Page 39 of The Misfit Mage and His Darling Demon

“It doesn’t matter. We’re going to have a breakthrough today,” I said loudly, half-expecting an eavesdropping Bez to make a quippy comment before vanishing in a blur again. Guess he had actually gone in search of Mora. “We’re going to figure out how everything in this mystery Fae house-ship thing works. In fact, we’re going to figure it out right now. Before Bez finds Mora.”

Who probably wasn’t even here to assist but pilfer whatever wasn’t welded to the floor.

Sunny cheerily joined in with a yappy bark of agreement while Stormy growled in support. Definitely support and not annoyance by being dragged along for the ride.

I confidently walked down the hallway, some swagger in my steps—maybe channeling a bit of Bez’s boastful strut. The slashed iron door was open when we arrived. I couldn’t remove Weather’s claw marks, but I had managed to fix the incantations that secured the helm. Was it Bez or Mora who broke the wards to enter?

“Oooo, pretty,” a high-pitched voice said.

Feminine for sure, but nothing like Mora’s lilt.

I opened my mouth to speak, ask if this was Mora, but hesitated. Anxiety tangled knots in my chest. If I was wrong, I’d announce myself.

“Could be the pink Fae.” I bit my lip since my need to mutter every waking thought won out. But her voice, the Fae who’d grabbed me, was on the deeper side when declaring Baron Novus sought an audience with me and whisked me back into the auditorium, albeit one plane off from reality.

Sunny and Cloudy had curious eyes when sniffing at the doorway, no fright in their expression like from the surveillance footage I’d seen of their interactions with the pink Fae. Stormy didn’t snarl nearly as much either.

Maybe it was just Mora.

I stepped inside the helm and spotted a Black woman in a camel tan jumpsuit, which accentuated her deep brown complexion. Had Mora possessed a new host body? It was hard to know since Mora kept all her Diabolic features hidden, including her eyes.

“Mora?” I asked with raised brows.

“Nope. She’s around here somewhere. Probably.” The woman shrugged. She held a screwdriver that she forcefully wedged into the screws of the navigation controls.

“Hey,” I shouted. “You can’t touch that.”

A pile of various fasteners lined the control panel. She didn’t know the first thing she was doing. Without proper schematics, there was no way to know for sure it wouldn’t break something. Yes, pushing a few buttons was one thing, but taking out all the screws, nuts, and bolts was a completely different thing. Besides, the screw tops didn’t match any known type of screwdriver tips, from flat-heads, Philips Head, and spanners to Pozidriv, Torx, Hex, or even specialty tips like for computers or jewelers.

She completely ignored my request, continuing to fiddle with things she shouldn’t.

“I said you can’t touch that.” I added as much authority to my voice as possible. “You’ll break something.”

“I wonder if this design incorporates so many other Mythic phrases to confuse non-Fae from deciphering the Sylvan alphabet,” she said, disregarding my presence again as she took a panel cover off and chucked it onto the floor. “Or maybe it’s meant to deceive fellow Fae who might not be permitted here.”

I rushed over to the discarded panel, frustration mixing with panic in my churning stomach. She’d definitely forced the screws out; the metal holes were dented and practically chiseled. Gods, she’d break the entire helm if given half a chance.

“I’m not going to ask again.” I stood, fire building in my chest. Quite literally, perhaps, as my mana raged, coursing alongside the Diabolic essence in me, each capable of swaying the elements with great effect. “Step away from my navigation system before you break something.”

She leaned forward, stretching the full length of her body onto the panel toward the navigation screen. The wiggle of her hips knocked over a small stack of screws. They clinked against the floor like pennies, bouncing or rolling and disappearing somewhere in the room. Weather chased the sound of one, sniffing around to investigate.

“Oops. I’ll get those after I test a hypothesis.”

Or Weather would get them and eat them. Cerberus’ had stomachs and digestive tracts that could literally devour souls; he’d have no problem eating a few loose screws. Speaking of loose screws, I needed to deal with whoever this woman was.

“I said stop.” I summoned fire with my right hand, tracing a protective incantation with my left.

She turned. Several locs draped the left half of her face. They were long, reaching her waist—well, the high-placed belttying her outfit together above her waist. The lime and forest green tips hung at her golden belt buckle; the greens went about halfway until her hair went black all the way to her roots.

“You didn’t, technically speaking.” She giggled.

“Excuse me?”

“You suggested I shouldn’t be messing around because I could damage something. But I’m not. I’m performing a diagnostic.”

“You can’t just perform a diagnostic on something you have no understanding of,” I snapped. “Stop touching things that don’t belong to you!”

“It doesn’t exactly belong to you either, now does it, Wally?” She smirked, wicked and wild all at once.

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