I flinched.<\/p>\n
“I don’t try and make enemies.\u00a0 I, um, have a Dragon on my metaphorical tail.\u00a0 Peredur wants me for something, Naul probably has a legitimate beef with me.\u00a0 I don’t know if Peredur counts as hostile, though, given I lost him his pretty fairy.\u00a0 I was paid by some old-fashioned Russian sorcerors, but that doesn’t mean they were happy with my services.\u00a0 My ex- runs a coven who is in the middle of a witch war and she seems to have some kind of vendetta against me.\u00a0 I was set up against the Shadow King.\u00a0\u00a0 I staked a vampire out in the sun for a while to get some answers. \u00a0She might hold a grudge. \u00a0Some -cubi have my worst interests at heart.\u00a0 My could-have-been-an-ex- is officially dead, although her phone called me and I haven’t called it back. \u00a0I’ve been told her death was a ruse.\u00a0 That’s just in the last few months, let alone days,” I sighed.<\/p>\n
“You keep busy,” he said, nodding.\u00a0 He held back the slip of paper to me.<\/p>\n
“Oh, you know, it’s important to keep a hand in,” I said, hoping the sardonic tone explained everything.\u00a0 I took the slip and put it back in my pocket.\u00a0 “What is it?”<\/p>\n
“Minus one handbasket, I’d say it was a pretty sincere threat.”<\/p>\n
I took it right back out of my pocket and placed it on the armrest of the couch.\u00a0 “You mean…” \u00a0I put it into context, and then took it back out. “That’s a floating place?”<\/p>\n
“Marlowe’s Doctor may have had the right of it.”\u00a0 He shrugged.<\/p>\n
“I say we make our own torments,” his wife said, coming back into the room and the conversation.\u00a0 She had something in her hand, a strange rock-like thing with an edge, kind of micro-obelisk-ish.\u00a0 If that’s a word.\u00a0 (Saying it aloud is hard to do after eating crackers, I bet.)<\/p>\n
“I don’t know if it’s a path I could set anyone upon,” the Questor half-smiled.<\/p>\n
“Don’t mind him,” his wife said, sitting next to me.\u00a0 “He’s an atheist.”<\/p>\n
I couldn’t help but make a surprised laugh.\u00a0 “I think you’re looking at a bigger picture than I can,” I said, finally, to the Questor.\u00a0 “Not that I’ve dealt really with non-manifest Powers.\u00a0 I just hear stories.”<\/p>\n
He grinned.\u00a0 “I try not to take anything on faith.”<\/p>\n
His wife rolled her eyes.\u00a0 “Here,” she said, putting the rock into my hand.\u00a0 I considered snatching my hand away at the last minute, but she was quick.<\/p>\n
It felt warm, very warm, and almost as if some kind of heartbeat were pulsing through it.\u00a0 “What is it?”<\/p>\n
“A tooth.\u00a0 I’d say about four warriors worth,” she grinned.\u00a0 “It’s not a major canine or anything.\u00a0 Anyway, I’m only letting you borrow it, not bury it.\u00a0 Next time Peredur comes a-calling, you have some leverage.”\u00a0 She tilted her head.\u00a0 “You’ll want to give me something in return so the pendulum swings freely and not at an angle.\u00a0 I’ll similarly keep it in trust.”\u00a0 She glanced at her husband.\u00a0 “It feels really weird to ask for such things. \u00a0Why is it always that calling out the rules sounds so ridiculous?”<\/p>\n
He chortled, but stayed quiet.<\/p>\n
I pulled out the rock the Small Folk had given me and gave it to her without hesitation.\u00a0 “It’s a wish, I think.”<\/p>\n
She held it up to her eyes and I could feel things moving around in the air as it was inspected on several different levels.\u00a0 It was like a music-box melody, with tiny little “pings” as the cylinder rotated and pushed bits of metal away.\u00a0 “A fair trade,” she said.\u00a0 “And both gifts perilous,” she smiled and I saw her teeth.<\/p>\n
“We only make the most interesting friends,” the Questor murmured to her.\u00a0 They clasped hands for a moment, smiling at each other.\u00a0 I smiled, too.<\/p>\n
“What is your next step?” the Questor’s wife asked.<\/p>\n
“Uh… I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” I admitted.\u00a0 I pulled out my phone.\u00a0 “I’ve been making lists.”<\/p>\n
“Things to do, promises to keep, how many miles before you can sleep?” she asked, teasingly.<\/p>\n
“Well, yes, and, yes, and, no.”<\/p>\n
“Can I make a suggestion?”<\/p>\n
“Try and stop her,” the Questor grinned.\u00a0 She slapped at the air near him.<\/p>\n
“Sure,” I said, bemused.<\/p>\n
“You are in no danger here.\u00a0 You will be in no danger, short of a Dragon, sleeping in your hotel room tonight.\u00a0 Get some rest.”\u00a0 She seemed quite sure of this, and I suspect it wasn’t just digging up a tooth that took so long in the back.<\/p>\n
“Am I allowed to thank you?”<\/p>\n
“What, do I look like a fairy?” she asked, with a hint of what I always thought was a New York accent.<\/p>\n
I shrugged, grinning. \u00a0They look however they want to look.<\/p>\n
“Alright, I’ve been accused of being a little fey at times. \u00a0 Anyway,\u00a0I understand you don’t want to be a wizard.\u00a0 I have had those moments, myself.”<\/p>\n
“About twice a month, if I recall correctly,” the Questor suggested.<\/p>\n
“Shush!” She grinned at him, then turned back to me. \u00a0“Once I took on the mantle I owed too many favours to get out of it again,” she said, adding, “Even if I knew how.\u00a0 You’ve been marked.”\u00a0 She made sure I knew it. \u00a0I nodded. \u00a0“Until whatever it is is truly relinquished, the kinds of things that are happening to you, and no, I don’t know or care what all of them are, will keep happening.”<\/p>\n
“So I’m stuck being a weirdness magnet until I somehow get rid of the invisible blot of Caine?”<\/p>\n
“Well, that’s a way of putting it,” she said, her grin turning wry. \u00a0“But you’re not Job or any martyr.” \u00a0She looked me straight in the eye, just long enough for me to see that she was serious without it becoming anything else. \u00a0“You could pick up the mantle, such as it is.”<\/p>\n
I shook my head.<\/p>\n
“What if I said wizards are made, not just born?” she asked. \u00a0“Why are you so afraid of it?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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