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“Fine by me,” Amie said, her worried gaze on the stuff on the floor.
Foley looked back at me and Scout, her gaze daring us to disagree with her.
“Our responsibility,” Scout muttered, voice defeated. “We’ll clean it up.”
“Sure thing,” I agreed. “But maybe everyone could clear out and give us room to work?”
The brat pack didn’t look thrilled at that suggestion—they probably wanted to lie around on the couch and eat grapes like Cleopatra while we worked, but they eventually nodded. Foley escorted them out.
When the door closed again, I looked over at Scout. “This blows.”
“Yep. I mean, it’s not like we haven’t seen this before, but yeah, totally blows.”
I sighed. “I really wish you had magic. You could probably spell the crap out of this and get everything back in order again. That would be sweet.”
“Yes, I could, in fact, go all Fantasia on this mess. But for now there’s only one thing I can do.” She disappeared back into her room, and after a few seconds club music—the kind with the thub thub thub bass—filled the room.
“If we must clean,” Scout yelled over the music, “let’s clean with rhythm.”
And then she shook her butt and got to work.
11
It took us two hours, but we managed to get the suite put back together. And surprisingly, it was pretty easy to figure out where everything came from. Amie’s stuff was all pink, so anything with Barbie coloring went back into her room. Lesley’s stuff was just odd, so anything with unicorns, rainbows, or anime characters went back into hers. (Including tons of Japanese comic books about schoolgirls who were also vampires, or vampires who ate schoolgirls, or something like that. You’d think she saw enough of that kind of thing just being friends with us. But to each her own.)
When we were done, we flopped onto the couch in the common room.
“So, I guess that was part of Jeremiah’s plan,” I said.
“I guess so. I’m really starting to not like those guys. I mean, jury’s out on Sebastian, but the rest of them are hateful. Trying to steal a girl’s Grimoire. That is a total breach of magical etiquette.”
“It’s also messy. And illegal.”
“Seriously.” Scout looked over at me. “Do you think they’ll try again?”
“Until they solve the blackout or realize you have nothing to do with it.”
“So they won’t stop coming after us until they get their power back . . . and actually have the ability to come after us. I don’t really like that strategy.”
“They probably don’t, either. And what sucks worse? Other than knowing Reapers have lost their power and Jeremiah’s totally mad, we have no other clues.” I let out a frustrated sound and rolled my shoulders a little. “I need a break.”
“You’ve got one until study hall,” she said. Because of the shenanigans, classes had been canceled for the rest of the day. “Maybe we could take a walk, get a little fresh air. Ooooh,” she said, jumping up off the couch. “Let’s go to Gaslight.”
“What’s Gaslight?”
“Only the best magical trade shop in the tri-state area, offering magical surplus, supplies, and books for the exceptional spellbinder!”
I was caught between two emotions. Sadness that she was excited about something she may never get to use again, and amusement about how truly geeky that sounded.
I decided to feel amused.
“Wow. That was so geeky it, like, transcends normal geeky and moves straight into hella geeky. Or maybe über geeky.”
She stuck out her tongue at me. “Grab your messenger bag. It’s a short walk. We’ll grab a snack while we’re out.”
“Are we supposed to be leaving campus like this?”
“We just saved Foley a whole lot of grief by skipping the magical details. She owes us one.”
Scout was leaving out the part about how the fire alarm had been faked to get to her Grimoire, which made the whole incident our fault. But I didn’t think she’d appreciate the reminder.
“Fine,” I said. “But this time you’re the one who has to make up an excuse.”
She got her chance pretty quickly. We’d gotten our gear and were just preparing to leave when the door opened, and Veronica and Amie walked in.
Amie smiled. “It looks much better in here. Thanks for getting it taken care of.”
“You’re welcome,” Scout said. “Sorry for the mess.”
Veronica looked us over suspiciously. “Where are you two going?”
Scout jumped in with an answer. “Lily’s out of craft glue,” she said, “and she still has more, you know, decorations to do. So we were going to run down to the pharmacy and grab some. Sneak errand!” She waved her hands in the air excitedly.
“Wow,” I muttered under my breath, but Veronica must have bought it, or at least was bored by the conversation, because she and Amie moved back into her room.
“Let’s get going,” Scout said, “before she changes her mind and follows us.”
Probably a good idea.
* * *
A sign above the door read GASLIGHT GOODS. The door was framed by two old-fashioned lanterns, small flames flickering in the breeze.
“A bookstore?” I asked her.
“Calling it that hardly does it justice,” Scout said, pushing open the door and jingling a leather strap of bells that hung on the inside.
The store smelled faintly smoky. Not in a bad way—more like “fall campfire” than “burnt toast.” It wasn’t a big store, and it was divided neatly into areas by tall white bookshelves loaded with books, spices, and candles. Long ropes of beads and stones hung along one wall beside a set of tall wicker urns that held branches in various colors. The walls were painted cheerily white, and clerks in white lab coats milled around with feather dusters. Unfortunately for them, they were just about the only other people in the store except for a family of obvious tourists—complete with matching I CHICAGO baseball caps.
Scout picked up a red wire basket from a stack by the door and immediately headed for a shelf that held various kinds of salt.
“Don’t people wonder about a magic store in the middle of downtown Chicago?” I asked quietly.
Scout picked up a small glass bottle of pinkish salt, held it up to the light, and squinted at it. “They don’t wonder because they assume it’s a joke.” She put the bottle back on the shelf, and grabbed a bottle of gray salt instead.
