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tended to invite notice. As if on cue, three or four arrows landed in the masonry over my head, raining dust down on us. Our body shields kept most of it off, but I wasn’t going to pretend getting shot at wasn’t unnerving.
    The lobby of the hotel was a marked contrast to the street. The level of tension dropped as people went about their business regardless of the barricades out front. Despite filling her ranks with a local mix of other estranged Celtic and Teutonic fey, Eorla still ran her business with an elven efficiency.
    My escorts took me to the crowded ballroom where Eorla met with administrators and the public. She worked the volume of paperwork on her desk table like an orchestra, noting my entrance with a brief flick of her dark eyes. Her black hair coiled about the back of her head, accentuating her long neck and narrow face. She still wore mourning green for her husband, who had been murdered last year.
    To her right, Rand acknowledged me with a nod. He rarely left her side, acting as both bodyguard and confidante. It wouldn’t have surprised me if he slept in his red uniform. Despite his formal manner and unreadable elven face, he had let me see flashes of the person inside him. He seemed like a good guy.
    After a few moments, Eorla dismissed the other people in the room with a firm gesture to the guards. They ushered everyone out and closed the three of us behind the doors. Eorla stood, took my hands, and kissed my cheek. “You look well.”
    “I avoided getting shot on the way in,” I said.
    She gazed up at me. “Ah, you arrived through the front door, then. My apologies for the sniper fire. I do hope someone held the door for you.”
    I chuckled. “Several, in fact. You treat me too well.”
    “And how might I treat you today?” she asked.
    I pulled out a small snapshot of the dead elf. Murdock had sent it to me with a short note that the apartment had been devoid of any evidence. As expected, his identity didn’t match anything in the usual databases. In fact, the victim didn’t have any legal history at all, which reinforced my belief that he was a spy. “I’m helping Murdock with another murder. We think the victim might have been an undercover Consortium agent, and I was wondering if you might know him.”
    Eorla examined the photo. “He does have the look of one of Donor’s people, but I don’t recognize him.” She handed the photograph to Rand. “How did he die?”
    “Elf-shot execution-style in his apartment. No disturbances,” I said.
    Rand narrowed his gaze at the photograph, then arched an eyebrow. “His name was Alfen. He was one of Vize’s followers.”
    Bergin Vize had been a renegade Consortium agent. He had turned terrorist, causing hundreds of deaths, all in the name of returning the fey folk to Faerie. Publicly, the Elven King had repudiated him. Privately, he used Vize to further his own ends and the acquisition of power. Donor might have destroyed the Guildhouse with his own abilities, but Vize had set the whole thing in motion. In the end, Donor discarded him like a tool no longer needed. I watched Vize fall into the collapsing building, his body lost beneath the rubble of the Guildhouse. His followers remained, though, scattered throughout the city.
    “The Consortium had spies in Vize’s group?” I asked.
    “Alfen wasn’t a spy for the Consortium. He joined Vize after the Consortium discovered he was a double agent for the Guild,” Rand said.
    Eorla returned to her desk. “It sounds like this gentleman had issues with loyalty.”
    “He was a Guild agent?” I asked.
    Rand shook his head. “‘Agent’ is too strong a word. He was an informant for them.”
    I cocked an eyebrow at him. “And you know this how?”
    He hesitated before speaking, glancing at Eorla. “At one time, it was my duty to investigate the loyalty of Her Majesty’s officers. The Guild worked to undermine her support.”
    I snorted. Despite her philanthropic work, Eorla had always been