Page 63 of Misfit Monsters
“Iwant to keep working with you,” I say quickly. “You keep us on our toes. I like the excitement!”
Hail glowers at me, but I’m being honest. Peri’s softness made me nervous. How could she accept a being like me with so much mischief and chaos in my nature?
But it turns out she’s got some chaos of her own. Maybe that’s why she’s never seemed rattled no matter what I’m doing around her.
Whatotherpowers will she show off next? She might beat this awful sorcerer all by herself—and I’ll happily watch.
Raze nods, stepping closer to Peri with a protective air that inexplicably makes me want to slip closer too. It’s not as if I could defend her better than he can with all that muscly strength.
She also needs someone to keep her spirits up and put asmile on her face, doesn’t she? I can do better at that than Mr. Doom and Gloom.
The lizard man bares his teeth at Hail. “We’ve all made mistakes and had trouble controlling our powers. That’s why we got sent on this mission. You’ve been complaining that Peri isn’t powerful enough—don’t start complaining that she can dotoomuch.”
“I’d rather her not be powerful in a way that can fuck us up,” Hail mutters, but without much energy to the words. He considers Peri again. “I don’t suppose you can decide to blast people who deserve it?Thatmight be useful.”
A shiver runs through Peri’s body. Even if she can lash out like that, I don’t think she likes the idea.
“I don’t know how to control the power either way,” she says quietly. “Not preventing it when it starts to happen on its own or making it happen when it isn’t already. But I’m working on getting there.”
Hail hums. “We’ll have to see, then.”
Jonah claps his hands together. “Yes. We’ll see if this team can hold together, but we’d betteralldo our best to make that happen. Now why don’t we take a closer look at this cabin?”
His tone gentles when he turns to Peri. “Do you think you’ll be okay to go inside and look around? What was it that set off your emotions?”
She appears to steady herself. “There was a footprint—I thought it looked around the right size to match the sorcerer I knew. But that doesn’t tell us a lot. He was short but wide—a lot of mortals are shaped that way.”
She points toward the cabin. “And the metal on the ground—links from a hunter’s net—he used those, but so do all the hunters and probably lots of sorcerers too. The worst part…”
Her gaze drops to the scattered objects I carried out ofthe cabin, their dingy sides glinting faintly on the ground. “The medal and the trophy and all that… He had a display case full of those kinds of things. He stole them from… from people he didn’t like and wanted to punish. They reminded me so vividly I panicked.”
Someone should send that man straight to jail, no passing Go.
I scoop up the trinkets I found intriguing and tuck them out of her view. “My fault for being hasty.”
Peri shakes her head. “You were excited because you thought you’d found something useful. Maybe you did. Do they have names or other information about who owned them?”
I plop on the ground and lay out my three bits of loot.
The disc on a ribbon only says, “Valedictorian” with no other words. The cup-like one and the little statue have wooden bases with a bar of metal attached. The bars look like they used to have some words etched into them, but they’ve been scratched up so much it’s impossible to make out more than a few random letters.
Jonah glances at Peri. “The sorcerer you knew—did he damage the mementos he held on to like this?”
Peri frowns. “Most of them were dinged up, but I’m pretty sure they still had the names on them. He wanted to remember who they’d come from. Where did you find them, Mirage?”
“The cabin has a trap door going to a basement. Sneaky low-down sorcerer.” I flick out my claws briefly. “They were lying on the floor near a table. Not much else down there.”
“You didn’t take a very thorough look the first time,” Jonah points out.
Peri straightens up. “Let’s do that now.”
Hail eyes her. His voice sounds both wary and amused. “Are you sure you won’t be jumping at shadows, Cream Puff?”
She meets his eyes steadily, her usual perky tone returning. “I’ve calmed down. I know we’re not dealing with the same sorcerer who captured me. If I’m staying on the team, I’m doing everything I can to get to the bottom of the problem.”
She marches into the cabin ahead of the rest of us, showing none of the nerves that held her back earlier. I bound after her, wondering what she’ll make of the space that seemed drab to me.
The main room of the cabin holds a wood-burning stove, a sink, and a tiny table with a single chair. The other half of the main room is totally empty. You’d expect to find a bed there. Maybe the sorcerer only has one, so he brings it away when he leaves?
