A long sigh parted his lips. “You don’t want anything from us, do you?”
“I want your friendship, your knowledge. I want to not be alone in my otherness.” I tore the wrapper containing my muffin to shreds. “I want the best for you, and from everything you’ve told me, that means the old power structure has to go. I understand Miller needs me in ways the rest of you don’t, and he and I have come to an understanding, but I can’t play overlord and pretend I’m okay with that. It’s wrong. You’re asking me to abandon who I am, the core of what makes me me.”
His shoulders rounded until I had to keep going, had to make him understand.
“I’m not going to abandon you, any of you. I accept that you’re mine to care for, mine to protect.” Conquest had brought them here, spirited them away from their home worlds, and that burden was mine to bear. “And I understand that means I’m yours too, and that your ideas about protecting me are different than mine.”
“I wish you could stay,” he said softly, and his meaning was clear. He believed Conquest was in me and that she would prevail. “Perhaps you’re the reason why I made this journey. I wanted to witness miracles, to experience wonders, to understand the fundamental reason for our existence, and I have beheld echoes of all those things in you.
“When I return to my people, I will possess a vaster knowledge than any who has come before me, and I will tell them of the two-souled Otillian who fought against her nature and won the loyalty of her coterie through bonds stronger than the bands implanted beneath their skin.” Satisfaction gave his eyes a glint. “It will make a good story, I think.”
My gut clenched like I’d been kicked. “You’re leaving? When? I didn’t think that was possible.”
The alarm in my voice accomplished what my speech had failed to do and put a satisfied grin back on his face. “You don’t want me to go.”
“We need you.” By all accounts, the worst was yet to come. “We can’t survive this without you.”
War had savaged him and Santiago, and that was during her opening salvo.
Puffed up to maximum capacity, he allowed, “I won’t return until you no longer require me.”
As to the how, he kept that nugget of information to himself. I couldn’t say I blamed him.
Thom executed a series of quick turns that dumped us out into a paved lot beside an industrial building. The logo painted on the side was a variation on the one I was used to seeing on White Horse’s vehicles. I must have missed the memo where Cole admitted the private lab they used belonged to them, but the setup made sense. I didn’t see him contracting work out to the general public. He wasn’t that trusting. There was also the fact some of the compounds he required tested were not of this world. On the heels of that thought stumbled another. “Does this lab employ humans?”
“No.” Thom eyed my muffin so hard I passed it over to him. “All the employees at this facility are charun. There was no other way to ensure our privacy.”
“I wonder how many are in the NSB’s pocket?” I fiddled with the door handle. “Kapoor would have planted a mole here, maybe several, and they would have dug in deep.”
“You’ve partnered with the NSB,” Thom reminded me. “There’s no point weeding them out now that we are aware they must exist. It would only cast suspicion on you. We’ll isolate them instead and make sure none of the more sensitive materials pass through their hands.”
I popped open the door and stepped out. “What do I need to tell them?”
“Bring the cooler to the front desk.” Thom began picking the blueberries from the muffin and tossing them out his window. “They know who you are. They know why you’re here.”
Sucking it up, I left him to finish his breakfast while I grabbed the cooler from the trunk. I backed through the front door of the building and approached a circular desk. The lobby was as sterile as it got without being a hospital, but what had I expected from a lab?
The dowdy receptionist who had been lost in conversation goggled up at me, and the phone slid through her fingers. It clattered across the linoleum, and she joined it, going down on her knees and planting her palms before her. She didn’t stop there, either. She bent forward until her forehead touched the floor and held the pose until I cleared my throat.
“You, ah, don’t have to do that.” I glanced around like maybe she was bowing to someone else who had crept up behind me the way it happens in the movies, but we were alone. “Really. You can get up now.”
“Mistress, blessings upon you.” Her voice came out muffled. “I had heard we were to expect a visit from you. I would have prepared the rites, but Master Cole forbade it.”
“I’m in a bit of a hurry.” I backed up a half-step. “Can I leave this with you and…?”
“Yes, Mistress.” She didn’t budge from her position. “I will see it is taken in for processing.”
“Thanks.” I rubbed the base of my neck. “I, ah, appreciate your assistance.”
“It is nothing, Mistress.”
Unable to peel my eyes off the prostrate woman, I inched out the door before rejoining Thom. “That was uncomfortable.”
“Veronica still bows to Cole after all these years.” He got us back on the road. “Breaking etiquette would shatter the foundation of her world.”
There was a message there, a blunt one, and I received it with a sigh. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Does she bow to you?”
“No.”
Getting answers when he wasn’t in a giving mood was like pulling teeth. “Why?”
“The gesture is done out of respect for his station.”
I should have packed pliers. “As leader of the coterie?”
Thom cranked up the radio, and that was the end of that.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I spent the rest of the drive absorbed in the Culberson file, pausing now and again to ping Rixton with questions. Mostly I got baby pics in return. I didn’t mind the trade. Plus, Nettie’s adorableness meant her father had trouble forming cohesive non-baby thoughts long enough to tease me.
Thom dropped his gaze to the phone in my lap. “Are you going to answer that?”
“It’s not —” the display lit with a number that left my palms sweaty “— ringing.” I narrowed my eyes at Thom, wondering how the trick worked. “Boudreau.”
“Wu filed the paperwork to establish your partnership the night you agreed to join the taskforce.” Kapoor cut right to the chase. “You two will be working together unless or until the higher ups are convinced the match isn’t working.” His sigh blew across the line. “Sorry, Luce, but what Wu wants, Wu tends to get.”
That solved one mystery. Our partnership had been his bright idea. No wonder he’d shown up on my doorstep with an ultimatum. His was more than professional courtesy; it was personal interest. “Why does he want me?”
“You’ll have to ask him that.”
“Is this how it’s always going to be with us?” I gazed out the window as the rolling scenery slowed. “I ask a question, you get back with the answer after careful consideration, and raise four more questions while you’re at it?”
“Nah.” The edge of amusement crept into his tone. “Sometimes I’ll raise five.”
Thom cut his eyes toward me. “We’re here.”
“I have to go.” I peered through the window. “Thanks for getting back with me.”
“Luce…” Kapoor made a ticking sound behind his teeth. “Let me know if Wu gives you problems. He might be a whale, but I’m in management. They issue us harpoon guns for a reason, understand?”
A sliver of grudging respect for his willingness to confront Wu cut through my annoyance with him. “I’ll let you know if I can’t handle him.”
Kapoor signed off with a huff of laughter that implied a better trick would be if I could.