Page 50 of Imaginary Numbers

Damn. I guess that would have been too easy, since it would have let me ask way more specific questions about what she’d been doing before that and how she’d looked before she curled up and put her head down. Oh, well.

“Watch her,” I instructed, still in that nearly silent whisper. “If she moves, one of you follows her, and the rest go looking for someone who can help you. Do you understand?”

Again, the mice touched their ears.

“I’ll bring you a pizza tomorrow,” I promised. The mice, mindful of their promise to be quiet, mimed cheering. I gave them a thumbs-up, and rose.

Buying pizza for the mice is always a fun way to horrify the local Italian restaurants. They don’t like any of the cheap take-out options—mice can have good taste, too—and they want everything on their pies. Everything. Pineapple and anchovies and when the seasonal specials line up, pears and walnuts and gorgonzola and balsamic vinegar. For them, it’s like having an entire buffet delivered straight to their door. For the pizzamakers who have to put their horrifying concoctions together, it’s like being punked by some asshole reality show.

As quietly as I could, I climbed the stairs to the second floor. All the doors there were closed, which is something we’re supposed to respect. An open bedroom door means company is welcome, a closed one means go the hell away. I ignored them and kept walking, until I reached the door at the end of the hall.

KEEP OUT said the sign on the front, and YES, VERITY, THIS MEANS YOU said the amendment underneath it, and I CAN SET FIRES WITH MY MIND NOW, LET ME SLEEP IN said the third piece of paper, all of them written in Antimony’s careful, tightly controlled hand. She had always been a big fan of block letters, which were unambiguous and easily read from a distance. Which was also a pretty good description of Annie herself, really.

I opened the door.

Everyone’s bedroom is unique. Even hotel rooms, which start out sterile and identical, will take on the character of their occupants after a day or two. Annie had been sleeping in the same bedroom since she was two years old. She’d had a lot of time to settle in.

The walls were dominated by books and weapon racks. The closet—which had no doors, since closets with doors are practically an invitation for things to sneak in and jump out at innocent cryptozoologists who just want to sleep—contained her dresser, as well as all her clothes, and several polearms. The swaths of wall that weren’t blocked off by other furnishings were covered in a patchwork quilt of posters and photographs. Some of them were new, and I assumed they’d come with the man who was curled up next to her on the bed, his tail wrapped loosely around her ankle.

Thankfully they were both clothed enough to qualify as “decent,” and hence unlikely to throw things at me for the crime of seeing them in the altogether. I looked around the floor, settled on a pair of jeans that seemed unlikely to be booby-trapped, and flung it at the bed.

Sam reached up and snatched them out of the air before they could land. Then he tossed them aside and pressed his face into the pillow, all without apparently waking up.

“I think you two are a whole new category of ‘light sleeper,’” I said, trying to pitch my voice into the room and keep it from being heard by anyone downstairs. My shoulders were starting to lock up from the tension. “I can keep throwing things, but we’d all be happier if I didn’t have to.”

Antimony sat up. Sam made an unhappy grumbling noise and slid an arm around her waist as she blinked blearily at me through the tangled curtain of her hair.

“Is it morning?” she asked. “It better be morning. There better be coffee. I don’t smell coffee.”

I stepped into the room, shutting the door behind me before turning on the light. Sam made a second grumbling noise, louder and unhappier than the first, and attempted to bury his head under the pillow. His tail uncurled from around Antimony’s ankle and snaked around her waist instead. Antimony, for her part, shoved her hair out of her face and glared.

“Artie,” she said, voice already much more clear than it had been only seconds before, “what the fuck?”

“There’s a cuckoo sleeping on the couch downstairs,” I said.

“Um, yeah. Happy fucking birthday. You’ve been praying for this for five years. Calm down, get out of my room, and enjoy it. Before I kill you and you don’t get to enjoy anything anymore. Your parents have an heir and a spare. They’ll be fine without you.”

“It’s not Sarah.”

Silence so loud it was like a siren filled the room, drowning out everything else. Then Antimony swore and leapt out of bed, stepping with calm assurance over the piles of clothes, knives, and books littering the floor. She yanked open the top drawer of her dresser and started rooting through it, sending underpants flying in all directions before she finally pulled out a fistful of anti-telepathy charms. Each thin silver chain ended at a tiny vial containing a disk of copper and a sprinkling of herbs, preserved in water and sealed with wax. I blinked.

“Those are expensive,” I said.

“Not when they’re homemade,” she replied, and tossed one at me. “Me and James, we’re like Etsy for cryptozoologists. I mean, our first batch had a tendency to explode—”

“You promised we were never going to talk about that again,” said Sam, voice muffled by the pillow.

“—but we’ve worked the kinks out. Put that on.” Antimony slung a charm around her own neck before moving back to the bed and prodding her prone boyfriend. “Up. You need to shield your mind. Get moving.”

“I hate you,” said Sam, even as he reached up and took a charm from her outstretched hand. “I hate your whole family. You’re garbage people. You’re what fūri parents warn their children about.”

“I love you too, asshole,” said Antimony.

I gaped at her. “What—why—how—?”

“Which, where, and when,” Antimony finished quickly. “Now you’ve taken a journalism class. What, you thought we weren’t going to prepare for Sarah coming back wrong? I’ve read all the comic books you have. When a telepath breaks, sometimes they get better, and sometimes they go Dark Phoenix. I love Sarah as much as you do, but that doesn’t mean I was going to sit back and wait for her to set my world on fire. Fire’s my job.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, wounded.