Page 7 of The Turning of the Tables

He nodded, finished chewing, then swallowed. “I’ve asked them to give me a to-scale drawing, yes. Then I’ll carve it out and inlay it.”

“Inlaid? Nice.”

That crooked half-smile again. “Cedar in oak. Their choice for magical reasons, but it should look good.”

“And it doesn’t matter that you’re not a witch or warlock?”

Elliot shrugged. “Ward or Beck will do the initial chalk sketch on the table, as well as the actual laying of the inlay—I’ll carve it out, cut the stripping, but they’ll press it in. Hopefully that will be good enough. Mason seemed to thinkso, anyway.” Beck—Rebeckah Kwan—was the third wheel in the Beyond the Veil team. Hart used to be the fourth, but he’d left to join the FBI, so now it was the three of them plus Rayn-the-front-desk-touch-psychic. I wasn’t quite sure how he fit in, but it wasn’t my business.

I’d hate to be Ward and Beck if the inlay process didn’t work, but I wasn’t about to say that to Elliot. Not like he could do anything about it, anyway. “How long will all that take you?”

He shrugged again. “Building the table itself, about a week, give or take, to make sure it’s what I want it to be. I’m thinking another week to make sure the design is done correctly. I’m allowing myself a third, in the event that something is more complicated—or I accidentally break something.” Another lopsided smile. “Or cut off a finger.”

I choked on a fry. “Don’t even joke about that!”

He laughed. “I work by hand,” he said. “So the likelihood of me actually removing any fingers is slim to none. I’ve cut myself more than a few times, but never badly.”

“Define ‘badly.’” If he was anything like Hart, his ‘badly’ and mine were probably very different.

Another laugh. “Requiring a trip to urgent care.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “By whose estimation?”

That curved half-smile was absolutely going to be my personal downfall. “Mine.”

“I’m assuming that your threshold is somewhere around the same place as Hart’s—meaning too low.”

“Undoubtedly. But all my fingers still work.” He wiggled them at me.

I shook my head and ate another fry. “Do you often get flown out places to do work?” I asked.

He laughed at that. “Wouldyoupay to fly a carpenter out to build you a table?” he asked.

“Would it be cheaper than shipping the table?” I countered.

His face settled into a thoughtful expression. “You know, that’s a very good point. I mostly only do big commissioned work for locals—folks within four or five hours’ drive. I’ve done a carving here or there, smaller things that pack into a Priority Mail box that gets shipped cross-country, but for the most part, I’m working Wisconsin, Illinois, and the U.P.”

“U.P.?” I asked.

“Upper Peninsula. That weird bit of Michigan that Wisconsin wears like a hat.”

I barked a surprised laugh. I’d never thought about it that way. Of course, I hadn’t really thought about the geography of the upper Midwest pretty much at all, so that wasn’t saying much.

He gave me another lopsided smile.

“Does that mean that you’re going to start a fly-out business?” I asked, half-teasing.

“Well, I’m probably not going to advertise it, but if you know anybody in California or Hawaii who wants a table, I’m available.”

I grinned. “I don’t know anybody outside of Virginia.” After I said it, I realized just how pathetic that sounded. I mean, sure, I’d probably gone to college with people who weren’t from Virginia, but I don’t really make friends with people, so I wouldn’t have known where they were from and I certainly hadn’t kept in touch with any of them.

“You know me,” he pointed out.

“That doesn’t help to send you on a table-vacation,” I replied.

“True. But Ihaveexpanded your horizons.”

I pulledinto the hotel parking lot so that I could help Elliot carry his purchases back up to his room, ignoring the twinge in my left wrist from carrying the bags. It wouldn’t take long and the pain wasn’t bad. Elliot led the way through the lobby, then down the hall from the elevator to a hotel room that looked like pretty much every other hotel room I’d ever seen.