“Teo,” I said quietly, “I think there’s another drawing on the bulletin board.”
Teo crossed back toward the entrance, slipping on his shades as he went, and had no trouble spotting the page in question. He gave it a tug, detaching it.
It was a sketch of two young men I didn’t recognize, one leaning his head on the other’s shoulder in a booth just like the one in the back corner. The pose was casual, intimate, and as I looked at the nested figures, my surge of affection for them was bittersweet. The two were so young. I was glad they had each other and dared to hope that one day I, too, would no longer be alone.
Written at the bottom were the words Hold on.
“Weird,” said Teo blandly. “I wonder if he and Berenbaum have had some kind of falling-out.”
It took me a moment to realize what Teo was talking about. As with the other drawing, the viscount’s emotions felt so native to me that I hadn’t realized I was subject to an empathy charm.
I pondered for a moment. “You can be in a relationship and still feel alone, you know.”
“Having an Echo isn’t like having a boyfriend,” Teo said with a puzzling level of condescension for one who apparently had neither. “It’s like finding the other half of your soul. You never really know another human the way you know your Echo.”
“Well, obviously Berenbaum and Rivenholt are anything but intimate right now. Berenbaum doesn’t even know why he ran off. So your perfect-soul-mate theory isn’t really holding water.”
“Or it means that something has happened to Rivenholt that’s so bad he doesn’t want Berenbaum involved. In other words, this is definitely above my pay grade. Let’s just report to Caryl and let her handle it.”
I stared at the drawing a moment longer, a little unnerved by the strong compulsion I had to grab it, hold it, inhale the scent of the paper. Even knowing that my touch would destroy it, it was hard to resist. I put both my hands on top of my cane and gripped it tightly as Teo put the paper away.
? ? ?
When we returned to Residence Four, Caryl was already sitting on a couch in the living room. For a moment I was surprised to see her in the same pantsuit she’d worn at our last meeting, but then I remembered it had only been this morning. Wow.
“There is a pizza in the kitchen,” Caryl said by way of greeting.
“You didn’t tell me I could cancel magic by touching it,” I replied.
Teo made an ouch face and tiptoed melodramatically past the two of us toward the kitchen. Food was the last thing on my mind.
“Can you?” said Caryl.
“Don’t act like you don’t know. Fifty bucks says it’s the whole reason you recruited me.”
“I have no reason to deceive you,” she said. “But then, I suppose you have no reason to trust me, either.” Her expression strongly suggested that she didn’t give a damn either way. “I had considered that the abnormally high iron content of your body might afford you more protection than most, but if I had known you could actively disrupt spellwork, I’d have been more careful where I sent you.”
“Whatever,” I said. “Teo wants us to hand this assignment back to you anyway. It looks as though it’s way more complicated than you thought.”
“How so?”
“The cops are asking about Rivenholt in West Hollywood, and he seems to have fled to a resort in Santa Barbara. Berenbaum is completely out of the loop.”
“I’ll find something else for Teo to work on,” she said. “You, on the other hand, are suspended from all duties for twenty--four hours.”
“What?”
“You may continue to stay here at the Residence during your probation if you refrain from further violence.”
“Violence?” Shit. Teo had ratted me out. I didn’t bother defending myself; I suspected it was pointless. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Something that doesn’t involve assaulting people, I should hope. You are very lucky I didn’t reject your application outright. If it happens again, I will.”
I waited to get angry, but I just felt defeated and miserable. I sank down onto the other couch, staring at the floor.
Teo returned from the kitchen with a mouthful of pizza, the remaining half of the slice still in his hand. “I hope I didn’t miss a good catfight,” he said, flopping down on the couch near Caryl. He immediately tensed, and then laughed. “Dammit, Elliott, not the ear.”
I stared suspiciously at Teo. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Teo tossed me his sunglasses. I fumbled the catch, and the glasses bounced off my knee onto the rug. With a muffled groan, I bent my stiff back to retrieve them.
“Teo,” said Caryl firmly. “If you break those, you are not getting another pair.”