Conspiracies - Mercedes Lackey [92]
Nice. “Too sweet.” But that was probably as close to an apology as Muirin was going to get, so Spirit took it. The perfume was nice, it smelled like roses. Yeah, very much not Muirin.
“I’m sorry, Spirit,” Burke said quietly. “For the other night.”
Addie nodded. “Me, too.”
“Okay,” Spirit replied, and slowly sat down. They started their usual desultory game of Monopoly, and that was when she noticed the only one still wearing the Oakhurst ring was Muirin. “So … how are things, under our new overlords?” she asked, trying to sound light.
Muirin made a face. “Awful, but Mark and Madison are pretty cool. They’re helping me get stuff in here, so that’s good. This might be Stalag Oakhurst, but chocolate helps everything.”
The Riders are helping her with her smuggling ring? Uh, what?
“I haven’t changed my mind about leaving,” Burke replied, shoulders sagging. “I have an appointment with Doctor Ambrosius in two days. I can’t do this. I just can’t.”
Spirit’s heart sank as Addie nodded sympathetically. She’d been thinking about telling them about QUERCUS—but with Muirin all cozy with the Riders, and Burke wanting to leave, it looked like she was the only one wanting to find out the truth anymore.
Except … Loch gave her a significant look. And when Addie cut the game short, because Muirin had pretty much cleaned her out, she lingered behind with Loch to clean up their area.
“Tonight. The basement,” he whispered. With a thrill and a little lift to her heart, she nodded.
* * *
“You’re right about one thing, Spirit. We’ve got to figure out if there’s a place where the Legacies with no magic go,” Loch said, as they went through more of the old boxes. “I don’t think it’s safe for Burke to go back to his family, and for another…” He stopped, and shook his head. “Your sister, Phoenix, didn’t have any magic, did she?”
“No, and believe me, she’d have been showing it off if she did,” Spirit replied, with a lump in her throat.
“So there has to be another Oakhurst. And we have to find it. If we find it, maybe we can get ourselves transferred to it or something. Heck…” he hesitated. “Maybe you were lied to at the hospital; maybe Oakhurst told them to lie. Maybe Phoenix is still alive, and there, and Oakhurst didn’t want you to know about it because, oh, I don’t know, because they didn’t want you thinking and worrying about her or something.”
Her heart contracted—hard!—at that thought. She pushed the idea away. She didn’t want any false hopes right now.
“I don’t think so,” she said, around the painful lump in her chest. “I think he would have told me—” She stopped, both hands buried deeply in a box of old papers, just about to blurt out the secret of QUERCUS. She stopped herself before she did.
Before Loch could ask her who she meant, she quickly changed the subject. “I can’t believe they’re still having a February Dance,” she said. “I mean, that’s crazy! Look what happened the last two times we had some kind of thing like that! It’s like asking for another attack!”
Loch shrugged. “They could be sending the Shadow Knights a message. I’m pretty sure it’s all to make us think things are normal. They’re probably laying traps. Breakthrough seems to do psychological things like that. Like, the way they changed the classes—okay, it’s like a military academy, and they’re telling us we’re getting ready for the war, but they’re also telling us that it’s okay, they’re protecting us and some things can still be the way they were.”
“Which they aren’t!” she exclaimed, throttling down the edge of hysteria in her voice as best as she could. She sat back on her heels. “Nothing is normal—”
“Tell me about it. Even for Oakhurst. Even this thing. They want us to go as couples. Girls are supposed to ask guys.” He laughed bitterly. “If I went as half of a couple, I wouldn’t want to go with a girl anyway.”
She turned to look at him, blinking. “You—what?” Then what he actually meant dawned on her. “You’re gay?”
He nodded, and flushed. “And there’s somebody I really like, a lot, but—can you imagine what would happen if I came out? Here?”
She grimaced,