Reap the Wind (Cassandra Palmer 7)

“Nothing.”

The eyes dropped to my prize. “What that?”

“A cloak—what does it look like?”

“Where from? You no have before—”

“I did.”

“Did not.”

“Did, too.”

The eyes dropped from squinting at me to squint at the cloak instead. They didn’t seem to see very well, which wasn’t surprising with all that hair in the way. But then the inhaling started. And I should have known: a nose like that had to be good for something.

A gnarled hand grabbed a fold of wool. “It no smell like you.”

“I—I borrowed it from a friend.”

“Not smell like him, either.”

“Not that friend! Another friend. Well, sort of, and give it back!”

“What you do?” he demanded again. And then said some other stuff that sounded like chicken-tex-dump-stick but probably wasn’t.

Trust me to get the spell version of Babelfish, I thought, and snatched my cloak back.

“I’m not doing anything with it,” I told him, trying for indignation. “What does somebody usually do with a cloak?”

The suspicion did not subside. “Why you need?”

“It’s getting cold! See?” I rubbed my arms.

He didn’t look like he bought that, maybe because it was a balmy evening without even a touch of the chilly nighttime temperatures of Wales. But I guess he decided that maybe humans were strange, cold-blooded creatures and needed more warmth, because he finally let go. I promptly threw on the cloak, which seemed to satisfy him, and he ambled back to his post.

I waited awhile, my back to him, sweating under two layers of wool. And trying to be as boring as possible while doing it. And I guess I hit the mark, because the next time I risked a glance over my shoulder, he was watching something off the other side of the platform, and sniffing the air like he liked the scents that were wafting everywhere, too.

I closed my eyes, drew my cloak around me, and tried again.

It was harder this time, a lot harder, and for a moment I didn’t think it was going to work at all. But then I got something. Something that didn’t want to come through, like it was stuck somehow, or like someone was playing tug-of-war on the other side. But I tugged harder, pulling and heaving and yanking—

And getting slapped in the face with something nasty for my trouble.

It was sweat-smeared and weed-stained, with holes in what I finally identified as the knees, and dirt splattered halfway up the calves. Trousers, I realized, with a sinking feeling. I looked around quickly, and then shoved them underneath my cloak.

Rosier probably hadn’t been anywhere he needed them.

Or the lone surviving shoe, which landed in my lap next. Or the belt that showed up after that. And then something I didn’t immediately recognize, something small and white and limp, and frankly a little bit funky, that—

Ewww! I dropped the pair of tighty-whities I’d just pulled out of the ether and sat there, panting and exhausted, and glaring at a heap of Rosier’s nasty clothes, but no Rosier. And with no strength to try again when I could barely sit up.

I put a hand down to support myself and just breathed for a while.

Wonderful.

Now what?

That had been my one big idea, all alone and stuck up in a tree in faerie, and now I was fresh out. And shifting was my best thing; it was what I’d always been good at—even Agnes had said so. So if I couldn’t do that, what was left?