“Kirk?” he said, scowling at the brownie, now standing by the double doors.
“I have disobeyed you, Master Python,” Kirk reported. “I await my punishment.”
“I see,” Python said, pulling off his shirt and allowing it to fall to the floor.
Though it was very tempting to remain on Python’s heavenly bed and fall into unconsciousness, Magda forced herself upright. She swayed.
“You have a portal here,” she said, sucking sharp breaths to stay focused through the rolling swells of agony. In spite of these efforts, she became lost to it for a moment, aware only of the spreading weakness within her, the throb of her arm and shoulder, the tacky sweat that seemed to be suffocating her pores.
“Why did you help her?” Python asked Kirk as if Magda hadn’t spoken.
Outside, a roar. The house shook. A deafening crack and pop of breaking stone echoed through the open doors.
Kirk muttered something unintelligible.
“Speak up, Kirk,” Python said, pulling on a fresh button-up shirt, this one gold.
“Did I need a reason, sir?” Kirk snapped.
“I should think you would,” Python said, buttoning his shirt. “Considering the trouble you knew it would bring you.”
The house rocked again and the mirror over his dresser tilted and then fell, crashing and causing Magda to flinch, inciting a fresh bout of crippling pain.
“The other one stinks of Elf,” Kirk said after another moment of grumbling. “I have no love of ogres either.”
Python finished buttoning his shirt and frowned towards the doors outside. More stone cracked. “It’s destroying my house.” He shook out his sleeves and looked back at Kirk. “Well, Kirk. You helped the Pixie Rae. Now she’s about to ask you to do so again. And apparently I am going to free you.”
“I am?” Magda asked.
“You are?” Kirk asked at the same moment.
“Evidently,” Python said as if surprised as well.
“No, please, Master Python.” Kirk came forward, his hands open, pleading. “Punish me as you will. Burn my feet with irons, starve me for a week, two even, but don’t free me!”
“I’m sorry, Kirk,” Python said, taking up his cane and then his keys from the catchall on his dresser. “You have served me well, but the time has come to part ways. My visions grow increasingly dark.”
“No, please!” Kirk covered his face with his hands, shaking his head.
“You can’t see the future? Why?” Magda asked.
“It means a time of great change is imminent.”
She glowered at him. “How imminent?”
Python smiled that snake smile of his and opened his bedroom door.
“I’m going for a long drive,” he said, limping out. “Give the Elf Prince my regards.” He shut the door with a soft click.
The house quaked again. One of the paintings fell from the wall as well, almost landing right on top of Kirk. The ogre’s hand curled around one of the balcony columns, his murky green eyes peering in. The foul garbage funk of the ogre’s breath blasted through the doors as he howled at them.
Magda used the last of her energy to push off the bed and down on her knees before Kirk.
“That’s the end of me,” Kirk was saying.
Like all brownies cut off from their natal homes, without someone to bind himself to, he would die.
“No, you can serve me, now,” Magda said.
