“Inaya, I need you to trust me, and just follow me into the bookstore, okay? Also, tell me right now, did you forget anything? Phone? Keys? Wallet?”
“Do I seem like the absentminded type to you?”
I started walking, and she followed me halfway to the entrance before stopping abruptly and patting herself down. “I— No, wait—I didn’t forget anything. I just said that. Oh my God, are you a mentalist?”
“Just follow me, please.”
“Ellis said you’d lost your legs,” she said, eyeing my jeans, which concealed the prosthetics. “How did that happen?”
“We’ll talk about it later.”
“Can we go back to the sushi place? I really have to pee.”
“There are bathrooms inside,” I said. Actually, I had never seen any, but I was also pretty sure Inaya West wouldn’t show up to meet a stranger with a full bladder.
The ward was doing its tricks on me, too, of course, but once you’ve seen the structure of a spell and know what it’s doing to your brain, you can kind of compensate for it. Just like a glance in the mirror after a dental procedure tells you that your lip isn’t really three feet thick.
“All right,” said Inaya. “But let me just pop over to that shoe store quickly first.”
“You’re trying to avoid following me. It’s something the place does to you, a mind trick. My partner had to physically push me in the door.”
“Don’t even think about doing that.”
“I have no intention of it. But that’s why I need you to walk in under your own power, all right? By the time I count to ten, I need you to walk into that bookstore. If you do not, I am going to cause a public relations nightmare for you by pretending you pushed an amputee into the street.”
“You wouldn’t!”
“One . . . two . . .”
“I’ve always trusted my intuition,” she said, sounding deeply unnerved. “But I honestly don’t know what to do right now.”
“Three . . . four . . .”
“Part of me is just screaming that this is some kind of trap, but another part of me feels like my whole life has been leading up to it.”
“Five . . .”
She started to look panicky. “Do I sound crazy? I feel crazy.”
I shook my head reassuringly but kept counting. “Six . . .”
“I’m not crazy.” She straightened her spine and walked into the dizzying technicolor splendor of the Seelie bar with me close on her heels.
Immediately she backed into me, hard, and her “Sweet Jesus!” was so loud that the patrons swiveled to look at us. One or two of them recognized me and looked wary; the rest just went back to their drinking. A glowering giant of a man with carrot-red hair approached the two of us, blocking our way to the bar and folding his bulky arms.
“You are not authorized,” he said.
He used the word “authorized” with the same sort of childish glee that the Queen’s messenger had. His facade had been designed with intimidation in mind; he looked as though he could reach out and snap our necks with one beefy hand apiece.
“I’m with the Arcadia Project,” I lied. “Ask Baroness Fox-feather. And this is my guest.”
Beefcake stepped aside just enough to let Foxfeather see us. She tossed her golden mane over her shoulder and gave the two of us a brilliant smile. “I know Ironbones,” she said. “And her friend is familiar too.”
“Seen any hit films these last three decades?” I joked.
“No.”
“Oh.”
“But I go to a lot of parties,” Foxfeather explained. “It’s a great way to meet humans.”
“Would you excuse me for just a minute?” said Inaya shakily, and stepped out the door. I was about to hobble after her, but she stepped immediately back inside. “How is this even pos-sible? How are you doing this?”
“Let’s sit you down for a minute,” I said. “You look woozy.”
“She can’t stay here,” said the beefy guy.
“Let her stay, Craghorn,” said Foxfeather. “Look how pretty she is. And she’s with an Authority.”
Craghorn grumbled to himself and sat down in a booth alone, continuing to glare at the three of us as I led Inaya to the bar and eased her onto a stool. Foxfeather stared raptly at her.
“So,” I said to Inaya. “I am in no way supposed to be telling you this, but the reason this place looks like a bookstore on the outside is that it’s magic.”
Inaya shook her head firmly. Oh great, one of those, I thought. Admittedly she didn’t have the advantage of glasses to see the spell directly, and for most people paradigm shifts are pretty rough regardless.
“It’s not magic,” she said. “There has to be some explanation.”
“That is the explanation.”
“If magic is real, then I am pretty sure it’s the work of the devil, and I should be getting the hell out of here.”
“Inaya, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but the world doesn’t work exactly the way your preacher tells you it does.”
“An atheist in Los Angeles,” she said dryly. “I am so shocked.”
“Look, I am not an expert on Jesus, or the devil, or any of that. I am not trying to tell you there’s no God; how the hell would I know?”