by Gabby Fawkes
“Not if they won’t even talk to us,” Kian said.
“With their powerful magic, I bet they could even make Speranţă undetectable,” Demi said thoughtfully. “Same way they did with the DSA base.”
Kian eyeballed her. “Have you not heard a single word I said? We are the Romms’ prisoners.”
Demi shrugged. “Maybe we just need to find the right bargaining chip.”
“How long are they going to haul us around, anyway?” Kian said, trying to comb her fingers through her wild waves and, giving up, tossing her head.
“And feed us mush,” I said glumly. My belly growled at the mere dismal memory of it.
If we could just roast one Romm, PV mooned, a little fat one, and then take the teensiest little bite...
-Yeah, no.
‘Twas merely jesting, PV said, clearly affronted. Although that fat, poofy dog would probably last us nicely for days.
-How about you help with something productive, instead of suggesting gross dishes for us to eat? I responded in my head.
My ideas involve burning them all and hmm, here, let me see, burning them all. Or burning them individually. One by one. Which you seem unwilling to do.
-How many times do I have to tell you, I can’t burn them all just because they’ve been stalking us 24/7. Anyway, I’m not risking my friends getting hurt.
Excuses, excuses, PV said stiffly.
I turned my attention to Kian and Demi. “Maybe Demi’s right. Maybe we just have to get them to trust us.”
“Exactly,” Demi said, smiling, then her smile falling. “But how?” She twined her finger round and round the waved leaves of the succulent, which had ballooned to be the size of a tire. “They won’t even talk to us.”
“Not sure,” I admitted, putting my hand on hers. We had enough to deal with, without Cruestacio losing his shit over an elephantine succulent. “But the Great Ballena can’t just have us here for no reason, right?”
Kian shrugged dubiously. “I’m not sure I put much stock into what that old bat says, even if she did save us.”
“Maybe we could convince them we want to join?” I said, really reaching now.
We’d just had an argument with Jules about the ethics of his skeevy band, and now we were going to try to convince him that we genuinely wanted to join his skeevy band?
“Hm,” Demi said. “The Romms are notoriously close knit… but I don’t think it’s unheard of for them to accept new members.”
I glanced at her. “Since when are you a magical encyclopedia? Thought Kian was the one who memorized everything Linnie ever said about witches.”
Cheeks reddening, Demi reached for her massive cactus. I stopped her just in time.
“Persephone and I talked a lot,” she finally said quietly. “Before.”
The way her face fell made a pang rip through me.
“Sorry,” I said quickly, patting her gingerly. “It must be hard, being away from her like this.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. It wasn’t like I had a breadth of parental experience to draw from. I hadn’t even grown up with them, like a normal kid. None of us had.
“I know our relationship… was weird,” Demi said. “I mean, she knew way more than me and was older, but…” She lifted her head, tears in her eyes. “She was my kid, y’know?”
“Hell yeah,” Kian said, leaning in with her fists clenched. “Don’t worry – we’re going to find our way back to them, you hear?”
She shot me a pointed c’mon-and-help-make-this-better look.
“Uhhh, yeah,” I said. C’mon, think, think. “I mean, maybe we really do just need to talk to them. Corner a nice one and get them to hear us out.”
“Or we could always just make a break for it now, while they’re distracted,” Kian whispered, gaze sneaking to the door.
16
As if on cue, the bulky Siamese twins emerged through the door. They didn’t even bother trying to be subtle, just stopped in front of it, fixed us with a yeah-no look and folded their massive arms.
“So much for that plan,” Demi said with a sigh, the vines that had been curling out of the tips of her fingers shrinking back sullenly.
“Right,” I said, “Trying to make them see reason it is.”
Since we didn’t recognize any of the Romms on the first floor, we headed up the stairs.
My finger traced the pitchfork-shaped hole, then another the size and shape of a big-ass fly.
It was a bit surreal, being in the Flying Narwhale under such different circumstances. Last time, we almost seemed like naïve children in comparison. We’d been so full of oblivious hope – that Mathusalem was going to work out, that we’d be back in Speranţă in no time. We’d been with our friends, Axel…
I picked up my pace. Feeling sorry for myself and obsessing over the past wouldn’t do me any good. The only thing that would was trying to reason with the Romms.
The broad circular table the Romms were at was all too familiar –the Olympians’. As it spun round and round hyper-fast, they were laughing uproariously, smacking and kicking it. Only Jules’ brow was furrowed, cursing as he tried grabbing at it.
“That might work if that was your table,” Kian said.
I elbowed her. Right now, sassy real talk was not what the Romms needed. At least I didn’t think so.
Propping his head on his elbow, Jules turned to regard us, a sardonic glint in his eyes.
“Oh right, I forgot. You have your very importante Olympian friends.” He waved a hand. “Well, la-dee-da. Maybe you can call them up and have them help us with this table, eh?”
He and his friends started snickering, as we glared at them. Way to dig the knife in deeper.
“That’s not why we’re here,” Demi said placidly.
“No?” Jules said, still smirking obnoxiously, “Please, pray tell, what important business brings our prisoners here to talk?”
“Just that,” I said, “To talk. We might have some information you need, you might have some we need.”
Milsindra looked down her proud nose at us, the small slits of her nostrils flaring. “You have nothing we need. You are our prisoners. At our mercy. For the time being, you’re under the Great Ballena’s protection, but…” She waved her hand to and fro. “Our great Sorceress is old and forgetful, and frankly, capricious.”
You’re right, this is copiously more effective than burning them all, PV commented drily. It had a point – we weren’t off to a promising start.
“Why even keep us anyway?” Demi asked.
“I really have to spell it out for you again?” Jules asked, both elbows on the table now, “You’re as good a bargaining chip as they come. And… if we ever run into any trouble with the DSA…” He made a worried face, then, snapping his fingers, grinned. “Then bam, we’ll just get right out of it.”
“I thought you had connections with everyone already,” Kian said. “DSA included.”
Jules nodded and quirked a brow. “That we do. But, alas, we are also on occasion overly ambitious with our adventuring, and sometimes we do get ourselves into little… ahem, complications, that even our grand connections cannot shield us from.”
With a yawn, he extended both hands. Tall purple bottles with zigzagged green straws appeared in each. He took a sip of one, eyeing us with supreme boredom. “If you’re merely going to stand there and reiterate what we already obviously know, then please, I’ll have to request another drink to make this at all bearable. I’m simply not knackered enough for it.”
“What might be bearable for you to know is,” Kian said, her voice hardened with an edge, “That our friends are looking for us and won’t stop searching. Maybe you have connections and impressive powers, but so do our friends. And ours are immortal. Are yours?”
They said nothing, although they didn’t look quite as smug.
“I suppose you might have heard of my boyfriend,” I added sweetly. “Axel, formerly known as Ares, god of war?”
That wiped the last
of the smirk clean off Jules’ face.
“Don’t you even care that we might be telling the truth, might be innocent?” Demi asked quietly, looking at him hard. “That Kian’s your family? That in the school we came from, there could be other Romm orphans there? That if the DSA and whoever’s controlling them take over-”
By now, the others at Jules’ table were muttering, although he didn’t so much as flinch.
“The outside world’s concerns have never been – and never will be – Romamagi business. As for any of these possible Romamagi orphans…” His face grew hard. “Anyone raised away from Romamagi is no Romamagi.”
I laughed derisively. “You’re going to blame some innocent kid for getting kidnapped?”
“No,” Milsindra said sharply. “We don’t blame them, but we’re not responsible for them, either. What kind of lives do you think we lead? Our days are already riddled with danger. We bathe in it, bask in it. Every month, some of us are killed, lost and captured. Kids included. Well, that’s no life to write home about.”
Demi hadn’t peeled her eyes off Jules. “So that’s it, then. You really don’t care.”
“Bingo,” Jules said, with two thumbs jabbed up, although he didn’t meet her eye.
As we turned to go, he said, “Although there is one thing you could tell me that would interest me.”
“Yeah?” I said, turning back.
He had his long, bony fingers steepled and was drumming them together, one finger at a time. “How have you managed to elude the DSA for all this time?”
Kian snorted. “In other words, you want to know where we’re hiding out now? Yeah, fat chance we’ll tell you that.”
“Oh, I know it’s the Phoenix stronghold in the Dragon Badlands. That’s old news,” Jules said with a big yawn as we gaped at him. “What interests me is how you managed to get in and not flayed. Or burned to a crisp. Or exploded. Were there not numerous deadly enchantments and booby traps?”
“Why not go and see for yourself?” Demi said.
I glanced at her in surprise. She was being unusually feisty today, although maybe the separation from her daughter was starting to take its toll. Or she was just getting fed up with the BS situation, like I was.
Jules let out a gleeful snigger. “Believe me, I would enjoy nothing better.” His eyes lit up, “The spoils in there are the stuff of Romamagi legend.” His gaze wandered off.
“They say that many centuries back, our hallowed ancestor Sinbad the Great once raided their great coffers…” The corners of his mouth curled down, and he inclined his head slightly. “Of course, afterwards he and his men met a very untimely, and rather charred, end, but still… the riches.”
“Riches enough for you to let us go?” I asked hopefully.
I wasn’t actually planning to give him any of Speranţă’s precious gold, other than the ugliest little booger of a gold nugget. But he didn’t need to know that.
Already, though, Jules was shaking his head, pressing a hand to his heart. “No gold is worth this precious life. I’ve worked too not hard up until now only to have my head blasted off by an angry dragon.”
“Then again, I could just lose patience and do that now,” I growled.
The heat ripped through my three birthmarks eagerly. Why hadn’t I thought of this before?
I mean, it would be unfortunate about the Flying Narwhale and all, but Cruestacio would understand.
With a loud yawn, Jules snapped his fingers. The next second, knives were at my friends’ throats.
With no one holding them. In fact, the other Romms at Jules’ table looked as at ease as he did, hands behind their heads, smirking.
“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” he said, still yawning. “If you care for your friends, that is.”
I glared at him. Guess that was that then.
I forced the heat building in me to fall away.
Yeah, talk about why I hadn’t thought of this before… It was because it was stupid, risky. No way could I let Jules hurt my friends. I’d die first.
Instinct had made me dumb, I guess.
As another knife appeared at my throat, Jules waved his hand again and a well-mustached woman in a large orange, green and yellow shawl and beefy arms took me by the elbow.
“Please get rid of them,” he told her. “I fear I might perish from boredom.”
As we were muscled away by the mustached woman, the owner-less knives followed along at our throats.
Over my shoulder, I called, “We know you moved the new DSA base. Soon you’re going to have to choose which side you’re on.”
As we neared the stairs, Jules appeared in front of me. Peering his tan face in so that it was a nose length away, he snarled, “You know nothing of it.”
“I know that btsan are appearing and they haven’t been seen for years,” I sneered back. “I know that Pandora’s Box is opening.”
Jules still hadn’t moved, hadn’t even blinked. Milsindra glided beside him, but addressed me. “Even if you speak the truth, it makes no difference. We can never choose your side. You’re outsiders. Shifters. Witches.” She spat on the ground. “Untrustworthy.”
And with that, they shoved past us and down the stairs.
Once we were returned to the first floor and flung onto chairs that groaned and tched angrily at us, things didn’t go much better. I got so famished that I actually tried the crusty crust, which, to no great surprise, was as close an experience to eating actual dust as I’d ever had.
Gully, for his part, kept running up to the Romms, who were still parked under the TV screen (now showing inexplicably colorful and psychedelic alternating wheelbarrows) and squawking at them. That just made them laugh and carry on louder. A few times, Cruestacio looked ready to tell them off, but they just Frisbeed more bills his way, and he shook his head and mopped his sweat-rolling brow with a few.
That night we were back on the road. Once again, we were slung back in the cage and, once the Romms finally came to a stop, we were plopped beside their now blue and teal-fired bonfire.
“Different colors, different ceremonies,” the half-wooden old man told us smilingly as he passed.
“Neat,” Demi said with no emotion whatsoever.
“Do they ever sleep?” I asked, purposely changing the subject. Demi was usually the ridiculously optimistic one. Her losing hope was freaking me out.
“We’re going to be roasted to death, how magnificente,” Kian said, as she reached into her pocket.
Despite our crappy circumstances, I had to smile. “You brought one with you?”
“Of course,” Kian said, with no better humor. She lifted the shiny tube and unscrewed the black lipstick dubiously. “Good old Nosferato Demon Baby. Then again, this hideous monstrosity is probably more bad luck than good, considering last time I wore it I got impaled by a dragon bone.”
As she began to apply it, her darkening lips moved to comment, “Then again, lipstick-less beggars can’t be choosers.”
A thought came to me. “Hey, you don’t still have that-”
“Golden frog to contact the witch sisters?” Kian said glumly. “Nope. Chucked it first chance I got, I was so pissed at them.”
“At least we’re nice and close to the warm fire,” Demi commented, shifting beside us in a pointless effort to try and get comfortable. We were on itchy long grass with the tiny squares of the cage digging into our butts. Comfortable was not happening.
“Hey, good point,” Kian said sarcastically. “Maybe they’ll let us roast marshmallows and make s’mores too!”
“Cut it out,” I said. “It’s not Demi’s fault we’re in this situation. It’s mine.”
“Really, it was that Walario-asshole,” Kian said gloomily, “And the witch sisters and their precious Seven Sister Council.”
I let my attention drift. If I got into it, I could bitch for days.
But right now, the Romms had finished setting up for their ceremony – they’d painted a purple octagonal design consisting of seve
ral intersecting shapes on the grass and decorated their faces and clothes with the same purple paint too. Although some were clearly better painters than others. One kid had his face paint applied so over-enthusiastically that he looked like nothing more than a seriously pissed-off grape.
“Did Persephone mention anything about what blue flames and purple paint mean?” I asked, watching the scene, knowing full well I was reaching.
“No,” Demi said. “We only touched on the Romms briefly. Wasn’t like we had any idea we’d actually run into them and get imprisoned by them. I was just so fascinated by everything magic, I kept asking her question after question.”
I reached over and pulled away a little twig that had been impaling my butt. I snapped it in half, then again. Crap, how stupid had I been not asking Axel or the others about the magical world when I had the chance? There was so much I didn’t know. So much I might never know.
Like, how did the Phoenix dragon clan even get to be top dragons? Just by screwing with everyone – or did dragons have wars too? And what had the Olympians and shifters and witches even fought about anyway?
“My family is weird,” Kian said with a sigh, eyeing the flames.
Peering closer, I now saw what had been on the spit, blocked by the eager flames. It was a roasted chicken… or would have been if it was about a tenth of its current size.
As they passed it around, each ripping off a leg, I counted – two, four… ten? Twelve, sixteen, eighteen, oh my - twenty – yeah the ‘chicken’ apparently had twenty legs.
“Like a centipede chicken,” Demi said cheerfully, as if reading my thoughts.
“Barf,” Kian said.
Although she didn’t refuse when someone shoved three legs into our cage.
“Really makes you think,” Demi said thoughtfully as she munched on her haunch, “of all magic’s possibilities.”
“Hey, you’re right,” Kian said. “If they can do this with barbecue chicken, just think of what they could do to Mint Aeros.”
Talk about mmm. Back at the School for the Different, Mint Aeros had been, hands down, our favorite treat. One that we got maybe once a year at the Founder’s Assembly, if we were lucky.