Arthur poked his head out of the kitchen a moment later, beaming at us—okay, mostly at Grady, whom I was pretty sure he was dating because of their expressions every time they were within twenty yards of each other. It made sense. They were both big into physical activities, both ridiculously attractive, and frankly, Grady chilled Arthur out a little, which he dearly needed.
“Dinner in a moment!” he called, before letting the kitchen door drop closed once more.
I took the opportunity to set up the end of the table for Twist, settling her onto the cloth-covered surface and opening up the package with her dinner in it. Even though she wasn’t technically a familiar, she could easily pass as one, and they were allowed in restaurants as though they were patrons.
Come to think of it, I wondered how that worked for people with allergies. Hmm. Something to look into, maybe.
Either way, no one at the tea shop was going to begrudge Twist her dinner, even if we still didn’t entirely understand the pocket dimension she kept it all in. Amelia only insisted she ate off a plate, and that suited my kitten just fine. She was a lady, after all, and always ate as daintily as a kitten possibly could. It was a weird dichotomy with the fact that a two-pound kitten was eating a ten-pound roast.
Grady went over to greet Suzy, who had a tree in the corner of the shop where she spent most of her time these days. I suspected the love of her had initially drawn him and Arthur together, since they had both, at different times, been registered as her mage.
And I’d been right, of course. No one had so much as blinked when Arthur had gone to register her. Not even when he used the same name as the only other sloth on record as a familiar inall California. The government just wanted their cut; they didn’t care about the particulars.
I was just finishing setting Twist’s enormous slab of meat on the serving platter Amelia left out for her when Arthur came out with a matching serving plate, covered with a similarly sized slab of beef. His, however, was surrounded by carrots and potatoes, and looked like heaven.
Yeah, yeah, I was the same kind of obligate carnivore as Twist. But I’d grown up eating and loving human food. I loved a damn potato, and I didn’t mean Davin.
Although . . .
Nope, thought for another time.
Davin jumped to helping Arthur bring out the food, and soon the table was covered with fresh dinner rolls and those weird smashed peas British people liked, and roast, and Yorkshire pudding, which seemed like overkill to go with the bread, but I also wasn’t going to turn down extra bread.
I wasn’t a heathen.
Bread waslife.
Amelia turned the reins over to their employees then, and came to lean against the chair where Arthur had seated himself. “I’ll come sit down when we close, but you all go ahead and eat now. I’m just going to get a head start on cleaning up.”
She said that half the time we had dinners like this, because she didn’t like to actually leave the work of the tea shop to anyone else. Also, their employees had joined us for dinner more than once, just because...well, because that was how family was supposed to work, and this family did.
The table was plenty big for everyone who was hungry, and as long as no one touched Twist’s food, no one had to die.
It was about three minutes till six—which was the hour the shop closed—when the front door behind me opened with the tinkle of a bell. I could almost feel the shop employees slump,clearly assuming they were about to have to stop their cleaning and start prepping food again. Heck, Amelia had already gone into the kitchen to take care of the hand-washed dishes.
But the change in Arthur’s demeanor was the one that sent the hairs on the back of my neck straight up.
Well, that and the fact that the fur on Twist’s back was sticking up as well. She looked like one of those Halloween decoration cats, arched up in an upside-down almost U shape and her eyes narrowed, like she was about to turn into her much larger form and jump on some unsuspecting jerk who just hadn’t checked the time and still wanted his tea and cakes.
Twist wasn’t usually the friendliest to strangers, but she’d never had that reaction to one of them before.
Arthur...actually looked a little like Twist, but in an Arthur-ish way. He’d frozen in place, the same smile on his lips, but now devoid of anything resembling emotion. His jaw was clenched so hard that I was shocked when he managed to speak. “Mr. Fearson. How unexpected.”
First of all, I knew very well that “how unexpected” was British—and Southern—for “what are you doing here, because we sure as hell didn’t invite you.”
But Fearson . . . Where did I know that name from?
Then, from his bed in the back of the shop, Bannockburn started barking, and the words “hackit cunting nyaff” came out, and...well, I didn’t even know what more than half of that meant, but it pinged a memory of the first day I had met them. Of Bannockburn saying that Arthur had come here with a job offer, only to have it taken back when the man in charge realized that he was an amputee. The man in charge, one Mr. Fearson.
What an awful name. I turned to look at the guy, and instantly decided it was the perfect name for him. He was an older guy, medium height and graying brown hair with a mediocre comb-over, in a suit that cost more than my entirewardrobe. More than that, though, he had a sour face. Not just because he was older and wrinkled, but because it was the kind of wrinkles that indicated he’d spent a whole lot of time making an expression of disgust. Those little divots around his nose and mouth, but not like smile lines. Like “ew, do you smell shit? I smell shit” lines.
It made my point, that he was making the face in question right then.
“Mister Agincourt,” he said, his accent the same as Arthur and Amelia’s but somehow...more cold and formal. I’d thought them funny in their formality, but this was over the top. “Your contract said you were to have reported to the office weeks ago, so I’ve come to find out what you thought you were about. Attempting to dodge your responsibilities?”
And that was just utter shit. Arthurhadshown up. He’d tried to?—
Before I could get myself all worked up and leap into the middle, Grady stood and stepped in, like a boss, in nothing but board shorts and a black tank top. “Mr. Fearson. If you’d been in contact with your own office, you would know that official forms have been filed about your violation of the ADA, and the fact that in doing so, you terminated any requirement on the part of Mr. Agincourt to fulfill any part of the contract he signed with you. You, not he, are the one in breach of contract, and we’re going to smear you all over a courtroom if you try anything.”
