Hands of Flame. C.E. Murphy

at him, found herself gazing too long, and, blushing, looked back at Cara as the door closed again. “There can’t be anything people wouldn’t agree to do for him. Oh, my God. I think I could be paralyzed from the eyes down and if he said get up and do a salsa I would.”

      Cara smiled faintly. “I guess he’s not my type. He said, ‘Feel better,’ but I don’t yet.”

      “Damn.” Margrit took Cara’s hand cautiously. “What happened, Cara? Are you all right?” She wrinkled her nose as she asked the question; all right depended on how it was defined. Cara was alive, but the delicate lines of her face were swollen and bruised, making dark blots of her eyes. Her right arm was in a cast, and the stiffness of her body suggested more restraining bandages in other places.

      “I got shot.” The flat statement struck Margrit as badly out of place, coming from a selkie. Mundane humans got shot, not mystical Old Races. Cara freed her hand from Margrit’s and drifted her fingers to below the ribs on her left side. “In the back, above the kidney.”

      “Who …? Not a …?” Margrit didn’t want to voice the word djinn aloud, but Cara, understanding, shook her head with a faint smile.

      “No, we haven’t been trying to kill each other. We have a common enemy.”

      “Humanity.” Margrit ground her teeth. “So it was one of us who shot you.”

      “I didn’t see who it was. But I was too far from the water to escape, so an ambulance came and picked me up. I have to get out of here, Margrit. I have to.” Passion left the slight woman and she sank back into the bed, even her bruises graying with exhaustion. “I would heal faster if I could transform. It helps put things to right.”

      “Cara, the only way I can think of to get you out of here is to ask Daisani to have you transferred to a private hospital.”

      “I don’t want to owe him anything.”

      “I know, but you also don’t want anybody looking at your blood work too closely. Do you even know what they’d find?”

      “We do our best to tend to our own sicknesses,” Cara replied, answer enough. “But I didn’t ask for you to help me get out of here. There’s something else.”

      “Deirdre?” Margrit’s stomach tightened in concern.

      “She’s safe. I sent her away when the fighting started.”

      “Why didn’t you go when the fighting started?”

      “Kaimana asked me to be here.” Admiration bordering on reverence colored Cara’s voice, reminding Margrit of how the interns had looked at Dr. Davis. Kaimana Kaaiai hadn’t struck her as the sort of man to inspire such loyalty, but on the other hand, he’d engineered the selkies’ acceptance back into the Old Races. That he’d done so in part by ruthlessly manipulating humans had soured Margrit against him. Cara, though, had no reason to feel that same disappointment. “I know you see me as young and weak, but Kaimana acted on my advice when he brought the quorum together. I’m stronger than you think.”

      Margrit began a protest, then bit it down. “You’re right. It’s hard not too think of you as a girl in too deep. Maybe because that’s how I feel a lot of the time, and you’re younger than me. So what are you, his lieutenant?”

      “I’m the one holding this treaty together, here in New York. Without me to remind them who our enemy is, I’m afraid they’ll start tearing each other apart, laws or no laws.”

      “Cara, no offense, but how are you managing that?”

      Cara’s gaze shifted away, then back again. “I have help. An adviser. But there’s something else, too. This treaty is causing another problem.”

      “Worse than open fighting on the streets?”

      “Much worse. Margrit, I need to know if you’re our ally.” Whatever Cara had hidden when she looked away now faded beneath resolution that turned her bruises into streetwise makeup and attitude. “I’d thought you were. You helped us shake up the world, and then you disappeared.”

      “Disappeared?” Margrit echoed, startled and stung. “Everything kind of went to hell. I’m just trying to get my head on straight. It’s not like I left the city.”

      Something scathing darted through Cara’s expression, hardening her beyond anything Margrit had seen in the past. For an instant she no longer looked like a battered young woman on a sickbed, but rather an embattled warrior, too marked with scars to have pity for anyone else’s. “When a human walks away from the Old Races, she’s gone whether she’s in the next room or a thousand miles away. I thought you were on our side.”

      “On your side.” The sting blossomed, as much an alpha-female reaction to Cara’s change as an honest and justified anger. Margrit dropped her voice, not wanting to chance being overheard, but unwilling to let the challenge go unanswered. “I did what you wanted. I got the quorum together and they voted to accept the selkies back into the Old Races as full brethren. Yeah, that was on your side, but it was because I thought it was the right thing to do. You bred with humans because there was no other way to survive, and I think it’s stupid to deny a people’s heritage the way the rest of the Old Races did to you. But let’s talk about on your side, Cara. Let’s talk about the peace treaty you developed with the djinn outside of the quorum, to make sure your natural enemies would support you. Let’s talk about how that treaty said you’d help destroy Janx and his House so the selkies and djinn could take over his underworld contacts and businesses. Let’s talk about how that power play created a situation that led to Malik’s death. Just what part of any of that did you mention to me? You used me. So forgive me if I don’t quite know what on your side is supposed to mean anymore.”

      Cara lifted her chin, undaunted by Margrit’s accusations and gaining strength from her own convictions. “You’re right. We used you. We got what we wanted through you. From you. We have recognition amongst the Old Races. We have money and power, if we can hold on to Janx’s territory.” She took a breath and held it, then ended with grim finality: “We also have a treaty with a people who wish to decimate the remaining Old Races in retaliation for the death of one of their own.”

      Margrit stared, then laughed, a sharp sound of incredulity that bit into her anger and tore some of it away. “Tell them no. Are they nuts?”

      “They’re djinn.” Cara’s bruises lent depth to her short reply. “Read your mythology, Margrit. Djinn aren’t known for their sanity.”

      “Then break the alliance. You’d have to be insane to agree.”

      “We need them.” Despite lying on a bed, Cara squared her slender shoulders as if she was repeating another skirmish in an endless battle. “Without their acknowledgment of our people—”

      “The quorum’s already been met. What are they going to do, say never mind, we didn’t mean it? I’d think if it worked that way, Janx would’ve repudiated you by now, since he’s the one whose territory you took over. And you’ve got numbers. There are tens of thousands of you. None of the other—” Margrit broke off, modulating her voice before she dared go on. “None of the other Old Races have that. You don’t need to go to war over a stupid mistake.”

      Cara smiled, thin humorless expression. “That’s what allies do, Margrit Knight. Mistake,” she added clearly.

      Margrit shook her head, uncomfortable realization clicking into place. Cara had never before used her name with such impunity. She’d called her Miss Knight, and Margrit had called her Cara, the relationship unequal. Cara’s new confidence leveled it. Coarse embarrassment heated Margrit’s cheeks as she realized she’d preferred having the upper hand, and how petty that was. She measured her response cautiously. “No money for nothing here, Cara. I’m finally starting to learn that you people all deal in information as a commodity. I’ve overplayed my hand too many times already.”

      “What do you want from me in exchange