Page 43 of No Charm Done
“Uh-huh . . .” Jasper said distractedly. His head was still deep in his letter to himself.
The sisters barely made it out the door before a fresh round of bickering started up.
“I still can’t believe you didn’t realize Vex was suspicious,” Delilah said. “I mean, this one—” pointing at Luna “—perpetually has her head in the clouds . . .”
“Hey!” Luna objected.
“. . . but you? You, I would expect to have some sort of instinct.”
“Well, maybe if you were around, like, ever!” Scarlett replied defensively. “But no, you’re always off playing History Detective with Jasper.”
“It’s called having a job, Scarlett. Maybe you should try it.”
“I help Nate at the hardware store!”
Delilah scoffed. “Help him off with his trousers, maybe . . .”
“That’s not— Okay, that’s accurate, but—”
Scarlett stopped speaking abruptly. They’d rounded the corner, onto the street directly facing Williams Hardware. The scene drove all bickering from the sisters’ minds.
Three men in identical black suits stood in the middle of the street, their backs to the approaching sisters. They wore old-fashioned top hats that would have looked ridiculous if the men hadn’t radiated such menace. Each carried a staff topped with a crystal that pulsed with a sickly red light.
Beyond them, on the hardware store’s porch, Luna could see her mother and Elias. And the three Earls, who’d apparently decided that antique weapons were the appropriate response to whatever was going down. Nine wielded his flintlock pistol and Ten held a cutlass. Eleven was hefting a rusty harpoon with the enthusiasm of a man who’d been waiting seventy years for a good scrap.
The lead magician’s voice carried clearly down the street: “Elias Shaw, by order of the High Council of Magicians, you are to return with us immediately, to face judgment for your unauthorized departure from the Void.”
Oh no.
These were Elias’s jailers. They’d come to take him back.
Luna’s first instinct was to sprint down that street and throw herself between Elias and these men in their absurd hats. To open a portal right there and drag him through it to somewhere, anywhere else.
But Scarlett’s hand closed around her wrist. “Wait.”
On Luna’s other side, Delilah’s grip on her other arm was equally firm. “Not yet,” Delilah breathed.
On the porch, Nine let out a war cry that would have made his pirate ancestors proud and leaped—actually leaped, this frail-looking old man—off the porch. Ten and Eleven followed, weapons raised, faces fierce.
It was magnificent. It was also a bit like a trio of kittens attacking a freight train. Sweet but futile.
The lead magician barely lifted his staff and Nine’s pistol shot deflected harmlessly into the air. Ten’s cutlass stopped mid-swing as though it had hit an invisible wall. Eleven’s harpoon thrust went wide, guided by some unseen force. The old men kept trying, bless them, but every attack got parried, redirected, nullified. The magicians didn’t even look particularly bothered.
“Mama sees us,” Delilah murmured.
Luna’s gaze snapped to the porch. Sure enough, Kelly was looking directly at them over the magicians’ shoulders. Then Kelly’s head tilted ever so slightly—barely a nod, more like a suggestion of a nod.
But Luna understood, and so did her sisters. That nod meant: Get ready. Follow my lead. And for the love of all that is holy, don’t screw this up.
“Closer,” Delilah breathed.
The three sisters moved forward, quiet as possible, staying behind the magicians who were entirely focused on the retired pirates’ defense of their little porch.
Kelly raised both hands. The air shimmered.
Three portals opened in the ground—perfect circles of swirling darkness, positioned right between the magicians and the still-fighting Earls. One portal for each magician, neat as surgical incisions.
The lead magician let out a villainous, bwah-ha-ha sort of laugh. “Portals? That’s your plan, lady?” His voice dripped with condescension. “You think we’re stupid enough to just fall into clearly visible portals? We’ve been doing this for centuries. We’re not some amateur—”
