all need more experienced help,” she said.

Teo snorted. “I’ve been with the project longer than you have, and so has Caryl.”

“That hardly counts, sweetheart. Y’all two spent the first few years playin’ dolls and buildin’ pillow forts.”

I blinked and looked at Caryl. “How old are you?”

“Hon, you’re not supposed to—”

“Nineteen,” Caryl said.

Yet another moment of everyone watching me react to something they already knew. I looked at Caryl’s impassive face. She had no visible lines around her eyes or mouth, but in L.A. you can’t read by that sort of thing. She dressed old. Sounded old.

“Nineteen?” I said skeptically. “You sound like a forty-year-old smoker.”

“Vocal cord damage.”

“From what?”

“From screaming,” she said. “A great deal of screaming.”