For once Dylis said nothing.
Caspian carefully pulled out each piece. The warm metal gave him no impressions of whoever had handled it before Felan. It was odd—there was always a residual something. As he went through the motions of filling the sugar bowl and milk jug, then brewing fresh tea, the silver seemed to glow with life. There was magic in the set. More magic than he liked having around.
“What’s it doing?”
“Protecting the house. Shea won’t get back in.”
“Is that all it’s doing?”
“I think so.” Dylis walked around the setting as if trying to unlock the secrets of the glowing tea set.
His life was too weird. He could just imagine inviting Lydia over and trying to explain that. This is my tea set. Why yes, they are real rubies and sapphires, and that’s a magic glow, not a radioactive one.
He rubbed his hand over his eyes. It was too late to be dealing with more fairy crap. He climbed the stairs, ready to give in to the exhaustion and sleep. He was stopped at his bedroom door. A silver dagger with a jeweled hilt had been driven through the wood. Shea had been there. And the message was clear: He wanted the Window, and Caspian was running out of time to find it.
Chapter 8
Last night’s fairy drama seemed so far away. If not for the dagger now on his bedside table and the silver tea set in the kitchen, he could have dreamed it. He showered, his thoughts already on Callaway House and Lydia, and he couldn’t stop the smile from forming. It was beginning to feel like a good day. As he dried he tried not to think of the ways it could all go wrong, or that he was going to have to find a way to tell her about his gift.
But he had all day to work that out—that he was actually considering ways to tell her didn’t even make him pause.
He opened his wardrobe. None of his clothes were hanging up, none of his clothes were in the wardrobe, instead there was a very large pile of unraveled threads.
He touched the threads and saw Shea.
“How is that possible?” He wrapped the towel back around his waist and glanced around his room half-expecting Shea to be standing in the corner laughing. But he was alone. He opened up his drawers, but everything there was a tangle of strings. Right. He had no clothes. The familiar twitch that only dealing with fairies caused was back.
This was an annoyance, nothing more. And yet it was far more intimate than a dagger through the door. Shea had been in his room and through his things. He suppressed a shudder and tried to be calm. It was only clothes, and if that was the best Shea could do there wasn’t anything to worry about.
His gaze landed on yesterday’s clothes on the floor where he’d left them before going to bed. Good thing it was jeans and a shirt instead of sweaty running clothes. But he was willing to bet that everything in the laundry basket was still as it should be. Brownies didn’t do laundry, and he didn’t mind. It gave him a semblance of normality that most people would trade in a heartbeat. There was at least a few days’ worth of clothing waiting to be cleaned. None of which he could pack into an overnight bag for his stay at Lydia’s.
Dressed in yesterday’s castoffs he jogged down the stairs and checked in the laundry. His suspicions were confirmed.
“Screw you, Shea,” he muttered as he stuffed the darks into the machine and got them going. A fairy lord wouldn’t think of laundry; he’d be used to his clothes getting sorted out by servants.
“Why are you cursing him?” Dylis leaned against the door frame, arms crossed.
“Go look in my closet.”
Caspian turned, but she was already gone.
Her high-pitched laughter tinkled through the house like the annoying little bells people put on cat collars.
“Oh my, that is the oldest trick known to fairies.” Dylis was still grinning.
“I will have to buy new things right away.” Before he went to Lydia’s, as he couldn’t show up in yesterday’s clothes and with nothing clean to put on. He inhaled and forced it out slowly. He didn’t need this extra fairy bullshit in his life.
“It’s still funny, and it could’ve been so much worse. He could’ve done a wear and unravel spell, so you’d be left standing naked in town.” She started giggling again.
Caspian gave a snort that almost turned into a laugh. “Point taken.”
“It’ll be fine.” She nodded and smiled. Dylis never said anything would be fine, and her smile was now a little too forced. “You can’t stop living just because he could be waiting; if you do he’s already taken control and that’s what he wants. He wants to make your life so unbearable you agree to whatever deal he offers. Do not let him make the deal. If you have to, you make the deal, you set the terms.”
“If I make a deal with a Grey, and word gets back to Court, I’m screwed.”
Dylis pressed her lips together but had nothing to say.
Great, just great. He needed to find the damn Window and hand it over to the Court before Shea could do any more damage to his life.
But he didn’t see Shea all day. Or any Grey, not even a little one. He collected the new glass for the ex-enchanted mirror, fixed it up, and hung it on display. Got through a pile of paperwork and managed to firm up a few prices on some of Madam Callaway’s furniture. He emailed an acquaintance about the books, as he didn’t usually deal with them. As well as picking up some new clothes. Nothing fancy, just the basics, and he wasn’t even sure he’d be needing the new pajama pants. He didn’t want to be using them. But she might have changed her mind in daylight.
He glanced at Dylis lying on a sideboard, arm over her eyes like she was bored out of her walnut-sized head. She’d be dismayed that he’d broken the enchanted mirror and had seemed almost disappointed by the lack of Grey action.
“Give me five minutes to close up and you can come to Lydia’s.” He hoped he sounded more enthused about that than he felt. At least with Dylis if he was followed by Greys, there would be a measure of protection, plus she could find out more about Lydia’s ghost.
That got her moving. She peeled herself up with more grace than anyone he’d ever seen, as if gravity released her for a moment and she floated to standing. “Can’t wait to see what I find in the house.”
Caspian ignored her and set about closing up the shop. When he was ready to leave, Dylis swung onto his arm and held onto his shirtsleeve as he went out the back to where his car was parked. As soon as he crossed the threshold of the shop he knew something wasn’t right.
“Do you hear that?”
“A humming?” Dylis climbed higher and stood on his shoulder.
He didn’t worry about compensating for her; she’d never once fallen off—even when he’d gone through a phase of riding a motorbike in his twenties. Her balance was unnatural.
“It’s not fairy-related. And yet…” She stopped, no doubt because she’d just spotted his car, like he had.
The car was humming. Vibrating. Swarming might have been a better description. The inside of his car was full of black-and-yellow-striped insects. He hoped they were bees and not wasps. But even then he wasn’t game enough to walk over, open a door, and let them out.
Dylis jumped down and walked over. Caspian took a step back. He wasn’t allergic to bees, but they didn’t seem like happy bees and he was pretty sure that a thousand stings would be fatal.
“Don’t open the car.”
“I wasn’t born last century.” She bounced onto the hood as if she were taking a single step and peered through the windscreen.
“He’s really gone all out this time. There’s a whole hive in there.”
“If he thinks this is going to work, he’s wrong.” He spun, looking for the Grey, as if he could be hiding in any shadow. He had to be nearby. “Hear that, Shea—I will not be bullied by you.” He’d been bullied by human children at school and he wasn’t going to be press-ganged into finding a very dangerous artifact for the Grey.