Seanan McGuire - A Local Habitation

“Alex?” I stared. “Oak and ash, Elliot, I don’t want to accuse his sister of murder in front of him!” I didn’t like the man, but there are limits.

“Don’t worry.” He smiled regretfully. There was something I needed to know in that expression. I just couldn’t tell what. “She never gets here before sunset.”

“What are you talking about?” I paused. “If she’s some sort of bloodsucker and you haven’t told me—” Faerie has its vampires, sort of, and most of them can’t stand the sun.

“That’s not it,” Elliot said, stopping at the cafeteria door and pushing it open. “After you.”

Alex was sitting at one of the tables, wearing a denim jacket over a white cotton shirt and a pair of leggings. He looked exhausted. Glancing up, he saw me and paled. “Uh, hi, Toby. Elliot. Dude I don’t know.”

“Tybalt,” I supplied. As for Tybalt, he had moved closer to me, starting to snarl almost silently. I glanced at him, surprised.

“Uh,” Alex said. “Right.”

“It’s almost sunset, Alex,” said Elliot. “Toby needs to talk to your sister.”

“What?” Alex sounded almost frightened. I narrowed my eyes, watching him. “She’s not here. You know that.”

“We need you to stay until she comes.” Elliot shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

“Elliot . . .” Alex began.

“Toby,” Elliot said, not looking at me, “please tell Alex your suspicions.”

I took a breath. “I don’t think that’s any of his business.” Tybalt’s growl was getting louder, distracting me.

“It’s important that he know why he needs to stay.” Elliot sounded serious.

I frowned. “If you’re sure . . .”

“I am.”

“All right.” Turning to Alex, I said, “I think your sister is involved with the murders.”

He made a startled squeaking noise. “Really?”

“I don’t know what her motives are, but she has no alibis, she hasn’t participated in any of the searches, and she was alone when she found the first body. She may not be guilty. She may have good reasons for everything. But it doesn’t look good.”

“And now you want to see her.”

“I do. There’ve been too many deaths. We can’t just let this lie.” If I didn’t find someone for the nobility to punish, they’d choose someone on their own, and they tend to be a lot less picky than I am. They might take all of us, on charges of obscuring justice.

“Elliot?” Alex looked toward him, eyes wide.

Elliot shook his head. “This one’s yours.” His smile was bitter. “You should have been more careful. I’ve told you before not to play games.”

That seemed to mean something to Tybalt that it hadn’t meant to me. His snarl became suddenly louder, and he all but pounced on Alex, hoisting the other man by the upper arms like he weighed nothing at all. “How dare you!” he roared.

I stared. “What the hell—”

“I didn’t hurt her!” Alex shouted, his attention fixed on Tybalt.

“You’re not going to have the chance.” Tybalt released Alex’s left arm, pulling back a hand that was suddenly bright with claws.

And the sun went down.

Transformations in the real world never happen the way we expect. The light around Alex blurred as his hair melted from gold to black, the tan bleaching out of his skin, the focus shifting until Tybalt was holding a gasping Terrie off the ground. The change seemed to have disoriented him, because she was able to squirm out of his grip and wobble in place. Women have smaller lungs than men do; sunset had to feel like the worst asthma attack ever.

The change was the piece I needed to answer the question of Alex and Terrie Olsen’s heritage, spelling it out in neon letters that made everything else fall into place. Gordan’s comments about it getting cold out on that hillside. The speed of our mutual attraction. The way he could make me forget about doing my job, just by smiling. A glamour that kept hitting me, even after I knew it was happening, a bloodline I couldn’t identify, and the way I’d hated Terrie, just as quickly as I’d fallen for him. And the birds . . . oh, root and branch.

“And no birds sing,” I said, horrified. Keats didn’t know much about Faerie, but he knew enough to get some things right. Gean-Cannah—the Love Talkers. I’d never met a changeling Gean-Cannah before, only heard rumors, so I hadn’t been able to recognize their blood. True Gean- Cannah were shapeshifters, entirely protean creatures who changed their faces and genders with a thought. Only their changeling children were tied to the movements of the sun, split forever into different people. I should have known when I saw their eyes. I should have known. But I didn’t.

Gean-Cannah were common once. They preyed heavily on the mortals. Too heavily. There’s never been any shame in hunting humans. The shame is in getting caught. It’s all right to be a monster, but it’s not all right to be sloppy. The Gean-Cannah took what they wanted, and they were noticed. Oh, were they ever. They were heavy victims of the war with the humans, and the Love Talkers have never bred fast; they can’t stand the company of their own kind, and most fae are too canny for them. They’re rare these days. I’ve only seen a single pureblood, and he was on the other side of a royal Court. Not exactly close enough to learn the attributes of the blood.

The Gean-Cannah will become your perfect lover, and it’ll be your last. They pull the life out of you, leaving you drained of everything but the need to keep loving them, to keep feeding them every ounce of strength you have . . . until it’s over.

Most affairs with the Gean-Cannah end in suicide.

Tybalt was getting over his surprise, looking even angrier now. I stepped forward, taking hold of his arm while I glared at Terrie. “The night shift.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, lowering her inhaler. “I would have told him not to, but he didn’t leave me a note until it was too late.”

“So you couldn’t have killed them all.”

She shook her head. “I wasn’t awake.”

“This . . . thing . . . touched you?” asked Tybalt, tone gone dangerously quiet.

“Her day-self did.” I looked at Terrie. “Do you have any control?”

“I . . .” Terrie paused, sighing. “You want to know if Alex forced your attraction to him.”

“Yes.”

She looked away. “Yes.”

For a long moment, I just stood there. Then, turning to Tybalt, I said, “Do whatever you want. I’m done.” Terrie’s head whipped around, eyes gone wide. I ignored her, attention swinging toward Elliot. “You let him.”

“Toby, I—”

“Do you know what happens when you lie down with the Gean-Cannah? Do you?” None of them said a word. Not even Tybalt, although the growl was beginning again, low in his throat. “You get tired and your thoughts get fuzzy and you stop thinking about anything but when you’ll see your lover again. You lie down on the cold hillside, and you die . And you were just going to let me stumble into his arms, without a warning?”

“Toby, it wasn’t like that—” Terrie began. I glared at her, and she stopped.

“I don’t care what it was like, and I don’t care what your reasons were,” I said. “This is too much. I’m taking my people, and we’re getting out of here.” I turned and stalked out of the cafeteria, letting the door swing shut behind me.

They didn’t follow. If the look on Tybalt’s face meant anything, he wasn’t going to let them.

I made it as far as the hall before my knees buckled and I sank to the floor, starting to cry in vast, exhausted gasps. How dare they? How dare they? I cried until I ran out of tears. It took a frighteningly long time. It wasn’t until I stopped to wipe my eyes with the back of my hand that I realized someone was leaning against me. I froze, realizing I’d just broken my own cardinal rule for surviving: I’d gone off alone. It would be a beautiful, annoying sort of irony if I got killed right after making my dramatic exit.