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“Waiting,” she said. “It’s a power thing. The Bailiwick does it all the time.” Inq flipped to the back of the paper and sighed. “Men!”
A tall man in his mid-twenties wearing a blue button-up over a black tee and jeans opened a back door and loped to the counter, exchanging a few words with Mr. Vinh before taking his place at the register. He nodded to the next customer with a smile and said in English, “Next person, please.”
Mr. Vinh shuffled out from behind the counter, feet scraping against the floor in black socks and worn Birkenstocks. He led the way to a sign marked Storage: Employees Only and pulled back the heavy door. Clicking on the light, he gestured for Inq and Joy to follow.
The storage closet was packed with flats of juice drinks, boxes of snacks and plastic-wrapped rolls of paper towels. A lunar calendar was tacked up on the wall above a small electric-lit altar propped with photos of dour-looking people and tiny bowls of seeds and sweets. Mr. Vinh brushed past them and ran his hand along the back of one of the shelving units, his arm disappearing up to the shoulder as the back of the closet swung open with a click.
“Less magic,” he said matter-of-factly. “More secure. Come in.”
He pushed the hidden door wider and beckoned them inside. Wondering what she’d gotten herself into, Joy stepped forward. Inq strolled after them, nearly skipping into the dark.
“What did the nix want?” Inq asked conversationally.
“Bah,” Mr. Vinh grunted. “Modern maladies. Drink this to wake up. Drink this to go to sleep. Eat this to get fat. Eat this to get thin.” He turned on a light. “It’s like doing business in a Lewis Carroll novel.”
Joy tiptoed into the small room lined with bamboo slats. There was an enormous armoire composed of rows of tiny drawers, each one labeled with dark red paint. Bundles of dried herbs and wrinkled things were stuffed in heavy glass jars, ceramic jugs and urns, and a large, tinted-glass mirror hung on the wall in a chunky wooden frame. A glass cabinet full of strange instruments glinted in the light of oddly twisted bulbs that hung from the ceiling. Overlapping grass mats covered the floor, shushing underfoot and swallowing sound.
Mr. Vinh shrugged on a long black robe, the edge of it catching on his C&P name tag. He tugged it loose and buttoned it closed under his left armpit. After placing a simple flat cap on his head, he drew out a long stylus, dipped it in a small bowl of water and swirled it with quick strokes into a pot of black paste. He spoke offhandedly while he worked the bristles in. “You don’t really want a glamour, do you?”
“Of course not.” Inq spoke first. Joy frowned at her but kept silent. “What would she do with one? She’s human.”
Mr. Vinh stopped swishing the brush and said nothing. He smoothed the soft bristles against the edge of the pot, creating a fine point. “Well then,” he said. “How may I be of service?”
“She asked me about glamours,” Inq said. “So I brought her to you.”
“I don’t do tutorials, demonstrations or free samples,” said Mr. Vinh crisply.
“How about a sales pitch?” Inq said.
Joy stood to one side, trying to be as polite as possible. This was a different Mr. Vinh from the one she knew from the C&P. He was brisk, efficient, a little bit perturbed and a little bit scary. He was clearly in his element here in the secret wizard’s back room, a place very different from the fluorescent-bulbed store.
Mr. Vinh painted himself a note in liquid script, his pen dancing in quick, soaring strokes on a roll of ecru paper. “Why are you here?” he asked.
Joy swallowed. “I’m...”
“She’s lehman to Indelible Ink.”
Joy and Mr. Vinh both glanced at Inq. She held their stares. Joy frowned. Was she? Did Mr. Vinh know what that meant? Joy felt a blush light her cheeks and twisted her fingers around her purse strap. Mr. Vinh laid his brush gently on the pot lid, balancing its length across the lip, and crossed the room to the cabinet. He withdrew a small apparatus made up of many lenses; some were tiny microscope circles and some were giant magnifiers, others were milky half domes or tinted glass or bowed optics framed in twists of wire and wood. There was even a smooth stone with a hole in its center tied to the rim with copper wire. Mr. Vinh lifted the thing like opera glasses and made some adjustments with a rotating dial.
“Remove your glamour, please.”
Inq made a motion with her hand and...nothing changed. At least, not as far as Joy could see. Inq looked exactly the same.
“Thank you,” Mr. Vinh said crisply. He lowered the apparatus, squinted in Inq’s direction, then fitted the lenses back over his eyes. Joy got that he couldn’t see Inq without them. He made a few more adjustments in silence.
“Please reinstate the glamour,” he said. Inq swirled her hand again, and the wizard gave a grunt of satisfaction. He turned the multilensed thing at Joy. “Now you.”
“I’m not wearing a glamour,” she said.
“Of course not,” he said, tweaking a lens into place. “But I cannot see their handiwork without assistance. Hold still please.”
Joy tried not to squirm under the scrutiny. One of the lenses tilted. Another clicked into place.
“I am fascinated by the marriage of magic and technology,” he explained as he squinted through the rock with a hole. “How it overlaps, where it repels and attracts, like two polarized magnets. It’s a hobby of mine.” He lowered the device and frowned. “She hasn’t the Scribe’s signatura,” Mr. Vinh said. “She is no lehman.” He shook his chin at Joy. “You have no part in this.”
“But she did,” Inq lilted.
“Did?” Mr. Vinh shut the thing back in its cabinet. “Nonsense. She is not what you claim. She is not a lehman. End of story.”
“Well, I was,” Joy said quietly. “But I guess now I’m just his girlfriend.”
Mr. Vinh paused as he stepped behind his desk, staring at her for a long moment. Then he took up his stylus, holding his sleeve away from the wet page. “No,” he said and began painting furiously. “No, no. That cannot be.” He pointed his brush at Joy. “Listen to me. I do not know what this one—” he pointed to Inq “—has been telling you. But I know them. Yes, I do. I have known for many years. Them and you. And I am telling you that if you had been taken by one of the tien, there would be a mark on you—one that you could not see—”
“A signatura,” Joy said. “I know.”
Mr. Vinh stopped. “How do you know?”
“She has the Sight,” Inq explained. Joy nodded.
Mr. Vinh’s voice softened, as did his face. “You have the Sight?” he echoed and stopped to think. “Your family does not know?” Joy shook her head. Mr. Vinh drummed his fingers on the edge of the table and wiped the corners of his lips as if smoothing them closed. He spoke slowly. “You have the Sight and you are in love with a Scribe,” he said. “Yes. Perhaps I have heard of you.”
“You have?” Joy squeaked.
“Rumors, of course,” Mr. Vinh dismissed. “Everyone comes with rumors. Rumors and requests and cash.” He smiled, revealing tobacco-stained teeth. “So, yes, perhaps you exist. Strange that we have met so often and neither of us has known...but, then again, that’s the way of things nowadays—rush, rush, rush. So many people so close together and yet too busy to notice one another.” He shrugged and made a last careful note. “So maybe I can tell you something about glamours, after all. It is good for you to know these things. But before we get down to business, I have a question for you, busy girl, and I will tell you what I know if you would be so kind as to answer it.”
Joy glanced at Inq, who nodded. “Okay.”
“Good. Very good,” Mr. Vinh said and came around to sit on the mats. Joy and Inq joined him on the floor. He folded to a sitting position with ease.
“So what can I tell you?” Mr. Vinh said, placing his hands on his knees. “I am a wizard, which means that I provide services for humans and tien. Most often spells and most often for money, although I sometimes will take trade for hard-to-find things.” He opened his hands; one thumb was smudged in black paint. “My family was from a province near the Mekong River, before we came to America and brought our magic here. I make poultices and charms and small, everyday sort of spells, but glamours are my big magic—taught to me from my grandfather from his father and his father before him and so on, back centuries. It is an old craft and one that relies heavily on both art and discretion.” He smiled wryly. “My art at my discretion, you understand. It is the most common way that the tien may pass among humans.” He gestured with one hand. “You have the Sight—you understand why that is. You’ve seen what they look like without the veil.”
Joy shifted on the mats. “What veil?”
The wizard bowed toward Inq. “The veil is the natural aura of the tien that lets them slip past our eyes like oiled paper—” he drew his hands quickly past his face “—without notice. It is what has kept them alive in our world for centuries. Camouflage is an effective survival strategy.”
He rested his hands on his knees and continued. “The simplest glamour is not about creating something new, but dampening the individual veil, allowing humans to perceive them normally,” Mr. Vinh said. “This is not an option for many, as to see tien in their true form, unfiltered, would likely cause alarm, breaking pacts between our worlds, so minor modifications can be made to normalize their appearance or create an entire new facade,” he said. “It is a major undertaking and very expensive. Of course, in order to pass close inspection, there are additional changes necessary for masking horns, wings, tails, extra body mass.” He glanced at Inq. “Or unusual eyes.”
She winked.
Joy’s head spun. “But...how?”
Mr. Vinh grinned. “My son is a gifted animator,” he said with pride. “CAD modeling has greatly improved the quality of our glamours. We’ve been developing the technique since the early eighties.”
“No,” Joy said. “I mean, how is that possible?” She looked around the tiny room. “Spells. Glamours. Wizards. How is any of this possible?”
“A better question might be how are you possible, busy girl?” Mr. Vinh asked. “I cannot tell you how I make my magic, but perhaps you can tell me how you make yours.” He leaned forward slightly at the waist in interest. “So, my question—I have heard that you managed to remove your signatura, freeing yourself from your Master and unraveling the segulah’s curse.” Joy stared. Mr. Vinh was well-informed. She didn’t expect to hear these words from another human being. “Tell me,” he said. “How did this happen?”
“Oh,” Joy said trying to catch a cue from Inq, but she was busy inspecting the cabinet shelves. “It was an accident,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “Ink threw his scalpel to me after he’d stabbed Aniseed so that it could pass through her ward. I used it to free myself.” She and Ink had agreed to place the explanation for her escape and the magic of unmaking on the blade itself and not attribute it in any way to Joy, avoiding the truth that they had discovered while marking a man in a prison cell: that she could somehow erase marks that were supposed to be permanent, removing the True Names that linked the Folk to the last bits of magic in the world. “I had no idea what would happen,” she said honestly. “I was just trying to get out.”
“And so you did,” Mr. Vinh said as he rubbed his palms against his trousers. “This is a powerful thing. A valuable thing.” His eyes flicked to her. “You are full of valuable things.” Inq turned her head, almost frowning. Joy wasn’t sure what he meant, but she found that she’d been twisting her fingers in her lap. She flattened her palms against the mats. He pushed himself to a stand. “Like information,” he clarified as he straightened. “I value information because I value facts. Facts are the difference between real magic and trickery. It is very important to know all of the facts,” he said. “Here’s a fact—you do not need a glamour, so I do not know what I can offer you, but if you have need of a wizard, now you know where to look.” He fiddled with the frog buttons and placed his robe back on its hook. “I can offer you spells and remedies, and my son has a side business as a courier, should you wish to send something into the Twixt, but no discounts on store items. I still have to report to the IRS.”
Joy gave a small laugh. “Understood.”
He pushed open the Employees Only door back into the pool of glaring light and garish shelves of junk food. “Thank you for an enlightening lunch break,” he said. Joy’s stomach grumbled. This had been her lunch break, too. She needed to eat. He closed the door and shuffled back up the aisle. “If you need anything, drop by. Twenty-four hours. Someone is always available.” He smiled. “Busy girl is not the only one who’s busy around here.”
Joy rooted around her bag for something quick and edible. There wasn’t much. She was considering the worms. “Thanks, Mr. Vinh.”
“Anytime, busy girl,” he said cheerily. To Inq, he said, “Come back later. I’ll adjust the pupils. They’re not tracking as well as I’d like.”
“Artists!” Inq said and pushed through the door, ignoring its parting bing-bong. “Such perfectionists.”
Joy said nothing, knowing that humans noticed the details; it was how she’d known that something was wrong with Ink and Inq when she’d first seen them with their impossibly smooth skin and penetrating all-black eyes. The Folk seemed to bother only with surface impressions, which explained how the Scribes had gone so long without bothering to add little things like belly buttons or fingernails. It made sense that they would need a human to make convincing glamours for them.
She remembered the last time she’d sat with Ink, carving the perfect muscles of his neck and chest using a human figure drawing book as a guide. They’d laughed together as they molded a little innie in his long, rippled stomach. Her fingertips tingled with the memory. Or maybe it was low blood sugar. She popped a Gummi Worm into her mouth. It squished as she bit down. Ew.
“So,” Joy said around the orange glob. “Everyone can see you?”
“Of course. When I activate the glamour,” Inq said.
“Right. So why did you tell him I didn’t want one?” Joy said around another Gummi. “That is exactly what I want for Ink!”
Inq gave an exasperated sigh and flapped her hands. “You don’t just come out and tell a wizard what you want! They’ll jack up the price. Haven’t you ever haggled before?”
Joy swallowed. “No.” The one time she’d gone to Mexico for an international gymnastics competition, she’d been too intimidated by the constant hawking and badgering to buy anything at the market.
“Well, trust me—walking away now will make things easier for you later. Right now, it’s too obvious that you want something. I figured I would help you get the ball rolling and if we started asking about glamours today, then by the third or fourth time, it will be like you were hypothetically asking.”
“So—hypothetically asking—how much does a glamour cost?”
“Depends on the wizard, but he likes you. I bet we can get you a discount!” Inq winked, and Joy couldn’t help but smile. What she wouldn’t give to have Ink be able to meet Monica, Stef and Dad! To be visible, to be a part of her world like she was part of his. All she needed was to buy him a glamour—it would be perfect!
“I’d want to make it a surprise if I can manage it,” Joy said, grabbing another worm. “Don’t tell Ink.”
Inq touched a finger to her lips. “It’ll be our little secret.” She smirked, delighted in the same way she’d been when she’d first brought Joy through time and space to her own surprise party for Lehman’s Day. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get you back to work. Start saving those pennies!”
She spread her hand, and the air bowed around them in concentric ripples.
“Approximately how many pennies are we talking about?” Joy asked.
Inq patted her arm good-naturedly. “Think of it this way—it’s always good to have a lifelong goal.”
FOUR (#ulink_1ab99a87-f3df-5bab-a05a-75a9ee440ab4)
STEPPING OUT OF the void onto the asphalt behind Antoine’s back lot, Joy and Inq stopped laughing the instant Ink sprang up from the back steps and started toward them, worry and fury warring on his face.
“Where were you?” he said.
“Shopping,” Inq replied before Joy could breathe. While technically true, it wasn’t really the truth. Joy was amazed at how skillfully the Folk could twist words.
“Shopping?” Ink said. “You were gone and I thought...” He shook his head and turned to his sister, sounding strangely human. “It is dangerous for Joy to be out right now.” He gestured to the heavy back door. “I cannot ward a public place like this—there are too many people! And we have not heard back from the Bailiwick yet!”
“Better, then, that she was with me and not out on her own,” Inq said primly. “Isn’t it sweet how he worries about you?” She winked at Joy and made a big show of adjusting her corset. “You fret too much, Ink. Everything’s fine. You don’t have to wait on the Bailiwick to keep living your life. It’s not as if anyone’s foolish enough to try anything out here in the open in the middle of the day.”
Joy was about to say that this was exactly what had happened yesterday when she saw a rust-colored shape move from behind a parked car and the words died on her tongue.
The knight’s footsteps crunched on the pavement.
Joy backed away stumbling, knees jellied and mouth gaping open, tasting air.
Ink spun around. Inq’s hands blurred. The knight raised his weapon—a curved scimitar this time—and charged. Joy backpedaled against a nearby car and stumbled, the hot chrome bumper burning her leg. Ink stepped between them, straight razor raised. Inq’s right hand swept down, severing the knight’s blade from its hilt in a whine of sparks. The knight huffed and charged with the damaged half, a shard of razor-sharpness that caught the sun on its edge. Inq held her ground. Joy frantically fished for the scalpel, dropping the C&P bag, rooting around tubes of lip gloss and mascara. There was a dark blur of motion. Ink flashed past. The straight razor arced, but the knight swung, batting the blade from Ink’s hand. It clanged off a Dumpster and slid in the dirt.
Inq dived, humming fingers stabbing straight, but the knight dodged and wove beneath her arm. Gripping the end of his sword, he tried to drive the broken bit into Inq’s sternum. Joy grabbed her scalpel. Ink drew his black arrowhead. Inq’s hands stilled, fingers spread wide, the same moment that Joy lifted the scalpel and Ink punched through the armor, grabbing the knight’s elbow from behind. Joy stared as the metal mesh protecting the shoulder joint split, spitting broken links across the gravel in a gentle rain of rings. With a twist, Ink snapped the arm sideways, a sharp crack. The weapon dropped from the armored grip. His knees buckled. The knight heaved himself up and punched Ink in the throat. Ink’s face absorbed the blow and hardened like stone. Ink frowned and slashed the arrowhead down.
There was a splash of blood and a rough scream. Ink spat a word.
“Yield.”
Inq’s eyes widened, a wild smile on her lips. Joy backed away from the spatter of bright blood on cement.
The knight grunted and grabbed Ink’s shoulder with his good hand as if to tear it from the socket. Ink used both arms to trap the elbow and bend it back with a shriek of ruined metal. The knight’s arm pulsed another great gout of blood.
“Yield!” Ink said.
“I do not yield,” the knight grated from beneath his helmet.
Ink’s grip tightened. The armguard squealed.
“You will not touch her,” Ink said. “I swear it.”
“Then you, too, shall die.”
Rage lit Ink’s features, something pure and terrible; the hot neon light sparked like fire in his eyes. He shoved his knee forward, driving the arrowhead through the knight’s back. The knight crumpled, a sagging calm of junkyard noises as he sank to his knees. Armor hit ground in tumbling percussion as the body toppled over with a crash.
The sound broke something inside Joy—it was as if the world swam into sharp focus between one breath and the next. Ink stood over the body, barehanded and calm. Inq lifted her palms warily and took a step closer. The knight was a rumpled pile of red armor, its head wrenched sickeningly back. Joy couldn’t help staring where the helmet had lifted away from the neck. Pale skin peeked out from under the edge of the faceplate. No pulse beat there. It was very, very still.
Inq relaxed. “Well, that’s that.”
She touched her brother’s wrist. Something passed between them that snapped him out of his stillness. Ink flinched away with a dismissive gesture and looked back at Joy.
“Go inside,” Ink told her. “You are safe now. It is over.” The words fell like stones, flat and black. He sounded lost, tired and confused—she felt the same way. She couldn’t go to work, not now, not after this! As if he could read her thoughts, he shook his head gently. “Act normal. Otherwise, it will call attention to...” Ink stopped and sighed. “Please go. I will come back tonight and escort you home.”
Joy walked around the pool of blood, speckled with gravel and tiny links of chain, and hurried up the back stairs into Antoine’s low lighting and the smell of hot bread. The last thing she saw was Inq moving to touch her brother and Ink standing very, very still.
* * *
Joy waited by the restaurant’s front window twisting her apron strings around her knuckles, watching the raindrops fall in a smooth sheet beyond the awning. Main Street shone like a river stippled with tiny splashes. Cars drove by, shearing sheets of spray. People walked under umbrellas. A knot of teens passed, laughing as one tipped back his face, mouth opened wide to catch the droplets. It was a fresh, clean summer storm. To Joy, it smelled like Ink.
She trusted that the rain would wash away the blood.
