comfortable chair in the world. 'Hell,' I hissed at her. 'My leg's all pins and needles.'
Nuala slid from my lap, landing noiselessly beside the chair, and looked down at her hand, her face surprised when she realized
I still held her fingers. I used her weight to pull myself out of the chair and grimaced as my prickly foot hit the ground. I couldn't hear anything.
What are we doing?
Nuala's voice was barely audible. 'I want to listen.'
We walked hand in hand toward the back doors. Well, Nuala walked. I limped and felt stupid for it. We stopped just on the other side of the doors, cloaked in warm darkness, standing several feet apart but still holding hands tightly. Like we were playing Red Rover, waiting for something to bust through the door and try to break through our defenses.
Now I heard what Nuala had.
Sullivan.
There were two voices outside the door, and one of them was unmistakably Sullivan: precise and savage. '... want to know what business you have here. In the middle of the night right outside the dorms.'
The other voice was lofty, female, and somehow very familiar.
'I was camping. I couldn't sleep so I decided to walk into town.'
'Like hell you did. I saw you set the thyme on fire. I know what that does. You think I don't know something's going on here?'
Nuala leaned over swiftly to whisper right into my ear, her lips pressed up against my skin to keep her words from getting to anyone else. 'I've heard her voice before. She's been killing solitary fey.'
I didn't have time to wonder at the idea that both Nuala and I found her voice familiar; the conversation on the other side of the door was still going.
'I think you probably think you're a lot cleverer than you are,' the female voice said. I could almost place it, just from the condescension that dripped from it. 'But you don't really know anything. I think you should let go of my arm before I get really angry and decide to tell the cops something very unfavorable about you.'
Nuala looked at me. 'Human,' she whispered.
'Oh, ma'am,' Sullivan's voice was twenty degrees below zero.
'You do not want to threaten me. I have seen so much worse than you.' A pause; scuffling. 'You're not going anywhere until you tell me what you were doing summoning Them right behind my kids' dorm. Don't give me any bullshit about camping or herbal research, either. I know. I know.'
'It's not any of your business. If you know anything about
Them, you know that you're better off if you don't put your nose where it might be cut off.'
Delia, I thought suddenly, and Nuala frowned at me, not recognizing the name. Dee's aunt. I recognize her voice now.
The faeries saved her life a long time ago, and she's been helping Them ever since.
Nuala's eyebrows arched sharply.
'Don't tell me what I'm better off doing. I've given up the last two years of my life to make sure these kids don't have to go through what I did.' Sullivan's voice was a growl. 'But all that time, I never thought I'd have to worry about a human. Tell.
Me. Why are you here?'
Delia's voice was frigid. 'Fine. I was just using the music here to help me summon one of the daoine sidhe. One of them owes me a favor.'
'I must look extremely gullible to you.'
'You look very fragile to me, actually.' A long pause, and I wondered what filled it on the other side of the door. 'You look like someone who has a lot to lose, and I know individuals who would be happy to help you lose it.'
Sullivan sounded grim. 'You are sadly mistaken. I am delightfully unhindered by the attachments and accumulated possessions of most humans, thanks to your friends. I can, however, make you extremely uncomfortable if you don't start telling me why you're here.'
'I'm doing favors for the new queen,' Delia snapped. 'Their politics. Things they can't manage themselves.'
'New queen?' Sullivan's voice sounded thin. 'Eleanor?'
My heart stopped. Why did Sullivan know her name?
'Yes, Eleanor. I scratch her back and she scratches mine.'
Sullivan's voice was strained. 'Why is she here?'
Silence. Was there a nod or a head-shake in there that we couldn't see? Or just nothing?
Then Sullivan again, sounding uneasy. 'There's a cloverhand here?'
Delia laughed. 'And to think you 're supposed to be protecting these children! You don't know anything at all.'
Sullivan demanded, 'Who is it?'
There was quiet for a minute, and then Nuala and I both jumped back from the door as it rattled on its hinges.
I barely recognized Sullivan's voice as he snarled, 'I've killed one of Them and I'm sure a human would be a lot easier. Don't screw with me.'
Delia's voice was slow, level, and dripping with venom. 'Boy, take your hands off me.'
The door jumped again.
'This is all I'm going to say,' Delia said, voice weirdly muffled.
'So you'd better listen: You want what They want. You want
Them out of the human world, and They want us out of Theirs.
I'm killing every faerie who deals with humans, and They're going to kill every human who deals with faeries. Yeah, some of your kids'--this said with contempt--'might die. But in the long run, you'd be an idiot to interfere.'
Sullivan's voice was more like himself. 'Why? Why now?
'If you know Eleanor, then you know you don't ask Them why,'
Delia said. 'Now, do you hear Them coming? They won't like to see you hassling me. Yeah, I'd let go of me too.'
'I don't want to see you anywhere on the school grounds again.'
'Oh, you won't see me again.'
There was silence, and Nuala and I backed away, into the shadows, waiting for Sullivan to come inside. But the doors stayed shut, Sullivan and his secrets behind it.
I dont belong here i belong w them. Theyr made of music
& so am i. I belong w luke. He told me last nite he loved me. I needd 2 hear that. Hes so strange & lite sometimes i hav 2 tell myself what he used 2 look like.
It turned out that Paul and I were the stupidest smart people ever invented, because we couldn't make the
