Harley Merlin 19: Persie Merlin and the Door to Nowhere

by Bella Forrest

  “Persie. Come to my office.” Victoria’s voice cut through my pounding heart. “Immediately.”

  With those words, she all but painted “guilty” on my forehead.

  Eleven

  Genie

  Balls, balls, balls, and more balls! I perched on a bench outside Victoria’s office, clicking my heels like I wanted a one-way ticket back to Kansas. The head huntswoman had tried to get me to stay behind. Yeah, as if that was going to happen. Who knew what was going down in the dragon’s den right now? Where Persie went, I went. Hell, I probably wouldn’t be in this Institute if she wasn’t here. My best pal would know I was nearby, and I hoped that would give her some comfort.

  There’s no shouting. Should there be shouting? Is this a good sign? Chaos, the looks our classmates had given Persie when she’d followed Victoria out. They might as well have been ringing bells and shouting, “Dead woman walking!” They didn’t have a friggin’ clue. Sure, they’d put two and two together with the pixies and Persie. But who the heck looked at a six-inch fairy and went, “Oh, yeah, you know what, they definitely did it.” Did those idiots think the pixies were like ants, lugging around 5000 times their own bodyweight?

  Fate works in mysterious ways though, eh? Xanthippe had gotten some serious just desserts. Not that I thought she should have been abducted or anything. But after the mud she’d slung at me last night, it was hard not to feel a teensy-weensy bit like she’d deserved it. Did that make me a terrible person? Probably. Which was why I’d decided to help find her, if I could.

  My heels stopped clicking as a figure skidded around the corner. Carrying a pile of books so high they covered his face, he nearly tripped and dumped the whole library into my lap. He froze, the tower wobbling, and leaned this way and that, balancing his books like an expert accountant. I could’ve sworn I’d seen the same move in some grainy old movie that Finch insisted on showing us. Slapstick gold.

  “Were you born with two left feet or something?” I teased.

  Nathan peered around the side of the stack. “Oh, Genie. I… uh, didn’t see you there.”

  “I doubt you can see anything but book spine.” I gave him a feeble smile. I didn’t feel much like grinning right now; not until I knew my pal wasn’t about to get booted out of the Institute.

  “Has anyone ever told you, you’re very…” He trailed off, grabbing the top book as it tried to slide off.

  “Charming? Debonair? Hilarious?” I offered.

  He swayed over to the bench and struggled to sit. “No, abrupt.”

  “I prefer mysterious, but I’m not going to put words in your mouth.” Feeling sorry for him, I reached for the stack and took half. “There, now you might be able to see where you’re going.”

  “Why would I need to do that when I’m sitting down?” He frowned at me, apparently serious.

  I set the tomes down beside me. “You might want to check out a book on humor and read the chapter labeled ‘sarcasm.’ It’ll change your life.”

  He’d picked the wrong time if he wanted my sugar-and-rainbows side. After all, he’d shown the pixies off like a cheesy presenter on QVC. It sort of felt like he’d set Persie up for a fall. He knew the whole story. He must’ve known how it would look. So why hadn’t he done anything to avoid this? My friend was inside, getting a grilling. And he’d more or less put her there.

  “Are you… annoyed with me?” He put down the rest of his stack. A pro in fidgeting.

  I stared dead ahead. “Moi? Why would I be? It’s not like you got my best friend in a crap-ton of trouble or anything.”

  “I… I didn’t!” he protested. He clasped his hands together as if he were about to pray. Well, I wasn’t a deity, and I wasn’t listening. “Have you heard anything? Is Persie okay?”

  “What do you think?” I snapped back. “Of course not! You saw the way everyone stared at her, like she was some kind of messed-up science experiment. Plus, let’s not forget that I know what she told you. If she let you in on her Purge, then she trusted you. You broke that, and that means you and I have a major issue.”

  I was scared for Persie, and it was at least partly this guy’s fault.

  His face fell. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I tried to catch those pixies without anyone finding out, but… Victoria has a sixth sense for these things. She walked into the Repository while I was trying to chase down the second one.” His cheeks reddened. “And let’s just say I wasn’t being as quiet as I should’ve been. I crashed into a pillar of orbs and she heard me. But I never meant to put Persie in the spotlight. If I did, I’d have gone to Victoria as soon as Persie told me everything last night. Instead, I stuck to my promise of giving her until later today to try to fix this first, because I could see that was what she wanted… Needed, actually.”

  I turned to face him, confused. “You didn’t tell Victoria? Forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but it sure looks like you did. Who’s to say you didn’t already decide the deadline had passed? Why else would she have shown the pixies to our class?”

  “She showed the pixies to every class!” Nathan went into uber-fidget mode, jiggling his knees anxiously. “But Victoria isn’t stupid. She picked up on the same coincidence Charlotte did. She just wanted to make it fair before she came to your class. I think, truly, she wanted to give Persie the benefit of the doubt. Students play pranks here all the time, so there was a chance someone would break and confess to some joke gone wrong, but no one did. Victoria had no choice but to look to the obvious: Persie. And that wasn’t because of me. Like I said, I tried to hide what I was doing. I wouldn’t have caught the third one without Victoria’s help, anyway.”

  I refused to back down. “Did Victoria ask if you knew anything about them?”

  “No,” he replied simply.

  Too simply. I smelled a rat.

  “You’d be terrible at poker.”

  He twisted a leather bracelet on his wrist. “I told her what they were, that’s all, and that there are probably more. But I used my own knowledge, just showing her pages in a book. I didn’t mention Persie at all. She didn’t ask anything else after that. Maybe she didn’t need to. So, perhaps you shouldn’t be so quick to blame me.” He fiddled so hard with the bracelet that it snapped.

  “I’m just trying to piece everything together, since my friend is now swimming in major doo-doo.” I couldn’t believe I’d just used that word. That spoke volumes about my mental state.

  He sighed. “Then here are my two cents, if you’re willing to listen.”

  I shrugged, verging on petulant. “Sure, why not. I’ve got nothing better to do.”

  “Charlotte shouldn’t have called Persie out so publicly. She should’ve left that to Victoria to deal with privately. However, Charlotte said something Victoria couldn’t ignore. If she had, everyone else would have turned vigilante. Extinct creatures turning up in the same week as a person who can Purge beasts—it’s not a big leap, Genie.”

  You think I don’t know that? I reined in my exasperation. He was right. If Victoria had swanned out of the lab without saying a word to Persie, the class would’ve gone all interrogator on her. Shining lights in her face, the whole shebang. And he sounded genuinely sorry that Persie had been incriminated. Still, that didn’t mean we were cool.

  “Fine. Say I believe you—here’s the million-dollar question. Do you think these pixies had something to do with Xanthippe’s disappearance?” I left it lingering in the air like a terrible fart. He looked sweet and unassuming, but maybe that was all some kind of elaborate ploy. I wasn’t sure how far he could be trusted.

  He hesitated. “Do you?”

  “No, of course not!” I barked. How could he even ask that? Even the village clown could see that six-inch critters had nothing to do with the disappearance of a grown woman—and one who had no qualms about hitting back, if the incident in the banquet hall was anything to go by. I didn’t care about his credentials. I didn’t care that he’d seen that first pixie with his own e
yes. It didn’t take Einstein to figure out the two events couldn’t be related. Unless… maybe they really were like ants, able to carry many times their own body weight? They were known to be mischievous. What if they’d taken it too far?

  No, I wasn’t going down that path. Persie needed me to believe in her. If I had any doubts, I needed to bury them immediately.

  He jittered awkwardly on the bench. “I know what you’re thinking.”

  “Do you? Are you a secret Telepath?” I retorted, worried for my friend. And still busy digging a grave for my doubts.

  “No, I didn’t mean that.” He dropped his chin to his chest and sighed heavily. “I just mean, you probably think I’m a fool. How could I look at those creatures and think they had anything to do with Xanthippe’s disappearance, right?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Hmm. Maybe you’re a bit Telepathic, then. You got the fool part right.” Perhaps I was being too hard on him. But his show-and-tell, in addition to Charlotte’s snotty words, had resulted in Persie having a one-on-one with the head huntswoman. If that wasn’t cause for being stern, then I didn’t know what was.

  “Allow me to explain.” Nathan tugged on the collar of his polo shirt. Seriously, how many of those did he have? “One may look innocuous enough, but when you take into account a horde of these pixies—them being… dangerous isn’t that outlandish. Persie didn’t have an exact number of how many she’d Purged, but she estimated thirty or more. That’s clearly a lot. Pixies are little rascals. They probably don’t realize that taking a student is far more than mischief.”

  “They didn’t do this,” I replied stubbornly, but my resolve had waned a little.

  He paused and hit me with an intense stare. “Why are you so sure?”

  Honestly? I don’t know. But I couldn’t say that, so I let my quick mind do the talking. If only to talk myself around, too.

  “Put yourself in their tiny shoes, Nathan. If they’ve got any sense, they’ll have tried to escape the Institute. Once they realized they couldn’t get out, they’ll have known they were in trouble. And if they saw the pixie Persie caught, they probably understand that they’re stuck in a place that traps monsters professionally. You were the one who said these things had more pizzazz than people give them credit for. Why would they even risk showing themselves, much less incurring punishment for kidnapping a student?”

  Unless they want leverage to bargain for their freedom… The thought came out of nowhere. I guessed I hadn’t buried my doubts deep enough. Everyone seemed to think they were responsible, and the timing was pretty suspicious... What if… dammit, no! No what-ifs! I had to keep these doubts at bay. Didn’t I?

  Nathan tapped the stack of books. “That’s precisely what I intend to find out, if only to take them off the list of potential culprits. You have to understand, pixies haven’t been seen for hundreds of years, and we don’t know why they stopped being Purged.” He took off his glasses to wipe them clean. A nervous tic, I’d noticed.

  Or maybe a thoughtful one.

  “Sometimes—and this is only a theory of mine—Chaos appears to remove certain beasts from the Purging roster, if you will, because they’re considered very dangerous. In the old days, magicals would even pray to Chaos to eradicate certain Purge beasts due to crop failures, attacks, deaths in the family, that sort of thing.”

  I nodded, partially understanding. “So, you’re saying we don’t know enough about their behavior or their past rap sheets to exonerate them?”

  “Yes, exactly.” A curious smile appeared on his lips. Like I’d impressed him. “I haven’t found much in the lore to suggest they’re particularly dangerous, but I need to do more intensive research before I can say that with certainty. I’ve already requested access to old archives from the Cornish coven, which might help us understand why they went extinct. Until now, I mean.”

  His broken bracelet fell to the floor. I automatically picked it back up and handed it to him. “You don’t waste time, do you?”

  “With a girl missing, we can’t hesitate.” He took the bracelet from me. Our fingertips brushed, and he looked like he’d been jolted with 1000 volts. Fumbling, he tried to tie the bracelet back on. I thought about helping him, but he’d only have wigged out again. Poor guy had clearly spent so much time with his books that he’d forgotten what human contact felt like. And, dammit, it was kind of endearing. But he’d caught me at a sensitive moment. My friend’s fate hung in the balance. Of course, I was going to be affected by his kindness.

  I turned to the office door, mostly because I wanted Persie to come striding out, everything a-okay. But partially so Nathan wouldn’t feel self-conscious about botching his bracelet repair.

  “What’s the bracelet for? Hippie mumbo-jumbo?” He didn’t strike me as the holistic sort, but if I asked too nicely, he’d have been on his guard.

  He braced one of the leather ends against his chest, threading the other end through the loop. “I’ve had it forever. Someone… uh… sent it to me in the mail for my sixteenth birthday, and I’ve worn it ever since. I realize it may look like this is the first time I’ve fixed it, but it’s not.”

  “I bet you had a puka necklace too, huh?” I gave him an olive-branch smile.

  He chuckled. “Only until an ex-girlfriend told me it looked ridiculous.”

  A flicker of irrational jealousy reared its head. “Would you just let me tie it for you? It’s killing me, watching you fumble with it.”

  “Oh… uh… that would be very kind,” he said tentatively.

  Eager to pivot away from the subject of his ex-girlfriend, I leaned forward and grasped the two ends. He smelled really good. Expensive cologne, masculine and clean. “What’s going to happen to her?” I needed someone to lie to me and tell me it would be fine.

  “Persie?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Who else? The Queen of Babylon?”

  “Ah… yes, sorry.” He adjusted his jacket. No tweed today. Instead, he wore an academic corduroy number over a white polo shirt. Why did he like that look so much? Judging by the anecdote about the puka necklace, his fashion sense must always have been a bit… quirky. “Honestly, I think her ability is too unique and rare for her to be dismissed.”

  I squinted at him and released his now-tied bracelet. “You have ‘but’ face.”

  “Pardon?” He frantically wiped his face with the sleeve of his jacket. I would’ve laughed if things hadn’t felt so serious.

  “I mean, you look like you’re about to say ‘but.’ Ergo, ‘but’ face.”

  He lowered his arm and turned beet-red. “Oh… very good. Very funny. Perhaps you’re right about me checking out that book on humor. You say everything so deadpan. You could tell me there was a nine-foot flamingo behind me, and I’d believe you.” He chuckled, embarrassed. “As for my ‘but’ face… We can’t deny the dangers of her ability, much as I’d like to. Personally, I think it’s astonishing. However, if, one day, her Purge ends up killing someone, or if the pixies did abduct a student, then there may be only one option for her.”

  Don’t you dare say it. My heels started clicking again.

  “She may have to be locked away,” he said.

  “What, like Echidna?” My anger peaked again. “Persie’s not a monster, Nathan. She’s not the same. And you can’t just chuck someone in a box because their ability goes haywire. Anyone with magic is capable of messing up. I could, I don’t know, freeze someone for a minute too long and accidentally kill them. Would I deserve to be put in a box?”

  Nathan’s eyebrows knitted together. “That’s apples and oranges, Genie. But, yes, you would be culpable if you did something like that, though the accident part would be taken into account. Avarice and Purgatory don’t fill up for no reason.”

  I shuddered at those names. The magical prisons—one for little crimes, one for the nastiest. Persie had freaked out over the average Bestiary box; I hadn’t even thought about the biggest glass boxes of them all. Did he mean they might put her in prison? Somehow, that
felt way worse than a Bestiary box. She wasn’t a monster, but she definitely wasn’t a criminal. She didn’t deserve to be locked away, end of story. For the first time, I fully realized the validity of her panic. If level-headed Nathan could jump to that idea, then everyone else was probably thinking the same thing.

  “She didn’t ask for this,” I murmured, my heart heavy. Leviathan had wedged her between a rock and a hard place. And she only had me to protect her from the cage-happy ideas of everyone around her. But, if that sentence ever came down on her head, what would I actually be able to do about it? I had Atlantean mettle, sure, but against an army of Victorias, O’Hallorans, Charlottes, and the UCA… I’d be as helpless as my pal. And that scared the heck out of me.

  Nathan put a tentative hand on my shoulder. “I know, and that’s the worst part about it. This is all new to her. She’s had no time to train or prepare. I’m not sure if there’s anyone alive who would’ve been able to make this transition smoother for her.” He took his hand away again and looked at it for a second. “But not everyone knows how to sympathize with that.”

  “Like Charlotte, you mean?” The woman had gone from being my heroine to my nemesis in the space of twenty-four hours. For her to just corner Persie like that… It boiled my blood. I understood that she was worried about her friend, but Persie was my friend. And nobody did that to her. Nobody.

  “She’s not thinking straight. Her best friend has vanished. I’m not siding with her, but be kind to her, if you can. She acted poorly, but can you say you wouldn’t have done the same?”

  I shrugged. “I like to think I’d have been less of a cow.”

  He laughed. “Then just do what you do so well and be there for Persie when she gets out. She’ll be shaken up, but it won’t end here. Charlotte has lit a powder keg of suspicion, and she’ll likely have a bone to pick with Persie about these pixies.”