Page 33 of Office of the Lost

Crispin sighed.He was tired.Physically tired.Emotionally tired.And tired of lying to one of his oldest friends.“Its…hisname is Leopold.He’s not an ape.Well, he’s descended from apes?—”

“Hey!”Leo glared at him.“Right here in the same room,dude.”

Crispin hurried on, because Leo was right; he didn’t deserve to be treated like this.“He’s from the other Earth.The one where… where archosaurs never evolved.They’re called humans.”

He expected anger, denial—even to be thrown out into the hall once again, his “pet” with him.But instead, Juzir was clicking his teeth, something archosaurs often did when deep in thought.He made only one comment, quietly, as if to himself.“Fascinating.”

“But him being a pet, that’s not what scared you, is it?”Crispin had an inkling; the thought had been growing ever since Leo had pulled that disappearing act in front of Fromlith.

Juzir didn’t reply.Instead he addressed Leo directly for the first time.“I’ve placed a protective ward around you.That’s what caught the rope.”He reached forward with a short arm and plucked it out of the air and out of the spell.It fell to the ground with a thump.

“Protecting me?Or you?”Leo’s eyes narrowed.“You sure we can trust this guy, Crispy?”

“Crispy?”Juzir chuckled, a full-bellied archosaur laugh that made the egg-shaped vases on his shelves tremble and showed off his sharp incisors to great advantage, “I rather like that.”

“It’sCrispin,” he growled.This whole thing was getting out of hand, and not just the silly nickname part.“And yes, we can trust him.He and I go way back.”

“The wholeBeckia situation, you said.He ate her, didn’t he?”

“No, he did noteather.”Though that wouldn’t have been entirely out of character for an archosaur.Still, the school had rules against that sort of thing—otherwise there would have been chaos.

He turned back to his old friend.“So, can you help us?I need to get him back to the Office, but first….”

“You need to know what he is.”He met Leo’s eyes, which seemed now to be permanently narrowed.

Juzir scratched his chin with three long, neatly trimmed yellow claws.“You know he’s not… what did you call it…human, right?”

“Take that back!”Leo sprang to his feet, bumping up against the protection ward and rebounding into the chair.“Ow.”

“What do you mean, not human?”Crispin said at the same time.“He’s one of the most human humans I have ever met.Bumbling, heedless of the feelings of others, heedless in a way that only a truly magicless species can be….”He trailed off, aware that Leo’s gaze was once again directed at him.“Not that I don’t find it all rather… charming.”A memory of the aborted kiss flashed through his head.Why did I do it?

“Just like I find your prissy, stick-up-the-ass, elitist deskfae manner… charming.”Somehow he managed to make the word seem more likemaddening.

Juzir looked as if he’d just stepped into something wet and sticky.He waved his little arms at them.“Gentlemen, no need for insults.What I meant is that he wasn’tbornhuman.Though he seems to have grown into it.”

Definitely not a compliment.

“Thank you… I think?”Leo frowned.“So if I wasn’t born human… was I one of those changeling babies?Or maybe more like the Exorcist girl?”He tried to turn his head around to face the wall behind him.“Owww.Guess not.”

Crispin shook his head.“See?Totally human.”But he’d had his suspicions about Leo.At least twice, he’d been pretty sure that Leo had vanished, only to reappear somewhere else, a talent Crispin was fairly sure was not typically human.“So what is… what was he?”

“I’m not sure.But let me show you something.”He fetched a book from one of the wall shelves, using his tail since his arms wouldn’t have reached that high.He held the heavy leather-bound volume awkwardly in his little arms.

Crispin hoped it wasn’t bound in ape skin.

“Let’s see.Here it is.”He made a series of growls and grunts as he waved his clawed right hand in the air, and something shifted.The protective ward glowed, shivered, and suddenly collapsed inward, clinging to Leo.The electric lights flickered off and on again.

When things stabilized, Leo looked… different.

“What is it?”He held up his ward-shrouded arm, covered with a sparkling fog that didn’t obscure the skin underneath.

“Your true nature.”

“Chaos.”The word came out of Crispin’s throat with the sharpness of a knife.Leo’s nature was what he had suspected… what he had feared most.“But how….”

“Wait, you’re saying I’m not human?”Leo looked at Juzir.“That I’m like that cloud that’s been chasing Crispy and me?”The wide-eyed, drop-jawed look on Leo’s face would have been comical if the situation wasn’t so serious.

Crispin frowned.How could Leo be Chaos and be so thoroughly human?

---