He held up a metal token about half an inch across.“Put it somewhere safe.”
He seemed very serious all of a sudden.I pushed myself up onto my elbows.“What’s wrong?Are you in trouble?Am…I in trouble?”
He shook his head and pulled on his shirt.“I won’t let anything happen to you, but you need to trust me.”
There was something in his tone that made me wary.“Um, what?What’s going on?”
“I’ll see you soon.”He stepped into the wardrobe and disappeared without answering.
I lay there for several heartbeats, then wiggled over to the edge and peered into the shadows beneath the bed.No glimmer of gold, and I wasn’t brave enough to wish for something to test it.Not now that he’d told me to trust him and given me a tracker.
Should I flush it or keep it?
What was safer, or was there no such thing as safe for people like me?
Chapter25
Farrow
I didn’t wantto go see my boss, and not just because there was always a certain amount of slime on his desk.It was more a case of once I started this process, I didn’t know how it was going to end.But if I didn’t start the process, it was going to be a lot worse if someone else did.
For me and Timothy.
The more often I went to see him, the more likely it was that he’d find a way to access magic and start making wishes, and the more wishes he made, the sooner someone else noticed his magic.Not only that, but his father knew people who hunted sorcerers.
How long before his father decided it was in his best interest to turn in his son, the same way he’d turned in his wife?Not every sorcerer was a troublemaking asshole who deserved to die.But sometimes it was hard to tell, especially when they were new to magic.My boss opened his office door and beckoned me in.I wiped my hands on my pants and stood.For a heartbeat, I wanted to make this meeting about something else, anything else.
I should’ve known that first video would lead to trouble.
That following Crispin’s advice and setting up aScream and Steamaccount was only going to create new problems, even as it solved the old ones.
Now I had the money I needed to get my own place, but my brother was riding my ass about being a streamer.He wanted me to meet his new friends—being discovered was freaking me out more than fucking around with a sorcerer.
My own anxiety about Timothy had led me here because if word got out, I’d be booted out of Bridges so fast I’d trip over my own tail and land horns first in a pile of shit.Plotting and scheming was far too much effort, and Timothy now kept me up at night for all the wrong reasons…
…and some of the right ones.
I sat as my boss closed the door.
There was a trail of slime over his touchscreen that made me wonder how it even worked because if I flicked water on mine, it got confused and didn’t do anything.
“It’s not like you to request a meeting without an issue, so I’m going to assume…” One of his eye stalks tilted to the side in question, but all four of his eyes remained focused on me.
“Yeah, there’s an issue.”
His toothless mouth opened a little too wide.“Problem with yourSteamaccount?”He shook his head.“They like you to have them, to give everyone a glimpse into the human world, but they’re dangerous.Every year we lose a good Bridge Guardian because they wanted new scream footage.”
I hoped that wouldn’t be Crispin one day.He was careful and smart, but he was also a risk-taker.So even though he considered all the things that might go wrong when setting up, that didn’t mean he hadn’t missed something.
The tip of my tail tapped my calf.Even though I’d run through various options of what to say, I had no idea what the best approach was.I hadn’t even told Crispin about my deal with Timothy.Or the way I’d crossed a boundary and kissed him.Fucked him.Worse, I didn’t regret it.Keeping secrets from my friend should’ve been my first warning that something was wrong.
I resisted the urge to fidget and took the dive.“Indirectly, yes.”
“How so?”
I explained to him how I’d recorded Timothy and, on the advice of a friend, created the account.Then I kind of came unstuck.How much did I tell him?Did I mention how close I’d become, or did I stick to the observable facts?
If I was doing this right, I needed to get it all out; otherwise, the lies might bite me on the ass and trip me up later.
