“Nona!”
Donna nodded in agreement. “And the shiny man.”
“The shiny man?” I asked. “You mean Lend?”
“No, the shiny man with hair and eyes like sunshine.”
I held my smile firmly in place. “Reth? The faerie?”
“Faerie, yes! That’s not his name though; he’ll never tell. He’s shiny. And pretty. I like it when he talks to me.” Donna reached up and smoothed her luxurious walnut-brown hair, smiling dreamily.
“I knew it! I knew Nona was working with Reth!” I stood, shaking with fury. Despite David’s insistence that we could trust that wicked tree spirit, I’d known something was up with her for months. And now she was assigning the selkies to keep tabs on me for Reth?
“Are you angry?” Kari asked, concern pooling in her eyes like tears. “Did we do something wrong?”
I took a deep breath, the bitingly cold air filling my lungs and stinging my throat. This wasn’t their fault. The selkies were as innocent and happy as seals playing in the waves, their immortal lives nothing but an eternal game. They were just doing what they were told—what they thought was best. “No, you didn’t do anything wrong. Thanks.”
“Okay! Let’s drive more, then!”
“NO! I mean, umm, I want to walk the rest of the way to the café, since we’re almost there. But you two can go. Lend is going to come and get me, and I’m always safe with him.”
Donna frowned dubiously. “Are you sure? We can stay. I’ll braid your hair!”
“And I have nail polish in the car!” Kari said, already bouncing in anticipation.
“No, you should go tell Nona that I’m safe. She might be worried.”
“Should we wait where you can’t see us, like we do when you’re in school?”
I froze my face into a mask of a smile, but the veins in my neck felt like they were going to explode they were pounding so hard with fury. I didn’t get out of IPCA’s controlling grasp to be spied on and monitored by a tree spirit and my crazy faerie ex. “You don’t need to. I talked to Nona today and she said it was okay for you two to leave me.”
Kari’s eyes narrowed, cutting their shape from near-perfect circles to almonds. “Are you sure she said that?”
“Absolutely.”
She held my gaze for another moment, then shrugged, smile bouncing back into place. “Okay then! See you later!”
Donna waved cheerily and they both got into the car, squealing away. I watched until they turned the corner, then ran as fast as I could toward the café. When I got there, I collapsed against the dark brick exterior, my breath fogging out in pants.
How long had they been tailing me? Which other paranormals were in on it? Nona and Grnlllll for sure, but them I already suspected. Those three weird women this morning—I’d seen them once before talking to Nona. The dragon? Did she have a dragon tailing me? I looked up at the sky, paranoid, but didn’t see any white monsters snaking through the sparse clouds.
What about … Arianna? I bit my lip. She lived with me, after all. Who better to watch me than my roommate? I put my head back against the rough, uneven bricks. I wanted Lish back. I’d never, ever had to doubt her or question her motives. I knew she was my friend no matter what. It had been the two of us against the world, and sometimes I didn’t know where my place was without her to talk to.
Arianna wasn’t the friend Lish had been. She was cranky and rude, and sometimes it seemed like she hated me more than she liked me. But then again, Arianna really wasn’t the same type of paranormal as Nona and her ilk. They came that way. Arianna was forced into the paranormal realm against her will.
Besides, surely anyone trying to spy on me and get in my good graces wouldn’t leave so many sopping wet towels on the carpet.
No, I trusted Arianna. Arianna, Lend, David, and Raquel. I sighed heavily, then pulled out my phone to check the time. I was still a couple minutes early. I’d missed three calls from Lend and had a new text from Carlee, my one normal friend. I’d kill to go get a pedicure with her today and debate the merits of the boys’ basketball team versus the soccer team. While I personally found shape-shifting artists superior in all ways, I did admire soccer player legs.
Alas. My fingers were too cold to type anyway. Ignoring the text, I hit dial and Lend picked up on the first ring.
“I need you to come pick me up after I talk to Raquel,” I said. “And I need to move out of the diner apartment.”
“Done and done. I was going to make you come to my dad’s place tonight anyway. And I assume you’re going to tell me what’s going on?”
“As much as I know.” My voice was as glum as I felt. Because, as usual, as much as I knew wasn’t nearly enough. At least Raquel would have some answers for me.
Thirty minutes later my knees were bouncing uncontrollably. Partly from nerves—where was she?—but mostly because I was on vanilla Coke number four. Caffeine and I had always been a bad combination, now made worse by the nervous energy I could feel constantly flowing through me from the part of Uber-vamp’s soul I’d taken when he attacked me on Halloween.
I checked my phone every thirty seconds, but I hadn’t missed any calls and there were no new texts from David. Did I get the café wrong? This was the one we met at last October. But maybe she was thinking of another place? I needed her to tell me everything was fine.
The door chimed, and I looked up into Raquel’s face. “Thank goodness!” I said, almost knocking my glass over as I stood up.
She rushed over to me. “Evie, I’m so sorry. This is the only chance I’ve had to get away, and—” The door chimed again, and Raquel watched as two men in itchy-looking wool coats walked in and stared at the menu. She turned back to me, her face smooth. “Sit down, please.”
“Yeah, sure.”
She sat across from me and put her hands up on the table, crossing and uncrossing her fingers like she couldn’t get them to fit together quite right.
“What’s going on? Who is this Anne-Whatever Whatever woman? Why is IPCA contacting me through someone other than you?”
Raquel took a deep breath. “I’m here to ask you to come back to IPCA in a formal capacity.”
“You’re what?”
“It’s been determined that this experiment”—she closed her eyes briefly at that word, then quickly opened them and moved on—“isn’t effective. You’re being asked to return to your position at the Center. With full employee rights and salary, of course. They will also grant you conditional clemency for rule violations.”
I sat back, stunned. “You’re the one who helped me get out in the first place. You know I can’t—I won’t—go back! Besides, there’s no point. I won’t travel with a faerie, which makes me pretty much worthless. And even if I was willing to work with faeries, there’s no way I’d go back to living in the Center! What are they thinking?”
She bit her lip. It was then that I realized she hadn’t uttered a single sigh. Weird, and very un-Raquel. “Evie, I really think you should consider this offer. Or at least be open to negotiating the terms of your employment.” She glanced over her shoulder, then leaned forward. “Please tell me you will consider it.”
“What