The Whimsy Witch Who Wasn't (Tales of Xest Book 1) Page 12

  Belinda was still laughing, and I could see Zab’s lips start to curl up. If this were a different situation, I might’ve found it funny too. If I didn’t want to go home so bad, if I knew my friend wasn’t rotting away in a factory, if Loris wasn’t probably worried sick, I might’ve laughed with them.

  But today, I didn’t have it in me.

  “I’ve got to go run an errand. I’ll be back soon,” I said, grabbing my jacket, not caring what Hawk said about staying in. I was so done with this place that if I didn’t get out of here for a little while, I was going to burn down the building.

  “Tippi, I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

  “It’s okay, really. I just need to do something.”

  “Just let the crybaby go,” Belinda said.

  I walked past her, my fists balled as I tried to keep them at my sides.

  The wind blew through the narrow streets as I kept my hood up and my head down, avoiding eye contact.

  Hawk was right. I didn’t need any more attention after what happened the last time I ran errands.

  I walked until I got to the factory and then kept walking like I was supposed to be there. With my head up high, I made my way to the dandelion room, passing the other tables of witches and warlocks. They watched me with a skeptical eye. Rabbit was sitting at a table by herself and hadn’t noticed me yet, and it tore up my insides like I’d swallowed a bottle of acid. I was so busy feeling bad for myself, and she was still stuck here. I had to get her out. I didn’t know how, but I had to.

  I saw one of the other witches get up from the table and head to the door. She might’ve been going to the bathroom or something, but I had a feeling my time was limited. I took the seat beside Rabbit, who finally turned around.

  “Tippi!” She was all genuine smiles and grey skin, looking like she’d aged ten years in the last week. “Are you back?”

  “No. I wanted to see you and tell you I didn’t forget about you. I’m trying to figure something out.”

  “I can’t believe you came back here just to tell me that.”

  She really couldn’t, and it made it that much worse. I should’ve been fighting to get her out of here every day, but I was going to make it right.

  I leaned forward. “I’m not leaving here without you. That’s not some bullshit I’m spewing, either. It’s a promise.”

  “There’s no way, but I appreciate you trying. I really do.”

  “What are you doing here?” Mertie’s shrill tone carried across the room.

  My gut had been right. They’d run and tattled as soon as I walked in.

  “I’ll be back for you soon,” I said, before standing and facing Mertie. “I was in the area, so I figured I’d say hello. I’m done now.” I turned to the door and walked, making it clear I was done with her.

  “Don’t come back,” she said as I walked past her.

  “Why are you staring at the factory as if you want to be back in there? Why are you out of the office at all?”

  I jumped, not expecting someone to be talking to me, let alone Hawk.

  I shrugged and began walking back to the office. “Of course I don’t want to go back, but I made a friend there. As to why? It was either leave your office or commit murder.”

  “Hmmm” was all I got as he began walking back with me.

  I didn’t expand on my homicidal inclinations, and luckily, he didn’t ask. He probably didn’t want to hear about his girlfriend.

  Although if he did, he’d hear me better than usual. The typical distance between us, which used to be three or four feet, had shrunk to one or two. While I did have favorable proximity, there was something we needed to hash out, and it couldn’t wait anymore.

  “My friend’s not doing well. I need to get her out.”

  “That might be possible at some point, but I’ve other concerns right now.” He didn’t slow his pace.

  “She’s running out of time.”

  He continued to walk.

  I double-timed it until I was standing in front of him, arms crossed and ready to do battle. “What if I made it part of our deal? Then could you work it in?”

  He stared at me with a look of such condemnation that I nearly took a step back. I held my ground anyway. This had to be done.

  He dipped his chin. “You’ve lived as a human for too long. Our deal is set and can’t be changed. I bought out the price of your contract. You’re lucky I gave you any concessions.”

  Bought and paid for. The mere mention of it made me want to scream and run.

  He picked me up by my waist and moved me to the side.

  I watched him walk away, deciding I wasn’t ready to go back to the office anymore. He continued walking, not looking back.

  It didn’t matter if he said no. I’d find a way to get her out, and soon. Rabbit was not dying in that place.

  19

  I was sitting in the back room with my second cocoa of the day. The extra sugar was feeding my adrenaline in a way that didn’t bode well for Hawk—whenever he decided to show, that was.

  Hawk walked into the back room with a purpose. Something was up. Today wouldn’t be the usual routine of me trying to work my magic and him yelling at me because I couldn’t.

  “Come on. We’re going somewhere.” As usual, he made demands and expected me to follow blindly.

  “No. We aren’t practicing today?” Something I’d dreaded all day suddenly seemed better than the unknown he was about to take me to. This place had way too many unknowns for my liking. For a girl that had lived a predictable life for the last couple of years, being yanked back into chaos at every turn was unsettling.

  When I didn’t move fast enough, he grabbed my jacket off the hook and tossed it to me.

  “We need to go see someone.” He moved toward the door.

  For a split second, I thought about grilling him about our meeting. Then I thought back to what I was planning on doing tomorrow, the idea I’d come up with after I left the factory, and decided I was going to need as much goodwill as possible. Probably more.

  There was a well-known saying: it’s easier to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission. I wasn’t quite confident that the amount of forgiveness I was going to be begging for existed inside Hawk’s heart of stone. But maybe there would be enough soft and mushy in that chest to stop him from killing me.

  He was already a couple of buildings away by the time I walked outside. People scattered like fish in a shark tank as he approached. It seemed that in Xest, even the devil might’ve crossed the street if he saw Hawk coming. That should’ve given me even more pause about my plans, but the way I saw it, I had no choice.

  “Who are we going to visit?” I asked as I caught up, sounding as pleasant as I could. He needed a reminder that I was a nice person who shouldn’t be killed.

  “A scholar of sorts. Someone who might be able to shed some light on why your magic isn’t working the way it should.”

  He was back to walking almost four feet ahead of me, and it wasn’t because he was making sure the path ahead was safe. Nope, it was because I’d pissed him off today with my deal renegotiations. If that gained me an extra foot or two, there were big problems to come.

  “What if I don’t have good magic? Maybe you should accept that whatever it is you need, I can’t do it and you should let me go.” Letting me go would be much better than killing me, the way he was going to want to after tomorrow.

  “It’s not going to happen, so stop asking.”

  At least he didn’t sound annoyed. More determined. Tomorrow annoyance might be my best-case scenario.

  “Why are you so sure?” I’d never been sure of anything in my life, which made sense when your mother was saying things that were totally insane and the world was saying something different. Who knew insanity would win out in the end? Either way, that kind of childhood didn’t breed an overly confident adult.

  “Because I am. Finders are almost a hundred percent accurate.”

  And here he was, in the face o
f mounting failures, enough that I was convinced I was a total failure, absolutely positive I was the person he needed for his big spell—or thing, or whatever it was. Sometimes I was in awe of his confidence. Sometimes I wished I could take a sledgehammer to it so he was as messed up as me.

  “How accurate? You said almost. What amount aren’t accurate?” I did a little jog to catch up to his longer stride, closing the gap that would surely appear again as soon as he noticed.

  “I don’t have scientific data on it, but I guess about one percent.”

  “What if I’m that one percent?”

  “When they’re not accurate, it’s user error. I don’t make errors like that.” He stopped abruptly and turned, moving his hand to my neck, his fingers grazing my skin, sending a little tingle through me as he confirmed my necklace was on. “Don’t take that off unless I tell you to,” he said, and then continued to walk.

  I hated when he touched me. Mostly because I liked it when he touched me. And I hated that I liked it. It wasn’t that he was such a horrible person that I should be revolted. He didn’t seem that bad. I wouldn’t say he was that great, either, or he’d be helping me get Rabbit out. It was a combination of everything.

  He was probably still messing around with Belinda, which was wholly unappealing. Plus, he and this entire place were too crazy, and crushing on him would be insanity. So if he could stop touching me and reminding my body that it liked it, things would be much better. I needed to adopt his three-foot-buffer rule. And why was it that he seemed to be the only person in Xest that didn’t have a weird aversion to touching?

  And why was I even dwelling on him? I had much bigger issues.

  “Does this have anything to do with what Oscar mentioned last night?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “But you didn’t want to do that.” If Hawk didn’t think it was a good idea, I might absolutely hate it. Obviously, there had to be some drawback here, or we would’ve tried this sooner.

  “It’s not that I didn’t want to go to him. I don’t like the cost of what going to him will be.”

  I stopped walking. Cost? I was already stuck here because of debt. I wasn’t getting farther in the hole and never getting out of this place. “Hold up a second.”

  He turned around and saw my feet glued to the ground. “What?” he asked, his tone as chilly as the weather.

  I tried not to take it too personally, annoyed it bothered me at all. Clearly, whatever we were doing was making him not happy, so how was I supposed to be enthused?

  “What’s the cost that’s so bad you don’t want to go? I don’t have anything. As it is, I’m basically an indentured servant.”

  He began walking again. “It won’t cost you anything. And if we’re going to get technical, you’re not basically an indentured servant. You are an indentured servant.”

  There was humor in his voice, as if he found my lousy situation funny. Glad he’d gotten his good mood back.

  “My life is not a joke,” I said, watching him walk.

  It didn’t take him long to figure out that I wasn’t following. He walked a few more steps before turning again. “If we don’t figure this out, you’re never getting home and you’ll die an indentured servant.”

  I didn’t like how amused he still seemed, but I did start walking. I was not having “Tippi, the best indentured servant there ever was” on my headstone.

  We got to the farthest point of Xest I’d been so far, past even the mailbox, to a building sitting all on its own. It was made of black stone. The windows were all closed, and there was a large knocker on the front door in the shape of a skull, which Hawk used to announce us. I already didn’t like this place or whomever was inside it. What was wrong with having a lion head, like a normal person?

  A window on the door slid open.

  “We need to see Jasper.”

  Jasper? That was a solid, normal name. Maybe this meeting would be somewhat normal too?

  The set of eyes narrowed on Hawk, then on me, before returning to Hawk.

  “He’s not happy with you,” the man behind the door said.

  “I’m aware. I also know he’ll still see me, so open up.”

  The man’s eyes turned beady, and I heard a snarl. Then he turned his head, as if someone had called him.

  Hawk smiled as he turned back to me. The window closed and then the door opened.

  The man who opened the door was only two feet tall and definitely not all human, from the looks of the ears that were as tall as his head and slightly floppy at the tips. If he had any other abnormalities, it was hard to tell under the thick coat he wore. The inside of the door was lined with a ladder, explaining how he’d gotten up to the window.

  The place was like walking into a cave and got even worse after the door shut. Nope, nothing normal about this meeting so far. Should’ve known.

  Hawk closed his hand over mine, the sizzle of his magic meeting my own where we touched, building warmth. Did he feel it too? He was probably only holding on to me because he was afraid I’d run, but there was something very intimate about touching hands with him in the dark.

  I need to stop having thoughts about intimacy with him.

  I focused on death and dismemberment instead. It was safer that way. As he guided me along with him, I picked up the occasional change in shadows, from pitch-black, to very, very dark. It gave the impression of hallways as we continued to walk. I imagined monsters coming to get me so I didn’t focus on how warm and big his hands were.

  He stopped walking, and I heard the sound of a large door opening. Finally there was some light. A smattering of candles about a smallish room and a fireplace on the far wall.

  Another small man sat in a small chair beside the stone mantel. A gnome, maybe? Was that what they were? Or dwarves? Wait, they lived in stone. Was that a troll? Were trolls big or little? I wish I’d played more fantasy games before I ended up here. I would’ve been much more prepared for Xest.

  Whatever Jasper was, troll, gnome, elf, he was an irritated one. “Can’t believe you’d show your face after you failed me on that last job.”

  “You wouldn’t pay the price,” Hawk said, with a tone that promised we might be out of here soon if the topic didn’t change.

  “Because you didn’t negotiate it well enough,” Jasper said, pointing a bulbous finger with a pointy nail.

  “No one works for free.”

  Jasper sneered and then looked at me. “Who is she? Is this the Whimsy witch they’re all talking about?” He leaned closer, large nostrils flaring.

  “Before I tell you, I’m enacting absconditum juramentum.”

  Jasper lifted the corner of his lip and growled. He was little, but he looked scrappy. I edged closer to Hawk.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  Jasper answered for him. “He’s screwing me. He’s binding me to secrecy if I accept his terms. Which, of course, I do accept.”

  There was a flash of light in the room as soon as he said the word accept.

  “There. It’s binding. Now what is the secret? What’s up with your Whimsy witch here? She’s not throwing off any kind of serious magic that I can feel.” He was sniffing around me again.

  Hawk motioned toward me. “Take off your necklace.” He looked at me as if trying to reassure me this was the right move.

  I put my hand to the stone where it hung underneath my shirt. Jasper’s greedy little eyes roved over me, and I paused.

  I toyed with the chain at my neck as I glanced at Hawk. “That’s definitely binding, right?”

  “Yes. He’s sworn.” He turned back to Jasper, as if reminding him of the oath.

  If Jasper needed a reminder this fast, was this such a good idea?

  “Your little witch here doesn’t completely trust you. Does she know what you are, Hawk? Or are her instincts that good?” Jasper asked, then snickered.

  His goading wasn’t helping my confidence much, but it did drive me to take the necklace off. I might not trust Hawk c
ompletely, but I liked him a lot more than the little jerk in front of me.

  “I know exactly what he is, and he has all my faith. It’s you I don’t trust.” It might’ve been the most convincing I’d ever lied. Probably because it didn’t matter what Hawk might be hiding. He was my way out of this place. He was Rabbit’s way out as well, even if he didn’t know yet. Hopefully nothing would change after tomorrow.

  I dragged the thin chain upward, my pendant of coal snagging on my shirt before it popped out. Hawk held out his hand for the necklace.

  The second it was out of my hands, Jasper gasped, circling me. “Her magic is chaotic and beautiful. So pretty. It lights up like the sun going supernova.”

  If I was lighting up, he was the only one seeing it. The room was barely lit and hadn’t changed.

  As Jasper did his second lap around me, I shot Hawk a look that made it clear there would be grave repercussions if this came back to bite me in the ass. What those repercussions were weren’t clear, but they’d be fierce, especially if I had a supernova going off inside me.

  He raised an eyebrow, silently asking what I’d do. If we weren’t on the same side right now, I would’ve hated him.

  “What can she do?” Jasper asked, circling me again, reaching out as if he were touching my glow that wasn’t there.

  “Nothing good,” I said, owning it before I had to hear it from Hawk.

  “That’s the problem. We aren’t altogether sure. We can’t figure out her aptitude,” Hawk said, in a much kinder way than anticipated.

  Our problem was a little worse than not being able to figure out my aptitude. I glanced at him again, not so angry this time.

  He nodded.

  “I have to feel the energy,” Jasper said.

  I held my hand out. If I wanted to get out of Xest, we needed answers. The parade of failures was tiring.

  Whatever wrapped around me didn’t look like the same hand that I could see. It felt like bones and a claws poking gently into my skin. So, another one who wasn’t what it seemed.