Borderline (The Arcadia Project, #1)(87)

“Yes,” she said without looking at me.

“John Riven is also fey.”

That got her attention. “I knew there was something weird about him.”

“His real name is Viscount Rivenholt.”

“He outranks me,” said Foxfeather. “By a lot.”

“He’s used several different names and faces,” I went on, “but he is David Berenbaum’s Echo, just as Foxfeather is yours. David’s been working with him for forty-odd years.”

“Does Vivian know about this?” asked Inaya.

“She does,” I said. I decided Inaya was coping with enough right now; the truth about Vivian could wait.

“She’s one too, isn’t she?” Inaya said. “Some kind of nasty one.”

I sighed. “Let’s not get into that right now. The point is, you need to know all this because this is the reason you’ve been feeling out of the loop lately.”

“They’ve been doing . . . magic fairy stuff,” she said, “and I’m the only one who doesn’t know.”

“They weren’t allowed to tell you.”

“Are they allowed now?”

I wasn’t honestly sure. “I think we should keep your knowledge under our hats for a bit,” I said. “Something odd is going on, and I need you to help me get to the bottom of it. If they don’t know that you know, they might not be as much on their guard.”

Inaya took a deep breath. “Okay, tell me what’s going on and what I need to do.”

I wanted to kiss her. Having something actually go better than planned was not a feeling I was used to.

“First, I need your promise that this stays between you, me, and Foxfeather. Not even the rest of the Arcadia Project needs to hear about this right now.” At her blank look, I clarified. “The Project is an organization that regulates all the stuff that goes on between humans and fey. I will set you both up with them properly once this is all settled. But right now I don’t know exactly who we can trust and who we can’t.”

Inaya nodded, her eyes glazing a bit. “Okay.”

“Are you all right? Are you with me? The story gets kind of complicated.”

“I’m kind of . . .” She flapped her hands vaguely. “Can you maybe give me a little while here to talk with Vicki? I can meet you later today to hear you out once I’ve had a chance to . . .” She looked at Foxfeather and crumpled. Somehow she -managed to look beautiful while crying, which made me want to throw a drink in her face.

Foxfeather hurried around the bar to sit next to Inaya, taking the other woman into her arms as though she were a child. Perhaps she was a child, to Foxfeather; there was no telling how old the fey really was.

“We can meet at my place,” Foxfeather said to me, lifting wet blue eyes to meet mine. “We can all talk there later.”

“Inaya has my number,” I said. “Have her call me when you’re both ready.” Awkwardly I turned for the door, leaving the two of them in each other’s arms.

? ? ?

I’d kept the worst of my self-pity at bay up to this point, but seeing Inaya and Foxfeather’s joyous reunion was sort of the last straw. I didn’t have anywhere private to cry, so I settled for leaning against the wall in an alley between a game shop and a strip club and boo-hooing for a solid half hour.

Luckily, I had some useful distress tolerance skills at hand, and I used them as soon as I’d spent the worst of the storm. Distract, self-soothe. I visualized walking down a red carpet with Inaya. She was probably my friend for life now, and would be even more grateful to me when she knew what I had risked to take her to that bar. I wasn’t sure what the penalty was for breaking the Code of Silence, but I had a feeling it wasn’t a slap on the wrist.

It had paid off, though. I’d gone from a dim hope of Inaya’s cooperation to a pair of grateful allies on either side of the border. I wondered if Vivian felt warm fuzzies at bringing her clients to their Echoes. Somehow I doubted it.

I thought of the man who might be my own Echo and almost certainly the sixth anomaly on the census. Ever since my conversation with Vivian, an unpleasant possibility had been nagging at the back of my mind. I needed an informed -second opinion, so I swallowed a jagged lump of pride and dialed Caryl’s number.

If she’d known who it was, maybe she wouldn’t have answered, but she had no way of associating the new number with me, and so on the second ring I heard a husky hello. I surprised myself with a sudden flood of contrition that left me speechless.

“Hello?” she said again.

“Don’t hang up; I have some very important information.”

I heard a faint swell of baroque harpsichord in the background; clearly she hadn’t disconnected.

“I’m fairly sure Claybriar’s my Echo,” I said, “and I think Vivian may have imprisoned him and some other fey to harvest their blood.”

At last Caryl spoke. “Why do you think that?” she said.

“If you want to know the why, you’re going to have to hire me back.”

“I’m afraid that isn’t possible. The Project can’t afford to lose Berenbaum’s cooperation.”

The sound of his name was a punch to the stomach, but I soldiered on. “I think you’re losing him either way. He’s involved too.”