Ari kept her eyes fixed on the stove, and when she spoke it was through gritted teeth. “She has magic too.”
I thought for a moment. In fact, the more I thought about it, the less those birthmarks on Ari’s back reminded me of birthmarks, and the more they reminded me of the scars I’d seen on battle mages. I knew that sometimes moms and daughters didn’t get along. I didn’t think that they’d ever use magic like that on each other.
“When Dad brought me the Glitter, and he told me where to go, I went. I am never going back to live in that house. Ever. I will sleep on the street. I will live in a Dumpster and fight with the rats.” Now sobs punctuated each of her words. “I will die before I go back.”
She turned off the stove and opened the window to trade smoke for air. “I’m sorry. I’m not hungry right now.”
Ari went to her room, and I pretended I didn’t hear her crying. That night I opened books, and there were a lot of them, but the last book was the one that caught my eye. The cover was burned, as were the edges of the pages, but the spine still held the print. An Account of Her Majesty Queen of Thorns, the Black Queen. I opened the cover and a note fell out. I recognized Grimm’s script, though given that he has no hands I can’t say how he writes.
I keep my promises, but read this one last—G
Of course I thought about ignoring his warning. I certainly wanted answers I knew I’d find inside. The other part of me thought about a couple of blessings bound to me in a way that I couldn’t shake off. So I picked up my copy of Spellwork and Curses and read more. When Ari came out to make breakfast, I was still reading.
She took out another carton of eggs. “Final exam tomorrow?”
“Reading about curses. Sort of a recurring theme with me.”
“After breakfast let’s get the run out of the way. I want to enjoy the sun afterward.” She leaned out the window and looked up at the clear sky.
I had other plans. “Not today. We’re going for a different kind of workout.” The wolf had me worried. Not because I thought his threat would come true. Up until now I’d thought Ari and I were a couple of ants in a hill of millions, but the wolf had found us. Or found me. I wouldn’t mind an attack every now and then if I were alone, but with Ari around, I could never truly relax. After breakfast, we drove down the interstate, out of town, to a dingy shop built into a hill.
Ari watched the road signs as we passed. “Where are we? I’ve never been this far south.”
I opened the door and the sounds of gunfire rang out.
Ari flinched with each pop and roar.
I waved her on in. “It’s a gun club, not a shootout.” After I checked Ari into her class, I practiced my normal shots, then did a few rounds of movement shooting before checking on her. She stood, dwarfed by the instructor, with earmuffs tightly on. Beside her sat a tray of gleaming steel death, everything from a revolver to a shotgun. I remembered my first trip here. How the gun had leaped in my hand and the stench of spent powder.
He guided her as she leveled her gaze, sighted, and squeezed. When the gun went off she nearly hit the floor, but I didn’t laugh. She pushed the old man away and sighted up again and squeezed, and this time the gun only leaped a bit. And again, and again, and again. I sat for hours as she worked her way through the weapons. Revolvers she hated, and she rejected the tiny palm gun right away. After a few hours the range owner motioned me over to the booth.
“What’d you like for her?” I asked.
“Something smaller, but she ain’t budging. That girl’s made of brass.”
She came over and pulled out her earplugs. “I want number six.”
“That doesn’t fit in a purse. That doesn’t weigh less than ten pounds. I’m not even certain you can buy ammo for that if you aren’t military or police,” I said.
“I’m not going to carry it. I’m going to keep it handy at home; if I shoot something, I want it to stay dead.”
It was a pain in the ass to get a carry license, and I’m convinced the only reason I had one was that Grimm worked his magic on it. The real kind. It was time for a late lunch and a drive across town. When we pulled up at our new destination, Ari understood what I had in mind. She looked at the kanji written across the window. “Awesome.”
That’s what everyone said before the bruises.
We walked into the dojo, and I waited. When Mrs. Roselli came out, it was like talking to a penguin in a gi. She was two inches shorter than I, and weighed about a hundred pounds more, with olive Italian skin, gray hair, and bifocals. She looked fat, but six years of lessons had taught me her body was covered in layers of pure mean. You did not mess with Mrs. Roselli more than once. She taught the first self-defense course I’d ever attended, and my arms still hurt thinking about it.
“Mrs. R,” I said.
She gave me a hug that nearly crushed my ribs. “Marissa, have you come back to learn to break the bones?”
“Evangeline’s got that covered, but Ari here could use a little help. Living with me is turning out to be a little more dangerous than expected.”
“You don’t become a ninja overnight,” she said.
I held out my credit card. “I was thinking something more basic. Right now, she’d lose a fistfight with a Girl Scout.”
I paid the private lesson fee, and I watched. Watched Ari learn how to stomp the inside of the foot. How to grab someone by the ears and push her thumbs into their eyes. When the lesson was done I had one battered, bruised, and beaten princess. I almost felt bad for her. Mrs. Roselli hugged Ari and told her how great a student she was. When I took the class I got yelled at before, during, and after.
“Do you do this every week?” Ari took the complimentary ice pack that came with the class and pressed it to her hip.
“No. I passed that one a few years ago. Let’s head home.” I had this weird moment when I said home, and thought of her there.
That night I had an idea. While I was exhausted from my all-night study session, I wanted to make more progress. So after dinner, I dumped a book called Spell Well in Ari’s lap.
“You wanted to learn magic,” I said. “Help me get through this.”
So we sat up until midnight and compared notes as I struggled through yet another chapter of curse material. Afterward, Ari disappeared into my recliner, spell book in hand.
When I finally slept that night, I dreamed of the Fae Mother. In my dream, Ari’s dressing mirror lit up like the sun, blasting white light until she stepped out. I floated in my dream, watching her move through the apartment, looking at my books, and giving a disapproving nod to my sink full of dishes. She watched Ari, sleeping in the recliner, then moved on to my room. I thrashed, pinned by my nightmare, unable to raise a hand to defend myself. The Fae Mother leaned over my bed and whispered something.
I sat up in bed, dripping with sweat and shaking in fear. I clicked on the light and grabbed my gun from the pillow beside me, but my bedroom was empty.
In the living room, Ari snored softly, still clutching her spell book. When I was finally certain we were alone, I lay back down, unable to sleep. It wasn’t my nightmare. It was her words, which at first I didn’t think I heard. The longer I lay in the darkness, the more certain I was I knew what the Fae Mother had said: “Find it.”
Eighteen
WE HEADED OUT early, not even waiting for breakfast. I drove and Ari sat in the front, the Spell Well book in her lap. She wore a light green pantsuit that Grimm had bought for her during her makeover, and had straightened that wild auburn hair into long, obedient locks. She looked less like an intern and more like an executive.