Elixir

by Ruth Vincent

  Act normal, I told myself. Take his coat, do what you invited him over to do—­pick his brain about magic solutions for Eva. But I’d involuntarily smiled as I looked at him, and my cheeks flushed.

  I noticed he glanced around the apartment, taking everything in, in his quick, intelligent way. He was probably learning all sort of things about me and Eva from our apartment—­the cheap furniture, the posters we’d hung on the wall, what books we kept on our shelves. I kind of wondered what sort of judgments he was forming about me from seeing all this, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Sorry the place is such a mess,” I said, eying the stack of dishes Eva had left in the sink. It was a sight that used to annoy me. Now it just gave me a deep pang of loneliness in my chest. I couldn’t bring myself to do them—­as if that would make it real that she was gone.

  Obadiah waved his hand. “Mab, with all you’ve been through in the past three days, the last thing you need to do is apologize for the state of your housekeeping.”

  “You want anything to drink?” I asked, awkwardly knitting my fingers.

  “If you’re having . . .” he said in his gentlemanly way.

  I opened the kitchen cabinets. Truth be told, I didn’t drink—­maybe it was the Fey in me, but I didn’t react well to alcohol. Eva had some bottles tucked over the fridge, but I didn’t know what they were, and I didn’t want to open them without her being there. Even though—­knowing Eva—­she would have been thrilled to know I had a boy over.

  I eyed Eva’s cocoa tin sitting on the countertop, just where she’d left it the other day. I’d never used it—­Eva was the one who was good with food stuff, but on impulse I reached for it.

  “I’ll make us hot chocolate,” I said.

  I fingered the tin. It was one of those fancy gourmet varieties, with gold swirling cursive on the label. I poured milk into a pan and began to heat it, squinting at the scrawling directions. I opened the cocoa mix. A chocolaty smell wafted up. I closed my eyes and inhaled, trying to calm my nerves.

  Obadiah took a seat, watching me. The little Ikea table looked small and flimsy with his tall, hulking torso and long legs stretched out underneath it, like a child’s table that he’d gamely sat down at.

  “Have you talked to the hospital?” he asked in his rich, articulate voice; I could hear the genuine concern in his tone.

  “I just called again twenty minutes ago,” I said, stirring the milk. “The nurse said Eva is out of the E.R. now, which I guess is good, but they say she’s in a coma. They’re going to let her have visitors starting tomorrow, though.”

  “Well, that’s good, I guess . . . I mean, that she can have visitors.”

  “Yeah . . .”

  A beat of awkward silence passed between us. There was so much I wanted to ask him I didn’t even know where to begin.

  He spoke first. “I have been trying to figure out who gave Elixir to your friend. I talked to my staff. They said they saw Eva with a young man.”

  “But was it Ramsey?” I asked.

  “I asked my staff and no one caught his name.”

  “What did they say he looked like?” If I found out he lied to me about where he was that night . . . My fists clenched.

  “Tall, skinny, hipster was all they said.” Obadiah shrugged.

  “That could be Ramsey.”

  “That could be half of Brooklyn.” Obadiah sighed. “But what makes me suspicious is my Wolfman employee, Reuben—­he said the light flashed ‘human’ when the man entered, but that he smelled funny, like no human Reuben had ever encountered.”

  “Ramsey told me he never took Eva to the club. I don’t know whether or not I believe him.”

  “I don’t know either,” Obadiah replied, “but whether it was him or someone else, I have no idea how they got the Elixir to give her. I checked every vial in my possession after you left, and none of them are missing—­that’s what’s so strange about it. But rest assured, Mab”—­he looked up at me—­“I will get to the bottom of this. I don’t let bad things happen on my watch.”

  I studied his dark eyes, so earnest and determined, and I felt touched that he cared so much about what happened to my best friend. I mean, who was Eva to him? At first, I thought maybe he was just trying to cover his ass, since the accident happened at his club. But the more I looked at him the more I realized he was serious—­he cared. I swallowed at the lump in my throat.

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  The milk was finally hot. I whisked in the cocoa mix and began to pour it into the mugs. It was hard to pour out of a pot. My hands were trembling. The scalding-­hot milk sloshed out—­spilling all over the counter and burning my hand.

  “Dammit!”

  “Here, let me,” said Obadiah, rising from his chair. Suddenly he was behind me, his arms around mine, almost touching, as he took the pot from my hands and poured the two mugs without spilling a drop.

  Was this man never nervous? Or was he just never awkward, unlike me?

  “Thanks,” I muttered.

  He stepped back from me and our eyes met. He was so close I could feel his sigh on my neck. We lingered for an instant, and then he stepped away, sitting down in the chair by the kitchen table again with the grace of a panther.

  He studied me, his gaze searching.

  “The detective offered you a deal, didn’t he?”

  I froze with the mug still in my hand. I nodded.

  “And you refused?”

  He sounded stunned as he said it, incredulous.

  “You thought I would have said yes to something like that?”

  Obadiah didn’t respond. His eyes veered off towards the darkened window and I could tell the answer was yes.

  “You really thought I would put the blame on an innocent person?” I said, feeling angry. “You don’t think too highly of me, do you?”

  Obadiah turned and looked at me.

  “I think much higher of you now.”

  It was a real, sincere compliment. And compliments always made me uncomfortable. I blushed and shuffled with the mug.

  “Anyone would have done the same under the circumstances,” I said quickly, turning away from him, busying myself with the steaming chocolate. “Look, I’m going out of my mind right now, worried about my best friend—­but I was with you when she fell—­I know you didn’t push her.”

  “Most ­people would have said I did,” Obadiah replied. “They’d testify against me to save their own ass, and I wouldn’t blame them.”

  “But that’s horrible; that’s lying!”

  “True, but plenty of ­people do it all the time.”

  I shrugged, but I knew he was right.

  “I couldn’t have lived with myself if I let you take the blame,” I said quietly.

  I took a seat beside him at the table.

  I could feel his eyes on my skin like a palpable heat. It was as if he was trying to see inside me, see into the part of my being I kept hidden—­that little kernel of my old self that was just barely still alive—­the fairy part.

  “You know you could go to prison for this if, god forbid, your roommate were to . . .”

  I didn’t want him to say “die,” so I cut him off.

  “Yeah, I know,” I said quickly. “Reggie, my boss, thinks I’m being an idiot. I’m sure my parents are going to freak out when I tell them too.”

  “Maybe you are being foolish. I mean, you’re willing to risk jail time for someone you just met three days ago?”

  Why was he playing devil’s advocate against himself? I didn’t understand it.

  “It’s not for you, don’t flatter yourself,” I said. “It’s just because it’s the right thing to do.”

  I gazed down at the floor. Obadiah’s arm was stretched across the table, so near mine that I almost brushed it when I went to grab my mug. The steaming-­
hot smell of chocolate rose up from the cup and I gazed down into it—­it gave me an excuse not to look at him, but I could feel he was staring at me.

  “I’ve never known a fairy to be like you,” he said at last. “Most fairies wouldn’t stick out their neck like that for each other, not to mention a human.”

  “You have a pretty low opinion of my kind, don’t you?”

  He scowled, but didn’t say anything, raising the cup to his lips.

  “Look, after what you said they did to you, I can’t blame you. But we’re not all like that.”

  “I’m not saying fairies can’t be good, kind, generous,” Obadiah replied, his voice rich and soothing, setting down the cup. “I saw it for myself, even as a prisoner. But they’re good to their own, kind and generous to those like themselves. For a fairy to help a stranger, a human . . . that’s . . .” His voice trailed off, and I could tell he could still barely believe it. “I just never would have expected it, that’s all. When you entered my club, I didn’t know how a fairy could also be human. Maybe I’m starting to understand it now. What you did, Mab—­that was human decency.”

  There was a beat of silence between us and I swallowed hard.

  “Well, I’m glad I could help improve your opinion of fairies,” I said awkwardly. I pushed away my empty mug. “There’s something I wanted to ask you,” I added, looking up at him.

  For a moment, I was distracted from what I was about to say. His dark eyes were so earnest, so full of empathy as he gazed across the table at me.

  “The reason I asked you to come over here is that I thought, if Elixir could cause Eva’s fall, could it help heal her too? Could we do a healing spell, if we gave her more Elixir? You said you use magic to help ­people. Well, Eva needs our help right now.”

  Obadiah was quiet for a moment, and then shook his head.

  “We could try,” he said at last, folding his hands, “but unfortunately, there’s no guarantee it will work. You said she was in a coma, right?”

  I nodded, and thinking about it, my initial optimism began to flicker. We couldn’t just give Elixir to Eva if she was unconscious—­she couldn’t hold the intention required for doing a spell. But what if we took the Elixir and tried to do a healing spell on her?

  “Could we do it for her?” I asked desperately. “Could we hold an intention for her?”

  Obadiah sighed. “We could try,” he said again. “But I don’t know if it will work. I’ve never used Elixir to try heal an injury this serious before.”

  I rubbed my forehead, thinking. This wasn’t going to be easy. We could try—­but what if we didn’t make her better? What if we somehow made her worse? I’d never done magic as a human before. I wasn’t made of Elixir anymore; it no longer flowed through my veins. I was as clueless as any mortal when it came to magic now. That made me feel helpless, and angry that I felt so helpless.

  “If we gave her some, is there any way it could backfire?” I asked Obadiah.

  He was silent, and I thought of poor Charley, a broken body in a morgue, thousands of miles from home.

  “I use magic; I don’t claim to understand how it works,” he said at last.

  I sighed.

  Obadiah didn’t have any better solutions to offer than what I’d already thought of on my own. Had this meeting been all for naught? There was no guarantee either of us could fix the mess Eva was in, or the mess we were in ourselves, for that matter. I rubbed my eyes. The mounting anxiety and fatigue of the last few days was like a weight pressing down on me. I couldn’t even think clearly anymore.

  I rose from my chair.

  “Listen, Obadiah, it’s late,” I said, glancing up at the clock on the kitchen wall. “Thanks for coming by. I need to think about all of this. I’ll keep you informed if I get any more news from the hospital. But right now, I have to go to bed. It’s been a hell of a day . . . a hell of a last few days . . .” I grabbed the two mugs and dumped them in the sink.

  “Mab, wait.” Obadiah stood up, facing me. His eyes sparkled in the dim light—­and I could see there was something he wanted to tell me.

  “What I wanted to say . . .” He paused, as if carefully choosing his words before they came out. I waited, barely breathing. “What I wanted to say is . . . is that I think what you did in there with the detective was really brave. And I never thought I’d say that about a changeling.”

  “I . . . well . . .” I stammered, blushed and was silent. It was such an intimate thing to say, and I almost couldn’t bear to accept a compliment like that.

  “Um . . . thanks, I guess,” I said, studying my shoes.

  “Thank you, Mab.”

  I turned to face him. I could see in his eyes that something had changed. He trusted me now. I had earned Obadiah’s trust, even though I was once a fairy. We were standing quite close to each other, over the tiny table, so close I could feel the heat of his body. My head was swimming—­it was so late, and I was tired to my bones—­but something in his gaze transfixed me. As I looked into those dark eyes that seemed to see me—­really see me—­for the first time, not as an imposter, but as someone who genuinely cared—­something inside me started to melt. I wanted to reach out to him, to be close to him, to touch him . . .

  What the hell was I thinking? It was late, my best friend was in the hospital, and I barely even knew this man.

  “Um . . . yeah . . . I should go to bed. It’s late . . . you should be getting home . . . I should . . .”

  Obadiah’s eyebrows rose.

  “Do you want me to leave?” he asked.

  No, I thought. To be alone in this apartment, with memories of Eva everywhere around me, with all the pent-­up worry inside of me and nothing I could do about any of it sounded like hell. I looked up into Obadiah’s eyes. They were warm and concerned. A moment of silence passed between us. I guess he heard an answer in the silence, and interpreted it as a no, because he picked up his coat off the rack and started towards the door.

  “Please keep me informed if you hear any further word from the hospital on your friend’s condition,” he said, putting on his jacket and turning up the coat collar, the old formality back in his voice. “I know you’ve said your friend’s fall wasn’t my fault. But it happened at my establishment and I still feel terribly responsible . . .”

  “Obadiah, you don’t need to blame yourself,” I said. “I told you, I was there for a job. Eva came because she was worried about me. None of it was your doing.”

  “Still, it shouldn’t have happened. I sincerely hope your friend recovers quickly,” he said, and even though his voice was clipped and formal, I could tell he was sincere.

  He reached for the handle of the door.

  “Good night, Mab,” he said, opening it.

  “Wait.”

  He turned around and our eyes met. His hand moved away from the door, and as it did, it brushed against mine.

  For a second I couldn’t breathe. The brush of his skin on mine was like a tingle of electricity. Was it the lingering Elixir? Or was it just him?

  “Could . . . could you stay?” I asked. “I mean, if you have to go, I understand. I know it’s very late, it’s just, so much has happened today, and everywhere I turn in this apartment I see Eva and I . . . I just really don’t want to be alone right now.”

  I blushed to the roots of my hair, unable to believe I had just said all that. What the hell was I thinking? I’d known this guy less than three days.

  But if he thought I was crazy, it didn’t register on his face. Instead, his eyes were full of empathy.

  He reached out and took my hand. I felt almost like crying—­touch, just simple human touch felt so right when everything else felt so wrong. We were standing so close together that I could hear his breath coming in and out.

  Suddenly, my eyes were closed, my lips tilted towards him. He hesitated a moment, as if to make certai
n this was what I really wanted, and then his hands pressed firmly against my back, drawing me close. I was enveloped in the smell of him—­the cold, clean scent of winter that still clung to his coat, mixed with the spicy fragrance of his cologne, and underneath that, something dark and masculine and earthy. His mouth brushed against mine, gentle at first, but then rougher as his civilized manners slipped away and something deep and primal took over. My lips parted instinctively, letting him in, feeling the sweet scratch of his stubble on my cheek. All the worries that had been simmering in my mind stilled as his tongue circled mine.

  When we pulled back at last, my whole face was flushing, hot and red. What the hell was I doing? I needed to help Eva; I needed to find a way out of this mess with the cops—­I did not need to be kissing Obadiah. I did not need any distractions. What would Eva say if she could see me right now? I thought, embarrassed. Eva would probably be cheering, you fool.

  “Um . . . I should go . . .” I mumbled. “You should go . . .”

  Obadiah’s manner abruptly cooled, and inwardly I kicked myself. He had taken that all wrong.

  The impenetrable expression was back on his face, the same look he’d been wearing in the club, and I realized what that look was. It was loneliness. The profound loneliness that maybe only someone two hundred years old could have. And yet, I understood that loneliness too. It was the loneliness of changelings. For a moment, I’d made it better. And now I’d made it so much worse.

  He turned away from me and opened the door, while I held my breath, not knowing what to say.

  The cold air from the hall rushed in, but we both stood there awkwardly.

  “Good night, Mab,” said Obadiah, stepping outside, his coat brushing me as he passed. “I’ll send another bird in the morning; please reply if you have any news.”

  I stood in the doorway, watching him as he descended the stairs.

  Can I trust him? the little voice in my head asked. I could hear Reggie’s words in my head—­but I thought Reggie was wrong. He hadn’t seen the Obadiah I’d seen tonight. I stood still, listening to the heavy clomp of Obadiah’s boots as he made his way down the three flights of stairs. I could still feel the burn of his stubble on my lips and feel the ghosts of his hands around my waist, and I knew, despite all the exhaustion of the past few days, I wasn’t going to sleep tonight.