by Emma Savant
“I’m so sorry,” I said. I put a hand on the back of my neck and massaged, which did absolutely nothing to get rid of the tension filling the small space. At least Imogen was enjoying herself. She was standing to one side, watching us and eating her fried dough like it was popcorn at the movies.
“Get rid of it,” Elle said.
“I can’t,” I said. I smiled at Tyler and the girl on his arm. He gave me a dopey smile back, while she pulled her head back and raised an eyebrow like I’d somehow disgusted her.
I pulled Elle’s arm and turned her toward me so we could talk without being quite as overhead. “It’s time-sensitive,” I said, an apology in my voice. “I had to get a ton of extra permission to even do it, so I made a heavy-duty spell that would last at least through prom.”
Which, I realized, might not have been a bad thing. I’d almost given up hope that this would work out, despite Lorinda’s warnings. All she’d done was give me an extra month before I’d get fired.
But if Tyler wouldn’t be capable of giving up on Elle, maybe I didn’t have to give up, either.
“We’re just going to have to live with it until it wears off,” I finished.
“I don’t want to live with that,” she said.
“There’s literally nothing I can do about it,” I said. I’d put way too much energy in it to be able to turn the thing around now. I couldn’t imagine Lorinda signing a paper in a million years that would give me permission to get a faerie with a little more magical oomph to wipe the spell for me. “Just try to deal with it, okay?”
She frowned at me in what I was coming to recognize as Elle’s classic disapproval face. “Not cool,” she said.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I didn’t dare glance at it while she was looking at me like that.
“Oh, come on,” Imogen said, stepping over to join the conversation. “Just drag him around for a month or two and get him to circulate petitions for your weird coffee shop agenda.”
I thought Elle would get offended. Instead, she relaxed completely. “Good point,” she said. “May as well make the best of the situation. As long as I’m immune to the spell, right?” she added, snapping her head over to me.
“I didn’t cast it on you,” I said.
“And it’s not going to wear off on you,” Imogen said. “Especially not with that necklace on.”
Elle considered this a moment, then tapped her hand against her arm a few times before letting her arms fall uncrossed down to her sides. “Okay,” she said.
A friendly smile turned on like a light. “Hi,” she said to Tyler, whose entire face lit up. “Good to see you.”
The plants on the shelf next to my head waved in the faint breeze that drifted through the aisle between the stalls. I turned to a tiny pepper seedling, wishing I could talk to it. I felt like I almost could with plants, sometimes. If I got quiet and calm enough, somehow I just knew what they wanted and needed.
Right now, though, I was the furthest thing from quiet and calm that I could imagine. I couldn’t tell if that was because I was horrified by this turn of events or thrilled. Somehow, I thought it might be both.
By the time I’d managed to filter my way through my feelings—unnerved that Elle was actually going for it, relieved that I might actually have a shot at pulling this case off, and distantly lovestruck in a way I recognized as belonging to Tyler—Elle had his number programmed into her phone and had said she “might stop by” his track practice tomorrow.
I caught Imogen’s eye and mouthed, He runs track? She nodded and mouthed something back that I couldn’t understand. I sidled over to her.
“It keeps him in shape for basketball,” she said. “Apparently.”
Finally, about thirty long seconds after it was clear the conversation was over, Tyler was dragged away by the blond girl, whose name I still hadn’t caught. He glanced back over his shoulder every few seconds at Elle. The blank, infatuated look made him look even more like a catalog model than usual.
Elle’s skin glowed, but it didn’t look like embarrassment was involved. She didn’t cringe or try to explain what had just happened. Instead, she slipped her phone back in the pocket of her yellow sundress and said, “Well. That was interesting.”
“I’ll say,” Imogen said. She flashed her eyebrows up and then turned around, leading the way to the next booth that had caught her interest. She stepped inside for no more than a few seconds, then came back out and announced, “I think we’ve seen everything. Let’s go to the Tributary.”
“What’s that?” Elle asked. Imogen started explaining, and I tuned out, too busy thinking about my case and whether it was ever going to make sense.
It probably wasn’t, I realized as we walked along the waterfront by the river. The breeze blowing up from the water was cold, almost too cold to let the sunlight feel nice. A barefoot guy in ragged cutoff jeans sat on a bench, playing a banjo and singing at the top of his lungs. He looked like he’d never been anywhere but that bench and sounded like he’d never done anything but play that music.
The music was good. I glanced over my glasses. He was a Humdrum. This guy right here was proof, I thought, that my dad didn’t have it right about the Humdrums. He said they were talentless plebeians, mostly harmless but inferior. But this guy knew what he was doing. He understood music like my dad understood how to use his magic to influence people. And which skill was better? If I could vote, I’d cast mine with the guy whose gift wasn’t likely to make anyone do things they didn’t want to do or think they believed things they didn’t actually believe.
I pulled my jacket tighter around me and lagged along behind Imogen and Elle, pulling my phone out of my pocket as I went. The little purple bubble of text made my stomach flutter.
Lucas: Hey. Do you have any idea what we’re supposed to know about the Louisiana Purchase? My notes make no sense.
My finger flew over the screen.
Olivia: You want to meet up? Way too much to explain over text.
The answer was instant.
Lucas: Yes. You are the greatest.
Olivia: And you apparently don’t know what that word means. :-P
I couldn’t get my stupid smile off my face. I was worse than Tyler.
Lucas: Tomorrow work? Like evening? I’ll buy you dinner if you help me with the chi square thing again too.
Dinner was almost a date. Not quite, because he was basically paying me in food in exchange for tutoring, and he had a girlfriend. But it was still more like a date than meeting in a classroom after school was. I forced myself to put the phone in my pocket so I wouldn’t look too eager, then reminded myself that I was an empowered woman who didn’t play those kinds of games and pulled it back out. We arranged to meet at six.
We reached the open space where the Tributary sat. The Humdrums saw it as an ordinary fountain, but we knew it as one of the Oracle’s dozens of satellite locations all through Portland. She didn’t personally live in any of the Tributaries, but her water sprites did, and they could get messages to her and give gifts on her behalf. I could only remember a handful of times when Imogen had passed by a Tributary without stopping. She always made time, even if it was just to splash some enchanted water on her face.
I cautioned Elle to stand back. Despite Imogen’s explanation, it was one thing to hear about a Tributary and quite another to see one in action.
Imogen stepped up to the fountain, which fell from what looked like a bird bath atop a tall pillar into an octagonal pond. One either side of the central pillar, sculptures of women in ancient Greek clothing held up the bird bath. The women seemed a little sad when they were still like this. The angle of their arms looked uncomfortable, and their faces were downcast and solemn.
Imogen stepped to the edge of the fountain and leaned against it, the edge of the octagonal pond digging into her knees. She threw a gold coin into the fountain. “I seek a gift of water,” she said.
I felt Elle freeze next to me as the sculpture directly in front of Imogen
softened and melted into life. Her rigid black skin grew supple and her clothing blew gently in the breeze. She lifted her face. “For what purpose?” Her voice was as bubbling and elusive as the water raining down from above her face, water which was suddenly full of glimmering blue and white sparkles.
Imogen was much more confident with the Tributaries than most people. Elle looked stunned, but Imogen had done this a million times, and she talked to the statue like they were old friends. “I want to use some in a beauty salve,” she said. “I’m glamouring beeswax and oils and I think the Oracle’s water will help.”
The statue bowed her head to look directly down at us. “The Oracle’s blessing helps all,” she said. “The Oracle’s blessing helps always.” Her black eyes flashed on the always, almost as if she was delivering a warning.
“I know,” Imogen said cheerfully.
“Take what you will,” the statue said, and then she froze again, growing still and matte as though she’d never moved at all. Imogen pulled a glass mason jar out of her purse and scooped water from the fountain. She screwed the lid on the jar, said, “Thanks!” to the silent Tributary, and then waved us over.
Elle seemed even more impressed with this than she had been by my magic the other night at Gilt. “That’s amazing!” she gushed when we were across the street and headed back to Imogen’s car. She twisted her head to look back at the fountain, which sat calm and quiet behind us as though nothing exciting had ever happened there. “How did no one notice? There was a guy standing next to you and he literally didn’t notice what was going on.”
“Oh, he couldn’t see it,” Imogen said. We squished together single-file to let a man pass, his four over-excited dogs dragging him along. “The Tributary’s got a boundary around it. As long as you’re a Glimmer and standing inside, no Humdrum will ever see what you’re doing or that the statues are moving. They won’t really be able to look at it straight-on. Even if they’re there to take pictures or whatever, they’ll get interested in other things for a little while.”
Elle skipped ahead of us, then spun to walk backward. It was a dangerous maneuver on this sidewalk, what with all the pedestrians and tables set outside restaurants, even though it was too chilly to want to sit in the buildings’ shade for long. But she managed it all right, somehow seeming to know exactly when to move aside so someone could move past her. “Your world is amazing!” she said. “Absolutely amazing! I can’t believe I never knew about it before.”
“You’re still not supposed to know about it,” I said.
Her whole face changed when she smiled. Suddenly she had dimples and teeth all over the place. “I know,” she said. “And you’re the best faerie godmother in the whole world for telling me about it. Seriously. I can’t wait to learn everything else I can!” She turned back around to walk forward, and I saw a hand fly up and clutch the stone on her necklace. “I can’t wait to learn everything about it. There’s no way Pumpkin Spice can fail with your world on my side.”
She looked behind her shoulder to smile at me. I smiled back, suddenly aware of the tug-of-war in my emotions again. Happy? Excited? Concerned? Disturbed?
I honestly couldn’t tell.
Chapter 20
Imogen sat down with a thud and turned to me, gripping her desk with both hands. Her normally animated face was as intense as I’d seen it a while. Once she had me pinned down with her gaze, she took a deep breath.
“What. The hell. Happened.”
I buried my head in my hands. “I have no idea.”
I’d never seen a situation turn so sour so fast. If anyone needed more evidence that I was absolutely, positively, completely not cut out for this job, this was Exhibit A.
“I knew she shouldn’t have bought the necklace,” I said.
“I don’t think it’s the necklace,” Imogen said. “I think it’s that love spell. Maybe it, I don’t know, leaked onto her.”
And there was Exhibit B.
Mr. Duncan came into the room and set his coffee down with a sigh. He looked as tired as I was overwhelmed and probably wouldn’t even notice if we kept talking, but I lowered my voice anyway. “I know,” I said. “That spell was the stupidest idea I think I’ve ever had.”
Imogen was nice enough to not start listing all the stupid ideas I’d ever had, even though she’d been there for most of them. Instead she handed me a stick of gum. I took off the shiny silver wrapper and popped the gum in my mouth. Cinnamon spread across my tongue, with a little hint of something else. “Infused with mead simmered under a full moon,” she said. “One of my mom’s witch friends makes it. Supposed to be good for stress.”
“Thanks,” I said. My heart vibrated with tension.
I had created a monster. Worse than that, I had created a monster that I couldn’t actually pin as being anything but a normal high school girl.
Elle hadn’t done anything wrong. She seemed happy. She ate lunch with Tyler and hung around with him after school. She’d convinced him to come to Pumpkin Spice almost every day and bring his friends. I should have been thrilled. But somehow, for some reason, every time I saw them together, I felt sick.
“Tyler cornered me this morning and tried to get me to sign one of Elle’s petitions,” I said. “Apparently her dad is ‘representative of the failing moral backbone of our great city.’”
“Elle cornered me this morning,” Imogen said. “She told me that my hair looks ‘a little washed out’ and could use a ‘pop of color.’ When the hell did she become such an expert?”
My stress was punctured just for a moment by the giggle that bubbled up from my throat. “Are you just mad because she criticized your hair?”
“Of course I’m mad!” Imogen said. Mr. Duncan looked up at us and she mouthed Sorry, then said, in a lower voice, “It’s weird. She’s been weird the last couple of weeks. I can’t even pin it down. She’s just… it’s not right, you know?”
I pursed my lips and pulled my pencil out of my hair, where it had been wedged next to my wand. “It could be her scary new manipulating-people hobby,” I said.
Elle rolled her eyes at me. “Nah,” she said sarcastically, waving me off.
“I should be happy but I can’t stop cringing,” I said.
Imogen nodded, pointing her pink gel pen at me. “It’s like everything good about magic gone horribly, horribly wrong,” she said. “But I can’t even tell what’s so gross about it. It’s nothing you godmothers don’t do all the time.”
“Except the actual honest-to-God love spell. Nothing under a love spell is ever right,” I said. “Have you ever heard of a love spell or potion not backfiring somehow? Isn’t the moral of every Story always ‘don’t control people’s hearts because it always ends badly’?”
“You did get permission for it,” Imogen said.
She was right. I had. I’d thought it out, written a proposal, submitted the paperwork, and gotten it signed. But that was the weird part: My higher-ups had signed it. If I should have known better, they definitely should have known better. The more involved I got, the more I had the uncomfortable, niggling feeling that godmothering was an icky, corrupt business from the get-go.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be among the noblest of all professions. We’d been plying this trade for thousands of years, making Stories happen that could never have come true without our help. And the Oracle approved every case before it landed on our desks, and showered us in gold and her approval afterward. The Oracle knew everything. She was as wise and all-knowing as the Faerie Queen. She could never let a Story happen that shouldn’t.
And yet, every time I saw Elle with Tyler, I got a twisting feeling in my gut that screamed it was wrong for her to be with him, wrong for him to be drugged to be in love with her, and wrong for me to be meddling in their lives at all.
I wished for a brief second that I could talk to Queen Amani. Did she know anything about godmothering? Was she really as wise as everyone painted her? Was the Oracle as wise as everyo
ne said? But I brushed the thoughts away as soon as they came. Questioning either of them was so outrageous and arrogant it could barely form as a complete idea in my head. And I dreaded the idea of talking to Amani again. I didn’t want to give her false hope that I might change my mind.
False hope, I thought. Like I was so special that the Faerie Queen herself was lying awake nights just longing for me, glorious me, to be her successor! I scoffed and pulled my homework out of the front pocket of my green US History binder.
“What was that?” Imogen said, giving me a look, which was fair seeing as how it had sounded like I’d just choked.
“Nothing,” I said. “Just thinking about all this stupidness with Elle.”
She went back to her homework, pressing the end of her pen up against her lips. Not that she was concentrating. Imogen was the poster child of overachievement when it came to her Glim studies, but she did exactly enough to slide by when it came to her Humdrum homework and no more. “I think she bought some more spells, by the way,” she said. “More charms. She’s got a bracelet that definitely has some stuff going on with it.”
A few hours later, I jogged up alongside Elle as she walked down the hall toward the doors that led to the parking lot. It was a typically rainy spring day, and the sky outside the windowed doors was heavy and soft, like folds of gray velvet.
She was wearing makeup, which was a little odd for her. And she had earrings on, tiny dangling beads made out of tiger’s eye. The beauty spell coming off of them was so strong it made my eyes water.
“How’s it going?” I said.
She’d traded in her usual T-shirt and jeans for a short coral belted skirt and a loose beige tank top that looked like something my mom might have worn in the eighties. A raindrop landed on her bare shoulder and she waved her hand at me to follow her.
“I’m good,” she said. She turned for a second to look at me. Her brown eyes were sparkly, almost too sparkly. “Sorry I’ve been crappy about returning your texts,” she said. She bowed her head as the rain started coming down. We reached a dark blue Honda and she unlocked the doors and gestured at me to climb in.
