What had gotten into me?
“So now that I’m here, I take up the cleaning mantle, then?” I asked, rising. I needed to at least look like I was an active participant.
“No, no.” He gestured me back down and stared at me until I complied. Which I did, as though I wasn’t really in charge of my limbs. “Other than the issue of scattering rocks and dirty clothes around, I doubt you’ll be any hassle—”
“Yeah, look, sorry about the rocks. I get a little mischievous when I’ve been drinking. I’ll tell Niamh—”
“You’ll do no such thing. She needs someone around who isn’t afraid of her.”
“Afraid of Niamh? Is she that persistent with the rock throwing?”
“There is no reason why you have to bother with the mundane work,” he said, either not hearing me or simply ignoring me. “You’ll have more important things to do.”
“Like what? I didn’t get a list or anything from Auntie Peggy.”
He delivered me a triple layer sandwich with all the fixings and a little salad on the side. I widened my eyes at it. He’d knocked that out incredibly fast.
“Wow, thank you, this looks—”
“We cannot know the tasks until they are assigned,” he said, taking a step back. “At this rate, it won’t be long.”
“Oh. Auntie Peggy sends a list or…”
He walked out of the room without a word.
I stared after him for a moment. Every time I thought I was getting a handle on his idiosyncrasies, he just went and blew my perceptions all to hell.
Without anything to clean, all I really had to do was look around the house. And maybe find more secret passageways.TwelveMr. Tom waited on the recently swept front porch of the meanest woman he’d ever met in his life. Feral cats couldn’t compete with the bad temper of this woman.
“What do you want?” she said as she opened the door, her features closed down into a scowl.
“Was it some trauma in your past that made you so horribly unlikeable?”
“How about I give you some trauma?”
“Yes, exactly. That’s exactly the kind of answer I expected out of you.” Mr. Tom sniffed and clasped his hands behind his back so she couldn’t misconstrue his body language. Knowing her, it wasn’t out of the question that she would suspect an attack from him and return the imagined slight in kind. “I thought you would like to know—it won’t be long.”
“What won’t be long? Your personality change? I see you’re already dressing smarter.”
“As befits my position, yes. Your powers of observation are remarkable. Well done.” He looked toward Ivy House, a shadowed, crouching thing, yearning to reclaim its status in the magical community. Magical kings and queens would come calling to behold its magnificence. To behold the magnificence of its handler. The best and brightest from all around the world would petition to join Jacinta’s court. To share in the glow of her magic.
“How do you know?” Niamh asked in a low, thick voice. He didn’t detect any excitement at all.
“She sees the magic. In every room she’s been in, she has seen the magic.”
“Which rooms has she been in?”
“Downstairs, only. She is currently eating some lunch.”
“Is she looking for it? The heart, I mean.”
“Have you drunk away your brain power? She doesn’t know about it. She is looking for cobwebs and dust.”
“Cobwebs and dust?” Niamh crossed her arms. “Why in heaven’s gate would she be looking for cobwebs and dust? Are you already trying to shrug off your duties?”
“Because her job title is caretaker, you insufferable woman. She doesn’t realize she is at an audition. She thinks she has to clean the house and I let her believe as much today so she’d have a reason to look around. At least one of us is aiding the poor girl in her destiny. By the way, how’s the search for your rocks going? Any leads?”
Niamh chewed on her lip for a moment, studying his face. “You want her to find the heart, you do?”
He paused for a moment. That question sounded like a trap. The woman could be cunning when she set her mind to it. Was she trying to get rid of him in the final hour?
He narrowed his eyes. “Don’t you?”
She sighed, and looked at the house again. “Ah sure, I don’t know. It’s a nice, quiet little life here. Austin Steele has things…peaceful. I wouldn’t mind just finishing out my days like this.”
Mr. Tom was struck mute for a moment. Of all the things he’d expected her to say, that was certainly not one of them.
“But shifters have a mostly human life span,” he said, now wondering if she wanted to step down. She was crotchety and stubborn and a real pill, but those very qualities made her Ivy House’s greatest asset. He’d realized early on that she was integral in keeping the riffraff away, and so he’d put his dislike aside for the betterment of all. Sometimes it was not easy, but he had managed. It was why, he suspected, the house had accepted him as its protector after he’d moved on from his last butler job. “He’s already forty-two. In another ten years, he might not be able to protect this territory. Strength fades, as does power, even for him.”