Thursday afternoon I got word that Brand had locked down all but the Vessel-guarding wraith into another book, pending eventual distribution into more permanent spells. We’d have to sort through which wraiths had done what during the rebellion before we decided their “sentences,” but there wasn’t going to be time for that in the foreseeable future. All that mattered for the moment was that they were no longer wild cards in the war.
I made a date to meet Shock in Arcadia early Friday morning; coordinating with him was much easier now that his dad was covering for him. I set the meeting in Arcadia to reduce the chance of Caryl stumbling in on us and distracting him, and I decided to use the opportunity to test out my new suit. It was heavier than regular clothes, I still couldn’t get the shirt off by myself, and I was going to have to figure out a better way to keep the pants from riding down aside from yanking them up every couple of minutes, but all in all it was a fine piece of work. Once I got my surgical gloves on, I felt ready for anything.
Shock and I found a place to settle, a pair of warm, flat rocks not far from the LA4 Gate. I was actually more comfortable standing, but I wanted to look comfortable to my guest.
“I’ve got another question for you about facades,” I said once we’d exchanged apologies and small talk. “Do you have to make them exactly from the DNA blueprint, or can you vary them?”
He made a wobbly, equivocating gesture with one hand. “We always make some choices,” he said. “How the hair is cut and so on. But each choice adds time, and so we keep them as close as possible to the way they ‘grow’ naturally.”
“But once a facade is grown? Can you alter it? Could Belinda, for example, make one of me, and then put scars and iron into it so it would match?”
He shook his head, wincing a little. “You cannot make a wound heal in a certain way. No two scars would be the same. Besides, every cut you made on the facade would cut the fey linked to it as well.”
“If it was just a facade, though, not linked?”
“Then the wounds would not heal at all, unless you had a Seelie spell caster nearby to do it right away. And then the wounds would not leave scars. The Seelie Court’s healing magic is based upon the body not ‘remembering’ that it was injured at all.”
“Okay, well suppose you had a facade, and Claybriar sitting right next to you to help you. Could you cut it open and put iron in its bones?”
Shock looked flat-out horrified. “I—why would I want to do that?”
“I’m trying to figure out a way to make Dawnrowan and her guards think we have a second Ironbones, in case we need to make a threat to get away safely. And I had an idea of maybe using a facade to create that illusion.”
“So you want me to make another facade for you, and then try— I have no idea how long this would take. I have never tried to . . . alter a facade this extensively before.”
“If it helps, you can shave off the time it would take to make it. I want you to use one you’ve already made, one that’s currently lying empty somewhere, now that Brand has locked the wraiths down.”
I’d thought Shock had already gone as pale as he could go, but apparently I was wrong.
“Don’t try to tell me you don’t have a way to track that thing down,” I said. “You can do whatever experiments on it you want. And then when we’re done with it, we can put Qualm into it and send it to jail. It was Qualm, wasn’t it? That was the wraith you put into it?”
“You knew,” he said softly. “You knew all along.” He raised his eyes to give me a pleading look. “Yes, I made that facade, put Qualm into it. Dame Belinda said she needed it to gather information. A spy, I thought. I didn’t know what she actually used it for until I met with you that day about Brand. I promise, I would never have—”
“I know, Shock. Otherwise I’d be hammering you full of iron nails right now. Let’s focus on the matter at hand. Can you do this? Will you?”
“I—I do know where the facade is,” he said. “The spirit brought it back to Arcadia, through the NY2 Gate.”
“Wait, how did it get all the way to New York?”
“Buses,” Shock said. “During off hours. It was cloaked, and it is quite easy to take public transportation when no one can perceive you.”
“Can you get it? Stick some iron in there, have Claybriar patch it up afterward?”
“I—I could try. Just—please don’t tell Caryl it was me, all right?”
“She already knew, Shock. That’s why we invited you here in the first place.”
He stared at me a moment, then rose to his feet, pacing. “She knew, and she—” The words “kissed me” seemed to hover in the air unspoken. “—forgave me,” he finished instead.
“Caryl is complicated,” I said diplomatically. “But you see why we need you to make this work. Not just to get the vials, but to access this facade. We can use it to make them think Tjuan has iron bones like me. So you get caught, trying to get the vials out of there? The real Tjuan and I can threaten the standing stones until they let you out safe.”
“The st—wow.” Shock’s eyes flew wide beneath his blue fringe. He laughed. “Well, that would certainly get their attention. You’d do that, to save me?”
“Of course I would,” I said. “But don’t get teary eyed about it. You understand, don’t you, that the entire fate of this war depends on getting those vials back to Los Angeles? Even if the rest of us don’t make it, you have to get that bag back here.”
He turned to me, solemn, and gave a slight bow. “I understand,” he said. “This is about more than my father’s mourning. I will not fail you.”
“That leads me to another thing. You’re going to need your wings for this.”
“No, it’s fine,” he said nervously. “I go up there all the time like this. They have horses that—”
“To leave, Shock. Remember, I’m planning as though things might go pear-shaped at some point. You grab the vial your dad wants first, then living employees, then everything else. If you get caught somewhere in the middle of it all, you may have to just make a run for it. No waiting for a ride.”
“Ah. Ah, I see.” He started to gnaw at his fingernails. I wondered if somewhere in the void his natural form was slowly filing down its claws.
“How do you change back into your fey form?” I said. “How long is it going to take for you to recreate that link?”
Slowly his face took on that wine-red stain I’d seen when I caught him kissing Caryl.
“Shock, what is it?”
He sighed. “Okay, here is the secret. I made my own facade; I customized it. I control when I change. I did not want to be forced back into my normal form even when I came to Arcadia. I hate it.”
“You’re saying you could change back anytime?”
“Yes.”
“Show me.”
His head snapped up; his small dark eyes went wide. “Miss Roper, no. I do not like for humans to see me that way. This is how I want you to see me. This is how I look, even in my own mind. This is who I am.”
I felt a pang of sympathy for the kid. “I’m not asking you to claim the body,” I said. “I’m not saying it’s you. I’m asking you to use it, when it helps you. I need to see how it works. It’s a tool to use in our heist, that’s all.”
Shock let out a long, slow exhale. “All right,” he said. “Okay. I will—I will show you.”
I’d forgotten, until I saw him, that he was Vivian’s grandson.
It was like a slap of cold water to the face; I sucked in a sharp breath. Bat wings, pale praying-mantis arms, bleeding wounds for eyes.
I rose from my seat on the tawny rock and staggered back, breathless nightmare screams escaping my throat. Almost immediately I lost control of my limbs and fell down hard on my ass, half catching myself on one forearm in the mercifully spongy sand.
Next thing I knew, Shock was kneeling beside me in human form, and for a moment I saw his father in him, in the graceful way he reached for me, confident in his ability to comfort. He put his arms around me as I had seen Winterglass do to Caryl, but there was restraint here, both from politeness and from his efforts to avoid touching any part of me the suit left exposed.
“It’s all right,” he said. “It’s only me. It’s me.”
He held me for a moment, and I might have objected to being comforted by a seventeen-year-old if it weren’t for the fact that I was shaking uncontrollably. When he spoke again, his voice was bitter.
“I am so sorry,” he said. “I truly hate myself sometimes.”
“No,” I said. “No, it isn’t you. I mean sure, you look scary, but I’ve gotten used to scary, and I trust you. It’s just . . . you look like her. Like your grandmother.”
He pulled back, looked at me gravely. “Feverwax,” he said. “The mad countess.”
“I knew her as Vivian Chandler. I’m the one who—who murdered her. She looked just like that.”
“Oh,” he breathed. “I should have warned you.”
“No way you could have known.”
He carefully arranged his hair. “Father always said I looked like my mother. The princess-consort, Slakeshadow. I suppose she took after her mother too. I am truly sorry.”
I got to my feet carefully; he let me lean on his arm. “This is good, though,” I said. “It means you can access the form when the time comes, escape by air if you need to.”
Shock made sure I was steady on my feet before drawing away from me. “I wish you had not seen me that way,” he said. “You—you won’t tell Caryl that I look like the countess, will you? She and my mother are the reason Caryl got abducted.”
Something twisted a little inside my chest. “That’s Dame Belinda’s doing,” I said. “She is the one who ordered it. If you care about Caryl, you are definitely on the right side of this war now.”
“I thought helping London was the right thing,” he said. “I didn’t know. Dame Belinda made you all sound so dangerous, evil, insane. All I knew was that you had asked me to make a facade for a monster. It sounded plausible.”
“You’re a good kid,” I said, giving his shoulder a brief squeeze with my gloved hand. “Belinda’s always been good at making people believe she’s on the side of virtue. Alvin fell for it; I fell for it at first; even your dad fell for it. Don’t feel bad. Thanks to you, your dad is going to be on our side soon. With the whole Unseelie Court behind us, Belinda will have to surrender.”
“The whole Unseelie Court?” A bit of his father’s disdain entered his tone. “Do you see Queen Shiverlash settling in with my father in wedded bliss?”
I thought of the way she’d laughed the first time Winterglass had addressed her. The utter contempt with which she’d shoved him to the soundstage floor.
“Sure,” I said, grinning to hide the gnawing uncertainty in my gut. “We’re all going to be one big happy family.”