by Dodge, Lola
Because there were only two dirty horse stalls, Gabi and I had everything clean and fresh within a few minutes. I was sweating but surprisingly refreshed. “What other chores can I help with?”
“You can help me check the coop, but—”
The barn door swung open.
“Anise?” Vanessa’s voice lifted in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
I would’ve answered, but my voice got stuck somewhere in the bend of my stomach.
Behind Vanessa was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen.
A winged horse.
Snow white except for a black spot on its nose and the tips of its feathers. It had delicate silver hooves that levitated an inch above the ground and its hair looked as soft as rabbit fur.
I have to pet her.
I stepped forward, not even trying to resist the urge. When I reached out, a panicked whinny pierced my ears. The horse danced away from me to hide behind Vanessa. Its eyes rolled, showing white.
It was afraid? Of me?
The oddest sense of disappointment slithered down my breastbone.
Rejected.
By the most majestic mythical creature.
The little girl inside me was crushed.
“Anise.” Gabi tugged my elbow. “Let’s get you out of here, okay?”
I let her pull me away, out of a second door on the other side of the barn. I thought I glimpsed a flash of white from another, smaller horse, ducking inside.
A baby?
I really wanted to pet the baby.
Wynn was already waiting at the back door. He tensed when he saw my face, but after a once-over that showed I wasn’t injured, his posture relaxed. It wasn’t his job to protect me from disappointment.
“Sorry.” Gabi patted my shoulder. “She must’ve sensed something she didn’t like.”
“What’s not to like?” I was surprised to hear a defensive note in my voice. This wasn’t me. I rubbed my temples. “Did that horse just enchant me?” I hadn’t felt any magic. But I hadn’t felt much of anything but the compulsion to go closer.
Compulsion?
Son of a blueberry muffin.
“It’s a thing.” Gabi shrugged. “They need to be loved.”
“But not by me?” And I still sounded defensive about it. “Sorry. That must be her magic talking.”
“Let’s walk.” Gabi pulled me away from the barn, Wynn trailing behind. As soon as we were a few steps away, my head cleared.
Yes, the horses were pretty, but I knew to keep my hands to myself around magical creatures. Especially if they had teeth. “Why would it compel me, then reject me?”
“The compulsion isn’t conscious. They attract all females.” Gabi kept talking as she walked us toward the bank of storage buildings. “All animals respond to a person’s energy, but cryptids are more perceptive. They’re sensing your vibe and your magical energy. I’m earth-centered so most cryptids like me, especially since I tend to like them back. But Blair can’t visit without starting a riot.” Gabi wrinkled her nose. “I’m not sensitive enough to feel if you’re giving off death magic, but your natural fire magic would freak most creatures. You’d have to put in serious work to win their trust.”
Some of the hurt eased from my chest. Not that I should care. I didn’t need to be friends with creatures who cast compulsions and pooped out flying dung missiles.
Manipulative ponies.
“Are you calling it a day?” Gabi asked.
“I’m up for more if there’s more to do.”
“There’s always more to do. Want to help gather eggs?”
“From chickens, or…?” It seemed like I should assume the worst.
Horned chickens? Clawed chickens? Venomous chickens?
“From the rabbits. But they’re off flying around the mountain.”
Right. The same rabbits who ate the dino nuggets.
“Sounds great.” If the clinic kept throwing out this level of weirdness, I’d never have the brain space to worry about death magic again.
Fifteen
For the next week, I fell into a rhythm at the clinic. Mornings, I baked macarons before driving to Fiona’s. Girrar did his greedy gobbling, and then I headed back to Gabi’s for an afternoon of manual labor.
My muscles turned wobbly as gelatin, but my death magic was stable.
Or so I thought.
On the day I was supposed to deliver macaron batch number eight, I opened the casita to find a row of dead bats on our doorstep.
All mummified.
Five crusty brown husks.
Acid-hot bile jumped up my throat. My feet wouldn’t move.
“Back away.” Wynn tugged me gently away from the door and steered me onto a bar stool.
I let him because I had no idea what to do.
Cancel the deal with Girrar?
Call the Wu family for backup? Because I was clearly a threat.
And I had to leave the clinic. I couldn’t be near the animals.
I zombie-walked back to the murder scene.
Wynn crouched outside and nudged one of the bodies with a stick. “You sure this was you?”
“Pretty sure.” I couldn’t think of any other reason a family of bats would drop dead on our stoop. Trying not to look too hard at their poor little bodies, I took a quick pic and attached it to a new group text. It would take too long to individually message all the people I needed to tell.
Fiona. Agatha. Gabi, Blair, and their moms. And my mom, not because she could help from New York, but because I hoped she’d console me when I called later.
I typed in This happened, then hit send.
Agatha responded first. Way to ruin breakfast.
Yes. Thanks, Agatha.
Always so wise and helpful in a crisis.
Running over. A few seconds after Gabi responded, I spotted her sprinting across the lawn.
I started to shut the door. I wasn’t safe to be around.
There’s no way you could kill anyone, Blair responded, reading my mind. But you’d better haul ass over here so we can test your power.
Gabi skidded to a stop in the grass, a few steps from the stoop. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. But the bats… I didn’t mean to…” A thickness clogged my throat and suddenly my eyes burned.
I’d killed mice before. Rats, too. I’d set traps and scooped their bodies into a dustpan. Dumped them in the trash.
This felt like so much more of a tragedy. Because I hadn’t meant to kill the bats. I didn’t even remember killing them. I hadn’t felt the magic slip.
Now they were dead for no reason at all.
“It’s okay.” Gabi’s voice was soothing—it was probably the voice she used to talk down terrified horses.
“I can’t stay here.” I couldn’t put anyone or any creatures in danger.
“Let’s see what Ms. Wu says first.” She pulled rubber gloves and a baggie from her pocket. Her hands stayed perfectly steady while she plucked up the bats and sealed them away.
My phone vibrated with a message from Fiona. Girrar’s still expecting a delivery.
Before I could respond, a call came in—Mom. I sent her to voicemail so I could respond to Fiona. I’d call back as soon as I had longer to talk.
I’m going to be late. I wasn’t screwing around with this power. “We better go now.”
I made Gabi sit in the front seat with Wynn. She clutched a suspicious brown paper bag in her lap. I hunkered down in the back, keeping my distance as much as possible.
We sped through town and Blair was already waiting for us under the overhang to the funeral parlor. The parking lot was jammed, with overflow cars spilling onto the street. We were obviously interrupting a service. Blair wore all black, which she only ever did for work.
She waved us in before I could apologize for barging. “Mom’s ready for you.”
My shoulders sank down as we slunk through the packed parlor. A few of the blank-eyed guests turned to stare at our procession. I ke
pt my eyes on the carpet, trying to ignore the sad, solemn people dressed in black.
My shoulders tingled and my fingers twitched with the need to cast who knew what. I made sure not to glimpse any coffins.
I wasn’t ready to find out if reanimating corpses was on my skill list now.
Peggy waited for us in the same slab room as before, her lips pressed in a flat line. I didn’t miss a breath before hopping onto the stone. “Please tell me the death magic isn’t getting worse.”
“I’m not sensing anything to worry about.” Peggy rubbed her herby oil over my forehead. “Just relax.”
Blair, Gabi, and Wynn hovered in the open doorway. I held my breath, shaking, even less relaxed than the last time I was here. Spectral green magic fell over me.
Don’t be worse.
Pleeeeeeease don’t be worse.
Peggy drew back her power, then patted my sneaker. “You can sit up.”
I popped up, swinging jittery legs off the slab. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. You’ve done well pulling the death magic together. Now it’s more of a pit inside you than an overflowing tangle.”
A pit?
In what world was that a good thing? “That doesn’t make sense. You said if I had an outlet… I thought the power would fade. Not slip out and kill things.”
“I’d like to see the bodies.” Peggy turned to the doorway.
Gabi moved to hand her the paper sack. Peggy cradled it in her palms but thankfully didn’t crack it open. Her power echoed at the edges of my senses like a hoarse whisper in an empty tomb. “I don’t think your magic killed them.”
“Then what did?” Because why would there be dead bats on my doorstep if I wasn’t the killer?
“It’s hard to say. Animals aren’t my area of expertise. Blair?” She offered the sack out to her daughter. When Blair stepped in to grab the bag, Wynn followed and took his normal post behind me.
Whatever was happening, I was more than glad to have them all here helping.
Blair massaged the bag a little too hard, making me swallow down a gag. Her power flared, then faded. “I’m seeing something like bad food? Poison? Could you have left out a cake they got into?”
“No. I’ve been super careful.” I sterilized my utensils every day and cleansed Gabi’s kitchen with bleach, then sage. I didn’t leave a stray speck of flour, let alone a whole crumb. And the macarons never left my sight until Girrar devoured them.
Gabi nodded. “Mom says Anise can stay forever if she’s going to keep our kitchen that clean.”
Peggy tapped one blood-red fingernail against the slab and turned her considering gaze to Gabi. “If I reanimated one of them, could you communicate with it?”
“That’s… I don’t think so. Remember when you brought back that owl?” Gabi turned to Blair, her face twisting in a mix of disgust and horror. “It was…weird. I couldn’t read words from it at all.”
“An owl. When was this?” Peggy’s hard voice made it too clear that Blair had broken some other necromancer rule. So did Blair’s neutral, I-did-nothing-wrong gaze, that tipped up toward the ceiling.
“We don’t have to go that far.” I cut in before Peggy could hand out any punishments. And also before she could reanimate any carcasses. “As long as you’re sure it wasn’t me?”
“I’m reasonably sure.” Peggy’s shoulders dipped. “But that’s not good enough, is it?”
“Not to stay at Gabi’s. Not if there’s a risk of me hurting more animals.”
“You can’t leave. Where else would you go?” Gabi’s voice tightened up like I was about to get kicked onto the streets.
“You’d be welcome to stay with us again, but…” Peggy’s eyes narrowed. “Did you react to the service?”
Ugh.
I wished I could say no, but I’d felt the mourning in my bones. And my shoulders still tingled. “I reacted.”
“Can she stay with someone else from the Syndicate?” Blair asked.
“Sylvia?” My tone lifted with hope. She was the only other member I’d dealt with.
“Death magic isn’t a good mix with her powers,” Peggy said.
“Fiona has spare rooms.” Wynn’s voice was a shock from just behind my ear.
I did a one-eighty. “You’d let me move closer to Girrar?” And how did he even know what was in Fiona’s house? He’d never left my side when we were there.
He did a one-shoulder shrug. “It’s not up to me.”
“I’ll ask her.” I couldn’t see any other options.
“She’ll agree,” Peggy said. “She’s already overseeing your contract so she’ll feel obligated to help you fulfill the terms.”
Great.
I loved to make people take me in out of obligation.
I’d have to stop at the bakery and grab a sheet-cake-sized box of cream puffs to worm my way into Fiona’s heart.
We left Gabi with Blair—they were planning some sort of bat autopsy that I wanted nothing to do with, especially when they both jumped on me to say that an animal autopsy was called a necropsy.
It didn’t sound like their first time at the animal corpse rodeo.
Wynn drove toward Agatha’s while I called in an order, asking Sam to fill me up a box of cream puffs. He parked and grumbled about leaving me alone but was convinced to run inside after my fifth promise that I wouldn’t leave the car.
I didn’t dare step into Agatha’s territory. All I could do was gaze longingly at the building, pressing my face against the car window.
A long line of customers wound down the front walkway, waiting for their turn in magic dessert heaven. The main window display was a giant croquembouche tower, except instead of the traditional cone shape, the fried sugary puffballs were stacked to look like a massive jack-o-lantern.
I tasted sugar on the air and bitterness in my heart.
Soon, Wynn was jogging back down the walk. He placed the bakery box on the floor in the back seat, moving so carefully that I couldn’t possibly complain.
When he pulled off from the curb, I watched the bakery fade behind us. Soon, I’d be back here. Back to the life I wanted.
“You can cancel the deal.”
Wynn’s voice made me jump so high my seatbelt locked. I never expected him to start a conversation. “It’s too soon to call it off.”
Not that I was sure of the exact exchange rate we’d get for the mix of gold and gemstones, but I was keeping all the treasure locked in a wheelie cooler. It wasn’t even half full.
I wanted a few coolers overflowing before we went to barter for Wynn’s freedom.
And honestly, I was surprised that he was still willing to let me pull back. “Don’t you think we should earn as much as we can while we can?”
“Not if it puts you at risk.”
Simple Wynn logic. I re-loosened my seatbelt. “It’s not me I’m worried about.”
“I am.” He didn’t turn, didn’t look my way, but I could swear there was a hint of warmth in his voice.
Worried?
For more than contractual reasons?
I pressed a hand to my forehead.
Was I hallucinating?
“What?” His voice was the same straight-to-the-point punch as ever.
“I’m just surprised”
“I only have one thing to worry about.”
I’m not a thing. But I let that one slide for now. “Shouldn’t you worry about what comes next? What’ll you do when you don’t have to be a Shield?”
“Haven’t thought about it.”
“Why not?”
“I’ll think about it after.”
He had to have a dream somewhere in that muscle brain. Maybe he just didn’t want to share? “Do you know how to joust?”
“Yeah.”
“I have an idea.” Whatever that restaurant was called—the one where you ate turkey legs while the knights battled? They’d love Wynn.
“What?”
“I’ll tell you after.” With great smu
gness. I’d just have to ask Agatha if anyone in the Syndicate wanted to open a franchise in Taos. Or Wynn could make his way to Vegas.
He didn’t push for more, because he never did. The rest of the trip was silent until we rumbled down Gabi’s driveway.
I clutched my arms to my chest. Peggy said I hadn’t killed the bats—that I wasn’t a threat—but as long as I was carrying this death power, I couldn’t trust myself.
And I did not want to kill any winged horses.
I needed to start baking right away. The faster I baked the macarons, the faster I could hand them off to Girrar, the faster I could pack up the casita and move to safer ground.
But I froze halfway up the porch steps.
Why take the risk of baking here?
It would be safer to move my whole operation to Fiona’s. Grabbing a quick seat on the porch swing, I pulled out my phone. It took a few seconds to work up the courage to make a call.
Wynn stared on, probably wondering what the hell I was doing.
I wondered that a lot, too.
I finally pressed the button.
“Anise?” Fiona’s voice spilled out faster than usual. Anxious? “What’s the verdict?”
“I can’t risk staying at the clinic.” I pressed the phone tight to my ear, praying Fiona would agree with what I was about to ask. “But I can’t go to Agatha’s or Peggy’s or even Sylvia’s. Would you mind if I stayed with you? And did my baking at your house?”
“I’ll make up the spare rooms.”
“Thank you.” My stress melted and I leaned back, my weight so lifted that the swing started moving. “I only need one room.”
“It’s like that, hmm?” Her tone vibrated with the hint of a purr.
I sat up straighter, carefully not looking at Wynn. Fiona was definitely misunderstanding my relationship with my Shield. “One of us will be sleeping on the floor.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
That was one problem solved. I brushed my hands against my leggings. “We’re moving to Fiona’s. Better pack your weapons.”
I took care of the kitchen first, hauling out my flour and eggs after quadruple-checking that the fanged rooster wasn’t out for a strut. We hadn’t brought much so it didn’t take long to empty out the casita.
