by D. R. Perry
“I wish you’d maybe have some regular priorities for once, Mom.” I took her bait instead of hanging up, flopping on my back and flinging my arm over my eyes like the long-gone Emo teenager I used to be. Thank goodness for speakerphone. “I mean, seriously. I’m not like you, holding one of her man’s hands while he throws money at his love children with the other.” As usual, she ignored my insulting outburst.
“All the same, if you hadn’t dumped him, you’d have a date tonight.” She clucked more like a chicken shifter than a bear shifter. “Going alone to functions like these is bad form. I’m not wrong about that.”
“Madam.” Ismail’s voice made me jump clear off the bed and over to the other side of the room in an instant. “Miss Jeannie La Montagne does not have to attend her function alone this evening. Just before your call, I asked her to accompany me. I still await her reply.”
“Oh?” Nothing but the distant sound of church bells came from Mom’s end of the phone after that. I imagined the temperature dropping in her immediate vicinity. “And you are?” Her frosty tone confirmed my musings.
“Marquess Ismail, centennial Djinn in His Majesty’s Court.” Ismail grinned and dropped me a wink. “If you check your mailbox, you will find my calling card, including my regrets that I can’t pay you a proper visit until after the event in question.”
I stood there with my back against the dorm-issue bookcase with my mouth hanging open. Formal-manners Ismail was way more impressive than jokey first-meeting Ismail, and light-years more intimidating than coffee shop confessional Ismail. His entire manner was authoritative, commanding. There was no way my mom didn’t know which His Majesty he was talking about.
“Well, Marquess Ismail, I certainly hope you know what you’re getting yourself into with my Jeannie.” She tittered exactly like she had in the one recording we still had of her high school graduation. “She can be a handful.”
“I can assure you that your daughter is exactly who I want on my arm at such an important event.” One corner of Ismail’s mouth turned up slyly. “The senior center was renovated by one of my dearest friends, Duke Redford. And the work Jeannie has been doing there this semester is invaluable. The chance to ask her is almost as much of an honor as the acceptance I hope she will grace me with.”
“Well, of course, she accepts.” Mom sounded positively breathless. “I mean, you’re saying yes, right?”
“I’d go to a cleanup in Roger Williams Park if Ismail asked me to.” My cheeks hurt. I hadn’t been aware of smiling that hard. “So, yes. I’m Marquess Ismail’s date this evening, Mom.”
“Thank goodness. You’ve finally taken your mother’s advice for once.” She chuckled. “Have a lovely evening.” The phone let out three low beeps when she hung up.
“Oh, no! I used a wish!”
“Not technically.” Ismail handed me a notecard, the kind that folds over from top to bottom. The paper felt almost velvety. I opened it and read the words inked in delicate, flowing script.
“It’s an invitation to accompany me dated yesterday. But why?”
“I heard you speaking to your friends about the ball, of course.” He shrugged. “My intention was to leave it on your desk so you’d see it after breakfast, but…” He gestured at the dark screen of the phone.
“But I don’t have anything even remotely appropriate to wear! Everything I own like that is back in Boston, and there’s no time to drive up there and get it.” I hoped that didn’t sound like whining. If it did, Ismail didn’t seem to mind.
“You have a Djinn. You always have something appropriate to wear while I’m around.” He grinned again. “You can either show me a picture of a style you like or let me make one up for you.”
“And that’s not using a wish?”
“Not at all.”
“Ismail, you’re a complete and total lifesaver.” I bounced up and down on my toes. “I could kiss you!”
“Er, ah, um.” All the suave went out of him. Ismail suddenly only had eyes for his feet.
“That’s just another one of those modern expressions.” I’d sure put my foot in my mouth. I hadn’t been lying about wanting to kiss him, but for an old fashioned guy like Ismail, that was probably a million miles from appropriate in his perspective.
“Oh.” He looked up a smidgen, but not at me. “Well, perhaps you ought to go and have breakfast.”
My rumbling stomach didn’t let me protest. I thanked Ismail again, just verbally. Then, I headed down to the dining hall. He vanished back into the lamp instead of following me. Once my plate was piled high with pancakes and enough butter and maple syrup to respect Vermont and clog the arteries of its population, I headed toward an empty table in the corner.
“Hey, Jean-bean!” Lynn Frampton had other ideas. She stepped in front of me. “We have some stuff to talk to you about.”
“Huh?” The aroma of my poor, neglected pancakes made it difficult to think. And besides, with my recent spate of clumsiness, the last thing I wanted to do was stand there holding them.
“Just come sit here instead of whatever lonely crag you had in mind to have your chow.” Lynn smirked and beckoned me to a booth. She gave me plenty of room to make a beeline, too. But of course, she was used to dealing with bear shifters around food. She was my cousin Bobby’s mate, after all.
So I cut into my pancakes and shoveled food into my mouth for a few moments before I even realized Tony Gitano was there, sitting in the corner with Lynn blocking him in. I blinked and kept on eating. I didn’t have a problem with him myself, no matter how bad things seemed between him and Blaine or how he and Ismail were like oil and water. He was almost a survivor, like me, Ismail, and Mr. Kazynski. But whatever he was weathering still had him in its teeth.
“Yeah, okay, so.” Lynn rolled her eyes and sighed, twirling her spoon in the bowl of Captain Crunch in front of her. “Blaine threw his computer across the room last night. Kimiko had to salvage the data on it. She’s a computer whiz, who knew. But anyway, that’s beside the point. Before I go any further with this discussion, is Ismail around?”
“Do you want him to be?”
“Not really. I think you and Tony should hear this first.” She glanced at my bag, over my head, out at the rest of the dining room, even under the table. “I have to do something to be absolutely sure, but the results won’t be back until maybe eight tonight.”
“Absolutely sure about what, Frampton?” Tony thrummed his fingers on the table so hard he jostled the milk in Lynn’s bowl and the extra syrup on my plate.
“Sorry, getting ahead of myself again. Maybe it’s better if I show you.” Lynn reached under the table again, producing a manila envelope. She pushed it between Tony and me.
“You open it, Tony.” I held out my sticky hands. “I’ll end up making it look like something that belongs to Winnie the Pooh.”
“Fine, whatever.” Tony lifted the flap, then slid some papers out. They had the grainy, gray speckled look of copies run off on a machine that leaked too much toner. He shook his head at one, sliding it across to me. But his eyes went wide at the second one. “How the Hell did you get a picture of my mother, Frampton? And why is she dressed like an extra from Kings of New York?”
“I didn’t. That’s your great-grandma. She’s dressed like that because she just got off a ferry from Ellis Island.”
“Let me guess, the big dude with her is great-grandpa Pasquale.”
“Yes. And he was…”
“A lion shifter. I know.” Tony kept gazing at the picture, seemingly enthralled with the image. “And great-grandma was a leopard.” He ran one hand down the lower half of his face.
“Yup. We think she was a Persian leopard shifter, actually.”
“But wait. That’d mean she wasn’t Italian.”
“Maybe.” Lynn held up one hand, opened it to reveal a plastic tube with a long cotton swab sticking out of it. “We don’t know for sure. So that’s why I have this.”
“Is that some Jerry Springer baby
daddy test thingamabob?” Tony leaned back, shrinking further into the corner than I thought possible. He clutched the photocopied picture to his chest. “I’m not taking that. If it comes out wrong and word gets out, things will go even worse for me.”
“Hey, Tony.” Lynn tilted her head. “Don’t be a fraidy cat.”
Tony told Lynn to go do something by herself that she probably preferred doing with her boyfriend. I set down my fork and knife, making a little ‘x’ on my plate. Then, I wiped my hands on the napkin and picked up the paper he’d pushed across to me.
“This here is a family tree, Tony.” I scanned the names, dates, and connections. “It’s public knowledge on a genealogy website, and it says your great-grandma emigrated to Italy before she married and got on the boat to America. Her previous origins are unknown. Lynn’s DNA test won’t make a lick of difference to this record, especially since she’s not even supposed to have access to that kind of magical medical technology in her Freshman year. She won’t let it leak, and since she’s smart, she’ll destroy it along with the results as soon as she’s done.”
I had to give Lynn credit. She didn’t wither under both our glares, but she sure did squirm.
“Guys, I’m just doing what I have to. No one else in Tinfoil Hat has access to that lab, anyway.” She actually wrung her hands. “I promise I’ll have Maddie or Henry get rid of anything left of the sample. That Sprite still owes them each a favor, so it’ll be like it never existed.”
“Fine. I’ll open my mouth but I ain’t saying aah.” Tony waited for Lynn to uncap the collection vial, then dropped his jaw. She swabbed his cheek. He closed his mouth and rubbed the side of his face. “Now, what is it you’re trying to find out? It better be related to our big magical problem.”
“It sort of is, because all this family tracking has to do with one of the targets.” Lynn tightened the cap on the vial, then tucked it away in her bag. “I’m going to either confirm or rule out your relation to someone.” She stared at me.
“Wait, what?” Tony blinked across the table at me, then looked down at the paper in his hand, then at his own reflection in the chrome napkin holder on the table. “No way am I related to the La Montagnes. I mean, I’m sure you’re a great family and all, but you’re French, and I’m full blood It—”
“Ismail.” I couldn’t stand all the weird assumptions and tangents anymore. They were like something out of an old comedy flick. “We’re trying to find Ismail’s descendants because I’m his lamp’s third master. He’ll be stuck in there forever if no one turns up.”
Now that it was all laid out plainly like that, it seemed so simple and impossible. Even if Tony was a relation, he was a shifter, definitely not a Changeling. Only Magi or Psychics could be both. No way he could take over in any case. I shook my head, concerned about Ismail and the likelihood of his eternal service in the lamp. A guy like him shouldn’t have to take orders like some kind of magical barista for the rest of time. And then Tony shockingly one-upped me on the plain speech front.
“And you finding out I’m his great-great-great something or other is going to help how?” Tony folded the paper and tucked it somewhere inside the trench coat he always wore. He looked away from us both. “Dammit, Lynn, I’m a shifter, not a Faerie.”
“I know.” She flipped her hair over one shoulder. “But you might have other relatives who are.”
“Not from Great-grandpa Pasquale’s side of the family, which is also my mom’s.” Tony shook his head. “Even if I’m your guy, that’s a dead end.”
“Hey, your mom might have had siblings, or maybe a brother or sister. Tell me about her.” Lynn had utterly shattered the Tony Gitano code of asking too many questions without even realizing it.
“You let me up right now.” Tony bristled. “You let me up or so help me, I’ll tear you apart to get out of here. I don’t give a whole bucket of rats that you’re Bobby’s girl, either.”
Lynn slid out of the booth immediately, scrambling to get out of Tony’s way. Something besides normal cat shifter stuff had me scrambling, too. Or maybe it was normal cat shifter stuff. Tony looked bigger than usual, his hair sticking out in all directions and his eyes gleaming bright green. My bear was up in a big way, enhancing my strength so I didn’t know it. When I stood, I bumped the table. It tilted, then overturned like something out of a wrestling match.
Tony paid that calamity no mind, storming out the door without looking back. I caught a few mumbles about not trusting doctors or people who wanted to be them when they grew up.
“Well, that was unexpected.”
“Lynn, never ask Tony about his family.” I shook my head. “I mean, not ever. No one does.”
“Well, I won’t in the future. And you know, I think that didn’t go so bad.”
“Really? I can’t think of a way it could have been worse.”
“Hah.” Her flat laugh made me look up from my attempt to right the table. “I can. Blaine could have been here, too.”
I snorted, then gave up on the poor, wrecked booth. I hadn’t just knocked the table over I’d demolished it. It’d torn from the base that welded it to the floor. My big, fat, unexplained klutz mojo had struck again, and I still had no idea how or why.
Chapter Twelve
Ismail
My stomach fluttered as I waited for Jeannie to go about the rest of her day. I didn’t listen in or watch this time, confused by my uncustomary nervousness. I’d check the hour, only to find the minutes had crawled into stretches that felt like hours. When I tried to talk to Neil, the mirror remained blank. I couldn’t figure out why until I remembered that the charity event was partly his as well. The Senior Center’d had all its renovations done by his company, after all.
When the silver timepiece I kept in the lamp chimed six, Jeannie called to me. She’d decided to let me choose her attire. I stayed inside as I worked, weaving magic to create and embellish a garment to fit her from memory. I wasn’t sure whether the new awkwardness between us had lingered and was afraid to find out. Once it was finished, I sent it out, along with a message that I would appear with her once she arrived at the venue.
The Senior Center couldn’t accommodate a function with dancing, so we’d be on the patio at the Capital Grille downtown. Fortunately, it was a warm April for New England. With that in mind, I went to work on my own attire while I waited. The task didn’t make the hour seem to pass any faster. Of course, there wasn’t much for me to do besides make some embellishments to my century-old style of dress.
The next time Jeannie called, I vanished myself out of the lamp to be at her side. I offered her my arm before taking in my surroundings, then gaped like a fish at the man-made lagoon before me.
“I figured you’d want to get a good look at Water Place Park before we’ve got a more crowded view of it.” She squeezed my arm.
“Thank you.” I didn’t look at her yet because I wasn’t done taking in this place she called a park.
It was almost perfectly round, with a canal leading out from one side like a spoke. Braziers lit with red fire dotted the canal, with five interspersed around the lagoon like the points of an invisible star. All around in a circle was a cobblestone path, with steps up and down in places and the occasional bench. I peered at a brightly lit area one-quarter of the way from us, realizing it was a passageway leading out to street level. The lights shone on murals, mosaics, and sculptures. Providence city planners had taken a tunnel and turned it into an art display, a brilliant stroke. But none of it held a candle to the dazzling woman on my arm.
I’d dressed her in gold, to match the lowlights in her hair. I hadn’t noticed before that her blue eyes were flecked with the same color. Her smile was more precious than a strand of diamonds, her touch on my arm as warm as the light from the fires. I’d dared something with her dress, making it less a replica from Turkish days gone by and more what the modern Western media would expect. Perhaps that had been a mistake. Jeannie shivered a little, probably chilled by her arms an
d midriff left bare by its design.
When she leaned against me, no doubt for warmth, I tried not to gasp or pull away. I couldn’t help but tense up.
“I’m sorry.” She tilted her head as she gazed up at me. “It’s warm for April, but still. I should know you’re not like guys who grew up in these times, even if we’re physically about the same age.”
“Please don’t apologize.” I rolled my shoulders, attempting to relax. “These are the times I live in now. I should get used to change, too. It comes with the lamp’s particular brand of time-travel.”
“Is that a not-so-subtle hint that you don’t think we’ll find you a replacement in time?” She started walking, and I followed her lead.
“I don’t think one exists.”
“Pure Faeries exist.”
“Good luck finding one who wants to risk being at the whim of mortals without the ability to trick them into asking questions and placing them in debt.”
“Who knows, maybe there’s one out there who actually likes mortals.”
“Doubtful,” I sighed. “Even if there were, the Monarchs wouldn’t like losing any of their Pure. It’d be a major act of rebellion.”
“I’ve heard stories about Pure Faeries rebelling before.”
“Is this from during the, er, Reveal?” I’d censored myself even though she’d explicitly told me not to. “I didn’t mean that. What I intended to ask was whether those stories are from your time in the Boston Internment.”
“I’m glad you asked what you’d meant to.” Her grin was wry, but there. “Yes and no. I’ve heard it more than once, on the barges, from a client. The most recent was a story Nox told me. But any retellings will have to wait. We’re here.”
I let Jeannie show the hostess her passes. We followed her out to the patio where the function had just begun. Small groups sat, six to each round table. Blaine and Kimiko were at ours, in costumes based on the Japanese feudal era. The Tanuki girl kept looking at me sideways. I dismissed it as curiosity since I’d barely left the lamp the entire time she’d had it.