“It’s awfully entertaining,” he says. “You might inspire a war, you know, if the rest are quite as bellicose as that one.”
“What a thought. Well, show’s over, for now,” I say. “Feel free to head out.”
He shrugs, and I try not to stare at the triangle of chest that flashes between the points of his collar as he does. “I don’t know;your depressed friend upstairs might really lose her temper if I stay long enough.”
“I’d really rather not try my curse—which, I needn’t remind you, means I can’t leave the premises—against a dracone-started fire within those same premises. Not today,” I say. “I haven’t got a very good track record with fire yet.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he says, grinning at me. “Imagine the rescue operation those two would mount.”
“Out, Smash. Or Crash. Whatever your name is. Out.”
“Bash,” he says equably, sauntering past me and out the door. “Not that you forgot.”
Irritatingly, he’s right. I hadn’t.
Chapter 22
I spend the next quarter of an hour trying to figure out if he’s stolen anything on this visit as a means of calming my racing heart and my spinning thoughts. In the end, I find another of his tiny shells on the windowsill to the left of the door, where I’m pretty sure a scrap of old newspaper had been caught in a cobweb. The cobweb and the newspaper are gone. I’d been meaning to clear them away and hadn’t gotten around to it. I remind myself to ask Sasha—when she’s in a better mood—whether she did, though I know the answer, and take the shell into my room. I drop it into the bowl with the crab claw, the first shell, and the florin, and consider the four little objects. He’s taken a cup, a bookend, a ribbon, and a cobweb with a scrap of paper caught in it, and left me…these. Perhaps one of the books he stole—which hedidn’tleave anything behind in exchange for, at least not anything I’ve yet found—contained something I missed when I went through them, about exchanges as a way of breaking a curse. Orperhaps the exchanges are what allow him to get in when the store is locked up, or steal my things…if he leaves something of similar value to whatever he takes. Thus, a shell for a cobweb. A crab’s claw for a teacup…
That can’t be it, I think. He stole an entire stack of books on his first visit and, worthless though they were to me, they probably had some sort of monetary value, and I’ve not foundanythingthat he might have left in exchange.
The simplest answer is that he’s just a pirate, engaging in some strange bored-pirate-stuck-on-dry-land nonsense. I shrug, set the bowl aside, and head back out.
Sasha is standing behind the desk, looking for something. She straightens as I approach, and has the good grace to look a little sheepish.
“Sasha,” I say, gently, “if you’re having a bad day, just let me know and take the day off. But no losing your temper in the store, okay?”
“I know. I’m sorry,” she says. “School sucked today, and Mom’s giving me a hard time about the end-of-the-year ball. It just was…a lot.”
“I get it. But still.”
“I organized a lot of the second floor,” she says, hopefully.
“I heard the thumping.”
“Yeah, it was really satisfying. I’ll set the pulley up and we can start getting rid of the extra stock tomorrow. Set up the tables outside again. Maybe your friend…the loud one? He could help again?”
“I’m sure he’d be delighted.”
“Who was that other one?”
“Hamish,” I sigh. “Of the Two Mountains. A bit less…bearable than Driz.”
She pauses, picking a fleck of black enamel off her claws. “Aren’t there seven princes of the realm?”
“Alas, yes.”
“And that’s two of them?”
“That is indeed.”
“Do you really think your parents will send five more up to try to kiss you?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised. Not if Honey can’t dig up a good wizard first.”
“You’ve got to tell them not to. I mean, I want to see it, but I alsodon’twant to see it, if you know what I mean.”
I do.
