Page 63 of Office of the Lost

A wave of their mother’s hand cut Aspin off as neatly as if she’d choked him.

Crispin expected a scathing remark from her, possibly accompanied by a threat that would sear the flesh off his bones.He braced himself and closed his eyes.

Instead he felt her arms around him, smelled her familiar perfume—one-third toadstool, one-third moonlight orchid, and one-third rainbow.

“I’m so glad you’re alive.”She hugged him tightly, and for the first time in years he found himself speechless in front of his own mother.

Minkis twittered.“She smells nice.”

“I...that is… you really shouldn’t….”He took a deep breath.This wasn’t the time for recriminations.He needed her help to find Leo, and it seemed as if she needed his too.“Thank you.”

She let him go, her eyes narrowing at the sight of the little squirrel, as if she’d just seen him.“We’ve created a frightful mess, you and I.”Her anxious gaze over his shoulder reminded him that the hotel was in ruins, just as another wall collapsed with a resounding crash.

He raised an eyebrow.“We?”He wasn’t used to seeing her like this.Vulnerable.Almost mortal.

She had the grace to blush.“Fair enough.You may have precipitated it with your arrival, but if I hadn’t listened to your supervisor?—”

“Bidulla put you up to it?”Crispin frowned.His mother was never manipulated by other people.She was the one who did the manipulating.

“Yes.Handsomewoman, that one.”A little of the old Cerillia showed though with that taunt.“She was insistent that the Chaos fragment?—”

“Leo.”

“Right.ThatLeobe recaptured, before he could do more harm.”

“And the poison chalice?—”

“Was specially formulated for him.It would have knocked him out.Not killed him.I’m not a monster, whatever else you may think of me.”

Manipulator.Liar.Corrupted by your own power.But he said none of those things.“So how did it cause all of this?”

She sighed.

She’d just lost everything she’d ever owned.Have a little compassion, like Leo showed you.“Tell me what happened.”

“She’s hiding her acorns,” Minkis said.

Thea’s voice followed.“He’s not wrong.She’s hiding something.”

“Why is your pet rat talking about me?”She pulled back, staring at Minkis and then at Thea’s glow emanating from his vest pocket.“And how?”

“Squirrel.And he swallowed a little bit of Leo.He might be able to lead me to him.”He frowned.“Enough evasion.Tell me everything.And then maybe I can help you fix this.”

Another crash, and something heavy hit the street behind him, making him jump.

A toilet bowl, being slowly dissolved by a random bit of Chaos.

One of the wizards stepped forward and thrust his hands toward it, and the creeping, sizzling nothingness stopped in its tracks.

Aspin frowned.“They’re not making any progress.It’s getting worse.”

“I know.”His mother seemed to make up her mind.“They can hold it off for a while yet, though.”Her voice cracked, just a little.

This was not the strong woman, self-assured to the point of absurdity, that he had grown up with.He felt pity for her.Which in turn made him feel very strange indeed—as if all that he had always assumed wasupwas now actuallydown.

“Come with me, both of you.It’s time I let you in onallof my secrets.”

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