"You're here about the lake?" he asked, wiping sweat from his brow.
"I am."
"This isn't her fault, you know. None of it. She carries the burden for someone else, and now she's sick - or worse -
because of that burden."
He swung his axe up again, then cleaved the second log in two.
"I didn't accuse her of anything," I said. "I'm just trying to figure out what happened."
He stood up another log. "Then figure it out. And if you don't, we'l be here when the world ends."
With no good response to that, I made my way back to the helicopter.
CHAPTER SEVEN
PARADIGM SHIFT(ER)
The ride back was miserable. The wind had picked up, and we were tossed around with enough force that the pilot's hands were white-knuckled around her controls. She spent half the trip praying under her breath.
I'm pretty sure I was green when we reached the helipad again. I made it to my car without incident, but sat in the driver's seat for a few minutes, unwil ing to brave the drive home until I was sure I wasn't going to ruin the upholstery.
The last thing a boxy, twenty-year-old Volvo needed was the stench of airsickness.
While I had a moment, I checked my phone. I'd missed a cal from Jonah, and Keley had left a voice mail checking in. I did my duty and cal ed her back first.
She answered the phone with a squeal. "You are amazing!"
"I'm - what now?"
"You! The lake! I don't know how you did it, but you are a miracle worker!"
I had to shake my head to catch up. "Keley, I just got back to the city, and I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Merit, you did it! The lake's back to normal. Just al of a sudden, boom, and the water's clear again and the waves are flowing, just like nothing happened. I don't know what you told Lorelei, but it total y worked. It mattered, Merit. You mattered. Do you know how much this helps the House?
The protestors have actual y gone home tonight. This might get the GP off our back completely."
I'd only been out of the helicopter for fifteen or twenty minutes, tops, and the lake hadn't looked any different from the sky or when we landed. As much as I appreciated the praise and the possibility that I was giving the House room to breathe, I was skeptical. I'd believed Lorelei, and there was nothing on that island that made me think she had anything to do with what had happened to the lake, much less that she could stop it an hour or so after my visit.
Something else had to be going on.
"Kel, I'm not sure it's that simple. I mean, I'm glad the lake is back, but I ^="3do do didn't do anything, and I don't think she did either. In fact, I don't think Lorelei had anything to do with the lake at al . She's weak like the nymphs are."
"Occam's Razor, Merit. The simplest solution is usual y the true one. The lake went bad, you talked to Lorelei, the lake is back again. Maybe you scared her straight. Let's not look a gift horse in the mouth, right?"
I frowned. That those things happened in order didn't mean they were related to each other. Lorelei certainly hadn't worked any magic while I'd been there. Would she have had time to do anything after I'd left?
This wasn't the first time I'd been presented with an answer that seemed too easy. Celina had confessed her involvement in the V trade while standing in the middle of a public festival. That had briefly seemed like a miraculous end to our drug-related drama, at least until we discovered she'd been under Tate's magical thumb.
Nothing was that easy. But maybe, for now, Keley needed to believe we were making a difference, that we'd actual y managed to solve a problem. The entire House probably needed to believe it. Maybe forgoing the truth was occasional y the right thing to do, so I gave her what she needed to hear.
"You're probably right," I said. "It would have been a pretty big coincidence otherwise."
"Right? Anyway, go play! Take the night off. I'm just thril ed. Excel ent job, Sentinel. And I'l make sure Cabot knows it."
The phone went dead, but that didn't do anything to quel my anxiety. If I couldn't discuss my findings in Cadogan House, I'd find a more receptive audience. Problem was, my best audience - the Ombud's office - might not be al that receptive, either. I wasn't thril ed about the idea of tel ing Jeff that Lorelei blamed the Packs for the lake, and decided that confession needed to be made in person.
Tel ing him shifters were my new suspects wasn't going to go over wel .
On my way to the Ombud's office, I cal ed Jonah to check in. He answered on the first ring.
"Wel done on the lake," he said.
"Thanks for the performance eval. But it wasn't me. Any word on the nymphs?"
"I've heard they're getting more healthy and hale by the minute and are big fans of yours right now."
"Crap."
"That wasn't the reaction I expected."
"I'm ruining the punch line here, but I didn't actual y do anything at the lake. Lorelei and I just talked."
"You just talked?"
"That's it. She was also weak and getting weaker, and she denies having done anything to the lake. I tend to believe her."
"And I'm guessing you aren't going to be content with the fact that the lake's back to normal?"
I wasn't sure if I should be flattered or insulted by the sentiment. But either way, he was right. "You would be correct. I'm gonna visit my grandfather and pick his brain.
You wanna join me?"
"No can do. I'm in the middle of something. You want to meet later to debrief?"
"We can do that. I'l cal you when I'm done."
"I'l bring popcorn," he promised, then hung up.
I gnawed my lip al the way to my grandfather's south side office, hard enough that I eventual y tasted the metal ic bite of blood. The lake's time as a giant magic vacuum might have ended, but I was convinced this wasn't the end of the story. And if I was right and the fix was a coincidence, we had another force working major magic in the Windy City. I had a sinking fear we were going to find out soon what Tate's "next move" would be.
Traffic was light, so the drive to the south side didn't take long. The office of the Ombudsman was located in a low brick building in a working-class, residential neighborhood.
I parked on the street and headed to the door, hitting the buzzer to signal Jeff, Catcher, my grandfather, or Marjorie, my grandfather's admin, that I was there.
Marjorie was an efficient woman, and she answered the door the same way she answered the phone - handing me off to someone else as quickly as possible.
"Good evening," I told her after she uncoded the door and held it open for me, but by the time I got out the words, she'd relocked the door and was headed back to her office. Maybe supernatural diplomacy buried her in paperwork.