The Queen's Librarian (20 page)

“A rather massive one, I think it was, actually,” said Alex.

“Right.” Lucas thought about that for a moment then set his shoulders and firmed his jaw. “I’m not taking it back.”

“I don’t think you should,” Alex agreed. “Only… don’t use it again, yeah? It kind of makes me feel a little dirty.”

“Alex, you know Laurie’s code words for sex. You
are
a little dirty.”

“Well,” huffed Alex with a frown, “now you’re just being mean.”

Lucas opened his mouth to retort, but he flinched instead when he caught abrupt movement in the corner of his eye. And then he flinched again, a little harder, when the movement turned out to be a fat gray squirrel loping down the trunk of the pine behind which Lucas was hiding. The squirrel paused when it reached the Y where a low branch jutted just at Lucas’s eye-level then it tilted its head and… well, it was actually a rather low, curious chitter, but the strangeness of it and the fact that the creature had done it not three hairsbreadths away from Lucas’s nose made Lucas yelp and startle to the side. Right onto the tail of a wandering raccoon. Which yelped in turn. Which startled Lucas again and made him back up a pace. Which resulted in him nearly pulping a passing brown rabbit. Which made Lucas actually shriek, because really—who knew rabbits could growl?

It was a blurry avalanche of animal noises and fur and beady eyes glinting in the dark after that. The animals had apparently been somewhat content to allow Lucas and Alex to tarry amongst them, so long as they’d kept fairly quiet and didn’t step on any of them. Once that implicit truce was broken, they turned like furry little turncoaty things. Hundreds of glinty eyes narrowed on them in the dark, and a low rustle of furry bodies against high grass swept the rounded clearing.

Lucas froze and stared with wide eyes at Alex, who had also stilled completely and was standing a few paces away from the tree, one arm raised like a statue caught in the act of benediction. Both of them were now surrounded by every form of creature Lucas had ever seen and some he hadn’t, because honestly—what
was
that mole-looking thing with a star for a head?

Perhaps it wouldn’t be so unnerving if they weren’t all staring directly at Lucas and Alex, some with some fairly serious looks of threat on their faces, when Lucas hadn’t ever considered that most of them could
be
threatening. The doe Alex had snapped at moments before was looking especially vengeful.

“Huh,” said Lucas, all former hysteria, once again present and accounted for, cheerfully burbling along in his stomach. “Deer can growl too. Who knew?” He turned his stare slowly from the furry army and up to Alex.

The look Alex gave him back was not at all helpful or comforting.

“It’s the Daimin,” Lucas told Alex. “They’re said to have a way with animals, and….” He waved his hand around, then stopped when it only made the animals look even more annoyed.

Alex only stared at Lucas. And stared and stared.

“
Say
something,” Lucas hissed and winced a little as an owl sidled out to the end of the branch where the squirrel was still sitting and scolding him. The owl looked like it was thinking about joining in but was willing to wait to see if its input was necessary.

“Um,” said Alex, arm trembling a little, still raised in whatever movement he’d aborted when he found himself the focus of attention for the wildlife. “Nice kitty?”

Lucas blinked. “Do you see a cat?
I
don’t see a cat.”

“What bloody difference—?”

“Well, you don’t know, do you? Maybe there are no cats because they don’t
like
cats and you’ve just insulted them. We may very well be in mortal danger here. Say something better.”

“Like what?” Alex whispered through clenched teeth. “And to whom? Sit, boy? Down? I don’t think they’re very good at listening.” His gaze flicked over to the doe. “I think this one’s trying to decide if my coat is d-e-e-r-s-k-i-n.” He spelled it, like it could understand him.

Oh God. They couldn’t understand him, could they?

“Is it?” Lucas asked.

“Is what
what
?”

“Is your coat d-e-e-r-s-k-i-n?”

Alex merely stared at him, mouth pinched tight, then said, “Did you really just ask me that question like it matters?”

“It might,” Lucas retorted. “
You
don’t know.”

“Lucas,” Alex said, slowly and very quietly, “you know all that ‘mortal danger’ we might be in? Still there. Do you really want to have an academic debate right now?”

Point.

But still—“It isn’t like they have swords and bows and arrows or anything.”

“Teeth,” was all Alex said.

Lucas peered around at the various creatures, many of which did, indeed, have rather sharp teeth. Lucas had seen firsthand what raccoons could do to a wicker basket and a tin of milk. He didn’t think he wanted further education.

He looked back at Alex. “Perhaps if we slowly and very carefully make our way back into the trees?”

Maybe if they retreated, the animals would assume they were no threat and stop staring at them like that. And then, once they got back under cover, Lucas could swing up from the low branches of one of the pines and maybe climb to the tops so he could see what Parry and Mister-Scontun-who-wasn’t-Mister-Scontun were up to and why they seemed to think the reopening of that portal and a subsequent excavation were in order. And then, if Lucas managed to get to the very top of the tree, perhaps he could swing out far enough to jump over the weird picket of furry little beasts and land over there, just outside the ring of boulders, and surprise Parry and Mister-Scontun-who-wasn’t-Mister-Scontun into telling him where the deuce Laurie was, maybe even sic Bramble on them if they wouldn’t listen, and Lucas might not be one for fisticuffs, but he knew very well he was a better fencer than Parry was—take
that
, Parry!—so maybe he’d better take a stick or something with him, and Alex had taken boxing lessons once upon a time, so maybe Lucas could—

“Good plan,” Alex agreed.

—and Lucas realized Alex probably wasn’t talking about the plan that had gone on a delirious and somewhat juvenile loop in Lucas’s head, likely leftover from Lucas’s five-year-old self, the one who, according to Mother, had read far too many fantastical stories and spent far too much time pretending to be the brave knight/dragon slayer/handsome prince/etcetera/ad nauseam in every one of them. Because Lucas had just remembered that in real life, he was a librarian and not a strapping, awesome hero out of faerie stories. Also, he couldn’t actually fly.

“Right,” he said and widened his eyes meaningfully then flicked his glance over toward the trees. “Slowly.”

Keeping their gazes on everything around them at once, Lucas and Alex started a tortuous slide sideways, careful not to lift their feet and risk stepping on paws or tails, because that was what had gotten them glared at in the first place. Lucas’s boot had just settled back into the layer of pine needles, and Alex had just started to very gingerly lower his arm, when Bramble’s raucous barking abruptly shattered the silence.

Lucas snapped his glance back down to the Circle. Mister-Scontun-who-wasn’t-Mister-Scontun turned to see what Bramble was barking at—which was, apparently, Lucas. When Mister-Scontun-who-wasn’t-Mister-Scontun’s gaze collided with Lucas’s, his eyes widened and he made a grab for Bramble, just as Bramble bounced a happy dance and tried to take off to greet Lucas. Mister-Scontun-who-wasn’t-Mister-Scontun gripped Bramble by the scruff of his neck, Bramble yelped, and Lucas saw white.

“
Hey
! That’s
my dog
!” he shouted, glared down at a hissing raccoon and—before common sense could thwack him on the knuckles and make him sit in a corner—Lucas punted it.

Oops.

Everything stopped for a split-second while Lucas watched it sail through the air and then tumble down the hill and across the grass with a few acrobatic rolls before it stopped at the feet of one of the men with the shovels. The man stared. The raccoon stared. Lucas stared. Bramble wagged his tail with a great big doggy grin, like he was laughing. Knowing Bramble, he probably was. And then the man with the shovel lifted it and waved it about, shouting something Lucas didn’t understand, but it made everyone else around the Circle drop what they were doing and head up the hillock toward Lucas and Alex. Somewhat quickly. And with shovels.

Lucas’s jaw was hanging, but he managed to make it work enough to get, “Right, then. What do we do now?” out on a strangled wheeze.

Because Alex was so much braver than Lucas, and no matter what Alex said, so much smarter. Lucas might not like what Alex came up with next—because if Lucas had his way, there would be no “unto the breach” in his immediate future—but there was no getting around the fact that Lucas had been making all of the decisions up to this point, and look where that had gotten them. So if Alex said, “Lucas, I need you to throw yourself in front of all of the absolute insanity that’s currently plowing toward us,” then Lucas…. Um.

No, he would. Wouldn’t he? He was pretty sure he would. He hoped. He’d try. That counted, right?

Alex took in the advancing army of forest creatures, the men scurrying up the hill, the waving shovels, Mister-Scontun-who-wasn’t-Mister-Scontun shouting and Parry roughly shoving him off Bramble. When Bramble, still barking, started to barrel up the hill, Alex turned back to Lucas.

“I think,” Alex said calmly as Lucas tried to buck up and grow some courage, “that we should run.”

He’d been so certain something along the lines of “C’mon, Lucas, be a man” was coming that it took Lucas a moment to clock what had actually come out of Alex’s mouth. Lucas stared back, wide-eyed, and tried not to cry in relief. “Oh my god I love you so much,” he warbled then he grabbed Alex’s hand and ran.

Chapter 9

T
HEY
only got a few feet before Lucas heard Parry calling out, “Tripp!
Tripp
!” which reminded him that they’d basically been running away like little girls and leaving a man behind. Which, if he were honest, Lucas might be able to live with. If he were a coldblooded jackass and massive pillock. Unfortunately, Lucas was neither of those things, or at least he liked to think so, and so he halted abruptly and spun back around.

Alex almost plowed him under, because he’d been so busy watching the doe over his shoulder and Lucas wasn’t very good at ducking, but Alex managed to save them both from ending up in a heap or impaled on pine branches by grabbing and spinning, so Lucas ended up uncomfortably close and nearly eye-to-eye with the doe. Who looked rather unhappy. And though she didn’t have scary teeth, she did have four hooves and looked like she knew how to use them. And probably a mate with antlers somewhere.

“Um,” said Lucas. “Pardon me.” Because when in doubt, trot out the manners and see how far they take you.

The doe rumbled a warning breath through her nose.

So, not really going for the manners, then.

There was chittering and hooting from above Lucas’s head, but he didn’t think it wise to look away right now. There was also something sniffing at his boot. And then his leg. And then it kept going, up and up, and then it reached his inseam, and Lucas… snorted. Because, it seemed, even when surrounded by apparently angry forest creatures and being chased by Daimin, when faced with a vaguely vulgar situation, Lucas was still a five-year-old.

“Lucas,” Alex whispered and tugged very gently on Lucas’s elbow until Lucas slid a half a step backward. Whatever was sniffing at him puffed what sounded like an indignant sneeze, which almost made hysterical giggles rise to the back of Lucas’s throat, but the doe narrowed her eyes, so that took care of that.

And then four things happened at once:

1) Bramble came barreling up the hill and into the pines, barking and growling and generally making himself seem much more frightening than he actually was, which was fine, because it made the animals scatter.

2) Cráwa appeared out of nowhere, arms raised toward the sky and spells rumbling from his chest in a voice that nearly shook the ground, and blue light shot from the head of his staff and toward Mister-Scontun-who-wasn’t-Mister-Scontun. Behind him, Dorset intercepted one of the other men and dropped him with his own shovel. Because apparently Dorset actually
was
an awesome hero out of faerie stories.

3) Mister-Scontun-who-wasn’t-Mister-Scontun and two of his cronies took hold of Parry and dragged him toward the glow pulsing from the stone in the center of the Circle, and Parry managed to shout, “Tripp! The Library! Find your heart’s key, then go to the Queen!” before he disappeared into the light, which blazed brilliantly for a second and then winked out, and

4) Alex stumbled to a halt behind Lucas, which made Lucas fall back into Alex’s chest, just as two voices leaked through the noise Bramble was making, one shouting, “Master Tripp!” and the other snarking, “Good
God
, Lucas, what have you managed to get yourself into now?”