I still wasn’t sure how I was going to pay for the storage unit.
“Hey, Jen!” Roan’s voice called through the portal. I stepped back into my castle bedroom. “What are you talking about storage unit?”
“I have to store this stuff until I figure out what my next move is. I can’t pay for this apartment if I’m not working, and I don’t have any family that will do it.”
“Yes, you do,” he said. “Riley.”
“I’m not asking Riley for money.”
“You don’t have to. She can store the stuff on her compound in the mountains.”
A grin split my face. I’d forgotten about the compound. They’d told me about Riley, but I hadn’t gotten up the nerve to contact her, and I made them both promise they wouldn’t. I couldn’t quite pinpoint why I was apprehensive. Maybe that we’d grown apart? “I’ve been putting it off, but I’ll call her right now, though it seems jerky to call out of the blue and ask her to store my stuff.”
“She’ll understand. I’m told she’s pretty nice.”
“I guess.” I left him in my room and walked back into my apartment, pulling out the cell phone Alexander had given me. I’d balked at the gift, worried about the expense, but he’d assured me it had come from the Junta, and that they kept several in case there was someone they wanted to have contact with. Apparently sometimes it helped them tonotuse magic.
Riley’s new number was programmed in the phone already. She answered on the second ring.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Riley.”
The phone went silent. I tried again. “Riley?”
“Jenieviere? Is that you?” Her voice raised an octave. “How’d you get this number? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, relax. I just… well I have a lot to tell you. I heard you found your kids and had twins. Congrats!” I tried to sound sincere, but I was a little bit miffed that she hadn’t attempted to call me or my parents, at least to tell us we had new babies in the family. I’d call my parents the moment I had a phone that they could reach me at.
They thought I’d taken a ritzy job in Ireland for a traveling symphony. I didn’t know what else to tell them, not until we figured out how to tell if someone was Sárkány or not. Since Riley was, it had to have come from my mom’s side of the family, but what of the Junta’s rule about humans not knowing? We couldn’t tell my dad.
“So, listen, Riley. I’m calling for several different reasons. The rudest being I need to store some stuff at your place.”
“Sure, yeah. I don’t live there anymore. We finally cleaned out this past weekend, but it’s still in my name and the rent is paid up for six months. I wasn’t ready to let it go yet.”
Her house in our home town would be perfect. It was only about a thirty minute drive from my apartment in Knoxville. “That’s perfect, thank you. I meant that compound in the mountains, but if your house is empty I’ll gladly use it for storage. Thank youverymuch.”
“How in the world do you know about the house in the mountains? And I don’t live there anymore, we moved.”
“See, it’s like this. I’m a dragon, too. I’ve been staying in Ireland with Alexander and Roan.”
I heard her sharp intake of breath as if she sat right beside me. “Where are you now?”
“Sitting in my mostly packed apartment.”
“I’ll be right there.” The phone went dead in my ear, and I stared at it, totally confused. When she didn’t call me back or appear in my living room, I went back to packing.
I taped up and labeled the last kitchen box when she walked out of my bedroom. I stared at her, jaw hanging. “What happened to you?” I asked.
She looked down at herself, in jeans and a t-shirt, obviously clueless about what I was talking about. “What do you mean?”
A man walked out of my bedroom behind her, causing me to jump up off the kitchen floor.
“You’re all skinny!” We’d always been chunky. She got bigger than me in high school. I settled into a size sixteen, but she gained more, especially when she had her kids. I hadn’t had kids, and didn’t know if I ever would. My life was a nuthouse with just me to worry about.
“Oh, yeah. We haven’t seen each other in a long time. I work out, a lot. It helped me lose weight.” She had to be two or three sizes smaller than I was. She’d gotten all the typical Irish features: dainty nose, strawberry blonde hair. I was definitely the black Irish of the family.
“Who are you?” I asked the man bluntly.
