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"I didn't expect him to be gone," she said. "I always tell him, I'm home all day, just let me know when you'll be away and I'll collect the mail. It doesn't look good when it piles up. Attracts the wrong kind of attention." She gestured at a couple of kids across the road--clean-shaven college boys wearing two-hundred-dollar sneakers.
She continued. "But he just takes off and leaves me to collect his mail, and when he comes for it, I barely get a thank-you. He tells me I don't need to bother with it. Well, someone has to care about this neighborhood."
I nodded in sympathy. "I can't say I know Mr. Childs. I'm a friend of his sister, Amy. Have you met her?"
"I never knew he had a sister."
"I'm sorry to hear that. I'd hoped he was close to Amy. She certainly spoke highly of him, and she needs all the help she can get right now. With the . . ." I lowered my voice. "Cancer."
The old woman blinked. "Cancer?"
"They did a mastectomy, but it didn't catch it all and-- I'm sorry. I don't mean to get into it. I'm just very concerned about her. With the medical bills . . . Well, she has insurance, but it's never enough, is it?"
The woman harrumphed in agreement.
"Amy had to sell her condo," I said. "Which is right down the road from us. She was going to get in touch once she got settled, but it's been almost a month and I haven't heard from her. I was hoping maybe her brother had." I exhaled. "Sorry for the long story."
"No, not at all." Her voice softened, all traces of annoyance gone. "I completely understand. You're a good friend." A glare at Childs's door. "A better friend than some blood relations, I'll bet. I don't know when he's coming back, but he's never gone for long. I could give you his number . . ."
"I have it," I said with a sigh. "I've called a few times. I guess he's really been busy."
Another glare at her invisible neighbor. "No, he just doesn't have a lick of manners. Tell you what, hon. Give me your number and I'll call you when he gets back."
"Thank you. I'd appreciate that."
OUTCLASSED
Tristan sat at the dining room table, watching Eden climb into the vehicle where Gabriel waited. A rental car apparently, not surprising given what Macy had done to his old one. Tristan was not accustomed to emotions, but at that moment he experienced a surge of what might be called anger. The stupid girl could have killed Eden with that stunt. Even killing Gabriel would have been problematic. He'd have incurred the wrath of the Cainsville Tylwyth Teg for that. One had to be careful playing these old games of power. Particularly if you weren't on either team but, rather, hoping to sneak in from the sidelines and snatch the ball from the field.
Macy had been a poor play. That was the problem with the boinne-fala. They were unpredictable, easily swayed by ego and emotion. They didn't understand the meaning of loyalty. He'd offered Macy the one thing she'd wanted most, and she'd betrayed him. Why? Because a small part of the plan hadn't gone exactly as he'd hoped, and she hadn't trusted him on the rest.
He should have foreseen that. Macy was pure human, without a hint of the old blood. When he'd seen how she'd envied Ciara Conway, he should have known she'd turn that envy on Eden, like a child seeing another girl get all the best treats. She'd stomped her feet and wailed, "Why her?" and then aimed all of her small fury at her supposed competitor and . . . been incinerated by it. Which was just as well, because if she'd survived that battle of wits with Eden and Gabriel, Tristan would have had to kill her himself. Not that there'd been much chance of her surviving it. Poor Macy. So terribly outclassed.
He was chuckling to himself when Alis came in the back door. She piled his mail and flyers on the counter and dropped a ripped sheet of notepaper in front of him.
"Her phone number."
"I already have it."
He continued watching through the drawn sheers as the car pulled away.
"She told quite a story," Alis said as she fixed herself a tea. "Did you know you have a sister with cancer?"
"Do I? How tragic. Remind me to send a card."
"She's quite remarkable. Naturally charming and an accomplished liar. Some worried that living with those boinne-fala parents would hamper her blood, but she's inherited gifts from both sides."
"As befits Mallt-y-Nos."
Alis walked over to him. She'd shed her "elderly neighbor" glamour and reverted to her usual form. It wasn't her true form--no one used those anymore. Not only dangerous but pointless. Their true form was close enough to human that they were comfortable looking like them.
Alis appeared as a young woman, perhaps a little older than Eden. Dark-haired, slightly built, pretty but not head-turning. A perfectly ordinary form, not unlike his own.
"Do you need me to do anything else?" she asked.
She didn't ask what he had planned next. Like most of their kind, she was content to leave such matters in the hands of one she trusted to see to her interests. He would win the prize and share the rewards, and there was no risk he'd use and discard her. That's what Macy hadn't understood. Of course, as far as Macy knew, she had been dealing with ordinary people. And, if he was being honest, the codes of loyalty that bound him and Alis did not extend to Macy. The boinne-fala existed to be manipulated and used, as they always had. The difference was that he'd given his word to Macy.
"Tristan?" Alis prompted when he didn't reply.
