“Yes.”
“Sorry.” I pump my eyebrows, picking up another forkful of eggs and putting them on a biscuit. “These are great,” I say, stuffing a bite into my mouth. I didn’t realize how hungry I really was. “How did you two meet?” I ask, pointing my finger between them.
“I used to be in the coven Lizzy belongs to.”
“Used to be?”
“They excommunicated me. Banished,” she says, flipping her hand in the air dramatically.
“What happened?”
Betty slams both hands on the counter in front of me and a can of three spatulas on the end of the counter clangs loudly together, startling me.
“Now you’ve done it,” Lizzy says, looking between Betty and me, scooping some eggs up to put on her biscuit.
Confused, I look back at Betty.
“I’s targeted.”
“Targeted?”
“I may have done a few things I wasn’t proud of, but,” she points her finger rapidly in the air. “I was proud of what I did, which got me kicked out. Even though it’s complete batshit. I’s in school. Witch school. Training. Whatever they want to call it nowadays. Any whoozle, they had all those frogs in those jars just sitting there on the shelf croaking. Over and over and over and over again. I couldn’t take it anymore. It’s really too much for one person to handle. Like medieval torture and I even saw it in BethAnn’s eyes and Morley’s too. They didn’t like the frogs locked up.”
“So, what did you do?”
“Well, I may have cast a spell that let them out. But in my defense, how was I supposed to know they’d go straight for the dean’s room? She’d just gotten in a nice variety of flowers in her bedroom, which apparently attracts frogs better than shit attracts flies and that’s saying something. I say the dean shouldn’t have been napping in the middle of the day, but she’s yet to answer for that!” She slaps the table.
“It was several hundred frogs,” Lizzy adds.
Betty just groans. “Well, they shouldn’t have been locked up. We could have retrieved them as needed from the ponds around the compound. Plus, who puts that many flowers in one room?” she retorts, defensively.
“Is this your house?” I ask trying to change the subject. I’d hope this isn’t her house, because it looks like a solid wind could come through and knock it out. There are walls that are nothing but two-by-four posts standing up. You can walk between them.
“One of them. This is my July house. I’ve got one for each month.”
“You have twelve houses?”
“You gotta stay busy. Be prepared and always moving.”
“Why?”
“Well, after they banished me for the frog incident… well, I’s mad. It was a silly mistake and I’s only trying to free the poor things and-”
“What was that?” Lizzy asks, standing from her chair and running over to the exterior wall, looking outside.
“Probably some underfae working their way back home after last night,” she answers without concern. “One of the underground entrances is at the end of the alley.”
Pushing away from the table, I join Lizzy by the window. “I don’t see anyone.”
A second later, a bright purple light flashes against the wall at the end of the alley. “Is that it? The entrance to the underground?”
“Yea. But don’t get any ideas. While the underfae are not aligned to either court, they tend to be more dark fae and a pretty little thing like you... they’d have a field day with,” Betty adds, walking over to look out of the window. “Oh yeah. That’s Tompkin. Mean son of a bitch with cards.”
“Cards?” I stare at the oversized troll trudging down the street, ignoring the screeching cats running for cover. He gets to the wall and holds his hand against it and a purple light flashes before he walks in.
“Is it magic?”
Betty laughs. “Yes sweetie. Most portals aren’t like that. They did me a solid a few years back, so I gave them that portal opening. A little quid pro quo. Makes it easier on some of the older, larger fae who don’t enjoy climbing down sewer grates or jumping off bridges into water.”
