Chapter Eight
“What about this one?” Delilah asked, waving a copy of Monster Slayers Wanted through the air.
Fitz made a valiant effort to read it, his head rocking from side-to-side, before he finally gave up and asked, “Could you read it out loud for us?”
Delilah lowered the pamphlet and cleared her throat. Then she coughed and gagged slightly, sticking her tongue out as her eyes bugged wide open.
Oh gods, is she about to cough up a hairball?
Maximus passed her a glass of water, which she sipped slowly before setting it aside with a murmured thank you.
Clearing her throat again—because that worked so well the first time—she slowly and stiltedly read the entry, “Seeking adventurers to slay the Night Stalker. The beast’s lair is on the edge of Scribton, and it keeps eating our chickens, goats, and lamps. ”
“Do you mean lambs?” Angelica asked.
Delilah paused and re-read the word. “It says lamps. With a p.”
“That’s obviously a mistake. Monsters don’t run around eating people’s lamps.”
“How would you know? You’ve never been outside the boundary.”
“Because it makes no sense—”
“Mistake or not,” I raised my voice to drown Angelica out, “can we assume the beast is being a nuisance?”
“Nuisance, yes,” Fitz agreed. “But is it a great and terrible evil?”
“Is it sentient?” Maximus asked, his voice calm and quiet. “If it’s not, then it can’t be evil. It’s just trying to survive.”
“Most beasts are sentient,” Delilah replied, though her excitement faltered. “Though this sounds more like a hound than a cat, which makes it less likely to be evil.”
Thankfully, no one questioned her thought processes. “Morality questions aside,” I said, “that sounds more like a side quest than a main quest. Something you’d take care of for quick cash, not to present your accomplishments to the Good Wizard.”
“Good point,” Fitz said, pulling out a piece of paper.
“We’ll need to speak with the Good Wizard before setting out to make sure our quest of choice fits the parameters of the spell.
Especially since we’re the first generation to choose this option.
” He wrote a quick note and rifled around one of the side table drawers for an envelope.
Then he walked to the door and pulled on a bell rope.
We all watched him in silence while we waited for someone to answer the call.
He glanced at us, then shoved his glasses up his nose and looked up at the ceiling, humming to himself.
When an attendant finally arrived, he sighed in relief.
“Deliver this to the Good Wizard. Oh, and since you’re here—could you bring us some lunch? I think we’ll be here for a while.”
I flipped through another pamphlet, barely registering the contents, until one familiar word stood out to me: Grimnight.
Fuck, so he’s in the pamphlets after all.
When I focused on the entry, I realized it was only tangentially related to the old man.
Seeking adventurers to lift the curse on the Grimnight Forest. Fifty years ago, Traumstead was a happy, prosperous city with a thriving marketplace and a large library dedicated to magical tomes.
Then an evil mage descended upon the city, demanding they surrender all their valuables and pledge half of their yearly income to him.
After the mayor refused, a forest sprouted in the middle of city hall.
The supernatural trees spread quickly, taking over homes and buildings, forcing the residents to flee.
The spread continues to this day, threatening the borders of Hud and Kwilson.
The citizens of these towns have pooled their funds together to reward any brave adventurers who lift the curse and defeat the evil within the forest.
I stared at the entry in confusion. The old man had earned his title after I’d left, and he’d never explained how. He’d been a child when the curse was originally cast, so he couldn’t be responsible for it. How was he related to the original Lord of Grimnight?
It didn’t matter who cast the curse, only that this quest fit our needs. It was the perfect excuse to guide the champions into the old man’s trap. My tight grip crinkled the pamphlet’s pages. Why couldn’t you stay obscure?
Fitz’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “I found one.” He pushed his glasses higher up his nose and said, “This is a bounty placed for The Lord of Darkness, Prince of Shadows, Bringer of Terrible Evil, The Great and Powerful—”
“No!” Delilah screamed. She jumped out of her seat and snatched the pamphlet from his hands and chomped down on the corner.
Since she wasn’t wearing the collar, she only had dull, human teeth, which struggled to gnaw through the paper.
Eventually, she tore off a chunk, spit it on the ground, and bit it again.
“That’s enough!” I chided, stealing it from her before she gave her tongue a papercut.
“We can’t go after Cyril!” she insisted.
Angelica narrowed her eyes. “Are you on a first name basis with an evil mage?” She clutched her own pamphlet tight to her chest and gasped in affront. “You’re working for him, aren’t you? Spying on us? Trying to tear the spell down.”
I flinched and dropped the pamphlet. “I’m not—”
Delilah’s loud, long hiss cut off my denial before I revealed too much. “I’m not a spy! But I’ve met his wife, and she’s very sweet, and funny, and if you kill her husband, she’ll never write another book again! We’re in the middle of a series!”
“Probably for the best we don’t go after him,” Fitz said. At some point, he’d retrieved the soggy, chewed up pamphlet. “It recommends bringing at least one mage. Is anyone here a mage?”
No one raised their hand.
“Does anyone here know a mage?”
Delilah raised her hand eagerly.
“My dad doesn’t count,” I told her.
She lowered her hand.
“If your dad is a mage, why are we eliminating him?” Fitz asked.
“His specialty is novelty toys.” No need to explain what kind of toys.
I’d gained that knowledge purely by accident.
If I could scrub it from my mind, I would have.
“He stumbles across weapons sometimes, but his combat magic is, at best, unreliable. Besides, I don’t think our parents can help us on this quest.”
Fitz pursed his lips. “Then we’ll need to find a quest that fits our capabilities. What are everyone’s strengths?”
Angelica flipped her golden curls over her shoulder. “I’m perfect, whatever you throw at me, I can handle.”
“Fuck off,” I said, rolling my eyes. “You can’t even handle swearing.”
“I simply don’t believe those words belong in polite conversation.”
“Suck it up, Princess, because quests aren’t polite. There’ll be blood and dirt and viscera. Sleeping on the ground, scavenging for food, fighting for our lives.”
She shuddered. “Not if I can help it.”
How the fuck does she think she can avoid it?
“If you want specifics,” she continued, pert nose firmly up in the air, “I also happen to be an accomplished duelist.”
I thought of Hector’s comments and snorted. “Amazing! That will be so helpful when the enemy lines up in a neat and orderly fashion to fight you one at a time!”
“Oh, and I suppose you can do better?”
“Trey’s a great fighter,” Delilah piped up. “Not as good as Kit, but in fairness, they’ve been training for longer.”
Fitz scanned me up and down, assessing me the way I’d assessed Maximus earlier. “What’s your weapon of choice?”
“Swords, mostly. I can shoot a bow from a reasonable distance, but I’d need more training on moving targets.”
“I’m more of an archer myself, though I can throw knives in a pinch. Perhaps we can fit in some target practice before we depart.” Turning to Maximus, he asked, “What about you?”
I leaned in, also curious to hear the answer.
Maximus ducked his head sheepishly and explained, “I like puzzles.”
Not what I expected. “Like jigsaw puzzles?”
“Or riddles. I can also pick locks.”
I’d only focused on his height and muscles before, but now I focused on his hands. Large palms and long, nimble fingers, with a few scattered callouses, probably from where he held the tools.
“Now we’re talking!” Fitz exclaimed. “What about you, Delilah? Any skills you’d like to share?”
Delilah’s eyes lit up and her chest puffed up in anticipation. “I’ll show you exactly what I can do!”
Oh fuck. I lunged for her, but she side-stepped me, putting the tea cart between us. “Delilah, don’t—”
The collar closed around her neck before I finished speaking. Two pointed ears sprang up from the fluff of her hair and her tail uncurled behind her. “The truth is, I’m a cat!”
I fell back to my seat, defeated, and waited for everyone’s reactions.
The silence stretched on as the others stared at Delilah, taking in every detail of her changed appearance.
Then a sharp, nasty laugh broke the standstill.
“You’re insane!” Angelica looked around the room and demanded, “We’re all thinking the same thing, right?
We can’t go on a quest with her! We won’t be heroes, we’ll be outcasts, if her delusions don’t lead to our deaths. ”
Delilah exposed her shiny new fangs and half-hissed, half-growled in displeasure.
“She isn’t insane,” I argued. She was my irritating little cousin.
I could think she was weird because I knew her.
I could insult her because she had enough ammunition to insult me back.
Everyone else could fuck right off. “She’s different, but she’s also brave and cunning and well …
she can—” I waved my hand vaguely “—rip out throats. That’s useful.
More useful than snide comments have ever been. ”
“Unless we need to offend a monster to death,” Fitz muttered.
Angelica scoffed and looked around the room, her confidence faltering when no one rushed to agree with her. “Am I really the only one who thinks this is a problem?”
“Yes,” Maximus said. Even without standing, his presence loomed over us, making Angelica shrink back in her seat.
“In fact,” Fitz began, adjusting his ever-slipping glasses, “it could be an asset. Can you reduce your size at all?”
Delilah settled back in her seat, ears flat against her head. “No, I only have a few features. For now.”
“Hmm, that’s a shame. If you could become a cat in truth, we could use you for scouting missions.”
Her eyes widened in excitement.
“That’d put her in too much danger,” I blurted out.
She pouted and whined, “Don’t ruin this for me, Trey!”
“You’re not trained in espionage!”
How am I supposed to protect you if you become a cat? You’ll be so small, and you won’t be able to talk to me. Anything could happen to you, and it’d be my damn fault for dragging us all on this quest!
“Just something to consider,” Fitz said.
“Excuse me,” Angelica gritted out between her teeth. “Why am I the only one who has a problem with this?”
“Because you’re a bitch,” I said.
A quiet, almost imperceptible snort came from the other side of the room.
New mission for this quest: make Maximus laugh out loud. I frowned at the thought. My mission was to destroy the defense spell. If I let myself forget that, the old man would give me a nasty reminder.
Fitz stared Angelica down and said, “If it bothers you so much, leave.”
A muscle ticked in her jaw. “You know I can’t. I’m the only representative for Calamity. If I’m not involved, my kingdom will be excluded from the spell.”
“And she’s the only representative from Woe, so you’ll have to learn to work together.”
A knock at the door delayed any further arguments. Fitz opened it, gesturing for the attendants to wheel in their large, food-laden carts. “After lunch, we’ll each narrow down the quests to our top picks to present to the Good Wizard.”
I froze, hand on the back of my chair. “You want us each to choose one?”
“Yes, I think that’s the only way to guarantee one of them meets the requirements. Wouldn’t it be embarrassing if we called the Good Wizard all the way here, and he told us we’d gone about the task all wrong?”
With that, he’d ripped away all my excuses.
I’d have to present them with the quest to the Grimnight Forest. Maybe they won’t like my suggestion.
Maybe something else will sound flashier, better, easier.
Or maybe the Good Wizard won’t approve. Or maybe I’d ended up leading the royal champions straight into the Lord of Grimnight’s clutches, just like the old man wanted.
I wouldn’t just be a bystander, someone tossed into a plot I couldn’t control.
I’d be the reason they failed.