Invincible (15 page)

Dangerous. Devastated. The Destroyer of Worlds.

“Besides,” Inq continued blithely. “I'm not eligible to conduct formal negotiations, being not ‘technically' one of the Folk.” She mimed the air quotes. “Just a second-class citizen, after all.” Her sarcasm had an edge to it. Unlike her younger brother, Inq had long outgrown her automaton status, and she not-so-secretly longed to be more than equal to the Folk. She wanted to master them, a subtle game that required equal parts guile, passion, ruthlessness and patience—all things that Invisible Inq had in spades. Joy twisted her fingers on the edge of her shirt. When Inq was in evil-mastermind mood, it was best to get clear.

“Well, I didn't tell anyone,” Joy said bitterly. It was a horrible memory, one that still gave her nightmares at night—that feeling of falling into the thorn bush as the armored knight suddenly disappeared beneath her, the sick realization of what she had done. It wasn't something she ever wanted to repeat.

“Well, neither did I,” Inq said, sounding slightly perturbed. Inq did not like someone getting the best of her in anything. “It could be a ruse, a way to make a quick fortune, but I doubt that many would dare to bluff with the Council so hot on the prowl. They would give anything to have some leverage over you, our most famous wild card.” Her eyes fairly glittered, pink-and-green flashes in the dark. “And you're certain the Bailiwick doesn't—?”

“No,” Joy said. “Definitely not.” Graus Claude had discovered that it was Joy who could erase
signatura
, and not some magical property of Ink's scalpel when he'd manipulated her into helping Ysabel Lacombe. He'd watched as Joy had erased the abusive Henri's mark from the enslaved river sprite. Joy didn't regret freeing her, but it had been enough to out Joy. She doubted the Bailiwick would ever sell that secret to the highest bidder, but he didn't know what would happen if Joy erased someone's
own
signatura
. Erasing a living being was worse than murder.
So many secrets...

“And where is Graus Claude now?” Inq asked.

“I thought he was back at the brownstone,” Joy said. “Filly escorted him to the Bentley.”

“No,” Inq said curiously. “We were just there.”

Joy frowned. “Wouldn't Kurt know?”

“Kurt's gone out on errands for him. He's received messages, instructions, but no summons yet,” Inq said. “Hmm. I imagine the Bailiwick's holed up in one of his safe houses.”

“Safe houses?” Joy asked, surprised.
Then why did he stay here?
“Where would he go?”

“Who knows?” Inq shrugged. “That's the point of safe houses.”

Joy sighed. “Well, he told me that he'd contact me when he got settled, so we'll just have to wait until then.” She stood up abruptly. “In the meantime, let's assume that someone's bluffing or has some other secret until we learn different.”
One conniption fit at a time...
“Do we know if anybody's bought it yet?”

“I don't know,” Inq said. “I'll find out.”

“Good. That'd be good,” Joy said, taking a deep breath. She mentally walked through her calming routine, the one she used to practice before hitting the mats before gymnastics. Nothing was worse than mentally spiraling before a Level 9 competition, when every tenth of a point counted—except, possibly, when it involved the Twixt and her life was on the line. “If we can isolate the buyer, we can stop that problem before it starts. What we really need to do is prove that the world is safe, find the Bailiwick, convince the King and Queen to Return before Sol Leander finds out about Aniseed's clone and keep Ink and the rest of the Twixt from finding out any more about me before I have a chance to undo it all.”

Inq slapped Joy's shoulder good-naturedly. “Well, well. You're finally starting to think like one of us.” Inq grinned. “I
knew
I liked you!”

Joy tried her best to take the compliment and ignore the vomit moths fluttering in her gut.

THIRTEEN

JOY HEADED BACK
to the kitchen with Inq in tow. Ink and Kurt both stared as they approached, unasked questions in their eyes. Stef glowered in a corner. Dmitri was peeling grapes.

The buzzer sounded. Joy stopped. Everyone stared at the call box.

“It's not Dad,” Joy said, more to herself than anyone else.

“Well, go answer it,” her brother said. “I'm not supposed to be here, remember?”

The buzzer sounded again.

Joy slowly pressed the button. “Hello?”

“Hey there!” Monica chirped. “I'm stopping by to check in on you, as promised. And I come bearing bagels!”

Joy's skin tightened in panic. Monica was outside, unprotected—again—and the condo wasn't warded against humans. She glanced around the room, finger stuck on the button.

“Uh—”

“Don't let her in!” Stef said.

“I heard that!” Monica said. “Is that Stef? I thought he was supposed to be halfway to college by now.”

“You go to college?” Inq said, surprised. “I thought you were a wizard.”

Dmitri snickered. “Some of us working stiffs still have to get jobs topside.”

Monica's voice dropped. “Joy—?”

Joy let go of the button, cutting her off. “We
have
to let her in!” she hissed. “Monica's vulnerable out there beyond the wards.”

“She'll be fine.” Stef said. “Just tell her to go away.”

The buzzer sounded an angry, rapid staccato. Joy answered it.

“Don't you hang up on me!” Monica said. “Now buzz me in or so help me, I will bust down that door with my Jimmy Choos.”

Stef shook his head. Dmitri's ears flicked. Kurt may have cracked a smile as he walked by Ink and Inq on his way to the window to inspect the perimeter by the gate.

“Right,” Joy said. “Hang on.” She buzzed Monica through.

“What are you
doing
?” Stef snapped, grabbing multiple dishes to throw in the sink.

“Ditching her will just make her more suspicious and if she's standing out there yelling, someone's bound to notice,” Joy said, grabbing more plates. “Even if she hadn't already been a target once because of me, I'm not leaving my best friend out there in danger.” She waved her hands over the breakfast mess. “Can't you just cast a spell or something to
whoosh
this all up?”

Her brother looked disgusted. “You don't use wizardry to ‘whoosh' things up.”

Joy grimaced. “Well, what good is it then?”

“She has a point.” Dmitri said, pouring stems and crusts into the trash. “It would make things hella easier.”

“Have you ever considered stand-up?” Inq chirped. “This is very entertaining.”

There was a knock at the door.

“Check the peephole,” Stef whispered.

“I am!” Joy whispered back. Monica stared straight back at her, hands on hips, one leg cocked back, lips screwed into one cheek, looking hella annoyed.

“Open the door, Malone!” she called from the hallway.

Joy waved her hand behind her, shooing them all away. There was a scramble of sounds as she slowly gripped the doorknob and turned it, opening the door an inch at a time. Her best friend eyed her like she'd gone insane.

“Is anyone else here?” Monica asked.

Joy wasn't sure if she meant Graus Claude or Ink or Stef. “Um—”

“Well, you're dressed,” she said. “That's a good sign. At first I thought that maybe you'd—” Her face broke into a sparkly smile. “Oh my Lord! Don't tell me—it happened! You
did
! You
have
! EEEEE!” Monica's girlie squeal made Joy's face flush and she was too stunned to do much of anything as Monica bear-hugged her, the bagel bag slapping her back. Her friend rocked her back and forth, then let go with a bubbly laugh. “I'll grab us a plate and you can give me all the juicy details—” Monica stopped dead, staring around the kitchen.

Dmitri, Stef, Ink, Inq and Kurt stared back.

“Hel-lo.” Monica bit her lips together and made a small humming sound in her nose as she turned to Joy. “Has it always been this crowded around here, or have I just been too blind to see it?”

Joy groaned and waved her arm furiously at the group. “When I do
this
, it means
hide
!”

“She can See us?” Dmitri whispered theatrically out the side of his mouth. Stef's eyes bugged out behind his glasses. He looked like he'd been hit in the head.

“You can See them?” her brother roared. “Joy! You gave her
the Sight
?”

“I h—” Joy gagged on the “had to,” since she didn't
have
to. “It was her choice!” Joy said, which was true. “It was right before the gala. I didn't want to leave her unprotected—”

“Whoa,” Monica muttered as Dmitri's ears lay flat. He flashed a wicked grin.

“You must be smokin' crazy to jump aboard this ship of fools,” he said, tying off the trash bag.

Monica gave the satyr a second once-over. “Don't I know you?”

He swore something low and squiggly. Stef was furious beyond swearing.

“Monica,” Joy said quickly. “You know Stef. That's Dmitri and this is Inq, Ink's sister, and Kurt. They're from the Twixt.”

“I guessed as much,” Monica said, squeezing her purse strap against her chest. Monica could never grow pale, but she looked a little ashen around the eyes. Of course, after Graus Claude, a satyr, a muscleman bodyguard and a black-eyed Goth pixie chick might look normal by comparison. Monica smiled stiffly. “Nice to meet you.”

“Same.” Dmitri reached forward and shook her hand. Kurt followed suit. Inq nodded politely and draped a hand over Kurt's arm, considering Monica from every angle.

“Are you another one of hers?” Inq asked.

Monica's voice sharpened. “Hey, lady, nobody
owns
me.”

Joy smiled. Inq did, too. She whispered in Kurt's ear, “I likey.”

Stef growled and slammed the fridge closed. “Joy. Your room. Now.”

* * *

Stef closed the door behind them. “You
gave
Monica the Sight?” he said, the words low and furious. “What were you
thinking
?”

Joy moved to block the rumpled bed with her body and prayed that he didn't notice the smell. It was far too late in August for the cool scent of spring rain. “I was
thinking
,” she said, kicking her underwear under the bed, “that she'd been hurt by the Red Knight once already and since I'd been attacked by mud golems over the weekend and had no idea what was going to happen at the gala, that it might be nice to make sure my best friend had some idea what was going on in case someone else from the Twixt came after her. I couldn't—” She shook her head and crossed her arms tight across her chest. “I was
trying
to keep her safe!”

“By giving her the Sight?” he said again. “Joy, you
know
how the Folk treat humans with the Sight! It's how our family got into this whole bloody mess in the first place! It's how you ended up getting stabbed in the eye! It's why I've been wearing the same damn pair of glasses since I was fifteen! It's how Great-Grandma Caroline ended up in an institution, blind and insane!” His voice flattened. “Do you want that for Monica? Her mother already thinks you're nuts—do you really want her looking at her own daughter that way?”

Memories of Mrs. Reid raising her e-reader over her head, shouting at Joy to get away from her baby girl, raced through her mind with awful clarity—the tears on Mrs. Reid's cheeks, the wildness in her eyes, the feel of hitting the wall, backpedaling as Joy tried to explain, the flash of fear/running/panic/guilt... Joy knew that Mrs. Reid was only trying to protect her daughter; she'd seen the blade in Joy's hand inches away from Monica's face. Even though Monica had invented a bogus voodoo excuse, blaming it on a promise to her own witchy aunt Meredith, things hadn't been the same between their families ever since.

“You're wrong!” Joy insisted. “It's not like that at all!” But for a fraction of a second, she was hard-pressed to think of why, exactly, her brother wasn't right. She scrambled to figure out what had changed. “The Council ruled not to touch humans with the Sight until it could be determined if they were halflings or changelings, mortal descendants of Folk or whatever...” She trailed off. That was before Graus Claude's arrest and crimes of treason—before he suspected that they might all be Elementals. Would the ruling still hold? Was their case still valid? Had her actions at the gala put everyone with the Sight at risk? Had she managed to put Monica in danger
again
? She glanced up, and Stef nodded at the fear dawning on her face.

“Yeah,” he said, sarcastically. “Now you get it. She was protected under the Edict, remember? But, by giving her the Sight, you
broke the Accords
!” He waved back at the door. “It's an agreement that the knowledge of magic between humans and Other Thans would be regulated. An exception would be those born with the Sight, and the Council never liked that particular loophole! When you decided to share with your BFF, you broke the agreement and quite possibly gave these jokers an excuse to throw all of our protections under the bus!”

Joy shifted on her feet, feeling miserable and small. “Oh,” she said weakly.

“Oh!”
Stef mocked. “You're damned right, ‘Oh'!” He wiped his hand over his face. Joy watched him, mentally whispering another quick prayer that Ink had taken all of his clothes with him. But it gave her an idea.

“The Cabana Boys—”

Stef spun on her. “Who?”

“Sorry,” Joy said. “They're a bunch of guys,
lehman
, mortal lovers, who belong to Inq.” She was extra careful to overemphasize the
q
.

“They're humans, and she gave each of them the Sight with the same elixir and no one's said or done anything about it.”

Stef glared at her like she was six kinds of stupid. “Inq is one of them,” he said. “You're not.”

“Well, technically, since Inq and Ink were made, not born, they're not exactly Folk...” She trailed off. Clearly, Stef couldn't care less and it wasn't earning her any points, so she dropped it. “But anyway, this is all beside the point. Monica is under Sol Leander's auspice and it's my fault for letting that happen, so I wanted to give her a choice to know what was really going on, since he might go after her at any time and I might not be able to do anything about it. Monica doesn't want to be rescued. She wants to stand up for herself. She deserves to know what's going on.” Joy twisted anxiously under his stare. “Okay, yes, it was selfish, and yes, it's dangerous, and I'm sure it's not going to win me any more popularity contests Under the Hill, but it's done and it can't be undone so let's move on, okay?” She swallowed against her dry tongue. “Right now I'm a little more concerned about what's happening with the Tide.”

“Well, after that disaster at the gala, I don't blame you,” Stef said. “And harboring the Bailiwick in our house wasn't a particular stroke of genius, either.”

Joy humphed. “He's gone now and we have a houseful of...everyone. It's a circus.” She grabbed her doorknob, taking her exit while she could. “Let's just clear them out before Dad comes home.”

* * *

The kitchen looked like some strange after-hours party, a Halloween affair in the middle of summer that had devolved into half-worn costumes and eating bagels out of the bag. The chatter was friendly, lively, even fun, with Dmitri's easy laughter and music pouring from the den. Ink and Inq murmured quietly in one corner as Kurt stood by the door. Monica silenced her phone as she described the last concert she'd attended to Dmitri, who was taking out water glasses, wineglasses, mugs and bowls while opening random bags of pretzels and chips. Inq wiped her fingers on paper napkins. Ink smiled at her. Stef poured orange juice.

Joy leaned across the counter. “What do we do if Dad comes home right now?”

“Don't look at me. I'm somewhere across the Pennsylvania border,” he said as he poured. “He can't See them and you can't lie.” He handed her a glass of orange juice and clinked it against his. “Good luck with that.”

“Thanks.” She drank the juice in several gulps. The sugar rush helped ease the pounding in her head. “Dork,” she muttered behind her cup.

“Dweeb.”

Joy smiled and grabbed one of the mugs for Vinh's tea, refilling her juice in anticipation of washing it all down. She glanced over the crowd. They were missing Graus Claude and Filly, and possibly Avery, but otherwise, the gang was all here. Where
were
the others now? How long had it been? What happened to time when it ran simultaneously between this world and the Twixt? Her eyes skipped from Ink to Monica and the scar above her eye. Some days felt like a blink and others felt like forever. Would she ever feel like she belonged in one world or the other?