lay flat and tamed, almost like it had been lightly spritzed with gel and then combed. His long, usually bushy beard had been re-braided, no part of it out of place. The hair on his head had been parted on the right and slicked over, and a bow tie adorned his hairy neck.
“That’s my cue.” Austin swung his feet off the chair and stood.
“What cue? What do you mean?”
“He wants to talk to you privately.”
“How do you know? Is it the bow tie?”
“Body language. I’ll be right over there, okay?” He pointed toward the back door. “In case you need anything.”
I frowned but nodded, and he bent down to kiss my forehead. The look he shot the basajaun as he walked toward the door was long and poignant, not so subtly making a statement that if the basajaun acted out of turn, there’d be hell to pay.
My stomach fluttered and a strange fizzy sensation bubbled through my blood, like I was being aerated or something. Odd.
The basajaun stopped in front of me. “Miss Jessie Ironheart.”
Bewildered or not, it felt like I should be standing for this, whatever this was.
“Hi.” I grimaced as I stretched, stiff from sitting still for so long. “What’s up?”
“Basajaunak, as a whole, are family-oriented creatures. We typically stick with our own. If something happens to one of us, vengeance can be claimed by all of us, and often is.”
I hoped I was keeping my frown of uncertainty off my face. The basajaun had strange rules I usually only half understood, and when you slighted him, he went crazy. I sincerely hoped this wasn’t his way of telling me that I’d unintentionally wronged him and his entire family was about to hunt me down. That would not be a good time.
“I love my family, of course,” he continued. I nodded. “But they can be stifling. I am what’s known as the black cow of the family.”
“Black sheep, I think you mean—”
“I wanted my independence and to see more of the world. I wanted to choose my own mountain and enforce my own rules. That is not usually done by one so young as me.”
I had gotten the impression that he was quite old. I wondered how old his family was.
“I think it was the stars that led me to my mountain,” he went on. “Every so often, the stars choose a basajaun and lead him, or more likely her—our females are usually more courageous—to a great future. A future the family can be proud of. I think the stars have chosen my path.”
“Hmm,” I said, having no idea where this was going.
“It is not for me to decipher the journey of others,” he said, “but it is an interesting thing that we should meet under the mountain, forge our friendship in battle, and that you should then find yourself facing down another battle under a mountain.”
I’d been really working on controlling my reactions, but I was pretty sure a brow furrow seeped through. “Mhm.”
“It is a clear sign if ever there was one,” he went on. “So…” His voice drifted away, as though he was waiting for something.
“It probably is a sign, yes,” I said vaguely.
“Yes.” He nodded as though that answered that. I still didn’t understand what I’d agreed to, which was probably a mistake. “The stars, as I thought. This is the right way.”
He took a step toward the back door of Ivy House, and I stepped with him.
“I thought we were supposed to dress up a little?” the basajaun asked, taking another step.
I ran a little to keep pace. “For what now?”
“For the ceremony. I thought we were supposed to dress up?”
“The ceremony…” I stopped and faced him again, my eyebrows climbing and my shock too great to be hidden. “Wai—”
“Yes, the ceremony. I thought you agreed? It is not easy to decipher the stars, but they didn’t even attempt subtlety this time. My job, when we first met, was to guard you under the mountain.”
“Your job wasn’t so much to guard me as it was to keep me from escaping—”
“We helped each other that day—you generously promised me flowers, and I allowed you to escape.”
Well, sort of. He’d feigned an injury so the mages who’d enlisted his help wouldn’t accuse him of dereliction of duty. The prison I’d been held in was in his mountain, which apparently meant it was his role to guard it.
“We have battled together often since then,” the basajaun continued. “You have assembled a fearsome collection of magical people,