Page 8 of The Grip of Death
“Why, hello there, Master Gertrude.” Lore’s crystal blinked blue and red, a silent siren. “Oh, I’m so embarrassed. My kitchen is an absolute mess.”
She waved her hand, never taking her eyes off of Lore’s masterpiece. “There’s nothing to apologize for, my dear Lawrence. This marvel you’ve created — why, the depth of your artistry simply astounds me.”
I coughed quietly. “Lore thinks it isn’t good enough.”
His crystal glowed a bright, alarmed red. I flinched. He was probably preparing to blast my ass with one of his lasers.
“Preposterous,” Gertrude declared. “This is one of the loveliest cakes I’ve seen at the guild in quite a while. Never sell yourself short, Lore. And I suppose that this is the design you intend to use for our handsome soon-to-be-weds over here?”
“Yes, guild master,” Lore said meekly. This time his crystal pulsed with a pale, shy pink.
“It’s wonderful, Lore.” Xander planted his hands on the base of the table, gazing lovingly up at the cake. “I wouldn’t change a thing.”
All this time, Xander’s crates were still hovering behind him, a little row of obedient baby ducks. I suddenly remembered myself, whispering apologetically. There we were cooing over Lore’s cake while Xander’s magic was doing all the heavy lifting.
“Oh, those? Right. Almost forgot about them.” He waved his hand to dismiss the spell. They drifted languidly onto the ground, settling there with a polite thunk.
“Yes,” said Master Gertrude. “Lovely. I’ll have someone over to transfer those to storage promptly. They work very well indeed for our purposes, Jackson. Simply load a decorative spell into the glass and it saves the magic for later. My compliments to you and your business partner.”
I bowed my head gratefully, making a mental note to pass said compliments along to Niko. Gertrude patted down her skirts again, then blinked.
“Goodness. Would you look at that. I forgot to bring your payment. See, this is why I try to delegate the business of doing business to others.”
“It’s okay, Master Gertrude.” I shook my hands at her. “You don’t have to pay me right this moment, it’s — ”
“Nonsense. You gentlemen sit tight. I’ll be right back.”
Gertrude Goodness hiked up her skirts and hightailed it through the doorway, off to collect her gold from wherever it was she kept it. The three of us stayed right there in the kitchen.I wrapped my arm across Xander’s shoulders, then smiled at Lore’s floating crystal body.
“Seriously, Lore. It’s perfect. Thank you.”
“But of course,” Lore replied, the light of his crystal glowing in time with his voice. “That’ll be ten thousand dollars, please.”
5
After the initialshock of Lore charging me for the cake, I had just enough of my nerves left to ask whether he meant ten thousand American, or Canadian, or — hell, why not — Singaporean dollars. He exploded into laughter, then explained he’d only said it to see the look on my face.
Xander laughed, too. Somehow, within the tiny alternate reality of Lore’s joke, I’d forgotten that the cake was meant to be his wedding gift. His and Whitby’s gift, in fact, because Whitby had apparently used his familiarity with the grounds of the original Halls of Making to help build the cake’s shape and structure.
To pass the time, long ago, Whitby would scan the guild compound, mapping the terrain and the buildings for posterity. Some years back, if someone had told me that a pair of sentient crystals would be responsible for designing my dream wedding cake, I would have laughed right in their face.
Hell, I would have laughed at anyone who tried to tell me I was going to get married at all. It took me quite a while to process that this was all really happening, despite how I’d initiated it myself by proposing. I liked to think that it was myown disbelief that got in the way. My dream guy, Alexander Wright, wanted to marry me. Me!
In that same way, I still hadn’t fully internalized that the Wrights were about to become my in-laws. That was the very next thing on the docket, to my dismay, right after our trip to Mother Dough. A quick visit with Xander’s parents. The main reason I even made it past the threshold of their admittedly beautiful home was the promise of a delicious lunch.
Well, that and the fact that Edric and Wilhelmina were about to become a part of my family. Or was it the other way around? It didn’t matter. For Xander’s sake, I needed to get used to seeing them more and more. And what better way to do so than by trapping myself with them in their little dining room? Or their little breakfast nook, as they liked to call it.
“A slice of lemon with your water, Master Jackson?”
I blinked, then smiled up at Harlock, the butler of the Wright household and formerly the only friendly presence in the entire place. He deposited a perfect, thin slice in my glass, as bright and circular as the sun. To my left, Xander was already working his way through his salad. Sitting across the table from us were Wilhelmina, powdered and pretty as always, and Edric, he of the sharp looks and even sharper tongue.
A tight squeeze in the breakfast nook, in all honesty. It was strange how the concept of space worked in the Wright house. From the street, or even from my kitchen window, their home had never looked any bigger than any of the other houses on Mystery Row. On the inside, though, I knew that the rooms stretched on and on. They even had an enormous banquet hall for special occasions, one filled with chandeliers and the longest dining table I’d ever seen.
The Wrights had no shortage of room in their palatial manor. But for smaller, more personal gatherings, the breakfast nook it was. At least this time there were no dirty tricks, like whenthey’d tried to introduce Xander to that fake Incandescent to drive a wedge between us. Archibald Fletcher turned out to be a charlatan and a coward in the end. Maybe the Wrights had learned their lesson.
And I had to learn mine — that is, the lesson of letting bygones be bygones, and of learning to trust my in-laws. They were much kinder to me since Xander and I announced that we were getting married, the harsher edges of their respective signature flavors toning down somehow. I’d always thought of Wilhelmina Wright as someone who was too sweet, artificially so. Edric Wright was the salty one, in contrast, with his cutting words and glances.
This time felt different. Wilhelmina seemed more relaxed, no longer constantly feeling the need to put on a show of sweetness. And while Edric didn’t smile any more than he used to, the subtle, pointed edges in his voice and his expression seemed to have softened. For what could have been the first time since I’d met them in childhood, the Wrights felt truly human.
