by Leanne Leeds
“Daddy offering any help beyond the paper?” Fiona asked him. Gunther paused and nodded no. “Thought so. This could be a dupe, Charlotte.”
It could be a trick, though if it was a trick, the trick was not Gunther’s.
Gunther always struck me as kind, honest, and I wasn’t getting anything from him that indicated he was any different than usual. My concern wasn’t that Gunther was lying, though.
My worry was that Gunther was being played by his jerk of a father. Even if Roland sent Gunther over here to trick us, he was likely unaware of his Dad’s ulterior motives. Gunther would believe in his father’s sincerity long after there was a reason to suspect he was a liar.
Fortuna and Mark watched me as I looked at my friend and magic teacher. Ningul held Fiona both for comfort and to prevent her from stepping up on Gunther again.
“How about you and I take a walk?” Gunther nodded.
“Charlotte, you can’t—”
“I’m completely safe at the Magical Midway, Fiona. I won’t eat anything, touch anything, or lick anything, okay?” Fiona smirked despite her mistrust, and Gunther blushed.
The Magical Midway was quiet. Despite the drama and uncertainty the residents had over the threats from the Witches’ Council, a tranquil calm had descended. Most people had withdrawn to their pavilions and yurt villages. Gunther and I strolled among the backyard toward a gazebo I had installed at the corner of the living area.
“Is this going to turn into some magical cage?” Gunther joked as he stepped into a gazebo. “Some truth spell for those inside? Sound transmission to all the inhabitants?”
“It’s just a gazebo, Gunther,” I told him as I followed. “No tricks, no magical traps. Just a nice place to sit and chat.”
We sat in silence for a while listening to the breeze rustle the canvas. Far off drunken shouts of revelry periodically pierced the calm. Finally, Gunther spoke as he went on gazing into the distance. “I really thought with my coming around the past few months your buddies would have thought better of me by now.”
“Two hundred years of struggle and mistrust is not a simple thing to get over in a few months, Gunther. And your Dad was kind of an idiot.” I gazed back toward the yurts. “They’re afraid. Things have changed here since I became ringmaster. They have two ringmasters, and now the Witches’ Council is jeopardizing their home. Something they all know your father did just a few days after my uncle died.
“My father offered to buy your circus, Charlotte, not scorch it to the ground.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that. I recalled the exchange between Roland Makepeace and I a little differently than his son did. Technically, Gunther was right, but the stream of taunts that fell from Roland’s mouth against the Magical Midway made me wonder why he wanted to buy it if he detested it so much.
“Okay, let’s change the discussion a little bit. What do you know about the conversation that took place between Mina and Roland? Did you overhear anything? Did your Dad talk to you after the Witches’ Council left?”
“I didn’t hear much,” Gunther said as he stood up and stood against the large gazebo railing. “They showed up at the edge of the clearing behind our big top. The three of them walked in and told the gargoyles that they demanded to see the ringmaster.”
“Gargoyles?”
“You have lares as security, we have gargoyles. Anyway, the gargoyles showed the three witches to my father’s cabin. I stood out front on the porch to ensure that no one came in while they were meeting, but Dad lives in an old-fashioned log cabin. The walls are really thick, and I couldn’t hear anything that was going on.”
“Any thumping, banging, yelling you couldn’t make out? Any shimmering through the window to indicate that magic was being cast?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“How long did they all talk?”
“About fifteen minutes.”
“That’s a pretty long discussion when you think about it, Gunther.”
A tiny mew broke into the exchange from Gunther’s pocket, and his kitten’s little head popped up. Delilah mewed again and tapped her tiny paw against Gunther’s lips. “Is your kitten okay?”
“Yeah…” Gunther said as he peered at the tiny black cat. “She… um, she was in the cabin. When my father talked to the Witches’ Council.” Delilah crawled out of his pocket and hopped onto his shoulder, chattering excitedly. “He seemed okay. He and Mercy hugged.”
“Why would she hug him? Do they know each other well?”
Gunther stared off into the distance for a great while as his kitten kept chattering at him, but he stopped relaying anything she said. He scratched her head and nodded repeatedly. The little kitten seemed upset.
“Gunther?”
“I don’t know.”
Gunther was lying to me.
Samson, can you hear me?
Yes.
Can you come out to the gazebo? I need you to tell me what Delilah is telling Gunther. His kitten was in the cabin with the Witches’ Council and Roland. She’s chattering like crazy, but he’s not saying much.
On my way.
Where are you, by the way?
Checking for suicidal mice in the hay storage area.
Ew, Samson, gross. How do you know the mice are suicidal?
They are suicidal if they let me see them.
Stop chasing mice and get out to the gazebo.
I said I was on my way. You need not repeat your requests twice. I’m not a dog.
I watched as Gunther and Delilah engaged in an exchange I was completely locked out of. The tiny cat hopped from his shoulder to his head, nuzzling his ear as she chattered and meowed. Periodically, Gunther nodded and scratched her behind the ears, but he didn’t explain what he was discovering.
Here we are, Samson said as he hopped up on the gazebo wall. What’s the chatterbox blathering on about?
I was hoping you would tell me.
“Hello there, Samson,” Gunther nodded at my familiar. Delilah purred and rushed down from Gunther's shoulder. The little cat raced along the gazebo fence to rub against Samson in greeting. Samson touched his nose to hers and sat back on his legs as she accosted him. “Delilah’s happy to see her buddy.”
“I meant to ask you. Your father has a familiar, too? An official circus one like Samson?”
“No,” Gunther shook his head. “The Makepeaces don’t have a guardian the way you all have one. We just have regular familiars like any other witch.”
“I never had a familiar,” I pointed out. “My parents don’t have one, either.”
“They live in the human world. Witches that live in the human world aren’t allowed familiars.”
“What did you call Samson? A guardian?” Gunther nodded. “What’s a guardian?”
“A long-lived paranormal animal that survives through generations. Usually, guardians are powerful supernatural beings, like a dragon or unicorn. Not sure why you guys only got a cat.”
Can I bite him?
Come on, Samson, admit it. A dragon would have been cool, I teased.
Now I’m going to bite you. You’re lucky any guardian would step up and take on the responsibility for this insane family. Animal shelters, circuses, witches living in the human world, the Witches’ Council attacks. You’re not precisely a low-maintenance family, you Astleys.
Is there some job board for guardians?
Hush, the young one is saying something.
“I know! Stop worrying, Dad will figure something out” Gunther exclaimed, shocked, as he stared at his familiar. The little cat mewed in response and seemed to shrug.
What happened?
Delilah heard Mercy apologize to Roland Makepeace, that despite her oath to protect him, there was no longer anything she could do. Said if Roland had been a cat, all his fur would have jumped straight out.
Mercy? The dimwitted one?
The one that rarely speaks. Yep.
“What did Mercy oath to your father that she had to bre
ak?” I asked Gunther. His eyes shot over to me in surprise, and then he looked at Samson. With a frown, he shook his head no.
“I don’t know.”
There’s a lot that boy doesn’t know, Samson thought.
Or that he doesn’t want to say.
“I have to go,” Gunther said as he scooped up his tiny kitten and dropped it back into his pocket. “Look, I got you the law. I hope you can use it and I promise, it’s not poisoned. I need to go talk to my father. I’ll be back by in two days for our lesson.” Gunther squeezed my wrist, smiled, and turned to hop down the stairs.
“You still want to have a magic lesson this week? With all this stuff going on?” I called after him as he hurried away. “Maybe we should skip it this week.”
Gunther stopped running and stood still, facing away from me. The stillness of the cold night air held me suspended, staring after him. After what seemed like an eternity, he turned and walked back.
“You can’t put this off,” Gunther said as he stepped closer. “Things are happening incredibly fast all of a sudden, Charlotte. Incredibly fast. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
I stared up at his face. Gunther was so close that the aura of him invaded my space, and I felt a little drunk from it. We stared at one another quietly, and I regarded for the first time how extraordinary his eyes were. How long his eyelashes were. The air blew my hair across my face, and he reached up to gently wrap it behind my ear. Shivering at his gentle touch, I stepped backward.
“Promise me you’ll practice, and you’ll make time in two days when I return,” Gunther demanded, his voice low. “I mean it, Charlotte. I worry about you.”
“What do you mean everything is happening fast? What’s everything?”
“I’ll see you in two days,” he bowed, spun, and sprinted into the night. I tried to ignore the flex of his powerful shoulders as he grew smaller and smaller. With a flash of light, he was gone.
He is a nice looking young man, Samson mused.
Shut up, cat.
“Did you find out anything?” Fiona asked as I stepped back into the yurt.
“Yeah,” I told her as I sat down. “That I get attracted to the wrong guys at the most awkward moments.”
“I could have told you that you were attracted to him months ago,” Fortuna said as she passed me a cup of tea. “I didn’t even need my gift to see that happening.”
“He looks at her like she’s—” I threw a stuffed animal at Fiona’s head to cut her off, but it failed to lodge in her running mouth, and she kept going. “What? How you can’t see that the two of you will wind up together is completely beyond me. Well, you would if he wasn’t the son of Roland Makepeace, in any event.”
“Stop it. We’re friends. He just looked good in the moonlight,” I said, taking a sip of the warm tea. “Like, fantastic.”
“Well, while you were off cuddling with the enemy in the gazebo, we’ve been looking over this law,” Fiona told me. She waved me over to the table. The group had rolled out the parchment with books and were staring at it as if trying to interpret code.
“It seems pretty clear. Any privately held property harboring residential humans is subject to forfeiture. Any paranormals aiding the harboring of the humans are subject to punishment up to and including imprisonment or death.”
“That’s a pretty simple law,” I murmured.
“Simple is usually better,” Ningul said. “Most of the Council laws are fairly concise and direct.”
“That could help us. Human laws are pages and pages of verbosity, and even then the lawmakers tend to overlook something obvious that can be exploited.”
“How so? I don't understand what you mean,” Fiona asked.
“Fewer words, more loopholes,” I reasoned.
“I don’t see how there are any loopholes for Fortuna and I. We are human, and we are residents of the circus,” Mark disagreed.
“Well, here’s one—you said any privately held property harboring residential humans is subject to forfeiture. What the paper actually says is any privately held property harboring residential humans at the time of inquest is subject to forfeiture. So, what’s officially considered the time of inquest?”
Fiona shrugged. “I don’t know. When they showed up here?”
“An inquest is usually a judicial inquiry,” I pointed out. “They asked nothing when they showed up here. Just made threats and accusations, and there was no judge.”
The inquiry is what you delayed for seven days, Samson said.
“Okay, so Samson just said the inquiry is actually at the end of the seven days,” I told the group. “Can’t we just officially untether Fortuna and Mark on that day, and then move them back in the next day?”
Ningul shook his head. “At the risk of pointing out that’s too easy, that’s too easy.”
“According to you all, it would also leave us helpless in the human world with a price on our heads from the witches,” Fortuna said. “Not a position that I want to put myself in.”
Mark agreed.
“See if they can hang out at the Makepeace Circus for a day?”
“Charlotte, you’re just kicking the can down the road,” Fiona argued. “Even if we avoid consequences that day, they will be back. The wicked triplets don’t give up that easily, and for some reason, they have it in for us.”
“I still don’t understand why. I mean, I’m barely a ringmaster and barely a witch, here. They didn’t have it in for my uncle like this.” Fiona sighed and caught me in a bear hug, crushing me until my sides ached. Releasing me just as rapidly, she banged her fist down on the parchment. With a deep breath, she continued calmly despite her emotional outburst.
“We’ll find out at some point, Charlotte. For now, though, we need to focus on figuring out a way to avoid the catastrophe happening in less than a week.”
4
“You are the ringmaster!” Anya howled as she hovered over my bed. “Tell my sister that what she did is unacceptable!”
I stared through gritty eyes at the naiad. There was so much about the Magical Midway I had gotten used to. Always having people around you all the time. The smell of hay and sugar invading my nose. Constant lights flashing at the edge of my attention. I even came to love my yurt pie slice, a little corner of the management yurt I expanded and renovated with magic.
One thing still drove me nuts, and that was the lack of ways to lock a yurt.
“Mornin’, Anya. I wondered where you were last night,” I grumbled. “What’s Alessandra done?” I reached to the side table for the morning coffee Anya surely must have brought me. Surely she didn’t barge in here at the crack of dawn to scream at me without a coffee offering. As my hand slammed over my water glass from the night before, I sighed.
“Not Alessandra. I have her under control at the moment. Alexa! Alexa has returned from the outside world, and you would not believe what she’s done! It’s abominable! Terrible! I can barely contain my fury!” Anya screeched as she thumped her fists on the bed next to me.
“Same here,” I told her as I moved to sit up.
“You know?”
“No, no, never mind. Continue with your righteous screed,” I told her, swinging my flannel encased legs over the side to the floor. Just as I leaned forward, Fortuna’s head poked in.
“Everything okay in here?” the seer asked.
“No! My sister has abandoned everything we stand for! Everything!” Anya shouted at her. “Charlotte has to do something!”
“What did she do?” Fortuna asked me as she stepped in.
“I have no clue. I was just sleeping here.”
“How can you sleep at a time like this?” Anya asked as she shook my arm.
“Well, clearly, I can’t,” I told her shrugging out of her grip. I looked at Fortuna and shrugged again. I was clueless. Anya couldn’t seem to get past her indignation to explain what she was so indignant about. Fortuna walked over to our friend and rested a gentle hand on her forearm.
�
��Anya, what happened? Tell us, perhaps we can help.”
“Oh, I doubt that. Though we will have front row seats to your execution since Alexa now has a flat in Imperatorial City!” Anya spat the word condo through her lips as if it were poison. “A flat! An apartment! When in the history of this orbiting rock has a naiad ever lived in Imperatorial City? In a condo, no less! The building doesn’t even have a pool!”
Imperatorial City was the legislative seat of the entire paranormal world. I’d never been there myself, but I’d heard it was a lot like Manhattan. Well, if Manhattan was infused with magic and the city administrators were all flamboyant and fond of glitter. It was also a moderated city, much like the Magical Midway was a moderated traveling paranormal “town.” No one could simply move to Imperatorial City, you had to petition for entrance and the right to call it home.
Rumor had it no one’s petitions were granted unless they brought something of value to the Witches’ Council. Imperatorial City was their seat of power, after all.
“What do you think she offered the Council?” I asked Anya.
My friend froze, and her face became tight. “What do you mean?”
“Surely you know the stories of Impty,” Fortuna said, using Imperatorial City’s slang nickname. “You have to get the approval of the Council to own real estate of any kind there, and for that, you offer them something in return.”
“Or someone,” I added, looking at Fortuna pointedly. Anya shook her head no, her eyes widening as she grasped our insinuation.
“Alexa wouldn’t do that,” she argued. “My sister may be flighty, stubborn, and stupid, but she would never work with the Witches’ Council. It goes against everything we believe in!”
“So does living in a condo in a witch city,” I pointed out. “Or so you said. I don’t know, Anya. The timing seems suspicious. I’ve never met Alexa in all my years of visiting here. Suddenly, she shows up? This week of all weeks?”
“Look, Charlotte, I like you, but we’re talking about my sister. Tread carefully, ringmaster.” Anya’s eyes flashed with anger as her fingers flexed. My hotheaded friend had always been quick to explode, but the cold calmness with which she delivered her warning chilled me.
