Fable (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale #3)(30)

Mina took the glass Coke bottle from Jared and stared at it in wonder. It was beautiful, a treasure, and it indeed lit up the passageway quite nicely. Walking with it, she could feel soft warmth coming from the bottle, but it never once burned her.

“It’s right up here.” He led them another twenty feet before he came to a dead end.

“There’s nothing there.”

“Aren’t you the observant one,” he replied sarcastically. “I bet you could always find Waldo, too. Now, bring the bottle closer so I can see.”

She complied, and Jared reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small metal box. He selected two odd-shaped objects and inserted them into a miniscule hole in the wall. She could hear a few clicks of metal on metal.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Since I don’t have a key to this fine establishment, I’m picking the lock.”

“But you just used magic on the other lock. Why can’t you do that on this one?”

“Because the other one was a magic lock, and this one isn’t. It’s a regular Schlage five-pin, so stop talking and let me concentrate…or would you rather do the lock picking?” He held the lock picks out to her.

Mina shook her head but asked, “If we are going to these people for help, why don’t we just knock and use the front door?”

Jared’s shoulders hunched in guilt. “Because I never knock. I shouldn’t have to knock.”

“So you just do this for your own enjoyment.”

“Yes, and to see the look on their faces when I get the better of them.” He grinned at Mina, and under the glow of the Coca-Cola-induced light, he looked stunning. So handsome that she almost forgave him for wanting to give up on finding her brother.

“A-ha!” The lock clicked, and he doused the light. Jared reached behind him and grabbed Mina’s hand, and opened the door silently. A soft glow filled the passageway, and they entered a large library. Jared pushed the bookcase door they’d just entered through closed without a click.

There was a fire burning in the fireplace on the far wall, and the lounge chairs looked warm and inviting. One of them was currently occupied.

Mina watched as an arm reached out to take a teacup from a side table and disappeared behind the back of the chair. A few seconds later the cup was replaced, and the shuffle of a newspaper could be heard; the reader had not noticed their intrusion.

Something warned her to not say a word, mostly because Jared had been existentially quiet since they’d entered this room. He got Mina’s attention with a wave of his hand and gestured to the west side of the room with his head. She turned to Jared and poked him in the arm, hard.

He cringed and dropped his shoulders, refusing to look at her. She pinched him harder until he turned around and swatted at her hands.

“We’re breaking into someone’s house?” She mouthed the words dramatically, and then hit him on the top of the head.

He tried to shush her with his hands, and then made a sheepish grin and nodded.

Mina scrunched up her face and raised her hands as if to strangle him, but got herself in check. Why? she motioned with her hands.

“Because you asked for help,” he whispered, while never taking his eyes off the occupant in the chair.

“We are trespassing, and we’re going to get caught, or worse, thrown in jail,” she hissed quietly into his ear.

“Nah.” He moved over to the far end of the room by two double doors next to a table with a large vase.

“Hello, Jared. Nice to see you again. Remember what happened the last time you tried to sneak into here?” The eloquent voice belonged to a woman.

Jared froze and rolled his head back to look at the ceiling, like a teen who’d just been chastised. “Yes,” he grumbled.

Mina jumped at the voice and bumped the table. The vase on it teetered precariously and then toppled over before either one of them could catch it. Mina gasped as it crashed to the floor and shattered. Her head snapped to the occupant in the chair, and she heard a long, drawn-out sigh.

“Jared, Jared, Jared. Whatever am I to do with you? I fear that you will never learn.” The paper was tossed lightly to the side, and the woman stood up to address them both. She was familiar. It was her music teacher, Mrs. Colbert.

“Mrs. Colbert?”

Mrs. Colbert looked perturbed that Jared had brought her here, and she stepped quickly over to the Fae prince and placed her hands on her hips.

“What do you think this is, a public library? You can’t be coming and going here as you please. You do not have permission to be here, and you weren’t supposed to bring her here, either. You, Fae prince, are ruining everything. Just because you did us one good deed does not mean the past is easily forgotten.”

The door opened, and another woman peeked into the library. “Constance, there has been another development.”

Mina was confronted with a woman who looked extremely familiar but at the same time foreign. There were enough similarities to give her doubt. The height, the dark brown eyes, the tone of voice, but she was missing the wrinkles, the gray hair at her temples, and her thick and terrible accent. But it wasn’t until the woman recognized Mina, let out a squeak of fear, and slammed the door that she knew she was right.

A few seconds later the door reopened, and Mrs. Wong stood before her.