Kingfisher(51)

She always found him again.

“He’s playing us,” Scotia said finally, calmly. “I’ve done that to fish.”

“Then why doesn’t he just disappear? We must have driven through most of Severluna. If we are still in Severluna. I have no idea where we are. I wonder if even he knows. Now where did he go?”

Finally, the streets grew broader, less congested; the knight on the bike stopped his sudden veering, held a steadier path, as though finally he could see in the distance the object of his search. Intent on him, Perdita scarcely noticed the wealthier neighborhood she drove through, the parklike setting of stately trees, the gently curving streets that held no traffic now, only the strange little hut that appeared in the middle of the road as though it had dropped there from some tale.

“Ah—” Dame Scotia said; Perdita heard the astonishment in her voice.

She braked abruptly. They watched the figure in black speed past the guardhouse without generating any interest whatsoever from the guards chatting outside it.

“Either he’s that familiar to them,” Perdita said incredulously, “or he’s invisible.”

The sedan was not; the guards gestured it forward, looking into the tinted windows as the princess neared. They straightened quickly, waved her past. She drove on, her mouth tight, looking for the black-clad cyclist down footpaths, hiding in bushes, though without a thread of hope.

She yielded finally with a sigh, and said to the tactfully silent knight beside her, “All right. He may not know you, but he knows me far too well.”

“It seemed a very good idea,” Dame Scotia said fairly.

“But how did he know? And why, of all things, did he bother leading us on a wild-goose chase all over the city?” She slowed at another checkpoint, guards standing rigidly as she passed, and wound her way toward the palace garage. “He could have stopped and asked us not to follow. And he could have lost us easily enough a dozen times. What possessed him?” She watched another bike pass them, this one traveling at a more sedate speed. The rider, wearing jeans and boots, and a helmet with a familiar crest on it, did not glance at them as he passed, so intent was he on his own pursuits.

She braked again, sharply. They both turned to stare at his back as he followed a curve out of sight.

“That was Daimon,” Perdita said. Her voice shook. “That was the Wyvernbourne crest on his helmet and bike. That was his pale hair.”

“Then who—” Dame Scotia exclaimed. The princess turned to meet her amazed eyes. “Who else knew we were going to follow him?”

“No one. No one but you, and I, and the queen.”

“Then who did we follow through that tangle of streets? Someone must have known—”

“No one,” Perdita whispered. And then she was silent, looking back at the face of her aged, charmingly scattered great-aunt as she watched the princess from the top of the sanctum stairs.

Morrig.





PART THREE




   KINGFISHER





15


Pierce floated out of Severluna with his father and his brother in a black limo the size of a small yacht. It bore them effortlessly northward, surrounding them in a cocoon of soft leather, perfect air, small luxuries of every kind to while away the hours. Beyond its tinted windows, Pierce watched the highway he had driven down in the Metro scant days before. It looked completely different now, as though he saw it through the eyes of someone he barely knew. This strange Pierce unreeled a past to his new family that seemed, compared to theirs, scant of detail, monotonous, inexplicable.

“It took courage,” Leith said, “to leave the only place you ever lived. Even more to brave the complexities of Severluna and the court, where you knew no one and neither of us knew you existed.”

“It’s magical,” Val said, sprawled easily along most of a seat and picking out the almonds from a can of roasted nuts. “If you hadn’t done this thing or that, if you had been two fighting squares away from me instead of next to me, if you hadn’t announced a style of fighting I’d never heard of—”

Pierce’s face burned. “Deli Style fighting. I can’t believe I invented that. Lucky for me it was you. Anyone else would have just smeared me into the grass and left me there to be dumped back into the kitchen.”

His brother’s pale blue eyes flicked at him. “It was perfect. The way you used that knife—”

“You asked me to show you. You spoke to me.”

“You used it the way our mother did. You unburied memories.”

“You asked my name.”

“It was your mother in you,” Leith said. “Both of you. You recognized her magic in each other.” He reached out, took the can from Val. He shook his head, gazing at his sons as he chewed. “I can’t believe the pair of you. I thought I had done only one good thing in my life. Now I find I have done two.” He passed the can to Pierce. “Did you talk to Heloise?”

Pierce nodded. Leith waited while he stirred the mix, located a cashew, and ate it. He said finally, “She isn’t very happy with me. I think she didn’t really expect me to find you. She thought Severluna would terrify me, and I’d run back home. And it did. But I didn’t.” He paused, added wryly, “I didn’t have time to run.”