The Whimsy Witch Who Wasn't (Tales of Xest Book 1) Page 10

  I groaned, leaning forward until my head nearly hit the table. Hawk was going to kill me, and things were already rocky. He already hated me. Now after Belinda and this, it was going to be even worse.

  “Don’t worry about it. He can’t be too angry. He did sign up for this when he sent the finder for you. I mean, when the black feather landed on someone from Rest, you had to know it was going to get tricky.”

  All my other thoughts vanished, as Zab’s words kicked them out so they could run through my head without distraction and take over. After they banged all around, I replayed them at a slow stroll. I let them sink in a little better, afraid I’d missed some nuance that would make sense of this.

  When I finally straightened and turned to Zab, his eyelids slowly lowered until there were crinkles at the corners. “You didn’t know about that, did you?”

  “No. I didn’t.”

  That black feather he’d been staring at the first time I met him. It all made sense now. I’d chased after Hawk, nearly begging for help, and he’d been seeking me out from the beginning.

  15

  Another night of bad sleep, but this time it was fury that had kept me awake, in addition to the candle I could never put out. I’d been waiting for Hawk to walk in the office all day so I could ream him out, although I’d probably have to race Belinda to get to him first. Her mysterious illness gone, she was back at work. Every time the door opened, the two of us were the first to look over. She reminded me of a dog left at a kennel waiting for its owner. It was almost too pathetic to stomach. On the other hand, I probably appeared like the junkyard dog, ready to rip someone’s heart out of their chest after I’d mangled the rest of their body.

  The worst was when we both caught the other staring at the door. Then it was some funky combination of awkward and anger.

  “Belinda…”

  “No.” She turned her head.

  It was the fifth time I’d tried to speak to her today. She wouldn’t even let me apologize.

  The door opened, and I didn’t look for once. I heard Belinda’s chair scrape the ground, and I still didn’t look.

  I would’ve trampled him at the door but was beaten out by the stampede that was Belinda. She did her ritual shadowing-Hawk routine. The only thing that made it tolerable was that Hawk didn’t seem to notice her as much as he should’ve.

  She shadowed him across the room to where Musso was flipping through some of the work, discussing weird things in hushed voices.

  I was barely keeping my head from exploding as I sat and waited for my opportunity to strike. Didn’t know when that was going to happen, as Belinda was still tailing him, and Musso seemed to think he had something equally pressing. I crossed my arms, looking toward the windows and the witches and warlocks walking by, trying to hold my patience in check, the weight of which would strain an Olympic lifter.

  “Is there a problem?” Hawk’s voice carried clear and loud across the room.

  If he didn’t realize all the problems Belinda had by now, they were made for each other. The two of them were the same, birds of a feather, cut from the same cloth—the sayings could go on forever. Neither of them wanted to see a problem when it was right in their face. Nope. Just kept on going. He should throw in the towel and get hitched to her, because she wasn’t going to let daylight in between them anyway. He didn’t seem ready to really hammer home that point, though, so maybe he was more into her than it seemed?

  “Tippi, is there an issue?”

  I swung my head to him, surprised he was aware I was in the office, let alone noting that I was fuming so much I could’ve brewed tea on my forehead.

  Belinda was twitching as she still hung as close as she could to him, only taking breaks from staring at his back to try to stare my existence right into hell. She didn’t realize it, but I was already there.

  “Tippi?”

  The rest of the room was watching, including customers, as Hawk’s attention was solely on me.

  “Yes, actually, there is,” I said.

  He detached himself from Musso and Belinda, and walked until he was standing right in front of me. “Do we need to discuss it?”

  Belinda, who was typically begging for any scrap of attention, good or bad, looked beyond words with envy. The rest of the room seemed to step back, giving us a wider berth, as if there would be bloodshed soon and they didn’t want to catch an accidental blow or get any on their clothes. They didn’t know what I knew. He couldn’t kill me, not yet. He needed me, and I was beginning to realize it was a lot more than I thought if he’d tracked me down in Rest.

  What the hell was he going to have me do? That wasn’t even my biggest issue, though. How dare he let me think I’d chased him down for help when it was the other way around?

  I stood. “Oh, do I.”

  Zab muttered, “Ooooh, noooo,” off to the side. It was unclear whether his concern was that he’d been the one to inform me of the finder situation or that I was daring to call Hawk out on something. For some reason, it didn’t seem the thing to do in this place.

  “Walk.” Hawk went to the stair door, leaving it open.

  Oh, I walked. I’d been waiting for a moment alone with him for hours. We were going to talk, and I might even need to yell, and it was happening now.

  I walked past him and made a right turn to climb toward my room.

  “Other way,” he said.

  I was supposed to use the left staircase? The one he told me not to use unless I wanted to die? Oh no. Maybe all those “uh oh” expressions in the office were right. Any comfort I felt with him might’ve been delusion on my part. What did I really know about Hawk? Absolutely nothing. I turned to go to the left and then froze. I was being crazy. He needed me. I took one step up and paused again.

  Whatever was up there might be really bad. If he tried to kill me in the office, Zab would take pity on me and try to save me. He probably wouldn’t succeed, but if Musso kicked in? There was at least a chance. Up there? All bets were off.

  “You’re not going to die.” Hawk’s voice was deep, sending a little shiver through me.

  “I didn’t believe I would for a second,” I said, throwing him a look over my shoulder that called him an idiot if he thought otherwise, before I began climbing.

  “You might be the worst liar I’ve ever met. No wonder the shopkeeper didn’t believe you,” he said as he followed me up the stairs.

  So he knew all the details. Didn’t matter. I’d wear my crappy lying abilities like the badge of honor they were.

  “Yes, I’m not well trained in duplicity,” I said, wondering when the stairs were going to stop. I’d definitely climbed more than a flight, and unless I’d gone crazy, I thought this building only had two stories? Where was the landing? But we kept climbing past where the roof should’ve been.

  Ah, there it was, a landing and a door. He waved his hand, telling me to enter. He could say I wasn’t going to die, but I wasn’t taking any unnecessary risks. Maybe that was why he was so upset about me being out and about. He didn’t want too many people to notice when I went missing? He wanted the option to kill me when he was done.

  “You should go first.” I stepped to the side. If there were a monster about to pop out of that door, maybe it would eat him first, if he was willing to open it.

  He looked at me with an expression so dry that the Sahara could’ve been a rain forest in comparison. He opened the door and then gasped. “Oh no. It’s a sitting room.”

  He turned to me, raised an eyebrow and then walked in.

  Yeah, it was a sitting room, all right, and he was already making himself comfortable on the only couch in the room. I can’t believe I’d bought into that “it’ll kill you” bullshit.

  “Now what’s your issue?” he asked.

  After that buildup, I’d almost forgotten why I hated him today, and possibly tomorrow, and the day after that.

  “The finder. Care to tell me about that?” If he couldn’t figure out the problem from my words, my
fighting tone surely invited him into the ring.

  “And?” he asked. He stared at me, contemplating something or other I was too dense to discern. If he’d gotten my invite to the fight, it didn’t look like he was going to step into the ring.

  I walked to the window, refusing to sit next to him. “The finder? The black feather that located me? That’s my issue.” I lost interest in the scenery, waiting for this to finally click for him. I didn’t care what bullshit he gave me. Yes, this world was very different from where I’d come from, but some things had to be the same, like lying and withholding. He’d done both.

  “I’m not seeing the problem, so you’re going to have to spell it out for me.” He waved a hand, signaling that I should continue.

  “You were coming for me first. You sent a finder to locate me. You found me first. Not Marvin. He might’ve hired those idiots to bring me here, but you were going to do the same, weren’t you?”

  “I wouldn’t have hired anyone. I would’ve done it myself. And I’m still not seeing the issue.”

  As he leaned back on the couch and looked at me, it was painfully clear that he didn’t see any problem with what had happened. I was going to have to break it down for him, in the simplest of terms.

  “Why did you make it seem like I came to you? That you were doing me a favor?” If he wanted to tell me there was nothing wrong with that, he was a liar.

  “A, you did approach me. B, I did do you a favor. You’d gotten yourself in a situation.”

  I wanted to march over there and beat him until he saw my point. Instead, I broke it down ever further. He was going to see my point at least one time before I left here.

  “My point is, you should’ve told me you were going to come back for me and do the same thing I was asking you to do.” I could hear my own exhale as I tried to calm myself.

  “You’re right. I would have, and at that point, I would’ve offered more favorable terms. You would’ve agreed, so what is the problem?” He leaned his head on a few fingers, as if this talk was becoming tiresome.

  His explanation was fine and dandy except for one problem. “And when I declined? Then what?”

  He plucked fuzz off his pants. “I would’ve offered you more.”

  “And if I still declined?”

  He let out a long sigh. “You wouldn’t have. I would’ve raised the price until you agreed.”

  “You don’t get it. That’s not who I am. I can’t be bought. I don’t care about money.”

  He smiled. “You’re the one that doesn’t understand. When I say price, I don’t mean money. And everyone has a price, even you. The fact that you don’t know that shows your naïveté.”

  “I’m not naive. I’m telling you—”

  “What if I said I’d bring your mother back?”

  I felt like he’d just knocked the air out of my lungs. Was bringing her back an option? Would I want to? To call our relationship complicated would’ve been a massive understatement. Unpacking that relationship would take at least five psychologists and several lifetimes. What concerned me most was that he clearly knew something about her, at least to the extent that she was dead. How much digging around had he done?

  “What do you know about her?” I narrowed my eyes at him.

  “Some, but not much,” he said, still calm.

  I didn’t particularly care for people who didn’t fight normally. I’d been ready for a brawl, but as he kept his calm, he made it harder to keep my ire up, especially when he dropped a bomb like that.

  “Could you bring her back?” I wrapped my arms around myself, wondering if she’d come back normal or more like something out of a Stephen King novel. She’d already been barely sane to begin with, which wouldn’t help matters. But if she could come back, oh, the things I’d ask her.

  “I don’t deal in that kind of magic. But like I said, everyone has a price.”

  “You’re an asshole.” The calm that had been settling over me fled.

  “Why? Because everyone has a price, something that will make them do things they never thought they would? You need to learn that or you won’t make it here very long.”

  “Good thing I’m not staying long, then.”

  I walked out of the room, leaving the door open. I hadn’t gotten any answers, or an admission of guilt, and I was fairly sure I wouldn’t in the future.

  16

  It was such a joy to have Belinda back to work, sitting at her desk, declaring war on me without a word. Couldn’t even blame her anymore. I’d pretty much shot a nuke at her with my little eavesdropping scenario, and now her love interest had just taken me away for a little chat when she could barely get his attention. At some point in the future, I might try to lob an apology over her way again. That future had not come yet. If I lobbed anything at her right now, she’d assume it was a grenade and shoot first.

  Belinda hadn’t attempted to give me anything to do all day, so something must’ve been said to her about the work as well. I was content. Things had been bad enough when she’d disliked me. The pure rage exuding from her now could make life here unbearable.

  I could sense the problem coming even before she stood and pointed at me.

  “Zab, should she really be doing that? She’s been a witch for all of, what? Two seconds? She has zero qualifications.”

  “You mean like common sense? I think she can manage. And they all have to go through us for rates anyway. It’ll make our lives easier if they’re presorted.” Zab went back to work, as if nothing were amiss. Musso never stopped, clearly trying to evade this conversation.

  Belinda was strung so tight that I was afraid she’d shatter if a wind hit her wrong. She stood there staring, torn between carrying on and pretending I didn’t exist. She could choose whichever made her happy. I was getting back to work.

  Destroy the world and become Satan’s bride.

  Well, this was easy. Shredder pile. Although I silently thanked the wisher for bringing some levity into my day.

  Promise my life to God if he could kill my ninth-grade teacher for flunking me in gym.

  Really? What was wrong with these people? Maybe you should be asking for some coping skills or better self-discipline. Either way, your teacher would live on, as another request hit the shredder pile.

  Will eat every lima bean on my plate until I die if my dog Bingo lives.

  Finally, a keeper. What was the date on this thing? We were running behind. I hoped Bingo was still alive.

  “Zab? Do we have a priority pile? This needs a fast turnaround.”

  “What is it?” he asked, holding out his hand for the slip. He looked it over. “Too vague. We could end up with an immortal dog, and the suffering incurred from lima beans won’t cover a life. Bingo might make it, but we can’t intervene. Shredder.”

  Belinda huffed from across the room. “A dog is top priority?” she muttered under her breath, as she worked on some form in front of her.

  Right there was the proof of why I shouldn’t like her. Who wouldn’t put Bingo in a priority pile? Still, I understood Zab’s argument. I mean, lima beans might not taste very good, but was that really a fair price? The kid could’ve done a little better, but a lot of people really hated lima beans. Perhaps they weren’t getting their full due?

  My hand hovered over the shredder pile before making a brand-new pile. A “reconsider later” pile. A pile that might be sitting very close to the acceptance pile. I would be very careful that those two piles didn’t merge accidentally.

  Zab rolled his chair a little closer, looking at Bingo’s slip.

  “I put it to the side in case you feel differently later.”

  Zab was trying to figure out the nicest approach to get Bingo on the shredder pile when Hawk walked in. He had a newspaper in his hands. This place had newspapers? Couldn’t imagine what crazy shit they’d have in them, but as he walked toward me, I was clearly going to find out.

  He dropped a paper in front of me that I instantly recognized. This wasn’t a Xest
newspaper. It was one of the biggies in the Northeast, even globally.

  “Go to page three.” He leaned an elbow on the cabinet behind me, waiting.

  Zab slowly rolled his chair away.

  I flipped the pages. The second I saw the headline, I groaned.

  Hawk leaned down, laying a hand flat on the desk, reading, “‘Dandelions exploding. Scientists fear it’s a rare side effect of global warming. Others say it’s a sign of the apocalypse. One thing is for sure, no one can explain why.’”

  He straightened, and I could finally concentrate and skim the article. It had happened fifty times in the last day or so. How many had I done? Not all of them had probably been plucked and blown, so that might’ve been right. Other than some minor burns, everyone was fine.

  “You just took to dandelions. A natural at them,” Hawk said. I understood his motivation. I might’ve tried to lay my failures on his teaching ability on occasion, but did he have to mock me here? Now?

  There was a muffled feminine giggle across the room. I didn’t look in her direction.

  I dropped the paper and looked at him, all pretenses stripped away. “You should send me back. Obviously, I’m not good at magic. You’re not going to get what you need.”

  His eyes crinkled at the corners as he watched me, as if he could read all my inner fears. He had to face it. This wasn’t going to work out. As Belinda had pointed out just moments ago, I’d been a witch for all of two seconds and was far from a natural.

  “No. I don’t think so,” he said, walking toward the back room. “Let’s go. We have work to do.”

  Great. Now he was mad again, and I didn’t even know why.

  “Hawk?” Belinda called, stopping him.

  Hawk looked at her. “Yes, Bel?” His voice was softer than he ever used with me. Softer than he typically used with her, even. Was it guilt because he didn’t want her? Was there a heart in that cold chest somewhere?