Read Online A Local Habitation by Seanan McGuire - Free Book Online Page B

frozen-glass smile. “Really? That’s fascinating. Because, see, normally people call before they send guests.”
    “He sent me because his niece hasn’t called in a few weeks.” There was something about her smile that bothered me. Not the obvious falseness—she was clearly on edge—but the way it was shaped. “I don’t suppose you know anything about that?”
    Her eyes widened, and she shoved her glasses back up her nose, smile abandoned. “What? Hasn’t called? What’s that supposed to mean? He’s the one who stopped calling!”
    Moving her glasses made them frame her eyes rather than blocking them and brought the goldenrod yellow of her irises into sharp relief. I only know one family line with eyes that color. Ignore the hair, take away the glasses, and she looked more like Sylvester than Rayseline did.
    “That’s not what he thinks,” I said. “January Torquill, I presume?”
    Her eyes narrowed, and for a brief moment, I thought she was going to argue. Then she deflated, shoulders slumping, and said, “Not really. I mean, I’m January. I’m just not January Torquill. I never have been.” She shrugged, a flicker of humor creeping into her voice. “As far as I know, no one’s January Torquill. Which is probably a good thing—that’d be a terrible name to stick on a child. It sounds like something out of a bad romance novel.”
    “So if you’re not January Torquill, that makes you . . . ?”
    “January O’Leary. I’m not full Daoine Sidhe—my father was half-Tylwyth Teg, and his last name was ‘ap Learianth.’ That doesn’t exactly work on a business card. We settled on ‘O’Leary’ as the abbreviation when we incorporated.” She smiled again. This time, the expression had an edge I recognized all too well. Sylvester smiled that way when he was trying to figure out whether something was a threat. “It’s interesting that Uncle Sylvester didn’t tell you that. Considering the part where he sent you here, and everything.”
    “You have a phone,” I said. “You could call him.”
    “I already tried that while Elliot was stowing you and the kid in the cafeteria.”
    “And?”
    “No one answered.”
    “I have directions in your uncle’s handwriting.” I held up the folder.
    “Handwriting can be faked.”
    I bit back an expletive. Half the Kingdom knew me on sight and expected me to start breaking things the second I walked into the room, while the other half wanted three forms of photo ID and a character witness. “Alex and Elliot knew who I was.”
    “They know who you look like. There’s a difference.”
    Sad to say, she had a point. I nearly got killed last December by a Doppelganger who impersonated my daughter. In Faerie, faces aren’t always what they appear to be.
    “Okay. If you know who I look like, you presumably know what . . . that person . . . can or can’t do. Right?” January nodded. “It’s sort of hard to prove that I can’t cast a spell, so that won’t work. If you want to give me some blood, I can tell you what you did for your fifth birthday . . .”
    “That’s okay.”
    “Didn’t think so.” I sighed. “I don’t suppose dropping my illusions and letting you poke me with sticks would do it? I’d really like to get this sorted out.”
    She frowned. “It’s a start,” she said.
    “Got it,” I said, and let my human disguise dissolve, wafting away in a wash of copper and cut grass.
    Jan watched intently, nostrils flaring as she sniffed at the air. Then she grinned. If her smile was bright before, it was nothing compared to the way she lit up now. It was like looking at the sun. “Copper and grass! You are you!”
    “No one’s ever been that happy about the smell of my magic before,” I muttered. “How do you . . .?”
    “I have files on my uncle’s knights, in case someone tries to sneak in.” There was a brutal matter-of-factness to her tone. She was the Countess of a County balanced on the edge of disaster, and this was just the