Читать книгу Insidious - Dawn Metcalf - Страница 14
ОглавлениеJOY SKETCHED OUT a plan in her head as she sorted her pre-packing laundry. The first thing she had to do was to find out how everyone in the Twixt had managed to forget about the King and Queen—not just “not remember.” Inq said that they were actually unable to recall something that should have been impossible to forget. If Joy could figure out what had happened, then she’d be one step closer to finding the culprit and one step closer to finding the door. Joy was fairly certain Graus Claude would help her petition for a slight change in the rules as a reward. One thing she knew for certain: the Bailiwick was very, very good at negotiations and always came out ahead.
She scratched the back of her hand, the skin pink, scaly and raw. It was probably her allergies, seasonal eczema, but she couldn’t stop imagining her body changing somehow. Was there something hiding below her skin? Feathers? Fur? Scales?
Joy emptied her basket and fled the room.
Normally she might be worried that if Inq and Kurt hadn’t come up with a way to solve this mystery by now, she never could, but Joy had learned that being human gave her a fresh perspective—like the way she’d seen Aniseed’s signatura on all of the Scribes’ clientele while they’d been oblivious—and now Joy had a few advantages that they did not. Not only could she erase signaturae should it come down to it, but she also knew something about magic. She knew that there was a difference between glyph magic and spell magic; what the Folk considered magic and what humans considered magic was as different as 80% Lindt was from Cadbury milk.
If it had been spell magic, it was unknown to the Folk—a carefully guarded secret among wizards—but Joy just so happened to have a man on the inside.
“Sounds like a blanket spell,” Stef said as he stuffed more shirts into his duffel bag. “In order to spread an effect without requiring line-of-sight on all intended targets, you’d have to define the boundaries based on geographical parameters, or in this case, magical ones.” He spoke over his elbow as he cleaned out another drawer. “A spell that affects everyone in the Twixt? One that no one knows about? That would have to be a Class Ten, at least. Way beyond anything I know, or anyone I know would know, for that matter.” He sniffed a sweatshirt at the pits. “Why do you ask?”
Joy couldn’t say “Nothing,” but she couldn’t lie, either. It wasn’t like she had a school report on spell classifications due anytime soon.
“Something happened, Stef, and it’s affecting everyone except Ink and Inq. I know you don’t like it, but that world’s a part of me now.” And it’s a part of you, too. This was the perfect time to say it. Here. Now. Right now. Stef, people with the Sight are part of the Twixt. We are descended from Folk. We have a drop of faerie blood in our veins. But she didn’t want to say it. He wasn’t like her; he didn’t have someone like Ink. He didn’t love the Folk—he hated them. She didn’t want him to hate that part of himself, any part of himself. It was weird trying to protect her older brother when he’d always been the one protecting her.
“I have an obligation,” she said instead.
“No, you don’t,” he said, rolling pants into logs. “It sounds like Other Than politics to me. Best to stay out of it.”
“Stef, we could help...”
“‘We?’ No. I’m not getting involved,” he said. “And neither should you. Do you remember the last time you got mixed up in one of their plots?”
“Um, I stopped a magical disease from killing off most of humanity?”
“No. You almost got killed when an assassin tried to drown you in your car!”
“Oh,” Joy said. “You mean the last last time.”
Stef paused, adjusting his glasses. “Wait. What was that first thing you said?”
Joy blanched. “Never mind.”
“No! Not ‘never mind,’” her brother said angrily. “Exactly what’s going on?”
Joy shook her head. “Please, Stef, you don’t understand.” She had to say something. Something! Now! Say it! “It...has to do with the rules of the Twixt,” she blurted out. Joy twisted her thumb in her shirt. “Do you know about the rules?”
Stef glared at her through his rectangular lenses, knowing she was editing herself. “I know about the Accords, the written agreements between the Council and our world, I know about the Edict that protects us, I know about having the Sight, and I know more than a little bit about wizardry and spellwork—proper magic, not glyph magic, that’s for Folk and druids,” he said, fiddling with his red thread bracelet. He tossed another shirt into the bag. “That’s more than enough rules for me.”
“Yeah, well, someone’s messing with the rules that created the Twixt, and that can affect both worlds,” she said. “You, me, all of us.”
Stef flung his stuff down on the bed. “Joy, what is going on?”
She couldn’t say “I can’t tell you” or “I don’t know” or some other throwaway phrase because that would be a lie. Argh!
“It’s a secret,” she said, which was about as close to the truth as she dared.
Her brother fumed for a long moment and then wiped his lenses on his shirt. “Yeah, well, secrets don’t tend to stay secret forever.”
Joy didn’t say anything to that. It was true of her mother’s affair, her father’s first girlfriend, Stef coming out and her own signatura. There were no secrets that stayed secret. There was no use trying to hide the truth.
She took a steady breath and looked him straight in the eye. “Stef...”
“Listen,” he interrupted. “I’m headed back to school soon, and I want you to promise me that you won’t go seek out my master anymore.”
That threw her completely off track. Joy frowned. “Your ‘master’?”
He sighed. “Mr. Vinh.”
“Mr. Vinh is your master?” she said. “The Wizard Vinh?” Had she known the manager of the C&P was her brother’s teacher? Or had she forgotten? Had Mr. Vinh known about her when she’d appeared that first time with Inq? How much did Stef know? Her ears rang. She was deep into information overload.
“Don’t look so surprised,” Stef said. “I said I was a wizard’s apprentice, and you knew he was a wizard. How hard can it be to connect the dots? He even said you’d gone to see him about a glamour.”
Joy shook her head. “That was for Ink.”
“And you bought one?” Stef asked angrily. “With what?”
She was obscenely glad that Stef didn’t know anything about her trade with Ladybird. It didn’t take a genius to know that paying three drops of blood to a drug dealer was bad. “With nothing,” she said. “I didn’t end up buying one. Ink did! Because he knew I wanted you guys to meet him.”
Stef blew out a long breath. “Fine. Well, that’s a relief,” he said as if it were one more thing to check off his to-do list. “Just promise me you won’t go to the C&P for anything other than convenience store crap.”
Joy hedged. This was getting perilously close to lying territory.
“That’s why I came to you,” she said earnestly. “You could help me.”
“You? Yes. You, I can help. Here’s my helpful, brotherly advice—stop whatever it is you’re doing or whatever it is you’re thinking of doing right now. End sentence. As far as helping them?” He snapped a pair of his jeans in the air with a sharp smack! “I’m not helping any Other Thans.”
Joy stepped back, stung.
Tell him, she thought.
“Stef...”
Tell him!
Their father’s voice called from the den. “What are you two doing?”
Stef shouted, “Joy’s not finished packing!”
“Joy!” Dad barked. “What did I tell you?”
“No dithering!” she shouted back and, with a last glance at her brother, went to her room and started yanking open drawers and throwing stuff on her bed. Stef might not want to help her out, but he’d just helped her enough to make a start.
She might not know what a Class Ten blanket spell was, but she knew a few people who did.
* * *
Shoving a last fistful of underwear and socks into her pack, Joy hit the auto-dial and waited for the click. Monica picked up on the first ring.
Joy said, “When.”
“You serious?” Monica said. “Aren’t you heading out in two days?”
“I am,” Joy said, grabbing her hiking shorts and ratty jeans. “But the feet want dancing now.”
“You packed yet?”
“I’m packing,” Joy said. “As in, ‘in the final stages of getting packed.’”
“Hmm. You know your Dad’ll kill me if I spring you before you’re through, and I have this crazy, personal attachment to breathing.”
“Aw, c’mon,” Joy begged, folding T-shirts into thirds. “One last night of fun? It’ll be special—we could double date.”
“Double date?” Monica said suspiciously. “You mean like you, me, Gordon and your invisible boyfriend? Or are you planning on bringing a Ken doll in your purse?”
Joy snorted. “Ha-ha,” she said. “You in or not?”
“In,” Monica said. “Seriously in. What time are we talking?”
“You name it.”
“Gimme till nine,” Monica said. “I have to pick out an outfit and call Gordon and everything.”
Joy grinned. “Nine it is.”
“And dare I ask where this party will go down?”
“The Carousel,” Joy said, putting her plan into motion. “Where else?”
* * *
Ink appeared for their date through a rift in the wall. Joy checked the clock.
“Right on time,” she said.
“I received your message.” He touched the carved box he’d given her on her birthday. Joy found that a scribbled note placed inside would disappear. A response would appear later. They sent little love notes back and forth at all hours of the day and night, tiny scraps of paper that made every day a surprise. Joy had a small collection of her favorites stashed in her drawer. It was way better than email!
He tugged his shirt across his chest self-consciously. “How do I look?”
Joy chose not to say the first word that jumped to mind. Scrumptious wasn’t perhaps the subtlest of adjectives.
“You look great,” she said. “Really.” And he did. As nondescript as his tight black tee and skinny blue jeans were to human eyes, they hugged his long, lean muscles, and his smooth, boyish face made him look anything but ordinary. The silver wallet chain only added to the clean-cut Goth vibe, coiled and cool. Joy remembered thinking that he had an intense, animal grace when she first saw him across the floor of the Carousel. Admittedly, that was before
