“The rings! They were just sitting out. Did you take them out of the wardrobe?”
“No.”
She shoots me a dubious look. “Then how did they get here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, we need to be very careful with them. If the monsters knew we had them…” She shakes her head. “No. We cannot release fifty ancient monsters into the human world. That would be bad.”
“Right,” I agree. But then again… would it? I mean, there’s a whole family of eros living in Granite Springs. What’s the big deal?
“Pell? Water? Wood?”
I suck in a deep breath. “On my way.” Then I turn and leave. Because she has to do this job. She has debt. She must clear it. And Tarq assured me that the exchange rate between his currency and our currency is in our favor. Which means Pie can work off her debt quicker. And while she’s doing that, I will be pushing the new limits of this curse and breaking it.
We’re close. I can feel it. Never, in all my two thousand years of being locked up inside Saint Mark’s, has freedom ever felt so close.
Once I break it, we will leave this place.
And I need her to be debt-free when that happens.
I leave the bedroom, go downstairs, throw some wood on the smoldering water-heater fire, then leave the cottage.
The monsters all sleep in various places. Some of them sleep out here with the tombs. They sleep at the feet of other monsters, or on top of the tombs, or some of them tucked away under bushes. Others sleep in the sanctuary. I don’t keep track of any of them. None of them speak Latin. I don’t actually know what they speak, and I’m pretty sure they are speaking several different languages. Perhaps, one day, I will ask Pie to make one of those language spells. But then again, perhaps not.
Tomas understands them. All of them. He’s kinda in charge of them.
Which is totally fine with me.
But I’m still stuck on that skirt. So I’m looking for the eyebrow monster as I make my way up towards the cathedral.
I don’t find him outside, but once I’m at the top of the central staircase, I make a gesture indicating bushy eyebrows, and another monster points me in the direction of the Pleasure Cave hallway.
“There you are!” Tomas is coming towards me. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
“You have not. I just came from the cottage. It’s where I sleep every night.”
“It’s an expression, Pell. Flow with me, please.”
“Well, I’m looking for Eyebrow Monster. He made Pie a skirt—”
“It’s lovely, isn’t it? She looks so good in taupe.”
“Taupe?”
“It’s an office-appropriate color, Pell.”
“Well, it’s not an office-appropriate skirt. It’s too short.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No!”
I sigh, kinda tired of this day, and it just barely started. “Where—”
“Never mind the skirt, Pell. We need to have a talk about provisions.”