Sinclair left the room with Foyle. Laura paused on the threshold and spotted them in the hallway with Hornbeck. Sinclair nodded as Foyle spoke, but his attention was focused on the door to the hearing room. As they made eye contact again, Sinclair gave the slightest shrug, as if to say he couldn’t help the missed chance to speak with her. Laura made sure he saw her smile as she walked toward the elevator. A little innocent flirting couldn’t hurt.

She called her brownie driver to pick her up. As much as the often servile nature of brownies disturbed her sometimes, it had its advantages. The driver would make every effort to do as she asked without requiring details or explanations.

She waited across the street from the building, trying to come up with a plan to disappoint Blume. Foyle and Sinclair exited the building. Sinclair gave no indication this time that he saw her as they walked in the opposite direction. Fine, she thought. While the flirting was fun, she didn’t want any more distractions.

A few minutes later, Tylo Blume left the building and stood at the curb. As he waited for his own transportation, a male Inverni fairy walked up to him. They exchanged words that became increasingly heated. Blume looked angry. They were too far away for her to read their lips. Nonchalantly, Laura snapped a picture with her cell phone. Incredibly, right in front of the Senate building, Blume called up a spark of deep green essence. He thrust his hand out toward the Inverni, who raised his own hands and backed away. Security guards from the building ran toward them with guns drawn, but the Inverni shot into the air and flew out of sight.

The security guards swarmed Blume, and he extinguished the essence. As he talked to the guards, he gestured up the street in one direction, then into the air where the Inverni had fled. Moments later, a black car arrived. Blume slipped into the backseat, and the car drove off.

As his car drove away, she zoomed in on the picture on her cell. A chill went through her. She recognized the Inverni as the one who had escaped during the drug raid. She rushed into the street, searching the sky. A car horn wailed, and she jumped back, swearing under her breath. Her car arrived. Frustrated, she settled in the back and sent the picture to Terryn. Given his other life, he knew most of the Inverni fairies in the city. Maybe he knew the one who had tried to kill her.

LAURA PACED IN front of Terryn’s desk. She didn’t like not understanding what was going on, when events ran a course she couldn’t predict. One small decision could change everything, one wrong move cause disaster. The creation of a simple glamour to infiltrate the local SWAT team, so mundane at the time, a routine information-gathering task, had set in motion a strange path of overlapping agendas among unlikely players.

She threw herself in the guest chair for the fourth or fifth time. Terryn’s office was Terryn. Photographs lined the walls, landscapes of his ancestral home in Ireland, including a shot of a depressed city. He told her once that the city had grown up over a battlefield that was once a place of beauty and sadness. He wanted to remind himself that the future doesn’t always improve on the past. She didn’t like the idea.

Terryn’s body signature preceded him into the room, and she jumped to her feet. “Dammit, Terryn, I’ve been calling you for hours. Who the hell is that guy in the photo I sent you?” she asked.

He dropped a messenger bag on one of the side chairs and a stack of files on his desk. “Simon Alfrey. I knew him long ago,” he said.

She stood in front of his desk with her arms crossed. “He’s the Inverni from the drug raid. What the hell does this mean, Terryn?”

He narrowed his eyes in thought. “I don’t know. He’s been in Maeve’s service since Convergence. The Alfreys submitted to the Seelie Court before any of the other Inverni clans. Simon likes to style himself as Maeve’s loyal servant, despite any political differences he has with her.”

“By running drugs and trying to kill me?”

Terryn’s brow twitched in thought. “I agree it doesn’t make sense. Maybe this is part of a Guild mission that InterSec doesn’t know about.”

Laura jabbed her finger against the desktop. “He tried to kill me, Terryn, and nearly provoked an essence fight with Bloom in front of the Russell Senate Building. That’s one helluva mission directive.”

Terryn continued unperturbed. “I’m speculating, Laura. I know Maeve manipulates him, and he her. It wouldn’t surprise me if the High Queen is using him to stir up trouble somewhere. She’s done it before. Simon likes to be involved in things that may backfire on Maeve,” he said.

Laura realized she was leaning over Terryn as if he were somehow at fault. She stepped back and sat. “Isn’t that the question? What is he involved in? Who’s really involved here? What are they doing that they are willing to kill FBI agents and police officers? It can’t be drugs. Not at this level,” Laura said.

He shook his head. “You’re right. It’s not drugs. I’ve penetrated the spell on the USB drive you recovered. The data was degraded, but the apartment complex was a makeshift communications center. You stumbled on some kind of shadow network.”

Laura sank into the guest chair. “Okay, this sounds ominous.”

He gestured at the files on his desk. “There’s data relating to manufacturing operations and financial resources. An odd collection of people are either involved or at least targeted for research. There’s information about Blume’s operations, several human businessmen and politicians in the U.S., an unusual assortment of Celtic fey. I don’t know what to make of it yet. I also found several itineraries-including this week’s schedule for the president and Hornbeck,” he said.

She leaned forward. “Both Hornbeck and the president are going to be at the Archives this week. Should we consider canceling the ceremony?”

Terryn divided the files into different stacks. “Rhys and the president don’t like impulsive reactions to these things. I don’t want to look foolish if it’s something else. There are several high-profile itineraries in here. Based on what I’m seeing, it could be anything from money laundering to blackmail. There’s also a manifesto of sorts on the drive.”

“Manifesto? Like crazy manifesto?” she asked.

He smiled at her. “Is there any other kind?”

Laura looked at the files. “I’d like to see it.”

Terryn pulled a thick, bound report out of the top folder and tossed it to the edge of his desk. “I made you a copy. There’s a profile of Alfrey in there, too.”

Laura started flipping through it. “We have two days to figure out if the Archives ceremony is related. I’m betting it is. You’re naming too many people in that file who are going to be at the ceremony. I don’t like coincidences.”

“I’m putting some of it in channels so we can see what the other agencies think,” he said.

She gathered her things and stood at the door. “Blume just got himself invited to the ceremony this afternoon, Terryn. I’m going to see if I can get rid of him. Keep me updated.”

With normal business hours almost over, Laura didn’t want to return to the public-relations department and get sucked into a last-minute project or crisis. She rode the elevator to the garage instead and jumped in her Mercedes. At first she drove with no direction, even no thought, just listening to music and going through the motions of driving. Eventually, rush hour reared its head, and the pleasure and distraction of driving vanished.

She had no desire to return to one of her persona apartments-even her so-called real one in Alexandria. All of them had a work connotation that would intrude on her in distracting ways. Jumping among three personas was tiring, and she didn’t want to feel like she was Mariel or Janice or even Laura, the public-relations staffer.