“Of course, a politician such as yourself could not risk being seen with the likes of me. What would the purists say?”
Fiore’s stoic expression remained unfazed. “I suspect that is an unkind implication regarding your parentage, but I can assure you on the subject of integration with the Mundane, I’ve always been favorable. My distaste for you is entirely personal.”
“Thank you?” said Avery. On one hand, it meant there was one less bigot than she thought on the council; on the other, having a dragon tell you they disliked you specifically was not a comfort.
“Have you finished?” Fiore gestured around the mausoleum far too casually. “I don’t wish to be unkind, but I believe I may have the information you were looking for, and it is a time-sensitive delivery.” The dragonstepped out of the mausoleum and down the path to the main road that had been originally built for carriages but had managed to be mildly retrofitted for modern funeral processions. A black town car, identical to the one Gideon used, sat idling as if it were meant to be there. As if no one would question its presence.
Avery stumbled down the worn path and turned a bewildered stare to Fiore. “The car?”
“He is in the back seat,” said Fiore. “You have ten minutes.”
“Why only ten?”
“Why not five?” Fiore countered, gold eyes flashing.
Avery swallowed. While the meandering mythology on dragons had missed the mark in many ways, on one point, humans had hit the heart: You would be an idiot to anger one. “Meeting in the graveyard, time limits, don’t you think this feels like something out of a penny dreadful?”
“We never met tonight, Hemlock.” It was a threat. “We never saw each other, and we never spoke. You will not mention to anyone, least of all your half brother, that you had a talk with Bimo Shinwell. Bimo Shinwell never left his protective custody at Blackthorn. Why, if the guard checks on him, they’ll find he’s sitting there now.”
Dragons were old. They had helped create various aspects of the mortal plane, and it was said there were facets of their magic even the Aos Sí39 might not fully grasp. Yet Avery could not help herself from asking, “How did you manage this?”
Fiore turned those gold eyes on the car and exhaled again, this time through pursed lips. The barest hint of smoke intermingled with steam, a flicker of flame escaping as they exhaled. “Don’t waste ten minutes on questions you know I will not answer.”
Curiosity left lingering, Avery climbed into the back of the car.
The fey within had not bothered to glamour, nor had anyone done the service for him. He would not be seen by human eyes that night, and so heremained in a form somewhere between a man and a warthog. His large tusks were painfully white against the dark hair that covered most of his face and arms. He grinned at Avery, genuinely pleased to see her. “Avery ’emlock, as I live and breathe. I thought you were going to be lost to the ages!” Despite having moved to London sometime in the 1700s, Bimo Shinwell had taken a shine to the cockney accent. He found the dental fricatives of the dialect were a fantastic tool for overcoming the trouble of speaking a mortal language around his great tusks. In fact, he was so enamored by this trick, he had implemented the cockney dialect regardless what language he was speaking.
“And I worried someone would have gutted you by now for taking their last cent in one of your grand schemes,” Avery admitted grimly.
The babi ngepet40 folded his arms and snuffled indignantly. “I’ll have you know I run a legitimate business these days… Well,ran. Can’t do much right now, I suppose, can I, protective custody and all?” He chuckle-snorted genially.
“Yes, intriguing that, whatever have you got yourself into?”
“Council’s got it ’andled, but I am not allowed to talk about it. Not that they thought I’d be able to talk to anyone anyway. I am a valued witness—bah, but you got me talkin’, didn’t ya? No, ’emlock, best thing to do is leave well enough alone, it ain’t nothing you need worry about—fates know I ain’t.” He stretched and leaned back as if he were merely on holiday. “Once this gets settled though, it’ll be back to helping people manifest their dreams.”
If Avery Hemlock had ever been the sort to be able to leave anything “well enough alone,” she might have adopted a far different profession. She raised a skeptical eyebrow. “And how exactly do you do that?”
“I teach a series of courses that help poor mortals open their third eyeand clearly visualize the future they want.” He gestured grandly before sitting back in his seat once more.
“And then you help themtakethose steps?”
“What steps?”
“The steps to manifest that future into reality.”
“Oh, no.” Bimo shook his head vigorously. “There’s no steps. They just visualize it clearly, and it manifests into their life. It’s about energy and wanting it enough that your life is open to making it happen.”
The skepticism rose. “Your legitimate business is teaching people how to think really hard about what they want until it just comes to them without any effort or action?”
“Allowing yourself to be a conduit for the good you want in your life.”
It was becoming rather clear why Bimo Shinwell wasinprotective custody, though Avery was struggling to fathom what possessed the council to grant it. What could he have possibly witnessed? “And what happens when they don’t actually get it because all they did was think about it?”
Bimo shrugged. “We advise them they may need more guidance to better picture it happening.”
“So you shift the blame and explain the issue isn’t with the method, but rather how they have applied it, and in turn they pay you more until they finally become wise that you’re selling hogwash.”
Bimo gave a wounded snort. “That is offensive and slanderous terminology.”
