Free Shotgun Sorceress by Lucy A. Snyder Page B

consequences that y’all might suffer—please be on your best behavior, and dress properly. Old-world formal will do. I expect it will take you perhaps two hours to reach the tavern. So until one-thirty tomorrow, you may travel freely within Franklin County, provided it’s by mundane means. After that, you’ll be safe as long as you’re on the highways traveling in the right direction. If you leave the county, or if you use any form of teleportation, our truce is off and I’ll have to have y’all taken into custody and remanded to the Virtus Regnum.
    “Do y’all have any questions about these arrangements?” she finished.
    “No, ma’am,” we all said.
    “Good,” she said. “I look forward to seeing y’all tomorrow.”
    And with that, the mirror shimmered and fell back to reflecting our worried faces.
    “Dude.” Cooper broke the silence. “Did we just have a meeting about having a meeting?”
    “We sure did,” the Warlock replied. “Welcome to Bureaucratica. Population: us.”
        Pal met me on the patio. “What did she say?”
    “We’re all meeting her tomorrow at four at the Seelie Tavern up near Winesburg.”
    “Oh dear,” he replied. “That seems a somewhat perilous venue. Why Faery?”
    I shrugged. “She said we should meet on neutral territory.”
    “But there are surely faery enclaves within this city—why not meet at one of them?”
    “I’m guessing the idea is that we meet on neutral territory that’s also out in the middle of nowhere,” I replied. “And considering the mess Cooper and I accidentally created downtown, well, keeping us away from large, expensive buildings would seem prudent to her, wouldn’t it? I’m trying real hard not to imagine that there’s a more sinister intent here.”
    A sudden chill breeze ruffled my hair and a voice whispered, “Look skyward, my girl.”
    “What?” I looked around, looked up.
    A small object was plummeting down from the clear blue sky. I stepped aside, and it hit the grass near me, bounced twice, and came to a rest. It was an old brown teddy bear; a small cream-colored card was tied to its middle with a piece of kite string. I hesitated, then picked up the bear. Something about it was familiar; I sniffed it, and immediately remembered playing with the bear in my old room in our Lakewood house. The memory strengthened; it was one of several stuffed toys I’d had since I was a baby, but my stepmother, Deb, deemed it junk and sent it off to Goodwill before our move to Plano.
    Hands shaking a bit, I untied the kite string and unfolded the card. In it was a lock of copper-brown hair and on it a handwritten note:
I’ve missed you very much. We need to talk.
— Your dad
    “What’s that?” Pal asked.
    I resisted my sudden, irrational instinct to hide the card and lie; if I betrayed Pal’s trust, it might be a long time before I got it back.
    “It’s a pointer,” I replied. “From my father, or so it says.”
    “Your father?” Pal blinked in surprise. “But the prison records indicated that he was, well …”
    “Dead. I know.” I stared down at the card and lock of hair. “He’s talked to me before this, last night on the front lawn and also at the Warlock’s, but I wasn’t sure it was him.”
    “Can you be sure now?”
    I held up the teddy bear. “This used to be mine, a long time ago. My mom gave it to me when I was a baby; for all I know, my dad might have gotten it for me before I was born.”
    “But for all you know, this could be an elaborate trick conjured up by some dark entity.”
    “That’s true.” I closed my eyes and smelled the dusty bear again; it was like an instant portal back to the happiest time I’d had as a child. A thousand questions about my family and my life crowded around the memories, questions only Ian Shimmer could answer. “But if this really is from my father, I have to talk to him.”

chapter
eight

Mirror, Mirror
    A fter Cooper and the Warlock left on an errand in the Land