“Oh, you would not want to see that.”
“Try us,” Delaney said.
Xtelle shrugged, and the pink unicorn was gone. In her place stood a creature built of fire and ash, a truly terrifying countenance. Her eyes were pink, but all the rest of her was the blaze of the inferno and blackness of the screaming void.
I blinked. Then a woman stood in the demon’s place. She was tall and lean, but wide shouldered, her hair as dark as Bathin’s, her eyes flat and black.
“If not a unicorn, I prefer this form.” She crossed her arms over her ample chest. She was wearing a warm, soft-looking cashmere sweater and black leggings, her long hair drawn back in a simple braid that fell over one shoulder and was tied off with a pink ribbon. She was the epitome of casual wealth and understated, if a bit hard-edged, beauty.
“That’ll do,” Delaney said. “We need answers.”
“And I need to be free of this tedious trap. So unoriginal.” She leaned forward a bit. “That’s your invitation to ask me whatever you want to know. So can we just move this along? Someone mentioned a deal.”
“The deal is, we want the truth,” I said.
“I can tell. You laced the trap with parsnip.”
“People underestimate the power of root vegetables,” I said.
“Will parsnips make you tell the truth?” Delaney asked.
“Yes.” She smiled and it was impossible to trust.
“So this is going to be awesome,” Delaney said.
I couldn’t help it, I laughed. “We don’t have to rely on parsnips alone,” I said. “How good is your dragon for sniffing out lies?”
“Good question.” Delaney crooked her finger at the little pig who was chewing on the dustpan it had dug out of the cupboard.
“Dragons aren’t truth keepers,” Xtelle said, a little too quickly.
“No,” I said. “But this dragon is hungry. Like, constantly. Usually, we wouldn’t allow him to eat another resident in Ordinary, but since you are here under false pretenses, and you haven’t signed the demon contract or followed the rules, I think watching you try to lie your way out of a dragon gullet sounds entertaining.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“I would.”
She looked at Delaney. “You wouldn’t let her.”
“Yeah, I don’t see why not. Dragon’s gotta eat, and I’m all outta napkin holders.”
“But you’re the reasonable sister.”
“Is that what they told you? Huh.” Delaney just smiled and continued scratching behind the dragon pig’s ears.
“First question,” I announced. “Did you open the vortex in the park?”
“That’s not exactly how it happened, no.”
I glanced at the dragon pig. Its head cocked to one side and an ear flopped over, as if it were considering that statement. It grunted.
“All right, I’m going to take that as true.”
The dragon pig grunted again. Delaney nodded.
“Why were you at the vortex when it opened?”
“I’ve been…interested in Ordinary for some time. When the vortex opened, I was in the right place at the right time. I stepped through.”
