“It’s a bit awkward to talk about, but my last boyfriend didn’t let me eat what I wanted.” Lily hooked some more sauce on a thicker fry before wrapping her tongue around the crisp potato skin and pulling it into her mouth. “It was a pretty bad relationship. He was a huge dick, very controlling.”
“How long ago was this?” Beth asked.
“Long enough for me to be in a new relationship. Seriously, do you want any of this?” Lily held up an unopened fry sauce packet.
“Knock yourself out.” Beth watched Lily hook her fingers into the current tin of fry sauce before licking her skin clean. There was something dirty about the way she did it, her tongue making slow, long licks along her digits. It was a terrible thought, but Beth briefly wondered how many dicks Lily had had in her mouth.
“A hundred and forty-six,” Lily said.
Beth stared straight ahead, trying not to crack a smile.
Several moments passed in silence, and Lily pointed to the side of the road. “Exit one forty-six. You’re about to miss it!”
“Oh.” Beth swerved her car, jumping across two lanes, someone honking at her in protest. They came to the end of the long exit road, waiting at a red light to turn left. “Is the new relationship good, then?”
“We’re still in the beginning stage. You know, figuring each other out. Seems like he might actually be a good guy, but I guess I’m a little afraid that I could be wrong. I would hate to get my hopes up only to get burned. Wow.” Lily’s eyes settled on the vast expanse of land before them. “Why would anybody want a storage unit in the middle of nowhere?”
“There’s an agricultural town down the road a way. The storage place, I believe, is largely for them. No idea why Emily would get a place out here. She must have gotten a killer deal or something.”
“Could be super valuable stuff maybe? Crimes of opportunity don’t happen when you have to drive an hour to break the lock on a storage unit.” Lily pulled out some papers. “From what I can tell, she paid for the most expensive unit. Climate-controlled, antipest, you name it. What would you need all that storage for?”
“A comic book collection. I had a client years back who kept all his comics in a space like that. Kind of sad when he died—they quickly became money that his heirs fought over. Not a single one of them gave a damn about the golden age of comics.” Beth tapped the steering wheel, ignoring the sound of Lily slurping fry sauce straight from the container. At what point did materialism become an unhealthy obsession? She remembered his face but not his name, the comic collector. He hadn’t visited his comics in over a decade, wanted to keep them in mint condition. But for what? She still remembered handing the check over to his children from the sale of the collection. Not a tear had been spared for their father, and they hadn’t even bothered looking to see if there was something in his collection they would want.
It made her sad, thinking about how people treated their property. If you locked it away to keep it safe, could you ever truly enjoy it?
“Up ahead,” Lily said, pointing at a large concrete wall that appeared as if by magic. The road curved dramatically in places, and they found themselves in front of New Castle Storage Solutions.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Beth muttered, forgetting she had an impressionable intern inside of the car. The front of New Castle Storage Solutions had been designed to look like an actual castle because it had originally been built for a failed Renaissance festival. Tiny red flags still flew at the tops of the buttresses, and the gate was open, ready to accept moving trucks of all sizes. The old signs for the festival were still up, cleverly altered by someone with basic knowledge of paint and a cheap woodburning kit. Beth had forgotten all about the place—yet another memory she never had any need for.
“I kind of like it,” Lily offered, startling Beth out of her reverie.
Grabbing her briefcase, Beth got out of the car, followed closely by Lily. They walked along a path that took them to a side building labeled Captain of the Guard.
A disinterested twentysomething sat in the air-conditioned building, his gaze on a set of monitors that revealed that there was a whole lot of nothing going on. In the monitors, Beth saw the parking lot. Except for a few trucks parked near the back, hers was the only one in the lot.
“Can I help you?” he asked, swiveling in his chair. His dangling name tag revealed that his name was Randy.
“Hello, my name is Beth, and I am an estate agent for a Mr. Mike Radley.” Beth handed over her card. “There is a storage unit in the possession of a previous client of mine who passed away. You see, her estate made arrangements to pay for all her rental fees, and I was wondering if I could get some information from you regarding the potential illegal sale of some of these items.”
When Randy didn’t respond, she realized he was staring at her tits. “Hey, eyes up here.”
“Yeah, you kind of lost me there for a second. Are you some kind of lawyer or something?” Randy asked.
“In a manner of speaking, yes.”
“I’m afraid that’s my boss’s department.” Randy’s eyes lit from within, a mischievous grin crossing his lips. “You’re gonna have to speak to him.”
“Where is he?” Beth asked.
“He’s on a cruise with his wife. He’ll be back in a couple of weeks.”
“I don’t have a couple of weeks,” Beth told him, narrowing her eyes.
“Yeah, well I’m not risking my job over it.” Randy turned his attention back to the monitors.
“How about if I get the cops involved?” Beth threatened. “I do have a legal right to my client’s records.”
Randy slid his phone toward her. “His name is Buttweasel in my contacts, but you should call him Eric, or maybe just sheriff. Feel free to have him come out; I haven’t seen him since Fourth of July when we had dinner at Grandma’s house.”
Beth stared at the phone, clenching her hands. She wanted to pull Randy across the counter and scream in his face but didn’t feel like getting arrested by a guy who went by the nickname Buttweasel.
Lily laid a calming hand on Beth’s shoulder. “Why don’t you head outside? I’ll see what I can do,” she said with a wink.
Beth rolled her eyes, then stormed out of the office to wait in the yard.
Mike stumbled again, placing his full weight on Zel’s withers. He stood still for a few moments, sucking in deep breaths.
“How are you feeling?” Zel looked back at Mike over her shoulder.
“Kinda shitty,” he admitted. Already, he had a strong urge to ask her for more of that recovery potion. “I’ll be fine for a few minutes, and then my body just wants to give out.”
“That’s your cells going through a refractory period,” Zel explained. “Since your body is regenerating so rapidly, you’ll get hit with brief periods of time where the energy inside you isn’t converting fast enough.” She stuck her hand in one of the many bags she had strapped to her body. “You are burning fat to replace what you have lost, but you don’t really have all that much fat to lose. Eat this.” She put a thick block into his hand.
“What is this?” Mike asked.
“Energy bar. I keep a stash of these on hand for emergencies. You should eat half of it now. That should help with the fatigue.”
Mike inspected the energy bar. It looked like it had been cobbled together from mud and grass. “What is in this?”
“Only the good stuff. I’ve been in this forest for several years now, and I had to make do. A small bag of these provide enough nutrition to get through a couple weeks of winter, no problem.”
“You didn’t answer my question.” Mike sniffed the bar. It smelled faintly of oatmeal. He bit into it, expecting to taste honey, oats, maybe even something nutty. Instead, it tasted like the inside of a lawnmower bag.
“Yeah, it’s an acquired taste. Better than starving to death.” Zel
handed him a waterskin. “It’s best to wash it down right away. The aftertaste is kinda gross.”
“Jeez.” Mike choked down half the bar, then sucked greedily at the waterskin. The flavor quickly left his mouth, and the bar sat like a brick in his gut. “Couple weeks of this stuff?”
“Only once. The greenhouse is supposed to be like springtime year-round, but there was a weird period a couple years back where a brutal winter blew through.” Zel took the waterskin back, slinging it over her shoulder. “Caught me off guard, and I had to go find shelter deep in the forest. Not a lot of caves built for people of my stature.”
“Indeed.” Mike stuffed the bar in his pocket, taking another minute to rest against Zel. The weakness soon passed, and he stepped away, his legs protesting. He did a quick stretch, easing the tension in his limbs.
“Little bit better?” Zel asked.
“Some.” He gave Zel an affectionate pat on the back, then immediately regretted it. He didn’t know her that well and was grateful when she said nothing. Zel guided him through some of the thicker vegetation, her lower half easily clearing a path for him to follow. Shoving aside a large cluster of vines, he found himself back in the clearing with the Mandragora plant.
“Watch out for the pods,” Mike warned, giving them a wide berth.
“Oh, you don’t have to tell me twice,” Zel informed him. “I was dumb enough once to try and harvest the pollen. Pod burst all over me, and I had to run away before the tentacles could grab me. Let’s just say that there’s a tree not too far from here that I can’t even look at anymore without blushing.”
Mike nodded, gazing warily at the pods. Already, they were beginning to wilt, their purpose finally served. “So what’s going to happen to the Mandragora?”
“I imagine it will hibernate for a bit. It takes a ton of energy to build a vessel for fertilizing, and now that it’s reproduced, it will probably sleep for some time.” Zel stepped over a clump of vines that had curled around each other, forming a noose. “I think this is what you are looking for?”
Mike walked to where she stood. The hilt of the dagger reflected the sinking sun’s light, its shadow like a sundial on the smooth stone beneath it. The blade was so sharp that it had easily embedded itself in the stone. Mike wondered how far the blade would have sunk without the metal of the hilt to slow its descent.
“Are you going to take it?” Zel asked.
Mike realized that he had been staring at the knife for some time. “Yeah, sorry.” Wrapping his fingers around the hilt, he gave it an experimental tug, expecting some resistance. The blade slid free, its dark edges glinting dangerously in the light. As he held the knife, it occurred to him that he had nowhere safe to put it. Shoving it casually in a pocket would end in disaster at best, and Mike didn’t want to trip and impale himself.
“Here.” Zel handed him a strip of leather. Mike carefully wrapped the leather around the blade, marveling at how quickly it bit into the tough fabric. She held out a small sack to stuff the dagger into. He pulled the drawstrings tight, cinching the bag shut. He hefted it carefully, satisfied that the knife wouldn’t suddenly slide through the edges.
“Thanks,” he said, using the strings to tie it through his belt.
They walked mostly in silence, Mike still stumbling on occasion. Zel’s hooves pounded a steady rhythm into the dirt, luring him into a partial trance. He wondered how mad everyone would be when he got back, hours later than his expected return. It wouldn’t surprise him to see Abella circling overhead at any moment or to spot Cecilia’s glowing form in the shadows.
Tink would probably bite him for making her worry.
Worst of all, he was strangely obsessed with what Sofia would say. It was really bugging him that she hadn’t immediately liked him. Then again, Cecilia had been the same way at first. He wondered what he could do to bridge the gap, prove that he was worth getting to know.
“Shit,” Mike swore, stopping in his tracks.
“What’s wrong?” Zel asked.
“I should have asked Sofia about the grimoire.” Sarah had been obsessed with it, a magical book of great power. It made sense to Mike that such a thing would exist in the Library, and he had forgotten to even mention it. There had been too much on his mind. There was always too much on his mind.
“Who’s Sofia?” Zel had stopped as well, her attention on him.
“She’s a cyclops who watches over the Library. You haven’t met her?”
Zel’s gaze fell to the ground, her left front hoof pawing softly at the hard soil. “Um, no. Not exactly. I guess there’s something I should tell you.”
Fuck. “What is it?”
“I’ve never actually been in the house. I only met Emily the one time, about ten years ago.”
“Wait, you only met her? You didn’t live with her?” Mike appraised the centaur, suddenly aware of how tightly he gripped the bag in his hand. Why wouldn’t she have been allowed to stay in the house? Was she dangerous?
Zel bit her lower lip. “No. We were only visiting.”
“Then why are you still here?” Mike asked. “As far as I know, there’s only one way in.”
“We never left. Well, I never left. My aunt and I came here in the guise of academic pursuits through a magical portal. My aunt stole some magic from our tribe to get us here, and she convinced Emily that we only needed some plants from the greenhouse. Emily was really nice and told us to take what we needed in exchange for telling her more about how we opened the portal. However, our story was a lie.” Zel’s tail twitched, slapping her rump. “We were refugees is the actual truth. My aunt was protecting me from a forced marriage to another chief’s son. I don’t know that you’d understand it even if I explained, but my aunt left me here to keep me safe from him.”
“Why did your aunt leave?” Mike asked. “Shouldn’t she have stayed to protect you?”
“Because my aunt knew they would keep looking for her. She went back to where we came from and I’m guessing hid any trace of our journey here. As a result, I’ve been out here for nearly a decade, living in secret.” Zel turned around, looking away from Mike. “It’s been unimaginably lonely. I used the healer arts to survive and further my studies, but it isn’t enough. I was really hoping that—”
“You could move in?” Mike walked by her side, taking Zel’s hand in his own. He felt a warm sensation spread through him, the exact opposite of when he was in danger. He couldn’t explain why, but this just felt right, somehow. “We might need to figure out a few things, but as long as you don’t cause any problems with the others, why the hell not?”
“Really? Just like that?” He could see it now, a spark of hope in her dark eyes.
Mike shrugged. “Seems to me that the house is home to plenty of things that don’t have homes of their own. I’m not certain if there’s a rule or a limit to it. We can check with Naia, but as long as she approves, you don’t have to stay out here in the woods all the time.”
“Oh, Mike, thank you!” Zel wrapped her arms around him, pulling him in for a tight embrace. Mike’s face was pinned directly between her breasts, and he was suddenly aware of how full and warm they felt.
“I cah breef.” Mike tapped Zel on the elbow after several heavenly seconds passed.
“Oh, sorry!” Zel released him.
Mike took a deep breath, grateful for the influx of oxygen.
“You have no idea how happy this makes me.”
“On some level, I think I do.” Mike winked at her and continued up the path, the centaur following close behind. He made it only a few more steps before his legs fell out from beneath him. This time, Zel wasn’t close enough to catch him, and he tumbled, falling off the trail and into a bush. The branches of the bush gave, dumping him onto the soft, wet ground beneath it. Mike tried pushing himself back up, but his fingers passed uselessly through its branches and into the mud beneath.
“What’s wrong?” Mike asked.
“You’re covered in Dragon’s Breath.” Zel flicked a bright-red chunk of pollen off Mike’s arm. “We need to get you washed off as soon as possible.”
“Why? Am I going to catch on fire or something?” Mike shook his head, watching the red dust fall free.
“No, stop!” The crimson pollen blew across the gap between them, settling on Zel. “Shit!”
“I’m sorry.” Mike tried to brush the pollen off her bare stomach, streaking it across her skin instead.
“Stop!” Zel grabbed his wrists. “Don’t touch it!”
“Okay, but I…” The thought fled his mind as he was suddenly distracted by the burning sensation that was coursing along his arm. He tried to rub it, but Zel caught his other hand. It occurred to him how strong she was.
“Don’t touch it, whatever you do.” Zel’s eyes flashed with intensity. “The more you scratch or rub it in, the worse it will burn.”
“Like poison ivy?”
“Poison ivy will make you itch. Dragon’s Breath will make you peel off your own skin to make the burning stop.” Looking around, Zel shook her head. “We both need to clean this off as soon as possible. There’s a place nearby, but on foot it will take us too long to get there. Climb on my back.”
“Wait, what?”
Zel rolled her eyes. “It isn’t like anybody will see us do it, if that’s what you’re worried about. I don’t feel like peeling off my own skin today, so I’m going with or without you. I can run way faster than you can.”
“Um, yeah, okay.” He had never been on a horse before, and he didn’t know the protocol for mounting a centaur, but Zel knelt and impatiently yanked him onto her back. Once he was situated, she grabbed his wrists and wrapped them around her waist.
“Do not start scratching,” she warned. As she clutched tightly to Mike’s arm, her whole body surged forward.
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