by Emma Savant
“At least she looks better,” Imogen offered when she caught me staring. “She seems self-confident.”
“She looks self-confident,” I corrected. “She seems brainwashed.”
“You’re right,” Imogen said. “Still, it’s not a bad look. At least she did more than brush her hair.”
Imogen went back to the essay on World War II she was trying to read before World History that afternoon. I scanned the cafeteria, watching the diverse people who all managed to call this place theirs. The theatre kids were easy to spot. They were the loudest in the room; two had bright blue hair, and they were all draped on top of one another like a pile of kittens. A tight-knit trio of academically driven perfectionist girls whose rivalry I could smell from across the room sat eating and chatting with one another, occasionally falling into laughter that never felt entirely victimless. The entire manga club had holed up in a corner together, passing around a sketchbook. Here and there, the loners were scattered, little anomalies of one or two people who didn’t have a group to sit with. The smart ones had brought books.
One of the loners was familiar. Daniel sat by himself, alternating between scribbling into a notebook and picking at his food. I frowned. We didn’t talk much at school, but I knew he usually had people to eat with and hang out with in the halls.
I reached out my energy toward him, trying to feel what he was feeling and see if something had gone wrong. But he felt fine. Calm, focused—creative, even. I wondered what he was scribbling in the notebook. Before I had a chance to wonder for too long, though, he stiffened. He turned around in his seat, fixed me with a judgmental stare, and then turned back to his book. When I reached out again, he’d thrown a shield up that would keep me or anyone else from getting too close a read on him.
“Humdrum wars are so boring,” Imogen said. She set the essay down on the table and reached for her cranberry juice, flicking a finger up on the way and throwing a sound bubble around us so we could talk without being overheard. “I mean, it’s all just people shooting at other people, and then bam, everyone dies.” Her voice was flat and unimpressed. In Imogen’s world, violent death wasn’t exactly something to get up for. “Not a single curse. Not a single interesting quest. No Story. Just pointless death after pointless death and meaningless battle after meaningless battle, and then somebody finally gives up and ta-da, it’s over. Everyone goes home. What is the point?”
“I think it’s a little more complicated than that,” I said. But I couldn’t see much point to war, either, especially not the way the Humdrums did it. There weren’t many real heroes and villains in Humdrum wars, no matter how the history books tried to paint things. Hitler had been a real villain, but then, he had been one of the most influential—and completely insane—magicians of his time, even if virtually no one under his command knew about it. It was something most Glims tried not to dwell on.
World War II was the last Humdrum war we’d interfered in. Occasionally a Glim would dabble in a Humdrum conflict, usually witches who’d taken their political activism too far. But every group had a few rogues—maybe even needed them—and they weren’t enough of a majority to drag us into another war. Most of us were peaceful and kept to ourselves. We had the rule of the Faerie Queen and the guidance of the Oracle to keep us on the right path and to stop villains before they had a chance to gain power. We just didn’t need big battles anymore. “Too bad the Humdrums are more than a few decades behind us on the peace thing,” I said.
Imogen raised her eyebrows, looking almost impressed. “Well, I declare,” she said in a thick but convincing Southern accent. “Miss Olivia said something less-than-worshipful about the Humdrums. Will wonders never cease?”
“Shut up,” I said.
Imogen didn’t dislike the Humdrums. She just liked to tease me about thinking their world was great. But she could tease all she wanted. The Humdrum world was just as good as ours, and I’d get a chance to live in it myself soon enough.
A strong current of unrest from across the room made us look up. My eyes widened and I couldn’t do a thing to stop the look of horror that took over my face.
Elle’s oldest stepsister, Mallory, had just swaggered into the room. But this wasn’t the sullen but efficient Mallory I’d seen at Pumpkin Spice. She looked drunk—more than drunk. Her rumpled hair, which had been black the last time I’d seen her, was now the unearthly neon green of lime candy.
She weaved through the lunch line, then toward the salad bar. She looked up at the room, which had gone silent, and swung her head slowly from one side to another, her neon green hair following a split second later. A high-pitched giggle erupted from her mouth. If there hadn’t been so many bodies to muffle the sound, it would have made an echo. But there were bodies. Too many bodies, all staring at her.
“God!” she exclaimed, and hiccupped. Her gaze was too glassy to actually reach anyone, so she stared at us all equally with the dead-eyed intensity of a fish.
I glanced over in time to see Imogen mouth the words Oh… my… before trailing off. The moment was apparently too much to even finish an inaudible sentence. I told myself to not be such a sheep, then gave up and went back to staring with the rest.
“You look like deers in headlights!” Mallory exclaimed. She blinked hard a few times, then said, as though it were important to clarify, “A whole herd of deer in headlights. A herd.”
She pointed toward us and nodded. The movement made her earrings swing. They were tiny, delicate purple stone teardrops.
I pulled down my glasses. A charm rose from the earrings, a sickly green cloud that wrapped around her head and snaked into her ears.
I stood up, but I didn’t have time to reach her. She’d been standing there long enough for someone to have gone for help. A middle-aged English teacher in a brown suit—someone I’d seen in the hallways but had never spoken to—paused in the door, then headed straight for Mallory. He took her arm in a firm grip.
“What?” she shrieked again, turning to look at him. “Can’t stand a little nonconformity in this place?”
He held her arm in one hand, put his other arm around her back to keep her steady, and said, “Come on.” He looked and felt more disappointed than angry, but maybe that was worse. I knew from living with my parents that disappointment was much harder to deal with than anger.
Once Mallory and the teacher were safely out of the door, the sound in the room foamed up to a loud buzz. Everyone want to know what was going on, if she’d snapped because of the pressure, or whether she’d always been hiding a crazy streak beneath that chill exterior.
I held a hand up to stop Imogen’s forthcoming comment and turned the sound up in the room around me, aiming my magic so I’d pick up one or two conversations at a time.
She’s on the honor roll, I heard from across the room. Not anymore.
I heard she got into an Ivy League school, someone else said. Geez, I hope no one puts that up anywhere. I heard schools will stalk you online to catch stuff like this.
I knew she was going to snap one of these days, a worried-looking senior girl said to a small cluster of her friends. I thought I recognized one of them. She’d been talking to Mallory the other day in the hall when I’d passed them on the way to Biology. She’s been working full-time and I guess her stepsister’s been having some trouble at home and she’s been really worried. I knew the stress was going to get to her.
Mallory was on the honor roll? And had been accepted to a big-name school? And spent her spare time worrying about Elle, of all people?
“Probably a spell to relieve anxiety,” I said. “Throw inhibitions out the window.”
“What?” Imogen said.
“Her earrings,” I said, impatient. But I was interrupted before I could say anything else by another grand entrance. As if they’d arranged it beforehand, this time it was Cortney. I couldn’t tell who had looked worse.
She stopped at the door and scanned the room. She was probably looking for Mallory, I thought, though she
didn’t seem up to doing anything requiring that much energy.
“What happened to her?” I heard a girl at the next table say in a hushed voice.
“Meth,” Imogen said.
“Her necklace,” I said. I’d developed a sudden superhero sense for jewelry, and my eyes had flown straight to the heart-shaped pink stone resting just below her collarbones, which jutted out like rocks. “What the heck did Elle put on those things?”
“Has to be medical-grade magic,” Imogen said. “No one in their right mind would use something like that without professional supervision. She looks like she’s lost twenty pounds.”
Cortney walked into the room, her eyes enormous and sunken in her gaunt face. Her skin had lightened four shades to the sickly white of a long-term hospital patient or video game addict who never left the house. Normally, watching her and her friends was like getting a front-row seat to the peppy cheerleader stereotype parade. But now she looked like she’d been strung out on hard drugs for years. Her friends looked horrified, and no wonder. Nothing in the Humdrum world could make someone look that bad, that fast.
I felt out toward Cortney as she passed us. Her eyes darted anxiously around the room. Imogen had been feeling out, too, and she frowned after Cortney was out of earshot.
“Weight loss spell,” she said. “Really strong.”
“She didn’t need to lose weight,” I said. “This is dangerous. What’s Elle thinking?”
“Come on, don’t tell me you don’t know what this game is called,” Imogen said. She picked up her fork and pointed it toward Elle’s table. “This is a classic and well-played instance of revenge.”
“Revenge for what?” I said. “This is serious. Cortney could die.”
I watched Elle. She stared down at her tray, pushing limp spaghetti around in circles.
“She’s not going to die,” Imogen said, but she looked worried. People died from spells all the time. A woman in Washington had inherited a pair of cursed shoes last year and danced herself almost to death. By the time the doctors at the Glimmering hospital up there spelled the shoes off, she’d passed out from exhaustion and dehydration. A spell this strong on someone who didn’t even know magic was happening was asking for crisis.
Elle had gotten Tyler talking. She listened, a big smile on her face and her head tilted toward him like he was the most interesting thing she’d ever seen, but her eyes told a different story. They flicked every few seconds toward Cortney as she made her way across the room, then narrowed as Cortney started walking toward her table. By the time she reached it, Elle was paying full attention to Tyler, and Cortney had to repeat her name several times in a weak voice before Elle looked up. She made herself look surprised.
I wanted to turn her into a toad.
“Have you seen Mal?” Cortney asked. She sounded sick, and no wonder. Emotions swirled off her, exhaustion and urgency and hunger. It was like she was too tired and stressed to eat, even though her body craved food just to keep going. It was an ugly spiral, and had probably happened too fast for her to even know something weird was going on.
Elle shrugged one shoulder, her eyebrows raised just enough to give her the look of a real condescending asshole. “She was in here a minute ago,” she said. “Completely drunk.”
“Mal doesn’t drink,” Cortney said.
Elle’s eyebrows went up even higher, condescension turning into skepticism. “Okay,” she said, like Cortney was an idiot not worth bothering with. “Some teacher took her off to his office or something,” she added. She sounded impatient for Cortney to be gone, but she didn’t feel like it. The frazzled, staticky emotions coming from her held far more interest than she’d betray.
Where was the Oracle at moments like this? It was impossible to know what the Oracle could see or when she was watching, but if there was ever a time for her to intervene and save the day, this was it.
But she wasn’t coming to rescue me. No one was.
I popped a cherry tomato in my mouth. The sweet, acidic juice exploded all over my tongue.
“I’m going to go stop her,” I said.
Imogen’s eyes narrowed in concern. “I wouldn’t, if I were you,” she said.
“I can handle her.”
I felt for my wand. As always, it was nestled in my hair, holding up something that would have been recognizable as a French twist if it weren’t for all the frizz clouding the effect.
Imogen grabbed my sleeve and tugged me back down to sitting. “I know you can handle her,” she said. “I’m not worried about that. I’m worried about whether you should.”
“You’re kidding,” I said. “She can’t get away with acting like that. No one at the center of their own Story should get away with acting like that unless they’re supposed to be the Villain.”
“But she’s not the Villain, she’s the Protagonist,” Imogen said. “And correct me if I’m wrong, because I do the Proctor thing, but I thought you were never supposed to get in the way of your client’s happiness.”
“She’s not happy,” I snapped. Even the gentlest reach in her direction showed that much. Her energy was scattered and sharp. Happiness didn’t come into it. “Anyway, she’s breaking Glimmering law. Mallory and Cortney aren’t supposed to know about our world.”
“I don’t think they do,” Imogen said. “Anyway, they’re family, so they’re allowed to know. And there’s nothing against a relative gifting Humdrum family members with Glimmering objects or spells.”
“There should be,” I said.
“You take that up with the Family Rights Coalition,” Imogen said, rolling her eyes. “Good luck.”
I propped my elbows on the table and leaned forward, looking over at Elle. Cortney had left, and Elle was back to laughing at Tyler’s stories.
This was all my fault. I should never have introduced her to that charms stall. I should never have told her the truth. I should never have taken this assignment in the first place.
“You can’t interfere,” said Imogen gently. “I know it sucks. But it’ll only screw things up.”
“How will it get more screwed up?” I said.
But Imogen wasn’t thinking about Elle or Mallory or Cortney. Imogen was my best friend, and she was thinking about me.
“Elle’s already gone off the deep end,” she said. “There’s not much you can do about it now. Those are her evil stepsisters. Stuff’s not supposed to go right for them, remember? And you’ll get fired if you mess anything else up.” Her eyes met mine. They were glowing with the fire that only came from a good Imogen Dann pep talk. “You’re so close to being done with this,” she said. “And then you’ll have more of the money you need to get you to that weird college. You’re so close. Just get her to prom.”
The pep talk wasn’t enough to fire me up. But she was right: My client’s so-called happiness came first, and if I ruined that, I would lose my biggest shot at earning the money I needed for college. And maybe Mallory and Cortney were suffering because of my bad choices and Elle’s stupidity, but then, I remembered, they were supposed to suffer. They were in the middle of a Story. I wasn’t.
I didn’t have a Story, and I didn’t have to be a Hero. I was a faerie godmother—a fly on the wall who showed up once or twice in the whole stupid Story to give the Protagonist the extra motivation or wealth or power to do what she needed to do. I’d already done that for Elle and equipped her to ride her Story through to the end and take down her so-called evil stepsisters while she was at it.
I hadn’t made her become an idiot. I’d just given her the tools.
If I were a better faerie godmother, maybe I could have stopped her. Maybe I could have stepped in like Tabitha did whenever one of her clients needed a little extra guidance. But I wasn’t a good faerie godmother. I was an intern with a summer job, and I was only here for the fountain full of gold that would get me through my first semester. I was going to take the gold and run.
Chapter 24
I didn’t know why I even bothered to c
ome here anymore. Elle stood behind the counter and Tyler ogled her from the brown couch, as always. The only difference was that the blond girl who followed him around like his own personal backup dancer wasn’t clinging to him today. She was on another couch, curled in on herself, acting like she hadn’t been crying. I’d discovered her name was Brittney, and she and Tyler had been on-again-off-again since freshman year. She made a good pretense of just looking annoyed, but I could feel the weepiness dripping off her like tears out of a soaked handkerchief.
Kyle was with me. He nursed a black coffee and glared darkly at Tyler.
“Remind me why you’re here again?” I said.
“I’m keeping an eye on her,” he said. “Not that I don’t trust you to do it. But, you know.” He raised his cup in Tyler’s general direction in what looked like the most sarcastic toast I’d ever seen. “You arranged that.”
“Elle’s dad arranged that,” I said. It was a stupid argument and I realized it as soon as the words left my lips. I just couldn’t stand the thought of anyone thinking this awkward debacle had been my idea. “If it had been up to me I would have just given her fifty bucks for her buying-Pumpkin-Spice fund and left the whole thing alone.”
“You don’t like this any more than I do,” Kyle said. “What happened?” He nodded toward Tyler, this time more curious than annoyed.
I didn’t want to start trying to explain to him how stupid my job was. I was afraid that if I started, I’d never be able to stop. “It’s kind of an unethical field,” I finally said. That covered all my issues nicely. Well, most of them. “Also, I suck at it,” I added, and that was everything.
“At least you’ve got one thing to be proud of, then.” He scoffed as he watched Tyler heave a sigh and smile like a handsome mannequin toward Elle, who was busy telling her customer in a high-pitched, rapid-fire voice how bad the coffee she was about to serve her was. The silver-haired woman looked confused. I watched to see if anything interesting would happen, but the customer just took her coffee and went back to her table, mouthing Wow at her friend as she sat down.
