CHAPTER 12
At the molecular level, a solid body and smokeless fire are more similar than one might imagine.
—Hector Freemont
We weren’t even a mile down the road when Selena spilled the full truth to Dad about what had happened to Newt. It wasn’t like she had a choice about telling this time. After all, Dad had returned from successfully swiping the flute in time to see Newt ogling Myles and get the gist of what had transpired. Plus, testing the truth out on him was a good way to prepare for the reaction we’d get at home.
Stone-faced, Dad took his gaze off the road and glanced in the rearview at Selena. “His brother? You tried to transfer the curse and Newt looked at his brother?”
“I feel really bad about it,” she said with the conviction of a wet sponge. “I mean, Newt did always love himself a lot. That would have been perfect. Of course, the best thing would have been to remove the curse entirely—which I couldn’t do. Seriously, I swear, I’ll never do another irreversible curse again, never ever.”
The corners of Dad’s mouth twitched, his serious expression weakening. Finally, he couldn’t hold it in any longer and he burst out laughing. “I can’t begin to imagine. In love with his brother?” He stepped on the gas, the rental van growling its way through the wispy fog. “One thing’s sure, it’s going to take the Sons a while to get that mess straightened out.”
We were all laughing now, as much out of relief as anything else. It went without saying that we were lucky to have escaped. And equally lucky that Lotli appeared to be mostly dehydrated and exhausted, not tortured or subjected to mind-altering drugs in an attempt to get her to spill secrets.
Clutching her flute, Lotli snuggled into the old jacket Dad had loaned her. “We are so grateful to you all,” she said.
Dad ran his hand over his head, smoothing a few stray hairs back over a balding spot. “Unfortunately this isn’t the last we’ll see of the Sons.”
“That’s for sure,” Selena murmured.
As Lotli dozed off, Dad and Selena retreated into their own thoughts. I lowered the side window just enough to catch a slight breeze, the scent of damp pine trees and ocean. Here and there, glimpses of shoreline and water broke through the mist.
We drove over a drawbridge, the bridge’s metal grates humming beneath the van’s tires. When we reached the far side, the mist lifted a little, revealing a small building surrounded by sand and picnic tables. The plywood around its entry was painted to look like a pile of rocks, dotted with cartoonish seagulls and puffins eating ice-cream cones and burgers.
A lump formed in my throat, deep sadness welling in my chest as we passed by. It was Mr. Puffin’s Snack Bar, one of Chase’s favorite places to eat. It was definitely kid-oriented and not all that close to Moonhill, but he loved their fries and burgers, and absolutely adored their ice cream. I’d always get a chocolate Cree-me. He’d order a deluxe hot fudge sundae with the works. But before he’d take a bite, he’d snatch the cherry off the top and toss it to me.
Tears prickled in my eyes. Smiling slightly, I fogged a tiny patch of the side window with my breath and traced the outline of a cherry on the cool glass, turning it into a heart. I loved so many things about Chase. But there was no arguing the fact that he had unusual table manners. Well, truthfully, they were horrible.
He ate fast with little regard as to whether his hands, shirtsleeves, or a jackknife got involved. And he ate anything, gulping down microwaved hot dogs with the same gusto as he devoured Laura’s special roast beef, stuffed with mushrooms and feta cheese. He acted like peanut butter was manna from God. And nothing, absolutely nothing could hold him back when it came to slurping down a glass of cold milk.
I twisted in my seat, catching a final glimpse of Mr. Puffin’s as it faded behind us. Whenever I watched Chase eat, I inevitably was left wondering how many days he’d gone hungry as a boy in the djinn realm, how many nights he’d lain awake in the barracks, his stomach cramping.
I squeezed my eyes shut. Was he hungry right now?
* * *
When we got to Moonhill, Dad carried Lotli into the library’s sunroom and set her on the daybed. It wasn’t a normal guest room, but Lotli had chosen it when she first arrived at Moonhill.
Anger bristled inside me as I recalled that afternoon when we’d gone to the campsite and returned with her. Lotli had been offered a bedroom next to mine, but claimed it was too ostentatious. She needed a smaller, more natural space. She’d suggested the stone cottage where Chase lived by himself. It didn’t take much imagination to figure out what she really wanted—namely Chase.
I dug my fingernails into my palms, ending that poisonous train of thought. Why was I even thinking about that? Lotli had risked her life by going into the realm with us to try to save my mother. And she was going to help us again. That day when she’d first arrived, she hadn’t realized I was interested in Chase.
“Thank you for letting us wear this,” Lotli said, handing the jacket back to Dad. “And thank you again for getting our flute. It means everything to us.”
Selena draped an afghan over Lotli’s shoulders. “Do you remember anything about the kidnapping?”
She shook her head. “Not much. We remember escaping from the realm. We came in here to change our clothes. They surprised us from behind, put a rag over our mouth and nose. The smell was so strong. Everything went black. When we woke up, we were in the boathouse. That is all we remember.” She glanced at me. “What happened to you and Chase?”
I folded my arms across my chest, hands tucked under my armpits. I didn’t like thinking about this, but she had a right to know everything. I told her in detail about how, after I’d tricked her into leaving the realm without me, I’d dressed as a dancer and gone back to the full moon festival. I started to tell her about watching Chase being forced to fight, but I couldn’t keep my voice steady. So I summarized the rest: about me turning ethereal, being put into a decanter and thrown back through the veil, and landing on the outcrop of rocks.
Lotli pulled the afghan close around her. “We feel so horrible about everything.”
I eyed her. She was shivering like she was chilled to the bone. “You probably should take a hot bath and get into some clean clothes,” I suggested.
“I’ve got some new pajamas you can have,” Selena said. She grimaced. “Annie and I really should have thought to pick up some clothes for you while we were at the camper.”
“That would have been smart,” Dad said.
Lotli stiffened. “You went to our camper?”
I nodded. “We were hoping that—” I felt myself pale. “Shit. We forgot to tell you about Zea.”
“Zea?” Lotli’s dark eyes widened.
“Don’t worry,” Dad said gently. “He’s gone missing, but we’re certain he’s okay.”
Selena jumped in. “I scried for him. He’s not that far from the campsite, a couple of towns away at the most. It felt like he was drifting.”
“Drifting?” Lotli rubbed her lips, then smiled. “Zea has a friend with a houseboat. He goes there sometimes when we are away. You sensed the movement of waves.”
Selena nodded. “That’s exactly what it felt like. This friend is someone Zea can trust, right?”
Lotli didn’t answer. Her gaze swung away from Selena, searching the room. “Are you saying all our clothes are gone? Everything?”
“They went missing when you did,” I said. “We assumed Newt or whoever took you grabbed all your stuff as well.”
She rocked forward, pressing her hands over her eyes. “Our backpack. We remember now. They had it.”
“They didn’t get everything,” Selena said quietly. “Zachary found your talisman bag under the bed.”
She looked up. “He did? Where is it?”
“Mom made him put it under your pillow—for when you got back.”
Leaving the afghan behind, she scooted to the head of the daybed, retrieved the tiny bag, and pressed it against her chest. “We are so grateful to have this.” She closed her eyes, her gratitude palpable. “Clothes can be replaced, but this was our grandmother’s and our great-grandmother’s before that.”
Dad cleared his throat. “If you ladies will excuse me, I’m going to go update Kate before dinner.”
After Lotli thanked him for the millionth time, Dad took off and a second later, Olya and Zachary showed up. I stayed for another minute, then made my escape. It was time to get out of my tux and spikes and into something more comfortable. Also, I suspected Dad and Kate weren’t just going to discuss what happened at the yacht club. Now that Lotli was back, they’d finalize the plans for going to the realm. I had to make sure they included me.
I padded away from the sunroom and through the library, the rhythm of my spikes muted by the Persian carpets. Once I reached the marble-floored hallway, it was harder to hide the sound of my steps. I momentarily considered taking off my shoes to silence my footfalls. It wasn’t a bad idea, but it would look a bit too obvious.
I slowed, creeping along. Dad most likely had headed straight for Kate’s office. But I needed to give him a few minutes to get there and get settled, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to eavesdrop for a moment before I went into the office. That was, if the door to her office was open.
I passed a painting of a brooding pirate and paused to take a look at a display of shrunken heads. The heads’ eyes and mouths were sewn shut. They kind of reminded me of old, leathery persimmons. I shuddered and turned down the west wing hallway.
A figure stepped out from behind a pillar, dark against the backdrop of a bright window.
I yelped and scuffed backward, my heart racing. It wasn’t as big as a shadow-genie, but still—
The person folded their arms across their chest, foot tapping. I knew that foot tap. Dad.
“And exactly where are you going?” he said.
I smiled weakly.
He stepped toward me, the darkness leaving his face. “You weren’t planning on showing up at Kate’s office, were you?”
I shoved my hands in my hip pockets and shrugged. But it was silly for me to pretend innocence. Any skill I had at reading body language I had learned from him. “It’s just . . . I’ve been to the realm. I could draw a map of Malphic’s fortress for you.”
“And you will. Right now, be patient. Let me do the planning alone, like we agreed.”
“I won’t say anything to piss Kate off. Promise.” I really didn’t get why he was being so stubborn. “We need to go to the realm as soon as we can. Chase doesn’t have that long.”
Dad unfolded his arms. “I’ll see you at dinner,” he said firmly. He swiveled away.
Anger flashed through me. “Dad, I need to know what’s going on.”
He turned back and smiled. “I suggest you go to bed right after supper. Get some extra rest tonight.”
My anger drained, replaced by a flicker of hope. “What are you saying?”
“It looks to me like Lotli should be fine by morning. I’m going to tell Kate that I think we should go to the realm tomorrow evening.” He raised a finger to his lips. “Just between us for now, okay?”
* * *
It was hard not saying anything through dinner and dessert. But I stuck to my word, kept my lips sealed and didn’t butt into any of the conversations, not that Dad, Grandfather, or Kate said much about the upcoming mission to the realm. Mostly everyone talked about what happened at the yacht club. Oddly enough, when Selena told her parents about the curse and Newt, they didn’t rag on her. A nice change that left me smiling. However, I was certain they wouldn’t be so easygoing once they discovered she intended to go on the mission.
After dinner, I took a hot bath, then planted myself in bed. Dinner had been late, so in reality it wasn’t that early, maybe nine-thirty.
I stretched out on my right side, one arm under a pillow, the other under the covers, my standard go-to-sleep position. I closed my eyes and let my mind drift, thinking about how this time tomorrow we’d be sneaking through Malphic’s fortress. It was an eerie, dangerous place filled with torch-lit corridors and exotic scents. Sheer curtains fluttered in open windows, dyed violet and green by the nighttime auroras. All the doorways were curtained, too. And there were magic carpets. The carpets didn’t fly like in human stories. They hung on the fortress’s walls. If you stepped into one, you’d come out somewhere else. But you never could be sure where, since Malphic’s magi continually switched the locations they connected.
A twinge of pain spread up my arm, pinching my neck. Of course my bruised muscles would start aching now, after not being so bad all day. I rolled over onto my other side, once again thinking about the djinn realm and what had brought us to a place where we needed Lotli so badly.
A decade ago, Grandfather had acquired an artifact known as the Lamp of Methuselah. It contained oil with magical properties. Normally, human bodies transformed from solid to ethereal when they went through the veil and entered the djinn realm. But coating a person in the oil made their body ethereal in the mortal world and solid in the djinn realm. It had the exact opposite effect on genies. However, the oil had two problems: First, it only lasted from sunset to sunrise; and second, its strong cabbage-and-wet-sheep scent. Five years ago, when Kate and Uncle David had used the oil and gone through the weak point in Moonhill’s gallery in an attempt to rescue Mother, it was the smell that had alerted the genies. Kate, David, and Chase had gotten back to Moonhill, but Malphic had sealed the veil with a swift and powerful warding spell before Mother could get through. Since then, both our family and Malphic had tried to keep the weak point warded. But—just as Malphic had found ways to neutralize our wards and get into Moonhill—we’d found our own way to break his wards and get into his fortress, namely Lotli and her flute-magic. Sure, even without her flute-magic we could use the oil to turn our bodies ethereal and get through a broken or unwarded weak point in the veil. We didn’t even have to worry about the oil’s smell since Kate had found a way to make it scent-free. But Malphic’s magic was more powerful than ours. The second he caught wind that we’d trespassed, he’d repair his wards. Lotli was the only way we could escape anytime we wanted. I sighed. It was a case of the lesser of two evils. We were either dependent on Lotli for safety’s sake or easy prey for Malphic.
I opened my eyes and gazed across the bedroom. On my dresser were the fingerless mitts Chase had knitted for me to wear into the realm so the genies wouldn’t notice my girly hands.
A sad feeling gathered in my stomach, spreading out, tugging at my heart. Chase. I curled up into a ball, the cold sheets twisting around me. I needed to sleep. I had to.
But it would never happen with my head whirring like this.
I wrestled my way free from the sheets and got out of bed. The floor chilled my feet as I wandered to the window. The sky was cloudless, scattered with stars and a barely waning moon. Beneath the dark outlines of the pine trees, mist hung in the glistening wet gardens. Normally there would have been at least a few fireflies or the glow of a garden light to break up the shadows. But there were none. There were no other sparks of brightness either. Chase.
I rested my forehead against the window glass, tears hot behind my eyelids.
Two figures appeared in the misty garden. Olya and Uncle David. Holding hands, heads close together, talking as they drifted through the stripes of haze and light cast out from the windows, through the shadow of trees, statues, and flower spires.
I drew a shuddering breath, the aching loneliness inside me a million times more intense than anything my muscles could create.
Turning from the window, I stumbled blindly across my room. I threw on my robe, found my lock-picking tools and a mini flashlight, and fled into the hallway. I couldn’t encourage Chase to come to me. I couldn’t really be with him. But I could go up to the widow’s walk. It was the last place we’d made love. Being there would make me feel closer to him, help me relax, maybe even sleep.
The hallway was as dark as the gardens. I turned on my flashlight. Its beam brightened the carpet, crimson except for a thin spiderweb of dark designs. It wasn’t far to the alcove and the door that hid the attic stairs. But tonight the walk felt endless, the parade of closed doors on either side of the hall seeming to stretch forever.
When I reached the attic door, I put the flashlight between my teeth. With its beam trained on the keyhole, I pulled out my lock-picking tools. Almost instantly, I realized my effort was unnecessary. The door was ajar.
A sudden chill brushed the back of my neck, making every hair on my head stand on end. Whipping the flashlight out of my mouth, I wheeled around. I’d felt this same way every time I’d stood in this spot. But supposedly Moonhill wasn’t haunted and—
I let the flashlight’s beam wash across the floor, looking for catlike shapes. One time when I’d felt the chill and seen a tapestry move, Houdini had proven to be at fault.
Not finding him, I moved the beam upward to the tapestry. It lay motionless, its image of a shepherd herding his flock toward a blood-red sunrise grayed by dim light.
My pulse slowed, thumping as loud and steady as a kettle drum. Though the tapestry in no way resembled the bold patterned magic carpets in the djinn realm, my thoughts of them were too recent for my mind to not try and draw a connection.
Something whisked my ankle. I jumped and whirled around, my heartbeat soaring. Until I spotted Houdini fleeing into the darkness.
“Quit that,” I called after him.
He yowled and trotted back. Kate was right, he was a total brat.
His tail curled around my legs as I opened the attic door. I glanced upward. The stairwell was pitch-black. Not even a single thread of light filtered down from the attic. Clearly no one was up there.
I followed Houdini to the attic and started up the narrow staircase to the walk. Brightness seeped in through its windows, fading before it reached more than a yard into the darkness. When I got to the top, I stepped out on the widow’s walk deck and froze. I wasn’t alone.
On the far end of the deck the eerie glow of a camping lantern brightened the outlines of Grandpa, Zachary, and Tibbs. Their backs were to me and they were fixated on something in the air beyond the railing.
Grandpa swiveled partway to the left and I spotted a wireless control in his hands, an ultramodern contrast to his dapper tweed jacket and bow tie.
Tibbs craned farther outward over the railing. “I thought it was going to hit the roof for sure that time. You said it can disable a car engine at what—a quarter mile?”
“Easily. They’ll be armed with darts tipped with frog venom. That should knock out any intruder for a good hour or two.” Grandfather chuckled. “I don’t think Selena will be fond of that.”
They all pivoted, watching as what looked like a supersize bat whizzed up from below, swooped over my head, and back down toward the garden.
“Annie!” Zachary said. “Did you see Grandpa’s drone? It’s so cool.”
I walked over to them and smiled at Grandfather. “I thought you hated being watched?”
“Different times call for different measures. Right, Tibbs?”
Tibbs nodded. “It’ll make my job easier.” His gaze met Grandfather’s. “You’re thinking a couple dozen with different flight routes?”
“I’m going to leave that up to you.” Grandpa handed him the control. “For now, why don’t you and Zach test this one a bit more thoroughly? I want to spend a moment with my granddaughter.” His smile transformed into a serious expression.
I hugged myself. Why did he want to talk to me alone? This abrupt increase in electronic security made me think Chase was on his mind. With his enhanced half-genie senses and stealth mode, Chase was the linchpin of Moonhill’s security. Without him, these new electronic measures would be mandatory. Did Grandfather think I didn’t realize how likely it was that Chase wouldn’t make it back from the realm unscathed?
Grandfather rested his hand on the back of my shoulder and walked me around to the other side of the deck. He strolled along like there was nothing special on his mind. But the tautness of his sinewy arm echoed my worries and the quiver in my stomach told me I should have stayed in bed.
When we got to the farthest railing, he pulled me closer and said, “Earlier this evening, Kate and David argued against you going to the realm. I sided with your father and in the end we won. After all, besides Lotli, you’re the one who’s been inside the fortress most recently. You know where the harem is and what your mother looks like.”
“Thank you,” I said, but I wasn’t as overjoyed as I might have been. There was an almost too-gentle pitch to his voice that warned there was more to come. I gritted my teeth, preparing myself.
Grandfather stepped away from our embrace and took me lightly by the shoulders, his eyes looking directly into mine. “You also are the only one of us who your father will listen to. And I’m worried about him.”
I looked at him in surprise. This was definitely not the way I envisioned the conversation going. My throat squeezed and I couldn’t think of a thing to say.
“I’m going to channel your aunt Kate for a moment and be blunt. I’m not concerned about your father going. But I am worried about what might happen once you get there.”
My mind raced. “What are you talking about?”
“Your father, Annie . . . I know he loves your mother. But ever since he was a little boy, he’s had a hard time with forgiveness.”
He was right there. Except—“He’s not that way anymore. What happened while he was possessed by Culus, then spending time with you and David in the mountains—he’s changed.”
“Maybe his attitude toward the family has. But watch him. I’m not sure how deep his hatred for Malphic goes. The urge for revenge can make a person do foolish things, take unnecessary risks.”
I ran my hand down my neck, my trembling fingers closing around the signet ring that hung at my throat. The ring Grandfather had given me, the ring that by all rights should have been Dad’s if the tangle of lies and hatred hadn’t driven a wedge between him and the family for so many years. And I thought about other people Dad had held grudges against, about his patient but inevitable retaliation. Grandfather was right.
In the distance, the stars glistened. Zachary said something I couldn’t quite hear. The ocean beat a slow rhythm I could feel as much as hear. I lifted my gaze to Grandfather’s. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep an eye on him.”
Grandfather kissed my forehead, a warm touch. “Good. I don’t want to lose any of you.”