A Local Habitation

“You’re that worried about my welfare all of a sudden?” I looked at Gordan.

“Stuff it,” she said, not unkindly. “I just don’t want you upsetting Jan even more.”

“Right,” I said, standing and crossing to the coffeemaker. The pot was half-full; good. I didn’t want to bother brewing more. The bandages on my hands were light enough that I could handle it easily—I hadn’t lost any manual dexterity, and that was even better.

We were alone in the cafeteria, and the doors were locked with a warding charm of Jan’s design. I’d tried to open the door once, just out of curiosity, and found myself pushed gently but firmly back into the room. The seal was good. After dropping us off with Gordan, Jan and Terrie had disappeared to find Elliot and take care of the mess blocking the front gate.

“Toby?”

“Yeah?” The coffee was hot enough to be worth drinking. I took a long swallow and topped the cup off again. I was sure to need the caffeine.

“What are they going to do with the car?”

“Small questions, small minds,” Gordan muttered.

Ignoring her, I said, “Well, either they’re going to put up a really big illusion while they search for a giant can opener—”

“Yeah, right,” Quentin said, wrinkling his nose. Gordan snorted.

I settled next to him. “Like I said, either it’s giant can opener time, or they’ve got themselves a forklift.” My poor car.

“Will they call the cops?”

Gordan snorted again as I said, “Jan’s not going to call the police when she has a basement full of bodies.” That was good, since none of us wanted to be arrested for murder or carted off for dissection by the nice government men. That’s the kind of hospitality I can skip.

“Oh.” Quentin considered this. “What about our stuff?”

“Fireballs aren’t generally polite enough to leave everyone’s spare jeans intact.”

He sighed. “Great.”

“I know this is hard for you,” I said, fighting to keep from smiling, “but human teenagers wear the same clothes two days in a row all the time and it hasn’t killed any of them yet.” Quentin was doing the impossible: he was cheering me up. Well, him and the coffee.

Quentin wadded up his napkin and threw it at me. “Jerk.”

“Completely,” I said. “Besides. I spoke to Sylvester, and he said he was going to send someone to help.” And to take Quentin back to Shadowed Hills, although that could wait until he wasn’t still riding the adrenaline high of his very first auto accident. “So whoever it is, they’ll have a car, and they can get you some fresh clothes.”

“That won’t make trouble with Duchess Riordan?”

“Kid, at this point, she can cope.”

Gordan glared, opening her mouth. Whatever she was going to say was lost as the wards dissolved and the door swung open, letting Jan, Elliot, and Terrie into the room. Jan’s shoulders were squared and her chin was up; she looked like every other hero in Faerie, getting ready to strap on her shining armor and ride off to fight the dragon. That might be a problem, because the world has changed, and the heroes haven’t. Oh, they’re still the perfect solution when you’re dealing with dragons or damsels in distress—I figure that’s why Faerie keeps making heroes—but there’s a distinct shortage of problems that straightforward. Giants and witches, fairy-tale monsters . . . those are for heroes. For everything else, they have people like me.

All of us, even Gordan and Quentin, fell silent as we watched Jan walk to the coffeepot and fill a large mug, draining it dry before she turned toward me. Elliot tapped the top of the machine, which promptly started refilling the pot. Hearth magic has its uses, even if I couldn’t quite see how “making magic coffee” fell under the usual Bannick suite of abilities.