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“Because portals take a lot of energy to keep open,” Tansy explained. “And moving items over long distances drains a witch’s energy even more. Magic still follows the basic rules of physics. I mean, I could handle a few people. But”—she looked around— “that’s a lot of plants. I’d struggle with that.”
“Ohhh, that makes sense. So you can’t really have a whole army march through a portal like in the movies?”
“It’d take a lot of witches or wizards to hold a portal that size. And they’d need to be siphoning magic from something very powerful. In that case, I’d worry more aboutthatthan any army.”
“What happens if you run out of energy in the middle of moving something through a portal?”
“You mean if a portal closed mid-transport? I don’t know. That’s never happened before. I’m not sure if the item would materialize wherever they happened to be in physical space or if it’d be stuck somewhere in thein-between.”
I shuddered at the thought of being stuck in some immaterial realm. Tansy must have noticed because she immediately reassured me that my parents would be perfectly safe.
“Why don’t we call them and let them make the decision,” I said.
I punched in their number, and Dad picked up almost immediately. I got straight to the point, introducing them to Tansy, Iris, and Shelby, and telling them about the portal idea.
He was all gung-ho to try it, but Mom balked at the thought of walking through a hole in the middle of her living room and magically appearing out of thin air a few states over. I didn’t blame her, after my mental image of being stuck somewhere that was neither here nor there.
“I honestly don’t mind if you’re not here in person,” I assured them. “I did just spring this on you yesterday.”
“I’ll prop the tablet on a chair in the front row,” Tansy said. “It’ll be like you’re right here.”
“It’s probably for the best anyway.” Dad panned his phone down his body, then over to Mom. They were wearing matching pajamas. “We got comfy to watch your big day.”
“I told you: it’s not that big, Dad.” I rolled my eyes. I had already explained to them this was all a sham, and that was why I wasn’t upset they weren’t going to be here live and in person.
“We’ll come visit you two in person another time, Tiger Lily,” Dad promised.
I grinned at the nickname. It had been an inside joke since I was a kid, a jab at the fact that the snow leopards hadn’t wanted to help when they found out I couldn’t shift. After another meltdown involving my claws and some unsuspecting curtains, our neighbor had approached my parents about me. She just happened to be a tiger shifter.
The Wall had still been active back then, but since she was a shifter herself, Mrs. Khan had seen right through whatever The Wall did to explain away the incidents. She’d helped me get in control of my angry murder mittens.
“You don’t need to be a snow leopard,” Mom had said. “You can be our tiger, Lily.” And the nickname had stuck.
On the screen, Dad cleared his throat. “I do want to speak to this Gunnar guy, though.”
Oh boy. “Dad, he’s doing me a favor.”
“That’s very nice of him, but I still want to talk to him before he does you this favor.”
“Fine,” I sighed.
“I’ll bring you over to him,” Tansy said. She left with the tablet, disappearing through the door.
“Let’s get these finishing touches done,” Iris said.
I looked around. “I thought we were done with the flowers.”
“What? No! You still need your bouquet.”
Chapter 13
Gunnar
Iwipedmyhandson my specially tailored pants again. They weren’t actually sweating, since I was in my gargoyle form, and we didn’t get such inconvenient human things as sweaty palms when we were nervous. But Iwasnervous, and it was making me fidgety.
Not in a something’s-going-to-go-wrong kind of way, but in a something-big-is-happening way. I reminded myself that this marriage wasn’t real, just a temporary scheme to get The White Claws off Lillian’s back, but that didn’t help. If anything, it made it worse.
“You’re going to rip your pants if you keep doing that,” Grayson said. “And don’t expect my wife to patch them for you five minutes before the wedding. It’s not going to happen.”
