I was just wondering if the glasses would magically refill themselves like plates of food did in the White Tower when someone’s glass crashed to the floor and shattered against the crisp white tiles.
"Runa!" Olivia shouted and snapped her fingers to make her own glass disappear.
I thought Runa was choking. Her hands went to her throat and her cheeks flushed red, but she was able to suck in rasping gasps of air. Olivia flittered around her, asking if she was okay, panicking, and making things worse.
Runa collapsed to the floor. Fiona eased a distraught Olivia out of the way as Mr. Tenpenny bent down and sniffed the doctor. It seemed like the same way Magics will sniff one another to pick up the scent of magic, but Mr. Tenpenny stopped, looked up at us, his eyes wide with fear.
"She’s been poisoned. Get a nurse now."
"I’ll do it," Banna said and hurried out of the room as quickly as her short legs could carry her.
"Poisoned with what?" Fiona asked, jumping out of the way as Olivia hurled herself across the room.
"Who did this?" Olivia shrieked. Then in a frantic, pleading tone she said, "Come on, Runa. Not now. We don’t know what you did."
It was only then I realized Runa hadn’t told anyone how she’d helped my parents. If she died now, her discovery would go with her. My parents’ progress would die with her. I couldn’t move, which was probably for the best. With everyone scattering like leaves in the wind and fussing over Runa, I’d have probably tripped over someone and made things worse. My gaze went from Runa, whose face was now a worrying shade of purple, to my parents, before drifting over to the table.
And to what I’d placed on that table.
I grabbed the pouch and fumbled open the leather thong holding it shut. Once open, I spread out the wallet and ran my fingers along the tiny packets inside. One flickered between shades of green and blue and brown. Jumping over Runa’s body, I took my dad’s cup of water and shredded the chameleon skin into it using my fingernails to pick apart the tough skin.
Spinning around with the cup of liquid, I pushed it past Mr. T’s shoulder.
"Give her this."
Runa’s eyes went wide. A moment ago I didn’t think she could look any more frightened, but apparently she could.
"No," she fought to say, "not one of hers. Potions."
But Mr. Tenpenny was having none of it. He took the cup from me. Jake had come in at some point and Mr. T commanded him to help.
"Open her mouth," Mr. T told no one in particular. "Jake, Cassie, hold her down."
Knowing Runa would never forgive me for doing so, I pinned her legs to the floor. Jake, who was burly but moved with surprising grace, slipped down between everyone and placed his knees onto Runa’s shoulders. Runa stopped struggling then. And not because we had her locked down.
"She’s slipping away," Jake said, then grabbed Runa roughly by the nose and jaw and pulled her mouth open.
Mr. Tenpenny’s hands were shaking too much to control how much of my potion went into Runa’s mouth. Some spilled onto the floor, but most found its target. Jake pushed Dr. D’s mouth shut, propped her up a little, and Mr. T massaged Runa’s throat. Some of the liquid dribbled out of her lips. And still she remained unmoving. Maybe I should have just shoved the chameleon skin up her nose.
Mr. Tenpenny continued to massage. Olivia at this point had knelt beside me and was patting Runa’s leg, begging her to swallow.
"Isn’t there a spell to make her drink?" I asked.
Mr. T and Olivia looked at one another, dawning realization on both their faces.
"The drinking game," they said as one.
Olivia pointed two fingers at Runa and, through a trembling voice said, "Chug-a-Lug."
Okay, that was really not what I was expecting to ever hear come out of Olivia’s mouth, but as they say, needs must. I also made a mental note to learn this drinking game.
Runa twitched. Mr. T removed his hand from her throat. Her trachea lifted, paused a moment, then lowered as the sound of swallowing filled the now-silent room. Dr. D gasped, choked, then sucked in several ragged breaths of air.
Once she’d caught her breath, she glared at me.
"You," she said, her voice raw. "Potion. Tasted like crap." Then a stream of tears fell from her eyes. Sheesh, my cooking wasn’t that bad, was it? "Thank you."
Mr. Tenpenny helped Runa to her feet, but it was Olivia who remained by her side, supporting the doctor despite Runa seeming quite steady on her feet. Olivia then directed her attention to Chester who still held the empty tray.
"Chester, you are under arrest for trying to kill another Magic." The words were barely out of her mouth when glowing, Wonder Woman-like ropes threw themselves around Chester’s wrists. He struggled against them.
"But I was only—"
Olivia snapped her fingers, casting a Silencing Spell on Chester.
"I’ve always had my doubts about letting trolls do more than guard. You remember their uprising in 1896?" Banna commented in a regretful tone.
"I do. I thought they’d changed," replied Olivia brusquely.
I worried for Chester. He’d always acted as if he loved his job, as if enjoyed working with us humans, but maybe I’d misread him. I’m not exactly the best person to gauge other people’s intentions.
Still, Chester a murderer? It just didn’t fit. Olivia was grasping at straws in her panic, and this was yet another example of her judging people unfairly. Just as she was doing with me, she was assuming the worst about Chester and seemed more than willing to be rid of him—
My heart stopped. Did they still execute people at the Tower? Would Chester be taken to the execution block he feared?
"Come Chester," Olivia said in a voice as cold as the champagne had been, "to the lower levels. A cell will be made ready for you."
I don’t know what spell she placed on him, or if Chester had just given up, but he followed after her without putting up any fuss.
26 - MISSING SCANS
"CASSIE," TOBEY WHISPERED as I stepped into the hallway. His unexpected lurking unnerved me and I squeaked out a noise of surprise.
"Do not do that. Until you know what it’s like having an evil wizard stalking you, never ever do that."
"Sorry, I— Come on, to your room. I’ve got news." I eyed him warily. "Knock it off. It’s only me in here." I still watched him. "Paisley tie," he said with exasperation. "Now, can we go?"
I told him about Chester on the way up the stairs. And yes, I was pretty certain we should have been going down.
"That doesn’t make any sense," Tobey said. At first I thought he was referring to the non-sensical stairways. "Trolls, even half-trolls are bound by their promises."
"Well, I doubt Chester was ever made to promise he wouldn’t poison Runa Dunwiddle."
"No, it doesn’t have to be specific like that. Once a troll gets enrolled in the security forces, he’s promise-bound to do nothing to betray anything or anyone in the place he’s meant to guard. It’s why Chester’s so enthusiastic about stomping rats. It’s just one more way he protects the White Tower."
I thought of Morelli promising to protect me. Even if he went about it in some really weird ways, he had kept that promise. Then again, Chester didn’t seem like the sharpest troll under the bridge.
"Maybe he forgot his promise," I suggested.
Tobey shook his head. "They can’t forget unless they’re released. I can’t remember what spell it is exactly, but it makes a promise binding. Magically binding."
We climbed the rest of the way in silence, then made our way down the familiar, hotel-like hallway and into my room.
"So, what’s up?" I asked as I flicked on the electric kettle.
"Well," began Tobey, looking quite proud of himself, "while everyone was tending to Runa and arresting an innocent troll, I did a little snooping."
"You didn’t. There were people everywhere."
"But they were busy. I’m not glad Dr. Dunwiddle was poisoned, but it did provide a great distraction."
The water boiled and I poured two cups of tea. I handed one to Tobey who immediately stepped over, then tore open and dumped four packets of sugar into the cup.
"And…" I prodded as I took a seat at the table.
"The portal scans were gone."
"You probably just didn’t find them."
"No, there’s a folder in there labeled, ‘Portal scans’ and inside was a note stating the date and who had ordered them. There’s also a sheet with signatures to keep track of who had accepted the folder as it got passed along. Runa’s was the last signature. It was pretty clear the file was meant to stay as a whole. She wouldn’t have removed the paperwork and placed it elsewhere."
"Where are they?"
"Do I know?"
"Well, they’ll have to run them again. I know Runa wasn’t done going over them."
"Can’t be done." Tobey took a sip of his tea, decided it wasn’t sweet enough and dumped in another two packets of sugar. "From what I’ve gathered from Grandad over the years, once a scan has been done, those records get filed away. It can’t be repeated. That’s why they’re only run if it’s really important."
"So, we have nothing. Even if any weird portal activity had been detected and registered, we can’t retrieve it?"
"Pretty much. But the real question is, who took them?"
"You just better hope no one saw you in there. With the way accusations are flying around this place, you’ll be next on Olivia’s List of Doom." I eyed the packet of cookies by the kettle, but my appetite was gone. Plus, I didn’t want to send Tobey into diabetic shock by adding more sucrose into his system. "So your little spy session was fruitless. Thanks for trying, anyway."
"No, I did get into the tablet."
"There’s no way you had time to read anything."
"I didn’t need to. We’re trying to figure out where the Mauvais might be, right?" I nodded. "And we think he might be where he worked from before, right?"
"Yes," I said and rotated my hand in a get-along-with-it gesture.
"Grandad had in the appendix—"
"Wait, his journals have an appendix?"
"Sure. He’s crazy organized. There’s an index too. He put them together when he was converting everything into the digital version. Which is why I didn’t need to read everything. With the appendix and the index, the info is right there. Now, do you want to know what I found. Or, well, didn’t find?"
"That doesn’t sound good."
"No, it is good. In the appendix, there was a list of places the Mauvais had worked from. He’s only ever set up shop in Portland and in London. That really narrows it down for us," he said as if he’d just translated the Rosetta Stone, unearthed King Tut’s tomb, and discovered the polio vaccine.
"It does," I said, hoping to burst his bubble as gently as possible. I mean, he was trying and really did seem excited by his efforts. Although, that may have also been the sugar high he was riding. "But London is a huge city that’s expanding ever outward. Nailing down one spot would be like finding a needle in the mess of Rafi’s office. And Portland isn’t that big of a city, but it’s big enough to provide hundreds of places to hide. Besides, I don’t think we should assume he’s gone to either of those cities. It’s a big world out there, ripe for the evil pickings."
Tobey threw back his tea, probably rotting off a couple layers of enamel with the hasty action. I hoped his dental insurance was paid up.
Something nibbled at the back of my head. A memory of the night I found my parents. A sound or a smell. It was one of those thoughts you can’t pinpoint and one that could drive you mad as you fought to sort it out. I tried to put it out of my mind, which was about as easy as telling someone not to think about penguins because then all that person is going to think about is flightless birds dressed in tuxedos.
"Can you make a portal to where he is? If we located him, that is," Tobey said, interrupting my thoughts.
I shook my head. "I don’t know how."
"But you’re supposed to be Miss Super Magic. Couldn’t you figure it out?"
"I give you a little magic and suddenly you have all this confidence in my power? What happened to Cassie the Halfwit?"
"I’m sure she’s still in there somewhere."
"This isn’t helping," I said, pushing my cup away and standing up from the chair. "I need some air."
"Want me to come along?"
"No, stay here and practice."
Tobey’s face lit up like a kid who’s just been told he can open a Christmas present early. "Really? What should I do?"
I conjured my inner Lola and said, "Clean the room. Use Shoving Charms at various levels to make the bed, tidy the counters, that sort of thing."
"Great!"
And the weird thing? He didn’t say that sarcastically. He really was excited to do housework. More power to him.
As for me, I needed some time to myself. I needed to think about what to do next, about what I could do. Before Tobey got started, I sifted through the bag of clothes I’d grabbed when I’d gone back to my apartment. Gandalf’s gonads, had that only been a few days ago? It seemed like months.
Shifting aside some shirts, skirts, and the pictorial history book of Portland I’d brought to show Nigel, I pulled out a small, rarely used garment from the bottom of the bag. I ducked into the bathroom, undressed and slipped on the swimsuit, then put the clothes I’d been wearing back on over it.
I know. Leaving Tobey to do chores while I went off for a bit of recreation? I really was tapping into my inner Lola.
27 - SWIMMING WITH GHOSTS
I HEADED DOWN to the main floor of the White Tower. From Nigel’s comments and from the state of Rafi’s undress and his dripping hair on the day Tobey had been found, I knew the pool had to be somewhere beyond the armory. Or perhaps there was a secret staircase within the armory that led down to a dungeon-themed swimming hole. Which, I have to admit, would be worth the stair work to see.
It being only early afternoon, the Tower was still open for business. The armory itself remained busy, but the biggest crush of tourists had already swarmed through the room’s displays of armor, weapons, and wooden horses. As I passed through without too much jostling from the remaining gawkers, something nagged at me that there might be some sort of clue here the gnomes had missed. Tobey had been dumped in this room. Was there a reason for that or was it—
"Henry the," said a familiar voice, pausing and making clicking sounds with his tongue as if that would stir up his ghostly brain cells, "eighth. Right?"
Nigel appeared in front of the king’s enormous suit of armor. To avoid the questioning gazes of holiday-makers who couldn’t hear or see my phantom companion, I fished out my phone to look as if I was having a chat with someone other than myself.
"Impressive," I said. Two weeks ago, Nigel didn’t even know the Henrys numbered all the way up to eight. "And the wives?"
Nigel counted on his fingers as he said, "Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded…" He paused. "Liquefied?"
"Definitely not. The last one survived." Although, I guess after she died, under the right conditions, she might have liquefied, but it was best not to confuse Nigel with speculation. "Alright, how many wives named Anne did he have?"
"Two. And they were two different people, not the same wife recycled," he said proudly. "So how is your day going?"
"It’s been better." I told him about Chester and Runa, to which Nigel scoffed and, repeating Tobey, said no troll would ever forsake his duty of protecting others. "I know, it’s strange. I thought I’d have a swim to mull it over. Do you know anything about where the pool is?" It was madness to ask Nigel for directions, but it had been a weird day.
"Ah, yes, there’s a maintenance door just behind that display of swords." He pointed toward a case to o
ur left. "Mind if I join you? I haven’t been swimming in ages."
"Maybe next time. I could really use some time alone to think."
"So I should…" He made a walking motion with the first two fingers of his left hand.
"If you don’t mind. I’ll catch up with you in a bit."
"Looking forward to it," he said without a hint of being disgruntled over my dismissal.
The Untangled Cassie Black Page 18