11
It took us two hours, but we managed to get the suite put back together. And surprisingly, it was pretty easy to figure out where everything came from. Amie’s stuff was all pink, so anything with Barbie coloring went back into her room. Lesley’s stuff was just odd, so anything with unicorns, rainbows, or anime characters went back into hers. (Including tons of Japanese comic books about schoolgirls who were also vampires, or vampires who ate schoolgirls, or something like that. You’d think she saw enough of that kind of thing just being friends with us. But to each her own.)
When we were done, we flopped onto the couch in the common room.
“So, I guess that was part of Jeremiah’s plan,” I said.
“I guess so. I’m really starting to not like those guys. I mean, jury’s out on Sebastian, but the rest of them are hateful. Trying to steal a girl’s Grimoire. That is a total breach of magical etiquette.”
“It’s also messy. And illegal.”
“Seriously.” Scout looked over at me. “Do you think they’ll try again?”
“Until they solve the blackout or realize you have nothing to do with it.”
“So they won’t stop coming after us until they get their power back . . . and actually have the ability to come after us. I don’t really like that strategy.”
“They probably don’t, either. And what sucks worse? Other than knowing Reapers have lost their power and Jeremiah’s totally mad, we have no other clues.” I let out a frustrated sound and rolled my shoulders a little. “I need a break.”
“You’ve got one until study hall,” she said. Because of the shenanigans, classes had been canceled for the rest of the day. “Maybe we could take a walk, get a little fresh air. Ooooh,” she said, jumping up off the couch. “Let’s go to Gaslight.”
“What’s Gaslight?”
“Only the best magical trade shop in the tri-state area, offering magical surplus, supplies, and books for the exceptional spellbinder!”
I was caught between two emotions. Sadness that she was excited about something she may never get to use again, and amusement about how truly geeky that sounded.
I decided to feel amused.
“Wow. That was so geeky it, like, transcends normal geeky and moves straight into hella geeky. Or maybe über geeky.”
She stuck out her tongue at me. “Grab your messenger bag. It’s a short walk. We’ll grab a snack while we’re out.”
“Are we supposed to be leaving campus like this?”
“We just saved Foley a whole lot of grief by skipping the magical details. She owes us one.”
Scout was leaving out the part about how the fire alarm had been faked to get to her Grimoire, which made the whole incident our fault. But I didn’t think she’d appreciate the reminder.
“Fine,” I said. “But this time you’re the one who has to make up an excuse.”
She got her chance pretty quickly. We’d gotten our gear and were just preparing to leave when the door opened, and Veronica and Amie walked in.
Amie smiled. “It looks much better in here. Thanks for getting it taken care of.”
“You’re welcome,” Scout said. “Sorry for the mess.”
Veronica looked us over suspiciously. “Where are you two going?”
Scout jumped in with an answer. “Lily’s out of craft glue,” she said, “and she still has more, you know, decorations to do. So we were going to run down to the pharmacy and grab some. Sneak errand!” She waved her hands in the air excitedly.
“Wow,” I muttered under my breath, but Veronica must have bought it, or at least was bored by the conversation, because she and Amie moved back into her room.
“Let’s get going,” Scout said, “before she changes her mind and follows us.”
Probably a good idea.
* * *
A sign above the door read GASLIGHT GOODS. The door was framed by two old-fashioned lanterns, small flames flickering in the breeze.
“A bookstore?” I asked her.
“Calling it that hardly does it justice,” Scout said, pushing open the door and jingling a leather strap of bells that hung on the inside.
The store smelled faintly smoky. Not in a bad way—more like “fall campfire” than “burnt toast.” It wasn’t a big store, and it was divided neatly into areas by tall white bookshelves loaded with books, spices, and candles. Long ropes of beads and stones hung along one wall beside a set of tall wicker urns that held branches in various colors. The walls were painted cheerily white, and clerks in white lab coats milled around with feather dusters. Unfortunately for them, they were just about the only other people in the store except for a family of obvious tourists—complete with matching I CHICAGO baseball caps.
Scout picked up a red wire basket from a stack by the door and immediately headed for a shelf that held various kinds of salt.
“Don’t people wonder about a magic store in the middle of downtown Chicago?” I asked quietly.
Scout picked up a small glass bottle of pinkish salt, held it up to the light, and squinted at it. “They don’t wonder because they assume it’s a joke.” She put the bottle back on the shelf, and grabbed a bottle of gray salt instead.
“Why gray instead of pink?”
Scout shrugged and moved over to the next bank of shelves, which held old coins and metal knickknacks. “It’s my go-to shade.”
“Veronica has lip stain; you have salt.”
“Not just salt. Brittany sea salt from France. It has great stick.”
“Stick?” I asked, picking up a small metal dog that looked like a miniature schnauzer. It was heavy for its size, and had a crazy level of detail—little ears, little tufts of fur, and a perky little tail.
“Stick,” she repeated. “It means . . . the spell has staying power. It sticks around for a long time. Doesn’t just fade away like cheap perfume.”
She picked up a coin, weighed it in her hand, and then put it back on the shelf again.
While she perused the coins, I put the tiny dog back and looked at the rest of the metal items. There were lots of them, and they were all just as detailed—a tiny Ferris wheel; a lantern; a potted sunflower; a laptop.
“What are these?” I asked Scout, holding up the lantern.
“They’re called icons,” she said. “It stands for Iterated Condensations of Normal Space.”
“Using English—no magic speak—explain to me what that means.”
“Just call ’em icons,” Scout said. “You use them to symbolize something in a spell. Something you want. Something you want to effect. A quality you want to give something.”
My gaze went back to the tiny dog, and I picked it up again. I know it sounds weird, but I liked the way it felt in my hand. It was a cute little dog with a funny little expression. But it felt kind of right.
“I like this one.”
She looked over. “Good choice. Dogs have good energy.”
I put the dog back on the shelf again. “So is this stuff just for people who do spells? Spellcasters or spellbinders or whatever?”
“Not at all. There are books, gear with the Adept and Reaper symbols on them if you want to go full out. And people who can make stuff with their magic sometimes sell the stuff they make. You can get all that here. Oooooh,” she suddenly said, making a beeline for the wicker urns of branches. “I need to look at those. The books are over there,” she said, pointing to the other side of the room. “If you want to take a look.”
I watched her pick through the branches, pulling out one after another, looking it over, and shoving it back into the basket. I’m not sure what she was looking for, but it was certainly beyond anything I could see. As far as I could tell, they were just tree limbs—the kinds of sticks an interior designer might throw into a vase on a dining room table.
I took her advice and walked to the book area, which filled the shelves on the back wall of the store. They looked like comic books and graphic novels, but then again, so did Scout’s Grimoire.
“I wonder if these are magic books, too,” I muttered.
“Can I help you?”
I glanced behind me. A guy whom I guessed was in his twenties, with short black hair, a Gaslight uniform, and a name tag that read KITE smiled at me. His teeth were a little bit crooked, which made him seem cuter, actually. Friendlier. More real.
“Are these really graphic novels? Like, comic books?”
“They really are.”
I looked at him for a sec, trying to figure out if he was telling me the truth and these were just normal books . . . or if they were magic books in disguise and he wasn’t sure whether he could trust me.
“If I was, um, special, would they still be graphic novels?”
“Yes,” he slowly said, looking at me with an odd expression. “Can I help you find something?”
“Hard to believe,” Scout said, joining us, “but she is totally for real. ‘Special,’ she says. Poor girl thinks everything in here is magical.” She fluttered her hands in the air. “Woo woo!”
Kite laughed knowingly. “Noob?”
“Totally. But got firespell her first time out.”
Kite’s eyes widened, and there was a little more respect in his face. “No kidding. Nicely done.”
Not that I’d had any choice in the matter, but I said, “Thanks,” anyway.
“I just thought they might be—”
“Because we’re in a magic shop,” Scout hurriedly finished. “We know, we know. Silly girl. Hey, do you have any of those beeswax candles I like?”
Kite frowned. “There weren’t any on the shelf?”
“Not that I saw.”
“Maybe we have some in the back. Let me check.”
“Thanks!” Scout said. As soon as he was out of sight, she gave me a sharp pinch on the arm.
“Hello, ow,” I said, rubbing the spot. “What was that for?”
“Ixnay on the graphic novel bit. The form of my Grimoire is just between you and me. Gaslight Goods is Switzerland.”
“It’s Switzerland?”
“Neutral territory,” she explained. “Reapers and Adepts are both allowed in here, and Kite loves gossip. That can work well for us—he gives us info when he’s got it to give, but he gives it to the other side, as well. So you have to be very careful what you say, because the information’s probably not going to stay here.”
“What happens in Gaslight Goods does not stay in Gaslight Goods?”
“Precisely.”
My stomach turned. I had almost given away the secret form of Scout’s Grimoire to some guy I didn’t even know just because he worked in a magic shop. Just because I’d assumed he seemed like a nice guy and, therefore, would have been some kind of Adept sympathizer. I was a magical disaster waiting to happen.
“I am so sorry,” I said, but she shook her head. “I had no idea.”
“No harm, no foul. Even if he figured it out, I could always change the form. We just have to be careful.”
We might have to be careful, but if Kite really liked to gossip, maybe we could use that to our advantage.
Kite emerged from the back room with an open cardboard box in hand. We followed him to the candles, where he began restocking the shelves.
Scout grabbed a couple. “So, Kite, how are things around the store?”
He made a low whistle. “Very, very slow. The blackout hasn’t exactly been good for business. Not many people stocking up on supplies when they aren’t sure when they’ll be able to use them again.”
“You know about the blackout?” I asked. Scout rolled her eyes.
“It’s not exactly common knowledge,” Kite said, “but I like to stay in the loop.”
Speaking of which: “Kite, we’ve heard Reapers are having some internal issues. Like, folks are really mad at Jeremiah. What’s your take on that?”
Scout’s eyes widened at my question, but then she smiled a little. She must have figured out where I was going.
“Only that the hierarchy’s getting nervous.”
“Hierarchy?” I asked.
“The Scions,” Scout put in. “Jeremiah and the others. The ones who lead the rest of them into committing heinous acts.”
“Switzerland,” Kite reminded her, and she gave him a canny smile.
“So why are they getting nervous?” I asked. “We’ve heard there are lots of rumors floating around the sanctuaries. Are the rumors making folks nervous?”
Kite shook his head. “My theory? People are nervous, and the rumors are how they’re coping.”
“How so?” Scout asked.
“Well, there are two tiers within the Dark Elite. Just like with Adepts, there are the ones who fight the war—who hang out in the sanctuaries and are in touch with the leadership, and there are the ones who stay home and mind their business. They’re called the ‘old ones.’ They keep their magic quietly. They take energy a little at a time. Slowly. Carefully. They don’t get wrapped up in the politics, and they tend to believe in fairy tales.”
“Fairy tales?” I repeated.
Kite nodded. “Think old-school fairy tales—the terrifying kind where everybody learns an important lesson about wandering around in the dark alone. Only they tend to think of them more like history than children’s stories.”
Okay, that was weird. But it got weirder.
Kite looked around, then leaned in. “Anyway, last week a few of these old-school types come in, and they’re fretting about leadership, and one of them mentions this old Scottish fairy tale about a boy named Campbell.”
“Who was he?” I asked.
“Supposedly, he led an army against the evil baron who was controlling their area of Scotland. He was helped by a band of fairies and pixies—little magical creatures—but after he won control of the country, he became as evil as the guy he’d replaced. Eventually, he banished the fairies and pixies from his country.”
Scout and I exchanged a glance. It was sad, sure, but an old fairy tale didn’t exactly help us figure out who was making trouble in modern-day Chicago.
“I don’t get it,” Scout said. “What does this have to do with Reapers?”
“They’re repeating the story like it’s gospel,” Kite said. “Every time they talk about Jeremiah, someone brings up the tale of Campbell.”
“Okay,” Scout said, “but maybe they’re just saying the grass is greener, or whatever. You know, don’t complain about what we have, ’cause the next guy could be worse?”
“Honestly,” Kite continued, “I don’t know if they believe it or if they just want to. They’re completely without magic right now, and they want someone to blame. Jeremiah’s the obvious choice. I think the rumors are making the Scions nervous. Rumors have power, after all.” He slid us a glance. “Have you heard anything else?”
“Not really,” Scout said, and Kite frowned.
Maybe, I thought, it was time to get more specific. “Kite, have you seen Sebastian Born in here lately?”
He blinked, then seemed to mull it over. “Sebastian? Not for a few days. Again, that’s probably because of the blackout.”
“Could you give us a call if he comes in again?” I asked.
“Is there anything in it for me? I mean, to be fair, I am running a business here. And business is slow.”
I was already committed, so I kept pushing along. “How about information?”
He perked up. “What did you have in mind?”
Scout had mentioned that trying to take her Grimoire was a breach of magical etiquette. Maybe if Kite knew about it, and spread the word about it, Reapers would get embarrassed enough to back off. Long shot? Sure. But I was grasping at straws.
“Members of the Dark Elite broke into St. Sophia’s today,” I finally said.
His eyes widened. “Oooh, that is interesting. Why did they do it?”
I glanced at Scout. She nodded. “They’re trying to take magical property that doesn’t belong to them. A spellbook.”
Kite’s mouth dropped into an “O.” “You are not serious.”
“Scout’s honor,” I said. Literally.
Kite stood up again. “That’s definitely interesting. If he comes in, I’ll call you.” He flattened out his box and glanced down at Scout’s basket. “If you’re ready, I can head over to the register and check you out?”
She picked through the stash. “Yep. Got everything I need.”
“Cool,” he said, and we followed him back to the register. He slipped each item into a paper bag with handles after scanning them in. When he was done, he pulled off the receipt and handed it to Scout, who looked it over and pulled a wad of cash from her pocket. Kite took Scout’s money and handed over her bag.
“Thanks, Kite.”
“You’re welcome, Scout. You girls try to have a nice day.”
We always tried; we just weren’t always successful.
* * *
“So now you want to follow Sebastian? Do you think he’s a bad guy?” she asked when we were out the door and a few steps down the street.
“I have no idea,” I said. “And that’s exactly my point. Maybe he really wants to help us. Maybe he doesn’t. I don’t think there’s any harm in listening to him . . . or in keeping an eye on him.”
“I guess. I’m glad we went in there, but I’m not really sure it was helpful. I mean, a fairy tale? How could that possibly help us?”
“I have no idea, unless . . .”
She stopped and looked at me. “Unless what?”
An idea began to blossom. “What if the old ones don’t think it’s just a fairy tale?”
Scout frowned. “What do you mean?”
“What if they’re not just repeating the story because it’s like a symbol, but because they think someone named Campbell is going to overthrow Jeremiah?”
She waved a hand. “That’s not the way fairy tales work. They’re just repeating them because they’re nervous about what might happen if someone tries to kick him out—and someone worse gets put in charge. And PS, a little warning about Kite. He’s well-intentioned, but he tends to be kinda dramatic. Just because he heard people talking about it doesn’t mean it’s a big deal.”
“Sure,” I said, as we started walking again, but I wasn’t convinced. Maybe it was just a hunch, and maybe it would turn out to be wrong, but I had a feeling this fairy tale was more than just people talking. I think they were talking about that specific fairy tale for a reason, and I knew someone who might be able to shed a little light on it. I didn’t want to call Sebastian right here; I felt weird calling him in front of Scout. But I would later. The opportunity for more info was too good to pass up.
“Should we tell Daniel about the fairy tale?” I asked.
“For all the good it’ll do, yeah, we probably should.” She patted down her messenger bag. “Crap. I left my phone in my room. Do you have his number?”
I searched through my bag, but it wasn’t in there. I must have put it down after the battle with the cheerreaper. “I apparently do not.”
“No worries. We can tell him tonight at Enclave.”
Perfect. That would give me a little time to do some investigating of my own.
* * *
We’d walked only a couple of blocks when Scout stopped short. “How about a snack?” she asked. “I am starving.”
Since breakfast had been a handful of fruit candy and a bottle of orange juice, I was also starving. “Fine by me.”
“I know just the place,” she said, then headed down a side street. I could smell something cooking—something fried and buttery. The smell was coming from a small shop tucked between two hotels—with a line out the door ten to fifteen people deep.
We walked past the door, but the store was so small I couldn’t see what they were selling.
“This is the place?” I wondered.
“This is the place,” she said, then walked to the end of the line, crossed her arms, and faced the door, her expression all business.
Whatever they sold, this girl was serious about it.
“Any hints about what this is?” I whispered, as more people joined the line behind us. Folks were leaving, but the stuff they’d bought was hidden in small paper bags and coffee cups. Doughnuts, maybe? Muffins? Cupcakes?
“That would really ruin the surprise,” Scout said.
Ten minutes later we reached the threshold, and I could finally see inside the shop. Two men and a woman stood behind a counter. The woman was at the cash register. One of the guys stood in front of a giant round fryer, and the other was mixing a giant kettle with a wooden spoon.
“Churros con chocolate,” Scout said, in a pretty good Spanish accent. “Fried dough and this crazy thick chocolate. You’ll love it.”
Of course I would. I mean, it wasn’t exactly a hard sell. Chicken-fried grasshoppers would have been questionable. Eyeball of eel would have been a no-go from the start. But pastries and chocolate? Yeah, I’d give that a whirl.
The place smelled like grease, sugar, and chocolate. Totally intoxicating. When we finally got to the counter, Scout ordered for us and handed over some cash. The girl took the money, then used tongs to lift long fried thingies into a paper bag. Scout took the bag; I took the two small foam cups that followed.
We took the booty and headed outside again. I felt a little guilty as we passed the other folks in line. They looked longingly at our stuff, probably wishing they were the ones with food in their hands.
I followed Scout across the street to a stone office building with a low concrete railing around it. She popped up onto it, then patted the railing beside her. “People watching 101.”
I took a seat and handed over her cup while she offered up a churro. It was still hot and a little greasy. More crunchy than soft, with ridges along the edges.
“Behold,” Scout said, then pulled out her own snack, opened a cup of chocolate, and dipped the churro into it. “Dip and munch,” she said, then took a bite.
I followed her example . . . and had to close my eyes to take in all the flavors. Hot. Crunchy. Sweet. Bitter. Smooth.
Amazing.
“OMG, you are a goddess,” I said, going back for another bite. At this rate, I’d have the thing finished before she even answered.
“That’s not even the best part,” she said. “Look up.”
Still munching, I lifted my gaze. With the sidewalk in front of us, and streets all around us, we had a fantastic view . . . of people. All shapes and sizes. All genders and ethnicities. A short, prickly-looking man with a tiny dog. A couple of tired-looking tourists with a baby stroller.
“Oooh, peep this,” Scout quietly said, nudging me with her elbow. Two of the tallest people I’d ever seen were walking past us. They wore the same outfits—neon-bright pants and even brighter shirts. They were blindingly bright. Where could you wear that kind of thing?
“Maybe they work in really dark rooms,” Scout said, reading my mind. “Or they direct traffic.”
“Or work in a highlighter factory. Or make paint chips.”
“People are just odd,” she said, and I really couldn’t disagree with that.
* * *
We ate our churros, and when they were gone, I followed Scout’s lead and took a sip from the cup. The chocolate was thick, rich, and delicious. Not that there was a chance it wouldn’t be—we were basically drinking melted chocolate.
“I would take an IV of this every morning,” I murmured.
“Seriously, right? I wish they had a delivery service. I need to wake up every morning with chocolate and churros outside my bedroom door.”
“Oooh, and the brat pack would have to be banned from the store forever. I mean, if we’re talking big dreams here.”
“I like the way you think, Parker. I’ve always said that about you.”
“Speaking of the brat pack, what are we going to do about Veronica?”
“Ignore her?”
“Nicu won’t appreciate that,” I pointed out. “We promised him a meeting tonight. And since he brought my boyfriend back in one piece, I’d really like to keep it.”
“All we have to do is get them in the same place at the same time. I assume we need to do it at night because, you know, Nicu is a vamp, but it can’t be too late, because she’ll be in pajamas and we won’t be able to convince her to leave her suite.”
“We’re going to have a hard enough time convincing her to leave at all. She’ll think we’re up to something.”
“What about during party prep? Can we arrange a meet then?”
I shook my head. “She’ll be there with Amie and M.K., and they’ll follow her. We need to separate her from the herd.”
Scout chuckled. “If that was so easy, I’d have saved her years ago. How do you separate someone who doesn’t want to be separated?”
I thought about that for a minute. “Don’t give her a choice.”
“I’m not going to kidnap Veronica.”
“That’s not where I was going, but good to know.” I shook my head. “No, we need to make her want to be there.”
“And how do we do that?”
“I’m still working on that part.”
While we thought it through, we sat on the stone rail and finished our chocolate quietly, watching the passersby. They all looked normal, but then, so did we.
I turned to Scout. “How many of these people know about magic, do you think?”
“None of them, if we’re playing the odds. There are six Enclaves in Chicago. Figure twenty or so JV Adepts per Enclave.”
“Twenty? That’s a ton.” We had only seven.
“We’re wee. Most Adepts don’t go to school in the Loop.”
She had a point.
“So twenty JVs per Enclave, six Enclaves in the city, that’s roughly one hundred and twenty Adepts total. Maybe add in a few who don’t know they have magic or haven’t been identified—”
“Or just don’t want to be involved,” I added, feeling sympathetic.
“Or that. I don’t know—maybe you end up with two hundred active Adepts at any given time. And in a city of nearly three million, if we’re talking members of the Community, probably more than that. They don’t ‘age out’ like we do, so their numbers grow over time. Well, unless Reapers take them out.”
We got quiet at that suggestion. I didn’t want to think about the Community members I’d met so far being harmed because they agreed to help us. Of course, they seemed to believe in the cause, so maybe it wasn’t a hard choice for them.
“So odds are, most of these people walking past don’t know about us.” I sipped at my chocolate. It was cooling, so it was getting thicker and almost gritty—and it was already chocolaty enough that it made my teeth ache. But it was the best kind of hurt.
“Probably not,” Scout said.
Realization struck as I took the final sip. “We’re thinking about this Veronica thing too hard.”
“How so?” Scout asked.
“She’s already thinking about another guy, right? Someone other than Creed? She said so at her locker the other day. She just doesn’t know who the other guy is.”
“So?”
“So we bring the guy to her.”
“Parker, I am intrigued.”
“I knew you would be,” I said, and laid out our plan.