Page 38

Crispin

T he life Crispin wanted was at his fingertips—he could feel it. His life mate, his mother’s approval, and a future he’d never dreamed of.

Including King of the Fae, not that he was sure he wanted that. He loved working, but being responsible for the Estate and all of that magic sounded like heaping handfuls of responsibility. Still, something about it appealed to him. He’d be the literal Keeper of Order.

Fromlith had left a path of destruction as he’d widened—and heightened—the corridor to make room for his own passage. A piece of the broken doorway wall crashed to the ground, reminding Crispin of how out of his control the current situation was. Some Order-Keeper I am.

“You okay, Crispy?” Leo’s concern brought him back to the present.

In response, Crispin hugged him tightly. As long as he had Leo on his side, he could accomplish anything. “Yes, I’m much better now.”

“What were you saying about Minkis?” Leopold looked around. ‘I don’t see him. Wasn’t he with you?”

“He’s… gone ahead. It’s… complicated.” Juzir had told Crispin something that had shaken him to the core.

He turned to his giant-friend. “Fromlith, can you and Juzir keep Bidulla and her minions occupied?” She’d thrown everything she had at them, from a trio of Mazurian mercenaries to the entire office staff of OotL.

Crispin wasn’t exactly sure where all the minions were right now.

Because Juzir’s magic was limited here by the Office’s dampening properties, he couldn’t port them around the place willy-nilly, but he could make life difficult for Crispin’s former supervisor.

“You got it, future King.”

“I can help.” Aspin pulled his sword. “I know I’ve been an ass to you, little brother. But what you did today….” He blushed. He actually blushed. “Love you, little bro. I’m proud of you.”

Crispin blinked. He was fairly certain all thirty-seven known hells had just frozen over, even the one made mostly out of soured mead. “Um… thanks, Aspin.”

His brother crushed him in his over-muscled arms, pulling him so tight that the air squeezed out of Crispin’s lungs in an undignified gasp.

“I… um… love you too?” he squeaked. He didn’t mean for it to come out as a question, but there it was. “You… need… to let… me go.” That last part was nothing but a raspy whisper.

Aspin didn’t seem to notice the question mark. He dropped his arms, and suddenly Crispin could breathe again. “So what now?”

Everyone turned to face him, including Minkis, who had apparently just returned. “What now, Acorn Man?”

Crispin felt a little queasy. He wasn’t used to being the one that people turned to for answers. Especially not all the people, all at once.

Leo leaned in and whispered, “You can do this.”

Crispin squeezed his hand gratefully. “We go to see the Oracle.”

If Juzir was right—and it would explain so many things —the Oracle would know who was behind this, and why Crispin had been sent to collect Leo.

The corridor shook. “That’s our cue.” Juzir winked at him. “Go! We’ll keep Bidulla and her cronies occupied. You’re going to owe me more than a bathroom remodel after this.”

Fromlith winked at them with an enormous eye through the broken wall. “Go get them, Your Future Highness.” He lumbered off in the direction they’d all come from, and Juzir scurried after him, casting fiery spheres as he went.

“Come on, then.” Crispin climbed over the wreckage, taking Leo’s hand and helping him through the door.

Thea whistled a happy tune in his pocket.

“Hey, I know that one. It’s from the Wizard of Oz .” Leo frowned. “Well, we just saw a wizard, so I’m not sure it’s the most accurate….”

Crispin laughed. He’d missed Leo’s mental wanderings. “Close enough, I suppose. The Oracle is… magic. Of a sort. He/she/they always know what needs to be collected, and where.” Ahead of them, the white corridor was still fae-sized, not having been pounded out of shape by a passing giant. “Come on.”

They started down the hall, checking the doors as they passed, each neatly lettered with a unique numerical code. Other than that, there was nothing to set them apart.

They followed the hall past a couple hundred more doors, and then the corridor split into three directions.

Crispin had never seen a floor plan of OotL. He imagined it would be surpassingly strange-looking, the way the corridors combined, split up, and recombined.

Not only that, but the layout seemed to change from time to time. Usually he just knew where things were, or they came to him as he had need of them. But maybe Bidulla had blocked that, too?

He scratched his head, staring hopelessly at the three tunnels.

“Um, Crispy?” Leo’s warm hand touched his shoulder. “Are we lost?”

“Not… exactly.” He could still sort of feel the Oracle, as if its eye was on him. But he couldn’t sense where it was. “Maybe if we….”

The hallway shifted, momentarily flashing in a blur of bewildering colors. When things settled, Bidulla was standing in front of him with sour-looking mercenaries at her back.

His enormously tusked boss seemed as surprised to see him as he was her.

Crispin fell back and heard the whisper of Aspin’s sword being drawn.

The mercenaries settled easily into a fighting stance, drawing what seemed like a thousand daggers that sparkled under the harsh fluorescent lights.

Crispin had mere seconds before this devolved into a bloody melee.

“Stop!” He put all the strength of his position as the future king of the fae into his voice, and the hallway shook.

Everyone froze.

Bidulla blinked and then looked him up and down, as if really seeing him for the first time. “You’ve changed.”

Coming from her, that was high praise. “Yes, I have. I’m not the meek little desk fae you sent out to collect Leo.”

One of her huge furry eyebrows raised at the nickname. She glared at Leopold as if he were a cockroach stuck to her shoe. “This thing is a danger to the Connected Worlds. Surely you’ve seen the damage it has done to hundreds of thousands of citizens. It must be contained .”

Crispin didn’t like the way she said that last word.

“Leo is not a thing. You can’t just bottle him up and leave him alone for the rest of eternity.

” His anger was threatening to boil over.

He took a deep breath to calm himself and felt Leo’s warm hand slip into his.

“Besides, look how well that worked the last time. Where was he when he did all this alleged damage?” It was real damage—he’d seen it himself—but he wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction.

“What did I do?” Leo bit his lip.

“Nothing that can’t be fixed.” He squeezed Leo’s hand.

Bidulla charged on, as ogres tended to do. “We’ll do better. Lock him up in a place so deep and empty that he’ll never be able to break out.”

“Like behind the Red Door?” He glanced at his mother.

Cerillia had the grace to blush. “There is no safe place. Trying to bottle him up… to bottle Chaos up… it’s always going to find a way out.”

Bidulla blinked again, as if seeing Cerillia for the first time.

And perhaps she had. Ogres were also notoriously short-sighted. “My Queen.” She went down on one knee. “Surely you must see how dangerous this… thing is.”

Cerillia drew herself up, and for a moment she was her old self—powerful, mysterious, and scary as the Oark of the Black Forest. “This thing is my future son-in-law . ” She put a hand on Leo’s shoulder.

“I made a huge mistake when I exiled his father through the Red Door. Chaos only works if there’s Order, and Order can only exist when there’s Chaos to be organized. ”

The ogre sputtered. “But Your Majesty?—”

Cerillia took a regal step forward and placed one hand on Bidulla’s oversized, hairy chin. “Look at him.” She forced Bidulla’s gaze down onto Leo’s face.

They locked gazes, and Bidulla’s eyes went wide. “It’s… he’s… so beautiful. Why did I never see that?” Her eyes rolled up and she slumped, hitting the ground and causing the floor under Crispin’s feet to shake.

Leo leapt forward. “Is she okay?” He knelt next to the ogre. “She’s still breathing.”

“Just overcome. She’ll be all right.” Cerillia grinned. Her glamour had departed once more, but she still had that air of royalty.

The mercenaries sheathed their knives and stepped back.

Crispin stared at his mother. “What did she see?”

“From Chaos comes beauty. She saw into his soul.” There was a deep longing and sadness behind her words that tugged at Crispin’s heart.

The mercenaries were staring at one another, unsure what to do now that their employer had decided to take a little floor nap.

Cerillia snapped her fingers. “Come with us. I’ll pay you double what the Office offered.”

The leader—a woman dressed in black with a red sash, her black hair shaved close to her skull—cleared her throat. “Your Highness.” She essayed a deep bow and the others followed her lead.

Crispin stifled a laugh. Power and money could buy almost anything. “Where is the Oracle?” He looked ahead down the hall and then back the way they had come. “It could take all day searching this place to find it.”

Leo frowned. “Needle in a haystack.”

Such cute colloquialisms. A thought came to him. “Leo, take my hand.”

Leo practically leapt up from where he’d been kneeling next to their fallen nemesis and he reached out.

Their touch was electric, sending a surge of love and potential through Crispin. He felt a foot taller and twice as strong as Aspin. “First, you need to let out all that extra Chaos you’ve been holding in. Send it back where it came from. Can you do that?”

Leo frowned. “I don’t know. There’s no television?—”

“Just let go, Chaos Man.” Minkis hopped onto Leo’s shoulder and chittered something into his ear.

Leo’s eyebrow shot up. “Just like that?”

Minkis bobbed his head. “Easy peasy.”

Leo closed his eyes, and the air around him swirled as if he were surrounded by a heat wave.

Crispin knew his part. He reached out, drew in the growing flood of Chaos, setting it in order, and channeled it back to where it had come from.

He could feel it, rolling through him like a flood and then back out into the Connected Worlds. Buildings and streets, trees and people, birds and sky filling with color, plumping out with restored vigor and life, with curvy lines and conflicting impulses.

The entire building shook with the power as it poured from Leo into Crispin and then found its home once again.

It lasted for an eternity, or maybe five minutes, but the thrill of working with Leo like that….

Crispin opened his eyes. A beatific smile lit up Leo’s face, and Crispin saw, for just an instant, what Bidulla must have seen in him.

Chaos wasn’t the enemy. It was impulse and change and complicated, conflicted beauty. Free will and love and brilliant colors. And it was war and hatred and jealousy and strife, and all the million other things that made life… well, life .

All during his own life, Crispin had struggled to stamp out chaos, to put things in perfect order in his home, his job, and his heart. But Order without Chaos was flat and dead and boring.

And Chaos without Order was insanity.

All of these thoughts passed through him in an instant, and then it was done.

“Did I do it? Is it fixed?” Leo, waiting for his answer, looked as eager as a puppy.

Crispin smiled. “Yes. Yes, you did.”

“What just happened?” Aspin looked from Leo to Crispin and then to his mother.

“Your brother and his future husband just figured out who they are. Together.” Cerillia’s smile was tinged with sadness.

Perhaps she regrets exiling her own other half.

Crispin nodded. “Leo set things right.”

“I’d kiss you again,” Leopold said, “but don’t we have an Oracle to find?”

“We can spare a couple seconds.” Crispin threw his arms around his Chaos Man, and this time their kiss was different. Their essences mixed, and the tingling spread from Crispin’s lips and warmed his whole body. If that’s what a mere kiss is like….

They broke apart.

“Dude.” Leo’s voice made the word a sacrament.

“Dude.” Crispin grinned again, and Leo returned it.

Minkis leaped back onto his shoulder.

“So how do we find this Oracle?” Leo’s eyebrow rose in that adorable way of his.

“We bring it to us.” Crispin took Leo’s hand again and felt the welcoming surge of Chaos.

The Office halls shifted around them, blowing apart like a slow-motion explosion. For a moment it was all exposed, every nook and cranny, every sealed room holding its secrets. Then it came back together, reassembling itself.

The door to the Oracle was suddenly right in front of them.

“Whoa.” Leo’s mouth hung open.

“Whoa, indeed. Not even the wards of OotL can stand up to the two of us when we work together.”

“Right? That’s so much better than an elevator.” Leo’s eyes twinkled.

The door before them split in two, the crack opening around one side of the giant, winking eye.

Crispin’s pulse raced. He’d never been to see the Oracle before. Only Bidulla and a few of the higher-ups had O-Level access.

They stepped into the medium-sized chamber, maybe five meters square. The transparent walls showed a forest scene with little half-seen somethings scampering among the branches.

In the middle of the back wall, a huge eye blinked at them, almost a twin to the one in the entry door, but much larger.

“Who calls upon the great and mighty Oracle?” The deep voice shook the room, coming from everywhere and nowhere, all at once.

Crispin frowned. This wasn’t what Juzir had told him to expect.

“It’s the Wizard of Oz.” Leo was grinning like a madman.

“What?” Crispin had never heard of a place called Oz, and certainly not of a wizard who hailed from there.

Leo jabbed a finger at the lump in Crispin’s vest pocket. “Thea. Thea was right. This is the Wizard of Oz.” He stalked forward and punched the eye right in, well, the eye.

“Leo, don’t?—”

But it was too late.

The eye crumpled like a piece of tissue paper, folding back on itself to reveal a series of compartments. And in each one?—

“Squirrels?” Leo stumbled back a step. “Why is it filled with squirrels?”

Minkis chittered, and the forty-odd squirrels that had been hidden behind the eye chittered back.

“That’s what I was trying to tell you.” Crispin still couldn’t quite believe it himself. “The Oracle is squirrels .”