A Local Habitation

“And I’m not comfortable just standing around. Follow me or don’t; it’s up to you.” I pushed the door open and walked through. I was halfway down the hall before I heard the door close, and Quentin came running to catch up. I smiled and kept going.

ALH Computing obviously started life as a warehouse: there were no interior walls, just a labyrinthine succession of shoulder-high cubicles stretching into the distance. The floors were concrete softened by industrial-sized throw rugs. A ladder on one wall led up to the catwalks crisscrossing the ceiling. They extended far higher than the room’s evident ceiling, going up at least three tiers, maybe more, and only the bottom two were lit. It was impossible to tell what might be up there—and after a moment’s thought, I decided I probably didn’t want to know.

This was the smaller building, and it was huge. How were we supposed to find Sylvester’s niece?

“Toby . . .”

“Shhh. Listen.” Someone was shouting near the center of the room, dimly audible through the twisting maze of cubicles. It was the only sound breaking the buzz of the lights—as large as the space was, it was practically deserted.

“Whoever that is sounds pissed.”

“Right. So we go that way.”

“Is that a good idea?”

“Probably not,” I said, starting into the shoulder-high labyrinth. The cubicle walls looked like they were made from loosely connected panels, like a series of giant corkboards. If I got lost, I could just knock things down until I found the way out.

The path ended at a wide spot that seemed to be the meeting point for all the trails through the maze. Several people were gathered there, staring down one of the narrow pathways with obvious interest. All of them were fae, but only one was cloaked in the flicker of a human disguise. Interesting. The shouting was coming from somewhere down that path; the voice was female without being feminine, and swearing a blue streak in at least four different languages. Whoever it was, she seemed to have been designated as the afternoon’s entertainment.

“How many is that so far?” asked one of them, a tall blond man who could probably have made the cover of Surf Weekly without really trying. Though you don’t see many surfers with poppy-orange eyes and pointed ears.

The woman next to him frowned, looking at her clipboard. “Six, if you count Klingon. Are we counting Klingon?” Her hair was brown with streaks of red, making her look like the victim of a bad dye job. The combination of that hair with her china-pale skin tagged her as Daoine Sidhe; she had the right sort of artful graceless-ness, like she wore the world instead of letting it wear her.

“No,” said another man. “Nothing fictional.” He was the one wearing the human disguise; if I squinted, I could almost see the outline of his wings.

“Peter, that’s not fair,” protested the first man. “We allowed Elvish.”

“Elvish is a language!”

“Only if you’re living in a Tolkien novel,” said the brunette, shoving her glasses back up her nose. I’d never seen a Daoine Sidhe wearing glasses before.

“Oh, come on,” protested Peter. “Hey, Colin?”

The man next to the water cooler looked up. “Yeah?” His hair was shaggy and green, and henna tattoos covered most of his visible skin. A sealskin was looped around his waist, the ends tied in a granny knot. A Selkie? That was unusual this far inland.

“Is Elvish a language?”

Colin considered this, and then said, “Well, Gordan speaks it.”

“Is that a yes or no on the Elvish?” demanded the brunette. She looked annoyed. I understood how she felt.

“It’s not a language; Klingon is, and she just switched to Italian, which makes six.” A new man stepped out of one of the walkways, hands tucked into the pockets of his impeccably tailored suit. His hair and goatee were clipped close, not a strand out of place. “That work?”

“Hey, Elliot. Yeah, that works,” said the brunette.