As he stood there, mouth opening soundlessly, Dan felt Axell come up behind him.
“May we come in?” Ellie asked, looking not at him but over his shoulder at Axell.
“How much danger will there be if we say no?” Axell was staring at Ellie as if Lady Prospero were not at her side.
“We come in peace,” Ellie said, flashing a brief smile at Dan.
He glanced at the second witch, the one he’d amplified. “Doyou?”
“Her idea.” Prospero glanced at Ellie with a question obvious on her face. “I have no idea why we are here.”
“She needs a spy,” Ellie started.
Dan started, “I’m not—”
“Not you,” Ellie said. “There is an underground here, a market where things can be acquired that are deadly. I need Axell.”
“Why?” Axell asked.
“You can only enter if you are an addict or withher.” Ellie gestured at Lady Prospero again. “And when I went with her, I left Howie pinned to the wall. He won’t talk to me or her right now, but we need information.”
Axell stared at her. “I am not using any drugs.” He glanced at Dan. “I swear I am not—”
“I’m not asking you to. I’m asking you to go see if you can buy magical poison from him. Drugs or otherwise.” Ellie pointedly did not look at Prospero. “You will tell him I was bragging about trapping him, and you want to bring me down.”
“No.” Dan and Prospero spoke at once.
“May we come in?” Ellie asked, still talking to Axell.
Axell stepped aside and motioned them in with one arm. He hadn’t said no, but he had a drawn expression on his face that Dan attributed to fear. Which fear was unclear, but there were several options.
Inside the room, Ellie pulled a bit of wood and a scrap of fabric from her pocket. The fabric was patterned and looked familiar. Dan frowned at it.
“That looks like the curtains in the lower hall,” Prospero said quietly.
“It is. I cut a piece off.” Ellie grinned. Then she dropped both things on the floor, and in the next moment, the wood and fabric expanded, twisting and writhing into an elegant sofa. The gold-and-blue fabric was now a Victorian-style sofa, and the wood had grown into clawed feet. “It’ll stay if you want it. Sometimes it’s nice to have a spot to cuddle up.”
Axell sat on the bed again, and this time, Dan curled up there ratherthan in the desk chair where he’d been earlier. They neither one had any defenses beyond Axell’s ability to become invisible, which only worked on Dan if they were touching, but he wanted to be closer to him while Prospero was here.
“Only addicts can find him, and you’re the only addict I know here.” Ellie gave Axell an awkward look, as if she hated putting it on the table.
“There are others,” Prospero said quietly.
“I do not want to be able to find magic drugs.” Axell tensed.
“Look, Lord Scylla isn’t healing. Without her, we have a half-there barrier I built out of sticks and rocks.…”
Dan bit back his three-little-pigs quip. This didn’t feel like a quip-friendly moment. Instead he said, “I could boost you, amplify your magic”—he shot a look at Prospero—“and you could make the barrier stronger.”
“Then how would we get in and out to bring in supplies?” Prospero asked. “We can find someone else, someone I know and trust to—”
“Ellie trusts me.” Axell stared at her. “We decided to be friends. There was a raccoon.”
“Chester,” Prospero muttered. “That beast is not a child, no matter how often they put him in costumes.”
“What is it you need?” Dan interjected. Later, maybe, he’d have raccoon-in-clothes questions, but he wanted this topic resolved and these two out of his room.
“Scylla isn’t healing, so we wondered if there was poison on the bullet.” Prospero sounded rattled, which wasn’t the most comforting thing.
