Chapter 20 #2
So she made her way back to the kitchen, Mr. Grimm’s socks sinking to her ankles as she went. She pushed open the door and called out a cheerful, “Good morning, Mrs. Godd . . . ard . . . ?” Her voice trailed away.
Because there was a round little figure holding the covered breakfast tray.
And the face was even somewhat familiar, boasting the same bright, snapping eyes and button nose.
Only, despite its similarities, it was also wildly different.
Rather than belonging to a happy, large-hearted, comfortable woman of a certain age, these features were those of a puppyish young fellow of maybe twenty years, with a mess of reddish hair and a valiant attempt at a mustache sprouting beneath his cherry-like nose.
He lifted the cover and slipped a piece of sausage out on the sly. Luna’s jaw hardened. “Excuse me,” she said in her sternest voice. “Who are you?”
“Me?” The ginger-haired boy whirled to face her, sausage protruding from his lips and the faintest trace of guilt in his eyes. “Why,” he said, chewing and swallowing quickly, “I’m the owner of this ‘ere building, ain’t I? Yessir, that’s who I am!”
Luna raised an eyebrow. “You most certainly are not. Where is Mrs. Goddard?”
“Oh, Ma’s visitin’ with her cousins over in Westside this morning.
She sent me ‘round with the meals instead.” He tossed curly strands of red hair back from his forehead and attempted a flirtatious grin that was totally spoiled by that mustache-spruff.
“I’m her sweet li’l son. Tobias—that’s me. But you,” he added, “can call me Tobe.”
His eyes traveled down her body in the usual manner of tactless young men the world over.
Upon coming to rest on Mr. Grimm’s socks—which had pooled around Luna’s ankles, their festive quality still evident—his brow knotted with some confusion.
Then he shrugged, and let that lingering gaze glide upward once more, finally reaching her face. “And who might you be?”
Luna gritted her teeth and, not for the first time, wished there was a kind of shower simply for rinsing off gazes. “Miss Talbot,” she answered frostily. “So you’re Mrs. Goddard’s son, are you?”
“Seventh and superior,” he answered boldly.
“Thought I’d drop me in for the holidays, see what the old biddy’s up to.
She says, ‘What’cha earn your keep whil’st you’re here?
’ No holiday for sweet Tobias, oh no!” He waggled his eyebrows and leaned his elbows on the counter.
“But I must say, fings is lookin’ perkier ‘an they were a moment ago, ain’t they? ”
Luna forced a thin-lipped smile. “I will let Mr. Grimm know his breakfast is here. Mrs. Goddard may fetch the tray and dishes back this evening when she comes with supper. There are last night’s supper dishes on the draining board,” she added, pointing.
Tobias heaved the sigh of the put-upon, muttering something about being a fetch-‘n-carry boy all his life. “But mark me!” he declared, piling washed dishes rather haphazardly in his hands, “I’m on to grander fings soon enough! No more fetchin’ an’ carryin’ for old Tobe, nosssir!
Once me ship comes in, I’ll be rollin’ in it.
Then I can get any girl I fancies, even the girls up at the Rowdy House.
” He winked broadly. “They like a fellow who can flash a bit o’ coin, don’t they? ”
Luna endured his presence, maintaining her chilly smile until she saw him off the premises.
She liked Mrs. Goddard, and didn’t wish to be unkind to any kin of hers.
But, Green Mother bless her, it was a drag, being flirted with so very clumsily!
She wasn’t altogether comfortable with flirting as a general rule, even with a man who knew how to go about it, but she could usually get into the spirit of the thing, if the fellow in question put in a bit of effort. This was just exhausting.
The kitchen door shut fast behind Tobias Goddard, but not before blasting another gust of cold winter air through her thin clothes.
Luna shivered all the way to her bones. She knew now, as she didn’t before, why people latched on so hard to the warmth and festivity of Green Yule.
Otherwise, this time of year—and the promise of many more such months to come—would be altogether too miserable to be borne.
How she would make it to spring in fall-apart boots and a too-thin coat, she couldn’t begin to guess.
Next time she was obliged to pull up roots and flee in the middle of the night, she probably ought to head for warm, southern climes.
Surely destitution was easier to manage where the weather was clement, right?
The thought of leaving twisted her stomach even as she sat down to her breakfast. Luna forced down a few mouthfuls, then sighed and set aside her fork, staring at the remains of toast, eggs, beans, and sausage, without really seeing them.
Instead, dark phantom-like forms fluttered before her mind’s eye, darting quickly from shadow to shadow.
Her fingers knotted tight. She hadn’t seen any sign of them since that half-glimpsed vision at the Saint Jollify food court, weeks ago. And that was so fleeting, she could still mostly convince herself she’d made it all up. Since then? Nothing.
“Which means there’s no reason to start getting ahead of yourself, Luna,” she muttered. “You’ve got time. You’ve still got a little time.”
But it wouldn’t be long.
It never was.
She finished up her share of breakfast, placed the cover back on the tray, and headed back to the shop.
It was still a few minutes before opening, but someone already stood under the awning.
Someone quite large and impressive—narrow frame but massive shoulders, well over six foot in height.
Her heart gave a little jump of excitement, but .
. . no. This was no green wardsman’s uniform.
It was a long, black, fur-trimmed wool overcoat.
Long white hair lay across the epauletted shoulders, and a gloved hand held the end of a polished walking stick set with a large red jewel.
Everything about this personage radiated absolute authority.
He was also rapping on the door with the head of that bejeweled walking stick, though the clock had not yet struck nine, and the hours were clearly posted in the window.
Luna sighed and stepped quickly forward.
She spared only half-a-thought to wonder if she ought to don her own stockings and shoes before interacting with such an impressive personage.
But the way he went on rapping, she half-feared he’d shatter the glass, so she hurried forward, socks flapping around her ankles, and opened the door.
A blast of icy wind and snow hit her face, and she turned her head to one side.
“About time!” boomed a voice of such precedence and power, it might well belong to a king.
Luna was only just in time to leap back before the enormous person lurched into the building and very nearly trampled her underfoot.
She hastily shut the door against the wind, before turning to look at her guest.
He was an old man. Quite old, judging by the countless lines scoring his long, noble face.
Clean-shaven, a very pointed nose, and pale eyes, one of which peered at the world through the lens of a gold-framed monocle.
But the most important feature—which struck Luna’s awareness like a slapping hand—was the fact that this man was absolutely swathed in sorcery.
What’s more, she was fairly certain that face he wore did not belong to him.
Ward’s voice appeared in her head, memory of what he told her on the first day they met: “I’ve been on the tail of an elusive magical practitioner, who’s been dealing in enchanted face creams. Now we’re having instances of face-swapping and impersonations. Dark sorcery of the blackest nature.”
Luna’s blood ran cold.
“What a tacky little shop,” the man said, surveying The Arcane Bouquet through his monocle.
His lip curled, and his nostril wrinkled in an expression of absolute disdain, emphasized by the dark anti-glitter swirling through the aether around him.
His gaze fixed upon a display of poinsettias.
“Positively garish.” Then he turned to the rack of holly leaves.
“Provincial,” he intoned. From there to the lovely bouquets of red roses and greenery.
“Ostentatious.” He shuddered, sending motes of sorcerous material wafting from him like a cloud.
“Is there no taste to be had from one end to the other?”
He turned to her at last. That superior gaze of his landed on Luna, only to drift down to Mr. Grimm’s holly-berry socks, sagging around her ankles.
Luna lifted her chin firmly, determined to disguise the tremble in her voice. “May I help you, sir?”
“I doubt it.” Whatever his true face might be, the pomposity this man projected was entirely his own. But hey, at least he wasn’t flirting! Small blessings. “I am looking for the owner of this establishment. One Nigel Grimm. Is he on the premises?”
Luna bit the inside of her cheek. Mr. Grimm had no doubt stepped into Garden, but .
. . she couldn’t very well say that. Especially not if this man was, as she suspected, not merely a user of sorcerous creams, but a sorcerer in his own right.
She could only hope he wouldn’t detect any sorcerous energy emanating from the back passage.
Mr. Grimm claimed to have worked a very subtle spell which only the most magically-attuned could possibly detect, but .
. . well, she’d detected it right away, hadn’t she? And she wasn’t even a sorceress!
“Mr. Grimm has stepped out for the moment,” she said primly.
“When will he be back?”
“I couldn’t say. May I help you in the meanwhile?”
The man’s sneer contrived to deepen. “I think not.”