Page 52 of Magpies & Mayhem
Elara was in the early stages of selling the shop to a human lady who was hoping to keep some of our magical customer base and wanted to keep some of our products stocked on a consignment basis. This was great for Elara because it allowed her to keep making the occasional jewelry or magical trinket, but she wouldn’t be taking custom orders anymore and that freed up her time to spend on building magical emitters for government rescue services. She still needed me—I sourced materials for her and ran her books—but since we didn’t have customers to deal with, I’d been spending a lot more time tucked away with Jordan during the day and bumming around with his team at night. I was like the magpie mascot they never knew they needed.
Jordan reached up to stroke my feathers, and I flattened against his shoulder, tilting my head to achieve maximum petting benefits.Aw yiss.
Augustus cleared his throat. “New assignments,” he began. “Tobias and Alejandra,”—he passed them packets of papers as he spoke—“a suspected ring of Phantoms is moving fairy dust in South Sands. Lucas and Jordan,”—more packets doled out—“lengthy Enforcement investigations haven’t found any evidence that portal guards allowed the dragon eggs that Sidney found into the Void. There’s a possibility that a new portal maker has been recruited by the smugglers, and if that’s the case, I need you to find out. That magic is exceedingly rare, but that doesn’t remove the possibility. Oh, and”—one more packet landed in front of Jordan—“do take Sidney with you. Bird shifters used to work as scouts in ancient times, right? I figured, since she’ll be sticking around anyway, we might as well put her to work. It’ll be nice to have a pair of eyes in the sky.” His eyes betrayed a small smile that didn’t quite touch his lips. Jordan opened my packet and held it up for me to see a hiring contract. He also wore a hint of a smile, which meant he was in on this.That sneak.I bristled with excitement, but had one hang up.
I poked my head above the page so I could see Augustus. “Part time. I still have work to do for my current job.”
He inclined his head in acknowledgement. “Whatever you need.”Yay!
Scratching sounded at the conference room door, and Allie stood to open it, letting Huck into the room. He’d been sleeping under Jordan’s bed and must have just woken up from his nap. He trotted in, dragging a pair of my pants like a kid dragging a blankie, and quickly settled under the conference table as Augustus went back to doling out instructions for our future assignments.
And Jordan resumed his petting.
“So, what do you think?” I asked my oldest brother. Sam stood at a distance with his hands on his hips, looking out at the gorgeous view afforded by the hill we stood on. Craggy, sand-covered hills, dotted with the occasional low scrub brush, stretched for miles around us. The sun silhouetted his short cropped blond hair so that it looked like he was glowing when he turned to look at the ramshackle stone house again.
“I think it looks like a dump,” he said gruffly around the twig of honeywood he was chewing on.
“Right… but is it a fixable dump?” I asked. It looked like an exciting dump that was chock-full of possibilities to me.
Elara had completed the sale of the shop and moved her operations into her townhouse. It was crowded and not ideal, but it was a temporary solution while we worked on a long-term fix. This parcel of land—we were hoping—was the long-term solution. It was a massive piece of property in the Ardac foothills with a reasonable commute to Dry Gulch. Elara and Levi were discussing building some kind of mansion farther down the hill, but she said this little stone house that was left over from some long-ago hermit would just sit empty unless I wanted it. And Iwantedit.
I needed somewhere to escape to, and soon. Jordan’s company living quarters were a nice place to crash, and his team was great, but I’d quickly agreed with him that living there permanently wasn’t sustainable. I loved living with my younger brother, but I couldn’t keep Huck there, and Huck wanted to be with me. Jordan had his apartment with Grim in the Void, but we couldn’t take Huck into the Void, and Jordanalsowanted to be with me. Hence, the dilemma. This, a stone house that wouldn’t burn down around us, close enough to Elara and Levi’s new residence that Huck would eventually consider their house part of his territory—and thereby worthy of his protection—with enough land that he could rampage around without destroying civilization sounded like the perfect solution.
Sam stretched his bulky, muscular frame before ambling over toward the old stone construction again. “Plumbing it won’t be fun, but I think we can do it.” Having family in construction was such a blessing.
I squealed and tried to jump up and down, making Huck squawk and flap his wings as he clung to my leg. He’d been fine on the train ride out here, but once we made it to the wide-open skies in broad daylight, he had scrambled up my leg and refused to let go. No good places for a little dragon to hide out here, I guess. Luckily, there were some rocky overhangs in the cliffs right behind the house that were sizable enough for him once he got too big to fit into the house with us.
“You gonna carry that little guy around everywhere?” Sam asked, gesturing at Huck with his twig.
“I’m hoping he’ll return the favor once he’s bigger,” I muttered, reaching down to stroke Huck between his horns as I hobbled up toward the house to look inside again. It was just a few rooms with stone walls and the clay tile roof had fallen in, but that was repairable and there was space to add on to the house if we ever wanted to later.
Sam dusted off the rocks that made up the framing for a front window and leaned on them to look inside. “It’s gonna be a lot of work, but I guess it’s better than living somewhere your new pet could torch.”
“He’s not a pet,” I said primly, with a little pat on Huck’s snout. “He’s my key to immortality.” I raised my nose in the air, pretending to be haughty, and then ruined it by stumbling over Huck’s tail. My brother laughed at me and helped me hobble over to the entryway so we could use the front step as a seat. It was a tight squeeze since he was such a moose, but he put his arm around me to make room. I laid my head on his shoulder and snuggled against him, enjoying his freshly showered scent and the dab of aftershave he always wore. There was nothing quite like big brother snuggles. Or maybe just Sam-snuggles because you couldn’t pay me to snuggle with Aaron. He was always trying to stick his armpit in my face. Huck took the opportunity to climb off my leg and dart into the ruins of the house to look for rats.
“Yeah, I guess immortality’s worth putting up with a little house torching,” Sam teased.
I wrinkled my nose.
“It’s not worth the house fires?” he questioned in response to my facial expression.
I shook my head. “No, that’s fine.”What’s a little house fire now and then, anyway?“I adore Huck, and if he can’t be released, I’d keep him no matter what. Immortality feels… scary. Like it’s too big. I don’t know what eternitymeansfor me yet. I love that it ensures I don’t ever have to say goodbye to Jordan, but I don’t like the thought that I’m going to outlive everyone in the family.” A lance of pain stole my breath at the thought of my loved ones growing old and eventually passing without me, and I suddenly had a taste of the separation Jordan felt from society. I could keep him, but there was a cost.
Sam had been crushed for Jordan’s sake when I told him what had happened to him, but still seemed unsure about mebeingwith him. As I suspected, Sam had been too drunk to recognize Jordan at Elara’s wedding reception. Or perhaps Jordan had done too good a job of hiding. My brother had promised to try to have an open mind, not only for my sake, but because he cared about Jordan and wanted good things for him too. Aaron and I were still at odds about it, but we were always at odds, so that was nothing new. He’d come around eventually. I still needed to talk to my parents and the rest of my family, assuming Aaron hadn’t run and tattled to them immediately—which I wouldn’t put past him. Josh was firmly in my pocket and promised to back me up whenever necessary.I should sic him on Aaron… or maybe our mom.
Sam squeezed me a little tighter. “Ah, Sid. You were always going to outlive everyone in the family. You’re the only one of us with any sense,” he said gruffly. He lifted his arm to wrap it around my head and squish my face against his burly chest. I tolerated it for two seconds before jabbing him in the ribs, making him release me. “But look at it this way,” he continued, “you’ll get to be the family matriarch who swoops in every few hundred years to give the great-great-grandkids dragon rides. That’s pretty cool, right?” His boyish smile made my heart squish. Sam was such a cutie. I loved my brothers so much.
I sighed as I settled back against his side. “Well, it won’t bemygreat-whatever-grandkids, but I suppose I could be convinced to keep an eye on yours.” The picture he painted did sound pretty badass. Jordan and I could travel the world, keep an eye on our families, flit in to drink all the wine and give people something to talk about, and then flit away again. That didn’t sound half bad.
“Does that bother you?” Sam asked with that twig clenched between his teeth again. “That you won’t have kids?” he clarified.
“I don’t think it’s really sunk in,” I answered honestly. “I’d always assumed I’d have kids, and part of me is sad that I won’t get to realize that assumption. But mostly I’m sad for Jordan because it seems like something he wanted, and it was stolen from him like everything else. If we decide we want to grow our family in the future, there are always other options we can look into, but I think for now I’m content to justbe.”
We sat for a while, watching the setting sun tinge the sky pink, until Sam finally grunted. “Alright, sis, I love you, but I’m getting hungry.” He gave me another squeeze before hauling himself off the step.
“You’re always hungry,” I grumbled. But I wanted to get back to Jordan. He’d been more likely to wake up ready to fight ever since he’d been captured by the Phantoms, and I didn’t like the thought of him being alone when he was sleeping. I knew he was safe at the compound, and it had been necessary to bring my brother out to the property so we could look at it in the daylight, but I still felt uneasy. “Let me find my scaly little rascal,” I said as I rose from our stone seat.
“Come on, Huck,” I called as I stepped into the rubble of the front room. He clambered out from behind the pile of debris and tiles littering the floor and came right to me. “That’s a good boy,” I told him with a little pat on his head. Before we could leave, there was one thing I wanted to do. I pulled one of the sticks Jordan had given me out of my jacket pocket and laid it on the ledge of the windowsill before weighing it down with one of the broken clay tiles. It wasn’t the first stick he’d given me—that one was too special, still tucked away in my vase at home. But this one was me putting our first mark on this little house and calling it mine.
