My grandfather held out a hand, watched dime-sized flakes float into his palm, melt. “There are things I wouldn’t have thought I’d see in this or any other lifetime. Magical snow is definitely one of them.”
“That went better than I’d have thought,” Ethan said. “Much less blame assigning than I thought she’d do.”
“She’s learning,” my grandfather said. “And I’ll give her credit for that. But it’s hard to say how long it will last.”
“As long as the city stays mostly safe,” Catcher said, pulling out his phone. “If it gets worse, she’ll look for someone to blame.”
“The aide’s willing to hang us now for not having all the answers,” Ethan said.
“Lane is an impatient man,” my grandfather agreed. “But if our office is to be seriously considered the arbiter of magical issues, it’s fair for us to demand we resolve it. That’s chain of authority.”
“It’s politics,” Catcher muttered.
“That, too.” My grandfather glanced around, settling his gaze on a line of brightly colored food trucks lined up in the Daley Center Plaza across the street: Spotted Dogs, which served gourmet hot dogs, Pizzataco, which served a pizza-taco hybrid, and Coriander Creamery, which served supposedly “gourmet” ice cream that mostly involved chopped herbs and flowers that didn’t have any business in hot fudge sundaes or sugar cones. In my humble opinion.
“Is anyone hungry?” he asked.
“I’ve heard the hot dog truck is pretty good,” Catcher said.
“I’m starving,” I said, to absolutely no one’s surprise. “But I don’t have any cash.” I rarely carried anything other than my ID and transit card. I glanced at Ethan. “At the risk of sounding anachronistically wifely, can you pay?”
“I can spare some money for you,” Ethan said. “Probably. How hungry are you, exactly?”
“You’re hilarious,” I said, but held his hand as we dashed between cars to the other side of the street.
We all opted for the hot dog truck, joining the line of people who hadn’t been fazed by the weather. But that didn’t stop them from speculating about it.
“It’s the vampires,” said the man in front of us, his voice thick with Chicago. He talked with his companion, who wore a Blackhawks jersey that matched his own.
“They work black magic in that House of theirs. Drove past it once, saw lights blazing in the middle of the night. I know what they were doing.”
Probably taxes or something equally dull, Ethan silently said. But who are we to argue?
Ethan was becoming increasingly frustrated with willing human prejudices.
“No,” said the woman in front of him, turning around to join the conversation. “It’s the witches. This is witch magic, and I’d put good money on it.” She glanced at his jersey, nodded. “Go, Hawks.”
“Go, Hawks,” the men said. Even if they couldn’t agree on magic, they could agree on hockey.
Perhaps we’d better just plan our meal, Ethan said, gaze narrowing at the dry-erase menu on the side of the truck. What is a “Funyun”?
The child of an onion ring and a pork rind. You wouldn’t like them.
Which means you adore them, he said.
I really do. Which was why I’d settled on the “Garbage Dog.” You should stick to Chicago style, I told Ethan. That’s your favorite.
He glanced at me. A year of knowing me, and you’ve already figured me out? Am I so predictable, Sentinel?
That’s Mrs. Sentinel to you. And yeah, I have a pretty good sense of you. Good enough that I could have penned the Novitiate’s Guide to Ethan Sullivan, if I’d had the time. You enjoy being in charge, fine china, food served on fine china, bespoke suits, twenty-year-old Scotch, and, for reasons I don’t understand, Doctor Who.
He smiled as the line shuffled forward. He’s a Time Lord. I can relate.
I just shook my head. Ethan had enough honorifics, and certainly didn’t need to add “Time Lord” to the list.
When we reached the window, we were greeted by a man with tan skin and dark hair, and broad shoulders beneath his SPOTTED DOGS T-shirt. “What can I get ya?”
“Chicago Dog,” Ethan said.
“And for the lady?”
“Garbage Dog,” I said.
Ethan gave me a sidelong glance. “And?”
“And . . . fries. And onion rings, too, if we’re already throwing stuff in a fry basket.”
The man winked. “I like a woman with an appetite.”
Probably not my particular appetite, given last night’s activities, but whatever. “And a drink.”
“I recommend the chocolate shakes. We make the best in town.”
My gaze narrowed, and Ethan just chuckled, pulled bills from his pocket, and offered them to the vendor. “You may have started a conversation you don’t have time to finish.”
“How chocolate is chocolate?” I asked.
But the man was prepared, and his expression was utterly serious. “Our chocolate base includes a syrup made from small-batch beans from a roaster in California, flakes of eighty-five percent dark, and cocoa powder from France.”
“Your terms are acceptable,” I said with equal gravity.
Shaking his head but resigned to his fate, Ethan peeled off another bill, passed it through the window.
“You two are cute together,” the vendor said, passing a foam cup through the window. “You should get married.”
Ethan held up his hand, light glinting off his engraved band. “Already done.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
RATIONS
We took our dogs to the nearby picnic table beneath a wide umbrella that had probably been for shade against the sun but worked pretty well for snow, too.
The spread of food was nearly embarrassing in both breading and quantity. But odds were good last night’s battle wasn’t the only one we’d face in the coming nights, and I wasn’t going in unprepared.
Unfortunately, the plastic fork was hardly up to the challenge of a hot dog amalgamation that included mac ’n’ cheese, hot sauce, and fried pickles. I managed a bite, chewed, considered. And frowned.
“You look unimpressed,” Catcher said, squirting ketchup into a careful circle on a napkin.
“I’m mostly confused.” I popped a fried pickle, nearly winced with the wonderfully vicious acidity. “And still evaluating. I’m going to have to work through my feelings.”
Ethan just shook his head, amusement in his face. “My intrepid Sentinel, beaten by a Garbage Dog.”
Snorting, Catcher wiped his hands to pull his phone from his pocket. He scanned the screen. “Well. That’s interesting.”
“What?” my grandfather asked, wiping mustard from his cheek.
“The first two humans Jeff checked out were near Towerline the night Sorcha tried to initiate her alchemical web.”
“How near?” Ethan asked.
Catcher swiped the screen. “One was an electrical sub doing some after-hours work when the magic spilled. The other lived across the street, was on the roof watching the action. Neither evacuated.”
I nodded. “So at least some of the people who hear the screaming were near Towerline when the magic went down.”
“The delusions started before the snow,” Catcher said. “And the wards didn’t sound until the snow started. Therefore, Sorcha isn’t causing the delusions, at least not by any active, ongoing magic.”
I looked at Catcher. “Could it be some kind of latent effect from her alchemy?”
“We unwound her magic,” Catcher said. “It doesn’t make sense that any magic was left, latent or otherwise. On the other hand, while it could be someone other than Sorcha, given the connection to Towerline, that’s highly improbable. ‘Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.’”
“Sherlock Holmes,” my grandfather said approvingly. “The one which remains, in this case, is her alchemy and its lingering effects.”
Which meant the delusions, one way or the other, were Sorcha’s fault.