Dangerous, Diabolical

“Can I open a window?” Was the first thing I asked stepping foot in his room. The air was so thick, it was like waiting for a meal that was then delivered to the next table.

“Why?” He pulled a face at me. “The air-con is on.”

I’d noticed, moving away from him to avoid further clogging up my lungs. He locked the door behind us, chain and all, as I fired out a massive sneeze.

“Bless you, tea?” He asked, moving to pick up a tiny kettle from a small table in the corner.

“No.” The rest of the room was as sparse as Grahame’s. A double bed, door to a shower room. Sporadically flowered curtains hung from a single glazed window and a small table was placed with two overlarge chairs.

He sighed. ”Coffee?”

I stood in the middle of the room, not wanting to touch anything, “No.”

He flicked the kettle on, turning over a mug from a stack. “Okay well, take this.” He leant over to give me a piece of folded red paper. “What do you want to eat? It’s on me.” I stared at it, flicked it over, then passed it back.

“Steak?” I asked.

“We only have a leaflet for Chinese.”

“What’s wrong with Chinese Steak?”

“The Chinese doesn’t do a steak!” He ran his hand through his hair, exasperated.

“Oh. Anything meaty then is fine.” That seemed to only rile him up further. The kettle began to boil.

“What, like Chow Mein, Kung Pao?”

I didn’t know those animals. Were they names? Was Leo offering me people? I gave him a critical eye.

One way to find out. “Sure.”

He let out a breath, seemingly deflating with the compromise as the water finished boiling with a click.

“I’ll order, the clean towels are in the bathroom.” He poured the kettle. “Listen, I get you’d rather not be here, you don’t seem to like the council, and I know you didn’t want to pull me out of Fae. But right now we’ve got bigger problems, that gem, for starters, and the sorcerer is still out there.”

The things unsaid hovered silently between us.

I itched my nose. “Where is here exactly?” It looked like a hotel, it smelt like a hotel and was full of people like a hotel. Yet not a single person had batted an eyelid as we’d entered smeared in dirt and blood.

He stirred the cup a little bit too fast.

Please say a hotel.

“This is the Midlands branch of the SPCC.”

So I heard him talking, but nothing he was saying was making sense.

My voice was dangerously low. “Did you just say we were in a branch of the supernatural policies and control council headquarters?” The literal centre of a bunch of people that I’d wanted to avoid? The walls suddenly felt a lot smaller. Glancing towards the locked door, I noticed he gripped the spoon tighter. I should’ve left Leofstan in Fae and hightailed it. The striped wallpaper was closing in by the second.

“I’m leaving,” I announced trying to look casual walking towards the door.

“Celandine, wait!” He called as I reached up to slide open the bolt. A sharp sting jumped off into me.

Recoiling and trying to flick the pain off I turned incredulously towards him, “You’ve spelled it?” I accused.

Leo stopped stirring, and for the first time since I entered the room, he looked at me properly, chin set. A dishevelled curl had escaped from his hair and hung unkept over his forehead.

“Yes.” He simply answered before going back to vigorously pounding the mug. “You pushed magic into me.” His voice was in an elevated pitch, and a muscle of his neck spasmed.

“And now my reserves are too low to break the spell on the door.” I pointed out bitterly.

“Mm.” Was his response as he compressed the tea bag and almost cracked the porcelain. Ripping open a small sachet, he tipped in some milk before returning to stirring. “Well,” he began, discarding the spoon with a clatter, “maybe you should take this as a blessing that you cannot tamper with another spell you do not understand!” The air crackled slightly around him.

I scoffed. His face turned to genuine surprise when I took a step toward him. “Do you know what your problem is Leofstan Ortwin?” My voice was a yell as I stormed across the room, “You think you’re all that!” I stood in front, gesturing wildly with my hands.

Taken aback, his magic dispersed.

“Not once has it occurred to you that someone can be on your level with magic. Hell, you think you’re so freaking awesome!” I dropped my tone, jaw clenched, crossing my arms. “If you’d taken a moment just to consider maybe I was, it’d still be Tuesday!”

He said nothing, just reached to the side and picked up the teacup. A small smile tugged into his cheeks.

“What?” I snapped. There was nothing to be smiling about.

“You’re right.”

“Exactly, and then you almost killed…” I replayed the conversation.

With the grace of a dancer, he sat down in one of the chairs, taking a sip of tea, smile broadening into a grin. “No one has possessed the audacity to educate me on my flaws in a long time.”

Inside my chest, the space suddenly became lighter. He turned the smile towards me and the walls of the room expanded phenomenally. I fell into a chair as the strength fled my knees.

His smile slipped. “Thank you for extricating me from the Fae-lands. But never send me magic again. Next time, I will not be able to stop taking it.” He clenched his hands around the cup.

“So I just wait for you to simply die and drain me accidentally instead?”

“This is why removing the gem is one of my top priorities. Some of the greatest minds can be contacted here, I have no doubt we can find a resolution.”

We both fell into silence apart from the ticking clock as he sipped his tea, lost in thought. I couldn’t let them look closely, but this link was starting to become more trouble than it was worth. Restlessly letting my eyes wander, I glanced at the locked door again. With nothing else to do, I finally settled on trying to figure out the source of my magic.

“Can you tell where I am replenishing magic from?” I asked, it was grating on me terribly. “I know it’s returning. But it just is. There isn’t a spot or anything.”

Not answering straight away he took a sip out of his cup, cradling it in both hands, staring into it for a few breaths. When he finally set it down on the table, his face had relaxed into his usual relaxed mask.

Reaching down to my magic store deep inside, I observed it, trying to catch anything that might change.

“Hold on.” Leo downed his cup with a sigh. “I can sense you leaking from here.” He leant over the table, dwarfing my gemmed hand with his by placing his on top. “When you channelled your magic to me, I couldn’t detect it until too late, when its effects had already rooted.” He brushed a thumb over my hand, sending a shudder down my spine. “What were you doing differently?”

Hmm. I’d let it trickle, send it to one path. Whereas now I was just kind of trying to search everywhere at once. So instead, all of the magic that I was sending out, I pulled it together to funnelled it into smaller tendrils. As opposed to trying to throw a net, I set paths.

And it was as if I was seeing the world anew.

Everything was coated, some places more than others in what I could only describe as dust. Leo was rather untouched, but he was coated by a different substance that reminded me of how I’d seen his magic in my garden. The dust was slowly drifting towards me from every surface, and as I waved my hand around, it followed, but it steadily drifted away too. When I concentrated I could see outside the clumps moving around two natured folk carried on with their days through the window.

Focusing on the particles I was losing, they slowly started drifting back instead.

“Congratulations, Celandine, you are no longer leaking magic.” Slightly smiling, he squeezed my hand. I jumped, having completely forgotten he was there. He had dark circles under his eyes and the tip of his ear had healed but was missing a notch. For just a moment more, his hand lingered.

* * *

The hot liquid washed over me as I stood under the caressing spray of the shower. All this time it had been right in front of my nose.

Unlimited power.

Both from the world around me and the living creatures in it. I’d found I could pull the Fae particles towards me quicker, but only from so far. It seemed anything within a couple of meters zapped up like a vacuum, but further than that was painstakingly slow if it moved at all. Past five meters, I couldn’t pull anything and physically need to move to keep absorbing it, which was my new favourite pastime. My only goal in life right now was to see how much of the stuff I could store, and the room I was locked in was already suitably drained.

Rolling aches and pains out under the heat, the injuries I’d had at the hospital were all but a memory thanks to Leofstans healing. Now I could find unlimited magic, I’d need to ask him to teach me how he did it.

I smelt my way through the free shower offerings, going with the least offensive one, and giving my hair a few repeat rinses. Over the spray of water, I heard the food order go in from the other room, my stomach grumbling in answer.

After excessively savouring the warm water and emerging smelling thoroughly of flowers, a ‘clean’ towel awaited. It wasn’t one Leo had used but it had a whole bunch of smells on it I didn’t want to think too closely about.

Leaving the bathroom, the bitter draft of air-con cooling hit me. “It’s freezing in here!” I complained to Leo who was lounging on the bed, laptop resting on his legs.

“Ah! Sorry!” He fumbled around with a remote until it clicked the machine off. And I was back to being tormented by stagnant air that stank of prey I couldn’t eat. Needing to get some of ‘me’ in the atmosphere I began towelling my hair, wafting the damp cloth around as much as possible.

“Do you have anything I can wear?”

From the look of doom on his face, he hadn’t considered that I’d need clothes. “Hold on a sec.” he placed the laptop aside and began rooting around in a suitcase, “Here,” holding out a t~shirt and pair of cotton shorts. They were clean but old. He’d worn them a lot. The thread on the shorts managed to pull just tight enough to keep them bunched on, and the t-shirt skimmed my knees. Willow’s choice of clothing was starting to grow on me compared to this.