Six
“I want to go for a walk, please.”
The new door guard, a dreadlocked man named Terrence, still seemed a bit bewildered at his sudden promotion, not to mention nonplussed as to how to handle his charge. He never knew whether to smile at her or bow or what. She found it oddly endearing.
Samuel grinned at her. He’d never been rude, but after Helen’s arrest, his attitude toward Miranda had gotten much warmer. She wasn’t entirely sure why, but as with so many other things here, she just didn’t ask.
“Terrence here can accompany you,” Samuel said.
Miranda sighed, but she knew there was no way around it. They were under orders not to let her venture out alone. All the stubbornness in the world on her part wouldn’t persuade them to disobey their Prime. “Okay. I’ll be ready in five minutes.”
She went back into the bedroom and put on her shoes and cardigan, then pulled her hair back into two quick, slightly puffy braids. When she opened the door again, Terrence bowed, then let her lead the way out of the Prime’s wing.
Things had changed in the week since Helen’s death. Miranda had woken from her nightmares with something new fluttering weakly around in her heart. She didn’t know what to call it, but it got her out of bed and drove her to practice grounding even though David had decided not to push her for a while. He’d told her to practice whenever she felt up to it, and to let him know when she was ready to learn more. That sudden kindness after the way he’d come at it the first time made her wonder about him, though she wasn’t sure what exactly to wonder.
After that he’d disappeared. She barely saw him for days. Whatever was happening had apparently gotten much, much worse, and the Court simply didn’t have time for her anymore. There was a tension in the Haven she could practically taste even through David’s shield.
It hadn’t taken her long to start exploring. A guard followed her everywhere, but they kept their distance as long as she didn’t try to get herself in trouble or wander off somewhere forbidden. None of the Elite had a clue what to make of her, this battered little woman with her frightening power. Those who had seen what she did to Helen had passed on the story, and now she had a reputation.
Miranda couldn’t decide if having a reputation here was something good or bad, but as the days went on, she decided she liked it. She felt safer knowing that she made them nervous.
At first, their deferring to her the way they did to the Prime bothered her, but after a few days it became second nature to her. So did inclining her head at them in acknowledgment of the bow . . . which was exactly what David did.
“Why are they treating me like this?” Miranda asked Faith one night as they took a stroll through the gardens. Faith had come to see her several times, checking on her welfare and then, to Miranda’s surprise, engaging her in conversation, trying to learn more about what made the Prime’s new pet tick.
Faith knew exactly what she meant and glanced over at the guard who had been shadowing them on their walk. “Promise not to freak out over what I tell you?”
“I promise.”
They took the long path that looped around the garden perimeter and over toward the stables, an area Miranda had not yet ventured toward. It was another hot night, but not blisteringly so, and signs pointed toward an early fall this year. The end of the summer was apparently quite a celebration among their kind—longer nights and a decline in the crime rate made life easier for the Shadow World.
Faith walked alongside her, her eyes on the splendid riot of color that surrounded them—all shades of green, all depths of shadow, the ethereal whites of the night-blooming flowers that released their heady scents into the warm wind as they passed.
“There’s a rumor,” Faith went on. “After word got out of your abilities, people began to talk. You shouldn’t make anything out of it, Miss Grey—”
“Miranda, please. Miss Grey sounds like I’m a substitute math teacher.”
A smile. “All right, Miranda, you mustn’t give these rumors any more credit than exactly what they are, the idle gossip of a houseful of vampires where you are now living in the mistress suite off the Prime’s bedroom.”
“The mistress what now?”
“Your room. The last Prime to live here had no Queen, but he kept a series of mistresses in that room throughout his tenure. The last one was reported to have been showing signs she might become more than a mistress.”
“I’m sleeping in the Slut Suite of Whore Manor?”
“You can see, then, why rumors might fly. Add to that your abilities, and . . . the most popular theory now is that you’re being groomed to take the Queen’s Signet.”
Miranda flopped down on a bench, astonished. “But I’m human!”
“Rumor has it it’s only a matter of time.”
Tonight, Miranda followed those thoughts almost against her will as she followed the path that she and Faith had taken along the outermost edge of the gardens.
Ridiculous. It was the sort of wild speculation that surrounded the British royalty or the latest talentless Hollywood celebutantes. Surely the people here had more important things to worry about than what she was doing here. Gossip was usually a mindless distraction from a far too serious world. Clearly the same forces were at work here.
If it was so mindless, then, why was she angry about it?
Miranda shook her head and took the path back toward the Haven, determined to practice her shielding tonight. They were going to keep talking as long as she was still here. She could deal with the stares and the bowing, but she’d always hated being whispered about.
Had David heard the rumors? What did he think of them? Probably nothing. He had to be used to the chatter; that was part of how Primes built their empires, using their reputations to bolster their power. She’d seen that much already. Faith had told her a few of the stories that surrounded him—he could vanish into thin air, move faster than darkness, and probably breathe fire and turn people into gerbils. Given what Miranda had seen him do so far, it was probably easy to foster such legends beyond the Haven’s walls.
She took the stairs back to the second floor, pretending not to notice the Elite behind her, and gave the guards a nod of thanks before shutting and locking her door.
Miranda took a minute to work a bit more antifrizz goop into her hair; the humidity had been high for Austin this year, and she could only imagine how wild she looked . . . not that she could be sure. She was looking forward to having a mirror again.
A mirror, and a life would be nice, too. Strange that she was starting to think that maybe, just maybe, she might find the latter someday.
The time before the Haven had already become a blur of pain and fear—this place was so far removed from the day-walking world that she didn’t even feel like herself anymore. That horrific night in the alley had broken her heart into a thousand pieces, but it had broken her life neatly into “before” and “after.” It had been so long since she’d had her mind, so long since she’d felt any tiny flicker of hope for the future . . . all she had to do was get strong enough to shield for herself, and she could return to Austin, and . . .
What, exactly? Go back to performing? Would that be safe? Could she even play without relying on the emotions of others for fuel? If not, what would she do, get a job like a normal person?
She stood for a moment with her brain reeling. Normal. She had no idea what that even meant anymore. Yes, there was hope . . . and that hope brought with it a new kind of fear that she simply wasn’t equipped to face right now.
As if fate knew she needed the distraction, she noticed that there was a light coming from under David’s door.
That was unusual this early in the evening. He was almost never there until nearly dawn. Curious, she ventured over to the door and opened it a crack to peek in.
She expected to find him at his desk working some sort of technological wizardry, but when he wasn’t, at first she thought he’d just went off and left the light on. Then she caught sight of his dark head at the end of the couch—he was lying down.
Miranda opened the door a little wider and crept over the threshold just to make sure he was okay; it wasn’t like him to be here this time of night, let alone to relax in any form at any time. Something had to be wrong.
Inching closer, she got a better look. He was, indeed, stretched out on the couch, in casual clothes like he’d worn the night he’d shown her how to ground; the coffee table was spread with papers in tidy piles, and there was an open file folder over his stomach, one hand holding it down. She smiled when she saw the empty ice cream carton on the corner of the table: Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey.
He was asleep. She’d never actually seen him sleep before. It made him look younger, less grave, almost . . . cute.
She wondered if he’d ever been happy, if he’d ever smiled . . . if he’d ever been young. She remembered her grandmother saying once that she was a sad child, born old. She had a feeling that David had been born that way, too.
She started to retreat to her room, but he shifted slightly, startling her so that she froze like a rabbit under the gaze of a snake. The faint touch of peace on his face hardened, his brow furrowing, and he shook his head slightly, one hand flexing on the couch cushion. His lips moved, almost a tremor, words barely audible.
“Lizzie . . .”
Miranda held her breath and listened, her heart in her throat as she leaned closer, straining to hear.
“Lizzie, take Thomas . . . hurry . . .”
In that moment pain flashed through Miranda’s head, and she stepped backward involuntarily, clapping her hands over her ears the way she once had to try to block out the voices. This time, though, it wasn’t a voice invading her thoughts, it was an image: a little boy with brown hair down to his collar, running with his arms outstretched, giggling. He wore some kind of Pilgrim-looking costume that was stained around the hems, and he was barefoot, his skin nut-brown from the sun.