Chapter Fifteen
“So I guess Brian changed his mind about sending us away,” I noted as Dylan and I moved about the hotel room after a cat nap, beginning the process of getting ready for the concert.
“Its way easier to win an argument with a guy when he wants to lose,” Dylan replied. “He didn’t really want to let me out of his sight, and he didn’t think he’d be doing London any favors by getting rid of you.”
“Yeah, well, he might be wrong about that.”
Dylan shrugged and ran a brush through her hair, which was still wet from the shower. “I know I’d worry more about them if we weren’t here where we can see that they’re okay. Brian feels the same way, and I’m sure London does, too, even with the weirdness between you two.”
I took the brush out of Dylan’s hand and motioned for her to follow me into the bathroom. “It’s complicated. More complicated than I realized. But hopefully Ashe can straighten things out,” I said as I positioned Dylan where I wanted her and picked up the hair dryer. I switched it on, but Dylan turned around and took it from me, turning it off again.
“Ashe is trying to fix your love life?”
“He’s trying to clear up a misunderstanding that has to do with London’s empathy,” I explained, taking back the hair dryer.
“What misunderstanding?”
I shook my head and started blow-dying Dylan’s hair. I didn’t really want to talk about it, and we needed to finish our unnecessary primping.
To Dylan’s credit, she actually waited for me to finish drying her hair before she repeated her question. Leaning against the doorjamb, I took a deep breath and then told her about my conversation with Ashe.
“What an idiot,” Dylan said, with a little shake of her head. “Not that I wouldn’t be, in his position, but still. It’s pretty obvious how you feel about him.”
“Just because I like the guy, it doesn’t necessarily mean I wanted to sleep with him.”
Dylan gave me a hard, flat look that spoke volumes.
“I’m not saying I didn’t want to. I think I just established that I did. I’m just saying, he could have been right. It could have happened. So I understand how he must feel.” I turned toward the mirror and started on my makeup, what there was of it. I hadn’t packed for primping, but we’d picked up eyeliner and lip gloss at the mall.
“I guess I can see that,” Dylan replied as she lined her lids.
We finished getting dressed, and I looked at myself in the mirror with a critical eye. My dark hair was down and loose, flowing in soft waves to just past my shoulders. Even though my makeup was minimal, it did its job well, putting a little color in my face and making my eyes stand out. The outfit Dylan had talked me into was cute, rather than sexy or slutty, and comfortable. I’d vetoed the sandals Dylan had liked, opting to wear my Converse with the denim skirt and halter top. I couldn’t decide if I looked like I actually was a young 20-something or like I was simply trying and failing to recapture my lost youth.
I heard the bathroom door open and turned to ask Dylan’s opinion, but I kind of forgot what I was supposed to be asking. I hadn’t seen what she’d picked out to wear tonight, lost as it had been in the pile of clothes she’d tried on. I couldn’t have been more shocked if she’d come out of the bathroom wearing a flour sack. Dylan—who still hadn’t admitted that grunge was dead, believed a flannel shirt goes with everything, and swore that she’d wear jeans to her wedding if she ever married—was wearing a dress. A cute one, too. With the sandals I had decided not to buy.
“Wow, Dylan. You look like a girl.”
“Yeah. Watch out for falling icicles.”
I laughed. “I don’t think you wearing a dress qualifies as hell freezing over. I mean, I do seem to recall it happening at least once before.”
A lovestruck smile spread across Dylan’s face. “Yeah, I think I remember that, too.”
I smiled, too. Seeing my soul sister happy made me happy—it’s just that simple.
A knock on the door drew us out of our musings, and I went to peek out the peephole. It was Ashe, so I opened the door. Only after the door was open did I realize that another man stood in the doorway, out of sight of the peephole. I went on alert, that good old fight-or-flight response kicking in.
“Stand down, princess,” Ashe said. “He’s with me.”
I shook it off and stepped back to let the two men into the room.
Ashe shut the door behind them, and then turned to me and Dylan. “Are you two ready to get this train wreck on the road?” The other man elbowed him. “Yeah, yeah. Ladies, Quinn. Quinn, ladies.”
“Quinn?” I asked.
“Robert Quinn,” the man said, offering me his hand.
“Elizabeth Morgan,” I replied, giving his hand a firm shake.
He introduced himself to Dylan as well, and then I asked again, “Quinn?”
Quinn laughed. “I get that a lot,” he said.
I could only imagine. With his golden skin, glossy, deep brown—or was it black?—hair, and dark, tilted eyes, he couldn’t have looked less like a “Quinn.” Maybe a Nguyen, but not a Quinn.
“My mom’s Korean,” he said, “and Dad’s a Scot.”
“If show and tell is over,” Ashe interrupted, “I’d rather not leave London alone any longer than is necessary.”
“I take it you didn’t have much luck teaching him to shield,” I said.
“He picked it up just fine, but I want to be near to hand, just in case.”
I knew he was in a hurry to get back, but I was tired of having questions and no answers. “He said he had a hard time learning the shielding thing before. But it worked today?”
Ashe sighed and rubbed his temples with one hand. “Every practitioner has different abilities—you’ve seen enough to have guessed that. Now, what I’m about to tell you goes no further than this room.” He met first my eyes and then Dylan’s. I knew he was deadly serious.
“Different people have different abilities. Mine are pretty much limited to empathy, pyrokinesis, and the ability to erect shields. London’s a natural empath, and he seems to have some natural ability with foresight.”
“And the pyrokinesis thing,” I added.
“No. That’s not his. I’m afraid that one is my fault.”
“What do you mean your fault?” Dylan asked before I could.
“London’s what we call a mimic.”
“And what does that mean, exactly?”
It was Quinn who answered. “You know how everyone jokes about learning by osmosis? Mimics can more or less do exactly that. They aren’t limited to their own natural abilities, but can learn new ones, usually just be seeing them performed.”
“Wait. Whoa. What?”
“When you came to Key West, I showed London my abilities and told him a little about my past. I didn’t know then what he is,” Ashe explained.
“So you showed him how to do the fire trick and he could just do it?”
“Emergency situations tend to bring magic into play unconsciously,” Quinn said. “That’s often how someone finds out he or she has abilities.”
“I figure London’s magic gave him what he needed to save you,” Ashe added.
I shuddered, remembering the pain. Remembering how I’d thought I would die, and that I would welcome it because it would make that pain stop.
Dylan hugged me, and I wrapped my arms around her for a minute.
“So, what’s her name—Shelley. She didn’t know how to do the shield thing, and that’s why London couldn’t learn it?”
Ashe shook his head. “For most people, shielding is just learning to control your powers, to open and close your mind. That’s a hard thing for a teenager to learn under the best of circumstances. It’ll be easier for London to learn now that he’s older and wiser. Hell, he’s already making good progress. But it’ll take time. We needed a quick fix.”
“Ashe has a fairly unique ability,” Quinn added, “in that he can put up metaphysical walls. He can shield himsel
f from outside influence, and he can shield others from third-party influence.”
“You showed London how to do that,” Dylan said.
“Yes and no. I showed him, but until he’s worked with it quite a bit he won’t be able to protect himself or others from another practitioner. But he can use the shields to keep his empathy in check.”
“So he’ll be okay tonight.”
Ashe snorted. “Between the shields and all the other precautions I have in place, he might be able to get through the night without making too much of a mess of things. Now, do you girls want to keep talking metaphysics, or do you want to go watch 3,000 screaming women drool over your boyfriends?”
“Well, when you put it that way...let’s go.”