It was already complicated. And, really, this was for the best.
She’d remind herself of that in a thousand years. “You’re right. It’s not a good idea.” She so lied.
“Good. Then we’re agreed.”
She glanced at his hand on the footboard. Time to get this temptation out of here. “Yes.”
“Okay.” He didn’t move.
“Uh, Zane?” She waved her hand for him to step back from the bed, mentally pleading with him to move. Begging him because her resolve was only so strong.
It took him a few seconds, but then he took that step. “Oh. Right.”
And that, as they say, was that. Over. Done. All that was left was to get rid of the bed.
She tried to muster a smile—or at least keep the frown from her face—and pucker up. Somehow she managed it.
“There.” She brushed her hands together. “That’s done. And so is the room. Time to move on to the next one.”
“It’s another bedroom.” He waggled his eyebrows.
She couldn’t not smile at him. “You’re right,” she laughed, walking past him. “You
are
an ass.”
“And I’m told I have a pretty nice one, too.”
Cocky and flirty and funny and sexy. If she hadn’t been in trouble before, she definitely was now.
***
Gary removed the dish and the bottle from his safe. He’d hated running out this morning, but getting the money back into Marshall’s account before Lynda noticed had been tantamount. Now he could focus on getting the genie so money wouldn’t be an issue.
But no matter how many times he’d rubbed this damn bottle last night, the genie had refused to make an appearance.
He tried rubbing it again.
Nothing. What the fuck could be preventing her from coming out—
Oh, hell. Zane. It was always Zane. First in school with teachers and parents and girls all loving the kid. Did they forget who his great-grandfather was?
Then there was his own father. Probably
the
biggest offender. Always putting Zane on a pedestal as a testament to what you could overcome with hard work and perseverance.
Not to mention, a genie. God, what Gary wouldn’t give to drop that bomb in dear ol’ Dad’s disapproving lap.
Instead, he dropped the bottle back in the safe. Then he picked up the dish and pulled the duct tape off it.
The thing didn’t even flinch.
“Come on, move.” He shook it.
Nothing. Not even a wrinkle of those curly edges that’d been flapping like a bird last night as it’d flown across the room at him.
“I know you’re in there. I know what you can do. You can’t fool me. I was in that kitchen.” He squeezed—and still nothing. Son of a bitch.
He tossed it back into the safe, too, smiling when it clinked against the bottle. He hoped that hurt. “Fine. Be that way. We’ll see if you’re so stubborn after being locked in my safe for days on end. No sunlight at all. And you’ll never see your friends again.” Unless he could trade it to the genie for her services.
Maybe even the ones Zane was probably enjoying…
30
The house was completely restored to the way Peter had had it built and decorated, down to the last tassel on the furniture. Vana had even added modern conveniences like air conditioning and a dishwasher, and the old iron oven looked brand new.
She’d thought about trying to change the children and everyone back, starting with Eirik since his magic would, hopefully, mitigate any issues her magic might whip up. Unfortunately, a whip showed up on her first attempt, which didn’t bode well for anyone. Plus Eirik, like Henry—like all of them, come to think about it—was still sound asleep.
“Zane, do you think we should wake everyone up?” she whispered as she peeked into the front parlor from the kitchen.
“Why would you want to do that? Let’s enjoy the quiet.”
“I don’t know. Something just doesn’t feel right.”
“It’s called freedom, Vana.” He grabbed her hand. “Come on. Let’s go outside. We still have work to do out there.”
She glanced back once more, but when he tugged her hand, she went willingly.
As if that was ever in question.
“Okay, Zane, but we’re going to have to pace ourselves. Mrs. Ertel will have a cow if anything happens like this.” She snapped her fingers.
They both did a double take when a cow mooed in the doorway.
“Holy smokes!”
Zane, amazingly, laughed. “I guess it could be worse.”
She’d like to know how because her magic being on the fritz again was pretty bad (as were most Fritzes—an angry family of gnomes she’d known once).
She looked around, praying she wouldn’t see any of them while Zane grabbed the cow’s halter and led it toward the back door. “Come on, Vana. Let’s take Bessie outside before she wakes everyone up, and we can get to work.”
“Do you think fixing up the outside is really going to help? You heard Merlin. Gary’s gunning for you.”
“Then I’ll just have to outgun him, won’t I?”
“How?”
“I’ll think of something. Don’t forget; I play offense, and the best defense is a good offense.”
But this wasn’t a game. She hoped he knew what he was doing.
When he led her to the shed in the backyard and handed her keys to something mechanical, she knew he didn’t.
“Keys?” she asked, taking them as if they were coated in venom. “What for?”
“The riding lawnmower.”
“A riding lawnmower. As in, something with blades? Sharp blades?”
“Good.” He tied Bessie to a tree, then backed the mechanical monstrosity onto the grass. “I wasn’t sure if you knew what one was. I didn’t realize these had been invented when you were out of your bottle last.”
“Not ones that needed keys.” She took two steps back from the vehicle, still dangling the keys as if they were dead mice. Actually, she’d rather they be mice. Mice, she didn’t mind. Mechanical things with deadly attachments, however… “Just what do you expect me to do with the lawnmower?”
“Mow the lawn?”
“Funny.” She enclosed the keys in her fist and held it out to him. “Seriously, Zane. I don’t mow lawns.”
“You also didn’t do magic well, but you overcame that.”
“That is so not a fair argument.”
“You know that’s an oxymoron, right?”
She’d tell him who the moron was… “Did you, or did you not, just experience the entire second floor of your house caving in? And that was without spinning blades.”
He shook out a floppy hat and plopped it onto her head. “First of all, it was only the one room. Second, you fixed it. Third, we can’t cut the grass by magic. I don’t trust Mrs. Ertel not to come back because the woman is dying for something to gossip about.”
Vana flicked the brim out of her eyes. It didn’t stay there. “I thought her husband was supposed to do this?”
“Do you want him riding around with gargoyles on the loose?”
Frankincense
. He had a point. “I could magic them back to the fence posts.”
“Don’t you have to find them first?”
Double
frankincense
. She blew out a breath that sent the hat brim flipping back on itself, gathered her hair, and fashioned it into one long braid down her back. “Fine. How does this work?”
Surprisingly, it wasn’t all that hard once Zane showed her. And without magic, too. She had a feeling it was easier to work
because
of no magic, but she didn’t want to test the theory.
Pretty smart of him, giving her something semi-dangerous that could blow into full-on lethal if she tried to get out of it the supposedly easy, magical way.
And she was actually enjoying herself. Zane was fixing things like the basement door, a crooked gate post, and the rotted floorboard on the back porch, but she was just riding around in pretty patterns on the grass and enjoying the birds darting around her as they swooped in to pick off whatever insects the cut grass gave up.
The weeping willows offered shade when the sun got too hot, and she stopped by the honeysuckle vines growing in profusion over the gate at the back of the yard to sip their nectar. Many years ago, Peter had run a carriage service in town and put the horses out to pasture on the land behind the fence when they were too old to work anymore. She’d have to let Zane know. It would be a nicer spot for Bessie than that tree she was tied to.
She caught a glimpse of two of the gargoyles. One was imitating the willows; he’d gathered some of the fallen branches and draped them over his flat head, which was pretty inventive for a gargoyle. He must be higher on the evolutionary scale than others she’d dealt with in the past, but his buddy? Not so much. That one was huddled by the creek, trying to pass for a stone. It might have worked if he hadn’t kept flicking his tail.
Both gargoyles grinned when she drove by without “finding” them. No need to ruin their good time, and she’d be able to find at least those two when her magic was working again.
Vana couldn’t remember the last time she’d had absolutely nothing to do but experience the world. Oh, sure, she was “mowing the lawn” (she put mental quotes around the phrase because, really, she was riding a piece of machinery;
it
was doing all the hard work and this was actually quite the cushy job), but no one was around and she didn’t have to answer to anyone.
For all that her parents wanted her to become some über-genie like DeeDee, Vana was enjoying this autonomy… and the fact that the only person she’d be letting down with screwy magic right now would be herself. That had a lot to recommend it.
An hour after Zane had said she’d finish, Vana drove the mower back to the shed. It and she were covered in grass clippings and sweat, and she had a sprinkling of new freckles, but Vana felt great. She’d accomplished something all on her own. And without magic. She’d bet Mother and Father had never mowed a lawn that way.
“I was just about ready to come looking for you.” Zane swatted her hat brim when she handed him the keys.
“Why? I was having fun.”
“Glad to hear it ’cause I have more fun lined up for us.”
She could only imagine the sorts of fun the two of them could have together.
Unfortunately, his imagination was quite different from hers.
***
Four hours later, steaks were on the grill (that they’d scrubbed) and beers in the cooler on the porch (that they’d washed). They sat in the rocking chairs (that they’d hosed down) from the shed (that they’d swept) and watched the sun kiss the horizon as the fireflies came out to frolic. Vana’s muscles creaked with every motion the old chairs made.
She’d climbed ladders to de-bird’s-nest the shutters. Had heaved on a creaky old pulley system to haul slate tiles to the roof so Zane could replace the ones she’d missed during yesterday’s cleanup. She’d offered to magically fix them for him since a slanted tile roof wasn’t the safest place to be, but Zane had looked both insulted and horrified.
She had to say, even with the aches, pains, seven out of ten chipped nails, and the chunk of hair that had gotten wrenched from her braid when it’d gotten caught on a protruding nail as she’d climbed down the ladder on one of many trips, there was a satisfaction in what they’d done that she hadn’t felt when using her magic. Although, that might be because using her magic rarely went as smoothly as using her muscles.
“So what are we going to do tomorrow?”
Zane took another sip of his beer. “
We
aren’t going to do anything.
You
are going to play lady of leisure. Your body is going to need it after today, and I have to take a little trip to deal with our friend Gary.”
“You’re leaving? Can I come along?”
“Not this time, Vana.”
“You know, I
could
always turn Gary into a toad and save you the trip.”
“I thought you couldn’t.”
“I can’t
kiss
someone into a being toad, but
magicking
him into one is a whole other story.”
Zane swished the beer around in his bottle. “Much as I’d like that, we’d better not. But thanks for the offer.”
“I could make him mute like I did to Merlin.”
Zane sat back in the rocking chair, rolling the bottom of his beer bottle in circles on the armrest. “It’s tempting but I want to beat Gary on my own. There’s no sense of accomplishment if someone does it for you.”
“Now you sound like Peter. He always wanted to do things his way, too. He never really asked anything of me, other than trying to change the children back and conjuring food for his picnics.” And the rose window…
Oh. That. Maybe there was another reason he hadn’t asked for more wishes.
“Then what was with all the stories?”
“Well, I…” She pulled her braid forward and combed through the end. “I was… um, experimenting with my magic.”