Where Fools Rush In

An Inkling of Magic - Chapter 34

It wasn’t raining – for which she was most thankful, Elspeth had spent enough time as a drowned rat already – but the sky was still dark and threatening as she ran like the dickens towards town and it did little to ease the scenarios playing out in her vivid imagination since Derek had hung up on her. The air had that tentative warmth of early May, but a sharp wind that she completely blamed Derek’s baleful mood for. In the many ‘moods of Derek’ that Elspeth had experienced thus far, this was by far the most frightening as she didn’t know whether she would find him brooding and fuming with thinly stretched control or consumed by whatever dark urge had taken over him – and to think she had once found him impassive. She really didn’t know what had gotten into him.

Don’t you though? the disloyal thought challenging her and sounding uncomfortably like Derek as it did. She could see him too, if she closed her eyes – he’d be smiling almost sadly at her as he spoke in that soft way she refused to believe was reserved for her and with that look in his eyes that said more than his lips dared to speak or her ears to hear.

Elspeth could lie and tell herself that, no, she didn’t, but her faithless mind was right. As much as she tried to deny it, she did know. It just frightened her. Acknowledging it meant accepting it and she wasn’t sure she was ready for that.

She sighed internally. It was all so much easier when it was just about clearing his name.

It stopped being about clearing his own name a long time ago, that traitorous corner of her mind rearing its head again. You’ve just been too stubborn to see it. There were times it just couldn’t seem to stay quiet and now was definitely one of those times as it continued much to Elspeth’s annoyance.

“It won’t matter what I see if I can’t stop him from doing something stupid,” she muttered under her breath.

Ignoring the protest her legs gave, she picked up her pace as she saw the fields and scattered homes at last give way around her for the more developed town. She only lived three blocks outside of town, but it might as well have been six for how long it felt like it was taking her to get where she needed to be. It wouldn’t be long now though before she could yell at Derek in person if he hadn’t done anything foolish yet, and, if he had, she’d slap him first and then yell at him.

The trees in town were starting to flower now that the weather had remembered that it was spring, but, even though there was warmth in the air, there was a cold fear in Elspeth’s heart that not even the sight of dozens of tiny faeries darting in and out of the newly opened blossoms could rid her of. In fact, the only sight that fazed her at all was that of the faun walking in her direction with a pair of overly excited border collies – a faun with the face of Peter Forrets, director of the local animal control and a man, if he could still be called that, that she had seen many times before from visits to the animal shelter, but seeing him now as his goat-legged self with his curved, black horns bursting through his shock of dirty blond hair nearly left her dumbstruck. It was a small mercy that she’d merely slowed to a walk and that her jaw wasn’t gaping open and catching flies.

“Ah, afternoon, Elspeth! Lovely day for a walk, isn’t it?” he greeted her cheerily as he passed, tossing her a wink and a smile as if they were in on a shared secret. Which, Elspeth supposed was true enough though how he knew she knew was a point of some consternation.

Though I suppose if Isulf knew about me then it isn’t that much of a stretch to think Mr. Forrets does too – fauns are said to be part of the Spring Court aren’t they? And, at least according to Isulf, they’re terrible gossips, she conceded as she returned his greeting with an awkward smile.

Much to her immense relief, he wasn’t interested in making conversation and kept on walking before she made a fool of herself by fumbling over her words. She also didn’t have any time to spare chatting with him, despite how much she would love to do so at a later date. Not when she had a fae to deal with.

“Right, Derek,” she muttered under her breath before breaking back into a run.

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In the time it took her to run the last two-and-a-half blocks to Grimm and Barrett, Elspeth had already considered in detail what kind of a scene might be waiting for her when she got there. She’d worked herself into a panic with visions of a magic wielding Derek bearing down on the object of his rage and a veritable war zone of chard bookshelves and scattered books all around them. The malice in Derek’s voice before the line had gone dead was unlike anything she’d ever heard before. Hearing him like that, she didn’t know what he was capable of and it was a stark reminder of his nature. It had her afraid for the man’s safety. She could almost hear Mrs. Hythe’s scolding voice reminding her for the umpteenth time that Derek was a fae and the fae were wild, the fae were dangerous, and, most of all, the fae were unpredictable.

How well do you really know him? the voice of doubt crept back into her thoughts. Was Derek really capable of killing someone? Just how far would he go to get the truth? He’s already faced down a mngwa for you, a shudder running through her at the memory. Still, protecting her from a killer cat was a far cry from killing a person.

Then again, what if this stranger wasn’t the innocent she’d argued for? Would it be Derek’s battered body waiting for her in the bookstore? The thought alone of a lifeless Derek, his green eyes dull and vacant never to spark with impish mirth again, was like a stab to her heart and even more horrifying than that first fear and it was that fear – the fear of a Derek shaped hole in her life even if he did vex her – along with the startling emotions it brought with it that shoved the whispering doubts from her mind.

Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead, fear and something better left unnamed gripping her heart as she prayed, the plea on endless repeat in her head when the old, hanging sign for the bookstore with its cracking paint at last came into view.

Had her tongue not turned to lead in her mouth Elspeth would have been shouting his name and drawing all sorts of looks and murmurings about the crazed girl running through town like the devil was after her. The irony of which was not lost on her. Once upon a time, she’d run to the bookstore to avoid both his and everyone else’s critical eyes and, now, here she was running to it because she hoped to find him and not caring if she looked every bit the nutter people thought she was.

Her eyes darted about looking for any sign of Derek or the gentleman from the SUV. The SUV was easy enough to spot being parked only a few spaces down from the store, but there was no sign of Derek.

Perhaps that’s a good thing? Perhaps he’s not here anymore? Hope, or perhaps desperation, pointed out, but, even as the thought entered her mind, she knew it wasn’t true. If there was one thing Elspeth knew about Derek it was that he didn’t abandon something once he’d set his mind to it. Perhaps it was nothing more than fae pride that refused to back down, especially in the face of a human, but she could also catch a glimpse of something else behind all of the bravado that he hide behind. Something softer and stronger than pride, but no less fierce. Something she didn’t want to put a name to but was also why she was so certain that he was there, somewhere, but he was there. If anything, the stillness outside the store made her all the more nervous as to what awaited her inside.

Just when she thought there was no hope of the panicked prayers she’d been fervently praying on repeat between arguing with herself and her mind playing out every possible worst outcome imaginable, she spied the hunched form with its familiar dark head of hair sitting on the steps like a statue just inside the entrance alcove to Mr. Grimmlich’s store.

Relief flooded her when, like the pull of a magnet, his head shot up before she had the chance to utter a sound, the familiarity of the movement for once a welcome sight instead of the annoyance Elspeth usually felt at his cursed compass. In seconds, he was on his feet and moving towards her.

Crack!

“What was that for?” he asked indignantly while rubbing his cheek, the smarting skin beneath his hand a bright red where her palm had found its mark.

“That,” Elspeth hissed, “was for scaring the living daylights out of me!” She was breathing hard now and it had nothing to do with having just run all the way there. “And this,” she said, wide-eyed and swallowing hard, “this is for not being dead.”

And then, lunging forward before her brain could catch up with her actions and stop her, she threw her arms around him and captured him in a tight but brief hug, pins and needles breaking out wherever skin touched skin. She jumped back as quickly as it happened, all too aware of the deep flush burning her cheeks, and got the first good look she’d had of him in days.

His posture was rigid with tension like a spring ready to break loose and there were shadows under his eyes that made her wonder how much sleep he’d been getting for all his obsession with the stranger and his secrets. Other than that though, he looked the same and bore no outward sign of injury or evidence he’d been in a struggle much to her relief. She was also relieved to see that his eyes had lost a bit of that wildness she’d glimpsed in them when she first arrived though there was still a darkness to them that both chilled her and left her feeling a tingling that had nothing to do with strange magic.

“I’m –”

“I didn’t know what was going on,” she barrelled on when she’d completed her examination of him. She wasn’t going to give him the chance to speak, not before she’d said her mind at least. “And I didn’t know what I would find when I got here. If he’d be alive. If you’d be alive.”

Remorse flashed in his eyes at her words before disappearing into the storm that still raged there.“I didn’t –”

“Do not do that to me again!” Elspeth yelled, “do you have any idea the things I was envisioning the whole time I ran here?!”

His expression shifted completely then, the wildness lost for something just as dark and determined. “You ran here?” his tone short as he barked out the question, his eyes shooting past her as if expecting the mngwa to appear at any moment. Which, she weren’t too worked up and stubborn, she’d grudgingly have to admit was a valid expectation at this point.

However, as she was both of those, Elspeth huffed and rolled her eyes. “Of course I did. Not all of us can just poof ourselves wherever we want to go.”

“Alone?” Derek snapped, his eyes darkening as the sky did the same.

“Again, of course I did. I told you as much over the phone, remember? When I told you to wait for me?” she reminded him, “what else did you think I was going to do?”

The veins throbbed in his neck as he clenched his jaw and glowered at her without saying anything.

As touched as she was over his concern for her, this newly discovered overprotective streak of his was also a little maddening. If she was going to have any real chance of figuring this all out, let alone doing something about it, then they both just had to get used to the idea that that meant Elspeth being put into dangerous scenarios. She’d lived a life controlled by fear already. She never wanted to go back to that.

The tension and silence stretched on between them, each staring each other down in some unspoken game of chicken waiting for which one of them would break first.

“You didn’t go in,” Elspeth said flatly looking him straight in the eyes. “Why?”

“You.”

She waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. His eyes though said plenty while also saying nothing – typical fae, even his eyes spoke in riddles – and it had her looking away to stare at the still closed door behind him.

“He still in there?” she asked feeling the unease of everything creeping back up on her again.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Derek nod. “He is.”

Nerves fluttered in her stomach, but she refused to let her rule them. With a deep breath and a squaring of her shoulders, Elspeth brought her eyes back to Derek’s and didn’t shy away this time from the intensity she saw swirling around in the jade staring back at her. “Then what do you say we go and get some answers?”

                                                        ~...~...~...~...~...~

It felt different this time, creeping through the book stacks with Derek. Last time fear and suspicion hung over them like a cloud as Elspeth tried to decide if she could trust him. While now, now she was startled to find that the question of trusting him hadn’t reared its ugly head even once since setting foot inside the door which, once again, they’d found unlocked and unforced. They’d naturally just fallen into step with each other with Derek wordlessly taking the lead and positioning himself protectively in front of her.

A brittle laugh echoed in her mind as another, more recent, memory surfaced. I guess he was right. He succeeded after all.

Elspeth tensed as the floorboards creaked beneath their feet. There hadn’t been another sound but that of their own breathing and cautious footsteps since stepping foot inside. It was unnatural and off putting, the silence surrounding them. It was like a suffocating blanket and twice as heavy. The air was thicker from the new layer of dust that had settled over everything. Mr. Grimmlich wouldn’t be complaining about dust bunnies when they found him and he saw the state of his beloved books. Oh no, he’d be decrying dust dragons for sure and spluttering up a storm in German about the audacity of the particles to land on his books and blemish their beauty.

The thought of the dear, old man cradling his books and cooing gentle murmurings as he lovingly stroked their covers with a rag cloth brought a smile to Elspeth’s face. Oh, how she missed that wrinkled face of his with his wise eyes and warm smile.

I’ll figure out what’s happened to you, Mr. Grimmlich. I promise, Elspeth swore, swallowing down a rush of emotion that made her throat thicken.

With everything else that had happened since she’d barely spared a thought to him. Not that she’d forgotten, she hadn’t, but she’d become so preoccupied with solving the break-ins that she hadn’t given him as much thought as she had when he’d first vanished and it made her feel guilty. He was one of her truest friends and ought to have been a priority in her mind instead of chasing down dead ends in her parents’ bookkeeping records.

The feel of a hand giving her arm a gentle squeeze made her open the eyes she hadn’t realized she’d closed and she looked up to into soft green eyes watching her with concern.

“We’ll find him, Elspeth,” Derek said, his whisper a caress over the aching in her heart. “You have my word.”

“I know.”

Warmth spread inside her at the startled smile and look of awe and raw hope her words brought to his face. For all his confidence when he’d declared he’d earn her trust, seeing his reaction now that he had it made Elspeth wonder if he had truly been that confident. She tried not to read too much into the way that Derek’s smile made her feel just that little bit lighter inside or how the brightness in his eyes caused a fluttering in her chest that had nothing to do with her earlier nerves.

She blushed, suddenly all too aware of how close he was standing. Not nearly enough time had passed to erase how it felt when she’d flung her arms around him and that was decidedly something she did not want to dwell on – not when she could barely wrap her head around what had made her do so in the first place. At least she hadn’t kissed him like her first impulse after slapping him had told her to do. Neither of them needed that kind of awkwardness and the last conversation she wanted to be having with anyone was why Elspeth was back to imitating a shrinking violet whenever he was around.

Itching to break the weird bubble they were in, Elspeth slide Derek’s hand off of her arm and moved to step around him. As expected, the movement prompted him to stop staring at her like she was some kind of marvel to him and the mask of all seriousness edged with something dark and fierce snapped back into place as he stilled her.

Her shoulders slumped in relief when Derek turned back to continue skulking through the bookstore. We’re just friends, she told herself, and that’s all. There’s absolutely nothing else between us whatsoever and it’s going to stay that way. She was not going there. Ever.

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Walking in somewhat of a daze, Elspeth failed to notice when they’d reached the end of the narrow maze of bookshelves until Derek’s hand reached back to halt her. She jumped at the contact and the urge to pull back and put a little distance between them nearly overwhelmed her. Fighting it, she focused her attention on the bookshelf in front of them as if she could see through it. Waiting just beyond the walls of books was the office door that not so long ago had the translucent venom of a basilisk dripping off of it – another mystery she’d yet to solve.

“Stay here until I know it’s safe to come out,” Derek said, his words a low rumble promising dangerous intent if it wasn’t.

Elspeth rolled her eyes. Not that his intention wasn’t appreciated, but she had come down here without even a passing thought to the mngwa still lurking about all because she was worried what he might to do. He was crazy if he thought she’d stay behind now.

“Not a chance, elf boy,” Elspeth sing-songed, knowing exactly how much he disliked being compared to an elf. She snickered and smirked when the expected growl came. He was far too much fun to mess with now that she knew she could. Revenge was going to be sweet.

“Fine,” his answering huff making her lips twitch as she tried so hard not to laugh at it. He sounded exactly like their dearly departed husky when he was indignant over not getting his way and ensuring that everybody knew it as he lay down making the most catlike sound of annoyance possible from a canine. “But you stay behind me and, if I tell you to run and you argue with me, I swear I’ll throw you to the mngwa myself and have it done with.”

Elspeth grinned at the empty warning. “I thought the fae didn’t lie?”

                                                      ~...~...~...~...~...~

Bursting out from around the shelves and ready for a confrontation, Derek and Elspeth froze when they found the back of the bookstore strangely vacant. Elsepth’s shoulders tensed at as she looked around, her brows pinched together in a frown. The door to Mr. Grimmlich’s office was open as proof that someone had indeed been there, but said person was now nowhere to be seen. Something about it felt off and, by the look on Derek’s face and the way his jaw was clenched, he felt it too.

“I was wondering when you would come out and stop lurking,” a rich, baritone voice as smooth as cream said from somewhere unseen. “It’s not very polite.”

The hairs tingled on the back of her neck. Elspeth knew that voice. She’d heard it only days ago when she was lost on a forsaken road through the Hydendale hillside. She whirled around, turning in time with a now eerily passive Derek, and watched as her rescuer from the backroads stepped out from the books and came to stand just down from where they themselves had come. He stood tall and proud at the end of the row, his hands clasped behind him, and Elspeth was struck by the demeanor of authority that he wore almost as well as the suit he had on. He was dressed just as she remembered him in a smart looking three piece suit of a dark charcoal in colour with the faintest hint of a check to it and what looked to be a gold-trimmed fountain pen sticking out of the pocket alongside the suit’s deep, forest green pocket square.

“It’s not polite to break into bookstores either, yet here you are,” Derek drolled, an undercurrent of tension beneath the calm vernier that had washed over him.

“Ah, but I have a key,” the stranger replied with a slow smile before holding up his right hand from behind his back to reveal the key ring dangling there, hooked in the crook of a finger.

Intent on the key in he flaunted, Elspeth took a step forward without realizing it, wanting to see if it was truly a match for the one she herself had custody of. Her movement was stopped though when an arm shot out to block her path.

Annoyed as she was at having her goal checked and not getting a closer look at the key, Elspeth heeded Derek’s silent warning and stayed where she was. Her voice was like iron when she spoke. “Where did you get that?”

The man in the suit casually tossed the key up in the air, his eyes never leaving them, and snatched it in his fist mid air as it fell. “Why, Edwin of course,” he said, replacing it into his breast pocket.

Elspeth gasped and tried to shoot forward only to be blocked, yet again, by Derek as he deliberately moved sideways to cut her off before reaching behind him to hold her there.

“Derek, I can’t see,” she spluttered and fussed, trying to move out of his grasp but it wouldn’t budge. She was too short – not even coming up to his shoulders – and couldn’t see over him, yet he wouldn’t let her move an inch to see around him either.

It was entirely frustrating even if it stirred a burst of warmth at his determination to keep her safe.

“Derek,” she growled, shoving at his arm that still refused to move, “Move. Your. Arm.”

Just like last time it happened, a blaze like wildfire shot up her arm when the order left her mouth. Immediately, the arm blocking her fell like a stone to hang at his side. Elspeth swallowed hard and moved out from behind Derek to stand beside him, never once glancing at her hand for fear of what she would see. She knew it was there, she could still feel it – that white, pearlescent glow dancing and shimmering beneath her skin – and it hadn’t faded half as quickly as it had in Faerie that first time.

She raised her eyes that had anxiously found great interest in the aged, oak floorboards and they traitorously drifted towards her hand to catch the last of the glow blinking out of view as the warmth in her arm also subsided. Her eyes flicked to Derek, but found them slightly glazed and unseeing. One glance at the stranger though and the surprise that flashed on his face before morphing into a smile that, just as quickly as it appeared, promptly vanished and she knew he’d seen it too.

While his voice was soft and pleasant, his eyes were sharp as steel when he looked from her hand to her face. “That’s quite the gift you have, young lady.”

Elspeth’s mind went blank with fear and she tried to take a step back, but her feet refused to move. It wasn’t lost on her that the irony of her present desire to hide behind Derek was a direct result of her refusal to do the very same. Curiosity was a double edged sword and Elspeth had just met its sting.

She stiffened when the man in the suit took a step towards her. Beside her, there was still no sign of stirring from Derek, but she didn’t dare take her eyes off of the man in front of her to check. Oh, how she wished he would snap out of whatever daze had come over him – the cause of which she was not looking forward to explaining whenever he did snap out of it.

“There’s really no need to be afraid, Elspeth,” the stranger placated, his hands held up in conciliatory fashion when he took another step forward.

“Says the man that knows my name without my telling him,” she snarked.

Instead of recoiling at her bite he merely smiled. “Of course I know your name. You’re all Edwin ever talks about other than his books. Mrs. Hythe, too, has spoken of you often to me.”

He was almost an arm’s length away from her now, but her feet were still frozen to the ground. Uncertainty painted her face. She was conflicted. On the one side, her head told her to get away form him, yet her heart leapt at the mention of her friend and longed to hear more.

Maybe we jumped too quickly to conclusions about him, Elspeth told herself, after all, he calls Mr. Grimmlich ‘Edwin’ and he gave him a key.

“Why don’t we go somewhere where we can talk? I know the perfect place,” he offered, his voice little more than hushed tones as brown eyes that sparked like embers bore into her, “I’m sure you must have a lot of questions.”

Torn, Elspeth said nothing, but she didn’t flinch either when he took another step closer.

He reached out to take her by the shoulder. “I can help you, Elspeth.”

His fingers had barely landed on her shoulder when there was a blur of motion from her right and a feral growl rent the unsettled stillness – the weight of his touch vanishing at the same time she heard a loud crash and the clatter of books tumbling to the floor.

“Do not touch her,” Derek spat, glaring poisoned daggers at the stranger trying to right himself after his forceful introduction to the bookshelves. It was a miracle the shelves themselves were still stranding from the amount of power he’d put into shoving him away from her.

Elspeth watched with growing horror as the fae in front of her stalked towards the figure she could no longer see for Derek’s blocking her view. What she could see was the way Derek’s fists flexed with a burning need to lash out again. That wasn’t all she saw though.

“Derek, don’t do anything you may regret,” Elspeth warned with a shaky breath at the green and orange fire that had started to gather in his hands.

“Oh, I won’t regret it.”

“Mr. Corvelle,” the casual, almost bored tone of the stranger catching them both off guard, “while I can admire and even respect the strength of your loyalty for Elspeth, a remarkable feat from a fae, your rashness isn’t doing yourself any favours.”

Derek stiffened at that, but made no move to come any closer. The magic swirling violently in his hands only flared stronger and continued to coalesce until a ball of fire was held in each one. “Who. Are. You?” the words leaving his mouth with a low, unspoken warning in their undercurrent.

“He,” a woman’s voice broke in brimming with irritation, “is the one going to ensure that your insolent hide is bound for the next five centuries if you don’t rein in your fireworks, you Courtless half-wit.”

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