‘That’s my gorgeous girl,’ I murmured, grinning as Baby Grace said hello in her usual enthusiastic way. Then I quickly modified the grin to a sympathetic grimace as Sylvia shot me a narrowed look, one that heralded another lecture about babies and bladders. ‘You really shouldn’t be waiting up for me, Syl. C’mon, off to bed with you,’ I said, gently trying to steer her towards the oak wardrobe hulking near my bedroom door.
Through the back of the wardrobe was Sylvia and Ricou’s own private patch of Between; their magically created living space outside the humans’ world. Whoever introduced Sylvia to the Narnia books had a lot to answer for; if it hadn’t been for them, my protest that my one-bedroom attic flat was too small for us all to share, and that the pregnant pair should live somewhere safer and more comfortable, would’ve held water. Though, truthfully, while having Sylvia and Ricou as flatmates, was strange at times and not without its complications, it was great.
Sylvia pouted. ‘But I wanted to talk to you, Genny. And look, I’ve got all your stuff ready.’ The light globe brightened to full-moon strength as she draped an arm over my shoulders and waved a graceful hand at the floor where there was a large sheet of blue plastic.
The blue plastic was my magic neutralising gear. The sheet was marked with two circles, a large eight foot one with a smaller three foot one offset inside. I’d drawn the circles with a mix of ground amber, dried unicorn faeces and my own blood after dissolving juiced-up ricepaper runes – very expensive, very elaborate, ricepaper runes – into the mixture to power it up. The magical ink meant I didn’t have to use the traditional sand and salt (cheap, but hell to cart around and messy to clean up) or buy one of the rare etched-by-dwarves silver and copper circle chains (easier to carry, but even with the inbuilt protections they’re a magnet for thieves). And though pricy to make, my blue plastic spell-neutraliser kit was worthless to anyone else since it was keyed only to me. I was quietly proud of it – the result of hours of painstaking trial and error – and was thinking of patenting it, once I’d worked out how to bring the cost of the runes down.
If I could cast my own spells, my life would be so much easier.
I shoved the constant frustration away and gave Sylvia a quick hug. ‘Thanks, I appreciate it.’
‘Gosh, no worries, Genny.’ Sylvia grinned happily. ‘It’s the least I can do. And, look, I’ve even put salt out for you.’
‘Oh, thanks,’ I said again, eyeing the six-inch block of salt sitting in the smaller circle. Sylvia hated salt, always saying that just thinking about it clogged up her sap, so she really was being helpful . . . so helpful that my ‘what’s she after’ antennae started twitching.
She stroked a finger down the lapel of my jacket. ‘This is new, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah.’
She tilted her head curiously. ‘What happened to the clothes you were wearing?’
‘Got damaged when I tangled with a spell.’ Not a lie, but way better than telling her Malik ripped them off me. The last thing I wanted was an interrogation about my love life, however well intentioned.
‘Goodness. Must have been a hard one.’
An image of Malik naked flashed in my mind. Oh boy! I swallowed, then managed a weak, ‘Yep. It was.’
‘Still, the jacket is nice. Not your usual colour, but the lilac suits you. Now why don’t I help you out of it’ – she grasped the jacket and I let her tug it off, only just managing not to jump as her hand trailed down my spine and came to rest on my hip – ‘and while you’re doing your spell-cracking, I’ll mix you up an extra-special Bloody Mary and we can have a lovely cosy chat, just us girls together.’ She chuckled low in my ear, squeezed my butt then headed for the fridge.
I watched her, thoughtful. As passes go, it was about as subtle as if she’d flashed me a neon sign. Question was, why? I might have thought it was because of my boob-staring, if not for the salt.
Not that I was too surprised. Sylvia didn’t have any gender preference when it came to sex, other than her own, which seeing she was co-sexual and had all the accessories she needed was whatever she wanted it to be. She preferred to be female, though a few months ago, when her mother had sent Sylvia to court me in order to break the curse and she discovered my partner choice was male, she’d offered to ‘change’. But that was then. Now she was pregnant and happy, or so I’d thought, with Ricou.
She turned, a highball glass filled with ice in her hand. ‘Gosh, haven’t you started yet, Genny?’ She rattled the glass. ‘Hurry up, otherwise this will melt.’
‘I’m wondering why I’m getting the special treatment?’
A gleam lit her green eyes. ‘Maybe I just want to see you naked.’
Right. ‘What about Ricou?’
‘Oh, gosh, he’d like to see you naked too.’ She smiled a little too widely. ‘But he’s out on search duty.’ Her fingers closed around the sapphire pendant nestled in her cleavage.
Ricou was feeling guilty that he was going to be a dad again, when the rest of the fae were still in fertility limbo. Consequently he was spending a lot of time searching for a way to release the trapped fertility, and not a lot with Sylvia.
‘So, you’re hitting on me because you’re feeling lonely?’ A possibility, but doubtful given the way she was clutching the pendant so hard her knuckles were turning white.
‘Golly, of course not,’ she said, banging the glass down with frustration. ‘No. I’m hitting on you because I like you, Genny. And anyway, Ricou and I always share.’
‘So you’re interested in a threesome deal?’
‘If you are?’ she said hopefully.
Crap, maybe she really was serious. ‘Um, Syl, you know I like you, and Ricou too, but I thought you realised neither of you is my type.’ Not to mention she was pregnant, so was this really the time to expand their relationship to include anyone else?
‘Fiddlesticks!’ She threw her hands in the air. ‘I knew this wouldn’t work.’
Chapter Seventeen
Ah. ‘What wouldn’t work?’ I asked.
‘I told them you were still hung up on Finn. That you wouldn’t be interested in me and Ricou. But they wouldn’t have it.’
Finn. The cut-me-off-without-an-explanation-satyr-I-wasn’t-thinking-about.
I rubbed the ache blooming in my chest.
Sylvia’s green eyes filled with sympathy. ‘Just because he stopped writing, Genny,’ she said softly, ‘it might not mean what you think.’
I’d kept writing up until four weeks ago. Not because I was hung up on him but because he was my friend. And I wanted to know if he was okay. Even if he’d never got my letters, he knew there was no way I could contact him other than through his family so he’d have found a way to check why I seemed to be giving him the silent treatment . . . if we’d really been the friends, never mind the anything more, I’d thought we were.
Crap. I’d promised myself not to waste any more time on him.
‘Who are they, Syl?’
She gave me a long troubled look, obviously wondering whether to push me about a certain satyr. But that subject was done. To my mind, anyway— She started to speak and I jerked my hands up. ‘Syl, forget it. Forget him. Please. Just tell me who they are, and why they want you to seduce me?’
She shook her head, leaves rustling with a mix of frustration and irritation. ‘Goodness, who do you think, Genny? Our mothers!’
Right. The Ladies Meriel and Isabella: Head naiad and dryad respectively a.k.a. Ricou’s and Sylvia’s mothers. ‘Why do they want you to seduce me—’ I stopped as it all fell into place. ‘No, let me guess: Spellcrackers.’
‘Yes.’ Sylvia sighed, her shoulders drooping. ‘They said we might as well make ourselves useful since we both insisted on staying with you.’