Hidden Charm

by Kristine Grayson

  He walked across the dry yard to the fence. Amazing that this yard hadn’t burned. Amazing that the entire neighborhood wasn’t in flames. The first responders remained outside of the fence, consulting, still probably thinking this was some kind of gas leak.

  The neighboring houses had been evacuated—that was obvious. And probably not a moment too soon.

  The air felt oily and dirty. His lungs ached. He wondered how much of this stuff could harm him—not in a chemical Greater World way, but in a magical way.

  Those snakes that had come out of Zel haunted him. Maybe they were in the swirling blackness that revolved around that crater.

  Occasionally, he saw bursts of fire reach up into the sky, licking the black cloud ceiling like reverse lightning.

  He had never seen anything this powerful before.

  He wondered if anyone else had.

  He needed a plan, and it wasn’t just to observe the scene of the magical event. He needed to talk to Selda. She was sensible enough that she would help him find the right magical guardian.

  And then he would be able to get back to Zel.

  He pushed open the gate door that led onto the street. No one noticed him. People congregated in large and confusing groups. Three leprechauns were arguing with a pair of centaurs. A griffin leaned against what remained of the wall, being tended to by someone in healer’s garb. Jodi Walters had her arms crossed as she spoke with some first responders.

  They didn’t seem to notice all the magical creatures around them, so the mortals in the area must have been spelled just a little. The magical crime scene folk had gathered near a trailer that looked like it had been upgraded from a peddler’s cart just recently, and they seemed to be comparing injuries.

  The swirling smoke made everything seem just a bit gray, which was odd for Los Angeles. Daytime was usually bright here, sometimes so bright that flaws were visible.

  This reminded him of those days in the Kingdom after Tiana’s death, when he could hardly move, let alone look outside.

  And then he frowned. He normally didn’t dwell on those days. He had deliberately put them in his past, knowing that if he focused on them, he would get lost in a tangle of emotions that could very well destroy him.

  He ran a hand over his face.

  Every person—every creature—he saw looked deeply sad. Not just angry, not just determined. But sad. Almost crushed.

  Which would explain why Selda and her team had not yet gotten the mortals out of the area. If the team was incapacitated by their worst emotions, then no one was thinking clearly.

  Henry had been battling those emotions for decades now. He knew what they felt like and how to set them aside. Most people did not.

  He compartmentalized them now. The emotional movement was almost automatic. He felt the shift, knew he would have to deal with the revival of those emotions later, and then calmed down.

  He let out a deep breath of air. His throat ached from the weird smell. It seemed to have lodged deep inside his nose. His lungs actually burned.

  And no one seemed to be doing anything about it, although he didn’t see the Very Serious Witches. Maybe they were working on something.

  He walked across the sidewalk where Zel had collapsed, saw a few pixies walking with their arms around each other, as if their wings didn’t work at all any more. He stepped past them, hoping they realized how endangered they were just from a human footstep, and pushed open the gate door to Zel’s property.

  It looked like a crater. The faeries were mostly gone, although a few were being placed in gossamer stretchers by other faeries, who were clearly going to fly them away. Debris from the inside of the house littered everything, and on top of all of that, was soot.

  The Very Serious Witches—Polly included—were standing on the remaining bits of concrete, heads bent in an intense discussion.

  Selda was standing alone, near the edge of the crater, her hands on her hips.

  Henry thought that very odd. She should have been consulting. Maybe she already had. Or maybe she was trying to figure out what to do, how to make this thing go away.

  He went around the Very Serious Witches. They didn’t seem to notice him, not even Polly, who was moving her arms as she argued over something.

  They had masked their words, so he couldn’t quite hear what they were saying. He didn’t want to know. His goal was Selda. He hoped she could help him find someone to protect the sword so that he could get back to Zel.

  Selda hadn’t moved in the time it took him to pick his way toward her. She seemed riveted by the open crater.

  The fire coming out of it sparked and flared, sometimes yellow, sometimes orange, and sometimes purple, which bothered him more than he wanted to admit.

  He was feeling unsettled, more than he should have been, given that he had just compartmentalized his emotions. If an emotion leaked, that meant it was nearly overwhelming him, and he could barely contain it.

  He reached Selda’s side. She was a large woman, wider than he ever was, and nearly as tall, but she felt smaller than usual.

  She didn’t notice him, so he touched her arm.

  She jumped and nearly toppled forward, which would have put her too close to that crater. He gripped her arm, and pulled her back.

  Her eyes were glazed, her face covered with soot. Her clothing was torn, probably from the earlier explosion, and she seemed—well, not Selda. As if Selda had disappeared deep inside herself.

  This close to the crater, the heat was painful. The stench was overpowering. His eyes were watering, but hers were dry.

  He pulled her away, getting her to the middle of the yard.

  She stumbled along with him, barely able to keep up. She needed some kind of fresh air, something that would help her clear her lungs—maybe even clear her emotions.

  He didn’t want to use magic too close to that crater—not after what had happened to the faeries—so he continued to pull Selda to the street.

  Finally, they went through the gate, narrowly missing even more pixies, lurching across the sidewalk, like survivors of a major battle.

  Which, he supposed, they were. He continued to drag Selda all the way across the street. He tugged her up the stairs of a nearby house, pushing the door open, hoping that no one remained after the evacuation.

  This house had a show-place living room—all white rugs, walls, and furniture. His shoes—and Selda’s—left sooty footprints on the carpet.

  He pushed the door closed.

  “Deep breaths,” he said. He knew the air was clear in here because the carpet, the furniture, and the walls were still a pristine white.

  Selda took a deep breath, her eyes still glassy. If he trusted her, he would go to the kitchen and get her some water and a washcloth to wipe off her face, but he didn’t trust her. She seemed under the influence of that smoke, that crater, and she didn’t even seem to realize it.

  Then she exhaled, and gray dust floated out of her mouth. That seemed to startle her. Her eyes widened, and she seemed to see him for the first time.

  She raised her left arm, about to cast a spell to clear herself, and he caught it.

  “No,” he said. “No magic. Not here. Not yet.”

  He had taken enough of a risk just coming here, using magic. He hoped that hadn’t made anything worse.

  “Let’s get you some water and wash off your face. Continue to breathe. You have to get that stuff out of your lungs.”

  She didn’t say anything, not yet, but she followed his instructions. And she managed to stay beside him as he walked across that pristine but useless living room to the biggest kitchen he had seen in a long time.

  Everything gleamed in here. Showplace gleam, the kind that suggested that no one ate in this kitchen, let alone cooked in it.

  He opened a few cupboards until he found some glassware (heavy and decorated, probably for show rather than use) and took down two large goblets.

  He filled them from the bottled water unit beside the fridge, then han
ded one goblet to Selda. He kept the other for himself.

  “Wash out your mouth first,” he said. “Spit that stuff out. Then drink.”

  She moved closer to the sink. He sipped his own water, swirled it around in his mouth, and spit. He had black gunk inside his mouth as well, and he didn’t like it. It coated the inside of that sink.

  Then he gargled, clearing his throat. And, after spitting that out (more black stuff), he drank and actually swallowed the water.

  He had been thirstier than he realized. He drained the glass, then filled it again, and drank some more.

  Selda did the same.

  He set his glass down, and opened more drawers, finding neatly folded white towels. (Of course. Because this place couldn’t have just basic useful towels that were a little faded.)

  He pulled them out, wetted one with hot water, and handed it to Selda. She stared at it for a moment—and he shuddered. If she was this compromised, what had happened to everyone else? Selda had more power than most of them put together.

  But she had also been closer to the crater.

  “Allow me,” he said, one hand hovering over her shoulder. She frowned at him, as if she didn’t understand the words, but she didn’t move away.

  He put that hand on her shoulder, then placed his fingers inside the wet towel.

  “Forgive me for the touch,” he said. “Let me know if it hurts.”

  He wiped her face, concentrating on her nose, lips, and eyes. He needed to clear the gunk away from her skin.

  The towel turned black almost immediately, and beneath that black was a touch of orange and purple. He caught the faint hint of burnt sugar as well as the room filled with a damp smoke smell.

  He set that towel down, grabbed another, and used it to scrub her face. Selda let him, which surprised him. Normally, she would have grabbed the towel from his hands and yanked it away.

  He wanted to shake her. He wanted to bring her back to herself. He was beginning to worry that her consciousness wasn’t even in her body when she coughed, and put a hand on his.

  She moved him aside, leaned forward, and splashed running water on her face. The water ran down her neck and her dress, leaving trails of white in the soot.

  She continued to cough, and he half expected to see those snake-like things ribboning out of her as well, but they didn’t. Nothing had gotten inside her that he could tell.

  He put a hand on her back, but didn’t pat. He let her determine what she needed.

  She gripped the edge of the sink, coughed a few more times, and then took a deep gasping breath.

  “What the hell?” she asked, sounding just like Selda. Finally.

  What the hell indeed.

  “What’s the last thing you remember?” he asked.

  She blinked, looked around, saw that she was in an unfamiliar kitchen, and frowned at him.

  “Oh, my God,” she said, not answering him. “We have to get everyone out of there, and contain that thing.”

  “I’m afraid—you were afraid—that using magic would give it more power,” he said.

  “Well, we have to figure out something,” she said.

  He nodded. They did. But he had a different concern.

  “Look,” he said, “I need to get back to Zel. She—”

  “We will worry about Zel later.” Selda grabbed yet another towel and scrubbed her face and neck dry. She looked like a woman peering out of a gray cloud. Her fresh-scrubbed face seemed at odds with the soot still coating the rest of her. “We need to—”

  “I think you need to jump in the shower here,” he said, “and get that stuff off you, then go back to the Archetype Place and plan from there.”

  She blinked at him. Her eyes narrowed, and she nodded. “You might be right.”

  “I am right,” he said, “and we’re going to worry about Zel right now. Because Sonny’s sword managed to protect her during that explosion. His sword is…”

  He caught himself before he told Selda where the sword was. He didn’t know how that soot on her worked. Was it attached to something larger? Did it act like microphones or magical recording devices? Was someone listening in on their conversation, or worse, were they here with Selda, actively participating in the conversation?

  He couldn’t tell and didn’t have time to figure it out. He hoped the shower worked.

  “…the sword is an inspiration,” he said. “Was. Was an inspiration. We think we figured out how to find Sonny because of it.”

  “I’m confused,” Selda said, which was also a sentence he never expected to hear from her.

  But of course she was confused. He had made her confused, by not confiding as he had planned.

  He couldn’t pull Selda from here. Nor could he bring in anyone else who had been to this site. He needed someone else.

  “We’ll find Sonny after we contain this thing,” Selda said.

  “I think that’s a good plan,” he said. And he needed a good plan as well. “Let’s get you to the shower.”

  “I can go on my own,” she said.

  “You don’t even know where it is,” he said. He didn’t either, but he figured he could find it easier. “Let’s get you there, and I’ll find you something else to wear.”

  Once she got in, he was going to toss her clothes and those towels in the trash in the back. He would burn them if he could, but he didn’t think he could get away with that right now.

  “C’mon,” he said, leading her out of the kitchen. She was moving better than she had, but she still wasn’t anywhere near the Selda he knew.

  He hoped the shower would help.

  But he wasn’t going to stick around to find out.

  Chapter 22

  Just about the point where Zel was going to explore the rest of the house to keep her mind occupied, Henry returned. He looked damp around the edges. A streak of soot ran along one side of his face.

  “We have to do something with the sword ourselves,” he said, waving a hand at her. “But I’m jumping in the shower first.”

  “Shower?” she asked.

  “And you are too!” He was already headed down the hall, but he stopped, and peered around the side of it. “I mean, you know, on your own. Without me. Because…ah, hell. Me first, then you, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said, not sure what he was about. He had learned something or realized something or got frightened by something.

  She didn’t know him well enough to know what, exactly, that something was.

  She glanced at Sonny’s sword, which remained in its position on the threadbare carpet. Nothing had changed in this room, although the energy felt different now that Henry had hurried through it. She wasn’t sure what caused his panic. And he was panicked.

  He hadn’t been panicked before.

  Concerned, yes, but not panicked.

  She ran her hands over her arms again, hugging herself, trying not to let terror overtake her.

  Terror is the enemy of action, Sonny had first said to her that long night as she jostled along on his horse, terrified that Aite was after them. Terror keeps us down, makes us forget that we have the power to change things.

  She hadn’t known how to defeat terror then. She kept looking over her shoulder, expecting Aite to follow—even though no mage worth her salt would have followed. That mage would have been surprised.

  Aite hadn’t figured out that Zel was gone, not for hours. By then, Sonny had gotten Zel to another Kingdom, in the office of a magical lawyer named Gustava, who somehow helped them find a way out of the Kingdoms altogether.

  But Zel hadn’t found out about Aite’s delay for months afterward. Sonny had told her that news, but Zel was never sure how he had known it.

  And she hadn’t asked.

  She hadn’t asked about anything. Instead of fighting the terror, she had held it inside, hadn’t told Sonny about it, not in detail. Oh, she had told him that she was afraid at times, and he knew she never wanted to return to the Kingdoms or deal with the magical, but discussing the
reason for it?

  They had never done that.

  She made herself bring her arms down, pulling out of that rigid self-hug. Sonny was gone, and the only one who could rescue him, it seemed, was her.

  Now Henry was freaked out, and she wasn’t exactly sure why. (Well, at least on the detail level. She knew why over all. That magical crater where her house had been. The way the faeries were injured. What had happened to Zel—which she really, really didn’t want to think about.)

  (But she had to think about it. She had to.)

  She pulled those thoughts out of the back of her brain and made herself shake those arms. She had to be strong. She had to make it through this.

  If something had frightened Henry, and there was no one to help, then she would have to rely on herself.

  Sonny had relied on himself, over and over again, as he rescued all those people from the Kingdom.

  And she had been the first. And that day—those days—Sonny had been truly alone. He hadn’t had a network of helpers like he’d developed over the years. He hadn’t had the support or the backup, or anyone who would help.

  He had simply (simply! Ha! Nothing simply about it)…he had climbed up that tower on his own, had used this sword to defend her, and had gotten her out. They had ridden like the wind, and he hadn’t seemed afraid at all.

  Terror, he had told her, is the enemy. Not Aite. She’s a symptom.

  To this day, Zel didn’t understand that philosophy. Not really. She had clung to her fear.

  And she couldn’t do that now.

  She had to act.

  She crouched beside Sonny’s sword. With Sonny gone, no one else could pick it up. No one else could guard the weapon.

  No one else could help her with it.

  She didn’t dare leave it alone. Decades ago, as Sonny’s weapon of choice, it had saved her life.

  Then, this morning, it had protected her from that explosion, and had probably saved her life again.

  Her hand hovered over the hilt. She couldn’t remember the last time she had actually hefted the sword. She had moved it a few times, always when Sonny was nearby, but she had carried it gingerly, as if it were a precious relic, not a sword at all.