Storm's Heart (Elder Races #2)(57)

“We wouldn’t,” Aryal said. “That’s ridiculous. We love you.”

There was the reality she knew. Niniane whispered, “Yeah.”

The harpy patted her back. “And forgive me for being brutally practical in saying this, but setting aside personal feelings, it’s to our advantage to have you safely on the throne. That would give the Wyr an alliance with the Dark Fae for the first time since your father was alive.”

Niniane nodded. “Of course. It was one of the reasons why the Wyr attack came as such a shock.”

“I’ll tell you what’s even more ridiculous,” Aryal said. “Those Wyr attacked when Tiago was with you.”

Niniane looked up quickly. “I hadn’t gotten that far in my thinking,” she said. “They wouldn’t have if they had known who he was, because it was a death sentence for them.”

“Exactly. Do you know any Wyr in his right mind who would go up against Dr. Death?” Aryal said. “And nobody but Dragos and the sentinels—well, and of course Pia—knew that Tiago had come out to look for you.”

Niniane said, “So those Wyr were either working on their own, or they were working for someone else. Carling brought up the possibility that there might be a schism in the Wyr we didn’t know about.”

“Okay,” said Aryal. The harpy hooked the heel of one boot on a rung of her chair. “Maybe there’s a supersecret anti-faerie Wyr faction out there that we haven’t heard of before. Maybe they don’t want us in an alliance with the Dark Fae.”

Niniane watched the harpy’s face. Aryal was in charge of Wyr investigations. “It doesn’t make sense that you would know nothing about a faction like that,” Niniane said. “Factions tend to grumble, write manifestos, protest, maybe blow things up. They often claim responsibility for things too.”

Aryal ate a grape.

“So what makes the most sense?” said Niniane. “Somebody wants me dead, and if they succeed in killing me, great. But if they fail, the next best thing is to drive a wedge between me and my strongest allies, because that would leave me vulnerable for when they try again. And they do want me dead, because if they just wanted to drive a wedge between me and the Wyr, there are lots of ways to try to achieve that that are much less potentially dangerous than an assassination attempt.”

“Ding ding ding. Give the girl a gold star.” Aryal grinned and popped another piece of cheese into her mouth.

Niniane told the harpy about Geril’s flirtation on the flight to Chicago and at dinner out at the Greek restaurant.

“I was wondering what happened to you for those couple of hours before the alley attack,” Aryal said.

“Again, there was no reason that I can think of for Geril to kill me if he was acting on his own,” Niniane said. “We didn’t know each other. There was no direct line of inheritance between us, and his connection to the throne was too diffuse for him to make a play for the crown himself. I may not be all that connected with the ins and outs of current Dark Fae politics, but I know that much.”

“Right now, I have just one question,” said Aryal. “Are we looking for one entity—one person, conspiracy, or faction trying to kill you—or two?”

Since before 1842, the Cook County morgue in Illinois had conducted an official inquiry on every questionable death in the county, which included the city of Chicago. Shortly before the Great Chicago Fire had occurred in 1871, the morgue opened its Office of Magickal Inquiry to investigate every questionable death relating to matters of Power or the Elder Races. In 1976 when Cook County established its Office of the Medical Examiner, the Office of Magickal Inquiry was placed under the Medical Examiner’s purview. The outdated term “Magickal” was dropped and the office given the simpler name of Paranormal Affairs.

The intent behind the move had been to modernize this section of the morgue and rename it with a view to greater accuracy and political neutrality, but in this attempt the county officials failed miserably. Many of the Elder Races, including several humans with Power, were offended by the name. Paranormal was a term that indicated something was outside the realm of normal experience or scientific explanation. Opponents to the term argued that it was racism and bigotry of the highest order.

Or so Dr. Seremela Telemar informed Tiago and Rune in her History of the Morgue 101 as she led them to the Paranormal Affairs section. Telemar was a medusa of late middle age, as evidenced by the length of her head of snakes that dangled down to her shapely hips. Medusas guarded their young ferociously. Tiago had personally never seen one of their children, but he knew young adult medusas had slim, short snakes that covered their heads like curly undulating afros.

A medusa’s head snakes were semi-independent sentient creatures that shared a symbiotic relationship with their host, which included an exchange of sensory input and thought impressions. A medusa never had her back turned if one of her snakes was looking at you. For the most part the head snakes remained as peaceful as their medusa, but if a medusa felt frightened or threatened, they had a venomous bite that could paralyze most creatures and might, if the snakes were induced to multiple bites, cause death. When Telemar reached old age, which for her species would be between four hundred and fifty and five hundred years, her snakes would reach her feet or perhaps trail a little on the ground. For now, she bound them back gently in a loose headcloth like they were dreads.