Hidden Charm

by Kristine Grayson

  But she didn’t think that was what happened. She believed that the injured sword that lay on the floor of her house had just enough of Sonny’s love and protect magic still in it that when the house exploded, the sword sought to protect Zel from the worst of the blast.

  And considering she had been inside of the house when it blew, that was probably what happened.

  She didn’t want to say that, though. She didn’t want to guess, not yet. Instead, she looked at Panacea.

  “Why did you say that about Sonny?” Zel asked.

  “Say what?” Panacea was still staring at the sword, frowning at it as if it was something she didn’t recognize.

  “That Sonny must really love me,” Zel said.

  “Hmm.” Panacea blinked, then looked at Zel. “Because that kind of protect spell is done to the detriment of the caster. Didn’t you know that?”

  “What?” Zel asked.

  Henry let out a small sound, something that was halfway between a grunt of acknowledgement and a hum of understanding.

  “The most effective protect spells,” he said quietly, “are formed out of love.”

  Zel frowned at him. She still didn’t understand.

  “They allow the protection to come from the heart of the person casting the spell,” Henry said. “It’s the magical equivalent of throwing yourself in front of a bullet to prevent a friend from being shot.”

  “Crudely put,” Panacea said, “but close enough. Sonny gave up some of the magic that would normally protect him to protect you if you were in danger. Were you in danger recently?”

  “Besides my house exploding?” Zel asked, feeling unsettled. She had been right. The sword had turned itself into a shield to protect her from that blast.

  “Well, when you put it that way, perhaps—”

  “We can figure out the history of the protect spell later,” Henry said. “We still have a lot to do.”

  But Zel wasn’t going to let this go so easily. “If he gave up part of his own magic to protect me,” she said, “does that mean he’s dead?”

  “Of course not,” Panacea said before Henry could answer. “That’s why I called Froggy’s answer crude.”

  “Actually,” Henry said. “We don’t know exactly what the toll on Sonny was, or when it was. It might have been taken when he initially cast the spell, and he might have done that decades ago.”

  But there was something in his voice, something that made Zel believe he was holding something back.

  “Or…?” she asked.

  Henry’s lips thinned. He clearly didn’t want to answer this part.

  “Or the magical reserve got pulled when the spell activated,” he said quietly.

  Zel shivered. Saving her might have killed Sonny. He had done that throughout their relationship, right from the very start. When he had rescued her from the tower, he risked Aite’s wrath. That the two of them had survived that had been, in part, Aite’s carelessness.

  Sonny had protected Zel throughout their entire relationship, in large and small ways. He had gotten her here. He had lived with her and guarded her and let her avoid the magical altogether.

  What had she done, really? She had given him cover, decades ago, when the mortals had discriminated fiercely against people like him, but that had changed, in Los Angeles at least, more than thirty years ago.

  She hadn’t done anything except love him like a brother. And that wasn’t enough.

  He had given up his heart for her. He might be dead because of her.

  Tears threatened, and she wouldn’t allow them to fall, because crying didn’t help anything.

  “I didn’t ask him to do that.” Her voice sounded watery, and she wished it didn’t. “I wouldn’t have asked him to do that.”

  She wasn’t really talking to Panacea and Henry. She was talking to Sonny, even though he wasn’t here.

  Behind the tears, anger lurked. She hadn’t asked him. She wouldn’t have asked him. If he had asked, she would have said he deserved to live so much more than she ever would have.

  He had saved literally dozens, maybe hundreds of people. She had designed hair for the movies.

  “The spell wouldn’t have worked if you had asked him.” Henry reached out toward her, as if he wanted to take her hand, and then gripped the top of the couch. “Those kinds of spells can’t be commanded. Only given.”

  “You don’t know that,” she snapped.

  “Oh, but I do,” he said. “I have studied them, since…”

  His voice trailed off. He gave her a small smile, one that didn’t reach his eyes, which were so sad that she could drown in them.

  “Since?” Zel asked.

  “Since his wife died,” Panacea said flatly. Then she stood up, gathering the bowl and the mug. She carried them into the kitchen, trailing the stench of camphor behind her.

  Zel looked at Henry. He glanced away. Henry. The Frog Prince. Froggy. Who, someone (Selda? Sonny?) had told her, had never gotten over the loss of his wife.

  “I’m so sorry,” Zel said.

  “It’s really stupid to have a lot of power, and not use it for the ones you love.” Henry pushed away from the couch, heading back toward the window.

  Hardly any light filtered into this room. The windows seemed shrouded, but when she looked at them, she realized they weren’t. The sky was dark.

  “Hey, Rapunzel,” Panacea said from the kitchen door.

  Zel turned, surprised that nothing ached any more. After all she had been through, she would have expected more aches.

  Her throat hurt, but that might have been suppressed tears instead of dark magic being ripped out of her.

  Panacea looked small against the door frame. She had seemed so powerful as she sat on the couch, but now she seemed diminished.

  Had the magic she used taken something out of her?

  “Are you allowed to pick up that sword?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Zel said. Of course she was. She could touch anything in her house. Could have touched. Past tense.

  Her house—their house—Sonny’s house—was gone.

  “Then you need to pick it up and find someone who can help you,” Panacea said.

  “Help me what exactly?” Zel asked.

  “Use that sword to find Sonny,” Panacea said. “Before the sword loses its magic altogether.”

  “Can you help me do that?” Zel asked.

  “No,” Panacea said. She leaned against the door frame. “In fact, I’m done for the day.”

  Then she looked at Henry.

  “If someone needs me, you know how to find me,” she said.

  “I do,” he said, his voice rumbling softly. “Thank you.”

  She smiled tiredly. “It’s what I do,” she said.

  Then she swept her arms upward, and vanished.

  Her disappearance caused the air to shimmer. A breeze ran through the house. The herbs remaining on the coffee table vanished, along with any other trace of Panacea.

  “You brought her here?” Zel asked.

  He shrugged, looking down.

  “This is your house, isn’t it?” she asked. Her question almost sounded accusatory, and she didn’t mean it that way.

  “Yeah, such as it is,” he said. There was something in his voice—that sadness again—that made her want to put her arms around him. “You needed to get out of there.”

  “But we haven’t found Sonny yet,” she said.

  “No,” he said, then ran a hand over his face. “It may not be possible, you know. Not now.”

  She wasn’t going to give up before she really started.

  “We won’t know until we try,” she said, and swung her legs off the couch. “We really won’t know until we try.”

  Part IV

  The Middle

  Chapter 19

  Zel managed to get off the couch. She looked shaky and fragile and a lot younger without her hair. The smoke stains that had been on her face and clothes were gone. Her clothing was still ripped, but now it looked
stylish and deliberate, instead of the result of a massive explosion.

  She braced herself on the couch as she walked around it, moving like an elderly woman. A determined elderly woman.

  Henry wanted to reach over and brace her, but he knew, without even asking, that she wouldn’t allow him to touch her. She was being strong, even if she didn’t feel strong, something he empathized with. He had been there.

  He had done that.

  But not for a very long time.

  She stopped when she reached the back of the couch. Then she looked down.

  On the floor between them, Sonny’s sword glowed, the designs on its blade glowing a fierce red—probably in warning.

  When Zel got close to the sword, the red faded, almost as if the sword was relieved she had arrived.

  She crouched, keeping one hand on the back of Henry’s ratty couch to brace herself.

  “It looks okay,” she said. “Like normal.”

  But she didn’t touch it.

  Henry would wager that the sword wasn’t okay, that it was thinner and more fragile than usual, that its appearance was as much a projection of strength as Zel’s walk around the couch had been.

  “Do you know how to use this to find Sonny?” she asked.

  He did, but the spell he knew was destructive. If the spell failed—hell, if it was successful—then the sword would vanish.

  He crouched beside her and the sword flared red again. Protecting her as well as itself.

  That was a problem too.

  He ran a hand through his hair.

  This was bigger than him—obviously, given what had happened at Zel’s house. And there might be spells that would help, spells that wouldn’t destroy the sword.

  Using the sword was the last resort.

  Zel looked at him over the blade, her eyebrows raised. She clearly didn’t want to ask the question again, but she would if she needed to.

  “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I know how to do a spell that will use the sword to find Sonny. But I think there might be better ways. We need to talk to the Very Serious Witches first.”

  “Are they still at the house?” Zel asked. Then a wave of sadness crossed her face, and she added softly, almost to herself, “What’s left of my house.”

  “I think so,” he said. He assumed so, anyway. There was a lot of cleanup. Plus the magical crime scene folk had work to do with the crater, as well as looking for evidence to help them find Sonny.

  Zel swallowed hard. She ran a hand over her bald scalp, mimicking the movement he had made when he ran his hand through his hair. She was probably doing it for the same reason as well, a nervous gesture, meant to comfort.

  But as her hand trailed over her scalp, little sprouts of hair bloomed. She had created a tiny golden ribbon of hair, and probably hadn’t even realized it.

  “Then we have to go there,” she said, but she sounded reluctant. She sounded scared. “Unless…I’ve been out of it for longer than I thought. It’s been hours, right? Not days? Because if it’s been days, then we can talk to Selda. If it’s been days, then Sonny…”

  Her voice trailed off as she realized what she was about to say. Then Sonny might be dead. Might have no chance at all. Might not…

  Henry didn’t want to anticipate any of those sentences, because he understood the fear. And it was a realistic one, even now, even though it hadn’t been days.

  Given the amount of power they had seen on display at that house, then Sonny might have had no chance at all.

  If Henry had his druthers, he wouldn’t have gotten involved at all. He remained crouched for a moment, his thighs aching with the strain.

  He didn’t have to stay involved. He hadn’t really gotten to know Zel (lies! He had watched her in action. She was amazing and beautiful and strong), and he owed her nothing (true, but seriously, how could he walk away from this woman?). She hadn’t asked for his help, not really, and he had butted in, where he didn’t belong. Even Selda had seemed surprised at his interest, and she knew him well.

  In the past, his druthers would have been to leave. And even now, he knew that was the easiest path—for him. He could do that.

  And spend the rest of his sorry little life in frog form or sitting on this sad excuse for a couch, wondering if he could have made a difference.

  Zel wasn’t watching Henry dither. She probably had no idea how conflicted he was.

  She was in the middle of her own crisis, and it was a real crisis, and it was a now crisis, and it really needed to be resolved.

  While what was going on for Henry was a battle inside his own head, one he’d been fighting (and losing) for decades.

  Zel was staring at the sword. It was a problem no matter what they decided. Because they couldn’t leave it here unprotected.

  It was one of the last remnants of Sonny left in the Greater World.

  Henry leaned back on his haunches, feeling his ankles cry out at the movement. A sub realization threaded underneath an actual realization. The sub-realization—that he was woefully out of shape—irritated him. He had done that to himself.

  But the actual realization—that with the destruction of the house, much of what Sonny had touched was gone—went hand in glove with another thought.

  “Did Sonny have an office?” Henry asked.

  “Hmmm?” Zel asked. She looked up. She really had been lost in thought.

  “Sonny. Did he have an office here in the Greater World?” Henry couldn’t quite keep the urgency out of his voice.

  “Yes,” Zel said. “He didn’t use it much, though.”

  “And a car? Did he have a car?” Henry asked.

  She laughed, which surprised him—and her. The laugh had clearly been involuntary.

  “He had a series of drivers,” she said. “You didn’t want to see Sonny behind the wheel. I tried to teach him to drive, but it was such a disaster…”

  Her smile had faded with her words. Clearly, they had been close.

  What was Henry doing in the middle of all of this? If she found Sonny, she would go back to him, to their unfathomable relationship. And if she didn’t, she would be as devastated as Henry had been when Tiana had died.

  “So, I guess,” Zel said quietly, “the answer is yes, he had a car. Why?”

  “Because the sword isn’t the only thing of his still in the Greater World,” Henry said. “It’s just one aspect of him.”

  “The most important one,” Zel said.

  “The most important thing he owned or did he see it as an extension of himself?” Henry was speaking a little too fast. He was telegraphing the answer he wanted, and he wished he hadn’t done that. He needed her to answer honestly, not to try to figure out what Henry was trying to get to.

  “Neither,” she said, dispelling his worries that she would answer his question with a question. “Sonny isn’t his sword, like some of the great masters are. His sword is an extension, yes, but it’s a tool for him. A beloved, living tool, but a tool nonetheless.”

  Henry glanced at the sword, half expecting it to flare in protest, but it didn’t. Magic swords like this one were, in their own way, living creatures, and could get their feelings bruised easily.

  This sword seemed tougher than most.

  “His work is the most important thing in his life,” Zel said without resentment. Most people in a relationship—any relationship, mortal or mage—would resent something that their partner valued more than them. “He lived for his work.”

  “Which he did out of his office,” Henry said.

  “Well, no,” Zel said. “He used the office as his base. He traveled everywhere.”

  “By car?” Henry asked.

  “In the Greater World, sure,” she said. “But he had learned how to appear and disappear. So he did that too. And in the Kingdoms…”

  She put a hand over her mouth, her eyes squinched shut. Her entire body shuddered. She had had some kind of thought or memory, and it had hurt her.

  Henry wanted to put a hand on her should
er. Hell, Henry wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her. Hell, Henry really wanted to take her in his arms, comfort her, protect her, and never let anything harm her again.

  The depth of his feelings—this fast—startled him. That had only happened once before, and that had been with Tiana. And he had always worried that he had loved Tiana that quickly because it had been part of the spell that restored him to himself.

  He had even expressed that to her, and she had laughed at him. So what? she had asked. It brought us together, didn’t it? Does it matter how?

  Instead of touching Zel, though, he asked gently, “What are you thinking?”

  She swallowed visibly, then took a deep breath, and opened her eyes. The lashes were wet, but there were no tears. She removed her hand from her mouth, and swallowed again.

  Then she said, “I never asked him.”

  “What?” Henry wasn’t quite sure what she was referring to.

  “How he got around in the Kingdoms,” she said. “I never asked him about the work at all. I didn’t want to know.”

  Her voice was shaking again. She blinked hard, and looked down at the sword as if it could absolve her.

  “I don’t know how he got in and out of the Kingdoms,” she said. “I don’t know if he went to more than one Kingdom. I don’t know who contacted him, and told him someone needed rescuing. I don’t know how he rescued anyone.”

  She swallowed for a third time. The swallowing seemed compulsive, like a nervous tick, or as if she was struggling hard to keep something down.

  “I didn’t want to know what kind of danger he was in,” she said. “I couldn’t deal with it. I didn’t want to know and because I don’t know, he’s in even worse danger, because I don’t know who he pissed off or what he did or who he rescued or what we need to do.”

  She was vibrating so hard, it looked like she might shake herself apart. This time, Henry reached out, slowly, so she could back away if she wanted to. He scooted a little sideways so he wasn’t extending his arms over the sword, and then he put his arms around her, pulling her close.