Suzanne Lazear - Charmed Vengeance

He stroked her hair. “No, you haven’t gone mad. You’ve simply been through a lot.”

“V will find a way to fix this.” To fix her, for them to be together. She had total and utter faith that it would happen eventually, and until then she’d persevere. At least she was with Jeff, who accepted her as she was and didn’t try to change her to conform to society. Jeff pressed his lips to the top of her head in a way that reminded her of their mother. He held her at arm’s length. “One day at a time, little sister. Now, go to bed.”

“Good night, Jeff.” She yawned. Jeff left and she pulled on her white ruffled nightdress, slippers, and cap. Exhaustion filled her. Noli draped her dress over the workbench and turned out the light. Grabbing her pillow and blanket, she crawled into the hammock, closed her eyes and went to sleep, listening to the hum of the ship’s engine.

With a heavy sigh, Steven signaled the sprite serving girl. Again. She’d forgotten to bring them their supper. Again.

“Couldn’t we have left in the morning?” James whined, head in his hands, elbows on the rough wooden table. Indulgence brought out the worst in his little brother. The small pub and boarding house catering to the Otherworldly had come alive with a cacophony of sound and a symphony of smells. The non-mortals of Los Angeles ate, drank, and were noisily merry.

“We needed to get out of the house before … ” Before Noli’s mother knocked on the door. Before his heart broke in half at the thought of Noli being whisked off to Boston and paraded before potential suitors. Before his father told him one more time that he’d brought this upon himself. “Before Jeff beats the stuffing out of you for making Noli cry?” James lifted his head up.

“Jeff?” Steven cocked his head, hair falling in his eyes.

It never did like to lie flat, though wasn’t an outright mop of unruly curls like James’.

James nodded, rubbing his temples, one elbow still on the table. “I saw him land his hoverboard in their backyard. He must have come to visit her. Ugh, my head hurts so much.”

“Drinking two entire bottles of cognac will do that to you.” Steven took a notebook and a pencil from his rucksack. “I didn’t realize Jeff was in town—are you certain?” Noli hadn’t mentioned it. Then again, there’d been more urgent matters to discuss. He knew she’d been in contact with her brother since returning from the Otherworld, but he couldn’t remember him visiting since he’d left to be an “aeronaut.”

“That or it’s the twin brother he doesn’t have.” James moaned and laid his head right on the table.

“Sit up, you brute.” Steven kicked him under the table. This noise of this place was overwhelming. Quinn had recommended they start here so they could come up with their strategy. He’d agreed that they should leave the house as soon as possible. Not to mention it was a quest, heroes were supposed to dash off immediately, not wait for their younger brothers to sleep off their grief-induced hangovers.

The serving girl set steaming plates of boiled meat and potatoes in front of them. Finally.

“We need to figure out what sort of amusement we plan to acquire for her.” Steven moved his notebook to the side so he could eat and write at the same time. “You’ve spent the most time with Tiana, has she mentioned wanting anything in particular?”

James squinted at his plate. “I’m not sure I could eat.”

He picked up his fork and stabbed the mutton. “Now that I think of it, she’s mentioned wanting a mechanical peacock more than once. Also, no one has a mechanical unicorn. We could do that—or a flying horse … what are they called?” He took absent bites of meat and vegetables as he spoke.

He must be hungry after all.

“Pegasus? You think should seek out a unique animal for her menagerie? I think that should be amusing enough.” He rubbed his chin. “Where do we even start?”

He poked at his own food. They ordered mutton, but his tasted like chicken—whether it was the fault of the cook or the serving girl, he was unsure.

“We go where they make the best clockwork toys in this realm.” James continued making unconscious inroads in his food.

Steven made a face, fork paused halfway to his mouth as he tried to recall where that might be. “Switzerland?

New Bern, North Carolina.”

Steven’s eyebrows rose. “And you know this because?

Father ordered toys there for Elise, when she wanted that little bird, remember?” James downed his drink. “I can’t remember which shop, but it shouldn’t be difficult— unless you want to go to Switzerland. I’m sure the toys there are nice, too.”

“North Carolina is closer.” Steven made a few notes.

Peacock. Pegasus. New Bern.

Where this sounded easy, he had a feeling there was much more to it. There always was with Tiana. As much as he wanted to dismiss what his father said about both his mother and uncle wishing him dead, he needed to heed it.

After all, these were the people who conspired to oust their own family from the throne and exile them.

“How will we get there?” he added.

James made a rude noise over the rim of his glass. “It’s called an airship. Maybe you should spend more time paying attention in school and less time reading philosophy books under your desk. I don’t suppose you brought any money?”

“Money?” He had his sword, which currently looked like a pen, in his shirt pocket. Books, maps, and a few items for bribes occupied his rucksack. But money? He hadn’t thought to ask his father for that. Steven reached into his trouser pocket. “I have some, but it’s not enough for us to take an airship across the United States. I suppose we could cut through the Otherworld.”

Apprehension crept through him at the idea. Given there was a chance someone might hope to kill them, staying in the mortal realm could be safer. Then again, it may not.

James shook his head, scraping bits of meat off his plate with his fork. “The queen’s going to have spies everywhere. I can’t shake the feeling we’ve walked into a trap. We should avoid the Otherworld. Even now she’s probably told everyone that you’re on a quest and you know how everyone loves a quester.” He rolled his eyes. “She’ll have a guaranteed stream of gossip on our progress.”

“Yes, everyone does love a quester,” he replied dryly. Love was a relative term. Where some people liked to aid questers, plenty liked to toy with them, which was perfectly permissible as long as you didn’t actually impede them. Impede was also relative.

“Also, we should try not to request quest aid, since that’s begging for gossip.” James polished off his food then took a forkful of meat from Steven’s plate.

“True, but how do we do things, then? Should we return to the house and get some money?” Not asking for quest aid meant avoiding any of their people who might assist them with things such as airship travel.

James shrugged. “The same thing any boys our age do when they want to go somewhere and don’t have the coin. We gamble or work our way there.”

“I think we should work for our passage.” He scooted his plate out of James’ reach. The idea of James gambling made him queasy. James couldn’t beat Charlotte at cribbage—even when he used magic.

The serving girl refilled their drinks. “You’re the young princes, right? The ones on the quest?” She shot them a winsome smile and giggled.

And so it began. Steven had hoped they’d have some time before the Otherworld gossip mill started moving. “No, that’s not us,” James lied blithely. “I wish I was a prince.”

“Oh.” Her face fell. She took their dishes and left. “Smart. If people do figure us out we should say we’re headed back to the Otherworld.” Steven lowered his voice.

“I can’t shake the feeling we’re missing something … it doesn’t make sense. Out of all the things she could have me do this seems … ludicrous—especially if she wanted it to lead to my death.” A quest couldn’t be designed to end in certain death, but plenty of people accidently perished while questing.

“She doesn’t make sense.” James lowered his voice, his words bordering on treason. “I have to say, sometimes I wonder if Noli’s right … ”

Of course, if Queen Tiana was insane she’d have to be a mad genius, since everything she did was so cold and calculating despite her pre-occupation with amusements. She wasn’t a very good queen—the mishaps with the sacrifices only two of many small instances compounding the matter. Instances no one would mention if they valued their life. Still, even if no one would say it out loud, Tiana wasn’t a fraction of the queen her sister had been.

“Well, we should return to the Otherworld before we’re missed.” James said this loudly as Steven left some coins on the table.

“Yes, we should,” Steven mumbled. He wasn’t very good at play-acting. Anything was better than mentioning their actual unspoken destination, the Grand Central Air Terminal. They’d stay far away from Jeff’s airship. It wasn’t as if he could explain everything to Jeff, and well, as much as it pained him to admit it, unless they had swords Jeff probably could kick the stuffing out of him.

“I can take you boys as far as Chicago,” a grizzled man with a medium-sized commercial passenger ship told them. “From Chicago you can get to North Carolina much easier than from here. We leave in the morning. I can’t offer you money, but you can have a place to sleep and three meals a day in exchange for being our kitchen boys.”