A defeated pause. “What about my things?”
At this, Gideon did stop to glance back at her, arching an eyebrow humorlessly. “Whatthings?”
“My accoutrements, my personal effects. Upon my release from prison, they should be returned to my person, as is customary.”
“You had no personal effects.”
“I had a sword.”
Gideon stared her down, but she didn’t so much as smirk, so he chose to answer her with sincerity. “That weapon, as you might imagine, was permanently confiscated.”
“Hm,” said Avery, pursing her lips. “Very well, but I also distinctly remember a marvelous bag of toffees in my right pocket, and a silk cravat. It may have been two hundred years ago, but I am quite certain I did not stand trial in…” She gestured distastefully to the plain cotton breeches and shirt. “This.”
Gideon began walking toward the exit again.
Avery tsked. “Two hundred years, and you have still not found the time to develop a sense of humor.”
He could hear that her walking, while not hurried, had returned to its normal unhindered cadence.
“Quick!” she theatrically called out to the office. “Stop that man, he’s getting away!”
Having heard the commotion, but not the context, a confused Balaskas poked his head out of his office.
“Balaskas,” Avery bellowed in surprise. “Two centuries of blunderous investigations, and you are still managing to pass as a police officer? I would salute your accomplishment were it not heartbreaking proof of the death of common sense.”
The kallikantzaros glared daggers and shrank back into his office.
Gideon was holding the front door open for her.
“The politician holding the door for the prisoner,” Avery observed. “If that is not a metaphor—”
“I’m in no mood for your jokes.”
“You never were,” Avery muttered, stepping outside.
The downpour startled her into stillness. It took a moment for her to comprehend what she was feeling: the rapid individual points of pressure, the chill, the way fabric clung to her skin as it dampened. She lifted her hand to observe the waterdrops fall and pool in her palm, then gazed heavenward and stretched both her arms to the sky as if to greet an old friend. She inhaled the scent of storm-soaked earth, the cool air stinging her lungs.
Gideon moved his hand as if parting his way through a crowd, and the rainfall shifted to move around him, still falling toward him but unnaturally veering off before actually touching him. He eyed her, wondering if this was one of her ploys—but then she sobbed. Animalistic, delirious, and undignified, she sobbed—a sound he hadn’t heard from her since she was just a child. He stepped up beside her, unable to keep the concern from his tone. “Avery?”
“How did I ever forget the rain?” the changeling whispered, tears lost in the downpour.
He swallowed and his hand tentatively reached for her, hesitated, then retreated. He cleared his throat, resolved. “Come.” He walked down the steps to the vehicle where his driver was already waiting, opening the door as the Archfey approached.
The automobile stumped her as Avery first followed him with her gaze. It was, as always, curiosity that drew her forward, not obedience. That was fine; he was betting on that. He had also hoped that if he could showher even a shred of evidence of how the world had changed, she would be tempted to accept the proposal they had for her before she’d even heard it.
A horse and carriage was a logical thing to replace after two hundred years, he could see her accepting that, but she never would have imagined such a design. Her hand slid over the chrome body, pushing a slick layer of rain off the surface. She was investigating it—verifying that moisture could not be absorbed by the material that made its exterior and observing how the design and shape naturally redirected the flow of water.
“Self-powered?” She directed this question to his driver.
“Yes, ma’am. An automobile—or colloquially a car.”5
“Well, I suppose it is a wheeled vehicle,” said Avery, “though the term has evolved much since I last knew it.”
“As you might imagine”—Gideon spoke carefully—“the world has evolved much in your absence. You’ll find most things run on a kind of bottled lightning, including this.”
“Electricity?”
“You know of it?” Of course, she did. Of course, he knew she did. And he knew she would delight in telling him how she did.
