Page 12

Chapter Twelve

Pinky arrived at my Berkeley house about five minutes early. I’d called her while Gwen was napping after her shower the day before and she’d said she could do lunch today if we could do it in Berkeley, where she was working with some session musicians in a local studio. Handy. She hugged me fast and then peered past me up the hallway. “Is she here?”

“She’s setting up lunch in the kitchen.” Setting up being the operative word, because I’d raided Damon’s freezer for some of Amy’s stashed meals and added a bunch of salads from the nearest grocery store. I’d had dinner with Pinky and Ivy at their house a few times and they were both excellent cooks. I was adequate, at best, and even if Gwen could cook, why add the stress of cooking for a stranger on top of everything else?

“One thing about you, your life is rarely boring,” Pinky said. She looked me up and down. “You need sleep.”

“Right back at you.” She had the edgy air of someone on a deadline, her pink hair messily braided around her crown and her fingernails chewed. Her charcoal linen tank and baggy pants looked like chic meets nouveau punk, the tank revealing the vibrant tattoos covering her arms.

“Mine is work. What’s your excuse? Continuing to live in interesting times?”

“I’d take some boring times,” I said. “There’s been a lot going on.”

“I heard about your nixling problem from Callum,” Pinky said. “What does Grandma have to say about it?”

“So far nothing she’s cared to share with me. I haven’t been back to the realm.” And Cassandra had sent me home from Ajax’s house long before Cerridwen arrived. Had Pinky heard about that, too? I didn’t want to talk about demons in front of Gwen. I had no idea how much she knew about them. Presumably something because she’d been living in the realm when the Fae had been debating whether or not to reconnect the door in Berkeley. Lady Morgain was one of the Elders who’d been strongly in favor.

And Gwen knew I’d killed a demon, because Usuriel had talked about it in front of her. But this wasn’t the time to remind her about my past. Until she was settled back into human life it was going to be easier for everyone if she was somewhere close to some Cestis member. If not London, then San Francisco was the next best thing. So we didn’t need her freaking out and deciding to move again.

“Nothing?” Pinky’s eyebrows shot up.

I shook my head. “Let’s not talk about that now.”

“But Gwen is fine with you having a nixling in your house? You said she was staying with you, right?”

She was. I’d convinced her it would be better than a hotel, plus she’d have some company. Damon agreed with me. “Yes, and she doesn’t seem to mind Lianith. But Gwen doesn’t know all the details about why Lianith is there, and I don’t want her thinking about Usuriel. So don’t mention him. We’re trying to get her settled. She wants to know about avoiding the Fae.”

“Kind of ironic when you’re…you know…you.” Pinky smiled wryly.

“Well, she knows I have some involvement with them. She met me in the realm. But I don’t want to rub her face in it. I’m trying to give her a few days to take a breath. She needs to make some decisions. I’ve asked Yoshi if he can show her around his campus sometime. Aubrey and the others were trying to encourage her to go back to school.”

Pinky pursed her lips, considering. “You really don’t know why she’s here? She just turned up out of the blue?”

“Yep,” I said. “I talked to Aubrey last week and there was no hint of Gwen wanting to leave. And then, bam, she took a plane ride. She says she wants to learn from the tanai here how to stay away from the Fae.”

“It doesn’t involve special skills,” Pinky said, shaking her head. “You can just avoid them.”

That was an oversimplification, I was sure. “I’m not sure that’s so easy in London. Particularly not now she’s spent time in the realm. Some of the Fae there must know her. Maybe she thinks she can be anonymous here.”

“But she doesn’t know who her mother is?”

“No. And I think she’s keen not to find out. She doesn’t want to be dragged back in there under some obscure parental claim.”

Pinky shrugged. “Well, I can set her mind at rest about that, at least. The Fae can’t force anyone into the realm. Of course, if she goes in willingly, then that would change things. Like what power her mom might have over her.” She sighed. “But, hey, let’s not have this conversation here. Let’s have it with Gwen in the room.”

“Sure,” I said and headed for the kitchen where Gwen was nervously realigning the silverware. She’d bought gorgeous pink and peachy dahlias at the grocery store and had arranged them in a low bowl in the center of the table. My china was plain white and so was my only tablecloth, so they added a splash of color. The pink almost matched Pinky’s hair. The whole thing was simple, but prettier than I could have made it. Or would have thought to. My Gran always made things feel cozy and comfortable but, beyond making sure I had all the life skills required to be a functioning adult, she’d abandoned trying to turn me into a domestic goddess when it became clear that computers were always going to be way more interesting to me than making sure my baseboards weren’t dusty, and my china matched my tablecloth.

Maybe Gwen learned the knack at boarding school. Or maybe serving in the realm had made her more sensitive to such things. The Fae had firm views on hierarchy and proprieties.

“Gwen? This is Pinky Andretti. Pinky, this is Gwen Jones.”

“Hi,” Gwen said awkwardly. She leaned over and moved the bowl of flowers half an inch to the left. She had on a deep-blue sundress, her blonde hair clipped back in a half-up, half-down style. She looked almost delicate, despite the fact she was short and had more curves than your average Fae. The sun glinting off her hair revealed the almost pearl-like edge to the blonde. If Pinky hadn’t already known Gwen was tanai, it would have taken her approximately a second to figure it out.

“How’s it going?” Pinky asked with a smile.

Gwen managed a smile, but it was wobbly. “Very well, thank you.” Her accent sounded more clipped. Nervous.

Pinky let the silence stretch before she relented. “Maggie said you had some questions. About the tanai here?”

Gwen nodded, still looking uncomfortable.

“Why don’t we eat?” I suggested “Gwen can ask her questions afterwards.”

“Sure,” Pinky said easily. “What’s for lunch?”

“Amy’s vegetable lasagna and a few other things. Plus brownies for dessert.”

Pinky’s face lit up. “Oh, yay, Amy cooked.”

I laughed. “I’d take that as an insult, but I agree with you.”

I served the meal, thankful for Amy’s skills. For the first few minutes, we all ate, mostly in silence. Amy’s cooking deserved close attention. When I managed to slow down from scarfing pasta, I asked Pinky about her current project. She’d been working on a movie score on and off over the last year.

“It’s going well enough,” she said. “They’re behind in their primary filming, which makes it more complicated. I’ve got a lot of the score written, but fine-tuning it for the edit is always the hard part. But I’m sure it’ll all come together. It always does.”

If she was like Damon it came together by her pulling crazy long hours for several weeks at the end of the project. But, like Damon, she loved her job, so she probably loved that part of it, too.

“And Ivy?”

“She’s in the middle of an important case, so it’s hard to get much time together right now. Ivy’s my wife,” she added to Gwen.

“Cool. What does she do?” Gwen asked.

“She’s a lawyer. Corporate stuff. I don’t understand most of it, but she’s loves it.”

“Must be useful to have a lawyer in the family,” Gwen offered.

“If you need a lawyer,” I said, “I’m sure we can find you one.”

Gwen paused, a forkful of lasagna halfway to her mouth. “Why would I need a lawyer?”

“If you decide you want to stay, you’ll have to deal with visas and immigration. Which is lawyer territory.” I didn’t know a lot about green cards, other than they were hard to get.

Pinky blinked. “You want to stay in America?”

“I’m not sure,” Gwen said. “But the schools here are great. The colleges, I mean.”

“They are.” Pinky nodded, her tone encouraging. But she slid me a dubious glance.

“I haven’t quite decided what I want to do. I’d only finished my first semester when I, you know, went into the realm.” Gwen put her fork down, reached for her water glass.

“How long ago was that?” Pinky asked.

“A little over four years,” Gwen said.

“So you were eighteen when you went in?” Pinky shot me another look.

I wasn’t entirely sure what she was trying not to say. It would have been useful if she could talk to me mentally like Callum.

Without that, I decided to try to keep the conversation flowing, rather than trying to figure out what Pinky was worried about. “Yep, but, you know, plenty of people take a while to figure out what they want to do,” I said cheerfully. “So Gwen’s got plenty of time now she’s back.”

“And you’re sure you don’t want to go back? To the realm?” Pinky asked.

Gwen visibly shuddered. “Absolutely not. I was trying to get out for a while, even before Aubrey and Maggie came. But I hadn’t finished out my service with Morgain.”

Which was why she’d made a deal with Usuriel, which had been flat-out dumb in retrospect. It could have ended horribly for her if she’d wound up trapped in his court rather than with Lady Morgain.

“You left without your Lady’s permission?” Pinky asked, looking surprised.

“Technically, under the contract, no one without a familial claim can keep her in there,” I pointed out. I’d spent a long time familiarizing myself in more detail about the terms of the contract between the Fae and the Cestis since we’d all returned from the realm. I doubted this would be my last entanglement with some of the Fae Elders, and it was handy to know the letter of the law, even though understanding the legalese made my head hurt.

I’d probably driven Cassandra half-mad asking her questions. In the end, she passed me over to Ian, who, being the second oldest of the Cestis, had the most experience with the Fae after her. He’d been delighted to explain the terms to me in minute detail.

“Yoshi’s going to show Gwen around his campus,” I said. “Show her all the options in the program he’s doing.” Yoshi was a genius, but if Gwen had been accepted into a game-design program back in the UK she must be smart, too.

“Maggie said you wanted to do game design?” Pinky asked when Gwen smiled at the mention of touring UC.

“Probably,” Gwen said. “Something creative, anyway. I like the storytelling and the art.”

“Plenty of opportunities to use those,” Pinky said. “It’s a very competitive field, but if you’re good, that doesn’t matter.” She shrugged with the confidence of someone who was top of the class when it came to her job. She had an Oscar amongst her many awards. “Yoshi will be able to tell you about all the options,” Pinky said. “He researched a lot of schools before he picked UC. If you decide to stay, having an offer from a school would probably help with a visa. But, if you want to avoid Fae completely, well, San Francisco isn’t the best city for that. Not since the door reopened.”

“I want to be somewhere with tanai. People who know what it’s like. But not where the tanai are super chummy with the Fae,” Gwen said. “Since the door opened, you haven’t changed your life have you?” She started eating again.

“My mom hasn’t changed hers,” Pinky said judiciously. “She stays away. I’m a little bit more involved since I met Maggie, but I wouldn’t say I was chummy.”

I shook my head ever so slightly when she turned to me. Better not to go into the whole ‘Cerridwen asked her for a favor and she couldn’t say no’ thing. “But I’d say I’m one of the exceptions among those of us who stayed behind. And it will be easier for you if no family has claimed you. Lady Morgain hasn’t been in contact since you left, has she?”

Gwen dropped her fork. “Why would she?”

“Well, if you swore to her to serve her for a period of time, yes, there’s the contract, but they don’t like broken bargains.”

Gwen’s expression turned alarmed. “Maggie? Is that true?”

I shook my head. “I’m not sure.” I tried to summon a soothing expression. “I’m sure Aubrey would have thought of this and dealt with it somehow. The UK Cestis have a lot closer contact with the Fae than we do.”

“You can ask her,” Pinky said.

“She would have told me,” Gwen objected. “What does it matter if I’m never going back? Someone can’t come out and take me, can they?”

“No,” Pinky said firmly. “Not legally, but never is a long time, and if you ever do have to go back, it’s better not to have one of the Elders thinking they have a claim on you.”

Gwen hunched.

“We’ll talk to Aubrey,” I said reassuringly, hoping I was right and it would have been taken care of. Aubrey was not the kind of person who left any i’s undotted and t’s uncrossed if she could help it. Though I wondered why she hadn’t told Gwen, if she had sorted things out with Morgaine. But maybe she hadn’t wanted to trigger Gwen’s anxiety about dealing with the Fae.

“Can we call her soon?” Gwen asked.

“Of course,” I said. “But let’s eat lunch. No one’s coming to grab you from the house. It’s fine.” Gwen had been a little nervous when I’d told her we were meeting Pinky in Berkeley, not liking the idea of being close to the door. But I’d reassured her it was still strictly controlled.

I pointed my fork at Pinky. “Why don’t you tell Gwen a bit about how the tanai here live?”

“It’s not terribly exciting,” Pinky said. “Those of us who stayed behind, well, most of us have pretty normal lives. We do what we do and we don’t deal with the Fae. It was difficult at first. The Fae weren’t happy, but the contract says they can’t force anyone living outside the realm to enter it. And everything was chaotic after the earthquake. They wanted to close the door. That took precedence over trying to convince every last tanai to come with them. Mostly.”

“What do you mean mostly?”

“In some ways, it depends on the family. Lady Cerridwen, who is my, well, call her my grandmother, to keep it simple. She gave her tanai the choice. So did some of the others.”

“You mean some didn’t? They forced their tanai to go with them?” Gwen said.

“Forced is a big word,” Pinky said. “Let’s just say they incentivized people to move. The Fae have plenty of money to throw at people if they choose.”

I was sure there was more to it than what Pinky was saying. Had there been Fae who’d flouted the contract and compelled their tanai to leave with them?

“But some tanai cut ties completely and left San Francisco to move to places with no Fae populations. A few have moved back since, but as I said, we mainly live normal lives. My mom already kept away from the Fae even when the door was here. I grew up with her in Oakland. I knew I was tanai, but it didn’t mean much. And even less after the door closed. Mom didn’t even tell me we were related to Cerridwen until I asked her when I was fifteen. She doesn’t use her magic.

“Do you use yours?” Gwen asked.

Pinky tucked a stray strand of pink hair back behind her ear. “Do you?” she countered.

“In the realm, a little. I can use the everyday charms the servants use, but didn’t really need to do more,” Gwen said. “I haven’t tried since I got back. When I was in school, I had no reason to try. I didn’t know I was tanai. And it’s not like I accidentally levitated a bed or anything. If that’s even possible.”

“That would depend entirely on who your mom is and how strong your magic is. It will be more difficult out here,” Pinky said. “It depends on what you’re trying to do, but the realm, well, it is magic. So it will take more effort to do anything out here, unless you’re quite strong. If you never had any weird stuff happen growing up, maybe you’re not.” She paused, as though inviting Gwen to tell us more. Gwen shrugged.

Was Pinky right? Did Gwen not using her magic before she’d gone into the realm, mean she wasn’t strong? Or, like me, had she never considered the possibility of having magic and therefore never tried anything? Yes, my magic had been bound, but it had still taken me being in fear for my life for it to surface once the bond had been broken. If Gwen had never been in the kind of mess where she might instinctively use magic to save herself, it might never have been an issue. I’m sure girls in boarding schools generated drama, but not life-or-death situations.

“I don’t have a lot of power,” Pinky continued. “I can do some basic magic and in the realm I can do more, but it was never something I was particularly worried about. My mom taught me enough to let me do things like light a candle or warm myself up if I ever wanted to, but we didn’t use magic at home. And I was never that curious. So I left it alone.”

She sat back in her chair. “That’s what it boils down to: being willing to leave the magical world alone and live normally. There’s no reason to go into the realm if that’s what you want.” She tipped her head at me. “Most tanai even steer clear of witches. Not all of them know about the Fae, and we have to obey the part of the contract about not revealing ourselves to normal humans. So it’s easier to not hang out with witches. Some of them can spot the magic and they get curious and then it can be a whole thing to avoid explaining.”

I hadn’t thought about that, but it made sense. Fae magic appeared somewhat different to my sight than human did, but if a witch didn’t know someone was tanai, I could see how they might think a tanai’s aura, or their energy field, however they saw it, was slightly strange. I could also see how it might lead to some awkward questions.

“My advice,” Pinky said, “is to go back to school, get your degree, find a job, build a life. I mean, you don’t have to stay in San Francisco after you graduate.”

“It’s kind of one of the best cities if I want to be in game design, though,” Gwen said.

“There is that,” Pinky said. She was looking at me, not Gwen. “Maggie will tell you there’s not many witches who work at Riley Arts. If they do, they’re not there because of their magic, at least other than the security people like Maia.” She smiled suddenly. “You don’t have a desire to be a bodyguard, do you?”

Gwen, who was a good half a foot shorter than me, laughed. “No. I don’t think that’s my calling. They probably have a height requirement.”

“Yeah,” Pinky said. “All of Damon’s security people I’ve met are tall.”

“Like Maia?” Gwen nodded. “She’s an amazon. And she’s cool, but that’s got to be a weird job, right?”

“I agree,” I said. “But I think Pinky’s right. Focus on what you want to do with your life, go back to school and take it from there. Unless you have a burning desire to keep using magic, you should be able to stay free of trouble easily enough.”

“Is that what you do?” Gwen asked.

Pinky coughed and I glared at her. Staying out of trouble was not precisely my strong point.

“I’m not tanai,” I said finally. “So, me and magic, that’s a different proposition. Witches have to learn to use their magic, or it’s dangerous.”

“But you do stuff for the Cestis?”

“The Cestis have been teaching me. I came to my magic late,” I said. “So, they want to make sure I know what I’m doing.”

“But you fought a demon,” Gwen said. “That’s what Lord…” She paused, wincing. “What, he said back in the realm.”

Damn, she remembered. “I did. And that’s a long story. But, again, most people, including most witches, go their entire lives without getting so much as a sniff of demonkind or Fae. So, things will work out. You can play tourist for a few days. Take the tour with Yoshi. I’m sure Damon can organize someone from his recruitment team to speak to you. I know they have programs on a lot of campuses to help people who are interested in the industry.”

Gwen’s expression eased. “That would be helpful, I’d appreciate it.” She glanced at Pinky’s wrist. “You have an interface chip. Like Maggie.”

Pinky’s tattoos flowed around the chip, making it obvious. She held out her arm, so Gwen could get a better look. “Yeah. I sometimes compose for games. These days, that makes a chip necessary.”

“It doesn’t interfere with your magic? The tanai I knew in London…they thought chips wouldn’t be an option.”

“They can be, for some people,” Pinky said. “But it varies. I don’t know many tanai with one, but there are a few. But Maggie knows a great healer and one of the best chip surgeons in the country. I know they’ve been working on ways to make the chips work for witches—some of them have issues, too—I think there are some tests now?” She aimed the question at me

“There are. I’m sure Meredith—that’s my healer friend—would know how you can get tested. Might be better to find out sooner rather than later if it’s going to be an issue for you. Not having a chip would affect some of your choices.” The cost of chips was dropping. Once they reached a certain price point, they were going to take over from headsets as the dominant way to access games and all the other forms of VR. I’d seen the Riley Arts data modeling about it.

There would always be people who didn’t want a chip, but the best VR companies like Riley weren’t going to be hiring game designers who couldn’t work with full VR. “I can ask her. It might be expensive. Health care isn’t cheap over here.”

Gwen lifted her chin. “I have money. That’s the one thing my father—whoever the hell he is—did do for me.”

It would be rude to ask her how much, but I had to admit I was curious. Maybe it showed on my face because she said, “I’m not Damon rich but I’d probably be fine never working in my life. But that sounds dull to me.”

“Yes, way too boring,” I agreed. “So we’ll add getting you tested for compatibility with a chip to the list, when you’re ready.”