One of the lobby servants started to lead me across the thick carpeting toward the front doors. “This way, sir.”

At the back end of the lobby, doors led out to the harbor. “No, thanks. I’ll walk.”

I strolled the dock overlooking the channel. Luxury yachts rested at the pier behind the hotel. In nice weather, the plaza hosted everything from movie nights to concerts to weddings. I could see and hear them from my apartment. Across the mouth of the channel, the Weird shimmered with a rainbow light of essence. I picked out the faint blue glow of my computer in the upper window of my dilapidated warehouse apartment. No boats docked beneath it, but a fair amount of sea wrack clung to the pilings.

I glanced up at the hotel. Either Ceridwen didn’t have essence-masking security, or she didn’t feel she needed it. I found her suite with no trouble. Her tall figure blazed as she stood at the window, the spear in her hand. I couldn’t make out the details of her face, but I had no doubt she was staring at me. I continued along the dock.

A cold wind came up the channel as I turned onto the Old Northern Avenue bridge. It’s a swing bridge that pivots to allow boat traffic. Rusted steel beams form trusses in a complex pattern that, depending on your aesthetic, is picturesque or an eyesore. Either way, it makes crossing the channel on foot convenient.

Someone walked in the roadway about midway across. As he came toward me, I noticed he wore a collared shirt and long pants, a little underdressed for the cold weather. He glared at me, like someone in a bad mood looking for an excuse to get into it with someone on the ass-end of town.

A gust of wind rushed from the harbor, stirring up sand and debris. Grit flew in my face, and I shielded my eyes against it. The wind moaned across the bridge, the many gaps and crossbeams in the trussing acting like a pipe organ. When the eddies of sand settled, I crossed the bridge. The guy was gone. I checked for essence nearby in case he was a drunk lurking in the shadows, waiting to jump me. Nothing. I chalked it up to his thinking better of it.

On the Weird end of the bridge, a police car blocked the road leading back into the financial district. A lone patrol officer wearing official outdoor gear stood by the car. We nodded as I passed. A car pulled up, and the officer signaled it to turn back into the neighborhood. Behind his patrol car, a police barrier had been set up with a sign that said BRIDGE CLOSED TO INBOUND TRAFFIC. I looked back along the bridge. I’d come across on the outbound lane and hadn’t noticed anything unusual except the walker. My curiosity piqued, I retraced my steps.

“Bridge closed, sir,” the officer said.

“I just walked over it. It’s not blocked on the other end. Is it safe?” I said.

The officer kept a professional look on his face. “It’s safe to walk on.”

I cocked my head. “Are you saying I can’t use it from this direction?”

He gave a curt nod. “No one can use the bridge to enter the financial district without clearance. Order of the police commissioner.”

I exhaled sharply. “You’re kidding.”

A subtle change came over him, a hardening of features that cops get when they think they’re about to have trouble with someone. He stared at me, not speaking. I smiled and nodded again. “Thank you.”

I wasn’t going to argue with him. The guy was only doing his job. If Commissioner Scott Murdock thought barricading the fey in the Weird was going to help, he was the idiot, not the poor patrol officer who had to enforce it. I shook my head. It was window-dressing security. Blocking the bridge might stop foot traffic, but plenty of fey flew and swam. The police would have their hands full trying to stop them.

I stepped around the police car, glancing back at the officer, the bridge stretching long and empty behind him. I paused again and looked back. The bridge was empty. The officer stared. “Move along, sir,” he said.

“Did you see anyone else on the bridge?”

“Sir?”

“A guy on the bridge, walking out of the Weird. He didn’t pass me on the bridge. Did he come back this way?”

The officer’s hand nonchalantly dropped near his weapon. “You’re the only person to come through, sir. Please move along. That’s a direct police order to clear the area.”

I held my hands out and down. “No problem, Officer. Thank you again.”

I made for my apartment on Sleeper Street. Something about the guy on the bridge felt familiar. I have a good memory for essence signatures of people I know, but he had been too far away for me to sense him. By the time I reached my apartment building, I had convinced myself that the look he gave me meant he knew me, knew me and didn’t particularly like seeing me. I didn’t particularly like not seeing him then, not knowing where he went and why the cop hadn’t seen him. I kept a sharp ear and eye out all the way down Sleeper, but no one followed me.

No fancy yachts or doormen or limos waited outside my building. The Boston Harbor Hotel glowed with yellow light across the channel. I didn’t bother trying to see if Ceridwen was still watching. She had likely gotten bored by now and moved on to some other power scheme. I hadn’t helped myself by irritating her, but at this point, there wasn’t anything she could do to me.

If Ceridwen continued hassling me, I’d have to figure out a game plan to get her off my back. And if Commissioner Scott Murdock thought he could keep people from the Weird out of the city, he was in for a surprise. I didn’t know what I would do, but I wasn’t going to sit back and take it. I thought I’d let the two of them play it out, then cross that bridge when I came to it. And no police officer or Faerie queen was going to stop me.

Murdock lay on his back, sweat glistening on his forehead as he breathed with exertion. As I looked down at him, he gave me that smirk, the one that says, “Yeah, I can do this.” His arms came up, his chest expanding with a last burst of energy, and he dropped the bar on the rack. Rolling up from the bench, he shot his elbows out and gave his body a twist first in one direction, then the other.

I slipped a couple of plates off each end of the bar and took his place on the bench press. He came around to spot me. Again with the smirk, he held one hand above the bar to make the point that he wouldn’t need two hands to lift it off me if I lost it. I finished the set and sat up, running a towel over my face. “Are we going to talk about this?”

He grabbed the chin-up bar, lifted himself in the air, and talked without missing a beat in his set. “Why does everyone feel the need to ‘talk about this’?”

I shook my head. “Aren’t you the least bit concerned?”

He dropped to the floor. “You have one more set.”

I lay back. The last two reps threatened to fail, but I would be damned if I let him get the satisfaction of pulling the bar off me. Again. I stood and stretched.

Murdock and I worked out together. It was how we met. Jim’s Gym is low-key, on the edge of the financial district, just over the bridge from the Weird. It wasn’t so far that I talked myself out of going and not so near that I obsessed about working out. Murdock didn’t care where it was because he drives. He parks in front and puts his little “I’m a police officer and can park wherever I want” card on the dashboard. Once we started on a case together, we didn’t discuss it during workouts. It kept some normalcy in our friendship.

We worked our routine at the empty end of the gym. Late afternoons tended to be quiet, and the only other people exercising were out of earshot.

“Murdock, you’re bench-pressing twice your weight.”

He stood at the dumbbell rack re-sorting the weights by size. “I know.”

I leaned against the rack and crossed my arms. “I’m just saying, I think you’re awfully accepting of it.”