I stared at the screen at the hotel, and put on the Food Network for background noise.  I had had the strangest run of what I would normally have considered luck, but after a night with the Questor and his family, understood was magic.  Several kinds of magic, really.  Good conversation, good food, all of that was a magic we folk who aren’t wizards share.  Of course, the full set of green lights on the way back, the upgraded suite, the little perks, that was the kind of magic wizards could share and too often didn’t.  I didn’t know what the karmic repercussions were, but the whole, “The aggravations are kept to a minimum,” feel of it seemed like a blessing more than a spell.

I let the comforting buzz of Kitchen Stadium fill the air while I leaned back on the extra pillows I hadn’t needed to ask for from room service.  I think the secret ingredient was spoo or targ heart or something.  I wasn’t really paying attention.   I was thinking of Gideon and the monsters of Midian a la Clive Barker, honestly, having verified the contents of my hotel room’s desk drawer.  (And checked for signs of bedbugs.  Maggie got me into that way of thinking from her day job.   How I long sometimes for the bliss of ignorance.)

The phone on the desk rang.

I ignored it.  It simply couldn’t be for me.  Someone who wanted to call me would have used my cellphone.  I checked to make sure I hadn’t missed anything, idly, and then slid it back onto the table.

It rang again.  Someone was trying to get ahold of someone who had left this room, I decided.   It was too late for any courtesy call.

I let it ring a third time before curiosity got my tongue and killed the cat, or whatever the phrase is.

“You never called me back,” Sylvie said.

“You were supposed to be dead,” I said, feeling very nervous.  The Questor’s wife said I was safe from anything less than a Dragon.  I had believed her.  I was sitting in my boxers half-watching delicious blue bantha ice cream being prepared for the dessert portion of the competition.

Of course, magic can’t fix the human things you messed up.

“Oh, that.  Look, Maggie’s crazy.”

That wasn’t a newsflash.  “I always thought so.  Have you seen the way she drives?”

“No, she’s got some kind of rage-on for you.  I got some help from a… friend,” I knew without even asking that she meant an Other ally I wouldn’t approve of, “and tried to leave the coven.  I guess you got caught in the cross-fire.”

“You had to fake your own death in order to leave?  I think I saw this cult in this movie, once.   And you’re calling to apologize for me taking the fall?”  I was suspicious.  “How in the coldest Peruvian afterlives did you get my number?”

“You’re, um, well, you’re bugged.  In a magical way.  We lost track of you earlier this evening, but the auguries found you again.  I was calling to try to tell you not to come back.”

“What?  Since when am I in a spy novel?”

“You let a witch help you in your convalescence.  Do you know how many bandages you left lying around?  At least you need to skip out of town for a while.  I’m serious.  After the blow-up between Maggie and Matana, and the whole Rohana thing, you’re on her hit list.”

“You make it sound so literal,” I gulped.  “What Rohana thing?”

“Um, your girlfriend, right?  Who lives with Joy, Maggie’s Second?”

I remembered Joy only vaguely.  The Magster didn’t share well, and I got the impression (the few times I had actually listened to coven gossip) that she more had an understudy than any assistance.  Joy wasn’t one of my favourites, and in fact, I remembered her as kind of mean.

Wait.   Rohana lived with Joy?  My girlfriend was some other girl’s girlfriend?  I wanted to say it wasn’t an unpleasant thought, exactly, but I was kind of feeling weird about it.  Really, except for its inevitability in adult video design, I had never really thought of anything like that happening to me.   On the other hand, Rohana didn’t seem the type to like mean girls.  Not that I had any right to determine Rohana’s preferences.  I liked that she seemed to like me, because that gave me license to like her.  So there was probably a whole lot to Joy that I didn’t know, and I was just about to give her a pass on the mean thing I couldn’t remember, except that if she was also part of Mag’s coven she might be trying to kill me.  What if she knew Rohana was cheating on her with a guy?  My ticket to death city was about to be validated.

“Uh, E?”

Oh, I was involved in a conversation.  “Sorry, I was thinking.”

“Well, do it fast, and do it right,” she snapped. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she immediately apologized.  “You have no idea how stressed I am.  There’s so much happening and I’m suddenly in the middle of it.  I thought… I thought it would be different.”  She sounded lonely and sad for a moment.

“Of course they bite.  What did you expect them to do?  Grant wishes?”  I can’t have any of my chivalric tendencies manipulated like that.

“What?”

“It’s a reference to a movie.  Nevermind.”  I sighed.  “All my stuff is back at my place.  It would have to be pretty convincing to have me leave it behind.”

“Fire?  Flood?  Blood?”

“Ah, the terrible trio.  Now we are on to threats,” I said, and an anger took me.  “Look, I don’t care what kind of games you guys are playing.  Stay out of my way, and I’ll stay out of yours.  I’m not a witch, I’m not involved in your war, and I’ll handle the Shadow King my own way.”

“Your own way,” she repeated.  “You can’t have it, you know.”

“Yeah, it’s Shadow King, not Burger King.”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Ditto,” I said, and I hung up on her.  Who did she think she was, anyway?

I stared at the phone for a moment as I realized that was indeed a good part of the question.