by Emma Savant
“Yeah, because Glim kids go there to hook up,” Ms. Darlington said. “They’ve been doing that since I was in high school.”
“Naw, I don’t think so,” Mr. Henricks said. “It doesn’t feel like kid magic. My neighbor’s been making jokes about ghosts.”
“Ghosts, wow,” Ms. Darlington said flatly. “So what is it, really?”
Before he had a chance to answer, she added, “That’s what I thought. Come on, my next class starts in an hour.”
I grabbed my books and slipped in behind the group of girls, who hadn’t disbanded but were at least moving toward the door.
In the hall, I dropped my books off and leaned against my locker. Silently, I ran through the mental list of weird things I’d heard lately—aside from literally everything that came out of Lily’s mouth, anyway.
In the last few months alone, Hums had moved out of two apartment buildings because they were “haunted,” at least one person had been chased by snakes that had come out of a sewer and miraculously disappeared a few minutes later, four Humdrums had checked into the hospital with what looked like fairy bites, and an eccentric local politician had been overheard raving about how “those damn Wiccans” had “cursed” all the dogs in his neighborhood to bark in chorus every night for half an hour at a time. Now, something weird was happening at a park by Mr. Henricks’ house.
Separately, those incidents weren’t much to notice, let alone be concerned over. But together, they started to add up.
I’d noticed the occasional odd thing before Amani had gotten me involved, although that could have been the tiniest drop of my mom’s divination-happy blood at work. Now, though, even Daniel knew about someone “baiting the Hums,” and it was obvious the Council had gotten involved.
Stuff was definitely going on with my dad that he wasn’t telling us about. Why else would my parents’ marriage be so stressed?
The goal was fear, Amani had said. Well, whoever Eris was, they had it. They were scaring the Hums and they were scaring my dad.
I slammed my locker shut and started toward the cafeteria. My legs felt tight, like I had to walk harder and faster to escape my thoughts. I was moving so fast by the time I got to the end of the hall that I didn’t even see anyone coming down the stairs until my shoulder slammed against someone else’s.
I tensed and looked up, waiting for whoever it was to tell me off.
A second later, I found myself staring into Lucas’ familiar eyes.
My entire body got hot, as if I’d just stepped into a sauna. My mouth opened and closed a couple of times, and then I stammered, “Sorry.”
“Hey,” he said, at exactly the same moment.
“Hey,” I said, just as he added, “Oh, sorry.”
Every swear word I knew paraded through my head in one long, hot stream. My hand flew to the back of my neck.
“Hi,” I said. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to, like, crash into you there. Just going to lunch.”
“No need to apologize,” he said.
He put one hand on the stair railing and leaned against it. Standing on the stair above me, he felt even taller than usual.
“The pizza’s recognizable today,” he said. “You probably should be running if you want to get there before everyone eats it all.”
A choking sound pushed out of my throat. I guessed it was supposed to be a laugh.
How was I supposed to make Evan fall in love with Lily? I couldn’t even have a conversation with someone I’d known since middle school.
A few strands of dark hair fall across Lucas’ forehead as he leaned toward me.
“Can I ask you something?” he said. “While I’ve got you here? I mean, I haven’t seen you a lot lately.”
I pressed my tongue against the roof of my mouth to keep myself from speaking.
“Yes,” I said, after I was sure nothing stupid was going to come out.
He looked past me for a second, then at his hand on the railing, then back at me.
“Are you planning on talking to Imogen?”
I felt my eyebrows go up and wished I could control my face. Like, at all.
“No,” I said.
“Why not? She said you won’t even look at her when you’re in class together.”
“She hasn’t told you?” I said.
How had he not picked it up from my last text?
“Um,” he said, searching my face. “No? Told me what?”
I blew a long puff of air out. The spot between my eyes felt tight as a wound-up spring. I rubbed it, bumping my glasses. I loved the way absolutely no magic appeared at their edges when I looked at him.
“It’s nothing,” I said. “It doesn’t matter.”
He opened his mouth, but I brushed past him.
“Better get to lunch before the pizza’s gone,” I said over my shoulder. “Good to see you.”
It was a relief to be gone. I felt his eyes on me until I turned the corner on the landing of the stairs and disappeared from his view, but I didn’t look back.
I’d gotten to the cafeteria later than everyone else, and the lunch line was long. We weren’t technically allowed to have our phones out at lunch, but no one enforced that rule, so I pulled up a brainless game to play while I waited. Before the opening screen loaded, my phone buzzed.
Amani: Do you have time to talk?
Was it really a question? Pizza day or not, she was Queen Amani.
Olivia: Of course. Give me five.
Slipping out of the lunch line was easy. Find a place I wouldn’t be disturbed was harder. Finally, I squeezed myself into the end stall of the upstairs bathroom no one ever used. All the other bathrooms in the building had been upgraded a couple of years ago, but this one still had cramped stalls covered with marker graffiti and a floor that looked like the grime between the chipped tiles could come to life at any second.
I pulled my wand out of my hair. I had to tug to get it free from my messy bun. It felt reluctant to come loose, and I didn’t blame it. I’d barely used the thing in days. I pointed it at the door, visualizing a barrier that would keep out Hums. Keeping out everyone was a little beyond my skills, but there were so few Glims here it didn’t matter.
Once inside one of the stalls, I locked the door and threw up another barrier, this one to muffle sound.
And then I pulled Queen Amani’s silver ring out from under my shirt, where I’d been wearing it for months. Without taking it off its chain, I slipped it on my pinkie finger. The chain dug into my skin, not enough to be painful.
She was waiting. The tiny mirror shimmered to life.
“Are you alone?” she said.
Her face appeared tiny in the mirror, like I was looking through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars. Her hair seemed even wilder than usual.
“Yeah,” I said. “We’re safe.”
“I imagine you don’t have much time, so I’ll come straight to the point,” she said. “An underground newspaper just published an interview with someone who just moved out of Portland due to ‘supernatural phenomena.’ The article included a photo of what they called a ghost. I suspect it’s a poltergeist that moved too fast for the camera to capture.”
“People will think it’s edited,” I said. My thoughts flickered to Mr. Henricks’ conversation. I opened my mouth to tell her about it, but she was already talking again.
“Hopefully,” she said. “But that’s not everything. A popular nightclub downtown shut down last night without warning. The owner disappeared. She’s a Hum, but she was dating a Glim a few months ago, so we’re investigating. Might be related, might not, but I wanted you to hear about it from me.”
Her words came faster and faster, gathering speed like a train.
“We had reports this morning of teenagers doing magic in the open downtown. I sent a team out to glamour the memories of passerby, but we won’t be able to find them all. And we don’t know who the teenagers are, because Eris is protecting them too well. This is the second time this has happened, and by the time
my people get there, they’re always gone. I need you to keep an eye on the teenagers, Olivia. Any Glims at your school. Stay focused on them. Let me know if you see anything strange.”
“I don’t really know any Glims at my school,” I said.
“I know,” she snapped. “I just… Just, let me know if you see anything weird, okay?”
She let out a long sigh and ran her fingertips back and forth across her forehead.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “This is a lot to throw at you. I just need to know you’re watching.”
“I’m always watching,” I said, and quickly, before she could say anything else, added, “I just heard from one of my teachers that there are traces of magic at the park by his house. His neighbors have been joking about ghosts but he thinks something’s living there.”
Even through the tiny mirror, I felt a twinge of the stress that zinged around her body like a rogue bit of electricity.
“Have you talked to the Oracle?” I said, as if the queen of the Glimmering world wouldn’t have already thought about that. “Nothing goes on in this city she doesn’t know about.”
I thought about Imogen, and her cheating on her exam. If the Oracle could see that, surely she could see who was causing these problems.
Amani took a deep breath.
“We’ve talked,” she said. “The Oracle and I collaborate pretty closely. She’s watching, too. But she’s…”
She blinked, hard, like she wanted to make everything disappear.
“Eris is something else,” she said. “It’s not something we’ve dealt with before. So I just need you to be on alert, okay?”
“Okay,” I said.
Fear jolted and tingled down my spine. The Faerie Queen was terrified, and I was ready to promise her anything.
“I’ll keep watching. I’ll talk to people and see what I can learn.”
“Okay,” Amani said. I watched the lines between her eyebrows smooth out, though it seemed like it took a lot of effort. She rubbed her forehead again. “Okay. Thank you. I’ll let you go. I just wanted to keep you in the loop.”
“I appreciate it,” I said, although I didn’t, really. No one in our world wanted to see the Faerie Queen scared. The Faerie Queen didn’t get scared. Or so I’d thought.
Amani’s face rippled like a reflection in a pond and faded out.
I stared at my own fraction of a reflection in its surface for a moment, then whipped the ring off my finger and shoved it back under my shirt. It fell against my skin, tiny and light but somehow carrying more weight than it had a few minutes ago.
I closed the bathroom stall behind me and paused to check my reflection in the mirror. Expressiveness was a faerie trait, and my face betrayed me during moments like these. The anxiety shone clear in my high eyebrows and wide eyes.
I took slow, deep breaths, staring at myself in the mirror until I saw the intricate muscles beneath my skin begin to loosen and relax.
I reached for the door. It burst open for me. I jumped back, my heart pounding, but it wasn’t Eris or anyone come to eavesdrop on my conversation with Amani.
It was Imogen. Her eyes were wide and her hair was pulled up into a tight ponytail.
For a brief second, I wanted to throw my arms around her. I hated how much I missed her stupid face. I tried to talk, but nothing would come out.
Then her face hardened.
“Didn’t expect to find you here,” she said.
The way she looked at me made my stomach flip over in pain. It wasn’t just her expression, either. She looked all wrong. Her skin was pale and her eyes had dark circles under them that she hadn’t bothered to cover up with a glamour or makeup, but it wasn’t her appearance that unsettled me. It was her aura. She felt cold and harsh, and so menacing that my skin crawled with the need to escape.
Had she always been like this, and I’d just been too stupid to notice?
“It’s a good place to be alone,” I said. My voice came out sharper than I meant.
“That’s why I use it,” she said.
Her voice was so icy that I took a step back. She folded her arms and stared at me, her thin eyebrows high, like she was waiting for an apology or something.
“Also?” she said. “It would be cool if you could stop texting my boyfriend.”
My skin flashed hot, and I knew in half a second that my face had betrayed me again.
No wonder Lucas hadn’t mentioned my text. He’d probably forgotten all about it, thanks to one of her glamours.
Screw apologies. I threw the door open again and blew past her.
Chapter Fifteen
Evan’s photography studio was in an old brick building in a shopping area nestled at the foot of a cliff in Oregon City. Large black-and-white photos of naked babies and colorful prints of families filled his studio windows. The words Evan Costner Photography hovered in the corners of the prints and ran along the window in black and gold vinyl letters.
A bell tinkled gently when I opened the door. I jumped and my hand twitched, ready to fly to my wand. I pressed the hand firmly against my hip.
It had been a week since I’d spoken to Queen Amani, and everything still made me jump. I hadn’t heard about any more Humdrum attacks, but some crazy part of myself still thought every unexpected sound was Eris bursting into the room. I let out a long breath and let the door click closed behind me.
I was alone in the lobby. Two long photographs of waterfalls framed a shadowed doorway that probably led to the portrait room. I looked around for a bell, but then I heard footsteps. A moment later, Evan stepped out into the lobby.
He looked just like his photo, with sandy hair, hazel eyes, and a pleasant but uninteresting face. He looked down at me and smiled—a nice, vague smile that didn’t tell me anything.
“Hi,” I said. “Are you, um, the photographer?”
He held out a hand. I took it. His skin was warm and soft.
“I’m Evan,” he said. “What can I help you with?”
Tell me if you’re worth it, I thought. Tell me if the Oracle is right in thinking I should help you destroy your life so you can marry a mermaid. Prove to me that granting Lily’s wish isn’t going to screw up everything and make me feel like crap for the rest of my life. Tell me I’m not helping Lily do to Isabelle what Imogen did to me.
“I was just admiring your pictures,” I said.
I waved vaguely toward the window. I’d meant to go in and pretend to be sort of clueless. Now that I was here, I realized I hadn’t exactly needed to plan that.
“Thank you,” he said. His smile warmed. “That’s very nice of you to say.”
“Is that the kind of photography you usually do?” I said. “Families and babies and stuff?”
I mentally kicked myself. I wanted to stop everything, go outside, rehearse an intelligent conversation, and then try this again. But if I couldn’t handle this without tripping over my tongue, I definitely was not up to a time-rewind spell, even if they were legal.
“I do a little bit of everything,” Evan said. He nodded at the waterfall on his right. “Are you interested in having some pictures taken?”
“Maybe,” I said. “I’d never noticed you here before.”
“I just moved to this location,” he said.
He had nice eyebrows, I thought. Maybe Lily was into eyebrows. He seemed nice, but “nice” wasn’t usually enough to inspire her kind of passion.
Then again, no one had ever accused mermaids of waiting around for passion to find them.
I shifted and adjusted my purse strap over my shoulder. What had I thought I was going to do? March in here and ask him if he still had the hots for his fiancée or if he’d be willing to abandon her for a lovesick mermaid, just theoretically speaking?
“Are you in high school?” he said.
“Yeah,” I said.
He stepped behind a tall counter that stood in the corner. I heard a soft shuffling sound, and then he held out a business card with a picture of a maple leaf on the fron
t.
“Keep me in mind for senior photos,” he said.
He had so much pleasant hope in his voice I felt like some swell kid from the fifties was asking if maybe I’d consider being his girl.
I took the card from him and made a show of examining it before I put it in my purse.
“I’ll give you all the shots in digital and a bunch of prints, just for the price of the prints,” Evan said, and winked.
Okay, he was a little charming. But still.
There was nowhere to go from here. I offered a bright smile and said, “Thanks. Well, I guess I should probably go.”
“You have a good day,” he said, like he meant it.
I waved awkwardly as I moved toward the door. “You too.”
He was nice. He also didn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d cheat on his fiancée. I turned back, trying to find the words to ask him about her.
“Do you do weddings?” I blurted. “My friend’s older sister is getting married soon and I think she’s looking for a photographer.”
Since I was totally welcome at that wedding.
“I don’t,” he said. “I can give her some recommendations, though, if she’d like to stop by.”
“Oh,” I said. “What about you? Are you married?”
He smiled, confused. “No,” he said. “Not yet. I will be soon, though.”
To the right girl, I urged silently.
“Congratulations,” I said.
I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I mentally kicked myself about fifty times and walked out.
My mom’s errands were much easier. A new item had appeared on the shopping list since this morning, written in my mom’s loopy handwriting: Crystal pendulum (small ones underneath front counter, ask if you’re not sure). I’d gotten that first, and now I was trying to figure out which rune set she wanted.
I hadn’t even known my mom could read runes, but here I was, trying to decide between the amethyst “Summer Wishes” and the black onyx “Midnight Dreams.” Apparently, rune kits were named by the same people who marketed dollar-store candles and mall-kiosk perfume.