7

Late afternoon. My head ached from lack of sleep and something more. The heating was on, and it was too warm. And yet the lump of ice holding out in my centre was not thawing.

Jeannot sat across the desk from me, leaning back in his executive chair. His fingertips were pressed together, resting on his upper lip, as he surveyed me over the rims of his glasses. Somehow, it was in his printer tray, and not mine, that the summary of the database search that I had run a hundred years ago this morning had arrived.

I had let him mistake my dullness for despondency. The silence stretched out as he mused, occasionally fingering the thin pale blue sheaf before him. Years ago, Jeannot had overseen the legalities of formalising my custody of Fremesk after the divorce. There was little of our story that he did not know. Up until now, I had not needed to keep much from him.

“Where is Fay now?” his first question had been, concern momentarily softening his expressionlessness.

Up until now.

I’d looked around the room, feigning a search for surfaces of glass and mirror. He’d nodded at once, understanding immediately.

“She is fine,” I’d told him, knowing this would mean nothing to a listening Seelie queen.

On my lap inside my bag, my hand curved around the cherrywood box. I really couldn’t tell him more. As a senior partner and principal holder of our license, he would be forced to report the dark double act that Anna and I had kept secret so long, testing it only on animals and mere organs to inform our hypothesis.

I dislike secrets. They weigh down on a k’nemosmancer’s heart.

“At least one of the streaks on this list will be of no good for you,” he presently said. He pulled away a translucent sheet from the rest. A black line had been drawn through one of the four listings on it.

“You won the divorce case against their alpha. I remember.”

He nodded. “I’m sure they’ll hold it against you.” He pulled out another page. I never understood why they made the paper so thin. “It follows, then, you would be barred from liaising with all their associates,” he added.

I blinked. “I thought separate streaks tend to mind their own business. At least, packs do.”

“While that is true, you mustn’t forget that many inter-marriages exist between some of the more conservative of these streaks. Those wishing to preserve an old bloodline, maintain their pedigree, keep business partnerships strong…”

I would have groaned inside if I were not so numb. “And naturally, they would not risk offending divorce case loser guy.”

One blue eye twinkled. “Naturally.”

“Let’s have it, then,” I told him heavily.

He spread the pages out; five in total. Ten more black lines ran through my potential allies. I couldn’t even remember when he had added them.

I was aroused for a moment. “Ten?”

“Weretiger is not the largest of populations, I’m afraid,” he said. “There are enough of them, but they’re not scattered – they tend to prefer larger group sizes. Ergo the matches available from other streaks for mating and pairings are thin on the ground… and are necessarily spread out.”

My summary looked mutilated. Five pages, four listings a page – except for the last one, which had just one on it to begin with. Only seven options left to me.

“I had been hoping,” I told him drily, “to make this selection based on some personal scrounging around, rather than just what’s available or geography.”

“Scrounging? Getting someone to investigate their background first?”

“There are many activities and organisations that these people may be participants or members of that I’d rather have nothing to do with.”

“Well, Marilia,” he mused, looking over the remaining data entries yet again. “As I imagine you would rather not relocate, not least because of the job you would be leaving behind-” He glanced up at me, piercing; “- it would seem that these-” Scratch, scratch, scratch, went his pen. Scratch. “-would be too far to be worth bothering with… so while your intent to investigate is wise, my dear Marilia, the numbers won’t permit it.”

Just three more. I became aware that I was sitting very still as I watched my ‘opportunities’ get scribbled out.

He looked up at me.

“Well?” I said.

“I presume Oxford is not especially far or inconvenient, if you needed to resort to this group.” His pen hovered over the page. “However, I would ask you not to resort to this particular selection, if I recognise this registration correctly, and if you trust that I have a fair idea of the kind of organisations you would rather not be part of.”

I waved a hand. “I don’t want to know. The other two?”

“Both in London,” he nodded. “One, I’ve not come across, but in truth, I have no reason to.” Jeannot only knew those lycanthropes, be they groups or individuals, who had crossed his path in court, or lurked in the shadows of it somehow – which was not often the case with him. “Therefore, you could take your chances.”

“And the other?”

Sunlight glinted off the lenses of his glasses, every so often obscuring his eyes, but even without this they were unreadable.

“The other is registered under Tomas Starling.”

I blinked.

What had Nuriel said? I sent my knights to conduct a review of all the weretiger streaks in the South. There was one, in particular… a very old streak…

“She wouldn’t have had to carry out a census and send her knights running up and down the country if he were already based in London.”

“Are you certain?”

I nodded. “Positive. In fact, I’ve been led to believe over the years that he has always been on the coast. He can’t have been here all this time. The Starlings weren’t in London when Fay was born… I went to Cornwall at their request, before they died.” And I was almost certain that Francis would have known if there was a Starling in our own city, lookout as he frequently was.

“Then he must have re-registered, here,” Jeannot said. “Which can only mean one thing.”

My head pounded. “He means to come here… now that he has business to see to…”

“I can run another scan to see when the date of registration was changed.”

“Why would he relocate an entire streak, for this?”

Jeannot shook his head. “Not the entire streak. The streak must be registered under the whereabouts of the alpha, plus his entourage. If, however, he were to relocate, even temporarily, accompanied by a large enough of his number, then the registration must be relocated to where he goes. But it doesn’t mean the entire streak also moves with him.” He pushed a page towards me, gathering the rest. “Attaching registrations to movements of larger numbers helps the police track potentially dangerous intentions ahead of time.”

“Will anyone be routinely watching? How could he risk something like that, knowing that his movements will be followed?”

“Ah, Marilia. Often, these changes are not noticed until after the potential for danger has been realised.” He chuckled without humour. “Besides, I don’t think you truly want the police to be keeping an eye on this.”

No, I did not. I hadn’t broken any rules, that Jeannot knew of… yet. And I had no specific intention to do so. But I knew that rules wouldn’t stop me, if the pieces fell that way. His piercing blue gaze rested on me briefly before he got up to switch on the shredder across the room.

I looked down at the page he had given me. I’d barely read the entire document before he had taken it back and proceeded to administer his logic to my problem.

The summaries were organised primarily as biographical data, each dataset accompanied by an address and, usually, a spokesperson. Both the London-based groups – now the only ones not crossed out – were on this page. The one that was not registered under Starling was listed under a West London address and a name: William Carter. I looked up at his back.

“You just chose this for me.” I made it a statement, but it held a touch of accusation.

Over his shoulder, he replied, “I did. But I don’t think it would have made much difference, on this occasion, which of us did the choosing. Besides,” he added, feeding a sheet into the shredder, “it’s been a while since you’ve let me actively be your solicitor.”

I had taken this to be a good sign. It meant I hadn’t got into any trouble that called for the help of the law.

“At any rate, you would have been forced into the same conclusion.” Unrepentant, he offered me a humourless smile. “You can only make choices if there are multiple options available to you, Marilia.”

He fed another sheet into the shredder.