When Davina Marr came in, among the final trickles of the ladies too busy or too shy to brave the crowd, Gabe knew she was there before she'd come through the doors. It was difficult to miss the slipperiness of her sleet and ice. Like an Arctic winter, without a hope of thaw. She entered abruptly, not drawing attention to herself but with the impatient air of someone who expected to get what they wanted without much trouble. At the same time she seemed frazzled, on the edge--a trapped animal.
"Speaking of princesses," Kelly muttered, watching Marr brush past some of the other women to pick up her tray, bowl and utensils. They had left the stew to its own devices, only offering it themselves when it seemed a woman was too shy to approach it herself. Now they were eating their own lunch behind the counter.
"Who's that?" Gabe asked quietly.
"Angela." Kelly wore the fixed, grim sort of smile of someone who would really have like to snort but didn't dare in case they were overheard. Gabe almost did himself. "If she's an angel, I'm a unicorn."
"You don't like her?" Gabe asked, sipping his soup so he could watch Marr without being obvious about it. "She looks like she's had a rough time of it."
"She probably has," Kelly admitted. "She's running from something, that's for sure. And we don't turn away girls who ask for help. But Angela's ... well. Like I said, she's a princess. She's away most of the time, thank God; she's set off some of the other girls just by being in the same room. You don't even have to talk to her to feel like you're just horseshit under her boot. She's impatient and rude when she does talk to you. Whatever she's running from, she's only here because she had nowhere else to go. We get women like her sometimes--people just out to use the shelter as a waypoint to wherever they're running to next. Frankly I'll be glad when she moves on."
Which meant, Gabe realised, that they might not have as much trouble convincing Janet that Marr was a liability to the shelter as they'd feared. Marr had forgotten something; in her arrogance as a sorcerer, she had forgotten that non-sorcerers were perceptive too. She had forgotten that they could be asked for help. She had forgotten that her only safety in this place came from the fact that they were sheltering her.
When Marr came to get her stew, Gabe smiled at her just as warmly as he had for every other woman he'd met so far. Something in her eyes flickered, not with direct recognition but in that sort-of acknowledgement of association. In this case, seeing an Israeli woman and being reminded of the Israeli-American man who had caused her so much annoyance not all that long ago. Her lip curled unconsciously and she turned away stiffly, moving to take a seat in the least occupied corner of the mess-hall.
A corner which happened to be very close to Saffron Sweetgrass.
Abruptly Gabe realised this was a very bad thing. Saffron, a healer, may not have been let out of the Temple often, but it still would be enough that if it had been recent—yes. Yes, there it was. A flash of familiarity.
“Oh, dear,” he murmured.
“What?”
Marr wasn’t quite sat down yet. She was still trying to make her way through the crowded room. She hadn’t looked up enough to see the way Saffron was looking at her with surprise and confusion. Gabe watched the two of them with burgeoning flutters of panic. What should he do? He couldn’t break cover. Marr thought he was a Teleporter, and he couldn’t afford to make her think he wasn’t. Nor could he afford to make Saffron suspicious. For her own sake, she couldn’t have an easy avenue to the magical world.
“Mary?” Kelly took his arm; Gabe jerked his gaze to look at her. She looked worried and suspicious at once, her gaze darting toward Marr.
Gabe wasn’t used to snap decisions. He would have said he wasn’t good at snap decisions. But he made one now, because there wasn’t time to ask Skulduggery’s advice and he wasn’t sure what he was meant to do alone. “I may have been a bit misleading.”
Kelly went very still and her face went very blank. “Misleading how?”
“Dillon’s a detective. A special agent, really.”
Something in Kelly’s soul hardened, started to draw away, and the feel of it made Gabe’s heart clench. “What for?”
“That woman you call Angela,” Gabe said quietly, holding Kelly’s gaze steadily, “tried to blow up a government building last week.”
Kelly stared. “She what?”
“She was one of his colleagues. She betrayed them. They only just barely managed to get the bomb out in time, and she escaped. Kelly, please.” Gabe clutched her hand and lowered his voice. “It’s complicated and I will tell you and Janet as much as I can as soon as I can, but right now, Marr cannot meet Saffron.”
The woman looked over and saw Marr stop, looking around for a seat. Any moment now she’d see the expanse of empty table just down from Saffron, and probably the look of confused recognition on Saffron’s face. There was a split second of decision-making in Kelly’s soul.
“Angela!” she called, taking her hand out of Gabe’s grasp and jogging forward. Marr glanced up, frowning and irritable. “Sorry, I just remembered,” Kelly said, “and since you’re here—just a tick—excuse me, Bri, cheers—”
Gabe sidled around the room so he was no longer within Marr’s line of sight and caught Saffron’s eye. The healer was looking less confused and more on edge, now, aware that something was happening but not what.
Go, Gabe mouthed, nodding toward the doors. Saffron took his meaning, rose and silently left the room. Gabe followed through a staff exit into the kitchen proper, looped around and then came out into another hallway down which Saffron was moving. “Saffron.”
The healer turned on her heel and saw him, but didn’t say anything until he’d already tugged her into the kitchen. “You know who she is,” she said, her face pale. “Do you know who I am? Are you a sorcerer?”
“Not exactly,” Gabe said, truthfully but quietly. “Listen to me. She can’t know you’re here. The detectives are trying to flush her out, but if she thinks another sorcerer is here she’ll run and then they might not be able to find her.”
Saffron frowned. “If they know she’s here why haven’t they taken her yet?”
“Because of you, and the other women like you,” Gabe said simply. “It’s too big a risk to break in and hope no one else will be hurt—physically or mentally. The people here take care of their own. The detectives don’t want to fight them too.”
For a long moment Saffron said nothing. Then, in a very small voice, “Should I leave?”
“Of course not,” Kelly snapped from behind Gabe, but he didn’t jump. She closed the door quietly and came to them, shaking her head. “Mare, I don’t know what the Hell’s going on, but you’re going to have to help me explain to Janet why I just created more paperwork for her. Did that woman really try to blow something up?”
Saffron stared at Gabe. “Who are you really? Have we met before?”
Kelly stared at her. “Wait, you know each other?”
Gabe winced. Oh, Skulduggery was not going to be happy. “My boyfriend is in the business,” he said to Saffron, and then turned to Kelly. “Saffron was a member of an international cult of which Dillon’s youngest brother was a member. He just turned, and Saffron’s all he managed to get out so far.”
Kelly blinked. “Okay then. Wait, his brother--?”
“Dillon?” Saffron echoed, total bewilderment on her face. She looked at Gabe more closely, her eyes narrowed, and Gabe felt more than saw the moment suspicion bloomed into near-certainty. The moment when she equated a Middle-Eastern sorcerer with unknown abilities and an apparent attachment to the Sanctuary’s Prime Detective to a Middle-Eastern woman, attached to a Sanctuary detective, in the shelter where Marr just happened to be. Her eyes widened again almost comically. “Oh. Oh.”
“Oh?” Kelly demanded. “Just ‘oh’? You do know each other. Mary, are you undercover? Is that even your name?”
Gabe winced. “Maybe. Possibly. Just a little.” His shoulders slumped. “My name’s Gabrielle. And Marr already knows what Dillon and his partner looks like.”
“And since you’re Israeli, he figured you’d be able to infiltrate?” Kelly shook her head, but there was something almost approached amused incredulity lingering in the swirl of her soul. “For a member of a country with a compulsory military service, you’re not very good at working undercover.”
“I’m not a particularly good soldier, either,” Gabe muttered. “I’m not very good at lying. Or fighting. Or trying to hurt people.”
“I kind of noticed.” Kelly was almost grinning now, grinning and relieved and annoyed all at once. She ran her fingers through her hair. “Well, we were wondering what brought you to Ireland, besides the hot guys and the gorgeous accents.”
Gabe’s mouth twitched. “That may have had something to do with it. Just a little. What are you going to do?”
For a long moment Kelly didn’t say anything; she just stared toward the mess-hall, very obviously taking things in and working them out. “The first thing I’m going to do is tell Janet,” she said at last. “I can’t deal with this myself. But if Angela really did try to bomb a building—was it an empty building?” Gabe shook his head. “She tried to kill people, then.” Gabe nodded. Kelly rubbed her face. “I’m telling Janet. You’re going to be there. You’re going to tell us what this boyfriend of yours would like to do. Then maybe we can get this problem out of the way.”
“I’m sorry,” Gabe said miserably. Kelly took his hand, tried to smile and almost managed it.
“Mary—Gabrielle—you’re right about two things. One, you’re horrible at lying. And two, you don’t know the meaning of the word ‘subtle’. But you and this Dillon of yours tried your best not to just waltz in and take people away without explanation, and you’re really good with people, and Father O’Reilly is a good judge of character. Angela has been a pain in the arse since she arrived. All that is enough for me to want to hear you out, and it’ll be enough for Janet too. As for you.”
Kelly turned abruptly to Saffron; she flinched and looked to the floor, her shoulders tensed like a servant expecting a tongue-lashing. Instead what she got was a hug. “Angela’s decided she wants to eat in her room. You can go back inside and finish your lunch without being bothered. Otherwise, we’ll just have to keep the two of you away from each other.”
“While you’re there, let Gloria know I had to handle something so she can watch the place.”
“Alright.” Still looked a little off-centre, Saffron headed for the mess-hall. Kelly took Gabe’s hand and gave it a squeeze.
“Okay. Let’s go to the principal’s office, young lady.”
All of which was why, over two hours of explanations later, Gabe found himself walking down the street toward the cafe a few streets down, still in the guise of Gabrielle, with Kelly in tow cursing the weather and idiotic government agents with idiotic soap-opera lives.
no subject
"Speaking of princesses," Kelly muttered, watching Marr brush past some of the other women to pick up her tray, bowl and utensils. They had left the stew to its own devices, only offering it themselves when it seemed a woman was too shy to approach it herself. Now they were eating their own lunch behind the counter.
"Who's that?" Gabe asked quietly.
"Angela." Kelly wore the fixed, grim sort of smile of someone who would really have like to snort but didn't dare in case they were overheard. Gabe almost did himself. "If she's an angel, I'm a unicorn."
"You don't like her?" Gabe asked, sipping his soup so he could watch Marr without being obvious about it. "She looks like she's had a rough time of it."
"She probably has," Kelly admitted. "She's running from something, that's for sure. And we don't turn away girls who ask for help. But Angela's ... well. Like I said, she's a princess. She's away most of the time, thank God; she's set off some of the other girls just by being in the same room. You don't even have to talk to her to feel like you're just horseshit under her boot. She's impatient and rude when she does talk to you. Whatever she's running from, she's only here because she had nowhere else to go. We get women like her sometimes--people just out to use the shelter as a waypoint to wherever they're running to next. Frankly I'll be glad when she moves on."
Which meant, Gabe realised, that they might not have as much trouble convincing Janet that Marr was a liability to the shelter as they'd feared. Marr had forgotten something; in her arrogance as a sorcerer, she had forgotten that non-sorcerers were perceptive too. She had forgotten that they could be asked for help. She had forgotten that her only safety in this place came from the fact that they were sheltering her.
When Marr came to get her stew, Gabe smiled at her just as warmly as he had for every other woman he'd met so far. Something in her eyes flickered, not with direct recognition but in that sort-of acknowledgement of association. In this case, seeing an Israeli woman and being reminded of the Israeli-American man who had caused her so much annoyance not all that long ago. Her lip curled unconsciously and she turned away stiffly, moving to take a seat in the least occupied corner of the mess-hall.
A corner which happened to be very close to Saffron Sweetgrass.
Abruptly Gabe realised this was a very bad thing. Saffron, a healer, may not have been let out of the Temple often, but it still would be enough that if it had been recent—yes. Yes, there it was. A flash of familiarity.
“Oh, dear,” he murmured.
“What?”
Marr wasn’t quite sat down yet. She was still trying to make her way through the crowded room. She hadn’t looked up enough to see the way Saffron was looking at her with surprise and confusion. Gabe watched the two of them with burgeoning flutters of panic. What should he do? He couldn’t break cover. Marr thought he was a Teleporter, and he couldn’t afford to make her think he wasn’t. Nor could he afford to make Saffron suspicious. For her own sake, she couldn’t have an easy avenue to the magical world.
“Mary?” Kelly took his arm; Gabe jerked his gaze to look at her. She looked worried and suspicious at once, her gaze darting toward Marr.
Gabe wasn’t used to snap decisions. He would have said he wasn’t good at snap decisions. But he made one now, because there wasn’t time to ask Skulduggery’s advice and he wasn’t sure what he was meant to do alone. “I may have been a bit misleading.”
Kelly went very still and her face went very blank. “Misleading how?”
“Dillon’s a detective. A special agent, really.”
Something in Kelly’s soul hardened, started to draw away, and the feel of it made Gabe’s heart clench. “What for?”
“That woman you call Angela,” Gabe said quietly, holding Kelly’s gaze steadily, “tried to blow up a government building last week.”
Kelly stared. “She what?”
“She was one of his colleagues. She betrayed them. They only just barely managed to get the bomb out in time, and she escaped. Kelly, please.” Gabe clutched her hand and lowered his voice. “It’s complicated and I will tell you and Janet as much as I can as soon as I can, but right now, Marr cannot meet Saffron.”
The woman looked over and saw Marr stop, looking around for a seat. Any moment now she’d see the expanse of empty table just down from Saffron, and probably the look of confused recognition on Saffron’s face. There was a split second of decision-making in Kelly’s soul.
“Angela!” she called, taking her hand out of Gabe’s grasp and jogging forward. Marr glanced up, frowning and irritable. “Sorry, I just remembered,” Kelly said, “and since you’re here—just a tick—excuse me, Bri, cheers—”
Gabe sidled around the room so he was no longer within Marr’s line of sight and caught Saffron’s eye. The healer was looking less confused and more on edge, now, aware that something was happening but not what.
Go, Gabe mouthed, nodding toward the doors. Saffron took his meaning, rose and silently left the room. Gabe followed through a staff exit into the kitchen proper, looped around and then came out into another hallway down which Saffron was moving. “Saffron.”
The healer turned on her heel and saw him, but didn’t say anything until he’d already tugged her into the kitchen. “You know who she is,” she said, her face pale. “Do you know who I am? Are you a sorcerer?”
“Not exactly,” Gabe said, truthfully but quietly. “Listen to me. She can’t know you’re here. The detectives are trying to flush her out, but if she thinks another sorcerer is here she’ll run and then they might not be able to find her.”
Saffron frowned. “If they know she’s here why haven’t they taken her yet?”
“Because of you, and the other women like you,” Gabe said simply. “It’s too big a risk to break in and hope no one else will be hurt—physically or mentally. The people here take care of their own. The detectives don’t want to fight them too.”
For a long moment Saffron said nothing. Then, in a very small voice, “Should I leave?”
“Of course not,” Kelly snapped from behind Gabe, but he didn’t jump. She closed the door quietly and came to them, shaking her head. “Mare, I don’t know what the Hell’s going on, but you’re going to have to help me explain to Janet why I just created more paperwork for her. Did that woman really try to blow something up?”
Saffron stared at Gabe. “Who are you really? Have we met before?”
Kelly stared at her. “Wait, you know each other?”
Gabe winced. Oh, Skulduggery was not going to be happy. “My boyfriend is in the business,” he said to Saffron, and then turned to Kelly. “Saffron was a member of an international cult of which Dillon’s youngest brother was a member. He just turned, and Saffron’s all he managed to get out so far.”
Kelly blinked. “Okay then. Wait, his brother--?”
“Dillon?” Saffron echoed, total bewilderment on her face. She looked at Gabe more closely, her eyes narrowed, and Gabe felt more than saw the moment suspicion bloomed into near-certainty. The moment when she equated a Middle-Eastern sorcerer with unknown abilities and an apparent attachment to the Sanctuary’s Prime Detective to a Middle-Eastern woman, attached to a Sanctuary detective, in the shelter where Marr just happened to be. Her eyes widened again almost comically. “Oh. Oh.”
“Oh?” Kelly demanded. “Just ‘oh’? You do know each other. Mary, are you undercover? Is that even your name?”
Gabe winced. “Maybe. Possibly. Just a little.” His shoulders slumped. “My name’s Gabrielle. And Marr already knows what Dillon and his partner looks like.”
“And since you’re Israeli, he figured you’d be able to infiltrate?” Kelly shook her head, but there was something almost approached amused incredulity lingering in the swirl of her soul. “For a member of a country with a compulsory military service, you’re not very good at working undercover.”
“I’m not a particularly good soldier, either,” Gabe muttered. “I’m not very good at lying. Or fighting. Or trying to hurt people.”
“I kind of noticed.” Kelly was almost grinning now, grinning and relieved and annoyed all at once. She ran her fingers through her hair. “Well, we were wondering what brought you to Ireland, besides the hot guys and the gorgeous accents.”
Gabe’s mouth twitched. “That may have had something to do with it. Just a little. What are you going to do?”
For a long moment Kelly didn’t say anything; she just stared toward the mess-hall, very obviously taking things in and working them out. “The first thing I’m going to do is tell Janet,” she said at last. “I can’t deal with this myself. But if Angela really did try to bomb a building—was it an empty building?” Gabe shook his head. “She tried to kill people, then.” Gabe nodded. Kelly rubbed her face. “I’m telling Janet. You’re going to be there. You’re going to tell us what this boyfriend of yours would like to do. Then maybe we can get this problem out of the way.”
“I’m sorry,” Gabe said miserably. Kelly took his hand, tried to smile and almost managed it.
“Mary—Gabrielle—you’re right about two things. One, you’re horrible at lying. And two, you don’t know the meaning of the word ‘subtle’. But you and this Dillon of yours tried your best not to just waltz in and take people away without explanation, and you’re really good with people, and Father O’Reilly is a good judge of character. Angela has been a pain in the arse since she arrived. All that is enough for me to want to hear you out, and it’ll be enough for Janet too. As for you.”
Kelly turned abruptly to Saffron; she flinched and looked to the floor, her shoulders tensed like a servant expecting a tongue-lashing. Instead what she got was a hug. “Angela’s decided she wants to eat in her room. You can go back inside and finish your lunch without being bothered. Otherwise, we’ll just have to keep the two of you away from each other.”
“Thank you,” Saffron said numbly. “I’m—I think I’ll finish lunch now, please.”
“While you’re there, let Gloria know I had to handle something so she can watch the place.”
“Alright.” Still looked a little off-centre, Saffron headed for the mess-hall. Kelly took Gabe’s hand and gave it a squeeze.
“Okay. Let’s go to the principal’s office, young lady.”
All of which was why, over two hours of explanations later, Gabe found himself walking down the street toward the cafe a few streets down, still in the guise of Gabrielle, with Kelly in tow cursing the weather and idiotic government agents with idiotic soap-opera lives.