Quen had moved a few steps down the hallway with Jenks. The lean, sinewy man had his back to us, but he'd turned at the noise of the doors opening again. Quen was Trent's longtime security officer, dark where Trent was light, but still looking like an elf. It was in their eyes. The older man's face had the pockmarks that some Inderlanders came away with from the Turn, and spoke of the taint of human blood. You wouldn't know it from his magic, both wickedly fast and powerful. He was wearing his usual loose-fitting uniform, but the black fabric had a tighter fit now that showed off his build, and I wondered if Ceri was the reason for the change. His expression wasn't happy. Neither was Jenks's.
"Rache, we got no time for your elevator fetish," Jenks complained as he swooped to land on the chair's arm. "David's going to be here in half an hour."
"David?" I looked up from trying to appear as if the ride down here had been uneventful, but Quen was eyeing us suspiciously. He knew Trent better than anyone, having raised him as much as, if not more than, Jonathan after both his parents had died. "I thought Ivy was going to pick me up."
"Your alpha called this morning," Trent said from behind me, his voice polished and having a professional, almost plastic sound as he pushed me forward, so different from the elevator. "And since we needed to talk . . ."
I didn't like Trent pushing me. I could feel his eyes on my tattoo. David, though, had a cooler head than Ivy, and the ride home would be easier on my nerves, so I said nothing.
"Good thing you're in a chair," Jenks said, "or it would take you that long just to walk down the hallway."
"Sure. Okay." I felt vulnerable as Trent slid out from behind the chair and Quen seamlessly took over. "Quen is the only one allowed to push me. Got it?"
"Heaven should fall if I did," Trent muttered as he fell into step beside the chair.
Jenks hummed his wings for an explanation, and I ignored him. "So . . . we're going to look at an empty room?" I asked.
"Something like that." His manner distant, Trent walked beside me, his steps almost silent. "I want you to look at the replacements and tell me if you saw them during your captivity."
"Winona could have done that," Jenks said, and Trent flicked his gaze to him.
"It's a workday. There are people down here, and Winona isn't ready to face the world."
I stiffened, wishing I hadn't yelled at him in the elevator, but a young man in a lab coat with hair as red as mine was striding down the hall toward us, his pace intent and slightly anxious.
"Sir?" he called out as if there was any question that we were his goal. "Mr. Kalamack?"
Trent sighed, and the chair stopped when the man halted before us, glancing at me in curiosity, then going bug eyed when Jenks gave him a peace sign from the arm of the chair. "Sir, if you have a moment?" the man asked, and Trent forced a neutral smile.
"Donnelley, I'd like you to meet Ms. Rachel Morgan and Jenks of Oak Staff," Trent said as he shifted to make more of a circle.
"Jenks of Oak Staff," Jenks echoed, clearly pleased as he rose to dust his hello.
"Pleasure," Donnelley said, shifting his clipboard to shake my hand. "How do you do."
"The pleasure is mine, Darby," I said, and the head lab rat started as I used his first name.
Blinking, he looked from Trent and focused on me for the first time. "Have we met?"
Trent was making a really weird noise in the back of his throat, but I kept smiling. "No," I admitted, "but I was there when Trent decided you were going to take Faris's place two years ago." Watched him kill your predecessor. Give his daughter a scholarship. Tell Jon to move you up. "You're Trent's chief geneticist, right?"
Trent cleared his throat, and Quen shifted the chair slightly, probably when he let go of the handles. "Uh, I am, yes," Darby said, his eyes wide. "It's good to meet you." Nervous, he shifted from foot to foot, clipboard before him like a fig leaf. "Mr. Kalamack, I hate to interrupt you, but could I talk to you for a moment? The last batch has gone somewhat awry," he said, somehow looking both confident and embarrassed, his freckles giving him a careless mien. "If you could look at the numbers before our meeting tomorrow, it would be helpful. I say more time, less stimulation. Andrea wants to toss the batch entirely, but we'll lose three months. Won't take but a moment to go over the numbers."
I'll give Trent credit - he didn't even sigh as he looked over me to Quen.
"I'll show her the instruments, Sa'han," Quen said, and Jenks rose up from the chair.
"Yeah, we know our way around," the pixy said, his hands on his hips.
Trent turned halfway from where he had started down the hall with Darby. "I'll meet you there," he said, then strode briskly away with Darby almost jogging to keep up.
Quen started us forward, our pace slower but following their path until they took a sharp right down another corridor and vanished. "I didn't know Trent did anything but fund this merry-go-round," I said.
"He doesn't do the grunt work, no," Quen said softly from behind me. "But he enjoys analyzing the data. His new interests lately have been pulling him away from it, and it shows."
New interests. His sudden zeal in practicing wild magic, maybe?
We passed the corridor that Trent and Darby had turned into, and Jenks rose up to follow them. "Jenks, if you would stay with us, please?" Quen said, and Jenks buzzed back, giving me a shrug as he landed on my knee. No one said anything, and the silence became uncomfortable as Quen slowed, then stopped before a door that looked like any other - apart from the formidable lock, that is.
"In here," Quen said as he came from behind me and unlocked it using a mundane key instead of the card reader. It looked like the reader wasn't even powered up, and again I wondered if the latest break-in had been the end of Trent's love for gadgetry.
I felt like an invalid when Quen opened the door, then backed me in like a professional, swinging me around to face the silent but clearly in-use room. It was a good size, with the expected lab benches, counter space, and machines lining the walls. There was a desk in the corner, and a table used as a makeshift second desk. Charts and graphs took up a bulletin board, and a small, locked cabinet held books, visible behind the glass. It looked very professional and up front, not at all like a place where illegal bio drugs might be researched or prepared, the tools of Trent's blackmail and rise to power on the back of his father's legacy - the same one that had kept me alive.