“And somewhere there’s a Claire’s whose stock is seriously being depleted.”
“Fuck,” said Blondie, kicking the wall against which the spriggan leaned. Then she turned to me. “Do you think he’s telling the truth?” she asked. I considered the question. On the one hand, Fugwat had been really shaken up after being left by his gang. He obviously hadn’t assumed he was as expendable as Phaedra thought him to be. And if Phaedra thought he was expendable, he probably didn’t know anything. On the other hand, Fugwat might not know what he knew. In other words, he might have picked up on things, or overheard things, that would make sense to us, if not him.
“I have no idea,” I said, finally. “I don’t know a lot about interrogating prisoners, to be honest. I took the elective in creative writing that semester, instead of Torture 101.”
“Shit,” she swore, again. “I really don’t want to have to go in—”
“Go in?” I asked, sharply. While the bling torture had been amusing, I wanted no part of actual torture.
“Mentally,” she replied, grimly.
“Oh,” I said. “Like what—”
“Graeme does? Yes.”
“You can do that?”
“I can. But unlike Graeme, I’m really good at it. So I can do what I did to you in that soda shop.”
I nodded, remembering. The first time I’d met Blondie she’d made me see all sorts of vines and stuff grow out of the darkness. All when, in reality, I’d been standing in a brightly lit ice cream parlor.
“Which is not invasive at all,” she finished, as I nodded again. For what she’d done to me had felt outside of my mind, rather than in it. I knew she hadn’t been party to my thoughts, or anything like that.
“But you can do more than that?” I prompted.
“Oh, yeah. Like I said, I can do what I did to you, which is basically a party trick. Or I can go in. Way in. I can pull whatever I want out of your mind. But that’s more like what Graeme does. That’s more like—”
“A violation,” I said, for her.
“Yes,” she replied. “And not something I like doing.”
“I can understand that,” I said, fulfilling my requirement for Understatement of the Week.
“But if Fugwat knows something, and we don’t get it out of him, and this whole part of the country gets wiped out—”
“Then we’ll be responsible.”
“Yep.”
I came up beside her and took her hand in mine. “You’ll have to do it,” I said, hating to put that on her, hating to make her responsible. But she’s the only one who could be sure Fugwat was telling the truth.
“I know,” she said, and I felt her squeeze my fingers with her own. “But it sucks. Sometimes I wish I could go back to hunting and gathering. Life was simpler back then.”
“Betcha it wasn’t,” I said, resisting the urge to tweak her wee button nose. “Life is usually difficult. It’s just about keepin’ on, keepin’ on. For which we will need the Eastern Seaboard.”
She snorted. “True, Ms. True. Very true. Now stand aside. This could get ugly.”
“Nope,” I said, keeping my grip on her fingers. “I’m with you for this. We’re doing it together.”
The smile she gave me at hearing my words warmed the cockles of my heart, and also made my palms sweat a little. It suddenly occurred to me that, secret keeping or no, I was well on my way to developing a girl crush. Of which the makers of Selkies Gone Wild would, undoubtedly, be happy to hear.
After she took a few deep breaths, I felt the Original’s power ripple out, but not in the way I was used to. This wasn’t physical power; this was something totally different. That said, I couldn’t really describe it, as it was so intangible. Instead, it was like a disturbance, but one that rippled my mind and my emotions rather than my hair or clothes. In other words, my physical senses weren’t registering anything, but it was like a fan was blowing over my brain or my heart.
“Wow,” I breathed, opening up my senses and letting my magic touch Blondie’s. On the one hand, it was interesting. But, on the other, more devious hand, I could almost feel how she was doing it.
And if I can feel how she does it, I can stop Graeme in the future, I thought.
Letting my magical senses pick up everything they could, I tuned back into the scene in front of me.
If Blondie’s power was wafting in on a gentle breeze over my