They obliged, although there were plenty of shifting eyes and darting glances. She raised her hand and placed it on the tree trunk.
Once, when he was sixteen, Nick had gone on a date with a girl to Coney Island. He’d saved for weeks to have the money to go. Hadn’t ever been before. She’d chosen a ride that spun him in every direction—he couldn’t remember the name, only that it was horrifying for a first-time amusement park goer. When the ride stopped and they’d walked down the exit ramp, he threw up right between her feet.
He felt the same now. The alley spun, the force of motion drawing him backward so that he needed to grip Harriet’s shoulder tighter to hold on. His stomach dropped. Thankfully, he wasn’t the only one. Tobias groaned and Gabriel made a noise that sounded like a growl. Seconds ticked by as the surrounding buildings blurred into nothing but shapes and colors. And then the movement slowed. When they finally stopped spinning, Nick couldn’t believe his eyes. Harriet’s hand wasn’t resting on a sapling struggling for the light but on a gigantic oak tree. She removed her hand and wiped her palms against each other.
“Wasn’t that fun?” Harriet said. “It never gets old.”
Nick took a deep breath to settle his stomach and looked around. All the buildings were gone. In their place were wagons painted in bright colors with wisps of smoke curling from the chimneys. Brightly dressed people came and went from the doors: men, women, and laughing children. Older children danced around a central fire while one played a guitar and sang for them. Others listened, eating some sort of stew from tin bowls.
“Come, my vardo is over there. My gift to you will be ready.” Harriet pointed to a particularly large wagon painted red and purple with a green tin roof and a round chimney that spat perfect curls of blue smoke.
“What is this place?” Gabriel asked. His voice was firm, and Nick got a sense he didn’t trust Harriet at that moment.
“This place, Ember Fields, was Rowan’s bonding gift to me. The fact that it is here and I am too means she’s still alive. Both this place and my body rely on her latent magic to exist. Our home has been here since 1887, when Mr. J. Hood Wright invited us to settle here to raise money for Manhattan Hospital. And we did. Lots of money. New Yorkers would come to us to have their fortunes told or play games, and we would donate a portion of our earnings to the cause. But in 1904 the first train came through and with it real estate speculation. We would have been forced to move on. That was the year Rowan saved me from tuberculosis, and when it was clear Ember Fields would get swallowed by the growing urban jungle that had spread across Manhattan, Rowan used her magic to create this slice.”
“Slice?”
“This place can’t be reached by any means but magic. Her scales protect the four corners and render us invisible and unreachable by anyone without Traveller blood. We come and go as we please, hidden in time. Rowan cut out a piece of the world, just for us.”
Nick’s chest sank. Rowan was no ordinary woman, and not just because she was a dragon. Sure, she sprouted wings on occasion, but she was also kind and generous to a fault, like no one he’d ever met. Without a doubt, she’d put herself in this position with Malvern to protect him. He had to save her. If he didn’t, he’d never forgive himself.
Harriet led them through the door at the front of her wagon, what she called a vardo, and Nick was immediately surrounded by the heady medicinal scent of herbs and dried flowers. There was a cauldron simmering on the cooktop of a potbellied stove inside, its silvery contents giving off the same blue smoke as he’d seen coming from the chimney. The scent triggered a memory, Rowan leaning over him, holding a vial to his lips.
“What is that, Harriet?” Nick asked.
“Forget-me potion. If you make someone drink this, they will forget what you tell them to forget. You can even replace their memory with another.”
Gabriel and Tobias filled the tiny space, although Nick could see they’d curled their shoulders forward to try to make themselves smaller in the tiny house.
“Are you saying that if we give this to the vampires, we can make them forget Rowan?” Gabriel asked.
“You can make them forget anything.”
Tobias beamed. “If we can wipe the coven’s minds, Sabrina might still be able to convince the Forebears that we don’t exist.”
“How much do we give our target?” Gabriel asked.
“Only a small vial, but the potion isn’t done brewing. You must wait. It will be ready by twilight.”
“Harriet, did you know Rowan used this potion on me?”
She clutched her pearls and busied herself with a teapot that was magically whistling at that precise moment. “The interesting thing about that is…” She trailed off, digging in her cupboard. She brought him a steaming cup of tea in a floral teacup with a small plate of biscuits that she set on a narrow table in front of the window. “Here you are, Mr. Grandstaff. You must keep your strength up. Cream and sugar?”
“Both.” He sat down on the window seat. “So, you were saying.”
“About what?”
“Did you know Rowan used your potion on me?”
She waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t ask an old woman to speculate on the actions of her friend. I don’t know Rowan’s mind. I’m not her keeper. If you have questions for her, you’ll have to ask her yourself.”
Nick grunted.
Tobias and Gabriel glanced toward him in confusion.
“Your sister wiped my brain the first time I met her.”
“Oh.” Tobias cleared his throat. “I’m sure it was nothing personal.”
