Lupi 04 - Night Season

you go back, or will you stay here?”
    â€œI’d thought…” He looked down, fiddling with the knife he’d used to spread his jam. “But my Mary is gone where gates can’t take me. I’ve built a life here, and not such a bad life. I’m guessing Chicago is very different from the city I left, eh?”
    She nodded. “Computers, cell phones, TiVo…a lot has changed all over. In Chicago—well, Soldier Field looks like the Jetsons landed and smushed a steel top hat on the old building. And Millennium Park—you should see that. It’s pretty cool. Everyone likes the Bean. But not everything has changed. There’s still a mayor named Daley, and Cubs fans are still hoping.”
    Daniel let out a quick laugh. “Hoping? You mean in nearly thirty years they haven’t managed to—”
    â€œHey!” Gan cried indignantly, hands on what might have been her hips, though given her lack of a waistline it was hard to say. “Aren’t there any fishies left? Did everyone eat all of the fishies?”
    â€œSit down,” Steve Timms said firmly. “You can have what’s left of my fish, but next time come when you’re called instead of throwing a pillow at me.”
    Cynna grinned. Steve had come a long way from wanting to shoot everything that wasn’t human.
    â€œPeoples.” Bilbo tapped on his glass like a dinner speaker getting the attention of club members. “We is finished eating and is needing to talk.”
    Cynna exchanged a look with Cullen. Bilbo was right. It was time. But the discussion might not go the way the gnome thought it would. She and Cullen had had their own little talk before leaving the cabin. “We’ll talk,” Cynna said. “I’ll start.”
    Bilbo shot her a frown. “I first. We have sending for tritons to compel barge onward. Soon tritons to be arriving, but—”
    â€œBut first I have to decide if I will go onward with the barge.”
    â€œDecide?” Bilbo slapped his hand on the table. “What is this deciding to make? We is all knowings that must proceed, or all die. My world it is in danger, yes, but you is in this world. All must go onward! Is only way!”
    â€œI don’t go on until I have some questions answered,” Cynna said calmly. “We’ll start with the question of betrayal. There’s a leak somewhere, and I’m thinking it has to be someone on this ship.”
    Instead of anger or denial, she got confusion. The gnomes exchanged puzzled glances. Tash frowned. “You think we are leaking? Not a leak in the barge, but in the passengers?”
    The charm and the learn-language spell must not cover every possible usage. “Leaking information. The slugs with assholes on their faces found us within a day of our leaving the City. They came straight for me. They—or whoever sent them—knew too much.”
    â€œIs troubling, yes,” Bilbo said. “But is many spells could track somethings as big and well known as chancellor’s barge.”
    â€œYeah? Well, that makes the decision to travel on this barge pretty odd, doesn’t it?” She looked around the table. “Unless you wanted me out here, grabbing the attention of every faction who wants to keep you from finding your missing medallion.”
    â€œIs not making sense for us to—”
    â€œIt would explain a lot,” Cynna said, raising her voice to speak over him. “I keep wondering why you had to import a Finder. Why even the sidhe can’t seem to locate it. You don’t really expect me to Find it, do you? You just want me out here trying, drawing all the hostile attention.”
    Bilbo’s frown was so fierce she wanted to warn him about his face freezing that way. “Why you is saying sidhe can’t find it?”
    â€œAny people who can perform a translocation spell flawlessly on an instant’s notice could find a missing object.”
    â€œWho? Who is doing…Theera! She is translocating? When!”
    The word came out as a demand, not a question. Cynna looked at Cullen. They’d been undecided earlier about whether to reveal Theera’s approach to him. He gave the tiniest movement of his head—not a shake, but a negative. “I’m not answering questions now,” she said. “You are. Tell me why you’re upset about Theera translocating.”
    Bilbo didn’t like it, but