by D. R. Perry
Anger kicked up the furnace in my gut like someone had poured butane on it. Smoke hazed my vision, probably hers too since I grabbed her by the shoulders and leaned in until our noses almost touched. Kimiko’s lips were slightly parted, her head tilted back, but the whites of her eyes and the pinpoint pupils meant she was afraid instead of amorous. Good on her. At least she was the kind of girl who respected the fact an angry dragon had her in his clutches. But her gaze was unfocused.
“What in the name of the First Egg were you doing out there?” I clamped down harder on her shoulders. “I let the poison apple attempts slide, but this. Is. Madness.”
“Blaine, it’s your Luck.” She shook her head, eyes still wider than the stratosphere. “Your Luck’s corrupted, gone bad.”
“Oh. Sorry.” I let go of Kimiko’s arms, hoping I hadn’t hurt her. “Huh. I can’t think of anyone who’d want me to be unlucky.” I blew more smoke from my nose, unable to find the focus needed to make rings. “Can you?”
“No. But whoever it is messed with mine, too.”
My phone blasted Werewolves of London by Warren Zevon. Josh was calling. I took a deep breath, then released Kimiko’s shoulders.
“I need to answer that.” I stabbed a finger at the air between us then waggled my eyebrows. “Don’t move from that bed or you’re crispy critters.” She blinked and put her hand over her mouth, shoulders shaking around a suppressed giggle.
“What’s up, wolf?” I held the phone to my ear.
“Put me on speaker.” Josh sounded more like his dad than himself. Something had him in adult mode, not the kind of “adulting” you did alone on Cape Cod with your mate, either.
“What?”
“You heard me. Your companion needs to listen to this, too.”
“I don’t have a—”
“Bullshit. Speaker or you don’t get the information I have.” The absolute worry in his voice damped down my fire like a wet blanket. I pressed the button. “The Sprite told me you were next the night I fought the cockatrice, Blaine. They just interrupted Nox and me in the middle of lunch to say the Extramagus’s other target this time is Kimiko Ichiro. Nox burned their debt to her for this next part, so you better pay attention. They said that if you don’t start communicating and cooperating with each other, you’re both dead.”
“But she broke into Mother’s—”
“I don’t care what she’s gotten herself into.”
“But he just threatened—”
“Honey Badger don’t care, and neither does Alpha Wolf. Cut the crap, shoot the breeze, stay alive.” I heard a long sigh. “Blaine, you tell her everything we’ve got. No matter what you think of her or what she might be doing in your house, Kim saved my life. She’s a target now, and I owe her. You’re paying it back for me. Nox and I will try to make it to your place by tomorrow.”
“Don’t bother.” I blew a long stream of thinner smoke out my nose. “Mother’s not letting anyone in except for the Headmistress, Mr. Waban, and the Queen. She’d just tell you guys to scram.”
“Okay, then. Maybe Ren can get in with the Queen’s entourage, then.”
“No!” Kimiko was on her feet, but she sat back down right away when I glared at her. “I mean, Ren’s busy. He’s got some important family stuff going on. Don’t ask him to do anything else, I beg you.”
“The only other packmate in the state is Tony,” Josh grumbled. “Not the most reliable, but maybe he’ll help. Talk to him.”
“I did. Cat-man’s doing what he can already.”
“Oh. Wow, so something already happened?”
“Just bad luck.” I shook my head, not wanting to go into the details of my sluggish clumsiness since coming back home for Spring Break. “Little things.”
“Little things that add up to big.” I was about to interrupt Kimiko, but she didn’t talk about my tumble in the hall or anything embarrassing. Instead, she told him about how she’d checked our Luck, and it had turned. “Anyway, I’ll help. Just send what you have to my phone. There just happens to be an app for that.”
“Yup. It sounds like it might be coincidence again. You two be careful. Together. Take care of each other.”
Josh hung up before we could protest. I led Kimiko out the door and back down the hall to her room in silence. She didn’t speak, just looked up at me with those eyes, pupils dilated normally now. I reached out a hand to her, intending I don’t even know what. She shouldn’t want me to touch her after I exploded at her. I let it drop, but she caught it, gave it a squeeze with a steely grip I didn’t expect.
“Together, like he said.” She opened the door with her other hand, only letting go as she shut it. She hadn’t averted her gaze or even blinked either, letting the panel of reinforced wood break our eye contact instead.
I stood outside for longer than I should have. When I finally turned to head back to my own room, a thick stalk of decorative bamboo in an urn crackled lightly.
“You’d better stay away from her, or I’ll singe you and toss you into the Bay. She’s my prisoner, not yours or your Queen’s.” I let the disguised Brownie quiver and headed back into my room to send all the Extramagus info to Kimiko. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about her getting bored enough to climb out a window again. She’d have plenty to do.
Tony’s PLEXIS Nexus search turned up a garden-variety Fire Magus, Richard Hopewell, who’d been married to Henrietta Thurston from the mid-1980s until just a few years ago. My fingers itched. I wanted to do another search, but couldn’t without the login. I messaged the Shady Neighborhood Cat-man, asking him to search for Richard Hopewell’s primary school and apprenticeship records from before the Reveal, also to do a search for Edgar Watkins. But Tony didn’t answer. I zoned out to Angry Birds for so long I had to scramble to get ready in time to leave for dinner.
Chapter Eight
Kimiko
I didn’t worry about the perfect dress anymore. The ones in the closet were all pretty close at any rate. I still couldn’t figure out how they seemed meant for me or who put them in there on the same night I got stuck at the Harcourt mansion. I didn’t have time to think about that now, anyway. Blaine and his friends were involved in something big, judging from the time it took to download the files he’d sent.
I clicked to open LORA, the Lucky analysis app I’d created while bored at the Academy, then spent the next hour letting it upload facts from Blaine’s reports. Then, I pinned my hair up and took another shower while I waited. I wasn’t the kind of girl who didn’t break a sweat while hanging from a balcony and dealing with Blaine’s dragon aggro.
“LORA, list the most common factors in the case.”
The app followed my voice command, popping up three things immediately. First of all, the coincidence changes happened to exactly two people every time. Second, all the incidents occurred in Rhode Island. And third, multiple forms of magic were involved. That pointed to an Extramagus, like Josh said on the phone. But in all the reports, no one had figured out what the Extramagus’s limitation was. I had a few possibilities, thanks to LORA. At least I’d have something to tell Blaine. But there had to be more.
“Check identities of Extramagi in the files against external sources.” I let LORA chew on that while I went to the closet. At least I didn’t have to check the weather after hanging out the window.
I slid hangers along the rod, flipping through dresses like pages in a paperback novel. I tried to care, but couldn’t think straight. Extramagi were serious business, and one of them was after Blaine and me. I turned to the other side of the closet, hoping to find an outfit with pants. No such luck. Either whoever filled this wardrobe could fight in skirts, or they wanted to keep me from fighting. I went practical, selecting a vintage-looking style with a full knee-length skirt. It was yellow with gold threading along the hems, sleeves, and collar. The only shoes that matched had those stupid kitten heels, also known as ankle breakers.
But I could outwit the Harcourt Family Fashion Police. There were some
flat patent turquoise Mary-Janes and a matching clutch. I grabbed those and found a filmy blue scarf to hang around the collar of a woolen camel coat. It was perfect, an outfit that couldn’t possibly tempt Luck gone bad with a heel breaking, a purse strap catching on my neck, or a skirt tripping me up or hobbling me. And everything I wanted to bring would fit in the clutch, too.
I checked LORA again and found too large a list. I smacked my head and narrowed the parameters to Rhode Island. Stanhope, Edgewood, Williams. Of course, the oldest families. I scrolled down to see one more. Thurston. But the last recorded Extramagus in that family had been back in Colonial times. Still, it was interesting. Blaine’s report only mentioned the Stanhopes. I wondered whether that was bias. The PPC students seemed to genuinely like their Headmistress. Then again, it could be something more sinister. If I were head of a college and belonged to a family of Extramagi, I might try to remove the records from school resources.
But I’d seen Miss Thurston myself just that day. She didn’t look like she had the energy to do much of anything, let alone keep the facts straight enough to lie like that. The thing about lying is you need to memorize the truth if you expect to do your falsehoods justice. Wise men say a lie with a grain of truth is more potent, but that’s just a bunch of pretty words.
The truth is the rock you build your tower of lies on. If you don’t know where the high tide stops, or whether that rock has a crack in it, that tower crashes down with you inside. The truth is a foundation, not something to ignore if you’re the type of person who relies on embellishment. No, Henrietta Thurston wasn’t in this, at least not intentionally.
LORA’s next trick would take the rest of the night. I set my questions up, narrowing parameters to include only Rhode Island again and drank the rest of the tea on the food cart. After that, I put on some makeup and read through Blaine’s reports from Fall Semester exam week when all this had apparently started. After reading for a while, I knew better.
Blaine blinked when I opened the door, shook his head, blinked again. The faint trail of smoke rising from his nose stopped cold. I stared. His eyes weren’t narrowed, and his hair wasn’t tied back, tangled, and dull. Instead, it hung just past his shoulders in chestnut waves I hadn’t expected. He cleared his throat, then held out his arm. I reached for it, remembering the first time I’d been at the carousel in Roger Williams Park and managed to grab the ring. But Blaine wasn’t a prize. He was a puzzle, a powerful ally or a dire enemy, depending on which way I tried to piece together my perception of him. Was his paranoia sea or sky, his bad Luck turn flora or fauna?
I kept pace with him down the hall. It was easy, even for someone as short as me. All I had to do was take two steps to each of his. Simple adaptation. Maybe that kind of thing doesn’t come naturally to other people. I’ll never know and don’t really care because I’m me and perfectly fine with that.
Blaine turned left when I expected him to continue toward the back stairwell. Moments later, we stood at the top of a staircase swooping down from the third to the first floor like a pair of wings. An instant of vertigo and déjà vu threatened to overwhelm me. I felt I’d been here before, and under less pleasant circumstances for some reason. If it hadn’t been for my hand on Blaine’s arm, I might have found myself with my hand in his pocket, nicking his wallet. I also might have tumbled headfirst down the steps. Instead, I glanced to the side and up, my lips tilting to match what my eyes were doing.
Light flashed to my left and down. Gomer stood behind a tripod, wearing an unspoken apology on his wrinkled brow. So, Mrs. Harcourt approved of this little outing. I still had no idea why Blaine had decided to stick with the plan and take me out on the town, especially after the nastiness in his room earlier. I suspected he needed to get away from Mommie Dearest for some reason. The anti-spyware devices I’d seen in his room only supported that theory. Paranoid dragons were paranoid.
We made it down the stairs without any more weirdness. Mrs. Harcourt wasn’t around, even though she’d clearly ordered her Goblin chef to record the momentous occasion of her son going out on an actual date. Gomer took another snapshot. Blaine cleared his throat instead of rolling his eyes, giving me the impression that this whole series of events was atypical. Once we were out the door, his arm relaxed, though he didn’t shake off my grasp or change the angle of his elbow to make holding on awkward.
“Tiamat’s Scales, I’m glad to be out of there.” He let the chauffeur open the door for us but helped me into the car himself. “I can’t believe Mother made Gomer break out the old camera.”
“Does she do that every time you take a girl on a date?”
“I don’t know.” He settled in the seat across from me, his eyes fixed on my face.
“I don’t understand.” I did. He either hadn’t taken a girl on a date before or not where his mother could have anything to do with it. I suspected Dad would have been challenging my dates to duels instead of snapping photos.
“I don’t either.” He puffed out a couple of smoke rings.
“So, why are we going?”
“Mostly, I needed to talk to friends from school this afternoon without you watching.” His eyes made like little stars. “But that was then, this is now. Can’t work together unless you’re reading over my shoulder.” He shrugged. “What did you think of the reports?”
“You and your friends have an entirely ineffective system for data analysis.”
“Excuse me?” And there were those narrowed eyes I’d come to expect.
“Look, I’m not putting down your research. That’s brilliant. It’s the putting it together part I think needs work.” I pulled out my phone. “I used this app, put your data into it. It’s analyzing something now, but you can check the previous results.”
He took the phone, swiping and tapping through the stuff I’d found out earlier. He blinked, shaking his head again like he did back in front of my door.
“Who did you steal this software from?” Blaine winked before I could slap him.
“I coded it.”
“Wow. You’re a coder?”
“It’s a hobby. The Academy doesn’t have much to do besides super easy homework.” I shrugged. “You’re lucky.”
“Huh?”
“Getting into PPC.” The laugh I intended came out more like a whimper. “I didn’t have the grades.”
“That’s not luck, it’s hard work.” The words dropped out of his mouth like a bag of chips from a vending machine.
“Is that something you believe, or more programming from the Mom unit?” I didn’t actually try to stop my eyebrow from gaining altitude, but maybe I should have.
“Look, no one gets away with insulting Mother. Not even me.” He shook his head, then raised his chin. “But I guess a Luck expert would be able to properly question philosophies on blanket Luck statements. My grades are mine, not Mother’s. Those came from busting my tail, and I won’t let you tell me otherwise, Tanuki or no.”
“People make Luck, you know. If Extrahumans like you didn’t, there wouldn’t even be Luck charms.”
“And Josh wouldn’t be here. Point taken.” He actually smiled. I closed my eyes, unable to watch his relief at the event I’d doomed my father with. “Hey.” Fabric rustled. His hand covered mine. The car stopped, and he pulled it away.
I could have just sat in that car for a few hours, forced Blaine to take me back to the mansion and haul me inside. Instead, I opened my eyes when the chauffeur opened the door. I got out like a good little date and stood at the curb as the car pulled away. Blaine took my hand this time instead of offering his arm, leading me slowly through a small park.
“What happened back in the car?”
“I just got reminded of something.”
“Anything you need help with?”
“Wait.” I tugged on his hand, stopping him. He turned. “You want to know why I broke in. This thing that’s got me down. It’s the reason.”
“And it has something to do with Josh Dennison.”
“I know nothing, Kimiko.” He squeezed my hand. “I deduce.”
“Well, do you still want to offer me help when you don’t even know what my problem is?”
“I do. Whether I can or not is another story. Some tall orders are big as houses. Others are Mount Everest.”
“I’m still not sure I should tell you, or anyone else.” I sniffed, hoping he’d think it was allergies. I shut my eyes.
“I get it. You’re used to doing everything for yourself. ‘If you want something done right’ and all that?”
“Yeah.”
“Come on, then.” He put an arm around my shoulders. “We can talk about it when you absolutely have to.” I shivered, but definitely not with cold. Blaine Harcourt was driving me crazy, one minute all smoke and angst, the next a chivalry most would expect from knights instead of dragons.
I hadn’t seen a fraction of that yet as it turned out.
Chapter Nine
Blaine
I might not know why, but Kimiko Ichiro needed a Luck charm. And I wanted to help her, but Mother let nothing leave her hoard without some dangerous bargain or ironclad agreement. Then again, she’d given me the task of resolving Kimiko’s break-in. Tanuki only needed Luck charms for life-saving magic, so if she was trying to steal one, it could mean someone was in mortal danger. But she was a consummate liar. I couldn’t fault her for it, though, considering that was one of my own talents. I’d come to an understanding. She angered me so much because of what we had in common. Unexpected mirrors were startling.
While kicking myself for wasting time casually gaming instead of pinging Tony for advice on outwitting a Tanuki, I realized all I should do is figure out what I would do in her situation. I kept my arm around her as I walked through and out of the park and then down Memorial Boulevard. The streets were quiet, almost empty. Lights were on at the bed-and-breakfast up ahead. As we crossed the side-street and approached the converted Victorian house, a woman dashed down the steps. She tripped the contents of her pink suitcase spilling on the sidewalk in front of us. What I could see of her face behind strands of blonde hair reddened. I knew her.