Page 17 of Search for the Lost

Crispin nodded. “Yes, every planet has chocolate. Most of it is imported from Earth. It’s one of the main reasons Earth was never disconnected.” Maybe the only reason.

“Wanna try?” Leo held his drippy, chocolatey hand out to Cypher.

The faun politely declined.

“Crispy?”

What the heck. He was feeling less restrained than usual. He leaned over Cypher’s lap and took a big lick. His eyes rolled back in his head. “Great Gotherk’s gondola, that’s delicious.” It was like a taste explosion of every chocolate he’d ever had—combined, but somehow also distinct.

He hated hades just a little bit less.

Leo held out his hand to Aspin.

“Um, no thank you.” Crispin’s brother stuck out his tongue and shuddered. “You two are… truly odd.”

“Thank you.” And Leo beamed, reminding Crispin why he had fallen in love with the human-now-fae in the first place.

Cypher cleared his throat. “Maybe you can use your stolen magick to do something… useful? Like making us some water? Or something… nutritious and less messy to eat?”

Leo nodded, not seeming offended at all. “Just a sec.” He finished licking his hand clean as Aspin made a disgusted noise deep in his throat.

“Okay, let’s see. Water…” Leo’s hands hovered over various patches of Thing stuff. “Ah, here we go⁠—”

“Maybe let Crispin pick it up?” Cypher eyed Leo’s sticky hands dubiously.

“Um… sure. Of course. That one.” He pointed at a purple/green patch of liquid/dirt. “Do we have something to put it in?”

Crispin nodded and pulled his arms out of his backpack straps. This disturbed Minkis, who popped his head out of the sweatshirt pocket.

“Lunches yet?” He twittered hopefully.

“Soon, I promise.” Crispin pulled out his shrunken luggage and laid it down on the yellow brick road. With a pop, it opened to full size.

The squirrel’s eyes narrowed in disappointment. “Wakes me then,” and the furry head disappeared.

“Will do. Here we go.” Crispin retrieved a fine silver goblet encrusted with rubies that had been his fifth-anniversary company gift at OotL—not sure why Leo packed that one, but whatever—and plucked the patch of wet/dry Thing stuff from the ground and dropped it inside. His hand felt hot/cold and burned a little, but the skin of his fingers looked all right. He handed it to Leo. “Do your—well, my—thing.”

Leo took the cup, closed his eyes, and concentrated. “It’s… no, not dirt. Water! Sweet, drinkable water. You can do it… you can do it….”

It wasn’t clear if he was talking to himself or to the bit of pungent/odorless square/round Thing stuff. But soon enough it didn’t matter, as it transformed into water so pure it sparkled.

Leo took a sip. “Yup. That’s good!”

He passed it round and they all tried it. Cypher sighed contentedly. “Fresh as the spring water back on Vlotho.”

“Vlotho?” Leo grinned. “Crispy and I took a vacation there once. Pretty purple forests. Big giants.”

Crispin refrained from mentioning that all giants were, by definition, big. And that it had seemed for a bit that Fromlith wanted to eat them, so it hadn’t exactly been a vacation.

So many of the little things that had bothered him about Leo before seemed unimportant now. That was one good thing to come out of—what did Leo call it?—their Freaky Friday situation. “Let’s see what else we can come up with for lunch. I’m starving.”

Leo obliged, and in next to no time they’d managed a fine meal of french fries, roasted gamjeebeast, rizzberry jam on toast, and a cup full of ogre ale that was, strangely, the opposite of the Earth drink Dr. Pepper.

Minkis even made a brief appearance, looking vaguely hungover with red-rimmed eyes from his earlier Thing stuff sampling, and nibbled a bit out of Crispin’s palm before crawling back into Leo’s sweatshirt pocket.

When everyone was sated, talk turned again to their predicament.

“Maybe you should try Thea again?” Leo looked at Crispin’s pants pocket hopefully.