Page 9 of Heir of Autumn
“But you’re correct,” I said. “Doctor Fang still isn’t sure what it is that allows me to summon the guardians, and she’s very insistent about forbidding me from summoning them again until we find out. Problem is, I can tell she’s lying. She’s as curious about them as I am, maybe even more. This is only her entire field of study, after all. Her life’s work.”
Satchel produced a brass dessert fork out of thin air, the same one he’d been gifted by our kitchen imp, Cutler. He stretched his arm across Sylvain’s plate, stealing a portion of cake and shoving it in his mouth.
“To be fair,” Satchel said, munching happily, “it’s very cool of Euclidea not to have suggested experimenting on you. Not yet, at least. You know, strap you to a table, run all sorts of horrible, invasive procedures just to see what makes your guardian stuff tick.”
I squinted at him and shook my head. “Why are you like this?”
He scooped more cake into his gullet. “Dunno. I blame all the sweets. Probably your fault for letting me eat all this sugar, anyway.”
My fingers went straight for my temples, kneading deep and hard. Sylvain sensed my distress, sending one hand out to squeeze my thigh, a quick show of support through his strength. I bumped our legs together, gave him a small smile.
“This was supposed to be a clean and simple journey,” I said. “You know, just a foray into the Oriel of Water, snag some Tears of the Ocean, in and out. But no. It feels like everything keeps piling up. And then there’s the unicorns asking me for a favor.”
Bruna and Namirah tilted their heads at me. Namirah spoke first.
“Excuse me. The what, now?”
So I told them, starting from the part where the unicorn sticker went apeshit. Satchel leapt to his feet, happy to contribute, turning in a circle as he regaled everyone with an accurate and very slightly embellished account of our meeting.
To be fair, he was a very good storyteller. Namirah was so enraptured, so sucked into the retelling that she was practically resting her chin on the table. Bruna’s lips hung parted with anticipation all throughout.
Bruna stroked her chin, staring at the backpack slung over the back of my chair, where I kept the Wilde grimoire. “Do you suppose Butterworth knew this would happen?”
I could only shrug and shake my head.
Namirah frowned. “I wish I got a bloody sticker from Headmaster Cornelius. But hey, I suppose we’re playing favorites now.”
The thought that lazy Lochlann Wilde of all people would be considered one of Cornelius Butterworth’s favorites made the inside of my chest all warm and fuzzy. But I sucked my cheeks in, trying not to look too pleased with myself.
“Don’t worry about it, Namirah. At least you’re not the one saddled with a unicorn quest.”
She shrugged. ”Fair enough.”
“Bruna, baby, sweetie.” I reached across the table, clasping the back of her hand. “Isn’t there a water-breathing potion in your repertoire somewhere?”
She bit the corner of her mouth and shot me a sympathetic smile. “Sorry, Locke. All the sweet talk in the world isn’t going to make the cost of it any less prohibitive. Unless you want to take a trip over to the Black Market and find something?”
“That’s the thing,” I grumbled, fishing Aphrodite’s medallion out of my shirt. “I already know that a quick spell with the Breath of the Wind is my best option. What the fuck else am I supposed to do, go up to the Canopy and beg Evander for the book?”
And that was how I found myself up in the Canopy not thirty minutes later, sans Satchel or Sylvain. I knew my familiar would pick up on my mood, first off, plus he already hated Evander Skink. And leaving Sylvain out of the equation made sense. It meant I wouldn’t be tempted to set him on the evil twink if push came to shove.
“Well, well,” Evander trilled, answering the door to his villa in a skimpy silk kimono. “Do my eyes deceive me, or have we decided to sing a different tune?”
“Let me in, Skink,” I said, my hand on the doorframe. “I’ve come to negotiate.”
The door opened wider, his eyebrow waggling. “I suppose that depends on what you mean by ‘negotiate.’”
“Over my dead body,” I growled. “Speaking of which, I’d rather have sex with a dead body than you. Get over yourself, Evander.”
“How kinky.” He rolled his eyes as he made a show of leaning out of his doorway, looking to either side. Was he trying to find someone? “Oh, I was only wondering if that beautiful hunk of meat that follows you around was here. I was hoping that maybe you could lend him to me for an hour or two.”
I shoved past him and swept imperiously into his villa. “He’s a person, Evander, not a piece of meat.”
He sighed and shut the door. “Yes, yes, an eidolon he may be, but still a person. I blame Doctor Fang for drumming a sense of morality into me over the years. It’s very inconvenient, you know?”
I ignored him as I glanced around the enormous living room, doing my best to keep my jaw off the floor. The floor which was made out of beautifully polished wood, by the way, something expensive and rare, no doubt. I’d once described the Canopy as a sort of upscale resort for wood elves. Nowhere was that truer than in Evander’s own private villa.
A villa, of all things, plucked out of something you would see on a Caribbean beach. Even the decor reminded me of a beach house, rope everywhere, statuettes of polished wood in various sizes and drawn from various cultures. There was even a driftwood log sitting by the coffee table, as if someone’s Malibu vacation home had been airlifted and dropped right on top of the Canopy.
