Hands of Flame

Margrit smiled. “Hello. I thought you didn’t play te

Cameron pointed a toe to flex lean muscle. “I took it up so Cole’d buy me a diamond te

“You look gorgeous,” Margrit assured her. “Is it working?”

“Not unless he gets a substantial raise, but I don’t really need a te

“The ice cream didn’t taste good. I needed real food first.”

Cameron put out a hand and Margrit put her empty bowl into it for inspection. “So you ate cereal and yogurt?”

“I’ve ordered Chinese.”

“Cole will never forgive you if you stink up his fridge with leftover Chinese.”

“I’ll eat it all. I haven’t eaten since yesterday.”

“That’s not good.” Cameron frowned down at her. “What’s up with that?”

“I’ve been…it’s been…”

“Ah. That, huh?” Cam sat down beside Margrit, looping her arms around her knees. “Is that why you bailed on the party?”

“Yeah, I had some things to do.”

Cam gave her a sly look and Margrit laughed. “No. Not those kinds of things, or that kind of doing. It was sort of business.”

“So…” Cameron hesitated, then sighed. “I don’t know how much of this I’m going to be able to ask when Cole’s around, so I’m asking now. I understand how you got involved. I even understand why you’re staying involved. I just don’t think I get…how deep you are. Because it’s deep, isn’t it? How did that happen?”

“I couldn’t mind my own business.” Margrit offered a faint smile, then scrambled to her feet as the doorbell rang. “Fastest delivery in the city. Oh, God, I’m hungry.” She ran to pay, then returned to sit on the floor and start eating out of the cartons. Cameron stole a spring roll and waited, eyebrows lifted, for Margrit to continue.

“It was mostly that I was trying to help Alban clear himself of the murder charges. It just turned out that doing that kept digging me deeper and deeper into their world. Once I knew about all of them, I became an obvious choice to be a go-between.”

“Obvious. Sure.”

“Well, it was obvious to them. And I…thought I could do some good.”

“Could you? Can you?”

Margrit shrugged and scooped up a ball of sticky rice. “I’ve affected a lot of change, anyway. Whether that’s good or not, not even I’m sure anymore. But there’s no going back on any of it, so I have to keep going forward.”

Cam balanced the spring roll on her fingertips, blowing steam away from it. “Are you ever going to tell me more than generalized statements?”

Guilt twisted around the food Margrit had eaten. “Maybe, but maybe not, too. This is dangerous, Cam. They depend on secrets.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s one of the things Cole hates.”

Margrit ducked her head. “Just one, huh?”

“He’s genuinely freaked out.” Cameron got up to pour a glass of milk and gestured with the carton to ask Margrit if she wanted some. At Margrit’s nod, she brought a second glass, then returned the carton to the fridge and leaned on the broad orange door. “It’s not just that you’re sleeping with a gargoyle. It’s that they exist at all. You won’t take it wrong if I say you’re about all we’ve been talking about the last couple days, right?”

“Heh. No. I’m not surprised. I’m sorry, Cam. It wasn’t supposed to go this way.”

“I know, Grit, but the more we go around about it, the less sure I am any other way would have made much difference. I don’t think it’d be easier for Cole, and that means it wouldn’t be easier for us.”

“Us you and me or us you and him?”

“Any of us. The worst part is I can feel myself siding with him. I mean, I’m not angry like he is, but…”

“Cam, he’s your fiancé. You’re supposed to side with him. It’s okay. You don’t have to make apologies. He spelled it out last night at the party. ‘I love you but I can’t watch you do this,’ though not in those exact words. It’s okay.” Margrit sighed. “The sad thing is I thought he’d be the one to understand. I mean, out of him and Tony. The men in my life.”

“Wait, Tony knows? I thought he didn’t.”

“He found out last night. After the party. He saw…not just Alban, but a lot of them.” And he’d watched Margrit herself come back from the dead, a gift which might well have tempered him toward accepting the Old Races. The juxtaposition of truths made Margrit’s bones ache. She knew as well as Tony did that if it weren’t for her involvement with the inhuman races, she wouldn’t have been so badly injured in the first place. On the other hand, that involvement taken as rote, she’d survived through their gifts. Nothing could be taken for granted, and nothing was made easy. She looked down at her food and shook her head. “Maybe if Cole talks to him…”

“That could help a lot.” Cam spoke quietly. “They’re friends. If Tony’s okay, maybe it’ll help smooth things over.” She offered a hopeful smile. “Next thing you know, they’ll all be going out for beer and football.”

Margrit laughed and got up to hug her housemate. “What a horrible idea.”

“Isn’t it? Sit back down,” Cam ordered. “You’ve got a lot of food to get through before Cole gets home.”

“I’ve got a lot of other things to get through before…” Before when? she wondered. Janx hadn’t demanded a time frame, though clearly the dragonlord expected results sooner rather than later. For a moment the idea of putting him off indefinitely with promises of Daisani’s financial ruin at any moment struck her as amusing, but the humor faded. He might allow that to go on for a little while, but he would no doubt remain in New York, threatening both Tony and Grace O’Malley’s under-city charity operation until Margrit came through on her end of the deal. Time was of the essence, not for her own sake, but for the sake of the lives she’d managed to disrupt.

She shook herself and collected the food cartons from the floor, heading into the living room with them. “I’ll finish eating before anything else. And then can I borrow your cell phone for a couple of days? Mine got ruined last night.”

“You can have mine if you buy me a spiffy new one!”

“Your generosity overwhelms me.” Margrit sat down on the couch to finish di

Cam did lend her the cell phone. Margrit, wanting privacy and to keep her housemates as uninvolved as she could, left the apartment well before sunset to call her mother. Rebecca Knight’s voice mail picked up, sending a pang of relieved regret through Margrit. Her mother, a stockbroker, was the only contact she had who could possibly advise her on how to take down a financial empire, but the idea of asking made Margrit cold with dismay. She left a message and Cam’s number, then worked her way downtown to Chelsea Huo’s bookshop.

Chelsea, chatting with customers, waved Margrit toward the back room and called, “Help yourself to some tea,” after her. Glad to do so, Margrit wound her way through the stacks and through the rattling bead curtain that separated Chelsea’s private quarters from the rest of the store. A few minutes later, hands wrapped around a mug of tea, she curled up on one of the overstuffed sofas and waited for the second rattle that would a

It took longer than she expected, long enough to finish her tea and nod drowsily against the sofa’s back. Chelsea’s soprano rose and fell in the front room, sometimes with laughter, sometimes with words, while other voices made deeper counterparts to her pleasantry. It seemed very normal, reassuringly far away from the Old Races, and for a little while Margrit drifted on the idea that she could perhaps someday find a role as comfortable as Chelsea’s seemed to be.

Finally the beads chattered again and Margrit pushed upright, blinking sleepily. Chelsea clucked her tongue and made another pot of tea before turning her bright smile on Margrit. “So you survived the dji