Chains and Memory Read Online Free Page B

announce Rosslyn.
    A glitch, then. I would have to wait for the next train.
    But the platform was dim and deserted, and bits of trash made skittering sounds as a draft blew them across the concrete. It was late enough that I’d be waiting quite a while for the next train—much longer than I wanted to. The station was dim and grungy, barely renovated since First Manifestation, and I wanted to be home.
    Laughter ghosted through the air.
    Every nerve in my body went on high alert. This was all too familiar. Last fall one of the Unseelie had staged a poltergeist scene in Talman Library, starting with books and ending with shards of computer screens. Were they about to do the same here?
    There wasn’t much to throw, apart from stray candy wrappers. Unless they could rip the benches free of their bolts? I put my back to an information post, trying to look in all directions at once, and cursed myself for not carrying my athame. I still barely knew how to use the ritual knife as a combat tool, but it did give me comfort, and a way to focus my power.
    The Unseelie had left me alone since last fall. I’d deluded myself into thinking that meant I was safe.
    Or maybe I was deluding myself now . That could have been some passenger laughing, somebody downstairs on the platform for the Diamond Line. Just because I’d been their target once didn’t mean I would be again. The sidhe weren’t supposed to be here anyway; Ring Anchors like my mother were helping to keep them out.
    Even if this was just a panic attack, I’d feel calmer if I were ready. I brought my shields up, blessing the fact that I’d been practicing with Julian. Emotion, at least of the more complex sort, helped defend against the sidhe; they lacked our capacity for it, and it could eat away at their magic. But I couldn’t stage an empathic assault unless I had a target to aim it at.
    With the utmost care, I sent out a tentative probe. The iron in the architecture made it hard to do, but I persevered. If there was a sidhe out there, I needed to know.
    Something spun my mind like a top, giving me vertigo. Only my grip on the post at my back kept me upright. What the hell had that been? Some kind of attack? Or just my tiredness getting the better of me, too much energy drained out of me at the end of a long day?
    I could run. The signal boards were black and dead; it might be half an hour until the next train. If I left the station . . . McPherson Square wasn’t the best area at night, but I’d feel better with people around. Assume for the moment the Unseelie were indeed after me again: would that deter them, or just put innocents in the line of fire?
    The wind picked up. I craned my neck, but there was no train approaching, that might account for it. More and more trash blew through the station, as if all the rubbish of McPherson Square had been gathered for the purpose. I wrapped my hands around the post, bracing my hips against them, concentrating on making a telekinetic shield. Newspapers couldn’t hurt me, but gods only knew what might be concealed behind them. Did the Unseelie want me dead, for having escaped their grasp?
    The sudden blare of the train whistle made me scream. Light flooded the platform, the beams far too bright in the dimness. I flinched away—and that saved me.
    A figure had crept up the stairs on my right, shrouded by the whirling trash. Even as I turned, it raised its hands to shove me into the path of the oncoming train.
    I reacted on pure instinct. It wasn’t a fancy combat trick or anything Julian had taught me; it was just a gout of flame, roaring from my own hands straight toward the sidhe who was trying to kill me.
    Toward him . . . and through.
    The afterimage burned in my retinas, temporarily blinding me. I blinked it away, and found the station quiet.
    No whirlwind of trash. No approaching train. No sidhe.
    Just a smoldering sign where my flame had struck the wall at the