Page 20 of Magic for Nothing

Makeup would probably have helped also, but there was only so far I was willing to go for these people when I was planning to fall right back into bed after dinner. I didn’t have a mirror. I looked down, determined that I wasn’t showing too much boob, and called it good.

Leo was still waiting in the hall. He raised his eyebrows at the sight of me, and said, “Well, then, you did that faster than I’d expected. Come on. Everyone’s dying to meet you.”

“I’m excited to meet them, too,” I said.

He offered me his arm. I took it. In for a dime, in for a dollar, as the sages say.

My temporary accommodations were at the end of a long hall, one wall of which was lined in doors, while the other wall was lined in portraits—real, painted portraits. Leo saw me looking as we walked, and grimaced.

“My illustrious ancestors,” he said. “The Cunningham line is ancient, distinguished, and all too fond of leaving our elders on the walls to look down their noses at the new generations, which must, after all, be doing something wrong.”

“Kids these days,” I said, deadpan. He couldn’t see the part of my mind that was racing, wondering whether I was about to play Dorian Grey. If there was a painted Price somewhere in this building . . .

Leo laughed. “Exactly so. We’re always getting into trouble, with our rock music and our flashy trousers.”

“I like me some rock and roll,” I allowed.

“You seem like a rock and roll kind of girl,” he said.

I couldn’t tell if he was flirting or not. I sort of hoped for “not.” If he was flirting, I’d have to figure out how to deal with it, and no one with a hall full of painted ancestors to remind him of how spiffy keen the Covenant was would do what Dominic had done and run away with a scrappy American cryptozoologist. Even if I wanted him to which, thus far, was not so much. He was nice and he was helpful and he was the enemy. I’d forget that at my peril.

Please don’t be flirting, I thought, and kept walking.

The hall ended at a narrow staircase. Leo let go of my arm, taking the lead. Halfway down, I could hear voices. All the way down, they were joined by the faint rustling sounds that accompany any large group sitting down to dinner but not eating yet. They were waiting for us. Way to make a good first impression. I don’t like anyone who gets between me and my food.

“Chin up,” murmured Leo. “We haven’t decided to kill you yet.”

I forced a smile, trying to look like I thought he was kidding. Timpani would have thought he was kidding. Antimony, though, Antimony knew he wasn’t kidding.

The stairs ended in a nicely appointed parlor that looked basically like I’d always assumed a London parlor would look, which meant either this place hadn’t been redecorated since before World War I, or they maintained the house for the benefit of unexpected Americans. I was inclined toward the first, given the way the wallpaper had weathered. The Covenant had always operated on a “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it” basis according to Dominic, and that ideology was reflected in their home décor.

Leo led me to a pair of swinging, slatted doors and pushed them open, revealing a dining room easily the size of the living room at home. There was a chandelier. An actual chandelier, like that was a reasonable thing to have in a private home. There were also eight people, all of them already seated, who turned to look at us the way cats look at mice.

I did not pull away from Leo and run for the hills. I am still very proud of myself. “Um,” I said, to the largest gathering of Covenant members that anyone in my family (not counting Dominic) had seen in decades. “Hi.”

“Hello,” said a woman, whose sandy brown hair and pointed chin marked her as Leo’s mother. She offered a warm smile that would have looked sincere, if it had touched her eyes at all. “You must be Timpani.”

“Annie’s fine, ma’am,” I said. “My folks were carnival people, and they got a little creative with the names.”

“I see that,” she said. “My name is Joanne Cunningham; you may call me what you like.”

Ah: so this was a guessing game, and I could tell that if I guessed wrong, I was going to regret it. “You have a lovely home, Mrs. Cunningham,” I said.

She thawed fractionally. “Thank you,” she said. “Leo and my father-in-law, you’ve already met. This is my husband, William Cunningham,” she indicated the man next to her, who nodded, “my mother-in-law, Louise, and my other children, Chloe and Nathaniel.”

That left two people at the table unnamed. Unlike the Cunninghams, who all seemed to have been hired from the same Central Casting office, they were dark-skinned and black-haired. The man was in a nice button-up shirt and slacks; the woman was wearing a bright orange sari over a white sheath dress.

“Our guests, Hasin and Kumari Pillai,” said Joanne. Either she was the family spokesperson, or the rest of them had decided it was better to let her handle this sort of situation. “They were very interested to hear of your arrival, and wanted to meet you for themselves, since there’s a chance you won’t be staying around long enough for a more general introduction.”

Translation: at least one of them was probably with whatever served as the Covenant’s security wing, and if I slipped up tonight, I was going to disappear. But no pressure.

Leo led me to a seat, blessedly next to his, which meant I could watch to see which spoons he reached for over the course of the meal. Hopefully, any slips in my table manners would be chalked up to a combination of “jet lag” and “American heathen,” and not taken as a sign that I was nervous and needed to be interrogated to find out why.

Once we were seated, Chloe and Nathaniel rose and vanished through a door at the back of the room, returning with large serving trays that would have seemed more ordinary in a restaurant. Leo stood to help them set out the food: roast leg of lamb, rosemary potatoes, green peas, and three cheese plates, one for each third of the table, each with an assortment of cheeses and jams. The trays went against the wall, and the Cunningham children retook their seats.

(It was odd to think of them as “children”: Nathaniel looked to be the youngest, and he was at least my age. But the attitude of the older people at the table made it clear that the kids were supposed to bring out the food. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were also supposed to clean up and do the dishes. Oh, family.)

“We eat from communal trays, so no one thinks it’s poisoned,” said Chloe, while Nathaniel drew a finger across his throat in a slicing gesture. “Of course, we could have taken the antitoxin first. Eat up!”