I sighed. Still, at least I now knew the Fertility spell wasn’t going to have me Glamouring passing strangers and forcing them to have sex. And that the only people I had to worry about were friends I found attractive. Which had to be why it was only when Tavish used magic that I got all hot and bothered; I just wasn’t that into him.
My phone rang. A tiny flame of hope that it was Ana ringing back died as the display said ‘Katie’.
‘Hi, hon, what’s up?’
‘Hey, Genny. Sorry, but Harrods have got problems with their Magic Mirror spells in the lingerie changing rooms again.’
I groaned. ‘Thought I got it sorted this morning.’
‘No such luck,’ she said, commiserating.
I gave the last pixie a considering look. In the last couple of seconds he’d curled up like a cat on the lion’s head and was snoring away. I didn’t have to catch him – pixies are only really a problem when a pack of them get together – so this one could wait for another day. And the one I’d already caught was easy enough to deal with; the delivery service we used to ship the pixies back to Cornwall was nearby.
‘Okay,’ I said, sliding down off the bronze lion. ‘Tell Harrods I’m on my way.’
Midnight. I got home to find my flat, as usual since Sylvia and Ricou had moved in, was pitch-black. They’d left the blackout blinds down again. I flipped the light switch in a vain hope that the protective Wards hadn’t fried the electricity for the umpteenth time, but as usual nothing happened. Sighing, I bumped the front door shut with my hip, dropped the bags of Spellcrackers files I’d lugged up the five flights of stairs and, as I waited for the Ward to release its sticky hold on me, pressed my forehead tiredly against the cool wood of the door.
I’d gone for gold on this last trip to Harrods, stripping and absorbing the Magic Mirror spells from the whole store, not just the lingerie section, before the store’s resident hedge-witch salt-washed the mirrors. They were going to leave them spell-free overnight as a test before recasting the spells. I’d absorbed, as an added precaution, to dispose of it away from the store. The job itself had been relatively quick and easy – I’d been there for less than an hour – and other than feeling like I’d swallowed a set of hyperactive pinballs for once the magic hadn’t hit me with any of its quirky side-effects. Or so I’d thought.
But the consequences had crept up on me. Without realising how I’d got there, I’d been staring fixedly at a mirror in the doorway of a Chinese restaurant, silently debating whether my left eye was slightly larger than my right, and if I’d look prettier if the sharp angles of my chin were rounder. A tiny Asian woman, stereotypically old and wizened, had shuffled up to me and pressed a fortune cookie into my palm, breaking my obsession with my looks. I’d thanked her. She treated me to a toothless grin, then shooed me on my way.
I’d kept my gaze on the pavement after that.
Now the damn stuff was nagging me to rush to the nearest mirror and check myself out.
Another quick look wouldn’t hurt.
I pushed away from the door, turned and headed towards my bedroom— and let out a strangled squeak as my nose ended up mashed into the rough bark of a small tree. Sylvia, my dryad flatmate.
Chapter Sixteen
‘Oops, sorry, Genny,’ Sylvia breathed, the rustling laughter in her voice belying the apology. ‘Didn’t hear you come in.’
A crack like a snapping twig, and faint light bathed the living room. The light came from a football-sized globe. It was hovering inside my chandelier, making the long strands of amber- and gold-glass beads sparkle as if they’d been sprinkled with fairy glitter. One of Sylvia’s Moonshine spells. Since I couldn’t activate it I preferred electricity, though the spell was prettier.
Sylvia was pretty too. Her green eyes shone bright as spring buds, delicate branches with soft, arrow-shaped leaves curled down to her shoulders (she’d stopped pruning her scalp now she was pregnant, needing the extra boost for the baby), and her diaphanous pink negligée floated around her knees as if shifting in a gentle wind. The negligée was embroidered– appropriately, since her tree was Prunus avium – with tiny red cherries down the deep V of its neckline.
‘Damn it, Sylvia!’ I gingerly felt my nose for damage as I glared at her exposed chest. She heaved an appeasing sigh as she automatically ‘dressed’ herself in her usual waking Glamour; the green-grey bark-like skin I’d run into morphed into the pale pink smooth flesh of her more usual ‘Hello Boys’ cleavage, near enough swallowing the hen’s-egg-sized sapphire pendant she wore.
The pendant containing the fae’s trapped fertility.
All my problems stemmed from that innocent-looking sapphire.
And the damn thing still kept throwing new ones at me.
Though if it weren’t for that pendant I wouldn’t even be here and it looked good nestled between Sylvia’s generous breasts. Which were utterly fabulous, now I was taking the time to look at them. Lush and firm and soft. I frowned at the oxymoron, wondering what her boobs would feel like. I’d been with girls before, when I’d been in Rosa’s vamp body; it wasn’t my preferred choice sexually, but most vamps don’t usually discriminate and I’d been more interested in their venom-infected blood than their bodies, so I’d never really taken much notice of another girl’s breasts. Only Sylvia’s were fascinating, not in a lusting-after-them way, but full and nicely rounded . . .
‘Genny?’
. . . whereas mine were way smaller. Tiny even. In fact, I was virtually flat-chested. I could never get a cleavage like Sylvia’s, not even with a padded bra. Maybe I could get a pair of those silicone chicken breast thingies . . . or there was always plastic surgery . . . hmm, that might be the easiest, especially with my quick healing . . . and now I was earning more I could probably afford—
‘Genny!’
I jerked my gaze from Sylvia’s boobs to her exasperated face. ‘What?’
‘Why are you staring at my chest?’
‘I’m not.’
She gave me a ‘pull the other one’ look. ‘You were!’
Shit, she was right. Embarrassed heat stung my cheeks. What the fuck was wrong with me? Mentally I shook my head, shoving stupid thoughts about plastic surgery where they belonged.
‘Sorry, Syl,’ I said, stepping back, ‘I was just admiring . . .’ I waved my hand vaguely at her.
‘Gosh, ’s’okay, Genny.’ She smiled, a pleased glint in her eyes. ‘My boobies are glorious, aren’t they? They’re even bigger now I’m pregnant, and Ricou loves them. Says they’re—’
‘Don’t wanna know, Syl!’ I quickly held my hands up before she hit me with TMI about her and Ricou’s love life. Something she was fond of doing. Dryads don’t do personal boundaries well. ‘What were you standing around in the dark for anyway?’
‘Waiting up for you, of course,’ she said cheerfully. ‘But, gosh, I really didn’t expect you to be so late, and I was tired, so I was just having a little nap.’ She looked down, and slowly lifted one foot then the other as she carefully pulled the net of hair-like roots out of the wooden floorboards. The scent of green, growing things filled the room. ‘Baby Grace has been kicking like a lumberjack in hob-nailed boots all day,’ she added, snagging my hand and placing it on her barely there bump with a contented smile.
Baby Grace. Joy and happiness spread like warm honey through me. Baby Grace was the one wonderful thing to come out of the sacrifice my friend Grace had made to save me last Hallowe’en. I’d unintentionally trapped her soul in her pentacle necklace, but once I’d realised I’d let her go, and her soul had moved on into Sylvia’s baby. I wasn’t clear if Grace was being reborn, reincarnated, or how it all worked, but for me Sylvia’s baby having Grace’s soul made her and her mother even more special.