Chapter 8
I HAVE A SIDEKICK!
MORGAN
It was probably for the best Violet hadn’t been nattering in my ear for any of that. She would be having pixies. And since she was a witch, that would be quite remarkable.
“I should talk to Violet too,” I said, holding out my hand to Nelson, which was a much better name for him than Eric. He was not an Eric. Eric was a nice name, but it didn’t suit him.
But a name like Nelson was a bit of a mystery all on its own. It could be a first name or a last name. No one really knew. A bit like Morgan.
I liked it.
And I liked him.
Violet would hate everything about this and him.
But alas, if this didn’t work out, at least I knew I’d escaped from stickier places than this. Sure, escaping from that cage still felt like a fluke, but I’d done it. I could do it again. Somehow.
Nelson frowned but handed over the earpiece.
“You should limit your use of this,” he said. “The organizers have air mages on their staff. They picked up one of your earlier conversations. That’s what drew the guards to you earlier.”
I blinked. “Oh?”
Nelson nodded. “Phones are more secure, but they aren’t infallible.”
Violet wouldn’t be happy about that. Ever since I’d found my way back to her after being kidnapped, she’d been a tad overprotective, to put it mildly.
She’d opposed this mission from the start, but she understood why I had to do it.
She was supportive-ish, but that didn’t stop her near constant speculation about everything that might go wrong.
When I’d called her “my fretting family” a couple of weeks ago, she hadn’t been impressed.
But I thought that was better than “my catastrophizing cousin”.
I turned the earbud on and stuck it in my ear. “Uh… V?”
“For fuck’s sake, Morgan. Are you okay? What happened?”
“So, I have a new sidekick,” I said quickly, trying to get as many words out as possible before she yelled at me. “He saved me from some guards. His name is Nelson. Remember the dragon I talked about? Well, he’s friends with the dragon.”
I wished I could tell her how Nelson made my chest feel like glittering starlight, but I wasn’t sure she’d find that particularly convincing.
Also, Nelson would hear what I said to her.
I didn’t know much about relationships, but I suspected telling someone they made you feel as giddy as a foal within an hour of meeting them might be a no-no.
“Who the fuck is Nelson?”
I frowned and tapped the thing in my ear. “Can you not hear me? I said—”
“Oh, I heard you alright. But what the fuck, Morgan? You can’t trust him. You know that. We’ve been over this.”
“He hasn’t lied… well, except for his name. But that was just at the start. He’s undercover, like me.”
Even as Nelson typed messages into his phone, he seemed to be listening to my call too.
At my description of him, he looked up at me.
I smiled and flashed him a thumbs-up to let him know my conversation was going swimmingly.
He groaned and wiped his free hand down his face, as if he didn’t believe me.
But he didn’t know Violet. If she was truly angry, she wouldn’t be yelling, she’d be silently plotting.
“Oh, and we can’t talk too long. There might be air mages? And that might be a problem? Something like that.”
“Fuck. I hadn’t thought of that,” Violet muttered. “No, Gary. Give me a minute.”
I froze. “Gary’s there?”
“Hey, little dude, how’s it hanging?” Gary’s voice slithered over the connection.
Gary was maybe half an inch taller than me. I was hardly a little dude compared to him. He called me that to irritate me. And it worked, every single time.
“Gary, let me talk to Morgan for a minute.”
Some muffled noises came through the receiver, but I couldn’t make out what was being said. Violet must have covered the receiver with her hand.
“Okay,” she said a few seconds later. “Gary’s getting me a glass of water. Now talk. What did you say a second ago? Did you say there were guards after you?”
“Why is Gary there?”
I didn’t trust him. Whenever he was around, I felt itchy, and I didn’t think it was because he was a carrier of some kind of contagion. He was a liar. And although he didn’t seem it, he was smart enough to weave in enough truth that I couldn’t quite tell what he was lying about.
It was like his whole existence was a lie.
Of course, Violet wouldn’t accept my itchiness as proof of his being an asshole.
But at least they’d broken up when I was kidnapped.
I thought he was gone for good when she rejected his overtures to get back together in the months since I’d returned.
But he hadn’t given up, and his persistence was paying off, apparently. His being there now worried me.
I hated worrying. Ergo, I hated Gary.
“He showed up with some Chinese food. It smelled good, and I was hungry. Sue me.” I could easily imagine Violet shrugging. “Now answer me. What was that about the guards? Are they coming for you?”
“Not me specifically.” I shook my head, then remembered she couldn’t see.
My words skated around the truth but came close enough to a lie that I felt like I was wearing a wool sweater.
I scratched my shoulder. Hopefully that would go away soon.
“A super amazing shadow guy swept in and saved me. If he hadn’t, they would have found me in a supply closet. ”
Oh, the supply closet.
That’d been fun.
I had rather liked being pressed between Nelson and the wall in the dark. And now that I knew Nelson was for sure one of the good guys, perhaps we should try doing that all again. You know, to practice in case more bad guys showed up.
And while we were doing that, we could maybe kiss too. No. Not maybe. We should definitely kiss.
A little giggle fluttered out of me. A bubble flew out of my mouth. Oops. I swatted it out of the air.
“Mo-Mo, are you okay? Are you laughing? Remember how we practiced control. You can’t laugh there…”
“I know…” I sighed and picked at the corded trim on my cloak. “I swear I’ve been really good, V. No laughing in public. No thank you’s. No smiles. No shimmies.”
“Should we kill the mission?”
“No!” I shouted. “This is it, V. I can feel it. I’m going to find the artifact. It’s like I can feel its energy or something.”
Nelson shoved his phone into his pocket and paced to the window.
He opened the curtain just enough to peer through a narrow gap and stare out at the dark landscape beyond.
His back was to me, and I took a moment to admire how attractive he was from this side.
Let’s face it, he was attractive from all sides.
And although I was all for cloaks making a comeback in fashion, I was happy he wasn’t wearing one. If he had been, I wouldn’t have seen the way his black jeans wrapped around his assets so nicely. His form-fitting long-sleeved black sweater made his back look as good as his bottom.
“Mo-Mo,” Violet whispered. “This is dangerous. Before the cameras were cut, I watched everyone arrive. The place is filled with terrible people.”
“Which is why it’s great to have a sidekick now,” I said. “I’m not leaving, V. Not yet.”
“Fine. But if you can’t wear your earpiece around the hotel, I want you to check in every hour and let me know what’s going on.”
“Will do!” I smiled. There. She’d agreed to my plan. That’s all I needed. “Love you! M’kay. Talk soon! Until then, I’m wishing you moonbeams and sparkles.”
I tugged the earpiece out and turned it off before she could change her mind.
“I agree with your friend,” Nelson said as he turned toward me. “You need to leave. My colleague is in the town at the bottom of the valley. He can—”
“No.” I shook my head. “I need the artifact.”
“Why?”
We were at a crossroads. Did I trust him with everything? He already knew I was a unicorn. If he could handle that…
The phone in the room started ringing. What the…? Who would be calling me? V? It had to be. She was the only one who ever called me. I had turned off the earbud, so maybe that’s why she was calling my room.
I answered it.
“This is your reminder, sir,” an unfamiliar voice said.
“My reminder?”
“You have a seven o’clock reservation for dinner.”
“Oh! Right! Thank you!”
When V had told me she’d set up some reminders for me, I hadn’t given it much thought. Having the front desk call was smart. I tended to get a little distracted at times.
“We should eat,” I said with a definitive nod when the call ended. “But first I need to fix my makeup.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” Nelson said.
“What question?” I thought back. “Oh. About the artifact?” I shrugged as I tried to remember where my makeup was. Oh, right. It was still in the suitcase. “It’s a place to start. My uncle thought it’d help.”
“With what?”
“Finding my family.” I rummaged through the makeup bag Violet had packed for me. I went to the mirror over the dresser and got to work. I still didn’t understand why there had to be so many products, but Violet said they were all important.
Nelson tilted his head to the side and studied my reflection in the mirror. “How? Is it part of a unicorn horn or something?”
I shuddered and rubbed my forehead where my horn was when I was in my shifted form. Losing part of my horn would be horrific. “Gosh, I hope not, but I don’t know for sure.”
“What can you tell me about it?”
“My uncle found it at a market like this. He was excited. As soon as he walked through the door, he tossed it to me… Which was the wrong thing to do. I totally missed catching it, and it rolled under the couch.” I rubbed my chest. “I dropped to my hands and knees so I could reach it. Just as my fingers brushed against it, the door was thrown open…”
Nelson swallowed, like he knew this wasn’t a happy story. His Adam’s apple bobbed, and I stared at it for a long moment. He waited for me to continue. I heaved out a breath. I really didn’t like talking about this, but I could see why Nelson should know.
“Someone had followed him.” I squeezed my eyes shut as that moment played out in my head for the billionth time. “He was murdered… and I ran…” Like a coward.
Although what I could have done, I didn’t know. My uncle was already dead by the time I realized we were being attacked.
I pulled my cloak tighter around myself like a security blanket.
“I wasn’t fast enough, though. A day later, V and I had made plans to run, but before she arrived at our rendezvous point, they caught me.
” I shivered. “If Violet had been home when we were attacked, or arrived early the next day, she could have been killed too.”
Nelson became very still. “The people who murdered your uncle are the ones who kidnapped you?”
“At the time I thought so. But I’ve wondered about that a lot,” I admitted. “I don’t know for sure. I mean, maybe? But I can’t be certain. The people who kidnapped me might have just gotten lucky. But it is a pretty big coincidence…”
“Fuck,” Nelson muttered.
I didn’t think that was an invitation, and wasn’t that too bad? I could really use a hug and cuddles after remembering all that.