“How would we even know if it works?”
“I’ll go look for Grant and see, but I’m not feeling hopeful.”
She shoots me a look that says she’s not either.
I carry the anointed dragon scale out to the great hall with me and I’m just about to turn towards the stairs when I glance at the front windows and see Grant on the other side of the gate. “Well.” I huff. “Obviously, it doesn’t work. He’s right fucking there.”
Pie comes out and joins me. And we both watch as Grant paces back and forth. Pie tsks her tongue. “Yeah, this spell sucks. I don’t think we did it right.”
“What are we missing? I mean, it’s two ingredients. Bloodhorn and a dragon scale.”
“Maybe it’s not the oil? Maybe you need the actual flower?”
“No. That’s not how it works. The flower is OK, but the oil is the essence. It’s way more powerful.”
“But it’s not working, so…?”
I’m just about to open my mouth to agree when flashing lights appear outside.
“Oh. Shit,” Pie says. “I really hope you have another idea about this spell, because we’re about to be fucked. Russ Roth is here and he’s going to let Grant in.”
She’s right. We are fucked. A whole scenario plays out in my head whereby Russ lets Grant in, the entire world finds out about this place, and then Saint Mark’s stops being a sanctuary and starts being a lab where we are kept in cages like rats while some opportunistic corporate asshole sells tickets to our upstairs hallways like this place is an amusement park.
Pie must see the same thing in her mind, because she turns to me, clutching my arm, her eyes filled with panic. Maybe before today she wouldn’t have fared so bad if we were ever discovered. Her magic, up until now, has been invisible. But there is no way to hide… this. She is not an insane human with a personal hallucination. She is not even an eros from the caretaker bloodline. She is a wood nymph chimera.
“What do we do, Pell? Should we go upstairs and hide in the hallways?”
I consider it, but reject it. “No. That won’t work. They’ll just come in after us eventually and it’s more likely than not they’ll find us. Just like Tomas found us. And anyway, the hallways will just spit us out at some point. These people must not enter Saint Mark’s. They must not come in here.”
“So what do we do?”
“We’re missing something. This bloodhorn, I think. Because dragon scales, they’re not complicated. We have dragon scales. But bloodhorn—”
I stop.
“Bloodhorn what?” Pie is shaking me.
I point to my horns. “This is a bloodhorn too.”
“What?”
“My horns. Remember when you were massaging them and they got hot? That’s the blood in them.”
“We have to cut off our horns?” She touches hers gingerly. Like this is akin to shaving her head bald.
“Not yours. Mine.” And suddenly, I know this is the way forward. This is what I was missing. This is the actual fucking secret to everything. And all this time, it was inside me. I have been carrying the magic ingredient in my fucking horns! “I need a saw and I need it right now!”
Pie shoots me another frantic look. “Where do you keep the saws? I don’t know where we keep saws! Do we even have saws? Why would we need a saw?”
“Firewood! There’s an ax outside the kitchen for the firewood.”
“Ax?”
I grab her hand and start pulling her towards the kitchen. We weave through the hallways and as we pass the one that leads down into the dungeon, we must disturb Tomas the dragon, because there is a deep moaning beneath our feet.
We ignore that. There is no time to worry about Tomas right now. He’s obviously not in any position to help us.
I drag Pie outside the kitchen to the pile of firewood. Grant was into firewood. He was always out here chopping wood for fires. Not to cook, obviously, since all his food was poison magic. That still pisses me off. But I don’t have time to care what he was doing with the firewood. I just need the ax and I’m glad it’s here.
I grab it and hold it out for Pie.
She looks appalled. “Why are you handing it to me?”
“I can’t chop off my own horns, Pie. You need to—”
“Nope. No way. I’m not chopping off your horns with a fucking ax! That’s crazy! I’ve never even held an ax! I will chop off your head!”
“I’m immortal, who cares? As long as you get the horn.”
“First of all, I care! And second, I can’t do this spell! You have to do it!”
“I highly doubt that’s how it works. I’m the ingredient, Pie. You’re the alchemist.”
“But I’m not! I’m not magical at all.” She has to realize this is stupid. She’s standing in front of me as a wood nymph chimera. And something is squirming inside her flannel pocket.