Hidden Charm

by Kristine Grayson

  Now, she was going to have to lift it. Carry it like a sword, maybe even use it.

  Sonny had trained her enough that she knew how to hold a sword. How to swing it so she wouldn’t hurt herself. How to threaten someone with it—as a sword, a physical item, but not as a magical sword.

  Accessing the magic, well, she wasn’t sure she could do that. She and Sonny had never discussed it.

  She ran her hand along the blade, and watched as the engravings rose, glowing a warm gold, wrapping themselves around her wrist and hand for the briefest moment before sliding back into the sword itself.

  Down the hall, the shower hummed. She looked toward the sound, then at her soot-covered arms. Something in the dirt was…toxic? Harmful? Worse than that?

  She didn’t know, and she was going to have to ask him.

  She took a deep breath, and looked back at the sword. “I’m sorry that I’m the one to move you,” she said to it. “We will find Sonny as fast as we can, okay? Then he’ll take care of you properly. I don’t know how.”

  The sword glowed at the mention of Sonny’s name, but the glow faded as she continued speaking. She wasn’t sure what that reaction meant, or if the sword was just responding to the sound of her voice.

  She moved her shaking hand toward the hilt of the sword, and grasped it. The lovely scrollwork felt uneven beneath her palm and fingers, the ridges clearly designed for a hand other than hers.

  She lifted the sword. It was heavier than she expected given how thin the blade had gotten, and it nearly toppled her sideways. She put her other hand down on the floor to catch her balance.

  The sword felt like an appendage, something attached to her now that made her feel less like herself than ever before. It vibrated ever so slightly under her hand, the way that electric current did when it was flowing through metal.

  She didn’t remember ever feeling that before, but she might not have noticed.

  Every other time she had picked up the sword, Sonny had been right beside her. He had been talking to her, instructing her or helping her, taking her attention off the sword itself.

  This time, it was just her and the sword.

  She braced her free hand on the back of the couch, and stood, not letting the sword overbalance her any more. Then she carried it toward the hallway.

  It was narrow and dark, with nothing hanging on the walls. Hallway walls in old houses filled with mortals often had children’s school photos stairstepped at various angles, showing the history of someone’s childhood. Or they had wedding photos or medals or art or awards.

  But these walls were conspicuously blank, as if there was nothing to commemorate or celebrate. The doors leading into the bedrooms were arched in a 1920s style, and all of them had arching wood doors, that echoed doors in various castles in the Kingdom.

  This house was as old as hers, and unlike hers (had been), this one hadn’t gone through a major remodel to bring it into the 21st century. Even the obvious 1970s remodel hadn’t really changed the house’s character.

  It looked like a place that someone existed in, not a place that anyone lived in.

  The bathroom door was slightly open, and the air smelled of steam and plain soap. She peered inside, and saw that the bathroom at least had been remodeled. There was a toilet room, and the shower itself was off to one side, not completely evident. No wonder Henry said that she could join him.

  She couldn’t see him clearly through the pebbled glass enclosure around the shower, but she could see a suggestion of him, his broad shoulders, his tapered hips. He looked like an Impressionist painting of a man seen from a distance.

  A fluffy blue towel hung on a peg near the shower, and a matching blue robe hung from another peg. He did like some comforts after all.

  She couldn’t bring herself to go too far into the bathroom. She didn’t know him well enough, wasn’t comfortable being this close to him while he was naked.

  She clung to the sword in her left hand, and leaned on the door jamb, keeping her gaze carefully in the hallway, so that she couldn’t think about the (attractive) naked man close by.

  “What happened back there?” she asked.

  “There’s some magic in the smoke,” he said. “I’ll explain when I get out. But we have to get the soot off us.”

  She nodded, then realized that he couldn’t see her.

  “Okay,” she said. “And no one will help us?”

  “I didn’t ask,” he said, and that startled her.

  “Wasn’t Selda there?”

  “I—um—not in the way we would expect,” he said. “I’m thinking maybe we take Sonny’s sword to the Archetype Place and store it in the vault, then—”

  “The vault?” she asked.

  Plumbing wailed as he shut off the water. She peered in, despite herself, just in time to see his hand reach over the top of the pebbled glass enclosure and grab the towel, pulling it inside.

  She wanted to step into the bathroom and watch him towel off. Then she made herself focus on the ancient carpet in the hallway. She was tired, and thinking about a good-looking man while he was naked allowed her mind to rest.

  That was all that impulse was. Nothing else.

  She hoped.

  “We have a vault that stores magical items for people,” he said. “It’s not well known, but I can get into it. The sword should be safe there.”

  The sword vibrated in her hand, making her skin ache. She looked down, saw that the entire sword was flaring red.

  “I, um, don’t think the sword approves of that idea,” she said, knowing how ridiculous that sounded. But Henry would understand.

  “I don’t think we can bring it with us,” Henry said. “It’ll act as a beacon.”

  It flared red again, as if it were arguing with him.

  “Um,” she said, not sure how to handle a disagreement between a sword and a person, “let’s…what happened at the house?”

  He didn’t seem to move for a moment, or at least the flesh-colored blur that she could see through the glass didn’t move. Then his hand came over the enclosure again, and snatched the robe, bringing it inside.

  She could see his arms move as he slipped the robe on, and maybe another appendage bobbed as well. She tried to pull her gaze away.

  She had no idea why she was attracted to this man, but she was. And she certainly had no idea why that attraction rose now, when it was inconvenient. She really hadn’t been attracted to anyone else in her life before. It couldn’t be because he was good-looking, although he was. She had been surrounded by beautiful people at her job, and she always admired them as if they were artifacts.

  But Henry—it wasn’t just that he was physically beautiful. He was, although he didn’t seem to notice it. Something about the way he held himself, something about the look in his eyes, something about his deep unwillingness to get involved with others, and yet wanted to be involved with her, pulled her in instead of pushing her away.

  He pushed open the enclosure door, sending steam into the already steam-filled bathroom.

  “You’ll need to shower too,” he said, not answering her question at all.

  “Yeah, I got that,” she said. “But why?”

  He glanced down at the sword in her hand, then back at her. “We’re on our own at the moment.”

  “What does that mean?” she asked. “Is everyone else dead?”

  Because if they were, because they had gone to her aid, she wasn’t sure if she could handle that.

  He shook his head. Water dripped off the strands around his ears. The slicked-back wet hair showed off the strong bones in his face, making him even more good-looking. He used the hair to hide, just like he had used his clothing to hide, just like he had used that frog avatar to hide.

  “No,” he said quietly, “they’re not dead. But they have a hell of a battle on their hands.”

  The steam was too hot. It made her skin damp. Even so, she felt chilled beneath it all.

  “Should we be helping them?” she aske
d. The sword flared red as she asked it, and the hilt grew warm against her hand.

  Well, then, the sword had an opinion. It didn’t want to help anyone.

  Henry shook his head, spraying droplets around him. He grabbed the towel and rubbed it over his hair, maybe so that he wouldn’t have to look directly at her.

  “No,” he said, agreeing with the sword. “If you want to find Sonny, then we can’t help with that.”

  The sword’s flare had faded, and the hilt grew cool again. But Zel puzzled on Henry’s phrasing. It had been odd.

  “If I want to find Sonny,” she repeated, tilting her head a little. “Does that mean you don’t want to find him?”

  The sword’s hilt was growing warm again. Could magical swords feel emotion? She didn’t know.

  Henry stopped rubbing his hair dry, and peered at her from under the towel. He opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, but then he closed his mouth, and went back to rubbing his hair dry.

  “You need to get into the shower,” he said with a bit of emphasis.

  “Why?” she asked. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  His shoulders slumped. “A lot, actually,” he said. “I’ll tell you while you shower, okay?”

  The sword was still warm in her palm. “What about Sonny’s sword?”

  “It can—should—stay in here,” he said, glancing at it. “With you.”

  She wondered if he worried about the sword. If it meant to protect her against Henry.

  He wanted her in that shower, naked, and then he was going to talk with her, as if they had been doing this their whole lives.

  She had never even talked to Sonny when she was in the shower. Their private times had remained private, no matter how close they were.

  “I don’t have other clothes,” she said, deciding to deal with this shower thing now.

  “I’ll get some for you,” he said. “It’s imperative that you wash off before we talk.”

  “Why?” she asked. She wasn’t going to move until that question was answered.

  “Because…” he started, then looked at her, and at her clothing. “Please. Just trust me on this.”

  She had trusted him on everything else. Besides, he didn’t seem like the kind of man who would take advantage of her or the bad situation she was in.

  But, she knew from all the things she had read, all the things she had heard, that sometimes the men who didn’t seem like “that kind of man” were exactly that kind of man.

  As if that mattered right now.

  She had lost her home to a magical explosion. She had lost her best friend to that same magic. She had somehow caused great injury to all of the faeries. And she did have a magical sword for protection.

  That thought felt almost alien, and she wondered if it had come from the sword itself.

  Maybe. Maybe the sword was sending her messages.

  Wouldn’t that be odd? And just like magic to do something weird like that.

  “Okay,” she said, after a moment. “But I’d really like privacy. Can you talk through the door?”

  He draped the towel around his neck, and smiled at her as if he understood.

  “Sure,” he said. “Let me get you the clothes and a towel, and you can get underway.”

  Chapter 23

  Henry did something he hadn’t done in more than a decade. He spelled clothes out of nothing. They appeared, neatly folded, on top of his own laundry hamper—a pair of blue jeans (Zel’s size), a black T-shirt (because his mind couldn’t conceive of anything else), a bra (Zel’s size [he hoped]), underwear, socks and boots. He hadn’t planned on the boots, but the magic conjured them up.

  It seemed he had been thinking of solid clothing, protective clothing, and that’s what the magic found.

  Then he opened his towel closet, and was startled to see that the brooms from earlier—or something in Polly’s clean-up spell—had folded all of his linens, maybe cleaned them too. He saw thick towels he hadn’t seen in years.

  He grabbed two, and hung them on the pegs where his towel had just been.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll change, and be back shortly.”

  Then he let himself out of his own bathroom. She closed the door behind him.

  It felt odd to stand in the hallway—the clean hallway—and hear the squeal of his shower starting up. In all the years he’d lived here, no one else had ever showered in his place. No one else had slept here. Only a handful of people had even visited, and he had shuffled them out in a matter of minutes.

  He had spent one warm afternoon talking with Selda on the front stoop, because he hadn’t wanted her to see how he lived.

  He stepped into the bedroom—which didn’t look like his at all. Where had they found that brown bedspread? When had he bought a brown bedspread? And when in the hell was the last time his bed had ever been made?

  He opened the closet door, saw clothes in neat rows, and smiled. They hadn’t just been arranged by type, but by decade as well. He could easily dress like a 1940s businessman if he wanted to.

  But he removed an outfit like the one he had conjured for Zel, and taking a note from his subconscious, he also took out a pair of boots. Apparently his brain thought his feet would need protecting at the next phase of whatever this was.

  He dressed quickly, and reached the bathroom door by the time the bathroom plumbing squealed again. At some point, he would have to repair that or it would simply fall apart.

  As if small concerns like plumbing mattered, particularly given what they were all facing.

  “Hey,” he said. “You ready to hear what’s going on?”

  The shower door clicked. He could hear it through the thin door. That meant she was standing naked on his bathmat, toweling herself off. He closed his eyes against the image, then realized that wouldn’t help. His imagination wanted to dwell on Zel’s nakedness, her small, slender body, with the perfectly proportioned hips and matching breasts.

  He shook the thought away, tried to tell himself he was a pervert for even thinking like that, and made himself focus.

  “Okay,” he said. “But first, toss your old clothes out the door.”

  There was a long moment of silence, then the handle turned, and the door opened about three inches. The clothes came out, along with the shoes, and nothing more.

  He waved a hand at them, and sent them to the dumpster near an apartment complex several miles from here. He had thought of sending them back to her house, but he had no idea what information something or someone could pull from them. He thought of destroying them, but worried that magical destruction might cause something worse.

  So the only magic he could use was small magic, a transfer spell sending them far away.

  “All right,” he said, after he had taken care of the clothes. “Now, let’s talk about that soot…”

  Chapter 24

  As Zel dressed in the perfectly fitting clothes that Henry had left behind, he told her about the soot and the smoke and Selda’s weird reaction to it. The odd calm around Zel’s house, despite the burning crater. The way that everyone seemed a bit numb.

  His theory was that the soot had magical properties and might even let “the bad guy”—his words—know what was going on, which was why Henry didn’t want to discuss any of this while they were both covered in dirt. He explained that he had sent her clothing away, for that very reason.

  She was fully dressed by that time. She only had to put on the boots. She pushed the door open to find him standing there, looking awkward. He wore a clean black T-shirt, similar to the one he had conjured for her, and jeans and boots.

  He looked slender, strong, and younger in that outfit, as if it had tapped into a different part of himself. A more confident part.

  He frowned at her, clearly surprised she had opened the door.

  “C’mon in,” she said, and moved away from the door, sitting on the closed toilet lid, and grabbing her boots.

  She slid the right boot over her foot, not looking
at him. But she could see Sonny’s sword out of the corner of her eye. It hadn’t moved since she showered.

  “So,” she said, “it sounds like we’re the only ones who can stop this. We’re going to have to go back to the house.”

  The sword flared red. She could feel the heat, even though it was nearly a yard away from her.

  Henry shot it a worried glance. Apparently he felt the heat as well.

  “Um, no,” he said, but she couldn’t tell if he was saying that because of the sword or because of her.

  “Then what?” she asked. “We are in a crisis, and it seems to center around me and Sonny.”

  Henry nodded, still looking at that sword. It hadn’t stopped glowing red.

  “I think you’re right,” he said. “You and Sonny are the key. Which is why I think we need to focus on getting Sonny back.”

  She had the other boot halfway on. She froze, and looked at Henry over her upraised toe. “What?” she asked. “Even though everyone else is in crisis?”

  Henry nodded, then glanced over at the sword one more time. It was still glowing, but the heat wasn’t as noticeable.

  “Yeah,” he said, looking back at her. The power of his gaze was almost physical. She had never experienced anything like that before.

  She finished shoving her foot into her boot, and then put her foot on the floor. The boots fit perfectly, as did the clothing.

  “It all started with Sonny,” Henry said, glancing at the sword again. He kept watching it as if he expected it to leap up of its own volition and attack him. “I’m beginning to wonder if the attack on the house is a distraction.”

  “What?” Zel couldn’t believe that. “A distraction? That attack took out a whole lot of faeries. If you’re right, then it harmed Selda as well, and who knows who else. That’s a lot of the magical being harmed as a distraction.”

  He nodded. “Most of the active magical in the Los Angeles area,” he said. “The key word is active.”