Kingfisher(89)

Merle took a sip of his own beer. He looked different, Pierce thought: a weight off his shoulders, a few centuries out of his eyes. “Carrie and I slipped out through the fuss in the street,” he said. “Nobody noticed our shadows. There were reports called in of weird events at Stillwater’s: people screaming, running out the doors, somebody stabbed, people disguised as knights looting the place. Lots of disorderly conduct. It didn’t look very orderly at the police station, either, so we walked on by. Everyone recognized your father. He and your brother were taken along as witnesses. It will be a while before all that gets sorted out. I found Carrie’s friend Zed Cluny and sent Carrie with him to get a decent meal.”

“Good.” Pierce took a sip, felt the cold seep through him, and shivered suddenly, shaking memories loose in his head. “What was all that? Stillwater? Those three women? What did they do to him? And what does it all have to do with this place?”

“It’s a long story.”

“That’s all right. Sounds like I’ll be here for a while.”

He caught up with Leith and Val several hours later, eating pub food at a brewery around the corner from their motel. Val, whittling down a mountain of deep-fried seafood and talking on his cell, flashed a grin at him. Leith, looking weary and relieved, pulled him into a hug, then dragged the nearest stool closer to his. “Sit down. Have you eaten?”

Pierce nodded. “I’ve been with Merle at the Kingfisher.”

“How did he miss being pulled in with the rest of us? He was running around in wolf shape one moment, and talking to those three women in the next as if he had grown up with them.”

“Maybe he did.”

“I could swear—actually, I might have at the station—that the oldest of them was Lady Morrig Seabrook, the king’s aunt. What she was doing in Chimera Bay tracking down that malevolent chef absconded from some depraved fairy tale I cannot begin—” He didn’t try, just rendered himself speechless for a moment with a slab of steak.

“What happened to the Knights of the Rising God?”

“They got charged with theft, destruction of property, violation of an ordinance against loud noises within city limits, and a few more things. Then someone recognized Prince Ingram, and the whole business started all over again. Neither Merle, nor Merle’s daughter, nor Stillwater’s wife were on hand to testify that the knights were not stealing those machines, nor did they wreck the place, and the diners who actually saw what happened to Stillwater kept contradicting one another.” He chewed another bite, gazing incredulously back at the endless afternoon. “Where was Merle when we needed him? And where were you?”

“It took me some time to get that knife out of the table. I wasn’t going to leave it there. When it finally decided to let me free it, everyone had vanished.” He caught sight of the expression on Val’s face, one he didn’t recognize, even after days of close company, dealing together with mysteries, enchantments, and other assorted crises. “Who is Val talking to?”

“Your mother.”

—

They waited for her in the Kingfisher Inn the next afternoon. Leith, as tense as Pierce had ever seen him, kept trying to leave.

“She won’t want to see me.”

“She does,” Val insisted. “She said so.”

“She said that to please you. She didn’t mean it.”

“Well, I want you here,” Val said patiently. “I haven’t seen her since I was a child. Stay to please me.”

They were sitting on one of the sagging velveteen couches in the bar. Luckily, Pierce thought, most of the old springs were shot, considering the edgy, restive fidgeting on either side of him. He wondered, studying Leith, if bravery in the face of impending angry spouses counted in the code of knighthood, especially when the knight was in the wrong. He wouldn’t have blamed Leith for justifying his absence as a kindness, to give Val and Heloise more time to talk. But Val wanted his company and would recognize any excuse for the abject cowardice that it was. Their father, who could have faced a living wyvern without flinching, had to force himself to stay put.

A woman walked alone into the bar; their three faces turned at once. But it was not Heloise. It was no one, Pierce thought at first, no one he knew, just a young woman with drifting hair, and a thin, tired face. She went to the bar; Leith and Val went back to fidgeting. Pierce watched her. Something in her movement, her tall grace, the tilt of her head within her lank, untidy hair, made him rise abruptly.

He crossed the quiet room. It was nearly empty in the midafternoon, too early yet for the Friday Nite gathering. She was talking softly to Tye, who said, as Pierce joined her, “You should talk to Ella. I know she’s been needing more help, but I don’t know if she’ll admit it yet.”

Pierce said, “Sage?”

She turned quickly, startled. He smiled; she didn’t, couldn’t yet, he guessed. She was very thin; her gray-green eyes were haunted by what she had seen. The lovely, heavy, champagne-gold hair he remembered looked dry and unkempt. The beauty of her face existed only in his memory as yet: it was hollow, pained, shadowy with sadness.

“Pierce,” she breathed. Something in his eyes brought the faintest color to her face, the barest hint of a smile.

“You were amazing,” he said. “Yesterday. What you did with that knife.”