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“Somewhere else,” I hissed, “and where we go next, you will stay put like a good girl, won’t you?” My tone came off as threatening enough that her eyes rounded. Good. I was so incredibly close to losing my mind on her that my claws kept on snapping out.
“Calm down. It might have been a coincidence,” Murtagh told me as he sat down across from me.
I glared at him. “The worst thing for her is to take her side right now,” I reminded him crisply, pointing to her. “And even if you’re right—imagine how bad it would have been if they had come before she’d come home?”
Murtagh’s expression now was justifyingly nervous, just like mine was.
There was a sound from next to me, and I thought that Miles had taken his seat, but instead there was nobody.
Except there were red footprints walking all the way to the seat. My hair stood up on the back of my neck, and I put a hand over Zazie to begin shielding her with my body.
“It’s just me,” the empty seat said.
It was the shadow. Only now he was just sort of… invisible.
“What happened?” I asked, looking at the footprints.
“You don’t want to know,” said the nothingness. “Your mansion is a crime scene now, though. Lil’ Mama knows, and she’ll make sure it’ll be like a massacre that never happened. Sorry about the mess, but buying you time does come at a cost.”
After a moment where I was about to start asking many questions about what happened, he said, “Still don’t know exactly how they found out. We’re still lookin’ into it, but so far, we’re beginning to realize that Seraphus had an eye on your place probably for some time. You see, you’re not very good at not being a dragon. So you start doing suspicious shit; like buying supplies, boarding up windows, that sort of thing… It would be silly to not put the pieces together when an Uber driver comes to pick up a girl matching her description… He put it together. Now he knows for sure because her scent is every-fucking-where in that house.”
I pressed my lips together and avoided Murtagh’s gaze. “Fuck.”
“Big Daddy will want to know the plan.” The disembodied voice seemed to pause there for a moment. “Got one?” he finally asked as the engines whirred to life in the plane.
“Let me find those gems you need,” Zazie begged me, looking wearily in my direction. “Those ones that’ll get you home.”
I was about to tell her to get serious, when she said, “I can find them. Just tell me what I’m looking for, and I can find it. It’s my gift.”
“No,” I told her succinctly. Slowly, too, in case she had trouble understanding. “I’m not going to go out into the desert and start to dig holes.”
“That’s not a bad plan,” the shadow said. “Gifts are no small things, especially when a djinn says it. Hell, if you got a guy with one drop of djinn blood and a gift, you got somethin’ special. Satchmo had some djinn blood. Fun fact.”
“That’s so cool,” Zazie said, leaning forward.
I pushed her back into her seat. I still didn’t trust anything that didn’t have a body. “What’s your angle?” I asked. “Why does it matter to a… whatever it is you are… that this realm stay how it is?”
“Lil’ Mama likes it this way,” was the creepy-voiced reply. “Make the flight-plan to New York. I’m gonna try to find some books about ancient pieces. See if I can get her an idea what she’s looking for,” he said, and I saw the padding of the chair move. “Meet ya there.”
“Hey, we’re taking off!” I reminded him, gesturing to the window.
There was a very spooky laugh before it suddenly disappeared.
“You have to give her this,” Murtagh said, crossing his legs. “Little Mama runs a good full-service.” He turned then to Zazie. “How certain are you that you can find those gems in the middle of the desert?” he asked her.
“Firstly, you have no idea if they’re in the middle of the desert,” she reminded. “That’s just something in your head. You said so yourself—you don’t even know where to start looking.”
“Neither do you.”
“If I can visualize it, I can find it,” she announced, certain.
I had to admit, she did look very adamant. And confident.
“No,” I said anyway. “That could keep us in a strange location too long, exposed, vulnerable. I need to keep you safe.”
“Look, I’m not a precious stone, Caspian!” she cried, sounding frustrated. “I’m a person. Someone who could be helpful to you. And on-the-run sounds like a shit way to live when we could just hide out in another realm! Your realm!”
I raised an eyebrow. “If you’re so good, why aren’t you richer? Why aren’t you famous? Well-known?”
