Persie Merlin and the Door to Nowhere by Bella Forrest Page 0,72

would stunt my development or turn me into a bona fide hermit. But, to me, friendship was about quality, not quantity, and I had every friend I’d ever need in Genie. Still, the irony wasn’t lost on me. There was a whole heap of mayhem going on in the Institute tonight, and I couldn’t tell her a thing about it.

I shook my head. “Not tonight, no, but there’s a social in the gardens next week that I’m thinking about going to,” I said, throwing her a bone so she wouldn’t fret too much about me fitting in.

“You are?!” Her eyes nearly bulged out of her head. “Persie, that’s wonderful news! You absolutely have to go, and if you need a dress, or jewelry, or anything from my wardrobe that isn’t exercise pants or my favorite jeans, I’ll send them over ASAP!”

I chuckled. Little did she know I already had her favorite jeans in my wardrobe. Dad had slipped them into my luggage for me, under the sanctity of the father/daughter secrecy pact. “I’ll let you know.” I pretended to yawn, covering my mouth with my hand. “I should really take a shower and get to bed—I didn’t realize how late it was. Will you give my love to Dad?”

Mom nodded sadly. “Of course, sweetheart. This time difference thing takes some getting used to, doesn’t it?”

“I promise I’ll call again tomorrow when I get chance.” My fingertip hovered over the end-call button. “Night, Mom. I love you.”

“I love you, too. Speak to you soon.” Her eyebrows suddenly shot up. “And I want pictures of next week!”

I smiled and hung up so I wouldn’t have to make a promise I couldn’t keep. I hated having my picture taken. The thought of dressing fancy and having Genie take photos to keep up the ruse made my insides wriggle with discomfort. But that was a smaller problem for another day.

Hurriedly, I texted Genie back. Still on. Heading out now.

The reply pinged a second later. Be safe. Keep those peepers peeled. Good luck!

You too, I typed back before slipping my phone back into my pocket. I paused to grab my backpack, with half our puzzle boxes and Mason jars inside. Genie had the others. After our fruitless day of hunting, we’d come up with a plan to split up for pixie duty tonight so we could cover more ground. There would be fewer people to avoid now that everyone had been consigned to their rooms, and I figured the hunters would be working in shifts, which would thin their numbers out, too.

This would be my second night chasing down pixies, but this time, I knew I wasn’t alone. Shouldering the bag, I snuck out of my bedroom door and checked that the coast was clear. The corridor beyond lay blissfully empty of guards, all the hunters evidently otherwise engaged with tracking my monsters. I supposed, a little guiltily, that Victoria had figured I wouldn’t disobey her hunting ban. “Come on, pixies. Let’s finish what I started.”

Sixteen

Genie

This ain’t gonna be pretty. Gritting my teeth, I flooded my body with Grandpa’s invisibility trick. I’d already used it a few times that day to get Persie and me out of some hunter confrontations. Using it again felt like rubbing lemon juice in a papercut, but a body-wide papercut and a shower of lemon juice. My skin burned; my insides caught fire. Just trying to open my eyes felt like having a stare-down with the sun.

I waited a few minutes for the burning to settle into a bearable agony. Doing this was a royal pain, but it gave me a twenty-minute search window. If a hunter came my way, I could get close enough to see behind their pointless sunglasses or sniff cheap cologne without them knowing I was there. Painful, but crafty.

I hoped Persie had gotten good news from her mom. She’d planned to do some subtle questioning, trying to find a possible connection to the other abductions so we could absolve the pixies. We’d agreed to divide and conquer.

Skin crackling, I scoured the area through the greenish haze of the spell. Everything swam weirdly, like I was seeing things through a pair of comedy lenses. My very own Hall of Mirrors at a carnival sideshow. The monster statues morphed into horrifying caricatures of themselves, all bulbous noses and saucer eyes. And the handful of hunters down the way looked like swollen ogres. Heads too big, bodies too round, limbs too long. I shuddered. But at least I