Call Down the Hawk (Dreamer, #1)(43)

Ronan wasn’t one hundred percent sure what kind of recital it was, but he was one hundred percent sure he’d rather be chasing rabbits toward Bryde and Boudicca. He was also fairly sure from Declan’s expression that Declan knew this.

“You should totally come,” Matthew said, bounding over. “I’m awful, it’s great. There’s this one organ solo that’s so bad you’ll pee yourself laughing. There’s … oh. Ronan?”

He broke off and made a little gesture under his own nose, the sort you do when you mean to be a benevolent mirror for someone else.

Ronan mirrored Matthew’s gesture, dabbing his knuckle against his nostril. Looked at it. A smear of black, dark as ink, covered his skin.

Nightwash.

He hadn’t even felt it coming. He always thought he should be able to feel it coming.

Declan’s eyes tightened, as if he were disappointed in Ronan. Like it was his fault.

“Guess you’re not coming with us,” Matthew said.





25

Parsifal?” Farooq-Lane said. “I need to get in there eventually.”

She’d been waiting for her turn in the bathroom for ages. He’d already been in there when her alarm woke her, having silently made it through her room and into the bathroom at some point in the night. She didn’t want to know what was taking him so long. Nathan had been clean and secretive as a teenager, but the cultural idea of teen boys being disgusting had nevertheless fully invaded her subconscious. She didn’t ask questions.

She made herself a cup of bad instant coffee, ate an apple, and then, when he still didn’t emerge, prepared an egg-white omelet. She curled over her laptop and scoured forums for clues about Bryde. It was the only thing she had to go on—the only other thing she’d gotten from the Fairy Market was a workout. What she needed was more visions to work with. She’d never appreciated how difficult this side of the job was. Before, when she was traveling places with the Moderators, someone else had already interpreted the Visionary’s information into drawings, locations, or times. Often it was incredibly detailed—they’d basically gotten written instructions for where to find Nathan in Ireland. She hadn’t thought about what it had actually been like to get that information: that somewhere a Moderator had to sit in a hotel room with a Visionary who may or may not have been impossible to live with, waiting for visions to appear.

She didn’t know if the failing was her or Parsifal.

After a space of time, Farooq-Lane made a second cup of bad coffee and brought it to the bathroom door as a resentful offering, full of badwill. She knocked. “Parsifal.”

The only answer was a vague sound from inside, something moving against tile, possibly. She put the mug on the ground.

The phone rang. It was Lock.

“It’s okay,” he said. “We understand. It happens to all of us. You were on enemy territory. You had no reinforcements. We don’t blame you. At least you got a name.”

She sighed. “Should I be doing something to make Parsifal have a vision?”

“Nothing you can do,” Lock said. “We know he’s fragmented. We’re searching for another Visionary on our end, so we won’t be without when he’s finished. But Bauer is still the most likely to find another. Tell him to focus. Get him whatever he needs. Use that budget we sent you. Keep him happy. Keep him productive.”

Farooq-Lane wasn’t remotely sure that happy was a word she’d ever use to describe Parsifal, but she promised to try her best. Hanging up, she returned to the door. “Parsifal?”

No answer. She felt an uncertain pang. She tried the doorknob. Unlocked.

“I’m coming in,” she said, and pushed it open.

A reek rolled out.

Inside the bathroom, she found Parsifal lying in the empty bathtub with all his clothing on. He was also wearing her oversized sunglasses (his little round glasses looked sad and vulnerable folded on the edge of the sink). There was vomit down the outside of the tub and all over the floor; it was like he’d climbed inside the tub as a boat against a vomit ocean. His legs were buckled up to fit into the tub, and his face was colorless.

“Oh,” Farooq-Lane said, falling back.

He rolled his head toward her, and she thought he would say something, but he just blinked. For the first time she remembered how old he was. Not in an I can’t believe I have to live with a teen boy way but in a This is a person who will die before they hit twenty way.

It was one thing to hear Lock talking in his clinical way about how troubling it was to have to replace Visionaries after they burned out. It was another thing to be looking right at a burning-out Visionary.

Farooq-Lane left the bathroom, put her coat on over her silk pajamas, took her keycard, and went out to the hall. A few doors down she found housekeeping and traded them a twenty-dollar bill from her Padma black market buyer fund for some extra towels and cleaning supplies.

Back in her room, she rolled up her pajama bottoms and sleeves and put on her boots before dropping a lemon in a glass of water and wading across the vomit to set it next to Parsifal’s limp hand. Then she put in her earbuds and turned on her music, and as hip-hop barked at her, she silently cleaned the floor and the outside of the tub. Once the bathroom was clean, she put Parsifal’s glasses within his reach, bundled up everything dirty, and took it outside to housekeeping again.