Witch on the Case: La Fay Chronicles 3, стр. 7
“Hang fire on the throne idea for a moment, okay?” She wriggled from his hold, approaching the others in the room. For the first time he paid attention to their surroundings.
There were...
“Are these...”
“Human children,” a voice announced. “Disgusting, aren’t they?”
Oberon whirled around, unable to locate the owner of the voice. He raised his axe. “Show yourself, beast!”
“Look down, dipshit. Not everyone’s built on gargantuan lines.”
He blinked and looked down as ordered.
A creature sat by his ankles, watching him with eyes of fire. At least, it was cat shaped. It was silver grey and floofy, with a tail that could have doubled as a feather duster. Yes, definitely cat-shaped, but if it was an actual cat, he’d eat his own throne. Without ketchup.
“What are you?” he demanded, not lowering the axe.
The thing grinned, its mouth filled with way more teeth than should be there. “You’re not as dumb as you look. Are you?”
“I am king of the fae! How dare you speak to me in that manner!”
The cat-thing flicked an ear. “You’re a king without a crown at the moment, muscles, so I’d keep it shut if I were you.”
“Foul beast.”
“Air-headed fairy.”
The conversation devolved into name calling. It was familiar and Oberon grinned.
“You are acceptable. I like you.”
The cat would have arched an eyebrow if it had them. “You have low standards, don’tcha? We can work with that.”
They both turned to watch his queen-to-be dealing with the children. Oberon slid his axe away. She was good with children, quickly reassuring them and, when one wouldn’t stop screaming about the dragon, quickly erasing their memories of the incident.
“Good with children and a powerful witch. She will make a wonderful queen and an excellent mother for my heirs.”
“Might want to ask the lady before decorating the nursery,” the cat muttered as the last of the kids filed out of the room and his bride-to-be walked back toward them. The dragon was buzzing angrily near the ceiling, trying to set the crude drawings on the ceiling on fire.
“Wifey!” Oberon bellowed in welcome, offering her his arm.
“Stop calling me that,” she hissed.
“Quite right,” he agreed, looking down at her. “We’re not married yet so... future wifey!”
There was a suspicious sniggering around his ankles. His little wife-to-be shook her head and started to bundle him across the room. He let her, grinning. Her small hands on him were just glorious.
“I look forward to our wedding night,” he told her.
She went a funny shade of red.
“Dream on, handsome,” she whispered as she opened a small door. A sound somewhere else in the building made her look over her shoulder and seem worried. “You need to get in here. Quickly!”
His grin broadened. She found him handsome. He puffed up with pride, flexing all his muscles for her. “Oh, I will definitely be everything your dreams desire.” How could he not be? He was Oberon, king of the—
She pushed him in the closet and shut the door in his face.
He blinked and then grinned.
“I do not know what this game is!” he called out through the door. “But if we are to play games, this is good! I will think of some of my own!”
4
“We’ve always done it that way.”
They were the six most dangerous words in the English language, and ones that got right on Daffi’s last nerve. They reeked of the unyielding march of time, on foot and in hobnail boots... when the rest of the world had moved onto motorized transport and high-speed rail.
It was the kind of comment uttered by wearers of cardigans with pursed lips and a surgically attached disapproving look. All three were currently being worn by Ms. (Not Mrs. Or Miss, thank you very much) Whipsnide, the museum manager. She looked down her nose in very much the same way Sybil Bulcock, who was attached to her boss at the hip, did. It was like being looked at by twin velociraptors. Three if you added Whipsnide’s familiar, a lizard that appeared to do nothing other than sleep on Whippy’s desk.
She’d been called into The Office (with capital letters). It hadn’t changed in the three years she’d worked at the museum. Whipsnide’s desk faced the room, and a large fireplace sprawled behind her with a painting of the museum’s founder, a plaque beneath naming him as a Whipsnide, Allard Norman Kenneth Elijah Robert. Aka (among the museum staff) Wanker. This had the unpleasant effect of being looked at down the same nose by two different generations of Whipsnide—one of whom had apparently been a close personal friend of Merlin himself.
“Any and all incursions from the fae realm must be reported immediately, and the area cordoned off,” Ms. Whipsnide stated imperiously. “Museum regulations dictate that only those trained in fae communications and contact must interact with any being from the fae realms.”
“Yes, but...” Daffi tried to argue, ready to point out that children had been present and in danger. If anything, she’d saved those kids. Or, at the very least, saved the museum a shit-ton of legal action.
Ms. Whipsnide held a skinny hand up, cutting her off. A tall woman without a spare ounce of fat on her, a generous person would have called her birdlike. Anyone else would have called her a vulture. She even had the hook nose, and her dark hair was scraped flat to her skull, her black eyes fixed on Daffi.
“Are you trained in fae communications, Miss McGee?” she demanded.
“No, but...” Daffi didn’t get more than two words out before Ms. Whipsnide’s hand sliced through the air again.
“Then you should not have interacted with the fae creature. Miss Bulcock, put another mark on Miss McGee’s permanent record please.”
“Of course, Ms. Whipsnide,” Sybil trilled, obviously taking great pleasure in summoning the personnel record book with a wave of her hand. It popped into existence, almost squashing the cakes on the sideboard under the window. Ms. Whipsnide took afternoon tea. It was a three o’clock ritual.