Enchanted Ever After

by Shanna Swendson

  “And?” I prodded.

  “And it wasn’t about anything, at least, not that I could tell. She just wanted to catch up.”

  “But I thought you were never friends. What was there to catch up about?”

  “We did have some classes together and had mutual friends. We mostly talked about them, where they are, what they’re doing. She asked about the wedding.” He gave a slight smile. “She was rather surprised that I had the nerve to propose to anyone, since I was apparently notorious in school for being too afraid to even ask anyone out.” He started walking, heading back toward the office, and it took me a moment to mentally and physically catch up with him.

  “So she really just wanted to talk about old times that you two never actually had?”

  “I guess she noticed me more than I realized. Apparently, I was the source of a lot of gossip and speculation. More girls than I realized were interested in me, but they got frustrated when I didn’t catch any of their hints. It seems I could have had a very different social life than I had. But then I probably wouldn’t have done as well in school if I’d been distracted.”

  “Really, all she wanted to talk about was how cute you were in school and how surprising it is that you’re getting married now?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe she’s changed since then.”

  I started to remind him of what we’d learned about Matilda’s family, but that wasn’t something to discuss in public. Was it possible that she really did just want to catch up with an old acquaintance? Something about this struck me as odd, and I doubted it was just insecurity on my part. Unfortunately, it was difficult to dig into it without sounding insecure.

  Rod and Trish arrived back at the office not long after we did, running into us while we were still in the lobby. For a moment, I thought Rod was going to tear into Owen about going against the plan, but he stopped himself. “We’ll talk later,” was all he said, though his glare was furious. “Shall we gather at your place tonight to discuss this?”

  “I can’t tonight,” I said. “I’ve got something to deal with.”

  “There’s nothing to discuss,” Owen said. “Turns out it was a false alarm, just a lunch to catch up.”

  “Catch up on what?” Rod asked.

  Owen ignored him, saying, “What is it that you need to deal with?” to me.

  “There’s another one of those anti-magic rallies, and I ought to check it out. I doubt it’s the big unveiling because it’s not likely to get a lot of attention. Carmen Hernandez didn’t even get a news release about it.”

  “We’ll need to stake it out, anyway,” Owen said.

  “You’ll go nowhere near it,” Rod said, and I was glad he had so I didn’t have to. “You will stay safely at the office until we give you the all-clear. I don’t even want you going home. I want you here, with witnesses.”

  “Yes, sir!” Owen said with a mock salute. “Even though I don’t report to you. At least, not last time I checked.”

  “It’s for your own good,” Rod said.

  “Or do you want to sit through another interrogation, hmmmm?” I added.

  The “hmmm” apparently served as a wakeup call, for he immediately said, “I have some things I want to work on this evening, anyway. The rest of you have fun.”

  He headed for the stairs, and Rod turned to me. “What happened today?”

  “You probably know more than I do, since you were inside,” I said. “He just told me they chatted about old times and what’s going on with him now. What did happen in there?”

  “Nothing that I could tell,” Trish said. “It just looked like a casual lunch. They weren’t overly friendly. He was pretty reserved. She was flirty, but in that way that looks like it’s just her natural way of dealing with people. There was a little battling over the check, and I suspect she used magic to win it. I wasn’t close enough to hear what they said.”

  “I was, or I should have been,” Rod said. “But all I heard was a constant murmur, nothing specific. I think they were using a privacy spell. You wouldn’t notice it unless you were trying to eavesdrop on that one particular table. Otherwise, you hear a blur of restaurant sound.”

  “Why would they have needed a privacy spell if they were just catching up on old times?” I wondered.

  “You don’t think he’s lying about what they discussed, do you?” Trish asked.

  I shook my head. “No. He can’t tell a lie to save his life.”

  “That’s the truth,” Rod said. “Maybe she’s just automatically paranoid. I do know of magical people who make it a habit to mask their conversations in restaurants. It’s a New York survival strategy.”

  “Must be nice,” Trish said. “Even better would be to make it so you didn’t have to hear anyone else.”

  “We can do that,” Rod said, “but I’m afraid it wouldn’t work for you, unless it’s a true sound barrier. So, what do we do about this?” He gestured with his chin toward the stairs where Owen had gone.

  “I’m worried,” I admitted. “Maybe this lunch was just to get his guard lowered. Then she can invite him somewhere else where something will happen.”

  “Yeah, I don’t believe in a million years that this was just catching up. I’ll keep an eye on him. Maybe you can keep him busy.”

  “With the wedding, that won’t be hard. Now I’d better let Sam know about that thing tonight in the plaza.”

  Trish and I went back outside to where Sam sat in his usual post on the awning. When I showed the flier to Sam, he gave a low whistle. “Well, now, they’re getting into our territory. I don’t think it’s an accident that it’s so close to our headquarters. They’ve gotta be up to something. And we’d better be ready.”

  14

  We went into high gear to prepare for the event advertised on the flier. Gargoyles searched the city, seeing how far and wide the fliers were distributed and if any similar events were being planned elsewhere. When we got the report that this seemed to be the only event and that it had been promoted throughout the city, Sam ordered half of his forces to stay around the office building.

  “You think this is a pretext for attacking here?” I asked.

  “I think it’s an excellent way to draw our people out to the plaza, leaving the building vulnerable. But don’t worry, we’ll still have plenty of folks keepin’ an eye on the plaza.”

  “Remember, there’s a good chance that some of these people are magical immunes,” I warned. “That’s probably why they see magic stuff. Your veils won’t work on some of them.”

  “That’s why you’re one of the folks keepin’ an eye on the plaza. The gargoyles will be minding the fort back here, but we’ll be ready to swoop in if you give the word.”

  “That would be an extreme last resort. And maybe it’s what they want us to do. They might be goading us into showing ourselves.”

  A crowd had already started to form near the fountain when I left the office. I recognized a number of MSI people, including Rod and Trish, mingling among the crowd. Fortunately, there was no sign of Owen. I wondered if Rod had resorted to handcuffing him to his desk or if Owen had merely been sidetracked by some project. In spite of him being warned to stay away, I wouldn’t have put it past him to show up, in case he was needed.

  Since I’d gone to that one anti-magic meeting with Trish, I figured it would make sense for me to be seen in public with her, so I wandered over to her. “Fancy meeting you here,” I said.

  “There are more people here than I expected,” she said.

  “I never thought anyone actually read those fliers.”

  “I wonder how much is the fliers and how much is people seeing a crowd and stopping out of curiosity,” she said, scanning the plaza. “It is going-home-from-work time.” She dropped her voice to add, “See anyone you know?”

  I was shorter than she was, so had a harder time seeing beyond the heads and shoulders of the people around me. I did a double take when I saw a familiar head of curly red hair: Mimi. It made sense for her to be
drawn to an event like this, given her experiences, I supposed. I couldn’t tell if she was involved with the event or just a curious bystander. Someone climbed up to stand on one of the benches by the fountain. She wasn’t familiar, but I recognized a woman standing near her. “Yeah, the person who tipped me off about all this in the first place.” I felt like I’d come full circle. Oddly, this was the first time I’d encountered her since the bridal sale. She hadn’t been at the meeting or the demonstration at Union Square. Did that mean this was a different faction?

  The woman standing on the bench was tall and thin, with long, straight graying hair held back from her face with a hairband. I wondered if looking eternally middle-aged was a common trait for those who believed magic existed and wished it didn’t, because she reminded me of the guy from the other meeting. There had to be a certain humorlessness about someone who wanted the world to be less magical, and it was a good reminder to watch my own attitude. I was way too prone to wishing things were more normal. It was easy to get so caught up in facing the latest magical threat that I forgot to think of how amazing it was that magic was real and I got to be a part of it.

  The woman raised a bullhorn to her mouth, cleared her throat, and called out, “Can everyone hear me?” There was a general murmur of confirmation. “Well, um, good. I’m sure you’re all here because you’re seekers. You want the truth. You’ve heard things, seen things, and everywhere you turn, all you get are denials. No one believes you. Even if they see something for themselves, they deny it. And, of course, the authorities treat you like a crackpot. It’s enough to make you wonder what you really saw, to make you doubt your own eyes.”

  “Sounds like an immune to me,” Trish muttered, and I nodded in agreement. I wondered if telling this woman the truth would stop all this. Maybe it wasn’t so much that she was opposed to magic as it was that she was tired of not being believed.

  “Well, today we’re going to change all that,” the speaker declared, her voice going shrill with emotion. The bullhorn amplified that, making her unpleasant to listen to. People started drifting away from the plaza. Seeing her audience departing made her get even more strident. “I’m here today to tell you that magic is real, and I’m going to prove it to you.”

  That got the attention of the people just passing through the plaza, going to and from the nearby subway station. I looked around for any sign of reporters and didn’t see any TV cameras. I thought I saw Carmen, in incognito mode, the way she’d been at that previous meeting, and without her camera crew.

  “Yes, I said magic. Not pulling rabbits out of hats or sawing women in half, but real magic. And believe me, it is real.”

  I heard a few snickers around me. One person muttered, “It’s probably some kind of promotional thing. We’ll find out it’s about a new movie, or something.” But a few people listened intently, Mimi among them.

  “Magic is all around us in this city. There are magical creatures living among us. There are wizards manipulating the world to their own ends. Great magical battles have happened right here, and most people remain oblivious, probably because the magical people fog their minds, keeping them from noticing. But we’ve been documenting it all, every incident, with as much evidence as we can find, and we’ve been studying the patterns of the way magic is used.”

  That had to mean they knew more than they’d posted on their blog, because I hadn’t been able to find any patterns, in spite of knowing the truth. Or else someone who did know something had tipped them off.

  “We’re in the part of the city that’s the core of magic here,” the speaker went on, and I tensed. That sounded like she knew about MSI headquarters. The location of this event hadn’t been accidental. “There’s a building that isn’t always there, or that only some people can see, and it’s the seat of magical activity in this city. But tonight, you’ll see it all when the moon passes overhead a few minutes from now, lifting the magical veil that hides it from the world.”

  Trish and I turned to look at each other. “Seriously?” she said, a corner of her lip turning up.

  “I’ve never heard that the moon has anything to do with it,” I said. “But then, it wouldn’t make any difference to me.” I looked for Rod in the crowd, but I’d lost him, and this wasn’t really a conversation we could have here. I’d thought this was the faction that wasn’t being run by magical people. If they had the magic to drop the veils on MSI’s building, then I’d misjudged the whole thing.

  I moved to the fringes of the crowd and called Sam. “It’s not an attack,” I whispered into the phone. “I think they’re going to drop the veils on the building.”

  “Got it.”

  “Soon,” I added. “Something about when the moon passes overhead. Is that a thing?”

  “Not that I’ve ever heard. It’s probably just showmanship. But we’re on it. Thanks for the tip, doll.”

  The woman was still bellowing through the bullhorn about all the strange things that existed in the city that no one else could see, and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. It was clear that she was magically immune, and if only someone had managed to catch that and explain it to her, I had a feeling she’d be a much happier person now. As it was, I wondered if it was too late. She already believed the truth, so would it do any good to bring her fully in on the secret? Would it make her hate magic any less if she were part of it?

  I was still musing on the topic, heading back toward Trish, when Carmen stopped me. “You came,” she said.

  I shrugged. “I work nearby, and I walk through here to get to the subway, so I thought I might as well stop and see what’s going on.”

  “None of this makes any sense,” she said, shaking her head. “What is she saying about a disappearing building that doesn’t seem to belong here? That castle-like building has always been over there.” She pointed straight at the MSI building. “And I don’t think it’s Magic HQ.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I wasn’t supposed to admit that I saw it, but I didn’t want to tell her I couldn’t see it. “It’s easy to miss if you’re not looking for it, I guess.”

  “But what’s the big deal?”

  “I have no idea.” That much was the truth, but for entirely different reasons than she probably suspected.

  The woman with the bullhorn paused dramatically, looking up at the sky, then turned and pointed. “There!”

  I didn’t know that the crowd would get too excited about seeing a building they’d never noticed before, but I did expect some reaction, at least a few double takes when it suddenly appeared or changed, or whatever would happen when the veils dropped. Instead, people just stared like they were waiting for something to happen, and when it didn’t, they began wandering off, going about their business. That got the speaker really riled up. “Don’t you see it?” she shouted, loud enough to overload the megaphone. “The veils dropped, and there it was!”

  “It was always there,” Carmen said, shaking her head.

  I thought about telling her the truth, but I realized I had no proof. Being able to see a building wasn’t exactly evidence of magic, and she didn’t seem to notice that no one else in the crowd could see it. “I guess this was a bust, huh?” I said.

  “I’m just glad I didn’t pitch this as a story or bring a crew. I’d have been a laughingstock. It’s just another crackpot. We really need to do something about the mental health system in this country.” With a halfhearted wave, she said, “Catch you at the next big magical exposé.”

  “Yeah. One of these days, maybe it’ll be the real thing,” I said.

  “Ha! As if!”

  I was still watching her go when someone grabbed me by the arm. I whirled to see the woman from the bridal sale. “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.

  “Excuse me?” I said, all the Texas in me coming out with a vengeance. Even I was a bit surprised by how many syllables I managed to fit into those two words.

  “You’re the one who made it fail.”

 
“Wait, you’re blaming me for whatever you were trying to do failing?” Okay, so it had kind of been my fault, but I was indignant enough about being blamed to sound somewhat genuine.

  “I heard you on the phone, talking about veils.”

  How had she heard that? I hadn’t been that close to her, and I’d whispered. She must have been right behind me, and I hadn’t noticed, or maybe she could read lips. “I’m planning a wedding, remember?” I tried to pull away from her.

  She tightened her grip on my arm and dragged me toward the fountain, where the speaker was still berating the dwindling crowd. Trish moved toward me, as though to intervene, but I caught her eye and shook my head slightly. I didn’t think I was in immediate physical danger, and I was curious what was going on. This might be a good way to find out.

  “She’s the one who did it!” my captor said when we reached the speaker. “I heard her on the phone, warning them about the veil dropping. And she was at the incident at the bridal sale. I should have known she was one of them.”

  “I told you, I was talking about a wedding veil,” I said, wrenching my arm out of her grasp. “I was just buying a wedding dress at the sale. Which is why I was talking about veils. I’m not sure if I should go with one or drop the idea and do something different.” Even though that hadn’t been what the phone call had been about, it was kind of the truth. I hadn’t found a veil style I liked and was wondering if not using one would give my mother a heart attack.

  The crowd had shrunk to the point it was just the true believers left, along with Rod, Trish, and a few other MSI people who hung back. Even Mimi was gone, much to my relief. The last thing I needed now was her identifying me. I hoped none of the MSI crowd did anything drastic that would end up revealing magic. The speaker glared down at me from her spot standing on the bench and lowered her megaphone, speaking without it. “Are you the reason my demonstration failed?”