She burst out laughing, the uncomfortable tension dissipating. “You really did check out that book on humor, huh?”
“It was an excellent recommendation.” I tried to relax. “I know it’s not massively thrilling, but would you like to help me finish the evening feed?”
“Can we put on some music?” she asked, trailing her fingertips absently across the glass orb, inching closer to my own hand.
“Only if I get to pick.”
She grinned. “Hmm… we’ll see about that.”
“You never know, you might like my taste.” I resisted the urge to move my hand and grasp hers, afraid to spook her. This was the closest thing to physical contact we’d had in six months, and I didn’t want to burst this bubble with a potential rejection. I decided I would be content just to spend time in her company until I was sure that she wanted what I wanted.
Her fingertips stopped an inch shy of contact, and her mesmerizing gray eyes locked on mine, a world of unspoken words and mysteries hiding within them. “Stranger things have happened.”
Five
Persie
The last shards of crimson, cobalt, and burnished orange saturated the clouds outside my bedroom window, and the clock on my desk read five to nine. I’d just signed off a video call with my mom and dad, checking in on how things were going back home. “All good” appeared to be the general consensus, but my parents had gotten better at hiding their work troubles from me over time, and this time, they had avoided the subject completely.
“What do you think? Did they look worried to you?” I asked the pixies, who’d made the video call… interesting, to say the least. Cynane was in the middle of creating a Picasso-esque masterpiece in my sketchbook, dragging my best lipstick—or rather, my mom’s best lipstick, which I’d rammed into a coat pocket and forgotten about—over the pages. Spartacus was slow dancing on the windowsill with my Thread Bear, and Boudicca had put on the show to end all shows, using the desk as her stage to mimic everything my parents had said in her usual brand of contemporary dance.
Boudicca shrugged and walked over to Cynane’s makeshift art studio, scooping up a handful of lipstick from the bullet and streaking it across her cheeks and body like warpaint. She whirled around, contorting her face into a terrifying mask, then began to creep up on an innocent pencil. She leapt on it, dragging her victim to the edge of the desk before dropping it off the edge.
“You think more magicals have gone missing?” I tried to interpret.
She chattered agreement. To expound on her thoughts, she stretched her lips in a manic grin and batted her long eyelashes. I understood immediately.
“They were acting overly casual, right? I thought so, too.”
Boudicca pointed to herself and puffed out her chest, then jabbed a finger at my phone and pulled a sour face, swiping her hands through the air in a big cross.
I laughed. “They’re not as good at acting as you are?”
She grinned and nodded. At this, Spartacus flew over, with Thread Bear dangling from his embrace, and started to perform a dramatic scene of loss and love. Evidently, he wanted in on the acting accolades. When he was a few seconds shy of a Hollywood kiss with my childhood teddy, I grabbed the bear and held him to my chest before he could suffer any further indignities at Spartacus’s overeager hands. Cynane, who’d paused in her drawing, cackled at Spartacus, which led to a high-pitched argument that would’ve come to blows if Boudicca hadn’t launched a teaspoon at Spartacus’s head.
Did I bite off more than I can chew? I’d taken the pixies out of the Repository before, many times, but the idea of having them in my care for an entire day suddenly felt daunting, especially since I’d decided to stop using Inwalla on them. I’d learned that the hypnotic-obedience effect only lasted until the next sunrise. After that, it had to be repeated—or else the spell broke and the pixies went back to listening as and when they wanted. Naturally, things were far easier when they were under the influence of Inwalla, but it felt wrong for me to wrangle them like that. I preferred the trust-and-friendship method to mind control. It wasn’t an exact science, but the four of us were making it work.
“I wonder if news has filtered through to my parents about Charles Burniston yet?” I sank back in my chair, speaking mainly to Boudicca and Cynane, since Spartacus was busy rubbing his skull and pouting.
Cynane snorted and shook her head, emitting a doubtful squeak.
I sighed. “You’d think that after a few global threats, everyone would’ve learned to work together by now.”
Boudicca gestured slyly at Spartacus, as if to say: “You just have to look at us to know that’s not true.”
I folded my arms across my chest and thought about Charles, the missing research scientist from the Institute who’d never returned from Fergus’s realm. If my suspicions were correct, Charles hadn’t been taken there to begin with. It had been six months. I’d thought he’d resurface mysteriously, like the US abductees had, but there’d been zilch. I’d considered asking my parents outright many times, but Victoria’s insular mindset stilled my tongue every time. The Institute had avoided an investigation after the Door fiasco, since Victoria had spread the story that it was a code red simulation to test the Institute’s emergency protocols which, by some miracle, everyone had bought. I supposed the truth was weirder than the fiction. Although, those who’d actually been captured by the Wisps had faced private meetings with Victoria, and they had come out vowing to stay silent on what had really happened, for the good of the Institute. Either way, Charles’s continued absence would definitely ring some authority alarm bells, if he stayed missing. It hadn’t yet, likely thanks to Victoria’s knack for keeping things hushed up, but it was only a matter of time.
“Anyway, it’s probably none of my business. My parents are pros—they’ll have the US stuff handled, I’m sure.” They hadn’t reached their high positions as secret agents for nothing. “And I know Victoria has people searching nonstop for any word on Charles. Maybe he’s already turned up somewhere, but all the international red tape is screwing with shared intel, or agencies in Europe haven’t located him yet. Just because he was taken from here doesn’t mean he’d be returned here, you know what I mean? They could’ve dropped him in Switzerland, for all we know.”
Cynane took the tube of lipstick and stabbed it at her heart, melodramatically collapsing to the desk with her tongue lolling out of her mouth. As the lipstick rolled away, it left a bright red smudge above her heart. I got the picture, loud and clear.
I shuddered. “Yeah, there’s always that possibility.” I looked over my semi-tidy bedroom, my eyes catching on a pair of leggings that dangled like a shed skin from the door of my rustic wardrobe. “It’s not like I could help much, anyway.”
Boudicca and Cynane nodded effusively, which I wasn’t sure whether to take as an insult, while Spartacus admired himself in the back of a teaspoon. He always paused in front of mirrors and windows to pose and preen—had I known that before I’d named him, I probably would’ve gone with Narcissus.