Page 14 of Magic for Nothing

“That’s fine,” said Dominic, looking relieved. “A few hours is all I can in good conscience ask of you. Thank you, Annie.”

“You’re welcome,” I said, and pushed past him through the door.

The room on the other side looked more like the sort of place I usually hung out than the sort of place where I expected to find Verity: it was huge, with a polished wooden floor and a catwalk around the edges of the second floor. The roof was easily twenty feet overhead. I looked at it, eyes wide, and wished desperately that I had time to strap on my skates and find out how fast I could go from one side of the space to the other. The people would have made for an interesting obstacle course, which just made it more tempting. They were scattered around, mostly sitting on camp chairs at card tables, like they were roughing it in the great indoors.

There was no furniture that couldn’t be moved quickly, and there were some dubious-looking chains hanging from the ceiling. I eyed them before turning to Dominic. “Slaughterhouse?”

“A very long time ago,” he said. “Prior to our current occupation, this was the Nest of the local dragons.”

“So you’ve said.” Verity was heading toward us, a short, plump, apparently Inuit woman wearing an explosion of lace and black fishnet following close behind her. The woman was carrying a parasol, despite the fact that there was no sun to block. I gave the pair a dubious look. “Um.”

“Ta-da!” Verity stopped in front of me, gesturing to her companion. “Istas, meet my baby sister, Antimony. Antimony, meet Istas. She’s going to help you with your hair.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said automatically, before following it up with, “Wait, what? I’m sorry. There seems to have been some confusion. I can handle my own hair. I’ve been doing it for years.”

“That may be so, but it will be a faster, cleaner process if you have help,” said Istas. She spun her parasol. “Henna is more pleasant with an extra set of hands.”

“It’s really not necessary,” I said.

“It will be easier,” said Istas. Her tone remained neutral the whole time, like this was a discussion about how much she was willing to pay for coffee. “Trust me. I was the stylist for the Freakshow, before the building was burned by cowards. I am very skilled.”

“Istas is the best,” said Verity.

The name finally clicked home with something Verity had said in her letters home. “You’re waheela, right?” I asked.

Istas nodded. “I am,” she agreed.

“Okay, cool.” I’d never spent much time with a waheela. I really do prefer to do my own hair, but the chance to hang out with a new type of therianthrope was too much to resist. “There’s just one thing we have to do first.”

“What is that?” asked Istas.

“This,” I said, took a deep breath, and said, more loudly, “Professor Xavier is a jerk!”

One of the outside pockets of my backpack stirred before the zipper eased open a few inches and a mouse popped out. She looked cautiously from side to side. Then she ran up the backpack and jumped into my waiting hand. I raised it to chest height, giving her a clear view of the room around us.

“Istas, may I present the current junior priest of my line, and my companion on this voyage. I can’t pronounce her name, since I’m not an Aeslin mouse, but she and I have agreed that ‘Mindy’ is an acceptable thing for me to call her. Mindy, this is Istas. She’s a waheela. She will not eat you.”

“Hello, carnivore,” said Mindy, forcing her whiskers forward in the wide fan that served the Aeslin as a gesture of greeting. She was only trembling a little. I was very proud of her.

Verity looked impressed. “Okay, how in the hell did you convince an Aeslin mouse to be quiet for that long?”

“I am on a Spy Mission,” said Mindy proudly. She pulled herself to her full, if diminutive, height, and squeaked, “Hail to the Arboreal Priestess, who did not know I was here!”

“Hail,” agreed Verity, sounding faintly amused. “My colony’s in the wall, if you wanted to say hello.”

Mindy looked to me for permission. I nodded.

“Go say hello,” I said. “I’ll call for you when it’s time for us to go.”

“Thank you, Priestess,” squeaked Mindy. She jumped back down to the backpack, ran from there down to the floor, and scampered away. Some of the people in the room turned to watch her go, but none of them moved to stop her or interfere. They really had been living with Verity for a while.

Speaking of Verity . . . I turned back to her, and said, “Mindy’s going with me to serve as a black box, in case I don’t come back.”

Her face fell, amusement transforming into guilt. “Annie, I’m so—”

“I know, and this isn’t the time to get into it, okay? She’s the only mouse going with me, because there’s no way I can hide a colony and keep the Covenant from realizing something’s up. She has safe words to tell her when she can come out—hence the thing about Professor Xavier—and signals to tell her when she needs to hide and stay hidden until I give her the all-clear. She takes her mission very seriously.”

“Aeslin always do,” said Verity, still looking guilty. “I really am sorry.”