“Are you coming?” Conrad was standing by the archway that led into Bexley, hemmed in with bricks against the stone wall. It loomed tall and dark between identical ones marked for Hagan’s Academy and the one they’d come through for Moonlit Shores.
Lorelei’s nerves danced under her skin. She’d been to the charmed town of Moonlit Shores before, on her own even, but Bexley would be, well—it would be a whole lot of things, chiefly among them bigger.
“It’s not like you to not run ahead of me,” he said, eyes trained on her like he was trying to figure something out. “Guess I shouldn’t complain.”
His mood had been a little odd that morning, not bad, but different. She considered asking why he wanted her to come with him at all if what he expected her to do—run ahead and potentially get into some kind of trouble—was a problem, but thought better of it. Instead, she just told him what was actually on her mind, dropping her voice low. “What about your brother?”
“If he’s in Bexley already, we’re really screwed.” His face darkened as he gestured to the portal and stepped forward. “I doubt it, but all the more reason for us to get this done now.”
Before she saw anything, Lorelei heard the city on the other side. There was chatter, the twittering of birds, laughter, and then light. As her eyes adjusted to the sun, a sweeping, grassy field formed before her, flat and long, snaked with sidewalks and dotted with well-manicured trees. Above the treetops, a city skyline was laid out, the buildings perhaps a bit more crooked than she expected and the colors a bit more flamboyant, but they came to charming peaks and steeples like Vermeer’s View of Delft had been hung up in the sky.
The cityscape surrounded the green space on all sides, even behind the archway at their back. The arch itself stood alone, not built into a wall like in the station, but positioned in the middle of the grass, bricks shoring up its edges, and into a plaque at the top was carved Moonlit Station. The center of the arch, though, was as wholly black as it had been back at the station. Curious, she walked around to its other side, the plaque there carved to read Blind Cape.
With a scrunched-up nose, she leaned into the darkness and took a step. Surely, she would pop out on the other side where Conrad still stood, but instead when her foot hit the ground the friendly sounds of the park were swallowed up, and her stomach felt as though it had just fallen out of her.
Waves crashed hard against a rocky shore, and there was an eerie baying somewhere in the distance. Scrub bushes rattled with a violent wind whipping down the dunes that tore at her coat and hair. She sucked in a breath, salty and thick with red tide, and stumbled backward into the sunlight again, thunking against something hard.
“Oh, good, back to normal, I see.” Conrad was standing just there, gripping onto her shoulders to hold her steady, a good thing since she was suddenly very woozy.
“I just—” She threw a hand over her mouth, vomit rising in her throat. She swallowed against the taste of bitter bile.
“The Warlock General recommends passing through an astral portal no more than six and a half times a day.” Conrad guided her a few steps away from the arch, and she could see there were about ten others set upon mounds in the grass all around. “You’ll really be pushing it by the time we get back. Unless you’re trying to get out of work.” She was steady then, and he let her go. “Or you think we’re going to spend the night together here.”
As the queasiness started to settle, his words sent a different jolt into her stomach, but he just laughed, walking off down a path into the park.
Remarkably ordinary at first glance, the park was made up of triangular patches of grass broken up by sidewalks lined with skinny trees and mulched flower beds at their roots. Larger oaks offered shade further out. Early winter had stolen most of the leaves, but there were plenty of plants that seemed to do their best work in the cold, and the charmed nature of the place became more apparent in a golden-leafed tree that sprawled out ahead of them, diverting the sidewalk with benches scattered under it and dipping its boughs on occasion to steal a passerby’s hat or tap them on their shoulder and pretend like it was the wind.
People walked by arm-in-arm or with their leashed dogs, only on closer examination they weren’t all dogs nor were they all strictly what Lorelei would call people. She tried not to stare at the incidental tail or scales, being too inquisitive had proven disastrous a moment prior, and she didn’t want to give her humanity away. She rubbed her glamoured nose and hurried to keep up with Conrad’s long strides.
He was sure-footed down the path that led to a gate in the tall fence that surrounded the park. “The office is close to here, I think,” he told her, digging his phone out of his back pocket. He went on to say something else about a detour, but Lorelei was distracted by a woman and her child tossing handfuls of seeds toward a bush. From beneath shiny leaves, a gaggle of geckos, neon pink with bulbous eyes, darted out onto the sidewalk, slingshot their tongues, and collected the offering before skittering away.
“Where are we going?” she asked absently as a man at least ten feet tall passed by, and she completely failed at doing that not-gawking thing.
“133 Overhanging Alley.”
“I know that place,” she said quietly, but had no idea from where.
He eyed her. “I bet your nosy ass does.”
She was about to ask what that meant as they reached the gate, but a band of preteens came barreling toward them on skateboards, scattering a flock of green-bellied pigeons. Lorelei and Conrad jumped aside to make way as they zipped between them and into the park.
Lorelei looked after the kids, head tilted. “Those skateboards didn’t have wheels.”
“Nope.”
“They were hovering on tiny golden wings?”
“Looks like it.”
Well, if Lorelei were going to stick out here, it would only be because she was utterly normal in comparison.
Outside the park, the streets were narrow and busy with all manner of transport, though there were plenty of buses stacked well above what was safe in her world. A quadruple decker meandered its way past them, and they crossed to the far side of the road where someone was hopping off a hippogryph and tying its reins to a post.
Lorelei gave the creature a wide berth. “Is this all—”
“Strictly magical, yes,” Conrad answered. “This is one of the biggest cities completely under a protection enchantment. Not that it always stops humans.”
That certainly stopped Lorelei. “Humans? That’s allowed?”
He looked back at her and jerked his head so that she’d keep moving. “Eh, sort of, but it’s pretty rare.” He lowered his voice to an annoyed grumble, “They do get themselves killed pretty frequently though.”
Lorelei caught up, moving closer to him against the frigid air. If he was bringing it up, she supposed she could build up a modicum of courage and just ask. “So, have you ever actually met a human before?”
He halted on the street for a moment, but it was so short she barely noticed, and he took off again. “Well, yeah…”
She looked about at the city, hectic and crowded with stores that sold things from average groceries to complex magics to darker, unmarked oddities. “Where though? It seems like you have everything you need here, and I know you don’t have a car or anything. How would you meet one?”
“Just around,” he said, stilted. “Why?”
“I was just wondering.” Lorelei pulled her coat tighter though the wind was kept at bay by most of the buildings, their fronts colorful with signage that didn’t always specify what they contained. “So, did you like them? The humans you met?”
Conrad grunted. “That’s a…I mean, they’re all different right? Just like us?”
Lorelei swallowed. “Sure, yeah, I guess.”
He knit his brow as they passed a narrow and ominous alley, a strong gust sweeping down it carrying the scent of cinnamon and something sour. “But yes,” he said, a little quieter. “I liked the one I met.”
&nb
sp; Lorelei nodded, pleased enough with that answer. She kept her eyes peeled, spotting a franchise of the coffee shop in Moonlit Shores and a good way to change the subject. “Hey, there’s that place you like.” She wondered if being a barista here would be easier than where she’d come from or if they had to measure everything out with scales instead of in blenders.
Conrad looked up from the directions on his phone. “What, Moondoe’s? I hate that place.” It smelled of dark roast and vanilla sugar as they passed by a folding street sign with its purple crescent and antler logo.
Lorelei rolled her eyes—why did he always have to pretend to be so cool? “Oh, you hate it? That’s why I’ve seen you drink it, like, a million times, huh?” Outside the shop, a pigeon, this one with a scarlet cast to it, dove down impossibly fast and snatched up half a bagel from the ground.
“Definitely not a million.” He cleared his throat. “But it’s always just the one drink, and I don’t even know what it is.”
She stepped in front of him and turned around to walk backwards, trying to catch his eye. “How do you not know?”
“Bridgette got it off some trendy, secret menu, I guess? I never asked, she would just bring it to me.” He focused on his phone, eyes flicking up to her only for a second. “And it’s not like I’ll ever have it again anyway.”
God, he was impossible. “What does that mean?”
He sucked his teeth. “We broke up again.”
Lorelei stopped, and he almost knocked right into her. She wanted to laugh, and it certainly was funny, but the tragedy of being stuck in the stupid loop the two of them were killed all the humor she could find in it. “Oh, sorry.” She fell back in beside him.
“Don’t be.” He took a turn, and they started down an even wider street. The shops here were bigger, and there were restaurants with open seating on the sidewalk. “Well, maybe be a little sorry—it is sort of your fault.”
She definitely couldn’t look at him then, her face reddening. “Excuse me?”
“I did that thing you said to do—you know, telling her everything. It didn’t go as planned. Not that I planned it much.”
“I don’t…” Lorelei scratched her head. “You told her about Byron, and then you broke up? How does that happen?”
“With a lot of yelling.” He pocketed his phone and led her down an even busier sidewalk. “It was something about, how could I keep that from her, and why did I lie to her about that time I had her scry for us, and also about the deed being missing, and if I’m not actually the only Rognvaldson left then what else am I lying about? You know, normal breaking up stuff. Thankfully, I only told her about the last couple weeks and not everything before she blew up. I need to make a stop over here.”
He diverted from the sidewalk so quickly, she almost missed where he went, hustling to keep up with him as he crossed the street. Just ahead was a tall building with several balconies jutting off each story, each decorated uniquely to suggest a residential complex. Lorelei had more questions, sorting through all of them in her mind for the most appropriate one as she watched Conrad pull a thick envelope out of his inner coat pocket. He shoved it into one of the many mailbox slots by the front door.
When he finished, he caught the confused look she was giving him. “Just dropping something off for a friend.”
She almost said she didn’t know he had friends outside of the manor, but that would have been too cruel even though he only seemed to hang out with Bridgette, and now she was gone. Well, she was gone for now.
He checked his phone again and gestured for them to keep going. In silence, they followed a busy street for a few blocks, then turned down a narrow side road, the sun mostly blotted out by tall buildings on either side. It was colder, and there were fewer people about, those around ambling more slowly. “Here we are,” he said, stopping before a stoop just off the sidewalk.
When she looked up at the hanging sign above the doorway and read Seven Scales Solicitors, her memory pinged. “Your parents’ attorney.”
Conrad gave her a look. “See? Nosy,” he echoed himself and pulled open the door.
Inside, the space was more like the small entry of a house and not the lobby of a law firm. They closed off the cold behind them, the floors creaking underfoot in time with an unseen, ticking clock. A stairway zigzagged off to the left, turning over itself in the cramped space, and directly before them was another door.
The nameplate on the door read, Agatha Wainwright, and just below it was another placard: If you are looking for Agatha Waxwrong, she can be found at 331 Understanding Way, and just below that a third placard: If you are looking for Mr. Sheffield, he can be found one floor up, and a last little sign stuck on hastily at an angle stating simply: And so on.
They started up the stairs where, on another tiny landing, was the predicted Mr. Sheffield’s office and a placard that told them how to find Ms. Okimbo another floor up, and so on. So, on they went until they finally hit Mr. Benjamin Abara’s office on the sixth floor.
Conrad paused with his fist raised before the door. “So, I might have bent the truth a little with this guy.”
She shrugged at him—lying was one thing she was getting pretty good at.
After another moment of hesitation, he sighed. “Just don’t freak out.” Conrad finally knocked, and the door swung open.
The office had just room enough for a desk, two chairs facing it, and one behind. The rest of the space was crammed with shelving that housed loose files and folders, mismatched and every possible color, and nary a label in sight. Lorelei’s eyes widened on the mess, an old coffee cup sitting atop a stack just at eye level beside them and a pen spilling blue ink next to that. In another cubby she could see a folder with the name Carter filed beside another with the name Louden. It would be Ziah’s greatest nightmare, and a task Lorelei couldn’t imagine ever getting sorted.
There was no one else inside, but just at the back of the office, set against the shelves, stood a ladder. When they glanced up, it went on into lights that dimmed into nothingness above but were much higher than any of the stories they’d climbed.
“Be with you in a minute,” came a voice that sounded as if it stood at the far end of a very long hall that also happened to be impossibly high above their heads.
“What in the world?” Lorelei pushed up onto her toes as if that would help make out the speck that moved above them.
“Have a seat, please,” the voice called down again. “Help yourself to the zestrushes.”
Conrad sat, but his knee bounced, rubbing against the desk in the cramped space though he didn’t seem to notice. He stared straight ahead as if a man didn’t teeter a hundred feet overhead, wholly occupied with some other reason to be nervous, and he was even biting on a nail.
Lorelei sat beside him, watching him take turns flexing his fingers and drumming them on the arm of the chair. This was potentially a big meeting, but she’d never seen him so tense, and she searched the desk for something to distract him, but it was mostly scattered with loose papers and pens. There was a little sign with the attorney’s name, Benjamin Abara, Esquire of the Seven Scales, and appended onto that, a second little metal plate that extended out reading (Ethe)real Estate, Interplanar Immigration, Mari-Space-Time Law, and Charmed Notary of the 8th Degree. Beside that was a bowl of bright pink candies. She grabbed one and held it out to Conrad. He shook his head, and she shrugged, unwrapping it.
“Uh, I wouldn’t,” he said, holding up a hand.
“Why not?”
His knee stopped bouncing. “You wouldn’t like it. It’s weird.”
She squinted and took a sniff: it smelled exactly how a candy company tried to convince consumers strawberries smelt. And how would he know what she liked anyway?
The ladder behind the desk creaked, and Conrad’s knee started bouncing again.
“Can’t be that weird.” She pulled off the rest of the wrapping.
“No, really.” He went to take it from her, but the ladder creaked aga
in, and he shot it a panicked look.
She popped the candy into her mouth. “How weird can it be?”
Conrad sighed, but a smile crept up the side of his face. “Oh, Lorelei.”
He didn’t know what he was talking about—it was just normal candy, sweet, hard, a little preservativey. It didn’t give under her teeth, so she rolled it over her tongue and shrugged. This time when the ladder creaked, Conrad didn’t seem to notice. “Seems fine to—” Tingles started along the top of her tongue, and she was immediately over-producing saliva. “Oh, that is weird.”
Conrad was grinning fully now.
The tingles spread to the roof of her mouth and then her gums. It felt like her teeth had all gotten up and started shuffling around. “Oh, that’s really—” She slapped a hand over her mouth to keep the drool in.
He propped an elbow on the arm of his chair and just watched.
Lorelei fanned at her face, her cheeks growing hot and tears pricking at her eyes. Muffled, she squeaked, “S’hot!” Minty icicles stabbed at the innards of her mouth and throat, making her face flush. “No, s’cold!” The fruity flavor melted away, replaced with cocoa but sans any of the sweetness. “Ugh, and so bitter.”
Even as the feet of a man came into view, climbing down the ladder, Conrad didn’t tense again. “Well, I told you, didn’t I?”
It had worked to distract him at least, but that didn’t mean Lorelei wasn’t regretting the decision. She looked around on the desk for a box of tissues, but found none. Her lips twisted under the new taste spreading through her mouth, sour and so intense she was sure all of her taste buds would revolt and leave if they didn’t get burnt right off first.
The Wayward Deed (Vacancy Book 2) Page 13