Bad Luck, Baby

22 - Bad Request

Al had raised more questions than he answered, and I spent the journey back to Janelle's lost in thought.

I couldn't have said much if I'd wanted to, with Ro in cat form; he couldn't speak, and I didn't want to be the person who brings their cat on the bus and talks to it.

When we arrived at the shop and were safely within the dimly lit interior, with the door shut and locked behind us, Ro retook human shape. As his hair spilled like shadows down his back and his perpetually neat clothes showed off his trim figure, I wondered again how it worked. Were his clothes real, an illusion, or a part of him? And was the cat or the man his true form? Or, considering the terrifying shape I'd glimpsed in Fangs, perhaps neither?

"If you keep staring at me like that, I'll get ideas," he said, lifting a brow at me.

"I wasn't staring."

I turned away so he wouldn't see the flush rising to my cheeks and headed through the shop towards the other door and the stairs. Kyrie had closed up already, so I paused and unlocked the door with my key.

"You told me you could see magic," I said, hoping to redirect Ro's attention as I started up the stairs. The worn wooden steps creaked beneath my feet, but Ro's made no sound. "So why didn't you know I was enchanted when we first met?"

"I've been wondering that myself," Ro said, his tone businesslike once more. "That's what bothers me about your father's death, too."

"What do you mean?" I passed the landing at Janelle and Kyrie's door and continued up to the third floor, a little out of breath from the climb.

Ro waited until we'd reached the landing before he went on.

"I mean, I was with him. I was always with him when he ate food he hadn't prepared himself—or rather, that I hadn't prepared for him. I was there, at the banquet of Thrones, standing behind his chair as I always did, watching every bite for signs of magic, ready to dash the fork from his hand. And yet... I saw nothing."

"Maybe you missed it," I said, unlocking the blue door to our room and letting us in.

Ro shut the door at his back and shook his head. "No. I couldn't have looked away as your father ate if I'd wanted to—he was very adept at wording his commands to be absolutely loophole-free. Our distrust was mutual," he added.

I sighed and sat on the edge of my bed, exhaustion quickly catching up with me. "Then... maybe it wasn't magic at all. Maybe it was just poison. Hydrochloric acid, or something."

"Your father's organs didn't just liquefy, Ellie. They putrefied. Died, and rotted, and turned to stinking goop inside him. And worse, it started with the least vital parts, as if... Well, as if to keep him alive as long as possible. No mere poison does that."

"Maybe it wasn't in the food, then," I said, swallowing the hint of nausea that had risen at his words. "Maybe it got to him some other way."

"Possible, I suppose, but unlikely; that kind of curse typically requires the victim to ingest it."

I sighed and flopped back on the bed. "I don't know, then, Ro. Is there some kind of magic you can't see?"

The bed dipped as he sat at my side and frowned down at me thoughtfully. "Not that I'm aware, but it seems the answer must be 'yes.' Perhaps Janelle will know. We can ask her later; first, though, I want to talk to Tobin."

"Me, too," I agreed, and shut my eyes.

Besides questions, the other thing Al had raised were bad memories. Funny how just remembering shit can sap your strength.