Page 16 of Hunted

“Excellent!” she beamed, and she shot to her feet. “Okay, first thing’s first, we have to conceal your antlers and your ears. If you’ll allow me?”

Evie reached out to Valerian but stopped short of touching him. He glanced at her hand, then looked up at her. He nodded. With a quick breath which she then held in her lungs, she placed her hand on Valerian’s antlers. I watched, dumbfounded, as his antlers began to disintegrate as if they were becoming mist.

Valerian didn’t really seem to know what was going on because he hadn’t said anything and he didn’t seem to be in any pain, or discomfort. Once his antlers were gone, Evie’s magic moved to his ears, which shortened and became round at their ends, like hers. What followed was a curtain of misty magic that started to fall from Valerian’s shoulders, all the way down to the ground.

Light and glittering dust swirled and shifted, this time making Valerian’s eyes widen. It was a quick display of power, but it was mesmerizing, and beautiful. I watched the magic encircle him, then rapidly break away from him, leaving him looking like a normal human male with white hair.

He was also wearing clothes.

His robe was gone, replaced by what looked like a plain, black shirt and a pair of deep grey pants—my mother would have called them jeans. Valerian scanned his new attire, patted himself down, then looked up at Evie.

“It feels… real,” he said.

“It is real,” she beamed, “But I won’t be able to hold the magic for long—especially since I’ll need to do the same to Amara.”

“I could go out wearing this,” I said.

“Don’t be silly. Those are your mother’s old jim-jams. Don’t worry, the magic will hold until we get to the shop I have in mind.”

“If you’re sure…”

Evie circled around the table and let her hand hover above my head. “Ready?” she asked.

I looked up at her. “Ready as I’ll ever be,” I said.

Of course, I wasn’t just talking about the clothes or the magic, but the idea of stepping out of this house and exploring London. Especially considering Valerian was with us. I could only hope I could keep him at arm’s length and avoid any awkward encounters.

CHAPTERSIX

Wearing glamored clothes wasn’t the strangest thing I was going to do today, and that was wild to think about. Evie was taking us into London, past the safety of the Magic Box’s four walls, and out into the wider world that Earthlings called home.

Though I looked like one of them, and I was partly human, I didn’t feel like one of them. This world was noisy, and manic, and it did smell kind of funny. My mother had told me aboutcars, and how they were used for transporting people and goods, but I had never seen one in my adult life, much less inhaled the smoke they produced.

It was hard to deal with, considering I came from a world that knew nothing of these scents, or this noise. The people who went rushing past also seemed to be carrying these small, shiny screens in their hands. Everyone seemed to have one, some of them looked glued to these little bricks, although why exactly, I didn’t know.

On the plus side, it meant Valerian and I went even more unnoticed. We were able to slink past the multitudes of humans without drawing much attention at all. This allowed us a moment to get used to the push and pull of pedestrians, to the noise, and to figure out where in the world we were going.

Evie, luckily, seemed to know exactly where to take us.

“The shop is… underground?” I asked.

“No, silly,” Evie said. She handed each of us a small, blue card. “We are going to use the Underground to get to where we need to go. Here, you’ll need these.”

“What are these?”

Evie smiled a soft, warm smile. It was the kind of smile a parent might give a child the first time that child tries to figure out what blocks they can and can’t fit in their mouths. “You really don’t know anything about this world, do you?”

“Only what mother told me. Thinking about it, she has mentioned the Underground before… that’s atrain, isn’t it?”

“You already know more than I do,” said Valerian, who was carefully examining the card he had been given.

“It’s a train that goes underground,” Evie said, as she led us down some stairs. “It’ll take us anywhere we want to go in all of London! Trust me, you’ll like it.”

There were more people underground than there were on the surface, only down here, they pressed against each other way more tightly. I followed Evie as she led us into what looked like some kind of hub of activity. I watched her tap her blue card against a machine, which bleeped, and opened a small set of transparent doors that were in front of her.

Evie stepped through, then turned around, and gestured for us to do the same.

“You go first,” I said to Valerian.