"Wish we knew," Claire said. "I was going to ask. Because he's not the only one freaking today."
"No?" Eve cocked a black eyebrow at a wicked, inquisitive angle. "Spill."
"Myrnin," Shane said, and reached over to grab the cup she shoved over toward him. "Not that the guy's stable any time, but today he's extra-crispy crazy."
Eve leaned over, resting her elbows on the counter, as the milk hissed and steamed in its pitcher, heating to the proper temperature. "You think it's because of us? Me, and Michael?"
"Look, I know that you two getting engaged is somehow worse than him turning you - and no, don't ask me to explain that; it's just popular theory - but I don't think it's creating quite this level of drama," Claire said. "And Myrnin doesn't have any opinion, anyway. He's happy you're having a party, and he doesn't care what it's for. He wouldn't be getting all grand mal about it."
"Shit," Eve said. She retrieved the milk and began expertly blending Claire's mocha. "I was kind of hoping it was just about us, because at least that would be stupid. Now I'm scared it's actually smart to be worried."
"You and me both," Shane said. "And when the two of us agree, something is definitely wrong."
Things were busy at the counter, so Eve couldn't talk longer; Claire and Shane took their drinks to an empty table and sat, savoring the warm beverages and watching the clouds flow by overhead through the big plate glass window. Wind whipped the scalloped fringe on the red awning, and Claire could feel the glass of the window humming slightly in the gusts.
"Run," she said. "What do you think that means, Shane?"
He shrugged. "Who the hell knows? Maybe it's a message from an immortal bill collector, and she forgot to pay her rent for the last two hundred years or something. Maybe someone's reminding her that exercise is important."
"You don't really think that."
"No." He took a long sip of coffee, eyes hooded and dark. "No, I guess I don't. But we can't figure this out without more intel, Claire. And whatever it is, it doesn't look like the end of the world."
"Yet," she said softly. "Yet."
She caught sight of something out of the corner of her eye, something that made her cringe and recoil and go weirdly dizzy inside, as if what she was looking at was so deeply wrong it made her physically ill. It was outside the window, just passing . . . but when she looked, she saw nothing out of the ordinary at all.
Just a man, walking.
She knew him, she realized, or at least recognized him; it was that guy, the one she'd seen come into Marjo's Diner. Mr. Average. He wasn't hurrying like the other people on the street; he was walking calmly, hands in the pockets of his coat.
Smiling.
It shouldn't have looked so odd, but it made the hackles rise on the back of her neck.
"What?" Shane was watching her, and he stared out the window, too, trying to see what was alarming her. "What is it?"
"Nothing," she said, finally. The man had passed out of sight. "Absolutely nothing."
Which was the weirdest thing of all, she thought.
Chapter Four
AMELIE
I had heard many insane things during my lifetime, and more than half of them had come from Myrnin - friend, servant, occasional enemy, chaos personified on the best of his very numerous days. Today, when he burst into my office, disregarding the warnings of my assistant, I was in no mood to tolerate him.
I turned from the candle I was lighting to face him, put on my best royal expression of anger, and said, "You do not have leave to barge in whenever you wish, and you know that. Go back to your - "
He strode toward me with his ridiculously heavy black leather coat flaring about him, and sailed a letter toward me with a flick of his wrist. I caught it with instinctive ease and turned it over to see the front. It was modern paper, of a smooth, bland construction, but the writing on the front reminded me of other times, other places, not all of them as pleasant as this one.
"It's from Morley," Myrnin said, and slapped his large hat down on my desk, ruffling the paperwork. "He sent a runner from Blacke."
That caught my attention, and I stared at him for a beat. "A runner," I repeated. "Has he quite forgotten we live in more modern times, or has he simply adopted the lordly attitudes he once so despised in others?"
"Read it," Myrnin said. The writing said For the eyes of the Founder only, and the only had been underlined three times. The envelope was still sealed. I slit it open with the side of a sharp fingernail and glanced at him again.
"I sense you are well aware of what it says," I told him. "What magic trick?"