Pirate's Alley (25 page)

Yeah, well, when I had a spare moment. By the time I made it halfway across Magazine Street, my legs were barely shuffling. If there had been any traffic, I’d be a pancake.

The world turned upside down as I lost my footing. My sluggish thoughts registered how sad it was going to be when I was found either hibernating or frozen in the middle of Magazine Street come daylight. I seemed to still be moving, however, and it took a few seconds to filter through my iceberg of a brain that Rand had hustled out and thrown me over his shoulder.

*   *   *

Great, let him take care of things. I needed to sleep.

“Dru, wake up.” Something hot gushed down my chin, startling me awake. I was stretched out on the sofa in his upstairs sitting room, and Rand sat beside me, holding a mug. He’d been trying to give me hot liquids, I guess, but missed my mouth. I held out my hand and he placed the cup against my palm, hanging on to it until he was sure I had it in a firm grasp.

I sipped, and recognized the taste. Sort of like warm apple juice, but with some elven mojo stirred in to clear my mind. After Tish Newman had been murdered on my porch and Rand found me, he’d given me this same stuff. I needed all the mental help I could get, so I drank the rest of it.

“How long was I out?” We didn’t have time for me to waste hibernating.

“Not long. Less than a half hour, I’d say.” Rand took the mug and set it on the end table. “It’s just before eleven. What were you doing out there?”

I hadn’t planned this far. I didn’t want to cast Zrakovi as the evil villain. He was not an inherently bad man, just an arrogant politician who thought the ends justified the means. Plus, if Jean’s assessment of the preternatural power breakdown proved true, the elves and wizards needed to be allies.

The stakes were high. Rand had to understand that he couldn’t bully his way through this one. He had to play it smart and with finesse.

“Just tell me, Dru. You know I can’t read your thoughts anymore.”

Which was a good reminder that he
could
read Zrakovi’s. He’d even done a little mental manipulation on the Elder in the past. I had to be straight with him. Seems like I was being honest with everyone tonight except the man I most needed to be honest with, but I’d think about that later.

“Okay, but you have to promise something first.” I gave him my fiercest look.

He smiled, and I thought he was going to make one of his outrageous, suggestive comments. He seemed to think better of it, and the smile faded. “Promise you what?”

“That you are going to be calm. That even though you aren’t going to like what I’m about to tell you, you’re going to talk it all through with me and not get on your high and mighty ‘I am Elf’ horse.”

He looked a little offended but, after an inner struggle, managed to stay off the horse. “I’ll try.”

“Okay, I need your help.” God, I needed Your help, too.

“You know I’ll help you when I can.” Translation:
I’ll help you if it furthers my agenda.
Rand, I understood very well.

“There are certain people in our world, both mine and yours, who do not want your baby with Eugenie to ever be born.”

He’d already started bristling, and I sat up. “I’m serious, Rand. You stay calm and talk this out with me or I will zap you.” Thankfully, those responsible for hibernation rescue had, so far, all thought to rescue my messenger bag and staff, including the elf sitting beside me.

“Who doesn’t want my baby to be born?”

I hesitated. Thinking about telling him, and actually telling him, were two different matters. But Rand wanted his son.

He grimaced. “You might as well tell me. I can bore into the minds of everyone in that council meeting tomorrow except yours and Mace Banyan’s. And I know Mace doesn’t give a damn about the baby because whether or not I have an heir doesn’t affect him.”

I thought he gave Mace way too much credit but, at least in this case, his Synod leader wasn’t the problem.

“It’s Zrakovi,” I said, God help me. “He wanted me to talk Eugenie into letting me abort the baby using my Green Congress magic, or do it without her permission if she didn’t agree.”

I felt a wide imaginary T for “traitor” etch its way across my forehead. So I talked faster. “You have to understand where he’s coming from, Rand. The whole prete world is in chaos, and he’s afraid the baby will divide Elfheim and, ultimately, sever the alliance between the wizards and elves.” Even I thought that sounded cold and lame.

Rand’s inner glow had begun to spread across his face, and heat from his body radiated across the width of a sofa cushion. I still hadn’t quite figured out what that did for him other than make him look like a pretty Russian snow prince with a sunburn. It obviously didn’t prevent hibernation.

“Do not say a word.” I shook a finger at him. “Not. One. Word. You will listen to me.”

His jaw was clenched and his nod no more than a nano-dip of his chin, but it was a nod.

“The elves and wizards need each other,” I told him. At least this part of my argument was something I believed. “We need our people to be allies, and you and I can make that happen. We don’t know who the fae will side with, and the vampires are totally unreliable. We have to be smart about this.”

Rand blinked. “I’ve heard the people of Faery might oppose us, especially if Sabine dies and Florian takes over. He’s the Summer Prince, the eldest of Sabine’s nephews, but he’s a total fruitcake. It would be a disaster. Christof is a fruitcake, too, but Mace thinks he might be more reasonable.”

I didn’t know whether or not Christof was a fruitcake, but he was scary as frozen hell.

“But if Zrakovi does anything to my child,” Rand said, glowing again, “the elves will not align themselves with the wizards, no matter the consequences.”

“Are you sure?” I had to make him look at this without his emotions. “Think about it, Rand. Are you so sure Mace would support you with his air clan? Or Betony and the earth elves? Or Lily’s daughter with the water elves? Without the full Synod behind you, you can’t speak for the elves.”

Rand pondered this while he made more mugs of apple stuff.

“The question is, why does Zrakovi care about my son? This baby has no bearing on council business.”

Maybe. Maybe not. “He’s thinking of it as an insurance policy,” I said, sipping the warm, fizzy juice. “If there’s no baby, then Mace doesn’t worry about a new generation of non-air elves taking over. If there’s no baby, that’s one less thing the vampires could use as leverage to sway your support over to them, or force you to betray the Elders. Or the Fae. Zrakovi thinks the baby makes you vulnerable to blackmail.”

Rand’s glow settled back to normal. He seemed to be calm and thinking. Yay for apple stuff. “Then I shall kill Zrakovi.”

I mentally pulled out a few hanks of hair, both mine and his. So much for clear thinking. “No, you will not kill Zrakovi. I don’t know who would move into his spot, but it might be someone worse. We just have to outsmart him for tomorrow’s meeting. We’re intelligent people; we can do that.”

The trick would be to thwart Zrakovi’s plans without him realizing he’d been manipulated.

“I could touch him somehow, maybe help him off with his coat,” Rand said. “If I could touch him, I could suggest a counter-notion.”

I nodded. “Like how the baby would actually be valuable in bringing our people together. Your son would strengthen the elven-wizard alliance.”

He shot a cagey look my way. “Because you and I would be raising it together in an elven-wizard household?”

“If that helps you get through the day, you can make that mental suggestion to Zrakovi.”

He smiled, the arrogant oaf. “You’ll come around.”

Not before the child reached the age of consent, whatever that was in Elfheim. I wasn’t sure where my relationship with Alex was headed, or if we’d even have one after tomorrow, depending on how things went and how suspicious he was feeling. But whether or not I stayed with Alex had no bearing on my relationship with Quince Randolph. We could coexist but we would never, ever, ever cohabit.

“Okay, that’s Plan A. Can you influence Zrakovi’s thoughts without Mace Banyan realizing it?” Otherwise, there was no point.

Rand chewed on his lower lip as he thought. “Probably not. His magic is strong, so I’d need some distance from him.”

I doubted the attic conference room of Hebert Hall was anywhere near the size of the district court building fourth floor. “You might not be able to get that far away from him, so let’s come up with some other options.”

We sat in silence for a long time, staring at the fire popping and crackling in Rand’s fireplace. The last time I’d been up here, on the second floor of the Plantasy Island nursery, I’d been half crazed and trying to escape the undead Axeman of New Orleans. It had been a dark and bloody business during which Rand’s mother had been killed.

I stayed so annoyed with him most of the time, I’d been as insensitive and self-absorbed as I accused him of being. “How are you doing?” I asked him. “I’m sure you miss Vervain.”

His eyes widened in surprise, then crinkled as he gave me the real smile. The sweet one I’d seen when he first felt of Eugenie’s tummy and realized he had a son. “I do miss her.” He stared into the fire. “It’s one of the reasons I decided to stay here in New Orleans despite the weather, instead of going back to Elfheim. The house is full of memories of my father and of her.”

I knew how that felt. It was why, even though Alex and Jake had worked hard to make Gerry’s house in Lakeview habitable except for the lack of heat, I had trouble staying there. The bones of the house remained the same. The quality of the air. The ghosts of memory were always around.

“Why don’t you build yourself a new house in Elfheim? One that’s just yours alone? You can make new memories. I mean, it would be a place for your son to build his memories as he’s growing up.” I didn’t know that the kid would live in Elfheim; maybe he would, or maybe not. That was for Rand and Eugenie to work out, with me as referee if necessary. But he’d certainly need a home there.

The smile again. “That’s a great idea. I’ve been so focused on making sure Eugenie didn’t do anything stupid, I haven’t made plans.”

I shrugged. “There’s plenty of time for that.”

Rand gave me a sidelong glance. “You’re being awfully nice, Dru. Are you up to something?”

I laughed. “Nothing I haven’t shared with you. It’s just that you’re actually listening to me and I’m listening to you. It’s called a conversation. We need to try it more often.”

He sighed. “Yeah, after we figure out Plans B and C.”

CHAPTER
21

I looked at my bloodshot eyes in the mirror of Rand’s bathroom. We’d strategized until almost dawn, and had come up with a Plan B so beautiful in its simplicity that it had supplanted Plan A. No point in tipping off Mace Banyan and risk Rand getting caught doing secret mental manipulation on the man who’d probably become the permanent First Elder.

The downside? With this plan, Zrakovi would know he’d been played. The plan was to make Rand the player, not me, and the elf had promised to keep me out of it. If he didn’t, I was so angry over Eugenie’s intended treatment that I was almost beyond caring.

Almost.

Every one of the seventy-two hours since I’d enjoyed even a semi-restful sleep showed in the dark circles under my eyes. If I were a faery, I’d be able to put on a new face in an instant and wouldn’t hesitate. Handy skill, that one. Plus, as Jean would be quick to point out, I’d been wearing the same black sweater as when I went off to investigate the burning of L’Amour Sauvage what seemed like a month ago.

Rand stood in the bathroom door behind me, looking perfectly rested and perfectly perfect, damn him.

I turned to him. “You got anything I could wear that doesn’t, well, look like I borrowed it from you?” No way I could rock the whole tall Russian snow prince thing.

“Some of Vervain’s clothes are still in the closet of the spare bedroom. She brought them with her when she fled Elfheim.” I appreciated him not saying
when she fled Elfheim because we’d bonded and she knew Mace Banyan would punish her for it
.

Rand pulled a ring of keys from his pocket and I followed him into the hallway, where he unlocked the door to the middle bedroom. “I rarely go in here since … since it happened.”

Oh man, I hated to wear a dead elven clan chief’s clothes, especially those belonging to the woman who’d given birth to Rand. “Never mind, this will be fine. Black is versatile.” I discreetly pulled the neck of the sweater away from my body and sniffed. Other than a bit of brandy, magical elven apple stuff, and smoke, it smelled fresh from the dryer.

“Don’t be silly. I don’t mind if you wear her clothes. I’d actually forgotten they were here.”

I followed him into the room. The last time I’d been here, only a month ago although it seemed like years, the room had been filled with antique furniture and pretty earth-tone accents—all with a heavy coating of blood. Some mine, some Rand’s, some the Axeman’s, but a lot of it Vervain’s. Now the room lay empty but for a set of gold drapes that hung over the window. A splash of brown stained the bottom of one side. Dried blood.

I swallowed hard to get the images out of my head; I could see why Rand didn’t come in here. “Why do you keep it locked?”

He’d opened the closet door and had returned to stand in the hallway just outside the room. “It’s stupid, I guess, but it helps me pretend it’s not here. Would you lock it back when you leave?” Without waiting for an answer, he hung a right toward what I assumed was his bedroom and disappeared.

Rand better be careful or I might start liking him. I doubted he could go twenty-four hours without pissing me off or making a mess I had to fix, however, so I wouldn’t worry about it.

I stared in the closet at the filmy, gauzy, tie-dyed, earth mother smattering of clothes hanging inside. Rand apparently came by his crunchy-granola hippie persona honestly. There wasn’t a pair of pants or top to be seen, but only dresses. Hadn’t the woman gotten tired of shaving her legs? Didn’t she want to have an occasional stubbly-leg and socks day?