When I didn’t get a good enough sense of things doing that, I stopped by the kitchen for some salt.
Behind the kitchen, I noted, there were a set of double doors. Closed, no doubt locked, with a sign taped down. ‘No Entry’. From the spirits that flowed through and around the paper, I had little doubt there was a rune there. Less a deterrence rune, I suspected, than a rune that would punish prying Duchamps.
Or a prying Blake Thorburn, for that matter.
A space they didn’t want the ungifted to see was a space I very much wanted to access.
I had the goblins, stowed away in one pocket in paper and whistle form, and I had other tricks, but I doubted the glamour would hold up if I tried something and they started looking.
No. This wasn’t an occasion for brute force. I couldn’t put Maggie at risk, in any case. The goblins were a last resort.
I needed to get inside that room, but Laird was the gatekeeper.
If I left the house, could I get in another way?
I thought of how Laird’s wife had been inviting people in. Was invitation required? If I left, would I be able to get back in?
Probably, but I didn’t like the other complications that were liable to pop up. Were they alerted when someone passed the threshold? Like the bell on the door of a twenty-four-seven convenience store?
Dressing up like Sandra Duchamp seemed like a horrible, horrible idea.
Even Laird’s wife… no.
I reluctantly left the kitchen.
Maybe if I found a mirror and had a discussion with Rose?
In a way, I was glad to be striking out on my own. She wouldn’t be popping her head in, out of fear of being seen, and it was something of a relief to not have her second guessing me. We’d hammered this out, agreed that infiltration would be the only way to stop Laird, and settled on this.
She was probably going crazy, waiting for a report or confirmation that things were okay.
I made my way back into the living room in time to hear the close of a toast.
“…for the betterment of our families, putting old grudges aside.”
“Hear hear!”
Uniting the two groups.
Oh man, it would be nice if I could split up that couple.
If some of the Duchamp girls were that desperate for a way out, could I dress up like the groom and get them somewhere secluded?
No. Because the Duchamp girls weren’t pawns.
The problem here was that pretty much anyone and everyone who was a practitioner here was a stronger practitioner than me. They would be on the lookout for shenanigans, especially if the groom was reported to be in two places at once.
Besides, they weren’t getting more than a few feet apart. There was a connection between them, I noticed. A crimson line of spirits stretched between ring fingers.
Was it like I’d read about in one of the books? A tether? A leash of some fixed length, keeping them together?
I felt my skin crawl a bit at that, and the crawling of my skin made my blood run cold, in turn. I could almost let myself think that it was the glamour fading or breaking apart.
But the glamour was strong.
Desserts came out.
I knew I was running out of time.
Time, ironically, being Laird’s weapon of choice. He and his family were chronomancers.
What were my options at this point?
Sticking a paperclip in a light socket, to blow the power?
It would only stall the inevitable, and it could still get them looking for me.
No. There was no grand stroke I could employ. Not until I knew more.
As dessert wrapped up, I saw the spirits shift.
The rune that had been drawn to keep neighbors from coming in had changed somewhat.
Adam’s wife approached him, their two kids following her. “Can you take the kids out for a movie? It’s going to be a big group thing.”
One of the men in the group gave me a telling look. This was it. The non-members were getting driven out, both overtly and subtly.
Adam glanced at me. “Coming?”
Direct questions were so hard to answer. “I’m not in the mood for a movie,” I said.
“Understandable.”
“But thank you for the company,” I said.
He gave me a little salute, and then ushered his kids off.
The small handful of people who were leaving were, with the help of the rune gently urging people to leave, starting to clear the house.
“Am I going, mom?” one six year old asked.
“Nope. We’re staying.”
“But I want to see a movie.”
She had to hold him to keep him from joining the steady flow of people leaving. He wasn’t immune to the rune. “Stay and play with Leanne, alright? We’ll see a movie this weekend. We’re doing some important things tonight.”
“Aw,” he said.
“Go find your cousin and play.”
“Pee first,” he said.
“Alright,” she said. “Go.”
He ran upstairs.
As the crowd thinned, I could make out Penelope and Jo. The ones who’d tried to kill me, just yesterday. The practitioners were the ones who remained.
I was lagging behind, and that meant more eyes that might start wondering about me.
But I couldn’t leave. Not knowing that something was happening.
I waited until the general focus shifted to some more boisterous farewells for the bride and groom, and ducked upstairs.
Nobody followed me or objected. That bothered me some. Unmarried middle aged guy who lived in an apartment, waiting outside the bathroom for a young boy. I even had the ‘stache.
What the hell was wrong with me and the choices I was making, for glamours?
More concerning was the fact that this was a gamble, and I didn’t like my odds. There were too many things that might not work, here.
“Hey,” I mumbled. “Fate gods, karma gods, whoever. I’ve been trying to play fair, be nice. I cut Mags some slack. Can I cash in some of my chips? Or at least buy some relief from the bad luck my family is due?”
There was no answer. Obviously.
I heard the toilet flush, inhaled slowly, and then exhaled.
The door popped open, and I saw a chance. He stopped in his tracks as he saw me standing outside the door.
“Did you wash your hands?” I asked, knowing the answer.
He looked momentarily guilty.
I put my hand on top of his head, moving it so his head turned toward the sink. He obediently turned and went to wash his hands.
I plucked a hair from his head.
He stopped, looking at me. “What?”
“Soap and water,” I ordered. Playing up the authority figure role. “And hurry, please. I’d like my turn.”
He gave his hands the shortest, most perfunctory scrub he could, and then zipped downstairs.
I took my turn in the bathroom, closing and locking the door. I leaned over the sink. No reflection faced me.
“Rose,” I said. “Rose, Rose.”
A moment passed, and Rose appeared in the pane.
“Are you sure you should call me?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “But this is your chance to tell me if I’m being an idiot.”
“Are you being an idiot?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I crashed the party, no problem, but very little gain, outside of seeing the family units at work.”
I placed my fist against the wall, and pushed hard.
“What’s next?” she asked.
“Being a face in a smaller crowd,” I said. I looked at the hair, and I could see the connection to its owner, like a vague shaft of sunlight filtered through the air in a dusty room. Moving downstairs, slowing as he entered the living room.