M.L.N. Hanover - Vicious Grace

“I tried to call you. When I couldn’t, I got the others,” Chogyi Jake said. “We all came as quickly as we could.”

I looked at the file cabinet. One side was visibly bent in. My idea that it would wake me had been optimistic.

“Sorry,” I said, mostly to Ex and Oonishi, but also to everyone. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“I’m pleased to know it wasn’t the plan,” Oonishi said.

I nodded toward the ruined monitor.

“I can replace that,” I said.

“What were you doing?” Chogyi Jake asked.

I sat back. The others came in closer, except for Oonishi. I swallowed to loosen my throat. I felt like an idiot.

“I needed to see it,” I said. “The rider. The haugsvarmr . I thought maybe if I could talk to it, I’d be able to find out what Eric wanted from it. Even just a hint, you know? Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe it would be an angel, and so things with Eric wouldn’t be what it looked like after all.”

“And?” Kim said.

I shook my head. “It’s not an angel,” I said.

With a grunt and a little help from Aubrey, Ex sat up. Even apart from the pain, he looked annoyed.

“Point—” he began, then gulped air and started again. “Point of clarification? Eric used the Mark of Naxos to force Kim into a sexual relationship that wrecked her marriage. At minimum, that makes him a sociopath and a rapist.”

I blinked. Oonishi’s eyebrows tried to join up with his hairline. Kim went a little paler as the word sank in. Rapist .

Of course, that was right.

“I mean I’m as disappointed as anyone,” Ex went on. “But is there really room for debate over whether he was good or evil?”

“There’s not,” I said. “I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“And coming here by yourself?” Ex said. “I mean, yes, the thing’s still bound by the interment, but that’s like saying the tiger’s in the cage. Still not what I’d call safe.”

“I get your point,” I said.

“If you want to work out your private life,” he said, “maybe you could—”

“She got the point, Ex,” Kim said. “Let it go.”

He leaned against the desk and muttered something about moral relativism I didn’t quite catch. I stood up, plucking the ruined blanket off my shoulders and letting it drop to the ground. My backpack chirped again. The last threads of dream were gone, and my confusion vanished with them. A little wisp of my normal strength was coming back.

The hope I had been grasping at was an illusion, and knowing that—seeing the last vestiges of the life I’d known fall away past redemption—was actually a relief. I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t at peace. The bedrock I’d rebuilt my life on had turned to sand, but at least I knew that now. I didn’t have to try to save it. There was nothing I could do to get it back.

“I think this is partly my fault,” Chogyi Jake said. “When we spoke, back at the condo—”

“I know what you were saying,” I said. We’ve all lost families and lovers and things that were precious to us, and we’ve all survived . He hadn’t meant us. He’d meant Eric.

He went quiet, his smile reading to me like a vote of confidence. Encouragement. Oonishi’s gaze went from me to him and back again. I probably wasn’t acting enough like an employee who’d just screwed up. That was fine. Oonishi’s dreams had started us down the path, but his good opinion was so far down my list of things to clean up, I could barely make it out. This was my show now.

And I knew where I needed to start.

“Guys,” I said. “Could you give us the room for a minute? Aubrey and I need to have a talk.”

They walked out quietly, Ex with a little help from Chogyi Jake. Kim hovered at the threshold for a moment, her gaze equal parts anxiety and exhaustion. When she closed the door, Aubrey and I were alone. He sat on the desk, his arms crossed. He looked older. I always knew there were threads of gray in his hair, but I saw them now. Sure, he looked tired, but more than that, he looked weary. I could still remember the first time I’d seen him, in the Denver airport holding up a sign with my name on it, spelled almost right. I remembered his empty eyes after our first, failed attempt on the Invisible College and the joy of seeing him come to after we’d taken them out. Holding him while he wept in the warm New Orleans night. Funny how many of our good times involved people dying.

“I should have called you,” he said. “Or at least I should have told you why I wasn’t calling you.”

“I get it,” I said.

“I didn’t mean to be a shitheel. And I certainly didn’t mean to drive you to this.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I was confused,” he said. “Honestly, I still am. What Eric did . . . it reframes a whole part of my life.”

“You know what?” I said. “I actually totally know how that feels.”

He smiled and laughed.

“Yeah. You do, don’t you,” he said. Then, “Kim said you went to her place. Looking for me.”

“It seemed like a good bet,” I said.

“I wouldn’t do that to you. I know I said some things in the heat of the moment, but I wouldn’t run off to Kim and ignore you. I was very angry and confused and hurt, but I hope I wasn’t a total jerk.”

“You weren’t,” I said. “Just a normal, garden-variety jerk. Still far from total. I’ve done worse myself.”

The air conditioner clacked and muttered. A computer hummed. My cell phone chirped again. The moment seemed slow and airless and over too quickly.

“You’re not Eric,” he said. “You’re not like him. You didn’t do the things he did. You shouldn’t have to pay for his sins.”

“Yeah, but I do,” I said, trying to make it sound light. “Ain’t fair, but there you go. I know why you didn’t go to Kim. And why you didn’t stay at the condo with me. You’re screwed, right? If you get involved with Kim again, try to make sense of what actually happened between you two and see who you are to each other, you’re breaking up with me for something that’s not my fault. And if you stay with me and go on like we’ve been doing? Well, that’s not fair to Kim, right? Walking away from her knowing what happened means this time you’re choosing to leave her. And it turns out for something that’s not entirely her fault. You want to be fair, but you can’t.”

“I don’t think anyone’s psychic well-being is really determined by whether I’m sleeping—”

“Aubrey. I love you. And Kim loves you. And you’re in a position where you have to pick between us, but you can’t do it. So after long and sober reflection, you’re going to leave both of us and strike out on your own. It’s not great, but at least it’s evenhanded. Am I right?”

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Deep, unhappy lines etched themselves in his mouth and the corners of his eyes. The situation was unsalvageable. Even now, some part of me hoped that he’d say no, that he’d find some other alternative and make everything okay.

“It was that or a three-way,” he said.

Okay. That wasn’t the kind of alternative I’d been thinking of.

“You’re joking,” I said.

“I am absolutely joking,” he said with a sad kind of smile that meant he had been, and also he hadn’t. He wanted to be what I wanted and what Kim needed, and he’d resigned himself to failing us both. “Two girls at once was never one of my big fantasies.”

“No?”

“Well, pleasant thought, I guess, but I always figured I’d wind up feeling like the host at a party, you know? ‘Doing all right? Can I get you anything? How about you? Everyone okay?’”