Robert reappeared carrying a small dirty sack, leaped down, and jogged over to us.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“It’s a rat stash,” Derek said. “They hide them all over the city.”
Robert reached into the sack, pulled out a large roll of duct tape and a bundle of canvas rags, and smiled.
“What’s this for?” Desandra asked.
“You’ll see,” I told her.
We headed down the street.
Desandra shrugged her shoulders. “Hey, Kate? Have you thought of walking up to Hugh and telling him that he’s got the biggest dick ever?” She spread her arms to the size of a baseball bat.
“No, you think it would work?” I asked.
“It’s worth a try. Maybe he’ll be so happy you noticed his pork sword, he’ll forget all about trying to kill us.”
Pork sword. Kill me now. “I’ll think about it.”
Ascanio began patting his clothes.
“What?” Derek growled.
“Looking for something to take notes with.”
Robert gave no indication he heard us but I knew he was listening. Any idiot could figure out that Hugh and I had a history, and Robert was far from being an idiot. Soon questions would be coming, I could feel it.
Ascanio gave up on patting and gazed at Desandra with something akin to admiration. Found himself a role model, had he? Because he wasn’t trouble enough already.
“What is it, child?” Desandra asked.
“Did you really have your tongue cut out?” Ascanio asked.
Desandra’s eyes narrowed. “When I was twelve, my father didn’t like what I was saying, so he took a knife and sliced my tongue off. It took six months to grow back and as soon as I could speak, I told him to fuck off. I decided then that nobody would ever make me shut up. I won’t hold my tongue. I won’t shut my mouth.”
“Neither will I,” Ascanio said.
“If the two of you don’t knock it off right now, I’ll turn this car right around and send you both home,” I told them.
They clamped their mouths shut.
The street narrowed. A thick wooden pole thrust straight into the middle of the pavement supported a quarantine sign. Thick black letters on a white background read: IM-1: INFECTIOUS MAGIC AREA DO NOT ENTER
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
Under the sign, someone had drawn a skull with horns, just to hammer home the point.
We stopped at the sign. The street rolled on, the pavement puckering here and there. Chunks of glass thrust through the crumbling asphalt, some blue, some green, others translucent white, like the tips of subterranean icebergs. In the distance spires and sheets of glass jutted upward, enclosing what was once Inman Yard, Norfolk Southern’s train yard, into a massive glass glacier. Once we crossed the glass labyrinth, we’d officially be in the People’s territory.
“You have the freakiest shit in Atlanta,” Desandra said. “How did this happen?”
I dismounted. “It used to be a massive train yard, over sixty tracks. The city built a huge new train station just before the Shift, all glass and steel beams, very modern. When the magic hit, the trains collided and the station collapsed. Mounds of glass spilled everywhere, and then people started noticing it was fusing and growing, until over the years this happened.”
“It’s called the Glass Menagerie,” Robert said, and passed me the duct tape and the rags. I wrapped Cuddles’s front left hoof with a rag and duct-taped the whole thing.
“Is it dangerous?” she asked.
“Oh yeah,” Ascanio said. “I killed a monster in there with Andrea. It was bigger than a house.”
Derek rolled his eyes.
“There’s shit in there nobody knows how to classify,” I said. “The College of Mages has been studying it for years, and they’re still not sure how the glass grows or spreads. That’s why the duct tape and the rags. Once we go through, we’ll dump them so we’re not dragging contamination all over the city.”
I finished taping Cuddles’s hooves, fixed the rags over my boots with tape, and passed the roll to Robert. He duct-taped his feet, and then the roll made its way to Desandra and to Derek and Ascanio.
Robert shifted from foot to foot.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I don’t like having things on my feet.” He shrugged.
“You’re wearing shoes,” Desandra pointed out.
“Yes, but I’m used to the way they look.” Robert stared at the wraps and sighed.
“Still time to turn back,” Voron said quietly inside my head.
“Not happening.” I thought I had banished his ghost.
“This is dangerous. Don’t do this. Walk away.”
“This is what you’ve trained me for. Let me be what you’ve designed me to be.”
I waited for an answer, but my memories remained silent.
“Kate?” Derek asked quietly.
I nudged Cuddles and we headed into the Glass Menagerie.
? ? ?
THE MOONLIGHT FILTERED through the glass iceberg, diffused and fractured, until it seemed to come from everywhere at once, bathing the interior of the glacier in a soft ghostly glow. Solid sheets of glass covered the ground. I led Cuddles, moving as fast as I could without sliding. I had no watch but it had to be past midnight.
“Any vampires?” Robert asked.
“No.”
“How long have you had the ability to sense vampires?” Robert asked.
Here we go. “Why the sudden interest?” I asked.
“We hear things,” Robert said. “Rumors.”
“What kind of rumors?” I asked.
“Disturbing rumors,” Robert said. “We are dissatisfied with the current level of disclosure. We are concerned.”
We. We as in Clan Rat. The alphas of the clans intensely disliked being kept out of the loop, and Jim was always walking a fine line between endangering Pack security by saying too much and pissing off the Pack Council by saying too little. Lucky for me, I wasn’t in charge of security.
“If you have concerns, you should address them to Jim,” I said.
The alpha of the rats nodded. “Because he will cover for you by stalling and not answering any of the questions we pose?”
I gave Robert my best hard stare. “Cover for me?”
The wererat held my gaze. “Yes.”
“He doesn’t seem to be scared. You need to work on your alpha glowering,” Derek observed. He was watching Robert with a calm, relaxed expression, one I knew very well. If the alpha rat as much as sneezed in my direction, Derek would try to rip his throat out and Ascanio would help. “Maybe you should pick an easier target to practice on, like a small fluffy bunny.”
Ascanio clamped his hand to his chest and staggered closer to Robert. “I think McBroody just made a joke. I . . . I don’t know what to do. Nothing makes sense anymore.”
They were setting him up. If Robert moved toward me, Derek would hit him head-on and Ascanio would rip into him from the side. Desandra’s eyes narrowed. She saw it, too.
Derek pretended to study Ascanio and glanced at me. “Would you like me to pull his legs out?” His eyes were completely serious. He was asking if I wanted Robert jumped.
“No, I want the two of you to hang back about fifty yards, so Robert and I can have a conversation.”
“But . . .” Ascanio began.
“Hang back,” I told him, sinking an order into my voice.
“You heard her,” Derek said.
“I’m going,” Ascanio said.
They went back a few feet. We resumed our trot through the glass labyrinth.
Desandra laughed under her breath. “So this is what a boy bouda is like.”
“Usually they’re worse,” Robert said. “I’ve known Raphael since he was six and I was eleven. He was insufferable as a teenager. Beautiful, but so high maintenance. Ascanio is typical.”
“The boudas feel like outsiders,” I said for Desandra’s benefit. “There aren’t that many of them and the chance of loupism runs high within their clan, so every child is a precious gift spoiled rotten. But Ascanio is in a class by himself. It’s a long story.”
“Back to my questions,” Robert said. “How long have you had the ability to sense vampires?”
“You can’t compel me to answer, Robert.”
“No, I can’t,” he said. “However, I can explain my reasons for asking. Wererats have certain advantages when it comes to covert work.”
The wererats were quiet and stealthy, and they could dislocate their bones in a pinch, which let them hide in very small places. A lot of Jim’s surveillance people came from Clan Rat.
When not sure which way the conversation was going, say something vague and flattering. “Clan Rat is well-known for its uncanny stealth.” So help me, I sounded like Curran. The Pack had slowly driven me out of my mind.
The anxiety stabbed me like a knife.
Curran was okay. Worrying about him wouldn’t help him be okay, it would just make me distracted. I had to disconnect from it.
“We also have our own network of information gatherers,” Robert said. “We get our information from two channels: official briefings from Jim and from our own people. There was always a gap between the information coming to us from Jim and through our own channels. Since you moved into the Keep, that gap substantially widened.”
Robert waited.
I didn’t say anything. My patience was wearing thin. I could just imagine Barabas’s voice in my mind. Alienating Clan Rat was not a good idea. They were the second-largest clan . . .
“Consort?” Robert asked.
Oh, so we’re back to “Consort” now. “So you’re upset, because you feel Jim is holding back information?”
“I have proof he is.”
I would have to word this carefully. Diplomacy wasn’t my strongest suit, but I had a good memory and I’d read the Pack’s code of laws cover-to-cover several times. “Has his withholding of information impeded your ability to effectively govern your clan or compromised the safety of your clan’s members?”
“If you’re quoting Article Six . . .” Robert began.
I was quoting Article Six. It outlined the duties of the Pack’s chief of security. “Please answer my question.”
“Not yet,” Robert said. “However, we’re concerned it might.”
“Until it does, as Consort, I’m not obligated to take any action.”
“She’s right,” Desandra said.
Robert glanced at her.
She shrugged. “I’ve read the book.”
Robert’s eyes narrowed. “I can take my concerns to the Council and make it very difficult for you to avoid questions.”
The best defense is a good offense. “We both know that doing so will predispose Curran and me against Clan Rat.”
“We’re already marginalized!” Robert said.
“How are you marginalized?” Desandra gaped at him. “You’re the second-largest clan in the Pack!”
“Yes, we are, but when it was time to go retrieve the panacea, our clan wasn’t represented.” He raised his hand and began counting on fingers. “The delegation included Clan Heavy, Clan Bouda, Clan Nimble, Clan Wolf, Clan Cat . . .”
Oh my God. “The jackals didn’t go either.”
“The jackals didn’t ask to go. We specifically requested a place and we were cut from the list.”
“It wasn’t a plot against you. You were cut from the list because I was under pressure from Aunt B and I asked Curran to make space for her.”
“That’s precisely my point! You’re biased against our clan, because we voted against you when Curran fell into a coma.”
I couldn’t believe it. “Are you serious?”
“Yes!”