Tune in Tomorrow, page 31
“Right, you’re a million years old. Maybe it’s time to try again.” She flapped her hand. “Also, it’s a cloud. Not a bed.”
“Ahem.” He coughed. “I reckon I’m about ninety-two, not a million.” But after another moment of hesitation, he allowed her to hoist him into the cloud.
“It’s like a trampoline,” she said. “Just bend your knees and go!”
“I do know what bouncing is.”
So they flew together, leaping without effort into the skies. His curls haloed around his head and with each leap he appeared to grow younger, until he was smiling unabashedly. Nico shone, and the hummingbird in Starr’s chest took wing.
Then, without saying a word, they were jumping less, and less. They stood on the cloud and held hands. It had been so easy to fly, but now Starr was warm and breathless and grounded. Something inevitable was happening here, and she no longer wanted to hold it back.
Just a little fun, she thought. An afternoon, not a thing.
“OK,” she said. “Now, show me what you had in mind.”
Later, Starr stirred in Nico’s arms and snuggled into him. What they’d done was the opposite of relaxing, yet here she was, blissed out and free of nerves.
“Never did that on a cloud before.” He spoke into the crook of her neck. It tickled.
“What have you done on a cloud, exactly?”
“Er—” He thought a moment. “Bounced?”
Starr rubbed his hair and sat up. “That was fun.” She’d expected nothing less. Naturally Nico would be good at lovemaking; he’d had a lot of experience. Still, she hadn’t expected that level of enthusiasm. The important part was not to make a big deal of it. They’d bounced, they’d landed, and she was not falling for anything.
Starr swung her legs over the cloud, experiencing the momentary vertigo Nora had referred to. Her head insisted she was about to leap into the air without a parachute. Without even a bra, she thought, noting how their clothes had landed on various puffery around the room.
“Fun?” Nico sat up, pressing a hand to his chest. It was admirably hairy and well-developed; she’d liked running her hands over it. “You wound me, madam. Are there no stronger adjectives in your fevered brain?”
Starr raised an eyebrow. “Dial it back a smidge there, Roland.”
“Roland? I know not this man of whom you speak.”
Starr slipped off the cloud and landed on the sky. “Well, I’d say the earth moved but there’s no earth. Hey, it’s an hour to the show. We better get moving.”
“Starr.”
She turned.
“This doesn’t have to be a one-time stress reliever.”
“Oh—” The hummingbird opened its eye. “Maybe it should.” She collected her clothes, forcing herself to remain cool. “People around set talk and—”
“And your interests lie elsewhere.”
She gaped. Had it been that obvious about Mav?
“Jason isn’t your type,” he said. “Female species aren’t his type in general. Also, trust me, mythic-ness is no small stumbling block.”
Starr hadn’t thought of it that way before; she’d figured everyone was Jason’s type. That was disappointing on some level; Jason was like this distant light she hoped someday she might reach. But she was relieved Nico didn’t suspect about Mav, who clearly was not interested in her. “Can we not make a decision right now?”
Nico slid across the cloud, patting the space next to him. Starr sat, admiring him in a way she hadn’t had a chance to earlier.
“Allow me to give you something to think about.” He smoothed her hair down. “Assuming this show survives, assuming you get your first award, you will have all the time in the world. Have you thought about that?”
“I—”
He shushed her. “I’ve had a lot of years to parse that, and it didn’t truly hit until after the first couple of decades. I didn’t age. I didn’t go grey or develop lines or a pot belly or wattle. I didn’t even have to work out and I stayed, well—” He gestured at his taut chest and abs.
“Watch it there, Narcissus.”
“Wait until you meet him. My point is, a person with all the time in the world doesn’t have to restrict herself at life’s banquet. ‘Ever after’ only really means something when there’s an end date. Sampling the banquet is a wonderful thing, and when you find something you truly care about, you can indulge. And no, this is not only about sex or relationships. It’s about anything. I have a great deal of patience now.”
That was both terrifying and titillating. Starr shivered. “Even with all that time available to us, the show still starts in less than an hour.”
He chuckled. “You’ll get it one of these years. My point is, I’m not bothered. You won’t get jealousy out of me. Go ahead, chase Jason. Mav probably wouldn’t mind being chased a bit by you, either. He’s out of practice. But if you want to… bounce… again, I’m here.” He kissed her firmly, curling one hand behind her head.
They showered and dressed hurriedly, and she tugged on his shirt to smooth it out. He fluffed her hair. They switched off the sky, returning to Hotel Blah.
A knock came at the door. It was Bookender, standing at attention in a dark maroon jacket over a soft green vest. “Good afternoon, Ms. Weatherby and Mr. Reddy. Ms. Ballantine requests Ms. Weatherby’s presence in her suite, forthwith.”
“Can’t this wait?” Starr asked. “We’ve got the show.”
“Ms. Ballantine says it will be brief. She and Mr. Valentine are waiting for you in her suite.”
Nico frowned and Starr exchanged a puzzled look with him. Surely Jason wasn’t considering firing her—not before the show, even assuming a firing was in the offing.
“I’ll come along,” Nico offered.
Starr shook her head. “If Jason’s there, Fiona won’t pull anything.” She wouldn’t dare: Starr still had the packet of money and the article with the note hidden in her room. “All right, I’m coming. Has to be fast, though. Nico, you go get made up. Though you do look awfully pretty already.”
He kissed her once more. “Hurry up,” he said. “There’s a show to put on.”
Bookender led Starr down the hallway, past a cleaning cart and open doorway, where two maids chattered between runs of a vacuum cleaner. He pushed open Fiona’s presidential suite door and held it open for Starr.
“Ms. Ballantine will be along shortly,” said the brownie, gesturing at a tray of tea and biscuits.
“And Jason?” Starr also wanted to prod him about where all the other brownies were—on strike, she had no doubt, but where was the question—but Bookender was too fast for her, disappearing behind his little door.
As if he were trying to… get away.
Starr stood very still in the room. There was no sign of Fiona or Jason, and the place had an oddly vacant feel to it. Everything was neat and tidy, almost untouched. An uneasy coolness stole over her, and she began wandering cautiously.
Nico’s face flitted through her mind while she paced the room. She imagined his hands still on her, and the exhilaration from their exertions gave her more warm tingles. When she’d arrived at the hotel, the idea that they would end up in bed together had been as unlikely as, well, brownies being derelict in their duties. But he was as enmeshed in Fiona’s web as anyone. No one should be able to hold power over someone’s head to make them dance—and she never would have had all those powers without cheating.
Starr wondered what would happen when the truth came out. Would Fiona be stripped of her titles? Would it be as though they never existed? Like they’d disappeared from existence?
Disappeared.
It had been almost ten minutes since Bookender had slipped away. There was no sign of anyone. It was quiet.
Too quiet.
Starr hurried to the main double doors and pressed her ear against them. No chattering cleaning ladies on the other side. No vacuum cleaner. Not even the white noise hum that always threaded its way through walls and doors, the sound of a structure existing. Only deadness.
Blood rushing in her ears, Starr yanked open one of the double doors and saw—nothing.
Literally, nothing: a vast, empty grey blank filled the space where the hallway had been, as if the cloud she’d bounced on earlier had gobbled up the world. Gasping, Starr reached out to the emptiness, which was solid and unyielding and very, very cold. It filled the doorway and began to creep inside, wisps turning to ice crystals that spread across the carpet and crept up the walls.
Starr slammed the door, shivering.
Apparently, Fiona’s power to disappear spaces was not limited to the small ones anymore.
Hollering at the top of her lungs, Starr re-opened and slammed the door again, and again. She screamed at the nothing, but it remained unchanged. Rage flooded through her in hot, sickening waves. Fiona had wanted her to do something… and she’d done it!
Starr wanted to slap her own face for being the fool this time.
The patsy.
She was too angry to cry. Instead, she banged her fists on the walls, rattled a post of the canopy bed until she heard a crack, and shouted until her throat hurt. Nothing changed. She was nowhere. It was as if she’d been erased, along with the room. How long would this last? Minutes? Hours?
Regardless, there was one certainty: she was going to miss the live show. They wouldn’t even be able to come looking for her until it was all done. All hands and hooves were on deck for this performance.
Had Nico known?
Starr wouldn’t believe that. He’d gone along with Fiona in the past, but she’d never known him to be a good liar. Fiona had likely asked him to do her a favor—so he had done it. Like I did.
Was there no other way out of this mess? Starr yanked back the curtains, but the windows and balcony were covered with the same misty nothing. It pressed against the glass and obscured even the balcony railing two feet away. Besides, she was on the twelfth floor. What did she think she could do, jump?
If only there was another exit.
There was: Bookender had taken it.
Starr fell to her knees and crawled to the small door that led into the walls of the hotel. She’d been in there once, and knew it connected to every room a brownie could access. And it was malleable. Did it have blank nothingness on the other side, too?
She jiggled the knob, but it wouldn’t budge. Pulling harder got her nowhere. Frustrated, she ran her hands through her hair and tugged. The Guide’s advice surfaced, just as it had when she tried entering Cris’ office: Knock first.
She knocked.
The door swung inward, revealing Bookender.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Weatherby,” said the brownie, bowing slightly. His glasses hung low on his nose, and he held a book in one hand.
“Bookender, are you aware of what’s happened?”
“I am.”
“Why did you do this to me?”
He sighed. “I do as I am bid. I am the only one of my lot currently providing assistance to any mortal, now that my compatriots have betrayed everything it means to be a brownie. They are ‘on strike,’ as if that means anything. We live to serve. And—”
Starr held up a hand. “So they really went through with it?”
“Indeed. Mx. Janus is leading them in a chorus of ‘We Shall Overcome’ in the lobby and Mr. Del Noche is attempting to convince them to whisper it, as they are audible at some distance and it will interfere with the live show. In addition, they have filled the lobby and the attending fans have nowhere to sit, so they are also not being terribly quiet. Mr. Del Noche has threatened to burn down the lobby if my fellow brownies fail to comply, and the hotel manager is begging him—”
“Gotcha. Sounds exciting. Bookender, I have to get out of this room.”
“Sadly, I am unable to comply.” He stared at the ground. “I am bound to Mistress Ballantine, who desired to disappear her own room for a purpose. That you happened to be inside when it occurred is unfortunate, but not something I can fix.”
About what I figured, Starr thought, and studied him closer. Bookender was so formal and rigid, like a regular little butler. Some of him even reminded her of Mav; they both valued their dignity. Bookender was bound by fair play and rules. She wondered how difficult that had made it to work for Fiona all these years.
“Bookender, how long have you been indentured to Fiona?”
“Ninety-three years, eleven months and twelve days,” he said.
“And why aren’t you with the others right now?”
“Even if I desired to be, I cannot. Per the terms of Mistress Ballantine’s award, I am tied to her prize. I am, in fact, her prize. The others are here of their own volition.”
“And that’s OK with you?”
“It is neither for me to agree nor disagree with,” he said. “The Seelie have dictated that I may not depart until she wills it.”
“But you have your own honor.”
“A gentlebrownie relies on custom and etiquette to keep the world spinning correctly.” He adjusted his vest. “I can do no less.”
Starr had hoped he’d say something like that. “Then what if I told you that your… mistress has been doing something particularly unethical for years? Something that has earned her more prizes than she would have won otherwise? What if the entire reason you were assigned to her was a lie?”
Bookender went rigid and his mouth twitched. “I should desire proof.”
Starr wondered how to make that happen. She could show him the envelope with the money and the note, but that would require giving Fiona’s sworn second-in-command access to the one piece of hard evidence she had. “Does this door give you access to the hotel?”
“Indeed.” He nodded. “All mythic portals supersede the Room Obliterate spell.”
Trusting him, Starr explained about the manila envelope in her room and what was in it, telling him to get Oleander to let him in the room. If he could get Oleander away from the strike, that was. “It will explain everything. Fiona has been buying her awards, Bookender. For years. She’s bribed her way into who knows how many prizes. I can wait, but the faster you go to check it out, the better.”
He hesitated, then reached over and peered intently into Starr’s face. “You believe this to be true.”
“I know it is. But ask Dakota, or Mav, or Nico or Nora. They all know it is, too.” She took a deep breath. “She’s tricked everyone, including the SCN. Including you. You might have been with her falsely all this time. If you help me, I can fix that.”
And I will. Forthwith. Starr knew what she had to do now—if she could get out to do it. And Cris’ unspoken ‘strike three’ be damned.
Bookender removed his glasses and ran a white linen square from his vest pocket over them. After wiping them down with agonizing care, he set them back on his nose and ducked behind the door, shutting it tight.
Starr stared at the little door, stunned. She’d been so sure she’d gotten through to him.
Three long moments later, the door opened again. Bookender handed a black cocktail dress and heels to Starr—Sam Draper’s outfit for the live show. “Ms. Weatherby,” he said, “please get dressed. There is a show that requires your presence.”
Chapter 35
A Starr is Born
“I fail to see how this strike is… beneficial.” Bookender held forth as he guided Starr—now outfitted for the show—through the maze of walls. She did her best not to tear, stain or otherwise ruin her dress. At least he’d been kind enough to carry her high heels.
“Not my idea,” she muttered, crawling as quickly as she could.
“You are the one who brought them the literacy spell,” he said. “Reading is high-level human magic.”
“I just taught them letters.”
“And see where this has gotten us.”
Starr had no idea where he was taking her. They crawled for several minutes through near-darkness but never descended, and she imagined they were still on the twelfth floor. She’d covered the palms of her hands with her socks, but they were starting to wear through and get caught on the occasional loose screw. The darkness enfolded them like a shroud. The Wills were all down with the show, so they only had Bookender’s lantern to guide them.
“I sincerely hope you are mistaken about Mistress Ballantine,” he continued. “The consequences will be terrible for her if you are correct, and worse for me if you are incorrect.”
“You don’t have to help. I don’t want you to get in trouble.” Of course, if he left her alone in the dark, all she’d have was a cell phone flashlight with a low battery and no sense of where to go or how to escape.
“I choose to assist,” he said. “This is from my heart, not my head. Oleander says you have brownie best interests in mind. We are so often treated like a part of the furniture. It can be easy for others to take from us.”
“I think you know exactly what the strike’s about, then,” Starr said.
At last, Bookender halted in front of a sliver of light on the ground. “This brings you to the lobby.” He lowered the lantern and adjusted the door size so she could exit. “I recommend you move with alacrity. Filming has begun. Mr. Valentine is deeply unhappy, and Mr. Del Noche’s off-stage vulgarities are beginning to melt the walls. The sooner you arrive, the sooner you can set things right.”
Starr gave him a hug, which Bookender tolerated. Then he gave her a gentle push out the door and closed it. The drywall creaked.
Starr stood, dusting off her knees and shaking out her hair, then sidled out from behind a ficus to find a lobby packed with seated, silent brownies and wide-eyed, excited fans. Protest signs rested on the floor, and every mythic eyeball was turned to the wall, where the water had smoothed out as flat as an ice-locked lake and now projected the show being filmed just a few yards away.
Then she realized she’d never gotten her shoes. Starr stood, barefoot and bare-legged, with the closed door behind her, and knelt to knock. “Bookender!” she whispered. This time, there was no reply. Standing, she turned to find every eye in the lobby turned to her.
Jan hurried over. “St—that is, Sam Draper, where in the dragon’s breath have you been?”
