Page 81 of Magic for Nothing

“The Impassioned Priestess is not a bad person,” he said, tone going anxious. “She has been Misled. It is Not Her Fault.”

“I’m not trying to point fingers or assign blame; I’m trying to save lives.” My clothes were sticking to my skin. I began stripping them off and dropping them into the sink, where they could dry without ruining anything else. “She told me that when this carnival moved on, I wouldn’t be moving with it. I don’t think she meant I’d be leaving quietly. She knows about at least three cryptids within the show. What is she going to do?”

“She travels in the company of the Quiet Man,” said Mork slowly. It was the first time I’d heard a title assigned to someone who wasn’t a part of the Aeslin religious structure, but it fit. Robert was often quiet, listening and planning until he felt the need to act. He was very much in charge. Margaret knew it, and so did I. “He will come in from the back, with sharpened knives and silence. He prefers the unlit hall. The Impassioned Priestess would fight the world face-to-face, if she thought she could. She likes her enemies to see their deaths approaching.”

“Okay.” I pulled my bathrobe on. The RV felt like it was shifting around me, going from a temporary home to a waiting room, a place to pause before action resumed. It hurt. “Are they going to call for reinforcements, or are the two of them going to try to take on this carnival all by themselves?”

Mork lowered his head, whiskers drooping. “I am sorry, Priestess. I have failed you.”

“What? What do you mean?”

Mindy put a paw on his shoulder. “You must speak. If you do not speak, she cannot know, for did not the Thoughtful Priestess say We Are Not All Mind-Readers Here, We Leave That To Sarah?”

Mork sighed. It was a small, pained sound, and I’ve spent enough of my life around Aeslin mice that it nearly broke my heart. Raising his head, he met my eyes and said, “If she has given you the Indication that the End is Nigh, then she is no longer alone with the Quiet Man. That is not how Things Are Done. Two is a reconnaissance team. More are required, for a Cleansing. More are required, for a Purge.”

“How many more?” I asked.

“I Cannot Say. At least two. Perhaps more. This is a Small Target, poorly armed, unprepared. They may think four is enough.”

I stared at the mouse in horror. Mork ducked his head again, shame radiating from every line of his tiny body.

“I have failed you,” he moaned. “I am unworthy of the hallowed space of the Family Attic.”

“You have done no such thing,” I said. “You haven’t failed me; you’re still getting used to the idea of what it means to serve your gods. You’ll get used to it. And if anyone failed here, it was me. I didn’t tell you when Margaret came to speak to me. That was my fault.”

“I must Redeem Myself,” said Mork stubbornly. “I will return to England, and face my punishment.”

“No,” I said. “You will not.” There was no way I was sending this mouse back to the Covenant to be killed—and they would kill him, once guilt drove him to reveal himself. Even if he hadn’t been an Aeslin mouse from my family’s colony, and hence my responsibility, Mindy had been putting on an awful lot of weight in the past few weeks, and while I wasn’t going to ask her for details, I was pretty sure my colony was going to expand if I didn’t get home soon.

(Aeslin mice have a longer gestation time than normal mice, and tend to only have one or two babies at a time. They also don’t eat them. Aeslin mice are much better than normal mice.)

Mork made a small wailing noise and began supplicating himself to me. Mindy interposed her body between the two of us, whiskers slanted in embarrassment. “I will talk to him,” she squeaked. “I am sorry.”

“Don’t be,” I said. “He helped.”

More were coming than just Margaret and Robert. I should have guessed as much. Unless they were planning some sort of airstrike, there were too many people here for them to take out on their own.

I didn’t have an umbrella, but I had the classic sheets of newspaper, intended as bedding for the mice. I grabbed a thick stack, stepped into my flip-flops, and said, “I’ll be right back,” before stepping into the rain once more. I wasn’t going far this time: just around the side of the RV to the other door, which I had never seen open.

I knocked. I waited. Ananta opened the door, eyes widening when she saw me. Like me, she was dressed for staying where it was dry, not going out in the rain, in a knee-length black T-shirt over soft gray leggings. Unlike me, she didn’t have makeup melting down her face or glitter tangled in her hair.

“Did you lock yourself out?” she asked. “I have a spare key.”

“No,” I said. “May I come in?”

Ananta went still. “That may not be the best idea.”

In for a penny . . . “I know you’re a wadjet,” I said. “I know at least some of the cobras in your exhibit are your brothers. I don’t know why you’re with the carnival, and I don’t much care. I need your help.”

Ananta had seemed still before. Now she was frozen, reduced to a perfect, reptilian motionlessness that made me wonder how I could ever have thought, even for a second, that she was a mammal. Finally, softly, she asked, “How do you . . . ?”

“Please.”

Ananta nodded, leaning out the door to take a quick look to either side before she stepped back and let me into her half of the RV.

The smell of snake struck me the second I stepped inside, ten times as strong as it had been in the wider, airier reptile show tent. The lights were low, and the heat was high, enough that I wished I had something on under the bathrobe and could take it off, at least for a little while. There was a bed, long and narrow and currently occupied by two adolescent cobras. And an iPad. The sight of a cobra clutching a stylus in the last few inches of its tail was definitely a new one. I blinked. The cobra, lacking eyelids, did not blink back, but did flare its hood out a few extra millimeters, making sure I remembered that it was a dangerous snake, and should not have its Netflix time interfered with.

Most of the space in the RV was taken up with rack upon rack of reptile enclosures. There were tanks on the counter, and a large, open tank taking up most of the small dining table. Ananta had structured her life around her charges as well as her brothers, and was probably perfectly content to do so. Family, after all, comes first.