Damn. I knew the satyr herd elders wanted Spellcrackers back but this was the first I’d heard the Ladies had their acquisitive eyes on the business. Well, they could all think again. Spellcrackers was mine, and would be until a certain satyr came back from the Fair Lands, which wouldn’t be for at least another two months.
I scowled at Sylvia. ‘You’ve been staying with me for three months. Why are the Ladies plotting now?’
‘Gosh, I don’t know. Mother wouldn’t tell me anything more unless I let her through the Wards. She said she wasn’t going to discuss matters of import while on a public roof for all to listen.’
I gaped. ‘You kept your mother standing outside?’
‘Of course I did.’ Her expression turned to a mix of despair and mutiny. ‘I’m not that stupid. You don’t know what she’s like.’
Actually, I did. Lady Isabella hadn’t been beyond kidnapping me as a way of making me do what she wanted in the past. That she hadn’t succeeded was not for want of trying.
‘If I’d let her in,’ Sylvia carried on, ‘she’d have had me locked up in my tree in a heartbeat. She’s on about it not being safe here for me and the baby again.’
‘Is she crazy? With all the protective Wards and magic here this place is safer than Buck House. Not to mention you can hardly move for all the dryads and their trees she’s got camped out around here. They’ve had to divert traffic round the huge elm that’s taken root outside the front door.’
‘I told her that, but she’s suddenly got this bee in her bonnet that “staying here is dangerous”. Of course, it’s really about that Ricou. She’s still furious that her grandchild is going to be half naiad, and how we’re never going to find a suitable tree. She only shut up about it when I agreed to have a go at seducing you.’
‘You made an agreement with your mother?’ Fae don’t make or break bargains lightly; the consequences are too unpredictable and can backfire on both parties even if the bargain is kept. I couldn’t care less about Lady Isabella, but I did care about Sylvia. ‘Why the hell did you do that, Syl?’
Her eyes went wide with shock. ‘Oh my gosh, no, it wasn’t that type of agreement, Genny.’ She held her hand up, fingers crossed. ‘Just the kid’s promise, the sort that doesn’t involve magic, you know?’
Relieved, I nodded. ‘You had me worried for a min.’
She smiled, then added coyly, ‘And, you know, you might have said yes. It would be so much fun.’ She paused, obviously waiting for me to have a change of orientation: Sylvia is nothing if not persistent. I gave her a look. ‘But, oh well, you didn’t, so now I’ve kept my promise, I’m off the hook. So’ – she grabbed the bottle of Cristall vodka – ‘how about I make you that special Bloody Mary?’
‘It’s okay, Syl.’ I took the bottle from her and put it down. ‘I’ll do it myself once I’ve finished. You go to bed. You and Baby Grace need your rest.’
‘I could always stay and watch?’ she said, giving me a hopeful look. ‘It gets a bit lonely with Ricou gone most of the time.’
Did she never give up? ‘No, you really couldn’t,’ I said firmly.
She pouted. ‘Spoilsport.’
‘Yep, that’s me.’ I opened the wardrobe door and gestured inside. ‘Goodnight, Sylvia.’
‘You know, Genny, you’re really not like sidhe are supposed to be—’
‘Please,’ I groaned, ‘not the sidhe sex myth again. Syl, I’m really not gagging for it.’ At least I wasn’t now, after Mad Max’s tough-love Poultice spell. And, thankfully, even before that Sylvia obviously hadn’t been hitting my hot buttons. ‘Now. Go. To. Bed.’
She gave me one last imploring look, which I pointedly ignored, then, with a loud guilt-inducing sigh, she ducked under the empty hanging rail and disappeared through the back of the wardrobe.
I grabbed the sheet I kept on the wardrobe shelf, closed the door and carefully draped it over the wardrobe’s front to stop any peeping eyes.
I stripped off. Not that I needed to be naked to do the cleansing ritual to get rid of the Magic Mirror spell I’d absorbed at Harrods; it was just more practical than neutralising my clothes afterwards. Crunching on half-a-dozen liquorice torpedoes, I sat crossed-legged inside the larger circle, opened the part of me that can see the magic, picked up my knife and pricked my left index finger. A bead of bright red blood welled up and I touched it and my will to the outer circle. The circle rose like a glass cake dome shot through with gold.
I gathered the hyperactive pinballs of magic inside me and taking a deep breath, tagged the pinballs to the salt block. They fizzled and spat like water on a hotplate as they hit the salt, then, as I hoped it would, the Magic Mirror spell dissolved into the usual thick grey sludge. The fetid smell of rotting vegetables filled the circle – confirmation, if I’d needed it, that the original spell had been altered with deliberate malice and wasn’t some sort of accident, same as the last few times I’d done this.
Only now, after my unusual preoccupation with my looks and Sylvia’s cleavage, I had an idea what might be responsible. That urge for plastic surgery hadn’t popped into my head on its own. A quick email to Hugh and bit of investigation by the Met’s Magic Squad, and Harrods’ mutating Magic Mirror spell problem should be sorted. Satisfied I’d got something to go on, I set the sludge-filled inner circle. It popped into place like an upside-down sieve made of fine gold mesh.
‘Now for the fun part.’
I focused on the sludge-covered salt, and cracked it.
The magic and the salt exploded, the sludge predictably erupting like a mini volcano. I threw my arms up in front of my face as the sludge splattered me, leaving me feeling cold, wet, and as if I’d been thoroughly slimed by a swamp-dragon’s parasitic wyrm.
‘And isn’t that an icky thought,’ I grumbled, flicking sludge off my fingers and watching as it dissipated into the ether. At least the sieve-like inner circle kept the actual salt from hitting me; the stuff stung like sand in a desert storm otherwise. The sludge was magical, so now the spell was neutralised the only physical clear-up involved was washing the salt down the drain in the bath, and stowing my blue plastic.
I tidied up, jumped in a hot shower then emailed Hugh about my suspicions.
The Magic Mirror spell problems at Harrods: think I know what’s causing it. The lingerie fitting rooms are filled with promo leaflets for a posh plastic surgery clinic (link to website below). I think they’re probably tagged with some sort of Dissatisfaction or Envy hex to encourage new customers to the clinic. Could be worth checking out?
I pressed send then headed for the kitchen to make my Bloody Mary nightcap.
The glass of ice was still waiting for me; Sylvia had thoughtfully bespelled it to stop it melting. I opened the fridge and wrinkled my nose at the fishy reek of the two dead mackerel; having a naiad as a flatmate has its smelly downsides. At least Sylvia likes her food cooked. Though I couldn’t really talk, I thought, as I snagged the carton of lamb’s blood and poured a pint into a cocktail shaker. I added a healthy measure of vodka then stuck my hand in the empty cut glass bowl next to the sink.
The glyphs etched around the bowl glowed pink as it conjured some blood-fruit: the magical answer to controlling my 3V infection. The blood-fruit meant I didn’t have to rely on G-Zav – the human vamp junkies’ methadone – which doesn’t work too well for fae, or need to Get Fanged by a vamp to get my regular dose of vamp venom. The bowl and its never-ending supply was a reward from Clíona after I’d helped her out. Seeing as my queenly grandmother wasn’t my biggest fan, the paranoid part of me kept expecting her to take it back, or use it to poison me, even though that would effectively break the bargain we’d made. So far, she’d stuck to her word.