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“Oh, didn’t we tell you, Owen’s evil scheme is to wipe out you and the elf leaders so he can become the grand overlord of these few blocks of fake New York,” I shot back without thinking. As soon as I realized what I’d said, I bit my lip in contrition.
Much to my relief, Mac chuckled. “She’s right. There’s no point in getting silly about this. He wants to get home as much as we do. Pass on the message, son, then let us know where you need us to go. You two will be there, of course.”
“Us?” Owen asked.
“We are outnumbered. I want to have as many wizards there as they have elves.”
*
We went out to dinner, maintaining our usual pattern, though Owen didn’t even try to pretend like he was on a date in a new relationship. As a matter of fact, this was starting to feel normal for me—us in the midst of a crisis and him distracted by it. I totally understood the distraction, but I did find myself looking back with nostalgia at those enchanted days when we hadn’t known what was going on.
“What’s up?” I asked when he was unusually silent and distant for a while.
He smiled wryly. “How much time do you have? I’m just trying to think of a way to deal with this that doesn’t put me in the middle of an elves versus wizards dispute. I’m not even sure where I stand with the elves. They may be more suspicious of me than the wizards are.”
“You might be surprised,” I said. “I put Perdita on the case months ago. There were some initial rumors, but she’s been countering all of them, and when she spreads something, it goes far and wide. She’s got a better reach than CNN.”
“So they probably won’t elect me their new leader—which is good—but they’re not expecting me to try to take over the world.” He sighed then. “But since apparently McClusky does think I’m pulling some grand scheme, the fact that they don’t hate me on sight will look very suspicious.”
“Sorry for butting in earlier, by the way.”
“Don’t worry about it. I don’t think it makes much difference, one way or another. I could get myself killed while pushing his grandmother out of the way of a speeding car, and he’d find it very suspicious that I bruised her.”
If he was making dark jokes, then I figured his funk wasn’t too deep. To prevent him from sinking back, I said, “Do you have any ideas for a meeting location?”
“I’m trying to decide if we should go for a building near the store, where several of us have regular reason to be, or maybe near where one of us lives. Or should we stay entirely away from anything associated with us?”
“We’ll also need to be careful to avoid any space on top of an occupied apartment.”
“I was thinking of finding an empty basement, if there is such a thing.”
“Oh, good thinking. Then there’d be a floor.”
“Are you up for a scouting mission?” he asked with a mischievous smile.
“What do you think?”
We dropped back by the store after dinner so he could check on some things, then we headed toward my place. On the block before we reached my building, Owen glanced around for followers, then led me up the front steps and magicked the front door open. Once we were inside, we found a narrow staircase behind the main stairs, leading down into a basement utility area. Or, where one might have been in a real building. It seemed as though the utilities here were all magical, so there was no need for boiler or furnace. That meant the utility room was one of those blank spaces, and it led into a much larger blank space that filled the basement. “Bingo!” I said.
“This should do the trick,” he agreed. “The windows are even mostly blocked, so light shouldn’t be visible outside. Now we just need to find multiple entry points.”
We determined that the space could be entered directly through the basement apartment entrance under the front steps and from the apartment in the adjacent building, as well as the way we’d come in. Entering from farther down the block required a more complicated route that involved going upstairs and over an occupied apartment before coming down the main stairs where we’d entered. We saved that entrance and another entrance in the middle of the block for ourselves because they were more complicated to explain. Owen made note of the addresses and directions for the other entries so he could give the location to Mac and Earl in the morning.
*
Perdita wasn’t quite her usual chipper self when I stopped by for my morning coffee the next day. “Do you have any idea when we’re getting out of here?” she asked.
“We’re working on some plans,” I told her.
“Good, because I’m ready to go home. I like being your assistant more than I like being a waitress. I bet you like your job better than working in a bookstore, too, huh? Or do you even see the bookstore? What is this like for you, since magic doesn’t work on you? Or does it? I don’t get it. How could they have enchanted you?”
I was surprised it had taken her so long to get around to thinking of that. “I actually got a dose of magic awhile ago. It was an accident. I don’t have much, and it’s fading already, but I’ve been trying to learn to use what I’ve got.”
“Oh, that’s where you were going with all those ‘meetings.’” She made sarcastic air quotes with her fingers. “I just thought you were getting it on with Owen somewhere, since you came back all flushed and excited.”
I restrained a groan. I’d suspected that was what she was thinking. “I was just excited about practicing magic.” I was surprised by how wistful I sounded. Having magic had a lot to do with me being in this mess, though I didn’t know what might have happened if they hadn’t been able to imprison me this way. They might have locked me in an ordinary cell.
“And Owen? I thought magic wasn’t supposed to work on him, either.”
