C.E. Mutphy - Hands of Flame

“Disappeared?” Margrit echoed, startled and stung. “Everything kind of went to hell. I’m just trying to get my head on straight. It’s not like I left the city.”

Something scathing darted through Cara’s expression, hardening her beyond anything Margrit had seen in the past. For an instant she no longer looked like a battered young woman on a sickbed, but rather an embattled warrior, too marked with scars to have pity for anyone else’s. “When a human walks away from the Old Races, she’s gone whether she’s in the next room or a thousand miles away. I thought you were on our side.”

“On your side.” The sting blossomed, as much an alpha-female reaction to Cara’s change as an honest and justified anger. Margrit dropped her voice, not wanting to chance being overheard, but unwilling to let the challenge go unanswered. “I did what you wanted. I got the quorum together and they voted to accept the selkies back into the Old Races as full brethren. Yeah, that was on your side, but it was because I thought it was the right thing to do. You bred with humans because there was no other way to survive, and I think it’s stupid to deny a people’s heritage the way the rest of the Old Races did to you. But let’s talk about on your side, Cara. Let’s talk about the peace treaty you developed with the djinn outside of the quorum, to make sure your natural enemies would support you. Let’s talk about how that treaty said you’d help destroy Janx and his House so the selkies and djinn could take over his underworld contacts and businesses. Let’s talk about how that power play created a situation that led to Malik’s death. Just what part of any of that did you mention to me? You used me. So forgive me if I don’t quite know what on your side is supposed to mean anymore.”

Cara lifted her chin, undaunted by Margrit’s accusations and gaining strength from her own convictions. “You’re right. We used you. We got what we wanted through you. From you. We have recognition amongst the Old Races. We have money and power, if we can hold on to Janx’s territory.” She took a breath and held it, then ended with grim finality: “We also have a treaty with a people who wish to decimate the remaining Old Races in retaliation for the death of one of their own.”

Margrit stared, then laughed, a sharp sound of incredulity that bit into her anger and tore some of it away. “Tell them no. Are they nuts?”

“They’re djinn.” Cara’s bruises lent depth to her short reply. “Read your mythology, Margrit. Djinn aren’t known for their sanity.”

“Then break the alliance. You’d have to be insane to agree.”

“We need them.” Despite lying on a bed, Cara squared her slender shoulders as if she was repeating another skirmish in an endless battle. “Without their acknowledgment of our people—”

“The quorum’s already been met. What are they going to do, say never mind, we didn’t mean it? I’d think if it worked that way, Janx would’ve repudiated you by now, since he’s the one whose territory you took over. And you’ve got numbers. There are tens of thousands of you. None of the other—” Margrit broke off, modulating her voice before she dared go on. “None of the other Old Races have that. You don’t need to go to war over a stupid mistake.”

Cara smiled, thin humorless expression. “That’s what allies do, Margrit Knight. Mistake,” she added clearly.

Margrit shook her head, uncomfortable realization clicking into place. Cara had never before used her name with such impunity. She’d called her Miss Knight, and Margrit had called her Cara, the relationship unequal. Cara’s new confidence leveled it. Coarse embarrassment heated Margrit’s cheeks as she realized she’d preferred having the upper hand, and how petty that was. She measured her response cautiously. “No money for nothing here, Cara. I’m finally starting to learn that you people all deal in information as a commodity. I’ve overplayed my hand too many times already.”

“What do you want from me in exchange for information about Malik’s death?” All the girl’s former shyness had vanished, leaving behind a young matriarch of considerable power and confidence. Margrit dropped her gaze to the floor, hoping to hide regret at the change. Not that competence or self-assuredness were in any way bad, but she missed the soft, young woman she’d barely known.

“I’d have to think about that,” she answered quietly. Lied quietly: she wanted to know how long Cara had known that Kaimana intended to use Margrit to manipulate the Old Races into the position they were now in. Her own delight and relief at finding Cara again, at being able to return her selkie skin, had been so real that Margrit hated to think Cara had known then that Kaimana intended to use her. But Cara had almost certainly known; it was she who’d brought Margrit’s point about strength in numbers to the selkie lord.

It was a question that could be brought up later. Margrit wanted to hoard the knowledge she had, in case there was a better way to spend it. Then, incongruous, the image of the countdown calendar her coworkers had made flashed in her mind, sixteen hours left on it. Margrit flattened her mouth at its reminder. “I’ve got to go to work, Cara. Is there anything I can do for you before I go?”

“Yes.” Cara pushed herself up, cheeks paling beneath the bruises. “The reason I asked you to come in the first place. Not to get me out of here. There’s a meeting this morning between—” She, too, broke off before lowering her voice to continue. “Between the djinn leaders and my people. Me. It’s in part to discuss how to deal with the humans trying to gain ground in our territory—”

“Janx’s territory,” Margrit said sourly.

Cara went on with no notice. “And in part, a last chance for me to try to talk them out of avenging Malik al-Massrī. I need you to go in my place.”

“Cara, I have to go to work!”

“This is more important. If you don’t go, we may end up embroiled in race war. You’re the only one who can prevent it.”

“Me and Smokey the Bear. There must be somebody else. You’ve got to have a hierarchy of some kind, a second in command you can send. Nobody would listen to me even if I could go.”

“You have to go get Chelsea Huo,” Cara said implacably. “She’s been helping me. If you arrive with her at your side, they’ll listen to you. They’ll have to.”

“Or what, Chelsea will brew them a nice cup of tea? Cara, you aren’t listening. I have a trial in less than two hours. I have a job.”

“This is your job. Are you really going to risk us going to war for the sake of a single case in the human justice system?”

Margrit jolted to her feet, taking a few quick, sharp steps to let off steam, then swung back around to scowl at Cara. It came to her again that this situation, or any like it, was why she hadn’t slithered out of the agreement to work for Eliseo Daisani. The Old Races were a tremendous disruption to her life, and only working for someone intimately involved with them would give her the leeway she needed to deal with the impossible circumstances they threw her way. None of her other reasons, legitimate as they might be, held a candle to that one. She had no intention of walking away from their wondrous, complicated world, and becoming Daisani’s assistant meant she could remain a part of it without disappointing anyone else. “Shit. Shit. Goddammit!”

Cara dropped back into the pillows, delicacy once more visible in her strained features, though a smile curved her lips. “That’s what I thought. That’s why you’re the Negotiator.”

“The what?” Margrit laughed, harsh sound. “I’ve got a title now? How very…you of you.”

“It’s a sign of respect, Margrit. We don’t often honor your kind with titles. The meeting’s at ten. Please, go see Chelsea. She has to go with you, or even the place you’ve earned might not carry enough weight.”