“What the hell?” He looked around, blinking at the tumult in the room, the swinging windows and gaping front door. From the shock on his face, Charlotte realized he had somehow failed to notice until now what had been happening.
“Fluff!” he swore. (In fact it was a word vastly more potent than “fluff,” but Charlotte’s brain decided she’d had just about enough for one day, and took pity on her.) Without even glancing again at Charlotte, he stormed across the room, kicking strewn books and tools aside as he went, and disappeared into the hall leading to the cockpit.
Charlotte took a deep, unsteady breath. Her throat seemed full of ashes; her eyes ached as if light-burned. Never before had magicleft her feeling this way. The intensity frightened her enough that she responded in true witchy fashion by sweeping it up, along with the realization she’d almost kissed a man; boxing them both neatly; and putting them alphabetized on a mental shelf. This left her brain calm and tidy again. Staid questions entered instead, wiping their feet first and speaking in level tones:Where did Captain O’Riley put my gun?...What should I do now?... andIs there time to brush my hair first?
Clearly, finding her gun amongst the disorder of the pirate’s sitting room would be impossible, and she’d likely risk bacterial infection by trying. Instead, she smoothed her skirts and tidied her hair as best she could, until she felt calm settle through her once more. Then she picked a careful path over to the front door and peered out.
They had set down in someone’s garden. This much was a relief.
Less relieving was the fact it was a rooftop garden.
And the edge of the roof was mere inches away.
Charlotte swallowed a word that might have doomed them. Just then, a townhouse and a cottage flew past. Toots emerged from the townhouse as if someone blew on a horn.
Charlotte huffed with an inexplicable feeling of offense. But there was nothing to do except watch as the other houses incinerated a quarter-mile from the advantage Alex’s cottage had held. Shutting the door, she picked another careful path through the sitting room, toward the cockpit this time.
Alex and his butler were arguing therein.
“You shouldn’t have landed here,” Alex was saying, one hand on his sword pommel as he scowled at the butler. Bixby’s expression of bored disapproval impressed Charlotte so much, she made a mental note of how she might replicate it.
“It was either land on this roof or land onourroof,” the butler replied calmly.
“You’re overreacting. So we were a little unstable—”
Bixby merely turned his head to look at the armchair, which was now propped upside down against a wall. Alex’s mouth flattened with annoyance.
Then he caught sight of Charlotte, and the annoyance spread through his countenance into his eyes, his breathing; even his hair looked annoyed from having a hand tugged through it.
“You’re still here.”
“Yes,” Charlotte replied with as much dignity as possible, considering a few moments ago she had almost surrendered that dignity beneath his lips. “I might be able to climb down from the roof of a four-story townhouse if I tried, but I still do not have the amulet in my possession and therefore am going nowhere. Speaking of which, why are we not in hot pursuit?”
“We?” Alex replied. “We,madam, are two men who were quietly attending to our disreputable business until hijacked.Wedo not include a meddling witch whose magic almost made us crash.” (Charlotte scoffed, mainly because it was true.) “We—”
“We,” Bixby interjected, throwing a reproving glance at his employer, “were just discussing the recommencement of hot pursuit. Miss Pettifer, would you care for a cup of tea while you wait?”
“Wait?!” Alex and Charlotte spoke in unified dismay.
“I’m a pirate; I don’t wait,” Alex said.
“My amulet is getting away,” Charlotte added.
“I beg to suggest it has already gone,” Bixby told her. “Seven houses and what appeared to be a ticket booth have flown ahead of us. Not even this house can go fast enough to outpace them all now.”
“Shit.” Alex shoved at his hair again as he turned to glare out the window.
Bixby’s mouth pursed. “There is a lady present, sir.”
“I am aware,” Alex retorted. “She’s the reason we’re in this shitty situation.”
Charlotte bristled. “I wouldn’t be if you had done the gentlemanly thing and allowed me complete authority over your battlehouse.”
“Madam, I advise you not to requestgentlemanlybehavior from a piratic rake unless you’re prepared to accept all of the consequences.”
“Sir, if you are truly a rake, then I am a milkmaid.”
He turned to her with eyes that glittered dangerously. “I just kissed you,” he pointed out, and his voice sounded like a kiss itself.
