The Inner Circle, Book 3 of the Glass Wall ( A YA Urban Fantasy Romance ) (9 page)

I felt safer inside, especially in Samantha’s
company.

She didn’t say anything as I dragged Jareth
through the maze of boxes towards the front. She was too busy
dialing up Animal Control.

“That mutated armadillo-raccoon thing is here
again,” I heard her complain sharply as I guided Jareth through the
door and into the front of the shop.

“Sit down,” I ordered him, pushing him into
one of the overly-stuffed chairs.

He didn’t resist. He slumped down obediently,
but he did take the time to deliberately prop his boot onto one of
Samantha’s precious coffee tables. But the gesture seemed somehow
forced.

He was clearly shaken.

I got him a blueberry muffin, and having a
few minutes before my shift started, I sat down opposite him. I
didn’t know how to make small talk in a situation like this, so I
didn’t even bother trying.

“What did he mean about you seeing tulpas?” I
asked quietly.

Jareth dropped his head into his hands. “I
see them,” he admitted. “I always have. It took me awhile to
realize that no one else could.”

I found that disturbing. “Is that how you
read my mind?” I asked.

“I don’t read your mind!” He scowled at me
and then knit his brows together in a line. “For you, it’s written
plain on your face, anyway.”

I returned his scowl.

“I do see the emotions you are creating,” he
explained, relenting a little after that. “And it isn’t hard to
figure out why you’re generating them. I can’t read your mind, but
the tulpas you create give big hints.”

So he
had
kind of been reading my mind
this entire time. I wondered if he could read Rafael’s.

He snorted and rolled his eyes. “And I can
tell from the new tulpa you’re creating right now that you’re
thinking of Rafael, so you must be wondering if I can see his
thoughts, too.”

I blinked, chagrined.

“The Fae can’t create tulpas,” he said
shortly. “They can’t dream.”

They. The word stuck out like a sore thumb
between us. The way he’d said it was as if he didn’t really
consider himself one of them. Did that mean that he felt he might
be part of the Brotherhood?

He’d clearly seen the tulpa that thought had
created, because he suddenly sat up and slammed his fist down hard
on the coffee table.

The plate rattled and everyone in the shop
looked our way.

Smiling woodenly, I sent them a cheery wave,
and when they’d returned to their own business, I shifted my gaze
back to Jareth.

He was watching me coldly. “We’ve established
by now that there’s something wrong with me, have we not?” he asked
sarcastically. And then he dropped his voice, “Maybe … just maybe I
am
one of them.”

“Impossible!” I disagreed vehemently even as
I tried to prevent myself from thinking of the lizard scales that
I’d seen on his skin.

He cast me a churlish glance. “Exactly,” was
all he said.

And then a new thought popped into my head.
“So, that’s how I, merely thinking of numbers, can summon you. You
can sense the tulpa that my thoughts generate?”

“I’m not one of them, Sydney,” he said,
ignoring my question. “I don’t belong to the Brotherhood.”

“Of course you don’t,” I agreed, but I wasn’t
super confident.

He seemed desperate to believe it. I couldn’t
blame him. Yet, everything was getting so mixed up.

I was downright relieved that my shift was
starting, and telling him that I’d catch up later, I left.

I don’t think he even noticed.

Samantha put me to work steaming milk for the
baristas. I actually didn’t mind, because from that position, I
could still keep an eye on Jareth.

I was worried about him.

He had wadded a bunch of napkins into a
single ball and had absently begun to toss it against the wall and
then to catch it again with one hand.

“Keep an eye on that one, will you, Sydney?”
Samantha asked curtly as she swept by with her arms full of her
pastry-order books. Groaning, she sat down, looked at the pile, and
murmured, “I’m going to have to expand at this rate.”

Jareth didn’t do much. He just sat there, as
if lost in thought.

A little bit later, a rail-thin woman with
penciled eyebrows arrived with a squirming toddler in tow. After
collecting her latte, she took the seat behind Jareth’s and began
chatting loudly on her phone about her latest diet.

The toddler wandered off.

Samantha raised a brow as the little boy
zeroed in on the Christmas tree and began pulling off the ornaments
one by one. With a tightening of her lips, she asked me for a plate
of cookies. And then, armed with sugar, she corralled the little
boy and escorted him back to his mother—who hadn’t even noticed
he’d left.

The cookie solution didn’t last long.

As soon as Samantha sat down, the little boy
got tired of eating them and began lobbing the cookies at various
customers.

His mother continued chatting on her phone,
making several loud, snarky comments about how much weight one of
her other “friends” had gained.

One of the cookie pieces zinged past Jareth’s
ear.

It shook Jareth from his stupor. Expelling a
long, dramatic breath, he turned to glare at the little boy.

The toddler paused and stared back at Jareth
with his finger up his nose. And then he grabbed another cookie and
hurled it straight at the rock star’s face.

Jareth’s reflexes were amazing. With two
fingers, he caught the cookie in midair and flung it back like a
Frisbee onto the plate. He then reached over and plucked the phone
out of the woman’s hand.

Snapping it shut, he said in a voice riddled
with annoyance, “Control your offspring!”

Samantha frowned.

The woman’s mouth dropped open.

And then the toddler picked up the cookie
plate and with a loud squall, dashed it onto the floor before
zipping off to the Christmas tree once more.

“That thing isn’t human.” Jareth’s voice
carried through the entire shop. “It’s clearly a demon, zipped into
a baby suit.”

We were all thinking it.

I saw more than one customer grin.

The mother’s breath came in one huge, sucking
gasp.

And then Samantha turned the full force of
her shrewd eyes on me. She waved at the situation and silently
ordered me to handle it.

“I beg your
pardon
?” the mother’s
voice rose in a shrill crescendo.

Dropping everything, I hurried toward the
out-of-control toddler. After all, he would be much easier to deal
with than a cranky Samantha. Being on the receiving end of her
displeasure was worse than being roasted alive.

Reaching him, I held out my hand. “Why don’t
you come back over here to your mom,” I offered with a bright
smile.

He responded by kicking me in the shin.

I glared down at him. Maybe he really
was
a demon. Picking the squirming kid up under the
shoulders, I lugged him towards his mother as she sputtered at
Jareth.

“And just who do you think you are?” she was
asking him. Without giving him a chance to respond, she turned and
yelled at me. “What kind of place
is
this?”

I gaped at her audacity but then took control
of the situation. “Would you like me to help you move to a
different table, somewhere nicer?” I offered.

She stood up with a huff. “My latte’s cold
now,” she complained, waving at the cup she’d been ignoring while
chatting on the phone.

“I’ll get you a nice, fresh one,” I
volunteered with a smile as a plan formulated in my head. “Just
come this way.”

Sending Jareth a dark glare, the woman
followed me across the shop.

I chose the empty table next to Samantha.

After all, if the rest of us were afraid of
her, the toddler probably would be, too.

It worked like a charm.

The instant the little boy took one step away
from his mother, Samantha looked up at him from her pastry orders,
and he stopped dead in his tracks. This repeated several times
before he resorted to hanging onto his mother’s leg and staring up
at Samantha with a finger jammed up his nose.

The situation had stabilized, so I decided to
return to the pastry counter.

With a loud yawn, Jareth stretched and
getting up, joined me to lean against the glass in a creak of
leather. “Well done, Sydney,” he said.

I scowled at him. “You’re hardly any better
than that kid,” I warned testily. “Go sit down before I put you
next to Samantha, too.”

He drew back at that and gave a hiss.

The baristas smothered giggles.

“More Jareth antics?” Samantha questioned
from her table. She must have heard the exchange, but I could tell
she wasn’t too displeased.

“Go sit down,” I ordered Jareth again.

He returned to his seat.

I watched him, concerned. Underneath it all,
I could tell that he wasn’t his usual smug cocky self. When no one
was looking, he appeared downright miserable. And I could
understand why, but I didn’t really know how to help him.

And I wasn’t the only one who had noticed his
depression.

With a keen eye of appraisal and a slight
reproving smile, Samantha watched him for a time, tapping her
pencil on the table. And then at his third heaving sigh, she took
that as her cue, and putting on a professional smile, clapped her
pastry book shut and walked over to him.

“Dragon,” he greeted her with a mocking lift
of the brow

“You’re such a charmer, Jareth,” she observed
in reply and then asked in her no-nonsense voice, “And why the long
face today?”

“You should leave, dragon,” he said darkly.
“I’m not in a good mood.”

Samantha took that as an invitation. Sitting
opposite him, she crossed her legs and laced her fingers around her
knee. “Everyone has a time of trial,” she said.

“A time?” Jareth rolled his eyes. “I see only
trial upon trial.”

His tone was so genuine that even Samantha
took note, and for a brief moment, a flash of sympathy crossed her
angular face. But only for a moment.

“Pish!” She clucked, shaking her head. “It
can’t be that hopeless. Keep on moving, that’s my motto. Look up
from any hole you’ve fallen into and pick a star in the dark sky
above. As long as you keep climbing one foot and then another,
you’ll soon find yourself out.”

“And then you’ll just fall into another
hole,” Jareth responded acidly. “And then again. Failures are
assured.”

Samantha huffed. “Failures?” she seized the
word. “Then I’d say don’t judge yourself by failures but by how
quickly you get up to try again. Your story isn’t over yet, Jareth.
You’re too young to have failed. You’re a talented kid.”

“Yes, you have to be born with talent like
mine,” he replied sarcastically.

I knew that he was referring to his possible
lizard DNA. And while everyone else probably thought he was being
arrogant, Samantha apparently sensed his despondency, too.

Moving to the pastry case, she put a fresh
blueberry muffin onto a plate and returned to him. “When all else
fails, a good muffin usually helps,” she said. “Here, eat one of
these, you’re always dying for one.”

Jareth stared at it.

We all held our breath, wondering what
Samantha would do if he insulted her.

But I guess even Jareth knew better than to
do that. Taking the plate, he replied, “I wouldn’t die for it … but
it
might
be worth fainting for.”

Samantha smiled. A real honest-to-goodness
smile that actually revealed her perfect teeth.

Even Jareth was surprised. He almost dropped
the plate.

“You, of all people walking this Earth,
should know that life is all about attitude,” she said, giving him
a crisp pat on the head. “Dream your dream and make it happen. No
one can stop you.”

With that she left him and returned to her
table, but not before stopping to whisper in my ear, “Keep an eye
on that one, Sydney. You’re so good at managing our most
troublesome customers.”

She graced me with a hard-won nod of
approval, and then collecting her pastry books, disappeared into
the back.

The day past uneventfully after that. Jareth
came and went. I spent most of my thoughts worrying about him.

As my shift ended, Jareth suddenly appeared
again and offered me a ride home.

To my relief, there wasn’t a Mesmer in sight
outside the coffee shop.

Jareth was silent all the way home, and my
attempt to talk of my plans went rebuffed.

After dropping me off, he zipped the car
around and backed into Rafael’s garage so fast that I thought he’d
go right through it, but he stopped just in time. Barely.

Everyone was in the kitchen when I came
through the front door just in time to hear Betty say, “No dear,
I’m not turning the house into a giant chicken coop.”

I hesitated. I knew he was talking about a
Faraday cage. And I really wanted Al’s help. I had to protect them
all somehow. Fortunately, circumstances saved me from having to
weigh in.

“Oh my!” Betty threw her hands up in the air
as she caught a whiff of smoke. “I’ve burnt the meatballs!”

She hurried to the stove and pushed the pan
onto a different burner. We looked over her shoulder at the singed
meat.

“Don’t worry, Mom,” Grace inserted with a
grin. “Tigger’ll eat them.”

“I couldn’t do that, honey.” Betty’s eyes
softened at the mention of the old hound dog. “He’s done so well on
his new diet. I think he’s lost a pound.”

Grace and I exchanged disbelieving glances,
but Betty caught us and gave us the job of scraping the meatballs
as punishment. We managed to save most of the insides. The outer
bits were so burnt that even Tigger didn’t recognize them as
food.

And as we took our seats at the table, Grace
asked, “So, what’s up with Jareth? Is he your boyfriend now?”