Chains and Memory by Marie Brennan
It meant I wouldn’t have to face her again, at least not for a while. But that wasn’t what he was asking. “She’d talked to most of the relevant people already. What good she could do is probably done.” I wondered how sincere that effort had been, if she couldn’t even accept me as I was now. Then I told myself not to wonder, because that way lay madness. Besides, it was my mother. She couldn’t do anything half-heartedly if she tried.
Coping with me included.
I forced myself to shower, to get dressed, to walk out the door. Julian went with me as far as the Metro and saw me onto a train. He probably would have come all the way to FAR if I let him, but I kissed him and then pushed him away with a gentle hand. “Having you babysit me freaks me out more. Go. I’ll be fine.”
The ride to Arlington almost made me wish I’d let him come. I never had to worry about being crushed in rush-hour traffic; nobody wanted to bump into me, no matter how crowded the train. Now that was just another reminder of my outcast status. Julian’s presence would have made the buffer zone larger, but at least then I wouldn’t have been alone in the middle of it. And I would have had someone to look at, to distract me from a guy partway down the car who kept staring at me with hateful eyes.
Half the train was getting off at the Crystal City stop. I waited to let other people out, so they wouldn’t have to flinch away from me, then stepped off onto the platform.
From behind me, I heard a man yell, “Hey! Changeling!”
I turned. I shouldn’t have—I knew that even as I was turning. But my skull was full of cotton wool, and the thought came through too slowly.
The guy who’d been staring at me was just a few feet away. As I turned to face him, he hurled something at me.
It hit me before I could react, square in the chest, and exploded into a burst of powder. I inhaled it, involuntarily—
— and burning fire traced its way into my mouth, my nose, my throat, my lungs, setting every nerve ending on fire.
I reacted on instinct, shoving the guy away with my mind. But instead of stumbling back a step or two, he flew through the air, cartwheeling at a diagonal until he slammed into the coffered ceiling of the station, then dropped onto the people below.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. That powder—it was fairy dust. The thing that almost killed me—
But it wasn’t killing me now. It was filling my veins with fire, and the people around me were shouting, backing away. I tried to reassure them, but my words died in a fit of coughing, and when my vision cleared they were standing there like docile zombies because without thinking I had touched their minds and swamped them under.
Something slammed into my side, and my muscles spasmed tight, dropping me to the platform. One of the station cops was aiming a stun gun at me, ready to fire again; then his weapon exploded in a burst of sparks. The fire still burned in me, cranking my gifts to heights beyond my control. I saw the future before it came, saw the Guardian come vaulting down the stairs after everyone who could had fled, dodging falling chunks from the ceiling I’d cracked; I felt him try to force a shield onto me and fail because I was too strong for him. But he spun up something I didn’t recognize and flung it at me, and then my mind went white and blank, and after that the future vanished entirely.
Chapter Six
“I’m sorry, sir, but I cannot share any information with you regarding suspects in custody.” The desk sergeant’s voice got more strident with each repetition; pretty soon he was going to call security. And in a federal detention facility, security was no small matter.
Julian drew deep on his training to keep from completely losing his temper at the man. “I just need to know if she’s all right.”
“As you are neither a family member nor the suspect’s lawyer, I’m afraid I cannot—”
In his peripheral vision, Julian saw a tall black woman walking toward the exit. Even from behind, that silhouette was unmistakable, with the closely-buzzed cap of white hair. “Grayson!”
She pivoted so sharply, he knew she was operating in something like combat mode. Her strides ate the distance between them in no time at all. “Julian. This saves me the effort of calling you.”
The sergeant was clearly glad to see the end of him as Julian stepped away from the desk, walking with Grayson to one side of the lobby, where they could talk in something more like privacy. “What’s going on? Nobody will give me a straight answer as to what happened with Kim.” Then he thought again about who he was talking to, and the bottom of his stomach dropped out.
It must have shown on his face, because Grayson put out a reassuring hand, stopping just short of touching him. “She hasn’t been stripped, Julian. The stay of execution is still in place.”
For her to mention the stay, someone must have been pushing again to get it lifted. Still, Julian’s pulse slowed. He took what felt like his first deep breath in an hour. “Then why are you here? You told me you aren’t active.”
“I’m not,” Grayson said. “They brought me in to consult on a shield—a temporary one, for Kim’s own good.” She blew out a slow breath, turning to keep an eye on the people in the lobby. “Someone assaulted her on the Metro. Threw a bag of that sidhe powder in her face. We don’t think it’s done anything to her on a genetic level, though that will have to wait for a Krauss test to be certain. What it has done is what the sidhe use it for: it’s boosted her gifts. Unfortunately, the boost went far beyond Kim’s ability to control it.”
Julian’s hands gripped one another at the small of his back. His own voice sounded clinical in his own ears, habit taking over and keeping him steady. Information he could deal with, even if it the news was bad. Ignorance had been harder. “How long?”
“We don’t know. We didn’t have the chance to observe her after the original dose, so we don’t even have that to compare to. There’s been concern that the powder might make it out into our world; this is the first street use we know of.”
“The Unseelie,” Julian said.
Grayson shook her head. “Not directly. The assailant is human. A baseline, even. Probably a member of the Iron Shield, though we haven’t confirmed that, since he’s presently unconscious. Kim wreaked a lot of havoc before Chen took her down, Julian.”
“If he’s Iron Shield, how did he get hold of the powder? There’s no way one of them would talk to either Court.”
“We’re tracing that now,” Grayson said. Then she paused, grimaced, and corrected herself. “They are tracing that. SIF agents and Guardians are. My only role is to make sure Kim is taken care of.”
Julian’s hands curled tight behind him. He wanted to pursue this lead, follow it back to the Unseelie and nail them to the wall for their assaults on Kim. But he had little to no experience with investigation; that was part of the training Neeya was presently getting, the training they had locked him out of. Would Neeya help? He hoped so. Even then, though, he wouldn’t be much use. Here he wouldn’t be much better, but— “Can you get me in to see her?”
“Not until we’re sure she’s stable. After that . . . I’ll see what I can do.”
Meaning that Grayson didn’t think it was likely. After all, he was neither her lawyer nor family.
Julian went still. Family.
Dr. Argant was on a flight back to Atlanta right now. Given the way she and Kim had parted . . . No, Julian thought. She would still want to know. Would Kim want her mother informed? He had to believe so. Whatever Dr. Argant’s feelings about her daughter’s changed state, she’d spent almost every moment she could spare in D.C. trying to make certain Kim remained free of the government’s control. She needed to know about this new development, in case it changed the picture.
Even as he thought that, he knew he was being optimistic.
“Thank you,” he said to Grayson, distracted. “Let me know.” When she was gone, he pulled out his port and began to draft a message to Kim’s mother.
~
My muscles were still twitching, the aftershocks of the fairy dust setting my ner
“They can’t blame this on me,” I said to Lotze, pacing the small room. I had to do something to burn off the twitch. “I mean—yes, okay, obviously I was the one who did all those things. But I wasn’t in my right mind. I was drugged.”
Lotze nodded, but it didn’t look like a gesture of agreement. “I know that, Kim, and so do they. But you did a lot of damage. Six people are in the hospital, and nobody knows how long it will take to repair and reopen the station.”
“So a few politicians and contractors will have to walk to the Pentagon City stop,” I snapped. Then I waved my hands, silencing Lotze before he could say anything. “Sorry. I’m just—never mind. They can’t override the courts just because I was drugged.”
He exhaled slowly and spread his hands on the table’s aluminum surface. “No, they can’t. But they can keep you in custody. And they’re going to.”
“For how long?”
“Until your legal status is settled one way or the other.”
I stared at him, appalled. “But—that could be weeks. The bill is still in conference. Unless the Supreme Court grants cert and shoves somebody else off the docket to make room for us.”
“Which they might do,” Lotze said. “This just became a lot more pressing. We’d better hope they don’t, because if this pushes them into rushing the case, it might well be because the Justices are worried about the danger you pose, and are in a hurry to make certain that danger is controlled.”
“But this wasn’t me!” I forced myself to stop, take three slow breaths. They weren’t steady. “I’m not at fault. This was done to me. Anybody could have been drugged the way I was.”
“True. But an ordinary blood wouldn’t have been able to wreck a Metro station. And an ordinary wilder . . .” Lotze sighed, eyes grim. “An ordinary wilder could have been stopped more easily.”
With the deep shield. I’d already thrown up twice, coming out from under the effects of the drug; now I felt like doing it again. The Unseelie had timed it perfectly. Setting me up to look unstable, then hammering the final nail in.
This was what Toby had foreseen. Not the continuing effects of my original change, but a new attack. I’d been afraid of the wrong thing.
“Is there anything I can do?” I asked. It came out as a strangled whisper.
Lotze’s expression said no. Out loud, he said, “Wait. Stay calm. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but right now, that’s what matters. They can keep you for seventy-two hours without charging you; I suspect they’ll go right down to the wire if they can. That gives me time to prepare, though, and it will help if you look stable. Don’t fight their shields—the temporary ones, I mean. I might be able to get them to release you into house arrest, once we know the drug has worn off completely.”
And that was the best I could look forward to. I felt numb inside, except for anger. I couldn’t tell whether that was an effect of the drug, or just my spirit going dead with despair. “Can I see Julian?”
“I’ll try to get that approved,” Lotze said.
It wasn’t a yes, but it was the best I was going to get. I swallowed hard, then said, “And somebody should tell my mother.”
~
The twitching faded. I collapsed, exhausted, onto the cot in my cell. My heavily warded, nuclear bunker of a cell, in a detention facility designed to hold psychics, with two agents watching over me to maintain the active shields locking my gifts down. How long would I be stuck like this?
I tried to focus on calming exercises, old ones from when I first manifested gifts, newer ones from my therapist in Atlanta. My mind kept outrunning my ability to settle it, though. The only hope I could see for myself was to prove this was an Unseelie conspiracy. It wouldn’t change Lotze’s point about me being vulnerable to attack, but it ought to get me some sympathy from the people who would decide my fate. But I couldn’t do that from within a federal jail, and I didn’t have much time regardless.
In fact, I had no time at all.
Lotze was the first one through the door, and words began pouring out of his mouth before I was even on my feet. “Kim, I’m sorry. I’ve asked for an extension of the stay, something to give us time to look for other options—”
There were agents behind him, fresh ones, four of them, and I felt the ripple as they took over the shields. “What’s going on?” I cried, as two of them took me by the arms.
“The Supreme Court denied cert fifteen minutes ago,” Lotze said. One of the agents shouldered him out of the way as they began to lead me toward the door. “They aren’t going to hear your case. The previous ruling goes into effect now.”
The ruling that said I was a wilder.
The one that said they could put the deep shield on me.
I began to fight against their hands, reflexively, even though I knew it wouldn’t do any good. “No—they can’t—let me go! Let me go!” I struck out with my gifts, hit the smooth surface of the active shields. I couldn’t breathe. It was the Unseelie dragging me back into the cave, holding me pinned for the drug. Fairy dust. It took you away under the hill, and when you came back everything was changed. I screamed, kicked, tried to burst through the shields, until one of the agents took my jaw in her hand and caught my gaze before I thought to look away. Then her mind wrapped mine up in soft wool, silencing my protests, and I went limp as they took me to be gutted.
~
Julian hit the doors at a run. His mind was a white blank of horror. Somewhere beneath the shock, he knew running wouldn’t change anything, he was too late, he’d been too late forever. Too late to protect Kim on the Metro, too late to keep the Unseelie from kidnapping her last fall. But he had to run, because there was nothing else he could do.
Grayson caught him as he came through into the waiting room. Literally caught him: she clotheslined him with one stiff arm, got a double handful of his shirt and brought him around to face her. “Julian. Stop. They already took her in.”
Of course they had. They’d been given the order to gut Kim months ago, when the lower court handed down its initial ruling; only the stay had kept them from following through. With that gone, they would chain her as soon as they could.
He hadn’t even gotten the chance to see her first.
Julian found himself gripping Grayson’s wrists, fingers digging into the cuffs of her sleeves, holding onto her as if she was the only thing keeping him up. It was very nearly true. A lifetime of training was collapsing into dust. He realized there was a shield around him—not his own—Grayson’s, holding in what would have otherwise flooded free. For once in his life he was grateful for it, as he was grateful for the hands still holding his arms, keeping him on his feet.
She met his gaze squarely, not flinching from its effect. Her voice was low and firm. “Get yourself under control. Now.”
They weren’t alone in the room. Two people stood near the far wall. One watched him: a middle-aged white man, dark hair going to grey. Julian had only met him once, but he remembered Dr. Dubois, Kim’s father. The other, resolutely looking away, was her mother.
Julian dropped his hands, and Grayson let go of him. Dr. Dubois gave him a moment to collect himself, then came over, clearing his throat nervously. “They said it would be a little while. You might want to sit.”
As if anyone here could. Julian looked past Kim’s father to Dr. Argant, pitched his voice to reach her. “You should have been here.”
Kim’s mother pivoted sharply to face him. “I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me,” Julian said. Grayson made a warning noise, but he ignored her. “Kim’s been talking for months about your influence, how many people you know in D.C. You could have done something to stop this.”
Dr. Argant’s face stiffened with outrage. “I have done what I could, young man.”
“Everyt
“I do not need you lecturing me on my relationship with my daughter!”
He laughed, short and cold. “Assuming you still have one, after this.”
Dr. Dubois interposed himself between the two of them, hands extended. He was putting out a calming surge, trying to ratchet down the tension. It didn’t work. “There’s no need for this. We’re all exhausted and worried for Kim. The least we can do is be civil to one another.”
“Civil.” Julian spat the word. “This is a fine time to be worried about manners, with them in there torturing your daughter.”
“It’s not torture,” Kim’s mother snapped.
“Let’s put the deep shield on you—see if you change your tune.” Julian glared at her. She looked away; she had to, if she didn’t want to meet his eyes, but it also was a gesture of defeat. “You don’t have the faintest fucking clue what it feels like to be gutted. Don’t talk to me about what constitutes torture.”
“Julian,” Grayson said. It cut through the building fury, recalled him to himself. He breathed hard through his nose, grinding his teeth until his jaw hurt. Dr. Dubois put a hand on his wife’s shoulder and began to speak quietly in her ear. Julian retreated once more to the other side of the room.
Too little, too late. He should have found a way through the planar injunction, contacted the Seelie as soon as he realized the Unseelie had gone after Kim again. Then they might have had enough time to help. It would have landed him in jail . . . but that would have been better than this.
It was his imagination that told him he was feeling anything from Kim. There was no way anything was getting through to this room; they would have taken her in under shields, and the ritual room itself would be layered twelve deep in protections. Nothing could possibly leak through. But his mind was perfectly capable of inventing the torments for itself.
He could do nothing but wait, and endure.