If possible, the Community Liaison offices were even emptier than the last time I was there. Everyone must have been running around outside dealing with the hysteria. I would have mobilized everyone if I were in charge. I would lock down the Guildhouse, sure, but I wouldn’t try to take on the Consortium and an entire neighborhood simultaneously.

I took the elevator straight down to the subbasement. Meryl smiled for a fraction of a second when I walked into her office, then wrinkled her nose. “You smell like burnt cow.”

“It’s new.” I turned to show her the scorch marks on my jacket.

She whistled appreciatively. “Nice miss.”

“Yeah. It was fun.”

She leaned back in her chair. “So, is it a fascist wet dream out there?”

I nodded. “Nigel thinks the Consortium is behind the attacks.”

Meryl snickered. “Nigel thinks the Consortium is behind everything. I swear the man is itching for a war no one wants.”

“He was never this single-minded before.”

She gestured at me. “He’s pissed at them. They took out his main man.”

That took me by surprise. “Me? Are you talking about me? He’s pissed because of my injury?”

She nodded. “Before you lost your abilities, the scuttlebutt was that you were being groomed in case hostilities broke out. You were one of the few here-born with major potential.”

You could have knocked me flat with an eyeblink. Nigel wasn’t one for compliments, but now that I looked back, I could see what Meryl meant. He was always pushing me to work harder, trying to get me to join the Druidic College, teaching me ways to use my abilities even when he wasn’t happy that I had gone the Guild route. It made a sort of sense. “I never realized. No one ever said anything.”

She grinned. “Ha! With your ego? Are you kidding me? No one in their right mind was going to give you more reason to strut around like a peacock.”

I didn’t say anything. Meryl wasn’t the first person to comment on my arrogance, only the most vocal. I don’t think I impressed her enough for her to be diplomatic.

“I’ve changed.”

Her grin broadened. “No shit. Almost dying a couple of times has done good things for you.”

She had a point. When your life hits bottom, you can’t help reevaluating things. Losing my livelihood and being abandoned by people I thought were my friends made me understand what it’s like to be on the other side of privilege.

“Look, I need to get out of here. There’s a meeting of the Bosnemeton tonight, and I have to do something before that.”

Her eyebrows went up and hid behind her bangs. “Do something?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Keeva’s got the building locked down tight, and I don’t want to be followed.”

“And you’re not going to tell me what it is?”

“Nope.” We had a playful staring contest involving lots of smirking and grinning. At last, Meryl sighed.

“Okay. I’ll show you a way. But I want details later.”

“Deal,” I said.

I stood as she got up from her desk. She started around it, then walked right through the wall of her office. Impressed, I stared at the illusion. The space between an overflowing credenza and an old filing cabinet looked like a perfectly normal wall. It took a lot of ability to maintain, even more when you had to contend with the amount of essence and warding in the Guildhouse. And I hadn’t sensed it there at all. Meryl was damned good at what she knew how to do.

“Coming?” Her voice sounded muffled coming through the illusion, as though she were calling out from a good distance.

I walked through the wall after her, feeling the spiderweb tingle of essence skim over my body as I went through it. Meryl waited on the other side with a small flashlight. We were in a narrow tunnel that looked much like the other subbasement hallways, only without the doors. Behind me, I could see Meryl’s office as clear as day.

“You’re full of surprises,” I said.

“Did you really think I’d have an office with only one door?” she asked. She turned and led the way along the tunnel. The light dimmed the farther we went from her office, and she turned on her flashlight. “I found this tunnel by accident one day. Took me a while to create the opening in the office, but it was worth it.”

I could feel warding along the walls. If I had to guess, I’d have said we were moving between Guildhouse storerooms, which were filled with all kinds of things that had essence to spare. As a chief archivist, Meryl kept it all in check, making sure nothing disappeared or reacted with something else or exploded. By the odd fluctuations in warding, I could tell there had to be more openings, but Meryl didn’t seem inclined to give a tour.

We reached the bottom of a flight of stairs. Meryl paused and held up her hand. After a few murmurs, a small ball of blue light no bigger than a glow bee danced up from her palm. Still murmuring, she tapped my forehead with her free hand, cupped both her hands together, then tossed the light ball. It swirled up into the darkness.

“There. I’ve opened the warding for you at the top. No one will see you leave.”

“You’re a marvel,” I said.

“I know. Just go straight up. Don’t let me catch you using this without me.”

“Thanks.” I kissed the top of her head and started up the stairs before she had a chance to hit me. I’ve given her the top-of-the-head peck before, and she hates it. Or seems to.

As I went higher I heard a low hum that slowly grew louder. The stone steps vibrated beneath my feet.

“Don’t get hit!” Meryl called up from the darkness.

I reached the top. Seeing nothing but blackness, I stepped forward into another warding. And almost got hit. A subway train hurtled past. I jumped back so fast, I almost fell back down the stairs. After surviving an attack by elves, it would be just my luck to get hit by a train. I could hear giggling down below. Shaking my head, I went through again and found myself on the tracks next to the Boylston Street T station platform. The train that that almost hit me was loading passengers. I ran a few feet along the track, slipped between a gap in some fencing, and jumped onto the nearest car before the doors closed.

I didn’t bother sitting since I needed to change lines at the next station. Down the aisle from me, a well-dressed older woman dozed in her seat, her purse clutched in her lap. She wore a large felt hat with a long pheasant feather. I could just make out the tops of two familiar pink wings coming up the other side of her. Joe peered at me from over her hat and put his finger to his lips. Hovering above her, he bent the feather down and tickled her nose with it. She shifted in her seat without opening her eyes. He did it again, and she waved her hand up. As the train screeched on the curve into Park Street station, he knocked the hat off and vanished. The woman startled awake, looked down at her hat, and glared at me. I tried to maintain an air of innocence, but she looked convinced I had something to do with it.

The train pulled into the station. I hurried down a flight of stairs to the Red Line. I used to take cabs everywhere. I used to have a car service at work when I wanted it. Now I take the subway and hope I don’t miss trains. It bothered me at first. But then I learned public transportation is what real people do. Only the fey thought they were too good for it. But sometimes I still missed the car service.

My next train came in, and this time I sat as close to the corner as possible. Right on cue, Joe appeared unobtrusively on the next seat, hiding between me and the wall of the car.

“That was naughty,” I said.

He shrugged and smiled. “It was an ugly hat.”

“I guess you do have a point.”

He stretched out on the seat. “I heard you were attacked. Elves really don’t like you, do they?”

“A lot of people don’t.”

He chuckled. “I have a message from Callin.”