“I don’t think they swim in sweatpants,” I said.
He cast an envious glance at the water cascading off my scaled leggings. “Next time, tatts or not, I’m stripping to skin,” he announced.
Even the thought of it had my breath hitching. Our eyes met, and held, and heat pulsed straight through me.
Which might explain why neither of us were prepared for Grunt launching into a buck, followed swiftly by a bolt. He whipped the lead right out of a startled Riggs’s hand and headed at full gallop for the gardens along the front of the building.
“What the heck.” Riggs headed off in rather damp pursuit. Students stopped and stared as we ran by. Grunt was surprisingly nimble on those stubby little legs, and he easily outran the both of us. He reached the coveted bushes in more than enough time to do much trampage in his pursuit of the dinner-plate-sized blooms. The bushes showed clear signs of his previous attack, with liberal scatterings of bright-pink petals.
“Why are we chasing a bearing beast?” Sid jogged up, looking puzzled, while Adilyn buzzed at Grunt, waving her tiny arms at him. He snorted at her, sending her tumbling before she could right herself.
“He belongs to a friend. We gave him a bath,” I explained.
Sid continued to look puzzled as Riggs snagged the lead. With me pushing on the bearing beast’s ample rump, we extracted him. With only a dozen or so grinning witnesses to the destruction of the headmaster’s prized bushes.
Adilyn flew overhead, and sparkly dust fell down on them. In an instant, they looked better than new.
“Wow,” I said. “Thank you.”
“It’s only a glamor.” She shrugged. “It will wear off in a couple of hours. We’ll stay for a bit to reinforce it.”
I cast a look to Sid, in time to see his eyes flash. My gaze shot to Adilyn, and hers did, too.
My heart stuttered. It seemed while we’d been baking cookies, these two had been up to something else. Fate had been busy today. And I experienced a tingle of envy—for them, the uncertainty was no longer a factor.
Riggs seemed oblivious to their change in status. “Let’s get Grunt out of sight,” he suggested, pulling on the lead.
We left the Faerie and Sid behind. With his mouth full of blossoms, Grunt sedately followed us back into the foyer. We skittered him through and into the elevator as fast as possible, breathing a sigh of relief when the doors slid closed.
Riggs grimaced and tugged at his wet sweatpants. “Chafeage,” he explained.
Considering he’d spent most of his life in scales, he’d likely never had the issue. I did my best not to look, and didn’t entirely succeed. “Cara could probably help with that,” I suggested.
He snorted a laugh. “Don’t think I’m letting any Watcher near my manly bits. Especially not Cara. She is far too meddlesome.” He hesitated, then, and frowned.
“Have you found Watchers meddlesome?” I asked, curious.
“I have no idea,” he admitted. “I don’t know where that came from.”
The doors opened on the third floor. We were hustling Grunt along the staff quarters hallway when a suite door flung wide, and the headmaster emerged.
His eyes fell on the bearing beast. A gorgeous, bright-pink petal fell out of Grunt’s mouth, and drifted slowly to the floor.
The headmaster’s mouth opened, but we were already hurrying the bearing beast past him and around the corner. We didn’t stop until we’d pushed him into Cara’s suite.
Nettie stood there. She looked from our dripping selves, to the damp bearing beast using his fat tongue to clean his ill-gotten goods from his teeth.
Then she sighed, and stretched a fragrant tray toward us.
“Cookie?” she asked.
It didn’t look like we were going to make it to the library.
Riggs didn’t suggest it, and I didn’t push. Maybe he’d had enough revelations for one day. I wasn’t sure I was ready to know why Marcus, or rather Iskar, had been so concerned.
Or why I could draw the sword when others couldn’t.
All I knew was that Riggs’s prime concern when we returned was to rummage through Cara’s stash to get himself into dry clothes. My fur, feather, and scale combo just needed a quick dab with a towel.
