of her excessively cautious self?
Cormac slid in as she checked the mirrors. “No need to be angry at me.”
“You don’t know what I was thinking.” She shoved the key into the ignition so hard that he winced as it jammed into the palm of her hand.
“Of course I do. You’re furious I offered to be Watcher. You think the council doesn’t trust you.” He considered this. “They don’t, but they don’t trust anyone.”
She drove onto King Street at a speed more suited to the autobahn than the busy downtown core. It didn’t matter; traffic ground them to a stop before she’d even gone twenty feet. Damn. They were enmeshed in the tail end of rush hour. More time trapped in the car, cooped up in a metal cage in this concrete valley.
“Might be faster to walk,” Cormac offered finally. “How long have you had this car?”
“Five years.” She paused. “Why?”
“No reason.” It was spotless and even had that chokingly chemical new car smell. He pulled the seat back and stretched out to relax as she chauffeured him around. It would be better if he had his eyes closed.
She stared straight ahead. “What was that about?”
“An observation about the speed of traffic.” Let her work for it.
“I don’t mean that and you know it. There hasn’t been a Watcher appointed for over a hundred years.”
“As I told the council, this is sensitive. You know it, Michaela. In fact, in different circumstances, I’m sure your fine mind would have been one of the first to suggest it.”
She inched the car forward and swore as the light turned red. “You decided you would be the best choice? An exiled fey?”
He put a hand on his heart. “Wounding but technically accurate. Who else would be acceptable? None of the others trust each other. I am the only one with no master. Or mistress.”
He said the last in an arch tone that made Michaela’s lips thin. She must know he was right. Every member of the Pharos had a dual role. The first was to make sure the Law was obeyed by every arcana and to punish transgressors. The second, and unspoken, role was politics. Pharos was the unofficial overarching council for all arcana. So secret that not even their rulers knew they were members, the councilors worked outside the official avenues to solve disputes that threatened to destroy the delicate balance of power between arcane groups. Secret though they were, there was a clear loyalty to one’s ruler and one’s race above all.
Cormac, as an exile, was beyond at least this level of local politics. The other fey didn’t even acknowledge him.
“I meant what I said about staying out of my way.”
“And I have.” He yawned and nestled back into the seat. “At least in public.”
Chapter 6
Damn him. Damn. Michaela wanted to scream with the intense frustration of being stuck in traffic with the world’s most irritating feyman. Of course she didn’t. As a masquerada she could maintain precise control over every nuance of expression she wished to reveal.
Cormac, though, had the disturbing ability to peel back her defenses until she felt as open and unsophisticated as a child.
She glanced over at him when she stopped at the next light. Cormac lay with his eyes closed and his arms tucked behind his head. He was tall for a fey. His hair was golden but by his ear she noticed streaks of what looked like silver, as if the metal had been coated with pearl. His face was perfect, of course, although slightly more rugged than the other fey she’d met. The body was…nice. Exceptionally nice.
Over generations, humans had imagined fairies into tiny winged creatures that tended to flowers and giggled behind trees. The fey were nothing like those translucently dressed beings. Like the rest of his kin, Cormac exuded an aura of wild power.
His eyes opened and she was taken aback by the motley mix of grass-green and dark sable, illuminated by the fading sunlight. It shadowed his face and highlighted his bone structure, almost too lovely for a man but still enticingly masculine.
“What do your eyes mean?” she asked abruptly.
He looked confused. “That I can see?”
“No. The colors.”
“There’s no guide.” He gave her a whimsical smile. “Like to a box of chocolates. Are you looking for the caramel or the candied cherry?”
She ignored that. “They must reflect something about how you’re feeling or what you’re thinking.”
“If you want to know that, why don’t you ask me?”
“You lie.” The words came out before she could check them and a quiver ran over him, gone so fast that she wondered if she’d even seen it.
“Aye. I suppose I do.” He glanced up, eyes now a cool gray. “You know I love your admiration for my good looks, but the light changed.”
Michaela hit the accelerator.
“Nadia might be an idiot, but I saw the screen,” said Cormac. “The figure was clearly Hiro, but it did resemble you.”
“Generic Asian?”
“Generic business casual. He wore all black, like you, and he had his hair pulled back, like you. If you ask me, he was impersonating you.” And if he was, then Hiro wasn’t the target.
Rendell might not be the killer.
“First, I didn’t ask. Second, we’re in Toronto. Everyone wears black.” Michaela kept her voice cool, but inside pieces were clicking together. Hiro was in her office, dressed like her. It was so obvious whoever killed him thought it was her, especially since there was no reason for Hiro to be there at all. She now needed to find enough incontrovertible proof to convince Madden.
Too bad her own mentor didn’t trust her.
They drove a few blocks in thick silence until her phone rang.
“Auntie! Ni hao le ma?” Ivy’s cheerful voice filled the car and Michaela’s entire body relaxed.
“Hao le, xiao xiao.” She ignored Cormac as his entire, rather distracting, body swiveled towards her. Best to keep the conversation in Chinese so her Watcher couldn’t spy on this part of her life.
“You sound stressed, Auntie.” Ivy was excellent at reading people and Michaela hadn’t been surprised last year when she decided to go to medical school. “Are you driving?”
“Stuck in traffic.”
“I won’t be long. I wanted to remind you about dim sum this weekend. My parents are coming to visit.”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
Ivy chattered on a little more about her schoolwork and roommates and job. “Late shift tonight,” she said.
“Your parents won’t like that.” Her parents thought Ivy’s efforts should only be academic but Michaela had supported her. A woman had to know how to earn money of her own.
Ivy’s happy laugh came down the line. “That’s why they don’t know. I keep safe.”
“I love you.”
“Love you too, Auntie. See you this weekend.”
Michaela hung up and stared at the bumper sticker of the car in front of her. Hanging with my gnomies was inaccurately pictured with a line of small, colorful goblins. Yao would have been proud of Ivy, thought Michaela, reeling with a momentary grief for her old friend, dead these many years. Not that he ever would have had a chance to meet his great-great-granddaughter. A human’s life was so very brief and his had been cut even shorter.
“A friend calling?” asked Cormac neutrally.
“Yes.”