Page 132 of A Fae in Finance
“It appears your quest was an eventful one,” Nele said, disentangling herself from her sister, whose claws were now ripping holes in my quilt.
“Indeed,” Sahir said. He reached around me and scratched Doctor Kitten’s head.
“Should we go to the Princeling now?” I asked.
Sahir put his face in my hair, sniffed me, and scrunched up his nose. “If you would like him to associate you forevermore with the smell of a decomposing badger, you are welcome to visit him in this state, Miriam.”
I glowered at him and put Doctor Kitten back on the bed. Lene curled around him, sniffling. “Fine. Let’s all shower and reconvene in thirty minutes?”
“Very bossy,” Sahir said. “Perhaps even hot and bossy, as a wise woman once described me.” He waggled his eyebrows in the general direction of an invisible audience. If Sahir decided to develop a sense of humor, it might be the last straw for my sanity.
I lamented introducing him to my mother.
“I don’t want to shower,” Lene said, her eyes red. “I don’t ever want to leave this bed again, and I certainly don’t ever want to go on an excavator to a train.”
I looked at Sahir, expecting him to take all the faeries outside with him so that I could bathe.
“Well, if you’re going to be staying here for the foreseeable future, you might as well have a bathroom with a door,” Sahir said instead. He clapped his hands together and then did something anatomically improbable with his fingers. Tendrils of chestnut magic dripped from his palms like vines, crept across the room with stubborn intent. Where they stopped, columns of brown fibrous matter erupted from the wooden slats of my floor, twisting upward around each other like strangling ivy on a trellis. The twining pillars widened until they’d all connected, forming a textured wall that hit the ceiling. As I watched, the wall dimpled and developed an inset complete with a wooden door, which was inset itself with a small circular cat flap with pointed ears.
And suddenly, I had an en suite bathroom.
I gaped at him. “You could have done that at any time?” I growled.
Sahir wisely made his exit, grabbing Gaheris by the back of his tunic and dragging him along.
Gaheris pulled a mouse out of the portal as he went.
Nele, Lene, and Doctor Kitten tracked the mouse, dangling by its tail from Gaheris’s hand. I felt relieved when he pulled the door shut with his trailing foot on the way out.
“Okay, I’m going to shower,” I said, approaching my new, very, very long and narrow bathroom. After a moment’s hesitation, I pushed on the handleless door. It opened soundlessly, revealing the same layout as before: the sink, toilet, and shower across the back wall, and Doctor Kitten’s litter box beneath the window.
I shut the door, remembered I needed clean clothes, and reopened the door.
Along the brand-new inside wall was a brand-new wooden dresser. I frowned at Lene, who was now sitting upright. She shrugged.
Next to her, Nele pretended not to watch us.
“Sahir is right,” Lene said. “It should be a home for you.” And with a complicated twisting motion, she sent all of the clothes scattered across the floor and shoved haphazardly into the suitcase flying across the room. Sparks of green-gold magic danced between them, and everywhere a spark touched, the clothes folded themselves. I realized that I’d never thought about Lene as a proficient magic wielder, and that I should probably revise that opinion.
The dresser drawers opened and I watched in awe as my clothes sorted themselves appropriately.
“Thank you,” I said, a bit stunned.
“Of course,” she said. With another, far more careless gesture, she sent my suitcase to rest in one of the newly created corners of the room. I rummaged for underwear and a new tunic and leggings. By the time I’d pulled them out, Lene and Nele had set up a cat obstacle course on the wall above my bed. I turned around and frowned at it. It was a series of platforms, some covered in carpet, that ran from the floor to the ceiling, and horizontally across the entire wall.
“Making it a home?” I asked.
“It’s Doctor Kitten’s home, too,” Lene said. Doctor Kitten didn’t appear interested in the new platforms. I imagined he wouldn’t be interested until three a.m., at which point he would be both interested and loud.
I went back into the bathroom and shucked off my dirty clothes. I got into the shower, reveling in the waterfall’s pressure and the soothing smell of the lavender soap. When I’d scrubbed myself clean, I stepped out and into the drying stream, then dressed.
“That was less than ten minutes,” Lene said.
I thought about checking my work email, but the prospect of hundreds of unread emails made me hesitate. On some level, it didn’t matter if I checked my email or not. If I sent Jeff a response, he would be angry about it, and if I didn’t send Jeff a response, he would be angry about that.
Instead, I napped on the somehow-wider bed next to my cat and my friend and my friend’s surly sister for fifteen minutes. When Sahir knocked on the door, I left Nele, Lene, and Doctor Kitten curled up together, sleeping.
I stepped outside and closed the door softly behind me.
