“It’ll be grand,” Niamh replied, though a little more detail onhowmight’ve been nice.
I felt the door swing open. “You rang?” Mr. Tom said. He’d never seenThe Addams Family, and he wasn’t trying to joke.
“Hey,” I heard, a rough and scratchy woman’s voice. “Cool cape. How do you get it to move like that?”
“Capes are for superheroes written by mediocre Dicks and Janes with empty existences,” Mr. Tom replied primly. “Given your very uninspired disguise,youare more apt to wear a cape than I am. State your business.”
“That’s a lot to unpack right there. I’m Fred. I’m here for the interview. My pronouns are she, her, and they.”
“Fabulous. Right this way.”
The front door swung shut, and footsteps echoed on the hardwood.
“Wow. This is some house,” the woman said. The name on the résumé had given me the wrong idea of her gender. “How big is this place?”
“Big enough.” Mr. Tom entered the room, and then stepped aside.
I stood, as did Austin…before freezing in surprise.
TEN
Jessie
The slim woman was a little over five feet and of Asian descent, with short, green-yellow hair sticking up in spikes all over her head. She had slight crow’s-feet around her eyes and smooth cheeks—I guessed she was probably mid-thirties, but I couldn’t be sure because the rest of her face was covered in a fake gray beard and a long, equally fake mustache that covered her mouth. A fox fur draped around her neck, the old-fashioned kind with the head and paws still attached. Unlike the moth-eaten things I’d seen at the back of vintage shops, though, this fox’s mouth was open in a grotesque snarl beneath the red marbles of its eyes, while its feet bore red-painted nails and strange bangles like tiny bracelets. Under that, she wore a black shirt with long sleeves and black slacks splattered with fuchsia paint stains.
I glanced at Niamh and raised an eyebrow.Did you put her up to this?
Niamh clearly understood because she shook her head. She seemed just as bewildered as I was, and usually she didn’t react to anything.
“Oh, don’t worry,” the woman said, stopping just inside the room. She pointed at the fur. “It was roadkill.”
I wasn’t sure that was any better. It was about the same level of horrific and maybe a lot grosser.
“Hi. Fred, is it?” I asked, stepping forward with my hand out.
“Yeah. Hey.” She put up her fist, and I changed from a handshake to knuckles. Then she pointed at the fireplace. “Wow. What a mind-bending coincidence.”
I followed her gaze to Ivy House’s wooden mantel over the fireplace, which currently showed a fox running through a meadow. What a coincidence, indeed. Ivy House loved to mess with the minds of the non-magical. This interview was probably over before it had even begun.
“This is my fiancé, Austin,” I said, and turned so that he could step forward to fist-bump her.
“Hey, man. Nice muscles,” said Fred. “I thought about working out once. Thought against it, that is. Too much energy, know what I mean?” Her cheeks lifted, and I supposed there was a smile hiding somewhere under that fake facial hair.
I swung my hand to indicate the third member of our group. “And this is Niamh. She’s the one who initiated this meeting.”
“How’re ya?” Niamh asked, not bothering to get up.
“Oh, Neeeve.” Fred laughed. “Irish. Gotcha. I read the name on the messages and couldn’t make sense of it. Hi! Yes, we’ve been in contact.”
“And Tristan.”
He had already slipped the pen into the diary to save his spot and now stood with it mostly closed in one of his hands. His eyes were currently dimmed with fatigue, but his long wings fluttered—clearly an attention tactic.
“Another cape wearer, huh?” Fred nodded. “I’ve seen a ton of them in this town. Are you anti-superhero as well?”
“Only when someone needs saving,” he replied, and his eyes glowed a little brighter. He might turn out to be as bad as Ivy House. “I’d rather do it myself.”
“Cool contacts. I need to get me a pair of those. I have some green ones, and some blue ones, but I didn’t know they made some that glow!”
