by D. R. Perry
“We can arrange that.” Mother’s head tilted toward Kimiko instead of me.
I chanced a glance up and almost gasped. Headmistress Thurston looked like death. Her face was nearly as pale as a vampire’s, and the circles under her eyes spoke of extreme exhaustion. She shouldn’t have been so severely drained from putting up some wards with a few dragons and a handful of other Magi. She must have been casting like her Air magic was on an Everything Must Go Final Clearance Sale. But where and why? More stuff to talk over with Tinfoil Hat. I had to buy myself some time away from Mother and Kimiko though.
“How about we arrange it for dinner tonight, then?” I gazed at the back of Kimiko’s head when Mother turned at the sound of my voice, trying to make my eyes look moonier than a werewolf’s. “Maybe seven o’clock?”
“That sounds perfect. I’ll have the car take you to Freebody Park and make your reservations at The Spiced Bear for eight-thirty. That gives you time to walk and talk together.” I wasn’t sure because I wasn’t exactly looking, but Mother might have winked. At Kimiko. No wonder the girl was so infuriating. My mother actually liked her. But why? Too many mysteries.
“I’ll have to be heading back to campus now, Hertha.” Headmistress Thurston pulled her handbag up to her shoulder.
Mother made pleasantries with her guest as she escorted her down the hall and away. Before I could turn to look back toward Kimiko again, she squealed and flung her arms around me for the second time that day.
“Oh, Blaine!” She pulled back, gazing into my eyes. “You’re not nearly as big a jerk as I thought you were. Thank you! You have no idea how awful it is being locked up everywhere I go by just about everyone I meet.”
Instead of insulting her, I couldn’t stop a smile from growing on my face. Her joy was infectious. Even if she wouldn’t have made my top ten choices for company this week, it was better than sitting alone with my paranoia the whole time, just waiting for an Extramagus attack. I wondered whether she was wrong, whether maybe I did actually know about being locked up. It sure felt that way, but for me, it was more figurative than for her.
She went on about checking the weather and looking up the restaurant, picking clothes, and getting ready. I let her until we parted at her door. Her hand on my cheek was almost like a peck and I almost damned the torpedoes and gave her an honest-to-goodness kiss. Almost, but that only counts in horseshoes. I locked the door to my room behind me and turned on the spyware interference devices I’d used everywhere since the Grim attacks on Campus during the inter-session.
It was time to phone a friend.
Chapter Six
Kimiko
My stomach reminded me that we hadn’t gotten snacks or a drink. Changing my ears to listen to the weird not-soccer-mom conversation had made me ravenous. I went into the bathroom, checking the decorative urn for my buddy the Brownie. They weren’t there. In the bedroom, I found a panel on the wall next to the phone, with buttons by a list of names. One of them was that Goblin I’d met at breakfast, Gomer. Once my bag and the magical object hidden inside were locked in the nightstand, I pressed it.
“Gomer at your service.” I chuckled, wishing I could risk replying with a cheerful “Bilbo Baggins at yours.”
“Hi, Gomer.” I wasn’t sure whether his end of the console told him which room this was. “This is Kimiko Ichiro. I need some food. A snack, anything. If you don’t mind, please.” My stomach made a noise that reminded me of the time I lost one of my galoshes in the mud. Shifting made me wish I could go on the Hobbiton diet, with Elevensies, Second Breakfasts, and all that jazz.
“Of course. I’ll whip something up and have it sent along to the gold room.” He chuckled. “Since you haven’t stayed here before, make sure nothing’s in the mandala on the rug. We don’t much like ending up with laundry in the kitchen.”
“Okay.” I saw the design he was talking about. It must be some tangible marker for Vanishing or teleporting things. Faerie magic users being employed by a dragon family only made sense if you knew that dragons could see that kind of magic, unlike Magi. “Thanks, Gomer.”
The intercom clicked off, and I felt more alone with my thoughts. I had to use this quasi-date to get Blaine on my side. So I’d need to plead my case about Dad while we walked, not in a place where friends or admirers of his mother might overhear. I didn’t much care whether that happened before or after dinner. Still, I wished I had someone to talk to about this. The Brownie wasn’t in the bathroom anymore. The only other option hadn’t answered me last night, but maybe trying today was worth a shot. I took my purse out of the drawer and brought it into the bathroom, then turned on all the faucets.
“Hello, Ismail.”
“Yes?” The deep voice was muffled, coming from my bag.
“Thank Lady Luck!” I set the purse on the counter and sat on the toilet lid so I could hear him better. “I thought you’d stopped speaking to me or something.”
“No. I was sleeping, silly.”
“Oh. I wasn’t sure whether lamp-bound Djinn had a bedtime.” I didn’t admit how much more I didn’t know about Djinn, which was pretty much everything besides the fact that they only granted each person three wishes while doing time in their family lamp. And that they were Faeries, so asking them too many questions meant you’d owe them.
“It’s self-imposed. Let’s just say I prefer to keep to the hours outside as much as possible. The last thing I want is lamp-lag if I ever stop serving in here.” I heard something that could have been a sigh, but the lamp made me unsure of that. In any event, it was hard to try to read Ismail the Djinn the way I did other people. Trying to talk through metal was like listening through an old analog phone.
“Well, okay, then.” I folded my hands in my lap and took a deep breath before continuing. “So, I have a date. With Blaine Harcourt.”
“No Luck charms, but a date. Hmm. Did you let the dragon shifter catch you on purpose? I was wondering why you didn’t wish yourself back home last night.”
“He caught me, but not because I let it happen. He’s something else. Anyway, the wards came down before I could wish. You already warned me that I'd have to wish before that. And then, Mr. Harcourt took away the charm I’d, um, pocketed.”
“I see. You were right not to try after that. We Djinn are limited to Faerie powers, and even those can’t Vanish people through wards.”
“I’ll have to find a way to get a charm and be outside wards so you can get me out of here, then. That’s going to be hard with this thing.” I twisted the tithing bracelet around my wrist three times.
“Yes. You’ll need Blaine Harcourt with you unless you don’t care about being in a coma.” He sighed. “Or you’ll need a highly ranked Courtier of the Goblin King to take it off of you ahead of time. That’s an Unseelie bracelet set.”
“That’s not likely to happen in a house where the Queen’s people are servants, Ismail.”
“Ouch. Well, I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
“If only someone older and wiser had some advice.” I didn’t bother batting my eyes. While Djinn could read magical energy from inside their lamps, they couldn’t actually see things like facial expressions unless they came out. Ismail was probably the most introverted Djinn I’d ever heard of. He hadn’t even come out to grant either of my first two wishes. Most of them took any chance they could get to poof out.
“Yeah, if only.” He chuckled before I could splutter.
“Relax, Kimiko Ichiro. Wear something that makes you feel pretty. Smile. You’re a Tanuki and a good looking girl. Luck and circumstance are on your side even though coincidence might be iffy.”
“Thanks, Ismail.” I sat up. “You’ve gone so far above and beyond to help me ever since I, um, picked up your lamp.” We both knew I hadn’t just picked it up. I’d stolen it, of course, from a lab cabinet at The Academy.
“I’d tell you to fill out the customer satisfaction survey after I’m done helping you, but that’s not one of the perks of my job.”
His last bit of advice faded out like someone turned down the volume. “Try to have fun.”
I scratched my head, still not sure exactly how a Faerie bound in a lamp for who knows how long could joke about something like his enslaved state. Maybe he wasn’t joking about being an introvert, or perhaps he’d taken a turn in the lamp to spare a family member that fate. Hopefully, I’d get a chance to ask him someday when all this was over. I couldn’t risk any questions while I was master of the lamp though. Once the purse and Ismail’s lamp were back in the nightstand, I got to work.
I had to make sure everything about me was perfect. I went into the closet to undress, putting the dress and everything under it in a hamper, then sticking the shoes back on the rack. After that, I shrugged into a robe and headed for the bathroom. In the shower, I washed my hair. And then I used the array of styling products and tools to make it as beautiful as possible. My stomach growled again when I smelled food. Gomer had come through.
Chewing watercress and cucumber sandwiches interspersed with sips of tea, I thought again about Ismail and his lamp. Should I bring it out to dinner or leave it behind? If Blaine found it on me, he’d be suspicious for sure and maybe confiscate it. I couldn’t afford to let him know I had a Djinn at my service until I also had a Luck charm and hopefully Blaine’s cooperation or at least indifference. But how likely was I to win him over? Tapping my toe against the thick rug, I made a mental list of what I knew about him in particular versus dragon shifters in general.
Blaine was lonely. His joy at losing two different games in a row to me couldn’t mean anything else. Dragon shifters supposedly liked their privacy. But everything I’d read on them had to do with the elders. I’d heard Blaine’s mother call him a whelp which meant he was young. I knew nothing at all about young dragon shifters. Maybe the privacy preference had more to do with pre-Reveal society than dragon shifter instinct. Could dragons truly be misunderstood creatures, or was it just a tired old trope they used to get sympathy in this new age?
He also acted awkward around me even though Beth mentioned he was a huge flirt and a playboy. Physically, he seemed to be clumsier around me, too. He’d had trouble fighting me in the vault, fallen on his tail in the hall, and only just barely dodged my dart. Those things shouldn’t have happened.
Of all the shifters on the planet, dragons were the most dangerous exactly because they had better enhancements than the other kinds. Why couldn’t he handle a little Tanuki like me? Could it be Luck? Every Extrahuman and even a few humans had a trace of the magic I manipulated. I hadn’t bothered checking Blaine’s. Stupid of me. He might be low on Luck in general. But that was unlikely considering the number of Luck charms the Harcourts had stashed away here.
What if Blaine had Luck, but it had taken a turn for the worse? The implications of someone or something messing with a dragon’s Luck were chilling. They had the best defenses of any shifter, both physically and magically. Only Tanuki could tamper with their Luck directly. Luck on its own just went where coincidence wanted it to. Only Magi could track coincidence, and barely any could nudge it. If Blaine hadn’t been in direct contact with some other Tanuki, who wanted him dead instead of out of her hair, then he was at ground zero of a coincidence bomb greater and more terrible than Oz’s reputation in that movie with the yellow brick road.
I put down the sandwich, appetite melted in the deluge of hunches like the Witch of the West in water. In the nearest mirror, I checked my own Luck. My throat went dry and my fingertips cold. Luck swirled around me as always, but in reverse. The usual light-gold glimmering swirls were laced with baleful red. My Luck had spun into one terrible twister. It wasn’t in Kansas anymore.
I couldn’t wait. I had to get eyes on Blaine right away and check his Luck. My hand curled tight and clammy around the cut-crystal doorknob. It didn’t turn.
I was trapped. There had to be another way out of this room and over to the next. One set of double doors opened onto a tiny balcony. Blaine’s room was to the right of that. The exterior wall had a decorative ledge. What could possibly go wrong?
Chapter Seven
Blaine
My anti-spyware devices stopped magical eavesdropping like Superman stopped trains, but I didn’t want anyone overhearing mundanely. Usually, I’d blast some tunes, but that wasn’t good for talking on the phone. So that’s how I ended up sitting at my desk with an open laptop to see who could chat online. No Bobby, no Lynn. No Henry at lunchtime, of course. I put my head in my hands, abandoning all hope. The soft chime of an incoming message sounded, reminding me of GLaDOS. Maybe I should murder my useless computer before it threw me through a Portal or snuffed me. I sighed and stared at the screen instead. Incoming message from Tony G, it said.
Trogdor! Burninate any good books lately? Apparently, cat shifter families didn’t bother going on out-of-town Spring Break vacations.
Va fa Napoli, Tony. My Italian might be rusty, but I used plenty of the most popular local swear words in the living languages I spoke.
Woah, dude. No need to bust out the potty mouth. Chill. Oh, wait, you can’t. :p
Shut up and leave me alone. Tony Gitano was the last person I wanted to ask about this stuff.
No. I have news. Did you hear Ren’s sister Kimiko’s missing? Gossip and bird-watching were Tony’s favorite pastimes.
She’s not. If we’d been talking in person, he’d have gotten the hint that I didn’t want to say more. Probably wouldn’t have mattered. He didn’t care about hints or me not wanting to talk to him most of the time.
Um, no. She is. Ren’s freaking out. Just saw him two minutes ago. Why hadn’t I thought of her older brother before now? The last thing we needed was a pissed off Selkie swimming over and scaling the cliffs outside.
Get offline and catch him, tell him she’s fine.
OMG WTF. You. Did. Not. Not with your packmate’s sister? Assumptions like that are why talking to a shady excuse for a LOLCat rankled so much.
He’s your packmate, too, cat-man.
Yeah, but she ain’t at my house while her brother’s on the warpath. Josh’ll have kittens.
Let him. I don’t care what Beowulf thinks.
Wow, you really like this girl.
No. I don’t. She’s a giant pain in my ass. And nothing happened. She’s just staying here.
Whatever. So, why are you online if you have a guest nothing happened with yet? Something hinky going down?
None of your business. It absolutely was not. But that sort of thing hadn’t stopped Tony from butting in before.
Well, no one else is around. Henry and Maddie left for Vermont last night. Everyone’s gone but me. They all went home.
Josh, isn’t in Providence?
Negatory. He took Nox to Cape Cod.
Fewmets. Of course, Josh could go out of town. No Extramagus hunting him down anymore. But he knew I was next, and he just left? After I bailed his mate out of losing her magic and everything? I’m stuck with the guy who flips out over laser pointers.
I’ll overlook the extra helping of verbal abuse. So what gives? Maybe I can help.
You can’t. I really thought he couldn’t. I needed another brain on this mess, and Tony’s was always on how to trick friends and be a bad influence on people.
You can spend all your time arguing or give me the 411 and let me try. I put my head in my hands before making a decision and putting my fingers back to the keys.
Fine. Mother wants to hire some Psychic named Edgar Watkins, The Headmistress’s ex is a Changeling. Also, Kimiko’s here because I caught her in Mother’s hoard trying to steal Luck charms.
Wait, Rick Thurston’s a Changeling? Thought he was a Magus. But I hadn’t mentioned the ex’s name to Tony. Hadn’t remembered it until he mentioned it. How had he known? Hinky cat-bastard.
He’s both. Apparently, that happens sometimes.
What kind?
I closed my eyes. I should know, but I just couldn’t remember. I had to have either read it somewhere or overhea
rd it, right? Why was the Headmistress’s ex-husband slipping my mind like a greased pig? The messaging program chimed again.
You don’t remember either, huh, Trogdor?
No. Feels like it’s on the tip of my brain, though.
Same. Anything else?
You really are useless.
Hey, I was going to take what you gave me and go look Ricky up in the Extrahuman Registries.
Oh. Sorry. Well, do it quick. The Headmistress could be an extra on The Walking Dead. Not like Henry, the fictitious zombie kind. Something’s got her magically exhausted to the point where she could end up in the hospital.
Madonn.
Hey, you make me quit the cuss words, and then you go and do it?
Go to Naples, Blaine. Look, I’m sending you an Extrahuman Registry link from Olivia’s PLEXIS Nexus ID. I did not want to know how he’d gotten that. And then I gotta go. Goombas on the move.
Um, what are you doing, playing Super Mario?
No. It’s way more important than that. Look, I’m out of contact for a bit. Keep messenger open on your phone if you go anywhere.
No. Go jump in a lake, Tony.
Seriously, promise you’ll keep messenger open.
All right, fine. At that point, I was just glad Tony didn’t make me promise to answer it.
I shut down Messenger on the laptop and logged in on my phone. Then, I stood up to pace the room. And that’s when I saw Kimiko Ichiro dangling from the railing outside my window like the last autumn leaf in a breeze. I dropped the phone and bolted for the balcony doors, flinging them inward to open them. I caught her by the wrist just in time, but her hand was so clammy she almost slipped my grip, anyway. Her eyes were wide and glassy, and when I hauled her up over the rail, she trembled like a fracking earthquake. I put her on my bed before I realized she was wearing nothing but a shiny satin bathrobe.
