A Local Habitation

Sylvester must have been waiting for my call, because I was on hold less than a minute before he picked up, breathless. “Toby?”


“Here,” I confirmed. There were a few cold fries left on my room service tray. I picked one up, swirling it in a puddle of ketchup. “We’ve arrived safely, and I met your niece. You should’ve told me she was twitchy and paranoid.”

“I would have, if she normally were. Did she say why she stopped calling?”

“That’s the funny thing. She says she’s been calling, and that you haven’t been answering her messages.”

“Wait . . . what? But that’s ridiculous. Why would she say something like that?”

“You say she’s not paranoid. She says she’s been calling. You say she hasn’t been. This sounds to me like something’s up.” I popped the fry into my mouth, chewing quickly. “Is there any chance you can send reinforcements without causing some sort of diplomatic incident?”

“Not without more to go on, no. Did you talk to her?”

“Yeah. It was about as productive as talking to Spike. Maybe less. I mean, at least Spike makes an effort. It could be because she’s not sure I am who I say I am, and she’s trying to be careful. Has she been having a lot of issues with Dreamer’s Glass recently?”

“Not that I’m aware of.” Sylvester hesitated. “Are you comfortable continuing?”

“To be honest, no, but if she’s not getting messages somehow, I don’t think swapping me for somebody else is really going to make her less twitchy.” I sighed. “I’ll go back tomorrow and see what I can find. If you need to pull me out of here, we’ll reassess the situation from there. All right?”

“All right. Just keep me informed.”

“Of course.”

We chatted for a few minutes about inconsequential things—Luna’s latest gardening projects, my cats, Quentin’s performance so far—before I hung up with another promise to let him know if we needed anything. I was out as soon as my head hit the pillow.

My dreams were fuzzy, tangled things that faded when the sun came up. I rolled over, wrinkling my nose at the smell of ashes, and peered at the alarm clock. The first digit was a five, which was all I needed to see; groaning, I buried my head under the pillow and went back to sleep.

The sound of knocking hauled me back to consciousness about six hours later. I pulled my head out from under the pillow and glared at the door. The knocking continued. Knowing hotels, the knocking would probably be followed by someone from the housekeeping staff deciding to come in and start dealing with the sheets. I was too bleary to remember whether I’d thought to put up the “Do Not Disturb” sign.

Some people like to sleep naked; me, I like to sleep in a knee-length T-shirt. Nudity wasn’t the issue. The issue was that my human disguise had dissolved at sunrise, and I didn’t have time to weave a new one.

“Come back later!” I shouted, sitting upright and trying to finger-comb my hair over my ears. I could pass for human long enough to slam the door, if I could get my hair to behave. “I’m not decent!”

The sound of muffled laughter drifted through the door. “I didn’t know decency was a requirement for breakfast.”

“Alex?” I lowered my hands, scooting out of the bed and reaching for the hotel robe. “What are you doing here?”

“Currently? Shouting through your hotel room door. I brought breakfast.”

“Yes, but what are you doing here?” I shrugged into the robe, tying it shut as I moved to open the door. “I don’t remember ordering room service.”