Page 17

Crispin

C rispin hoped he was wrong. He prayed to the Dark Eye of Pothos that he was wrong. But the look on Juzir’s face… he hadn’t seen the archosaur wizard so scared since he’d had to face his finals in advanced scryology when they’d been dorm-mates at Hastor. And those exams had been potentially deadly.

He needed answers. And he most definitely did not need to think about how Leo’s lips had felt, pressed against his own, back on Phaxsi. Pheromones or no pheromones.

“You’re kinda freaking me out, Crispy.” Leo shut his mouth as a young archosaur couple approached—both male, by their coloring—frowning at the two of them.

“You’re not supposed to have that… thing… in here.” The taller one, whose crest had been dyed an eye-peeling shade of acid orange, pointed at a sign posted on the tastefully pebbled walls. No pets.

Crispin shot Leo a warning look. “I’m so sorry. It was a matter of life and death and there was nowhere to leave him.” He reached out awkwardly to pat Leo on the head. “He’s very well trained.”

Leo snapped at him.

“Doesn’t look like it,” the other one said, taking his boyfriend’s hand and pulling him away. “We’ll be back in twenty minutes. Get it out of here before then or we call building security.” They disappeared into the elevator.

“I really hate this place.” Leo growled.

Crispin nodded. “That’s good. Grunt and growl. It will help sell the whole pet thing.”

Leo glared at him.

“That’s good too.” He needed to get them out of sight, and there was one person—only a thin panel of wood away—who could answer his questions.

He pounded on the door. “Juzir, let me in. Look, I know you’re scared, and I have an idea why, but if we’re both right, it’s just as dangerous leaving us out here as it is letting us in.”

He could try to magic his way through the door, of course.

But first of all, that would be rude, and he tried to never be more rude than the situation absolutely required.

And secondly, Juzir had probably set up wards to protect his apartment, and you never knew what might happen when one magic butted up—rudely—against another.

“Seriously, Juzir, you owe me for the whole Beckia situation.”

Beckia Tront had been the prettiest ogre Juzir had ever set his eyes on, and Crispin—who didn’t get the appeal, but to each their own—had helped set up a clandestine date for his young wizardly friend. It had gone spectacularly wrong, but that wasn’t the point. “Come on, Juzir, open the door.”

“I don’t want to.” His old friend sounded just as surly as he had when he’d shown up at the dorm soaking wet, fresh from being dragged into a pond and manhandled by his ogre date.

But he was speaking. That was progress. “Remember that time you got yourself locked into a quadragic equation and I helped you figure out how to get out without losing one of your limbs and the ability to say the number nine?”

A long pause. “Yes.”

“You trusted me then.” Crispin looked up and down the hall, nervous that the couple would return or that someone else would catch them. “I need you to trust me now.”

Nothing. Juzir was stubborn… as stubborn as a Nephraxian oxhound on the hunt.

Crispin turned away, ready to lead Leo— don’t think about the kiss —out of the building, when the door cracked open, just a smidge.

“Give me a minute.” It slammed shut again.

Leo was staring at him. “You two go way back, don’t you?”

Thea, tucked into Crispin’s pocket, burst into song.

Leo frowned. “Ouch. ‘Careless Whisper.’ What did you do to him?”

Crispin blanched, “I didn’t… it was just one time… we never….”

The elevator chimed.

“Oh crap.” Leo slammed a hand over his mouth.

As the elevator doors opened, so did the door to Juzir’s suite. His short green arm reached out and pulled them inside, slamming the door shut just before the new arrivals would have seen them loitering in the hall.

“Bring it over here.” He indicated a lone wooden chair with a nice-sized tail hole in the back, surrounded by candles and chalk marks on the floor.

“I’m perfectly capable of bringing myself.” Leo marched over to the chair and plopped down like a petulant child—which he basically was, if Crispin was honest.

Juzir’s eyes went wide. “It speaks?” He stared at Leo, then turned an accusing gaze on Crispin. “ Don’t make me regret this.” His tail slashed around angrily, coming close to knocking one or more egg-shaped vases off of wide shelves.

“ It has a name. And it is tired of pretending to be a pet.” Leo pulled off the rope and threw it toward Juzir’s gray couch, which also had holes for tails. “Hey, that’s weird.”

The length of cord hung in midair.

Crispin sighed. He was tired. Physically tired. Emotionally tired. And tired of lying to one of his oldest friends. “Its… his name is Leopold. He’s not an ape. Well, he’s descended from apes?—”

“Hey!” Leo glared at him. “Right here in the same room, dude .”

Crispin hurried on, because Leo was right; he didn’t deserve to be treated like this. “He’s from the other Earth. The one where… where archosaurs never evolved. They’re called humans.”

He expected anger, denial—even to be thrown out into the hall once again, his “pet” with him. But instead, Juzir was clicking his teeth, something archosaurs often did when deep in thought. He made only one comment, quietly, as if to himself. “Fascinating.”

“But him being a pet, that’s not what scared you, is it?” Crispin had an inkling; the thought had been growing ever since Leo had pulled that disappearing act in front of Fromlith.

Juzir didn’t reply. Instead he addressed Leo directly for the first time. “I’ve placed a protective ward around you. That’s what caught the rope.” He reached forward with a short arm and plucked it out of the air and out of the spell. It fell to the ground with a thump.

“Protecting me? Or you?” Leo’s eyes narrowed. “You sure we can trust this guy, Crispy?”

“Crispy?” Juzir chuckled, a full-bellied archosaur laugh that made the egg-shaped vases on his shelves tremble and showed off his sharp incisors to great advantage, “I rather like that.”

“It’s Crispin ,” he growled. This whole thing was getting out of hand, and not just the silly nickname part. “And yes, we can trust him. He and I go way back.”

“The whole Beckia situation , you said. He ate her, didn’t he?”

“No, he did not eat her.” Though that wouldn’t have been entirely out of character for an archosaur. Still, the school had rules against that sort of thing—otherwise there would have been chaos.

He turned back to his old friend. “So, can you help us? I need to get him back to the Office, but first….”

“You need to know what he is.” He met Leo’s eyes, which seemed now to be permanently narrowed.

Juzir scratched his chin with three long, neatly trimmed yellow claws. “You know he’s not… what did you call it… human , right?”

“Take that back!” Leo sprang to his feet, bumping up against the protection ward and rebounding into the chair. “Ow.”

“What do you mean, not human?” Crispin said at the same time.

“He’s one of the most human humans I have ever met.

Bumbling, heedless of the feelings of others, heedless in a way that only a truly magicless species can be…

.” He trailed off, aware that Leo’s gaze was once again directed at him.

“Not that I don’t find it all rather… charming.

” A memory of the aborted kiss flashed through his head. Why did I do it?

“Just like I find your prissy, stick-up-the-ass, elitist desk fae manner… charming.” Somehow he managed to make the word seem more like maddening .

Juzir looked as if he’d just stepped into something wet and sticky. He waved his little arms at them. “Gentlemen, no need for insults. What I meant is that he wasn’t born human. Though he seems to have grown into it.”

Definitely not a compliment.

“Thank you… I think?” Leo frowned. “So if I wasn’t born human… was I one of those changeling babies? Or maybe more like the Exorcist girl?” He tried to turn his head around to face the wall behind him. “Owww. Guess not.”

Crispin shook his head. “See? Totally human.” But he’d had his suspicions about Leo. At least twice, he’d been pretty sure that Leo had vanished, only to reappear somewhere else, a talent Crispin was fairly sure was not typically human. “So what is… what was he?”

“I’m not sure. But let me show you something.” He fetched a book from one of the wall shelves, using his tail since his arms wouldn’t have reached that high. He held the heavy leather-bound volume awkwardly in his little arms.

Crispin hoped it wasn’t bound in ape skin.

“Let’s see. Here it is.” He made a series of growls and grunts as he waved his clawed right hand in the air, and something shifted. The protective ward glowed, shivered, and suddenly collapsed inward, clinging to Leo. The electric lights flickered off and on again.

When things stabilized, Leo looked… different.

“What is it?” He held up his ward-shrouded arm, covered with a sparkling fog that didn’t obscure the skin underneath.

“Your true nature.”

“Chaos.” The word came out of Crispin’s throat with the sharpness of a knife. Leo’s nature was what he had suspected… what he had feared most. “But how….”

“Wait, you’re saying I’m not human?” Leo looked at Juzir. “That I’m like that cloud that’s been chasing Crispy and me?” The wide-eyed, drop-jawed look on Leo’s face would have been comical if the situation wasn’t so serious.

Crispin frowned. How could Leo be Chaos and be so thoroughly human?

Leo was nodding now, his eyes back to their normal proportions. “It does kind of make sense. My whole life has been organized chaos.” He was staring at his hands in wonder and maybe a little fear. “But what does it mean? I’m… not going to hurt you, am I?”

No “dude” in that sentence, so Crispin deduced he must be truly afraid.

Juzir pulled up a couple more chairs. “The ward will keep you… contained. For now. I don’t know if Crispin has told you this, but all of our magic is based on harnessed Chaos.

The world needs some Chaos—without it, there would be no magic, no music, no creativity.

The world would be flat and boring. In small doses, Chaos is what keeps life interesting. ”

“But in larger ones?” Leo held his index fingers a few inches apart; an arc of electricity sparked between them.

Juzir frowned. “If raw Chaos were ever to break free from its prison… it could mean the end of everything.”

Silence fell over the room as the three men stared at one another, each contemplating what that result might mean.

Crispin closed his eyes. His perfecality score was already shot, but it wasn’t really his fault, was it?

Bidulla had left quite a lot of important information out of the packet when she’d sent him on what was supposed to be a simple collection mission.

Or had she not known? And what about the Oracle? Wasn’t it supposed to be all-knowing?

His score no longer mattered. He had to find a way to stuff this Chaos genie back in the bottle. And he had a sneaking suspicion just which bottle—or door—it had come out of in the first place.

He wanted to hug Leo, to tell him everything would be all right, but he wasn’t sure it was true.

“We need to go see my mother.” When he pulled Thea out of his pocket, she began to hum.

“Is that your transport device?” Juzir held out his green-scaled hand.

“Yes. Thea went a little crazy when I first met Leo and the Chaos Cloud arrived. I’m not sure how to get home.” He handed over the phone.

Juzir looked it over. “Yes, a little of the Chaos got inside. Not much I can do about that, I’m afraid. I may be able to help with the trip back to your mother’s Estate, though.” He handed Thea back. She was now singing something about walking a dinosaur.

“That would be great. Thanks, Juzi.” For the first time since this whole sordid adventure had begun, he felt a little peace. Order was being restored, one step at a time. “You okay, Leo?”

For once, Leo didn’t correct him. “Just fucking fantastic. Why wouldn’t I be? Your friend basically just told me that my whole life is a lie, that I’m Chaos Incarnate, and that I might be a danger to everyone and everything around me. But sure. I’m just fine .”

Crispin sighed. Leo might not have been born human, but he sure played the part well.

Juzir didn’t seem to notice. “I’ll help you get home, like I promised. But first you need to tell me everything . Then get a little rest while I figure things out. The ward should hold for a while.” He got up and put his spell book back up on the shelf. “Anyone fancy a triceratops sandwich?”