Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Winter
Itexted Aeson to let him know when we arrived at the museum, but he didn’t respond by the time we made it to the front of the building. I glanced at the ticket booth and did a double-take.
“Holy shit,” I muttered, elbowing Miles and nodding toward the booth.
Miles looked that way, and his eyes widened. “Is that…?”
“Yep.” I gently pulled him toward the booth, examining the kid behind it.
I almost didn’t recognize him in a white button down with a red and gold vest and a matching hat on his head, but when we got closer, I could see he was still wearing a ton of jewelry—earrings, rings, and necklaces—had dark eyeliner on, and though the red and gold hat covered most of it, his black hair was sticking out from under it.
He’d had his ears pierced last time, but now he also had his right eyebrow and left nostril pierced.
He also had the grumpiest look on his face I’ve ever seen.
I couldn’t help but say, “With a welcome like that, I’m surprised everyone in the state isn’t coming to the museum.”
He looked over, his eyes widening slightly in surprise—had Aeson not told him we were coming?—and he straightened in his seat as he flipped me off, barely even looking to see if there was anyone around that would be offended by the gesture. It made me laugh, though.
“Hey, Chaos,” Miles said, offering the kid a smile.
“Hey.” The kid let out a tiny smile as he said, “Hi, Sola.”
The firebird trilled in happiness from Miles’s shoulder.
Miles absently petted her. “How’ve you been?”
The kid shrugged. “Fine, I guess. I hate it here.”
“That was obvious from the look on your face.” I moved closer, smiling at him as well. “Hey, kid.”
“Hey. What’re you guys doing here? You taking a tour?”
Miles’s face scrunched up. “Um, Aeson called us.”
That made him look over his shoulder, but he was alone in the booth, and the other ticket booth was too far away to hear us, so we were fine. “He said he might, but I didn’t know he had. You’re gonna get the pixies out?”
“That’s the plan.” Miles leaned against the small counter, speaking right into the speaker in the glass. “He said you haven’t found any cursed objects or anything?”
He shrugged. “Not so far, but this place is huge, and there’s a ton of shit everywhere. The basement is a huge storage facility with even more artifacts and stuff, so even if there’s a cursed object, I’m not sure how easy it’d be to find it here.”
I pursed my lips. “Maybe I should get Lyric to come out. They might be able to detect the magic.”
Chaos’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean? How can they detect magic?”
My jaw opened as I took him in. Shit. I’d forgotten that the kids hadn’t been told about Lyric’s magical ability. I held up a finger and pulled out my phone, quickly texting Lyric.
Me: Soooo… I accidentally said something about you detecting magic in front of Chaos—the necromancer kid that helped us out.
Luckily for me, Lyric texted back immediately.
Lyric: You can tell him and Aeson. No worries. Did you guys have to hire him again?
Me: Thanks! No, they asked us to look at a pixie problem at the museum they work at. Gimme a few minutes and I’ll call you.
Lyric: Kk.
As I shoved my phone in my pocket, I said, “Sorry, I forgot you didn’t know already, so I wanted to make sure they didn’t mind if I told you.”
Chaos nodded. “Fair.”
“So Lyric’s a sentire. Do you know what that is?”
Chaos nodded again. “Yep. That’s cool. But that means they would know any practitioner as soon as they saw them, right?”
“Right. But Lyric doesn’t tell anyone’s secrets.”
“It’s true,” Miles added. “We went to high school together, and Lyric never even told Win that I’m an empath. He didn’t find out until we were at the gnome house.”
Chaos’s eyebrows rose, but he nodded. “Okay… okay, good to know.”
Sentires could feel, see, and sense magic, and they’d know the type of magic a thing or person was.
Lyric specifically even got a little bit of foresight in the sense that they could oftentimes sense when something was good or bad.
They weren’t a seer by any means, but they had a touch of Sight in their own magic.
“So… is it cool if I ask them to come check out the pixie problem? It’ll be easier for them to determine if there’s a curse or spell being used.”
Chaos nodded. “That’s actually a good idea. I mean, it might just be that these pixies are assholes. They might not be super known for doing stuff like this, but it’s not completely unheard of. But these guys do seem particularly bad, like they want to go out and hurt people.”
Miles frowned. “That does seem a little over the top, even for pixies, but hopefully, we can get to the bottom of it. Has anyone else been affected? Like we were with the cursed seal. Maybe the workers here, since they’re the ones who’d be exposed the most?”
He let out a long sigh. “Our boss is an asshole, and he’s pretty much the only person who I talk to other than Ace. I’m stuck in this stupid booth all the time. I only get to leave for my lunch break.”
That made us both frown at him, but all I asked was, “Did you already take your lunch break today? Or, well, I guess it’d be a dinner break.” I figured that was important to know for Miles’s feed-the-kids campaign.
He shook his head. “Not yet. Ace and I were gonna go around seven.”
Before either of us could respond, there was a loud cluck from inside the booth. I froze, but Miles gasped and leaned up on his toes, trying to look inside the booth, saying, “Is Clucky here?”
Sola chirped and bobbed around on Miles’s shoulder, as if trying to get her practitioner’s attention off Chaos’s familiar, and Miles petted her while trying to look inside the booth.
Chaos sighed, bent down so we couldn’t really see him anymore, then reappeared with Clucky in his arms.
Clucky was a cockatrice—a dragon and chicken combination that was much cuter than I thought it’d be.
She had a chicken head and a chicken-shaped body covered in a combination of feathers and scales, but her tail and wings were all dragon.
She was a combination of browns and reds that blended together in a beautiful way, and even though she looked pretty harmless, I knew she could breathe fire and was likely filled to the brim with magic, so who knew what else the cockatrice could do.
“Technically, no one can tell me I can’t bring her somewhere, including to work, so my boss is stuck. But he’s not happy about Clucky being here with me. Not sure why. She doesn’t bother anyone at all. She literally just hangs out with me, usually not even making any noise.”
“She’s such a good girl,” Miles said, sort of in his baby voice, talking to Clucky.
It made me grin, and I saw Chaos roll his eyes, although he looked more… fond and less annoyed or pissed than when we first came over here.
“How long’s your break?”
“Thirty minutes.”
Without missing a beat, Miles asked, “What do you want for dinner? I’ll order something to be delivered for all of us, if you don’t mind us joining you? We haven’t eaten yet either.”
Chaos eyed him for a long time with an indescribable expression on his face. “You don’t have to do that.”
Miles grinned at him. “I know. I want to.”
The kid let out a long sigh, somehow looking frustrated and sad at the same time. “Ask Ace what he wants. I don’t care.”
I frowned at him. “Are you okay?”
He shot me a glare. “Yeah, sure. It’s a ball hanging out in this glass coffin all night long.”
I leaned toward Miles and mock-whispered, “The sarcasm is strong with this one.”
Miles snorted, and the teen rolled his eyes, but I saw his lips twitch.
“I’ll call Lyric.” I stepped back so the two of them could continue talking—luckily there wasn’t a long line or anything, so everyone else was purchasing their tickets from the other booth.
Lyric answered on the third ring. “Why hello, long lost bestie.”
I snorted. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that I haven’t seen you in weeks.” They sounded like they were whining. Loudly.
“I’ve been busy.”
“With your new beau.” It wasn’t a question, and they didn’t sound mad at all. They sounded amused. Teasing.
“You’re coming over this coming weekend, aren’t you?”
“I sure aaaaammmm.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing you too, you know.” They were right that we hadn’t been hanging out as much lately, and I did miss them, even if I didn’t regret all the time I’d been spending with Miles.
“Well, clearly, babes. I’m the life of the party.” That made me snort. “So what’s up? If you’re out with your boo, why’d you decide to call little old me?”
Rolling my eyes, I checked on Miles and Chaos and smiled at the two of them chatting. Miles looked happy, and even though he was trying to hide it, even Chaos was smiling, albeit very tinily.
I cleared my throat. “Actually, Miles and I are at The Museum of Supernatural History where Aeson and Chaos work. They need our help with a pixie problem.”
They gasped. “Are the kids okay?”
That made me smile. All three of us—Miles, Lyric, and me—really cared about these two kids. “They’re fine, but they have garden pixies inside the museum, causing chaos and hurting people.”
“Oh, that’s weird that they’re inside.”
“Agreed. Any way you could come over here tonight and see if you pick up any curses or magic items or anything?”
“Uhh… yeah. I can do that. But… I might have to borrow your null-ness while I’m there. Museums are usually filled with a ton of stagnant magic so it can be overwhelming.”
“You know I’m here whenever you need me.”
There was a slight pause before they whispered, “I know.” They cleared their throat. “Alright, I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. I gotta go put pants on.”
I snorted at that. “Thanks for that visual.”
“No problem, boo. Love ya, bye!” They hung up before I could even say love you too.
Shaking my head, I walked back over to Miles and Chaos and said, “Lyric’s on their way. They’ll be about fifteen minutes.”
Chaos nodded his head. “Good. Hopefully, they can find something.” He made a face. “Shit. My boss is headed this way. Pretend to buy tickets.”
“How about I actually buy some so we can go inside?” I asked, pulling out my wallet. “Two please.”
Chaos gave me a nod. “No problem, sir.”
The sir made me snort.
He started ringing me up, and I couldn’t help but notice how tense his shoulders were.
Chaos was such a confident person who seemed so at ease in his own skin.
I never would’ve thought someone could make him feel that uncomfortable.
That didn’t bode well for my opinion on the man.
Making kids who worked for you feel that way was…
such a prick thing to do. Like… just be nice.
Treat people with kindness. It wasn’t a difficult concept.
I glanced at Miles, and his gaze was on the manager. His eyes narrowed, and his lips pursed. He must’ve seen the same thing I had.
Miles looked at me with a frown, and I shook my head, shrugging my shoulders a little.
The kid obviously didn’t like his boss, but was it more than that?
Was this guy… a bad dude?