“I need paper,” he said.
“End of the hall. On top of the short bookcase,” I said.
He took off.
“You want a trained bird to write a letter?” Goosh asked.
“Evan there is the ghost of the boy I was accused of killing. Last fall, he was lured into the woods. A monster called the Hyena stalked him. He survived until he died of exposure. Yesterday, I ran into his ghost. Earlier today, I bound that ghost into familiar form. He retains his wits, and as far as I can tell, a few minor powers.”
I heard a thump.
A moment later, Evan returned, flying very close to the ground. He was having trouble flying, with the way the paper caught the air.
I reached out to catch the paper the moment he was close enough.
“I bumped into the wall,” he said. “The paper got in my way.”
“I heard. Sorry,” I said.
I made my way to my feet. “I’m this feeble because I drew too much from my personal reserves. I bled myself out to power effects.”
“Self harm?” Joel asked.
I crossed to the cabinet by my dining table. One shelf had wine glasses. The shelf below was crammed with all the minor crap that tended to accumulate on the table, with nowhere specific to go.
I grabbed a bottle of ink for filling fountain pens.
I unscrewed the cap. I placed it by Evan, then held it down. There was a trace of ink on the underside.
He hopped up, stuck his foot down, then hopped onto the paper, resting on one leg, fluttering briefly to catch his balance.
He began drawing out letters with one toe.
“No way,” Tyler said. He grinned.
Joel was a little less amused. I saw a frown cross his forehead. The other seemed to fall into a middle ground. Confused. Staring at Evan, or just plain silent.
“Thoughts?” I asked.
“That’s pretty impressive for something with a brain the size of a corn kernel,” Joel said.
“Can I peck him?” Evan asked. He’d stopped mid-letter.
“No pecking Joel,” I said.
I waited for him to finish I held up the paper. The words were a bit of a scrawl, disjointed, but he’d done a pretty damn good job.
‘Its all true.’
“You forgot the apostrophe,” Joseph said.
“I’m a bird,” Evan said. “I’m a kid. I’m dead.”
“The mistake is excusable, given the circumstances,” I said, as I put the paper down.
Still, Evan seemed somewhat offended, and he made his way to the cap from the small bottle of ink, stuck his toe in the ink, then flutter-hopped over to stick his foot down, depositing a dot of ink.
“Okay, that’s a little uncanny,” Joseph admitted.
“That’s not proof enough?” I asked.
“It’s easier to accept that a bird might be exceptionally well trained, and that you or whoever trained it might have expected the apostrophe thing to come up,” Joseph said.
Nobody was arguing that point.
Fuck me. If cool, intelligent people who trusted me were going to be this fucking dense, I could probably get away with using magic in public.
Not that I hadn’t used it in public, but I’d at least been discreet. Maybe there wasn’t even a need.
Was this the natural resistance to the unknown?
Why hadn’t I run into it when Rose first showed up?
I reached into my sleeve and retrieved the locket. I had to twist and unknot it a bit to get it free from where it uncomfortably encircled my wrist.
There wasn’t much here. The hair was gone, but the dark crust on the interior wasn’t.
I got my finger thoroughly smudged, then drew a diagram on the top of the coffee table.
“By doing this,” I said, as I drew, “I’m introducing you to this world. Your mistakes from here on out are mine, in part. The consequences can be heavy, and I’m not in a position to be able to afford mistakes.”
I wasn’t sure how well this would work. Glamour fed on belief, and there were a number of disbelievers here.
But I might kill myself if I used blood, and I had no idea how to use the Stonehenge charm that Evan had taken from Duncan.
I moved my hands back.
The coffee table slid a solid two feet, and the diagram disappeared.
“You kicked it,” Joseph said.
“He didn’t,” Goosh said.
“Nope,” Alexis confirmed. “I watched.”
“Magnets, then,” Joseph said. “Strings.”
“That would only make sense if he wanted us to think he’s crazy,” Alexis said. “And he’s not that kind of guy.”
“Thank you,” I said. Joseph seemed flustered as he tried to reconcile very conflicting ideas.
“This is for real,” Joel said. “There’s no way you set something like this up when you’ve been gone.”
“And because he wouldn’t,” Alexis said.
“You’ve known him longer than the rest of us have,” Joseph said. “Forgive us if we’re a little slower to buy something this insane.”
I nodded. A fair argument. I’d been running into Alexis since almost day one on the streets. I’d only really gotten to know her a few months in. The rest of these guys, I’d known for a year, year and a half. Tiffany? For a week.
“You’re forgiven,” I said.
“This shit is real?” Alexis asked.
I nodded.
“The people you thought were trying to kill you are part of this?”
“Among them, the Lord of Toronto, a circle of time-manipulators that include one cop in the police station, very possibly a group of enchantresses. In the past three days, I dealt with an imp that made the local wildlife go violent, the goblin-thing that caused Evan’s death, the aforementioned cop, and I tried and failed to deal with an honest-to-god demon. Each of which tried to kill me, or managed to take a piece out of me.”
“Is that the way it always is?” Goosh asked.
“No,” I said. I hesitated. “It’s because of who my grandmother was.”
“Who was she?”
“An eminent diabolist,” I said. “Someone who trafficks in the really bad stuff.”
I saw some eyes go wide.
Not wide enough. They didn’t get it. Not yet.
“Basically,” I said, “I’m spent. This is why I need some backup.”
“What could we even do?” Joel asked.
“You should do nothing,” I said. “You have your mom to look after.”
“What you’re dealing with sounds important.”
“It is important. If the Lord of Toronto gets what he wants, the world is liable to become a less pleasant place to live, putting it lightly. But if you don’t look after your mother, Joel, the world still becomes a less pleasant place, get it?”
“It’s a question of scale,” he said.
“I was just dealing with a group of people who have someone in their group that isn’t a part of any of this. She’s part of the group because being able and allowed to perform magic means you aren’t able or allowed to lie. Oaths become binding. She’s the group’s liar, for when they have to interact with other parties.”
“Joel couldn’t lie to save his life,” Goosh said.
“I’ll take what I can get,” I said. “You in, Joel?”
He nodded.
I contemplated for a moment. “None of you guys have run away screaming, which might mean I’m not doing my job at explaining this.”