House of Cards

CHAPTER 30

"I’m going to tell her if you don’t, Grit."

"She won’t believe you." The water gun, its nozzle plugged with another cork, was actually tucked into Margrit’s trousers at the small of her back, beneath her suit jacket. Cameron had laughed out loud when Margrit had shown it off, just before Cole drew her aside to speak with her through clenched teeth. The whim to drench him caught her, and Margrit folded her arms over her chest to stop herself. "You wouldn’t have believed me if you hadn’t literally seen him with your own eyes. And it’s not my secret, or yours, to tell."

"I don’t give a damn. I’m not keeping it from her-"

"You shouldn’t have to." Margrit shook her head. "You shouldn’t have to. It’s too big and too weird to keep to yourself and you shouldn’t have to exclude her. But will you please at least give me a chance to talk to Alban first? He’s going to have to show himself to her to make her believe it."

Even through Cole’s anger and dismay, Margrit could see the logic of her request hit home. He clenched his fists and fell back a step. "Will he?"

"Yes. He’d risk it because I trust you. I trust her. He trusts me. Cole…" She held her breath a moment, searching for the right thing to say. "Look, I’m sorry for some of the things I said this morning. I was-scared." The degree of understatement seemed ludicrous. "I did pretty much the same thing the first time I saw him. I threw a…a bowl, I think, at his head. And then I ran away. The night the car hit me. That was the night the car hit me. Alban saved me."

Cole made a choked sound of disbelief. "Tony would’ve seen him, Margrit. He would’ve said something."

"Would he?" Margrit sighed. "It happened so fast, and would you believe your eyes if you thought something big and pale and winged had swept down and snatched me up? Or would you think, no, you must’ve seen me go flying, nothing else would make sense?" She offered an unhappy smile. "And I can’t ask him if he thinks he saw something impossible, because Alban’s life depends on secrecy."

Frustration contorted Cole’s features as he opened and closed his hands. "You’re protecting him. You’ve been lying to all of us to protect that… thing."

Anger bubbled in Margrit’s chest and she tightened her arms around herself, trying to keep it in. Letting Cole bait her only gave him control over the discussion. It did no one, least of all Alban, any good for her to rise to the fear and accusation in her housemate’s words. Still, several seconds passed before she trusted herself enough to say, "Yes," in a neutral voice.

"I thought I knew you, Margrit." Distrust hollowed Cole’s eyes. "I thought we were friends."

"You do. We are. You have no idea how much I would’ve liked to have told you about all of this from the beginning."

"You should have."

Margrit swallowed. "Should plantation owners who helped run the Underground Railroad have told their families what they were doing, Cole? Should Germans who sheltered Jews have announced it to the neighborhood?"

Real anger flashed in Cole’s eyes, so sharp Margrit clenched her thighs to keep from stepping back. "That’s not the same thing at all, Grit."

"Why not?" She kept her voice soft, knowing the argument Cole would make, but waiting to hear it said.

He didn’t disappoint her, though at the same time, he did. "Because slaves and Jews are human."

Margrit nodded stiffly, her entire upper body swayed slightly with the motion. "Not if you asked most slave owners. Not if you checked Nazi doctrine." She had once read a facetious argument that claimed that once Hitler came into a conversation, any rational discussion was over. She felt as if she balanced on that line, trying hard not to stray into overblown rhetoric. "You see my point?"

"I see it." Cole bared his teeth. "I just don’t accept it." He turned and walked away, leaving Margrit slumped by her bedroom door. She turned her wrist up, looking at her watch, and her shoulders sagged farther. It was hours until she had to be at the memorial service. She should’ve waited to shower and dress, and taken time to go for a run. Without consciously planning to, she pushed away from her door to find a pair of socks, then pulled her running shoes on.

"I’m going for a walk," she said quietly and slipped out the door to no response from her housemates.

It wasn’t as good as running, but it was vastly better than being cooped up in the apartment with Cole’s censure hanging over her. Margrit stalked along, hands in her pockets, letting her feet take her where they wanted while her thoughts hopped in exhaustive detail from one moment of the past week to another. More than once emotion threatened to overwhelm her, making her steps unsteady as she worked her way through the park. It would have been easier with Alban at her side, but sunset’s refuge was still far away. She had to face daylight troubles alone, as long as she was with him.

Cole’s anger and fear came back to her, and she sat on a bench, face buried in her hands. Any fantasy of sharing Alban and his world with her friends and family had shattered at his reaction. Worse, promising Cole that she would explain to Cameron created a new level of danger for them. Margrit herself had petitioned to lift the law forbidding humans to learn of the Old Races, and had done so with full understanding of what could happen to those who couldn’t bear the weight of their secret. She hadn’t thought that threat would strike so close to home, or so quickly.

She would have to make him understand the necessity of silence. Margrit pushed to her feet again, mouth set in a grim line. Of all the shocks and upheavals in the last week, she might at least be able to address that one before anything terrible came of it. One small victory would seem a candle against the dark, and she would take whatever light she found.

"What is it you’ve done, love?" The soft transatlantic accent came out of nowhere, startling Margrit into a stifled shriek. Grace O’Malley, catlike in her amusement, sauntered up the pathway and took the seat Margrit had just abandoned. She spread her arms along the bench’s back, using all the space, and smiled at Margrit, though the expression didn’t reach her brown eyes.

Margrit glowered at her as much from envy as embarrassment at being taken off guard. She’d never seen Grace in daylight before. In the sun, her pale vibrance was set off even more dramatically by a black trench coat. Some of her height came from the extra-thick soles on her heavy boots, but even without them she was taller than Margrit. Sprawling across the bench showed her long limbs to their best advantage. Her platinum-blond hair, cropped short, had much darker roots, a nod toward humanity that Margrit imagined would be bleached away again in a day or two.

Not that the leather-clad vigilante was inhuman, according to Alban. She was merely leggy, gorgeous, and looked good with the pale gargoyle, which was offensive enough. Margrit’s glare faltered into rueful humor. She approved of what little she knew about Grace, and if Alban found her attractive, it seemed evident he found Margrit more so. "What do you mean, what have I done?"

"I’ve been watching." Grace pulled herself together, taking up less room on the bench, and Margrit sat down again. "The ice rink. The ball. You’ve got them all dancing to your tune."

Margrit laughed in disbelief. "I wish I had your confidence about that. You’ve been watching? Why?"

"What goes on with you and yours affects me and mine. Don’t pretend you’re not the fulcrum, love. Change swirls around you like a maelstrom, and you stand steady at its center."

"You’ve got a funny idea of steady. I’m barely keeping my head above water." Margrit shifted, uncomfortably aware that, protests aside, Grace had a point. "I didn’t mean for all of this to happen. Everything has just snowballed, from the night I met Alban. What was I supposed to do, dig a hole and put my head in the sand? Snowball and sand," she muttered. "I’m mixing my metaphors."

"Might have been better. Grace likes a steady boat, and you’re running like a mad thing, trying to overturn it."

"Like I overturned the demolition of your building in Harlem?" It hadn’t been Grace’s building at all; it had been one of Eliseo Daisani’s properties. But beneath it lay one of the major hubs for Grace’s complex under-city existence. Daisani had deliberately moved against her, in retaliation for Grace exposing his subway speakeasy to the world. "How did he even know that building’s subbasement was one of your centers, anyway?"

Grace’s voice sharpened. "He’s Eliseo Daisani. What doesn’t he know, if he wants to? I didn’t think anyone used it," she said more lightly, though it sounded as if doing so cost her. "That chess set down there with the selkies and the djinn, well, I recognized that, didn’t I? But the place was sealed off tight as a tomb, not even any dust to come filtering down. If I’d known the Old Races still used it, I’d never have shown it to the city, good press or no." She brought her focus back to Margrit, a crinkle appearing between her eyebrows. "But aye, even that, like overturning the demolition of that building. It would have wreaked hell with our network, but vengeance would’ve been a done deal and all of us let alone after that. Now?" She opened her hands, a fluid gesture that reminded Margrit of Janx’s grace. "Now we’re still riding the troughs and peaks of the storm you’re stirring up."

"Not stirring," Margrit said, suddenly light-headed with clarity. "Stirred. I think we’re moving toward reaping the whirlwind now." Her laugh turned to a shudder, and she leaned forward, elbows on her knees and fingers laced behind her neck. "I mean, I’ve got a funeral to go to in a couple hours, for someone who’s dead pretty much because I agreed to help Alban clear his name. A few tens of thousands of selkies declared themselves because I made an offhand comment about strength in numbers. My housemate’s angry and scared out of his mind because he got a glimpse of Alban’s real form. I’m past stirring. I’m standing in the storm."

"Back off." A note of pleading tinged Grace’s voice. Margrit lifted her gaze to find her expression grim with hope. "Back off, love. Let them fall back into the patterns they know. They’re too old to change their habits without someone forcing them along. I like stability. It’s all that keeps my kids safe."

"They asked for my help." Margrit’s voice dropped. "Alban. The selkies. What was I supposed to do, say no? The selkies have come out, and that changes the Old Races even if I never talk to another one of them in my life. I don’t think they’re going to quietly slink back into the ocean."

"Then do what you can to keep the ripples from affecting my kids. My world must look like madness to you." Grace turned her attention toward the park, refusing to meet Margrit’s eyes. "All of us skulking around underground, on the run from coppers half the time, not for anything we’ve done, but for the idea of what we are. Living where we do, how we do, on the edges of society, it makes folk nervous. But my kids take care of each other. There’s no drugs, there’s no fights. You remember Miriah." Grace looked at Margrit, who smiled with happy recollection.

"She made the best chili I’ve ever had, the night Alban and I were down there. How is she?"

"She’s going to college in the fall." Grace sounded justifiably pleased. "She’d lost a brother to a gang fight and was on the road to leading a pack of her own when she came to me. She’s still a leader, but now it’s in setting an example for other kids to follow, teaching them to cook, to take care of themselves. Maybe it’s the wrong place to change the world from, starting at the bottom, but Grace’s got nowhere else to go."

"You’re not part of their world, though," Margrit said softly. "The Old Races. There’s the building, and Alban’s staying with you during the day, but he could find a new place to live. There’s nothing else, is there?"

"Janx knows I’m down there, and he tolerates me and mine because we don’t steal his business. We’re not so far removed from their world as it seems. Will you do what you can?"

"I don’t know what I can do, but yeah. I’ll try. I don’t want you to lose what you’ve got down there."

Grace nodded and rose to her feet. Margrit followed suit, hesitating before saying, "Grace?"

"Yeah, love?"

"Why do you do it?"

"Looking for a new answer, love?" She went silent a moment, then shrugged easily. "Past sins, that’s all. Making up for past sins." She took herself away with long, lithe strides. Margrit watched her disappear into dappled sunlight wondering what those sins might be. She didn’t know enough about Grace to even imagine them but she was curious. Maybe someday Grace would tell her.

And maybe if pigs had wings they’d be pigeons. No one conversant with the Old Races on any level seemed especially prone to sharing their life details. Margrit struck off in the opposite direction, as if she was telling herself not to pry by doing so.

She arrived at Trinity Church even earlier than she’d promised Joyce Lomax. The afternoon whisked by in a blur of activity and high emotion, Margrit fielding phone calls when Russell’s exhausted family looked as though they could take no more. It felt good to be useful to ordinary people, doing mundane things like giving directions to the memorial service or handling last-minute catering questions. Margrit only stepped back from being an all-purpose gofer as bells sounded the half hour and mourners began to arrive.

She knew many of them by name, more still by sight. People she didn’t expect, though should have, were in attendance. Governor Stanton nodded gravely to her when he caught her eye after expressing his condolences to Mrs. Lomax. It seemed impossible that it had barely been a week since he’d escorted Margrit around the reception for Kaimana Kaaiai. The mayor and his wife were there, as well as judges and lawyers Margrit had worked with or under. A sizable portion of the city’s legal and political elite were present, and Margrit wondered cynically how many of them were there simply to be seen, or if it mattered.

Light faded as the service began, the gold of sunset bringing life to stained-glass windows. Margrit watched the colors change as family, friends and colleagues stepped up to speak briefly about Russell Lomax. Then it was her turn, and she climbed the steps to face the podium and a hall full of faces.

Later she would be confident that her voice was steady and her words well-chosen, but blood rushed through her ears as she spoke, deafening her to her own speech. She focused instead on the people present, trusting a career’s worth of training to not allow a wobble of surprise in her voice when she picked her mother’s face out of the crowd. Like Cole and Cameron, Rebecca Knight was there for Margrit’s sake; even at his death, she was unlikely to forgive Russell for his transgressions thirty years earlier. A shock of gratitude ran through Margrit, stirring up too much other emotion, and despite herself, her voice shook. It took a moment to gain control again, and in that instant she saw a scattering of others whose presence she’d never have predicted at the service.

Eliseo Daisani sat far enough toward the back as to go relatively unnoticed. His expression was solemn, the lack of animation somehow serving to cloak him. A sense of certainty arose in her that she wasn’t meant to see him, but the slightest tilt of his head told her he knew he’d been spotted. Then, with unerring confidence, she looked toward a corner of the church and found Janx’s fiery hair a bright point in the darkness. Humor tightened her lungs, but not her own; it felt as though Daisani had been caught out, and transferred the reaction to her. Her skin itched, as if her blood were trying to work its way free.

Margrit tore her eyes from Janx and drew a deep breath, steadying herself to continue speaking.

For a moment she could hear herself talking quietly about what she’d learned from Russell Lomax, wryly admitting to the tricks that infuriated her even as she made use of them herself. Then her thoughts darted to places her voice and words didn’t go: if Janx was there, then Malik would be.

The djinn was harder to see, a thing of shadows himself, but light finally caught his cane and drew Margrit’s eyes to him. He stood farther from Janx than she might have expected, staking his own territory, making his own place. Whatever he’d done to earn the right to vote for his people had infused him with confidence. Cold bubbled up inside her. Malik had lacked neither confidence nor arrogance to begin with. She had no desire to learn what new heights he might reach for now that he reckoned himself a force, but was certain she’d find out.

Of all the Old Races attending, Kaimana Kaaiai sat front and forward, at the end of a pew near the governor. His presence was a political choice, a clear decision to be seen. Tony sat beside him, one of three bodyguards. As Margrit watched, Kaimana tilted his head toward the detective and murmured something.

Disapproval contorted Tony’s face, but he nodded, and Kaaiai stood up quietly, padding toward the back of the church. His shoes made no sound on the stone floor, his exit distracting from her speech as little as possible. Very few people glanced at him as he left, though Margrit thought her own gaze on his shoulders would make everyone turn to see what she was looking at.

Instead they watched her, intent on words she once more couldn’t hear herself saying. Gladness at having worked with Russell, sorrow at losing his wisdom and guidance. Sick humor shot through her with an impulse to add, carelessly, that she would be leaving Legal Aid in a few weeks, to go to work for Daisani. She squashed it, swallowing as she finished speaking. A brief, unhappy smile flitted over her face and she dropped her gaze, gathering herself to leave the podium.

When she looked up an instant later, Kaimana was gone, the door closing silently behind him. She took stock of the Old Races once more, knowing the attendance of each was dictated for each by another’s presence: Daisani for Russell, but Janx for Daisani, and Malik for Janx. Only Kaimana stood outside that cascade of dependency, the only one able to leave without setting the others askew. As Margrit expected, Daisani remained where he was, half-cloaked by his own quietude. Janx watched the vampire rather than Margrit, as if aware of the steps to the dance they shared.

Margrit’s shoulders dropped as she found a kind of relief in that. For all the changes that were coming, the structure she’d come to recognize among New York’s Old Races seemed unscathed. That would be something to reassure Grace with. She worked her way back to her seat, glancing Malik’s way only as an afterthought.

The corner where he’d waited was empty.