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Now Fred’s wings fanned out, sparkled. “I can’t wait!”
“Let’s get some news for New Hope while we do,” Arlys suggested. “How about we take a little stroll around Midtown, Fred?”
“Colin can take you—secured areas only.”
“Great, you can be our first interview,” Arlys told Colin. “Go on, Fred, I’ll catch up.”
“I really like your arm.” Fred took his leathered hand, beamed up at him. “It’s super cool. I bet the girls think it’s sexy.”
That got a grin. “Now that you mention it,” he said as they walked out.
“Fallon, I just wanted a minute. I wanted to say that even after all this time, all that’s happened, there’s so much about magick that baffles me.” Watching Fallon, Arlys ran her fingers over the anchor desk. “But something I know, absolutely, right down to the bone? What happened here mattered. It matters that of all of New York, you chose this place. And it means everything, Fallon, just everything to know it mattered.”
She had to pause, gather herself as tears spilled. “When I sit at this desk again, tell whoever can hear or see that the light is back in New York, it’ll close that circle for me. I know that doesn’t end it, but it’ll close that circle, and I know, absolutely, right down to the bone, that matters, too.”
Arlys let out a breath, swiped the tears away. “Now I’m going to do something I never thought I’d do again. I’m going to walk in New York.”
“You could stop off in the triage on the first floor. My mother should be there. I think she’d like to take that walk with you and Fred.”
“I’ll do that.” She walked over, embraced Fallon. “It all matters.”
Alone, Fallon went back to her maps. She had a plan, needed to refine it. And help close that circle.
Surreal, Lana thought, as she walked down Fifth Avenue with Fred and Arlys. One building rubble, the next soot-streaked, graffitiscrawled, but standing. Who chose, she wondered, what would stand, what would fall?
The rising temperatures and stiff winds of March shifted and slowly melted the high hills of snow, and lethally long icicles dripped and shrunk as they jabbed down from eaves. Sentries patrolled, the occasional support troop rode by on horseback or on electric scooters. Some carted wagons of supplies that rumbled and bounced, but in this sector, won back and held by LFL forces, along the avenue once thick with traffic and tourists, the voices of three women rang clear as church bells.
She could smell the smoke from distant fires, hear the echoing rat-a-tat of gunfire from the north, the sudden blast of light from a bolt streaking across the sky.
And thought of the scent of roasted chestnuts, the blare of horns, the colorful displays in shop windows.
The sea of people, moving, moving, moving along the sidewalks, so many busy places to go.
“I bought my winter coat there.” Fred pointed to a hulled-out building across Fifth. “They always had good sales,” she remembered. “And there was this guy who sold fake cashmere scarves on the sidewalk right down there. I got one to go with the coat. Ten bucks.”
“I shopped there, too,” Arlys remembered. “I’d usually head downstairs and get a latte from the Starbucks after. And I treated myself to an outrageously expensive pair of over-the-knee suede boots at Saks that last Christmas.”
She turned, studied what had been a Fifth Avenue landmark. War had sheared off the top floors, shattered the windows. Oddly, a couple of naked mannequins sprawled like the dead behind the broken glass.
“I hope some resistance fighter looted my apartment and got them, and everything else.”
“Where did you shop, Lana?”
Lana smiled at Fred. “I was a downtown girl. The Barney’s on Seventh practically applauded when I went in. God, I loved to shop—to buy. Shoes, big, big weakness.”
She looked down at the sturdy, laced leather of the elf-made boots that had served her, and well, for three years.
“Oh well.”
“Do you miss it?” Fred asked. “I sort of miss shopping—the looking and touching and discovery. You don’t think about it really but, seeing all this, it brings it back so I kind of miss it.”
She hooked her arms through theirs. “We’d have had fun with it, the three of us. Shopping, trying on clothes, stopping for lunch.”
They watched a scavenging team haul out bags and crates from what had been—if Arlys’s memory served—a Banana Republic.
“But scavenging’s fun, too,” Fred decided.
“I’m amazed there’s anything left to scavenge.”
Because there was, because it seemed there was always something else to find, Lana’s mood lifted. “Well, it is New York.” She gave them each a hip bump. “Let’s go shopping.”
With her father, Fallon refined her battle plan, then called in her available commanders. After more than an hour’s debate, she sent them back to prepare their troops.
Will stopped, laid a hand on her shoulder as he studied her floating map. “Basically the same tactics as Arlington.”
“It worked.”
“Damn straight. Well, I’m going to find my wife before I head back.”
“She’s with mine,” Simon told them. “Give me a minute and I’ll go with you.” He turned first, pressed a kiss to Fallon’s forehead.
“What’s that for?”
“We’ll say luck.”
Reaching out, she gripped his hand. “Are the numbers right?”
“As they’ll ever be. We’ll get the word out. Buy you a drink later? It’s tradition. A drink before the war.” He glanced at Duncan. “You, too.”
“Sure.” Duncan waited until Simon walked out. “He’s warming up to me.”
“He’s always been warm toward you.”
“Warmer before I got naked with his daughter. But he’s warming up again. After the drink, let’s have another tradition and get naked before the war.”
“I’m for that. It’s all in, Duncan.”
“And it’ll be all in and done. It’s the right move, the right time. We’re ready.” He gave her a quick yank, took her mouth, took them both away for just a moment. “More of that later.”
Alone, she walked back to the map. She expected she’d have another heated argument with Colin, but she would keep him solidly on support on this one. She had additional fighters with the resistance—undisciplined for the most part, but fierce.
“Hey.”
She glanced over. “Mick.”
“Sorry I couldn’t get here sooner. We had a little distraction.”
Since mud and blood streaked his face, his clothes, she doubted it had been little or merely a distraction. “Are you hurt?”
“Nah.” He swiped the back of his hand over his face. “Some DU thought they could push us out of Chelsea—your mom’s old neighborhood, right? We thought different. Got an assist from a small band of resistance, and tamped it down. But I couldn’t get here for the briefing.”
He wandered in, his forehead creasing as he looked at the map. “Is that my battalion?”
“Yeah.”
“When do we strike?”
“Daybreak. Let me run it through.”
While she did, he pulled a pouch of sunflower seeds from his pocket—offered her some, munched.
“You’ve got Poe leading Colin’s troops.”
“Colin’s not cleared for combat.”
“He’s gonna be pissed. You know he’s working on getting a tat on the arm—after we hoist the banner here. That’s not going to screw up the magicks, is it?”
“It’s the same as his own skin now. It is his skin now, so no.”
“Cool enough. Shit, almost forgot. I brought one of the resistance guys back with me. He wanted to check, see if he can find his daughter. He got her out awhile back with directions to New Hope.”
“Did he give you a name?”
“Funny name. I’m not sure—”
“Marichu.”
“Yeah, that’s it. I told him somebody around here pr
obably had records, or could find out.”
“I know her. She’s here.” Gesturing for him to follow, she started out. “What’s his name?”
“Jon—nice and easy to remember. I never figured she’d be here. He said she’s sixteen.”
“She says seventeen now, but either way young. And persuasive.” She found an elf runner, gave him instructions. “Let’s find Jon.”
They took the stairway. They had the elevators working on magickal power, but Fallon found them too confining and slow.
“We keep records in an office on the main floor. Support staff are trying to keep it updated. Rotating troops in and out, wounded, casualties. How’s your father? And Minh?”
“Dad’s good. Minh took a hit—nothing serious,” Mick said quickly. “Just some shrapnel in the leg. He’ll be up and running for tomorrow.”
“Good to hear.” She flicked him a glance. “We’re okay, right? You and me?”
“Yeah.” After only the briefest hesitation, he gave her an elbow poke. “It’s hard to think of anything but the next fight when you’re in the thick of it like this for weeks. Makes you realize . . . stuff. I’ll be glad to get back to The Beach. Man, New York’s just too closed in and covered with concrete or whatever. How the hell did anyone live here?”
“Millions did.”
“Count me out. But that doesn’t mean the assholes can have it. We’re going all the way down?”
“That’s right.”
