They gathered up their sweet potato fries and chicken-potato wrap and retreated.
Maggie felt a moment’s loathing for the Faerie, independent of all the rationalizing she’d done earlier.
Events of blood, darkness, and fire could strike her at any time. Moments like this were precious.
“I’ll clarify,” Maggie told him. “What do you want with me?”
“I’m bored. Can we chat, Maggie-closest-to-my-heart?”
Again, hitting those creepy notes.
“Define ‘we’,” Maggie said.
“Essylt is along for the act, nothing more. She can leave now, if she wishes.”
Just like that, the elegant young mother stood from her stool. She flashed a smile at Maggie’s dads.
Gross.
“Can we just not dance around the subject? You approached me for a reason. I’m guessing it’s something that recently came up, because you didn’t approach when I was visiting the dip by the bridge this afternoon.”
When I was visiting the ghost.
“The Briar Girl is spying on Blake, and she offered me knowledge for a point in the right direction. Mr. Thorburn apparently intent on vigorous leaping from frying pans to fires, idiomologically speaking.”
As he spoke, he was breaking up his own glamour. It was subtle, the changes only obvious when Maggie focused elsewhere, then returned her attention to Padraic.
He continued, the pitch of his voice changing just as gradually as he spoke, “He’s started a little contest, and even handicapped himself. It’s really quite interesting. You were named as a possible champion for his undersized, underarmed side, and I’m very keen to hear any details. I’m limited to this grim little town, you see, and it’s rare to experience any involvement in greater events.”
Maggie sucked on her milkshake while he talked. She put one finger on the top of the straw to trap the air inside and keep the milkshake from dropping back into the glass.
“I’m sorry to disappoint,” she said. “If I had more to share, I’d barter for something. He sent me a message. I’m thinking I’ll have to tell him no. Refuse him even answers to his questions about goblins.”
“No, Maggie dear, you can’t do that. He’s interesting, you’re interesting, and you want to just leave it be?”
“I’m planning on signing the contract, unless something comes up.”
The cook stepped out, glanced at Patrick, and gave Patrick a puzzled look. Patrick was grown, ordinary.
But Patrick was taking a taste of his own milkshake, and the cook seemed willing to accept he’d already been served. The man disappeared into the back.
“This is tragic,” Patrick said. “So much could have unfolded from this. Do I need to offer you more knowledge, to urge you to go to Toronto?”
“Maybe,” Maggie said.
Knowledge was good.
“The prophecies the others mentioned? It’s because Mr. Thorburn is going to perish, if he doesn’t get help at the right time and place. All of the contract business, unsigned or not, those pages are primarily a manipulation, to keep you away from that place until that time passes.”
Blake was going to die?
That was different from ‘Blake isn’t going to come back to Jacob’s Bell.’
So many things wrong and rotten with this city.
Could she accept responsibility for another Thorburn’s death?
She had to.
“I’m… no, Patrick. That doesn’t change anything. My first and last priority is getting stronger, to prepare.”
“They called you the wild card. Be wild, Maggie Holt,” Patrick said.
His words had glamour in them. They aroused an excitement and restlessness in her that she knew wasn’t supposed to be there.
She suppressed it, and found it surprisingly easy to do.
In learning from him, she was getting better at dealing with this sort of thing.
“Then you leave me no choice but to make one grand offer,” Patrick said. “You want power? Shall I put Maggie Holt in the same place as one of the more powerful and respected beings in the area?”
He let the idea hang in the air. Maggie suppressed the compelling glamour that was trying to get her excited.
“That sounds like a terrible bargain,” Maggie said. “Far too many traps.”
“You’ll face zero risk from him. You stand to learn a great deal,” Patrick said.
“Who is he?”
“An entity with the experience of Lordship, though he’s been stripped of much of his power. It’s really quite an unbalanced deal, so I must alter the terms. I’ll arrange the meeting, alongside my guarantee that you’ll personally face no meaningful risk from this being, in exchange for, let me see, I want you to consider helping Mr. Thorburn, and…”
“And?” Maggie asked. “There’s an and?”
“Trading in opportunities and maybes alone is feeble. It can breed ill-will with the spirits, if you leave too much abstractness up in the air. What if we agreed to the deal, you refused the opportunity, gave consideration to serving as the diabolist’s champion, and decided against that too? The spirits might sort through all that, trying to decide if we’re disturbing the system or if the deal was struck in good faith. Much like someone might draw ire if they tried to game the system.”
“Assuming I’m interested in this bargain, what’s the solution?”
“A token exchange of something concrete.”
“And that exchange is one way?” Maggie asked. “I don’t believe it.”
“As you wish,” Patrick said. “Good for you to be on your toes. I’ll arrange a meeting in some form, with a personal guarantee that he won’t touch you. I promise opened doors and troves of new lessons, and, let me see,” he paused.
Faerie didn’t need to pause, not really. An act, theatrics.
He bowed a little, “In this shop that smells like rancid grease, I hereby offer Maggie Holt a ring from my finger, impregnated with my power, should you accept this deal. It bears a connection to me, and through it, the owner can draw out glamour until I’m spent of it. I’ll give it to you for one month’s time, thirty days.”
Maggie managed to suppress her shock. She settled for being very still, her eyes fixated on the ring. Gold and obsidian, with the gold formed into branch-like protrusions. “You’ve lost it if you’re offering that.”
“Not at all. Handing this over would mean I’m extending a measure of trust. Imagine it as a prelude to taking me on as a familiar, Maggie my dear.”
Her heart nearly skipped a beat, but she remembered Lola’s advice from the other day, and barely hesitated. “You’re assuming I want you.”
“Are you pretending you don’t? As partnerships go, it would be mutually beneficial. I’m powerful enough that when I speak in that council room, everyone present listens. Familiarhood is an out, a way to slip the shackles of exile. To be free to leave this city. It wouldn’t earn me fast friends, but the court can keep track of me by keeping track of my partner. The smallest of hurdles.”
“‘Small’ is relative,” Maggie said. “And again, you’re still assuming I want you as a familiar. I’m not even sure I like you.”
“Everything is relative, if it’s definable,” Patrick said. “This ring is defined very simply. An extension of myself, a golden circle. Gold for bounty, a circle for an aperture, a gate. If you were to take this ring and prove you won’t abuse the ability to wield all the control over glamour I have, and if make a good showing of it, I would sign myself to you as a subordinate familiar, swearing whatever oaths are necessary to keep my power from overwhelming you. Maybe you don’t like me, but I think you like the font of power I offer, my knowledge and skills.”