Mateo grumbled in the corner where he stood leaning up against a bookshelf with his arms crossed over his chest. He was in his manticore form, and I’d almost screamed when I’d first seen him until I recognized his face, despite the feline cast it now had.
With the body of a lion, but standing upright, Mateo looked half-man, half-beast. He had wings too, which reminded me of dragon wings, even though technically I’d never seen Desmon as a dragon. I hadn’t even noticed his tail until he’d moved. It wasn’t a lion’s tail, but a scorpion’s.
I’d never thought I’d see a manticore in the flesh.
“Ghouls found us at the market.” I quickly recapped the story.
“Judging by your description of how far gone these ghouls were, I’d say that the caster either wasn’t very experienced, or they didn’t really care.”
“Didn’t really care?” I asked, confused.
“Either not being paid very well, or forced to do the work.” Seth picked up a book from the shelf and flipped through it as he talked. “Unless of course they did it themselves, in which case, they just suck. Either way, it’s a good thing for us.”
“How so?” Graham asked.
“If you can capture one of the ghouls, I might be able to get some info out of it.”
“How?” Mateo asked with a roll of his eyes. “They can’t even talk. Their vocal cords are all rotted out.”
“Oh, look who knows everything,” Seth singsonged. “I don’t need them to talk, silly. I can just reverse-engineer the spell that brought them here and figure out what the command was.”
“Capturing isn’t going to be difficult,” Graham said. “They are slow. But transporting is another challenge. There ain’t no way I’m letting any one of those into a Redrock vehicle. And I doubt we could drag one behind us. They’re falling apart already.”
“We could lure them somewhere out of the way.” Seth looked pensive. “Desmon bought the old fabric mill after the fire, as well as the warehouse next to it. We can set something up there to trap one. I might need a few days to run it by the boss and look up the right spells. I’ll call you when it’s ready. I’ll need to borrow you, Matty, for some heavy lifting.”
Mateo grumbled, and Seth just grinned. I’d never known what people mean by a “shit-eating grin” until now.
“Welp,” he said. “If that’s all, I’m heading back home. My wife and husband aren’t going to please themselves… wait, actually they are, but I want in on it.”
“Too much info, Seth.” Mateo looked ready to toss him out the window.
The wizard opened a portal in the library, this one a swirling black, unlike the one that had taken me to the Redrock penthouse last time.
“I’ll call when I need you, Matty.” Then he stepped through the aperture.
We were walking down the opulent hallways back toward where Graham had parked when Carly showed up with an elegant older woman who looked strangely familiar.
“Aww, did I just miss my Seth?”
Her Seth?
“You did, Elana.” Graham gave her a curt nod. “But he’ll be back. And you can come visit us any time.”
“Of course.” Elana turned to me. “You must be—”
“No offense, but please don’t call me the egg lady,” I said preemptively.
She looked taken aback for a moment before she burst into laughter. Familiarity hit me again. And that was when I realized why she was so familiar. I’d heard that laugh before!
“You’re Tansy’s mother!” I blurted out.
“I am!” she exclaimed without skipping a beat.
Now that it was confirmed, I saw the similarities clear as day. I now understood where Tansy had gotten her model looks from. And now that I thought about it, didn’t Tansy have ridiculously strong magic she didn’t find out about until she was an adult? And didn’t she say she had a brother?
“So that means Seth…” I trailed off.
“You got it,” Carly said. “Seth is Tansy’s brother. But they didn’t meet until they were grown, so that explains why one is so sweet, and the other one kind of gives off villain vibes. But Seth’s good once you know him.”
