Wicked As You Wish (A Hundred Names for Magic #1) - Rin Chupeco Page 0,131

when you and Tala started getting into each other’s faces back there.”

“He wasn’t an ex.” Ken had eaten lemons that tasted sweeter than the vinegar in Alex’s voice. “To be an ex, you have to acknowledge being together, first.” He shrugged on a new shirt and stood. “We’re wasting time. We need to get to Maidenkeep now. I want to catch up to the others if they’re ahead.”

The girl nodded. “Get everyone back to looking decent, first.” She fished out a tin drinking cup and another bottle strangely marked Clean, from her bag. She used the latter to scoop up marsh water, then carefully added a few drops from the bottle to it. “Bend down,” she ordered Loki, and then she poured the contents of the cup over them. The mud and dirt caking the ranger’s clothes began slithering off, dropping to the ground around them in large globs.

I’ll never need to do laundry again with that, Ken croaked in jest without thinking, then groaned again.

“That’s impressive,” Loki said, examining their pants. “Pharma companies would pay top dollar for that recipe.”

“They’ll get it over me and Grammy’s dead bodies. One of these days I’m gonna tell you all about the time some bottling company tried to sue Ikpe and Avalon for the right to take our clean water patents, and Grammy made it that every time a representative came over, she got to curse them with boils. They couldn’t prove that either. I don’t know how to throw balls of fire or summon lightning from the sky like you guys, but I can do this, at least. You telling me they’ve gotten worse over a decade?”

“It’s a crime in Arizona to use magic or potions unless you’ve acquired the proper licenses,” Alex said stiffly. “Or unless you’re the king of the Royal States or a member of his council, which is a rather low bar to set… Where is Inoue, anyway?”

“Well,” Loki said, suddenly apprehensive. “You swallowed a lot of water when the frogs attacked, and Ken said he, uh, he knew CPR…”

“I was going to do that myself,” Nya said fervently, “but he was closer, and he beat me to it. No offense, Your Highness…but I’m glad he did.”

Alex stared down with horror at Ken, who looked up at him and croaked accusingly.

If this is gonna be some rotten permanent situation on my end, he ribbited angrily, no longer caring that they couldn’t understand him at all, then once Avalon’s back to its former glory and all that rot, it’s gonna be my turn to sue, the bloody hell I am.

30

In Which Some Ethical Pillaging Takes Place

They were stealing the truck.

“Technically,” Zoe said, when Cole had pointed that out, “we paid for the truck. I left money and everything.”

She glanced at him and was annoyed to find him smiling. “What’s so funny?”

“There’s no one around to leave money for.”

“They might still be. I left twice the amount a car rental would have cost, plus money for the vegetables and the chicken. And some cooking utensils and extra clothes. And some of the usable spices you pilfered from the kitchen.”

“And for the beer.”

“You stole beer?”

“Takes my mind off the pain.” Cole lifted his right arm a few inches, which was about as far as he could lift, still heavily wrapped in strips of what was left of his ruined shirt. They had both changed into fresh sets of clothes, their last ones wet from a brief snow flurry they’d encountered half a day earlier. Zoe’s were too large for her small frame and made her feel ridiculous, like a child playing dress-up, but she had gamely rolled up the sleeves, hacked the pants legs off to a reasonable length and found a small rope to use as a belt.

She knew she looked ludicrous, but she had wanted to save more of the Clean potion just in case. The amused looks Cole threw her way weren’t helping matters.

“At midnight, I’ll turn into a pumpkin and drive away in my glass slipper,” she quipped, trying to mimic a soft mid-Atlantic twang. She tugged at her oversized shirt, which kept slipping over one pale shoulder.

“That accent’s an insult to Audrey Hepburn,” Cole said dryly.

“Hey, look, I’m trying to lighten the mood here, but you’re not being very—wait, you watch Audrey Hepburn movies?”

He paused. “My little sister likes them,” he finally said, stacking more clean clothes in, followed shortly by a cooking pan.

Cole had a sister? “You watched them enough times to know who