“Just shout,” I said. “This place is big, but not as big as it looks, so we should be able to hear you just fine from wherever. Caryl will know what to do once we find the Gate.”
Everyone looked to Caryl. She fidgeted, her hand tightening in mine. “Do as Millie says,” she said, trying for her usual crisp tone and almost managing it. “I am placing her in charge until National arrives next week.”
“Wha—” I spluttered, almost dropping her hand.
“Yes, ma’am,” said Gloria quickly, the way you do when your boss has gone crazy. “Come on, boys, let’s split up and search the place. And for love of the Lord, Teo, let someone else search the saloon; I don’t want you getting distracted by some magicked-up lady of the evening.” Her voice was too bright, too brassy, as she led them away.
I was still staring at Caryl, because with all this nonsense about putting me in charge, it had finally sunk in that she had every intention of dying.
46
The sounds of bickering faded as Caryl and I headed down the lane toward the town square, hand in hand. I shifted my fingers to interlace them with hers. “I kind of like hanging out with the real you,” I said.
“This isn’t the real me,” she argued, as she had in the car after leaving Regazo de Lujo. Only this time with 90 percent more petulance.
“Now that you can’t shut me up by saying I’ll explode Elliott, I just want to say—I feel really bad for everything I put you through. You’re a really good boss, and I enjoyed working for you, and I never meant to disrespect you in any way.”
I don’t know what I was expecting, but watching her completely fold in on herself and dissolve into tears wasn’t it.
“Hey,” I said, stopping in the town square, under the shadow of the ruined bell tower. “It’s okay, shhh, it’s okay.” Which was bullshit, of course; I couldn’t even find okay on the map. I tried to give Caryl a hug, but she cringed away, then immediately apologized.
“I panic if anything closes in on me,” she said. “They used to put me in a box when I screamed too loudly.”
“The Unseelie?”
“Let’s just find a way out of here.”
I squinted up at the sky, trying to find a seam, a difference in shading, something. But it went on and on smoothly for miles, the color of bleached denim. “Was it Vivian who kidnapped you?”
“Let’s not talk about it, please.” There was such urgency in her voice that I reluctantly let it drop.
“All right, well, can we talk about why you put me in charge just now?” I said.
“Because I like you.”
“I beg your fucking pardon?”
She made a spastic waving-away gesture with her free hand. “It doesn’t matter. National will put someone else in charge when they get here next week. It was just . . . a gesture.”
“Do you think it was a mistake to fire me?”
“I don’t know. I can’t think straight without Elliott.” She tried to lead us out of the town square, but I pulled her up short.
“Yes, you can, Caryl; you just have no practice at it. It’s not either/or. This is a thing they taught me. Emotion Mind and Reason Mind. They can work together. You don’t have to get rid of your feelings, you just have to keep them out of the -driver’s seat. I’m not saying it’s easy.”
She gave a nervous, keening little laugh. “Very well then, I’ll devote my remaining five minutes of life to the study.”
“Apparently your sarcasm is intact. I find that weirdly reassuring.”
She avoided my gaze. “If you find a way out of here, if you find out what Vivian is planning, National might let you stay.”
“And if not, they’ll want to kill me or something, right? Or wipe my memory?”
Caryl looked at me, aghast. “What makes you think that?”
“Otherwise what’s to stop me from spilling your secrets and causing mass hysteria?”
She shrank a little and said nothing.
I suppose I should have put it together earlier. That’s the problem with having a huge ego; you always assume that when you’re chosen for something, it’s because you’re special, -talented, better.
“That’s why you hire from the loony bin,” I said. “It doesn’t have anything to do with sensitivity or creativity or anything like that. It’s plausible deniability.”
Caryl scuffed her toe on the dusty ground.
“And just mental illness isn’t enough,” I persisted. “They have to be the kind of people who would have a roomful of empty seats at their funeral. The kind of people with no one to vouch for them.”
She looked up at me, eyes narrowed slightly. “I’ll confess that’s part of it. But if that were all, I could just scoop anyone off the street. Not all marginalized people are actually useful to us. Teo is dependable, lawful, and inventive. Tjuan is focused and clever. Gloria could get information from a gargoyle.”
“And me?”
“You—” she said, looking away. “You, I liked.”
I cleared my throat, laughed a little. “You keep saying that. But I kind of felt like I made a bad impression when we met.”