The trouble with packing toiletries was that he had to check his bag.

Quentin rushed through Los Angeles airport as though he had the wind at his back. Collecting the case from the luggage carousel had cost him valuable time, and he would need to transfer to another zone and pass through security yet again before he could board his next flight. Thank goodness he had at least managed to secure a first class ticket so that his luggage received priority handling.

There was little use cursing his lack of foresight. What was done was done.

The airport, like most, was a maze, but he had been through here before, and had no intention of waiting on the ridiculously slow shuttle bus. Instead he traversed the lower arrivals level at a brisk clip.

One look at his face and people got out of his way.

He breezed into the International terminal and straight to his priority check-in desk to deposit his bag and collect his boarding pass, and only once he was through security did he allow himself to stop moving long enough to look at a clock.

Thirty minutes to spare.

He set off again, and pulled his phone out to call Myriam.

“The Jack in the Green,” she said when she answered.

“Myriam. Laurence has gone, yes?” It seemed foolish to have not checked sooner, but the idea that Frederick would have gone to such lengths for something so immature as a prank was unlikely, and his priority had been boarding a flight to catch this connection.

“Quentin?” Myriam sounded confused. “He left with you, dear. Is… something wrong?”

He frowned at that. He couldn’t have forgotten traveling to the Jack and collecting Laurence.

Could he?

It wasn’t impossible, but if he’d been drugged at the house and immobile until he woke over two hours later, it seemed unlikely.

“Are you sure that it was me?”

“Well. It was you. Aiden thought so. Bambi thought so. We all saw you.”

“I’m not certain how this could be,” he said carefully. “Are you able to look back and check?”

“It isn’t often that I can coax a vision,” Myriam mused, “but we do have a camera. Let me see if I can figure out how to make it work. Can I call you back?”

“If you can do so within fifteen minutes, that would be ideal,” Quentin answered.

“All right. Hang fire, I’ll call back.”

He found a seat by his departure gate and sank into it, trying to ignore the fact that he was out in the public area rather than sequestered away in a lounge. There wasn’t time for that, even though his ticket gave him access to one.

It was difficult to sit.

Alone.

He closed his eyes and attempted to tune out the airport noise. The chatter of flight attendants and the bustle of tourists was a constant stream of meaningless distraction, and he focused on his own breathing to distance himself from it.

The anger was still there. He hadn’t managed to reduce it, but at least it hadn’t grown in his short flight here.

Laurence once taught him to meditate, and it worked wonders. It was useful for retaining his sense of self, for quashing his fears, and for taking a moment out to evaluate his situation.

Right now it helped to pass the time without allowing the little things around him to cause irritation.

When his phone rang, he withdrew it and let his eyes drift open. “Yes?”

“Aiden figured the recordings out,” Myriam said quietly. “Quentin, I don’t understand this. The camera only covers the front of the shop, but I think it’s safe to say it would have shown the same in the back room too.”

He nodded briefly.

On the whole, in strategy it is most important that you regard your normal bearing as the same as your bearing at a time of fighting, and your bearing at a time of fighting as the same as your normal bearing.

He felt as though he were already fighting.

This was, he was beginning to realize, why Mia told him he would re-read the books she had given him so often. Every time he did another piece fell into place. Like a flower unfurling in the morning light, words he had read ten times already suddenly showed him their truth on the eleventh. And now he understood Musashi’s talk on bearing.

He was always at war.

“I don’t understand it,” Myriam added. “I swear, Quentin, it was you. But…”

“But on the camera, it was Frederick,” he completed for her.

“It was,” she agreed. “Is there any chance that he has some gifts of his own?”

“I think that is a reasonable deduction,” he murmured. “Certainly as good a working theory as any I could come up with.” He glanced toward the nearest clock. “I must go. I have to board soon and I’ll have to turn my phone off.”

“Board?” Myriam paused. “Where are you?”

“Los Angeles, heading for London. Frederick has taken Laurence there. Would you be so kind as to care for Windsor in our absence?”

“Of course, dear.” The worry in her tone was barely hidden. “Please keep me updated?”

“I shall. Thank you. I must go.”

He hung up and switched his phone off, then stood and strode to the priority boarding lane.

As though he could make a ten and a half hour flight pass faster by being the first to his seat.

* * *

He couldn’t attest to whether or not he managed to sleep on the flight. Once his seat was converted to a bed he put his head down and tried to get some rest if only to prevent the crew from bothering him for the majority of the journey, and while he sought to meditate his way through it he may have nodded off once or twice.

He hardly felt rested, though.

He passed through the biometric security gates at the terminal to avoid having to speak with anyone, collected his case from the luggage carousel, and breezed out into the arrivals area.

As he skirted the flood of people who were waiting for loved ones or customers, he crinkled his nose and looked up to the vast glass wall which faced the multistory car park.

The skies were gray, darkened by the black hearts of heavy clouds. Rain shot down the walls in rivers, distorting the outside world.

He crinkled his nose faintly. Perhaps he had got a little too used to San Diego.

Regardless, as he freed himself from the throng and strode toward the outer edge of the arrivals lounge, it occurred to him that he had come all this way and had no plan.

Go to London.

Find Laurence.

But he was no hunter. He could not simply pick up Laurence’s trail and sniff him out, or however that worked. No, his gifts were far more physical in nature.

He eyed the Heathrow Express ticket terminals. The very notion of using public transport made his hackles rise, but in this weather it was the fastest way into London. Taxis would be slowed by traffic, and traffic always deteriorated in weather this aggressive.

Quentin closed his eyes briefly, then approached one of the machines. With any luck it would make itself clear, unlike his bloody phone.

Good God, he was using a machine, and soon he’d be on a train. With strangers.

If he weren’t in such dire straits, he’d be rather pleased with himself.

* * *

Paddington Station was a shock, especially after the quiet and comfort of the train. Quentin had absolutely no idea where to go from here, but everyone else leaving the train seemed to know, so he tailed them and held his head high as though he had a clue.

He drew the line at using the tube, though. One look at the pile of colored spaghetti which touted itself as a “map” and he discounted it immediately. No, this was London, and one crossed town via taxi.

The moment he was in a black cab, with Hyde Park to his right and the Aston Martin showroom on his left, the fact that he was home hit him like a cold snap.

He knew this place. He knew it on a level so intrinsic that it was a part of him. He knew the culture, the best places to eat and drink, the best theaters and opera houses. Best of all, he knew where the boutiques were, where the most pre-eminent British designers plied their trade, and where to find the best tailor in town.

Now was not the time for any of that.

His taxi pulled up outside the Dorchester and he grimaced up at the hotel’s distinctive cream stone facade. It was traditional, and he liked traditional.

The only trouble was that traditional came at a price.

He maintained his best stiff upper lip as he selected a room rather than a suite. His flight had eaten well over half his monthly budget - a word he still loathed with a passion - and a halfway decent suite would gobble up the remainder in a single night.

When did this happen?

When did he become a man who checked prices?

Quentin almost dared the chap at the check-in desk to so much as look at him oddly for booking one of the hotel’s smallest available rooms, but the fellow was the consummate professional about the whole affair.

He pocketed the key card, gave the desk permission to take his case up to his room for him, then immediately requested another taxi.

No more delays.

It was time to pay Frederick a visit.