She turned to him at last, her eyes narrow. “Have you no guard on the premises?”
He could not answer, not paralyzed as he was. But she placed a hand on his forehead and dragged the response she needed directly from his mind. He gave her the truth readily enough:Only the flowers.
Her lip curled. “Pathetic.” Withdrawing her hand, she shook her head. “I take back what I said earlier. I cannot for the life of me understand what the Shadowbane Lady saw in you. In theend, you’re still that sniveling little boy in a bowtie you always were.”
Nigel’s head was too heavy, his face too slack with the spell she’d placed on him to offer any reaction.
“You first,” Calista said and, with a wave of her arm, sent the simulacrums gliding over the threshold. They hastened to obey, some oozing strangely, while others made a bizarre, ratcheting, clacking sort of noise, their bodies jerking with the effort of animation. Soon The Arcane Bouquet was packed with more than a dozen hideous, wafting phantoms, which darted here and there, inspecting behind the counter, behind every pot and plant. The three supporting Nigel carried him through next. It was not quite dark within—Luna had taken care to turn off all the lights save the lamp behind the desk. This she’d thoughtfully left on to greet him when he returned from his date.
Luna.
Oh, Green Mother, please don’t let her come back here! Send her a warning somehow!
Calista Anguish stepped inside last of all, not bothering to close the door behind her. She peered around the shop, her eyes on alert. Nothing but flowers met her gaze, even as Nigel had said. She turned to him again. “Where is it?” she demanded, stretching out her arm and placing her palm to his forehead once more. “Where is your father’s garden?”
He tried to resist, but it was useless. Without even the most rudimentary counter spell at his disposal, he could not stop her from simply yanking the information she required straight from his brain. It hurt, but he couldn’t cry out, could only utter a low, involuntary moan. Calista made no effort to be gentle. Perhaps she simply didn’t know how. But she got what she wanted, however inelegant her technique. Nigel felt the secret of the boiler room door pass from his head into her palm.
“Ah!” She smiled like a tiger. “Of course. In the back. A simple portal spell.”
If Nigel’s tongue wasn’t currently a loose, floppy piece of meat in his mouth, he might have argued that there wasnothingsimple about that spell, but . . . alas.
Calista dragged the location of the key from his mind next. Leaving him to the simulacrums, she stalked across the shop to the storage room and disappeared within. While she was there, Nigel cast his gaze about the display floor, searching for a particular set of blooms. They were nowhere to be found, however. Even the pot was empty. Nigel averted his gaze quickly and drew a slow breath into his nostrils, trying very hard not to give away anything.
Calista returned from the storage room, brandishing the key taken from the polka-dot pot. “Well, Nigel Grimm,” she said, “that proved a vast deal easier than I ever could have imagined. I was prepared for just about anything—seduction, a duel of spells, even my own ultimate demise at the hands of the Grimshade Lord. I was not prepared for you to reveal yourself to be such a disappointment.” Shetksedand shook her head, her red lips twisted cruelly. “It hardly seems a worthy effort for the sake of my goddess.”
She approached him where he hung, his feet off the floor, gripped in the arms of her creations. In one hand, she twirled the key. The other hand, however, flicked to form a sigil in the air. One Nigel recognized, despite how roughly it was crafted. His heart sprang to his throat, nearly choking him with terror.
“I should very much like to kill you now,” Calista said, her voice low and purring as she drew near. “But the Shadowbane Lady has been explicit on that score. You are to be kept alive and ready for her use. But I can’t have you causing me any trouble when that paralysis spell wears off, so . . .”
She reached for him again. Another simulacrum threw back its hideous head in a silent scream the instant before it disintegrated, and all the energy of its being swarmed to Calista’s hand, powering the sigil she’d traced. Nigel stared at that spell. He recognized what it was meant to be: a sleeping spell, deep and profound. But he also saw where she’d traced a powerline incorrectly, where there was a weakness which allowed in too much Dire force. That spell would kill him.
He tried to protest. Tried to warn her, to struggle against the grips of his captors. But the paralysis binding his limbs was absolute, and he could do nothing but watch in mounting horror as she drew near.
And he wished suddenly, with all his heart, that he had kissed Luna.
Today at the waterfall.
Tonight, in that booth, with Ward and Bryony on either side of them.
In Mrs. Boggs’s parlor while the Young Women of Good Character looked on, or behind the counter while she lay in his arms. On his doorstep on New Year’s night, or standing on the freezing sidewalk while waiting for a taxi, or even under the gods-damned mistletoe.
He wished he’d kissed her that first day. When he lay sprawled in a puddle of rain water with her on top of him, and her face was so close to his, and the first wild impulse had taken hold of his heart.
He’d suppressed that impulse in the moment. But he shouldn’t have. He should have kissed her. Every day, every chance he had.
Calista’s fingers trembled with the effort to sustain the spell. The instant she touched him, that spell would send jolts of pure Dire straight through his unprotected brain, scorching him fromthe inside out. Nigel watched it spark and warp, on the verge of escaping her control entirely, and—
A thorny cane wrapped around her ankle.
Calista stopped short. She looked down sharply, her mouth twisted in an expression of surprise and pain. Tiny thorns bit through her nice silk hose, drawing beads of blood. “What in the gods’ names—” she began.
Another cane lashed from the shadows, wrapped around the very wrist in which she held that unstable spell. A single jerk, and the spell disintegrated in a small explosion of Dire force, which blinded Nigel. He couldn’t even shut his eyes or turn his head away, could only endure that awful explosion, burning across his exposed eyeballs.
For a moment, he feared he’d gone blind. All around him was chaos—movement he did not understand, sounds he could not comprehend, a pulse of conflicting magics in the air. He heard Calista scream, felt the desperation of simulacrums.
Finally, his vision began to clear. He tried to shake his head, tried to blink, but could do neither. He could only gaze out at the twisting forms of chaos which slowly coalesced into images he could name. He saw simulacrums swarming, desperate to help their mother, who was wrapped up in a thicket of vicious rose canes. Thorns pierced her nice coat and every inch of exposed skin, drawing gruesome rivulets of blood. She tried to scream, but a bright pink-and-yellow blossom was stuffed into her mouth, blocking out all sound.
The simulacrums screeched in their silent voices, which sent pulses of dread to rattle the walls. Determined to save her, they stretched out their hideous hands, but the double-delight fended them off, all lashing limbs and thorns and explosions of sweet perfume. Tiger lilies, escaped from their pots, ripped at the phantoms’ black and wafting robes, their ferocious little flower faces working some real damage despite their distinct lack ofteeth. The snapdragons were in on the game as well, hydra-like, multi-headed blooms spurting fire with wild abandon as they chased simulacrums up and down the aisles.
