Oceans & Potions Read online

  I found it at the very end of the row, then took a deep breath and straightened the collar of my blouse before tapping lightly on the door, praying that he would still be inside. There was no response, so I tapped again, this time more boldly.

  A regal voice with a muddled accent called out, “It’s about time,” before the door swung open and I found myself facing an enormous pink-skinned torso wrapped in a loosely tied purple velvet robe that dangled open precariously on both sides.

  The yeti I presumed to be Emeril bent down, shoving his face inches from mine, and peered down at the notebook in my hands with a snort of impatience. “If you aren’t the witch with my caviar order, then you’re not welcome,” he said primly, adjusting his robe so that—mercifully—less of his bare skin was exposed. “I gave explicit orders to the staff that no one else be permitted entrance to my dressing room, and it seems that they are unable to follow even the most basic of requests.”

  “I do have the caviar,” I said, patting my purse while he continued staring down at me suspiciously. “It’s just hidden so that the other models don’t get jealous.”

  I had a feeling that would appeal to his ego, and I mentally patted myself on the back for the uncharacteristic stroke of genius; if I didn’t tell a harmless little lie, I knew there was no way I was getting into that room. And how could I return to the office—and Sandrine—empty-handed?

  He looked me up and down again, his nose wrinkling ever so slightly—but just enough for me to feel self-conscious—before opening his door wider and stepping back, allowing me access to his dressing room. It was, in a word, opulent. The entire space was draped in rich purple velvet, and an enormous black velvet couch stretched from one side of the wall to the other. A stunning black marble coffee table was piled high with half-eaten fruit baskets, several vases of exotic flowers, and a stack of autographed photos of Emeril so high it wobbled as I walked past.

  A wardrobe at the far corner of the room was open, and out of it spilled an array of magnificent clothes in every color imaginable, along with a massive pair of gold fairy wings speckled with purple stars. “For my grand finale,” Emeril sniffed, nudging the wings back inside the wardrobe and closing it firmly. He gazed down at me. “The caviar?”

  “Oh, right.” I made a great show of checking my purse, digging around and muttering to myself, before I looked back up at him with a pained expression. “I must have forgotten it.”

  A low, rumbling growl emitted from the back of his throat, causing the hairs on my neck to stand to attention. I was just beginning to inch away from him when someone rapped sharply on the door and called out, “Emeril, you’re needed in the lineup in five minutes,” reminding me of the task at hand. I needed that interview, and I needed it now.

  “So you decided to walk in the show after all?” I asked conversationally, deciding it was best not to let on quite yet that I was a reporter. When he narrowed his aquamarine eyes dangerously at me, I stammered out, “I-I just heard the rumors, that’s all. Your fans will be thrilled to see you on the runway.”

  His expression softened, and he draped himself theatrically onto the couch, spreading his robe out around his bare pink thighs, which were the size of my entire body. “My fans are the only thing keeping me going these days,” he said, gesturing grandly toward the pile of autographed photos. “If it weren’t for them, I would never be able to get out of bed in the mornings, not since I was so utterly and completely deceived by the man who once called himself my friend.” He sniffed delicately and pressed the back of his massive paw to his forehead.

  “Do you mean Preston?” I asked, knowing full well this would probably be my only shot at finding out the real story behind their feud. I arranged my features into a sympathetic expression, which he acknowledged with a long-suffering nod.

  “The very same.” Then, without warning, he launched himself off the couch in my direction, and I scurried backward in alarm as he grabbed me by the shoulders and gave me a shake hard enough to rattle my bones.

  “Do you know what that thief did?” he roared, and I swung my head from side to side as fast as I could, eyes bulging, breath coming out in short, sharp bursts. Did yetis eat people? I had no idea, and I really didn’t want to find out.

  Emeril closed his eyes and took three deep breaths, steadying himself. Then, as if realizing what he was doing, he released my shoulders and smoothed out the wrinkles on my blouse where his paws had gripped me. “I have been a model for many years,” he said, more softly this time, his face crumpling as he stumbled back over to the couch and dropped onto it with a heavy sigh. “But I’m getting older now, and my time on the runway is coming to an end.”

  He picked delicately at a loose string on the hem of his robe and shrugged. “It happens to everyone, but I’m not quite ready to give up my life in the limelight. It has been far too… lucrative… for me.” He gestured around the room, indicating the grand décor.

  “So I decided that I would try my hand as a designer, and found that I was quite good at it and enjoyed it immensely. I brought my sketches to Preston to get his take on the designs, and he told me they were no good. Given his status in the fashion world, I had no reason not to believe him.”

  The corners of his gray lips curled into a sneer. “And then, when his spring and summer lines came out, I realized that the snake had stolen my designs for his new collection.”

  He pounded his fist into his palm so hard I swear I heard bones cracking, but Emeril didn’t seem to notice. “The designs were so well received that they launched his career to new heights, but when I confronted him, he refused to admit any wrongdoing. He swears up and down that they were entirely his own inspiration, and he even had the nerve to ask me to model them today.”

  His eyes flashed with anger before taking on a look of defeat. “Of course, I told him he could stuff his request where the wand doesn’t shine, but that won’t stop him from earning the praise and admiration of the entire magical community today when my designs make their debut under his label. And since I no longer have any proof that they were mine first, there’s nothing I can do but watch from the sidelines.” His shoulders drooped.

  “Don’t you have the sketches anymore?” I asked, taking a tentative step forward, debating whether I should place a comforting hand on his shoulder. “That would prove you came up with the designs first, wouldn’t it?” My fingers itched to write our conversation down in my notebook, but I knew the moment Emeril suspected I was a reporter, he would stop talking. It was crucial that I commit every word to memory.

  “I do not,” Emeril growled, and I took a hasty step back again. “He told me he would make notes on them and send them back to me so I could see where I could improve.” He dropped his head into his hands. “I never should have let them out of my sight. Now—”

  Another sharp rap on the door interrupted his next words. “Emeril, you’re wanted on stage left,” a voice called through the dressing room door before it opened a few inches and a girl of about twenty with violet hair and matching violet eyes rimmed with shimmering gold liner poked her head in.

  She frowned at me, then locked eyes with Emeril, who by now had stood up from the couch and assumed his earlier regal air, all traces of misery erased from his expression. He bowed his head once at me and then followed the girl, his wide hips sashaying slightly as he made his way out the door, ducking slightly to avoid hitting his head on the doorframe.

  I grabbed one of the autographed photos from the table and followed him at a distance, watching his huge form weave deftly through the throngs of people scurrying this way and that, and I was just casting my eyes around for someone I could identify as Preston when I ran so hard into something very solid that stars burst in front of my eyes.

  Feeling slightly dazed, I glanced up—and found myself staring into a familiar pair of deep brown eyes that sent my heart skittering around in my chest. “Hi,” I said breathlessly, my gaze taking in the man’s bronze skin, square jawline, and the ragged scar
across his cheek that warned me he could be—deliciously—dangerous. His black robes strained against the muscles in his arms, and I had to ball my hands into fists to stop myself from reaching out and stroking one of them.

  The man in black stared down at me in surprise, the corners of his eyes wrinkling in concern. “You can see me?” he asked in a hushed whisper.

  He glanced around to make sure no one else was watching, but we seemed to be entirely lost within the hubbub of the models, assistants, and designers racing around, calling out last-minute directions. He grabbed my hand—I tried to ignore the jolt of electricity his touch sent racing through my skin—and led me to a shadowed corner of the room, where we could have a proper make-out session…

  Stop it, Wren, I thought, my cheeks blazing with heat as I tried to look every which way but into his eyes, fearing what he would see reflected back at him. Even though I had no idea who this man was, or why he seemed to be everywhere I went, I couldn’t deny the burst of red-hot attraction I felt toward him every time I was in his presence.

  But if he felt the same, he was doing a pretty darn good job of hiding it, because when he looked at me, I only saw confusion in his gaze. “How can you see me?” he muttered, almost to himself, then glanced down at his robes with a frown. “It’s not supposed to work that way.”

  “What’s not supposed to work that way?” I asked, my voice tight with impatience.

  He squinted down at me, as though barely registering my presence, and I was just about to jab my finger into his chest and demand he reveal his true identity to me when someone poked me hard in the back of my knee. I whipped around to find Merry staring up at me, Sweetpea slung over his shoulder, his bushy black eyebrows raised in alarm.

  He peered around my knee, frowning. “Who are you talking to?” he asked, looking straight at the man in black. He scratched his head. “I didn’t take you for a nutter, but you never can tell, can you?” He stroked Sweetpea lovingly.

  I frowned back at him and jabbed my thumb in the man in black’s direction. “I’m talking to—” But the words died in my throat when I saw him shaking his head frantically at me. I cleared my throat and shuffled my feet awkwardly while Merry continued watching me as though I’d lost my marbles.

  “I’m just, uh, talking to myself,” I said with a nervous laugh, turning my back on the man in black. “I like to work out what I’m going to write in my column in my head before putting it on paper.” The excuse sounded ridiculous to me, but Merry must not have noticed, because he hitched Sweetpea higher on his shoulder and tugged at my wrist.

  “While you’re back here blabbering to yourself about nothing,” he said, “the show’s about to start. Come on!” He started pulling me away, and I followed reluctantly, forcing myself not to look back.

  Right before we reached the doors leading to the front of the stage, I felt something graze my fingertips and I glanced back to find the man in black following close behind me. He pressed his finger to his lips in a shushing motion and slipped a piece of paper into my hand, then took a step away from me before melting back into the shadows.

  After Merry led us to our seats and we settled into them, I waited until he was distracted with shoving a new role of film into Sweetpea before I chanced a glance at the paper tucked snugly into my palm. Tomorrow, it read. 9:00 p.m. The Feisty Frog.

  I raised my head and cast my eyes around the room, looking for any sign of the man in black, but saw nothing over the crowds of ticketholders squirming excitedly in their seats, snapping photos of the stage, or purchasing souvenirs from the vendors lining the perimeter of the room. Before I could ponder the note any further, the miniature fairies hovering in the air dimmed their silver balls of light in unison, and a quartet of skeletons wearing tuxedos and holding string instruments tucked under their skinless chins struck up a haunting tune.

  The show was about to begin.

  Chapter 5

  An anticipatory hush fell over the crowd as a path of silver lights illuminated the center of the stage and trailed down the runway before the first model, a yeti woman with cascades of curly white hair that reached down to her thick waist, sashayed onto the stage and struck a pose. As the music swelled, she began to stomp down the runway, the sequined teal ballgown she wore billowing behind her like ocean waves.

  A few members of the crowd screamed in delight as she stopped at the end of the runway and swung her hips from side to side so hard I feared she would fall over, and she winked flirtatiously at Merry’s camera—he was snapping photo after furious photo—before prancing toward the back of the stage.

  A stream of yeti men and women donning eveningwear paraded out behind her, and I was so entranced by the luxurious dresses and dapper tuxedos—including a memorable neon-yellow one Glenn would have just died to get his hands on—that I completely forgot that I never got the chance to interview Preston until his name was suddenly illuminated across the front of the ice castle that formed the backdrop to the stage.

  As the crowd clapped furiously, an emcee stepped onto the center of the stage, raised a wand to his lips, and muttered a spell. Then, with the wand still held to his lips, he boomed out, in a voice magnified as if he’d been standing in front of a microphone, “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this year’s Snow Bunny Fashion Show! The moment you’ve been waiting for has finally arrived.” He paused dramatically. “Without further ado, I give you the designs of… Preston Parker!”

  The crowd’s screams swelled so loud that I clapped my hands over my ears, but my attention was quickly diverted to the onstage action. A male and female yeti clopped out from opposite sides of the stage and met in the middle, batting their eyelashes at each other theatrically before facing forward, sucking in their cheeks, and narrowing their eyes as they stomped down the runway. They were each wearing a set of shaggy faux furs that changed color with each step they took, flashing from pale pink to turquoise to slate gray and back again.

  As they turned and sashayed toward the back of the stage, another pair of yetis appeared in the center, this time wearing furs that represented the colors of the night sky: sun-streaked pink giving way to dusky purple, which morphed into a deep blue with golden stars so beautiful it almost took my breath away. The crowd oohed and aahed as the yetis made their way down the runway, twirling once they reached the end to show off the furs’ full effects.

  The rest of the collection continued in much the same way, each piece more beautiful than the last, until the music swelled once more and all the models took to the stage to display the designs one final time. When they finished, they formed a semicircle and began clapping as a small, mousy man stepped onto the stage and began blowing kisses at the crowd, whose screams had reached levels of ear-splitting ecstasy.

  Merry stood on his chair to get a better view as the man I presumed to be Preston was presented with an enormous bouquet of melon-colored roses, which he accepted with a gracious bow. Before leaving the stage, he raised his hand in a royal wave, then plucked one perfect rose from the bunch and tossed it into the crowd, where two fairies immediately began tearing at each other’s hair in their bid to claim it.

  “That was something,” I shouted to Merry above the cheering and clapping as the models stomped back down the stage and disappeared behind the ice castle. “Are Preston’s designs always this spectacular?”

  Before he could respond, a commotion rose up from behind the stage, and Preston ran into view again, tripping over the long white furs he was wearing and falling flat on his face in the middle of the runway. The crowd gasped as the emcee, his face furrowed in concern, began making his way over to the fallen designer before falling back in terror as an enormous yeti wearing purple robes barreled out from behind Preston. He tipped back his head in an auditorium-shaking roar and grabbed the designer around his throat before shaking him like a Magic 8-Ball.

  “It’s Emeril!” I gasped to no one in particular as Merry jumped back onto his chair and began feverishly snapping photos.

  �
��You stole my designs!” Emeril roared, swinging the designer around the stage while a trio of security guards dodged the yeti’s flailing arms, trying to get close enough to rescue the petrified designer. One of the men raised his wand and sent a stream of mustard-colored smoke squarely into Emeril’s face, and he gave another roar as he dropped Preston to the stage and began pawing furiously at his eyes.

  A putrid sulfur smell floated over the crowd, and everywhere I looked the show’s attendees were dropping like flies as the gas overtook them. I pinched my nose shut and swallowed down the bile rising up my throat. Merry, seemingly unaffected by the stench, danced around in front of me with a look of manic glee as he continued capturing as much of the chaos as he could.

  “If this doesn’t win me best photo at the IAMB Small Creature Division’s annual convention, I don’t know what will!” he practically howled with excitement.

  As the security guards forced a still-raging Emeril off the stage, the emcee stepped forward, raised his wand over the crowd, and bellowed “Finito!” over and over again until all of the gas had cleared from the room and those who had dropped to the ground began to revive. Within a surprisingly short period of time, order was restored, and after much hurried conversation between the emcee and the security guards, the emcee announced that the show would go on as planned, much to the crowd’s wild enthusiasm.

  Several more designers were showcased—though none of their creations were as spectacular as Preston’s—before the models made their way down the runway one last time for the grand finale, bowing, curtsying, and blowing kisses to the crowd. As the yetis traipsed off the stage, the floating fairies extinguished their lights, bathing the room in darkness so thick I could no longer see Merry sitting beside me.

  “What’s going on?” I whispered to him as the skeleton band stopped playing and a hush settled over the waiting crowd. I could feel the gnome shrugging as the emcee’s voice floated through the auditorium once more.