Borderline (The Arcadia Project, #1)(86)

“Would you excuse me for just a minute?” said Inaya shakily, and stepped out the door. I was about to hobble after her, but she stepped immediately back inside. “How is this even pos-sible? How are you doing this?”

“Let’s sit you down for a minute,” I said. “You look woozy.”

“She can’t stay here,” said the beefy guy.

“Let her stay, Craghorn,” said Foxfeather. “Look how pretty she is. And she’s with an Authority.”

Craghorn grumbled to himself and sat down in a booth alone, continuing to glare at the three of us as I led Inaya to the bar and eased her onto a stool. Foxfeather stared raptly at her.

“So,” I said to Inaya. “I am in no way supposed to be telling you this, but the reason this place looks like a bookstore on the outside is that it’s magic.”

Inaya shook her head firmly. Oh great, one of those, I thought. Admittedly she didn’t have the advantage of glasses to see the spell directly, and for most people paradigm shifts are pretty rough regardless.

“It’s not magic,” she said. “There has to be some explanation.”

“That is the explanation.”

“If magic is real, then I am pretty sure it’s the work of the devil, and I should be getting the hell out of here.”

“Inaya, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but the world doesn’t work exactly the way your preacher tells you it does.”

“An atheist in Los Angeles,” she said dryly. “I am so shocked.”

“Look, I am not an expert on Jesus, or the devil, or any of that. I am not trying to tell you there’s no God; how the hell would I know?”

“Then what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that magic is real. It’s not native to this world, so maybe that world was made by a different God, or maybe your God made both worlds by different rules. I don’t know. That’s for people who care about God to figure out. All I know is that there really is a world where magic is common as dirt, and they’ve brought some of it here.”

“Aliens?” One brow shot up toward her hairline.

“More like fairies. Though I think we’re supposed to call them fey.”

“You can call me Vicki Plume,” the bartender interjected helpfully. “But at home they call me Foxfeather.”

Inaya turned her poleaxed expression toward Foxfeather. “You believe you’re a fairy?”

“I am a baroness of the Seelie Court,” she said with solemn dignity. “I am the lowest rank of what some humans call the sidhe, or high elves, or ‘fair folk,’ or whatever.”

“Vicki, honey,” said Inaya with real concern. “If this is some kind of role-play thing that’s fine, to each her own, but please tell me you don’t really believe in this at your age?”

“Show her,” said Foxfeather, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Oh pretty please, show her, Lady Ironbones.”

Since I couldn’t think of a better idea, I reached out and grabbed Foxfeather by the wrist.





40


Gasps sounded all over the room, and Craghorn leaped up from his seat to come and beat me to a pulp or something.

“Craghorn, sit!” cried Foxfeather, all ablaze with rainbow glory, unfolding a pair of diaphanous wings.

Inaya sat rigid on her bar stool, and her wide, dark eyes suddenly overflowed with tears. Her lips moved a few times before words came out of them, and when I finally understood what she kept repeating, I went a bit numb from shock myself.

“It’s you,” Inaya was whispering. “The angel. It’s you.”

“Is it you?” Foxfeather asked in an equally awestruck tone. I let go of her wrist, and her human facade reached across the bar for Inaya’s hands. When their fingers touched, both of them gasped and pulled back, and then they just stared into each other’s eyes for a moment.

I had the sudden intense urge to disintegrate. “Third wheel” doesn’t begin to cover it.

“How is this possible?” Inaya said, her voice raw as she continued staring at Foxfeather. “I stopped telling people about those dreams years ago, but I still have them. You’re a fairy? I thought you were an angel.”

“Maybe I am,” said Foxfeather.

So this was what it was supposed to be like to meet your Echo. I was acidly jealous, of course. Jealousy is as hardwired into a Borderline as worry is into a mother. Inaya got dreams of angels and an A-list career; I got a phone number scrawled on a coffee-shop napkin.

I tried to focus on what I had come here to do, because this could really only help me. “Foxfeather is your Echo—kind of your fey soul mate,” I said to Inaya. “Your muse. And if you want to think of it that way, a kind of guardian angel. Even without knowing her, you’ve felt her influence all your life. The two of you must have a very strong connection if she was able to reach you through your dreams.”

“There are rules about this,” Foxfeather said. “We are supposed to report this to the Authorities immediately.”

“I’ll take care of that for you,” I said. And I would. Eventually. Once I was finished getting what I needed out of them.

“Obviously you can’t tell anyone human about this,” I said to Inaya, who was weeping and holding Foxfeather’s hands. “Inaya, are you listening to me?”