House of Cards

Another stab of guilt assailed her. Margrit tried to push it off with a smile. "A young squatter and her baby don't exactly qualify as high and mighty, Tony. Maybe it is how you got the job, though. Kaaiai could've looked me up and found out we were dating. Good for both of us, huh?" It was a less ugly interpretation than she'd imagined.

"Great for both of us. Look, I'm on til eleven tonight, or later if the function runs late, so-"

"So no di

"I'm glad." Tony's voice lowered. "Wasn't that long ago that ten days meant we weren't seeing each other anymore."

"Things change." For a moment the words sounded full of alarming portents. Margrit shivered and stood on her toes to steal a kiss. "I should get back to work. I'll see you when we can, okay?"

Margrit smiled and Tony released her, waiting until she'd reached the elevator to call, "Hey." When she looked back, he lowered his voice to say, "Love you."

"Yeah." Margrit dropped her gaze, trying to hold Tony's image in her mind, then looked up with another smile. "You, too, babe. I'll see you later."

CHAPTER 7

Opening arguments were brief and direct, but absorbed Margrit's attention to a degree she was grateful for. A single day of interaction with the Old Races had thrown her world into chaos, and the opportunity to focus on something as ordinary as her job was almost liberating in its mundanity. Afternoon sunshine slipped across the courtroom through skylights, counting away minutes and hours of debate that she heard herself pursue with a passion she didn't feel. Her client was guilty of rape, the evidence against him conclusive, but he'd insisted on a plea of not guilty and had forced a trial.

She'd faced the prosecuting attorney before, and approved of him in a clinical way. In a case like this one he focused heavily on the facts, leaving circus-ring tactics aside. He was still a showman, as most good lawyers were, but with the weight of evidence on his side he made only modest efforts to appeal to the jury's emotions. They didn't need to be led by the nose: it was enough to imagine the unspeakable crime being perpetrated against their mothers, their sisters, their daughters, themselves.

Nor did her client make a good defendant, even when not expected to speak for himself. She had discussed with him his posture, his expression, his body language more times than she could count. He still sat with open, sneering arrogance, as if his own sense of invulnerability would keep the jury from condemning him. Margrit had defended men like him in the past. They were always furious and astounded when they were found guilty.

The afternoon start to the trial meant it was unlikely to be concluded before the following morning, and even that would be quick, by Margrit's estimation. Her shoulders unknotted a degree when the judge's gavel came down for the final time that day, and the prosecuting attorney stepped across the aisle as her client was led away. "This is his last chance for a plea bargain, Counselor."

Margrit shook her head as she shuffled papers into order. "A fact I'll try to impress upon him, but he doesn't believe he's going to be found guilty."

"Margrit, he was damn near caught in the act."

She breathed a laugh, glancing up at her counterpart. Jacob Mills was a good ten years older than she, with gray starting to run through short-cropped, tight curls at his temples. He was exactly the kind of man her mother approved of, although the age difference would probably make Rebecca Knight raise an eyebrow. Margrit briefly entertained the idea of marrying another lawyer and dismissed it immediately: she had enough arguments with Tony, never mind someone trained in debate as she was. "I know, Jake. I'd just as soon we could all go home now, too, but I don't think he's going to take a plea."

"You know my offer. It hasn't changed."

Margrit straightened, paperwork back in place. "That's generous. I'll give you a call tonight if he goes for it. Otherwise..."

They shook hands, exchanging resigned smiles as Jacob finished her sentiment: "Otherwise, I'll see you in the morning."

Despite the hour-it was well after five when she finished a fruitless discussion with her client-urgent voice mail brought her back to the office. She told herself that was the price of haring off to talk with selkies all morning, and kicked her shoes beneath her desk as she sat down to a pile of case files that hadn't been there earlier.

A draft of cool air disturbed her studies some time later. Margrit glanced at her computer screen before twisting to see who else was working late. "Maybe we should get some di -"

A slim goateed man holding a glass-headed cane and wearing a dark suit stood a few feet way. "How generous. Do you always propose di

Margrit slumped, heartbeat rattling hard enough to kill any appetite she might have had. "Malik. How'd you-never mind. You didn't screw up anybody's computer, did you?" Her cell phone had dissolved into a mess of useless electronic pixels after it had been treated to Malik's ethereal ma

"Trust me, I'm not any happier about it than you are. I don't suppose you'd be happy to just sit tight in the middle of the House of Cards, with four big burly guys keeping an eye on you, huh? It'd make life a lot easier for both of us." Margrit bit her tongue on continuing. It was safe enough, comparatively, to respond to Malik's arrogance with her own when they were at the House of Cards, under Janx's watchful eye. Now there was no greater power on hand to control the dji

That led directly into her second reaction, which was gut-cold fear. Margrit had sized Malik up as dangerous in the first moments she'd met him, his ambitions and sense of self larger than he was. He was easy to offend, and she'd already done it more than once.

"On the contrary." Malik took a few gliding steps toward her, his limp faint but noticeable. She came to her feet in nervous anticipation, as if there was somewhere to run. "I believe I'm a great deal less happy about it than you are. I do not require a human keeper, no more than sunlight requires that the shifting sand attend it."

"You people have such gorgeous phrases." Margrit startled him into silence, which helped her to regain her equilibrium. "People-humans-don't talk the way you do. Not unless they're making speeches. Look, I don't even pretend that I could keep you safe if somebody wanted to take you out. You, you go..." Margrit fluttered her fingers in the air, not wanting to actually say "go poof," though that was what the dji

Malik hissed, "Obviously."

Margrit lifted her hands in supplication. "So Janx thinks somebody who knows how to hurt a dji