by Emma Savant
The second she registered that it was me, her gaze intensified like she was trying to light me on fire. Her smile was much too big.
“Hi,” she said, too enthusiastic. Everything about her was too much. “Wow, what a surprise.”
“Sorry to just show up like this,” I said.
“No, no, that’s totally okay.” She ran a hand through her hair, fluffing it into an even bigger cloud. “How are you doing? What’s up?”
The lie sprang up easily. “I wanted to talk to you about Lucas,” I said. “Could we maybe go somewhere private?”
She kept staring and smiling. She didn’t know whether to believe me. On the one hand, Lucas was the only thing we had in common, and I had no doubt she’d be thrilled at the opportunity to reiterate how much happier she was dating college guys. On the other, she knew. I could feel her certainty that I was one of them, and that I was here about dark forests and Huntsmen and everything else she’d conjured up. She’d seen me at the Pumpkin Spice stall before, and the timing was too convenient.
A weird feeling tingled up my spine, a sense that we were being watched.
“Sure,” she said slowly. “Yeah. Come on up to my room. I don’t have long. A, um, friend is dropping by.”
I followed her up the stairs with Aster and Seth right behind. My feet sank into the emerald plush runner carpet that snaked up them. Her house smelled old, like polished wood and dusty curtains and orange peel potpourri. A family portrait smiled down at me, in which Aubrey’s normally wild hair had been swept into a French twist.
Aubrey paused at the top of the stairs.
“He’s not still dating Imogen, is he?” she asked. “I thought they broke up.”
It was impossible how much to describe I didn’t want to actually have this conversation with my coworkers present.
“They did,” I said. “But I think they’re going to get back together. She’s been texting him and I think he might go for it. Except I don’t know if it’s a good idea.”
She eyed me up and down. The gaze was just long enough to make sure that I knew she was judging me. Even though I also knew she was a horrible person who had no right to judge me, I still felt abruptly self-conscious about my scuffed tennis shoes and faded shirt. I resisted the urge to fold my arms across my chest.
“He’s my ex,” she said.
“I know,” I said.
“So why are you talking to me?” she said. “Lucas is not part of my life anymore.”
She pushed a door open. It led to a dark green-walled room at the front of the house, and I could only assume it was hers. An actual four-poster bed stood against one wall, its majestic shape not completely softened by its green-and-gold brocade canopy.
“Nice room,” I said.
“Furniture’s antique,” she said offhandedly. “It’s been with the house for, like, decades.”
Of course it had.
I stepped further into the room to make sure Seth and Aster could get in behind me. I heard the small tap of an elbow hitting the old wooden door and instantly put my hand on the door to shut it. Aubrey’s eyebrows drew together, but she didn’t say anything.
Once the door was closed, I turned to face her.
The hair on the back of my neck prickled.
It was back, the feeling of being watched by someone who wasn’t here. It was stronger this time. I felt goosebumps rise on my arms under my jacket.
There was no clear water in this room. The Oracle shouldn’t be able to see us.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. Aster leaned down and said softly in my ear, “I feel it too.”
I couldn’t respond, so I sent her a wave of gratitude. She squeezed my shoulder.
“I came to talk to you because I think Lucas still has feelings for you,” I said. Silently, I hoped I was telling a lie. I had never followed up with him on that conversation where he’d said she wanted to get back together. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to ask.
Aubrey’s eyebrows went up.
Aster and Seth crept around me. I had to keep her talking while they worked on her memories.
“I think Imogen was just a rebound, you know?” I said.
“Well, obviously,” Aubrey said.
She obviously thought I was an idiot.
I felt the same about her, but she didn’t need to know that right this second.
Aster stalked to the window to keep guard. Seth pulled out his wand.
“I’ve been talking to both of them, and Imogen really cares about him,” I lied.
Aubrey’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you and Imogen weren’t talking. You know, after she freaked out at you at her sister’s wedding.”
I wanted to take whichever high school numbskulls were running the rumor mill and poke them in the eye with my wand.
“We made up,” I said, forcing a sickly sweet smile onto my face. “She was just having a hard couple of weeks, but we’re totally over it.”
“That’s good, I guess,” Aubrey said.
“Anyway,” I said, pointedly. “Imogen wanting to get back with Lucas would be great, you know, if he really cared about her back. But I don’t think he does, and I don’t want her to get involved with him if it’s just going to end badly. And I was wondering, I mean, has he been talking to you or anything?”
She laughed, not in a nice way.
“Um, no,” she said. “That ship has sailed. I have moved on. I have moved so on.”
“Curse it,” Aster hissed. She put her hands on the window frame and leaned in so closely her nose almost touched the antique glass. “Guys, we have a visitor.”
Seth’s forehead tensed in concentration. “Filmmaker?” he said.
“No,” Aster said. “No, I have no idea who this is. But he doesn’t look like he was invited. Olivia, I need this window open.”
I didn’t want to ask Aubrey to open it. She was already suspicious, and if anything went wrong and Aster’s glamour was compromised, things were going to go downhill quickly. But there were other rooms in the house.
“Sorry to change the topic,” I said. “But, um, can I use your bathroom?”
She judged me harder. This time, I didn’t care.
“Sure,” she said, like this was the most inconvenient thing anyone had ever asked her. She walked to the door and held it open. “Two doors down that way,” she said, pointing down the hall away from the stairs.
We were in luck. It was at the front of the house, too. I made a beeline for it. Aster and Seth darted to follow.
Once inside the elegant bathroom, I threw up a sound bubble.
“What’s going on?” I said.
Aster was already tugging the window open. The wood creaked in protest.
“Pssst,” she said. She stuck her head out. Thankfully, the house was too old to have window screens. After a second of staring intently to the left, she waved her wand vaguely at herself. The glamour that had kept her and Seth concealed fizzled and faded. “You,” she hissed. “Yes, you.”
I moved in next to her. Seth hovered behind us, his wand out and pointed at the door.
On the side of the house, clinging like a lizard, was a teenage faerie. A fire faerie, judging by his aura. Over my glasses, I could see flames licking up the top of his head, mixed in with his unruly white-blond hair. His skin looked hot and sparks jumped out of his fingertips every few seconds, like his long, skinny fingers were wires with shorts in them.
“You can see me?” he said.
Aster gave him a look that could freeze a bonfire.
“Obviously,” she said flatly.
His face fell.
“Who are you?” he said.
“How about you tell first, since you’re the one attempting a break-in?” Aster said.
“This is PursuitOfVerity’s house, right?” he said. Panic flitted across his features. “I double-checked.”
“Not what I asked,” Aster said.
I ducked under Aster’s arm. “Yes, this is her house,” I said. “Who are you?�
�
“My name’s Aidan,” he said. “I’m here to deal with her.”
I stared at him.
So did Aster. Across the bathroom, Seth snorted.
“As authorized by whom, exactly?” Aster said.
He crept along the side of the house, fingers clinging to the siding. Over my glasses, I could see the small white swirls of magic that glowed at each fingertip and made him stick like a gecko.
“I live in the neighborhood,” he said.
Aster let out a hissing noise that I wasn’t sure was voluntary. “So you’re just, what, going to murder her?”
“No!” he said. His thin face widened in horror. “I’m not going to kill her. I’m just going to incapacitate her and turn her over to the Faerie Queen.”
“Oh, Titania,” Aster said, not bothering to keep her voice down.
Aidan crept over some more. He was right outside Aubrey’s window now.
We needed to wrap this up.
“Aidan?” I said. “We’re here for the same reason. The Grand Council on Magical Beings sent us. We’ve got things under control here.”
“I need to see this through,” Aidan said. “This is my chance to be a Hero.”
My entire body cringed.
“Maybe you can be a Hero a different day,” I said. “Maybe on something that’s less, I don’t know, really high stakes. Can you just let us do this, please?”
His skin flushed, not pink, but red—a deep, orangey red that made him look like he was about to explode. I lowered my glasses down the bridge of my nose. The flames licking around his head had engulfed his entire body, making him look like a human bonfire.
“It’s okay, Aidan,” I said. “I know you were hoping this was going to turn out.”
I stretched my energy toward him, trying to get a sense for what he was feeling and how I could redirect those emotions.
But Aster was having none of it.
“Get off this house, now,” she ordered. “We’re here on official business. You’re obstructing us. Do we need to call law enforcement?”
The flames intensified.
“Aster,” I muttered.
“No, this is ridiculous,” she said. “We don’t need a teenager around here screwing things up. No offense,” she added. “I don’t mind having you around. But you know what you’re doing.”
“Then let me handle it,” I said.
“We can’t stay in here all evening,” Seth said. “Documentary guy arrives any second.”
I stretched a hand out toward Aidan. “Why don’t you come in and we can talk?” I said. “Maybe we can find a way for you to help us.”
The fire around him settled as though it had been blown into submission by a strong breeze. Aidan’s sparking blue eyes met mine through the lingering flames. He nodded, just barely, and swung out a hand to move toward us. With every inch, the tension in my spine relaxed.
“Almost there,” I said under my breath. I could practically feel Aubrey in the next room, more suspicious and annoyed with every second I stayed in the bathroom.
“Come on,” Aster muttered.
Aidan’s fingers were close enough that I could almost touch them. Behind me, Aster’s patience snapped.
She turned away from the window. Under her breath, she muttered, “Seth, deal with him. He is not staying to help.”
It wasn’t far enough under her breath. A hot wave of panic engulfed me, so strongly that I had to close my eyes against the emotion and hold onto the windowsill for balance. An instant later, I sprang back into action.
“She didn’t mean it,” I said, reaching out toward him. “I promise, I won’t let them—”
Aidan yelped as though he’d been burned. A flaming ball of fire formed in his palm almost too quickly to see, and then it flew toward us. I screamed and ducked as the ball roared through the window and over my head. I pointed my wand at it in one reflexive move. The ball fizzled into nothing an instant before it hit the closed bathroom door.
“What is wrong with you?” I shouted at Aster. The ball of silence around us shimmered; the magic that had held the fireball together had cracked it.
Seth spun around both of us and shot a spell out the window at Aidan. The kid shouted, but I could feel that he hadn’t been hurt.
“I don’t—”
I threw out a hand. The silence solidified around us, stifling Aster’s words before they could go on. Seth shot another spell out the window before I hissed at him to stop.
A muffled sound came from the hall. Then, Aubrey’s voice.
“Are you okay in there?” she said.
The skepticism dripped off her voice.
We all held still, each trembling hand or fluttering eyelash seeming like an enormous gesture. I felt as though people could hear our breathing for miles.
“I’m fine,” I said, in a strained voice. “I’ll be a minute. Sorry. Ate some bad Mexican food.”
Nothing. Then, sounding thoroughly grossed-out, she said, “O-kay, then.”
Her footsteps receded.
No more fireballs had come whizzing over my head, and I let myself relax. Behind me, I could still feel Aidan, tense and ready to jump from spark to inferno.
And then, with no warning, his energy shifted again. This time, it was as though all those flames had been frozen.
Seth and Aster looked at each other, then at me. We threw ourselves toward the window.
Aidan clung, absolutely still, onto the side of the building. His wide blue eyes were fixed on a figure below. At the end of Aubrey’s walkway, a man with an overgrown beard stood. He caught my eye and a slow smile crept across his face. In his hands, pointed directly at us, was a camera phone.
Aster swore. In a split second of frantic wand-waving, she glamoured Aidan into invisibility, threw the same glamour over Seth and herself, and removed the sound bubble.
I didn’t need to be told.
We tumbled into the hallway, me holding onto my stomach and Seth and Aster tense behind me. I didn’t know about Aidan. I didn’t care.
I stopped in Aubrey’s doorway.
“Sorry,” I said. “I think I’m sick.”
Behind me, Seth conjured up a gurgling noise aimed in my general direction. Aubrey’s nose crinkled.
“Food poisoning, maybe,” I said. “I think your friend is here. Can we talk about Lucas later? Sorry to bother you.”
“I’ll walk you out,” she said, like she wanted to make sure I made it.
The door opened onto the man, still staring at the end of the walkway. He’d put his phone down, but his eyes were fixed on the house like he expected a miracle.
“Bye,” I said.
The white dog had followed us to the door. It looked up at Seth and wagged its tail. A shiver ran down my spine, but no sign of magic rose off its fur. I was just on edge, and everything screamed danger!
I brushed past the dog and hurried down the walkway, shaking my hair around my face so the man couldn’t get a close look.
“Hi,” Aubrey said, brightly. “My friend was just leaving. Come on in.”
I felt his eyes on me until I’d reached the next house and heard the door shut behind them.
Chapter Fourteen
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Kyle said. He tapped the edge of the newspaper spread in front of us. The typed letters jumbled and rearranged themselves magically across the page, forming a new story that sounded exhaustingly like the ones before.
Two days had passed since the filmmaker had uploaded his video to the internet and thrown Portland into chaos, after which my mom had called my school and told them I would be out for a few weeks for “personal reasons.” Two hours had passed since Lucas and I had come to Pumpkin Spice to talk things over, and the enormity of our situation still hadn’t sunk in. The café was closed as a defense against the Huntsmen, but Elle had let us in through the back door.
“A cruise ship on the river was tagged with a bunch of Huntsmen slogans,” Kyle said. His eyes were traine
d on the paper, devouring one horrible news story after another. “And another group had an Oracle party right outside your work. They’re calling for a full reveal of the Glimmering world so we can have ‘the peace of openness.’”
I shrank in on myself and tried to press my body as hard as I could into the back of the chair that supported me.
“I don’t want to hear any more,” I said.
Lucas pushed a plate of cookies toward me. I shook my head. I couldn’t stand the thought of eating.
I’d spent the entire day being grilled by everyone from Lorinda to the local Glim law enforcement to the Overseer of Interspecies Cooperation himself. Every time, I’d told them the same thing: the truth. I’d been there on a work assignment. It had been approved by the Council. We’d done the best we could. As far as I knew, the video that had landed online was the only one that had been taken, and it had been on the internet within minutes of our leaving the property. Due to luck and blurring as the phone’s camera had tried to focus, Aidan was the only one whose face had been clearly captured. He was in official Glim custody, and I promised to keep myself glamoured when I went out in public for the next few weeks, just in case.
At the end of the interrogation, they were all satisfied—even my dad.
And I was exhausted.
“You know what was nice?” I said. I gently kicked Elle’s foot under the table with mine. “When the biggest headache I had was trying to get you to prom.”
She laughed, but her face was full of sympathy.
I took a deep breath and let it all out, trying to attach as much of my stress to the air as I could. But there was more. There was always more.
“It’s weird that it’s blown up this quickly,” Kyle said. “This thing’s gone viral overnight. Even the skeptics who think it’s a hoax are talking about it.”
“Not that weird,” Elle said. “There’s always been tension between the Glim and Hum worlds. That’s what you told me, anyway.”
“Not like this,” he said. “There’s always been tension, yeah, but people have never been bloodthirsty about it.”
He tapped the newspaper again. The words jumbled and reformed. Upside-down, I read the words, MISSING TODDLER FOUND; KIDNAPPER ARRESTED.