I nodded. “I’ve been Seeking since I was five, but always for fun. I wasn’t told of the crystals or anything until my mother’s death recently.”
“Oh.” Liam sat further back into his chair and winced. His wing. We needed to get back to Faerie, which meant we either needed another blue door or we’d have to drive all the way to Los Angeles, where the Enchanted Shell portal was. Back in Faerie, when you touched the shell, it brought you to a garden in Los Angeles. Then, when you wanted to go back to Faerie, you touched another shell in the LA garden. That was an option, but I’d rather get to Mara and make sure she was okay—only I didn’t know where I could find another blue door or if she would even be there waiting.
The map.
I’d forgotten about the map.
Pulling off my messenger bag, I dropped it in Liam’s lap. “There’s a map of all the blue doors in the U.S. Can you find us one near here?”
He nodded and dug through the bag. When he took out my mom’s journal and opened it, I sucked in a breath. “Not that.”
He frowned. “What is this?”
My heart beat loudly in my ears. “It’s…my mom’s journal, why?”
He side-glanced me. “Because it feels heavy with dark magic.”
What? My mom would never have used dark magic. “What do you mean?”
He lifted the journal to his nose and inhaled. “Blood magic. Are the pages supposed to be blank?”
Blood magic? I shook my head, but he nodded.
“The blood magic is what holds the illusion for so long. I could help you break it.”
Break the illusion? I wanted that more than anything, but my mom had said never to use blood magic. It was evil.
I looked at Elle’s reflection in the rearview mirror, and she looked slightly horrified.
“Maybe later.” I picked up the map, which had tumbled onto his lap with the rest of the bag’s contents, and handed it to him. “Here it is.”
Liam nodded, slipping my mother’s journal back into the messenger bag and opening the map. “Holy shit.” He whistled low through his teeth. “There’s hundreds.”
I trusted him fully now, and there was no going back. “Any near Spokane?” It looked like we were only about twenty minutes from there now.
He nodded. “Yep. I’ll direct you.”
Over the next little bit, he gave me directions on how to reach an outdoor shopping mall.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
He nodded. “Groovy Threads. It says the dressing room is the blue door.”
Oh, great, that wasn’t going to be awkward at all.
Cam had shifted during our drive, and I was surprised to find he wore clothing. He noticed me staring and winked. “Illusion.”
“Gross.” Elle rolled her eyes, but I could tell there was some major sexual tension between them.
The parking lot of the mall was busy, so I pulled around the back, where the deliveries came in. We got out of the VW so I could break it down without any normies seeing. Once it was back to its pen shape, we walked around the side of the building, passing unaware crowds. Liam clutched the tip of his wing, trying to keep it from bleeding onto the concrete.
We reached the front of the Groovy Threads shop and entered. A waft of incense and reggae music assaulted my senses.
A blonde chick behind the desk looked up from her phone. “Hello, friends!”
“Hey…” My gaze went to the two dressing rooms behind her. One was a pink door, the other blue. I reached out blindly and grabbed a pair of jeans. “Can I try these on?”
She nodded. “Just pick a room, and don’t forget to hang it back up when you’re done.”
Elle grabbed two shirts. “I’ll try these on, too. Super cute.” She winked at the blonde.
We moved to the dressing room area, which was basically open to the entire store, and I stood in front of the blue door.
Yep. Right there on the handle was a crystal imbedded into the lock. This was it. It had been well over the forty-five-minute meetup time with Mara, so she would have discovered that we weren’t there by now. Hopefully, she would start checking doors in the surrounding area.
Taking in a deep breath, I turned the handle and yanked open the door.
Bashur shot out from the hallway and leapt onto me, standing on his hind legs and putting his paws on my shoulders so he could lick my face.
“Shhh!” I pushed him back into the hallway as the others filed in behind me. I ripped the two shirts from Elle and balled them up with the jeans I had grabbed. Spinning around, I chucked them out into the store so that we wouldn’t be stealing them.
The blonde chick was staring open mouthed at us as we stood in Mara’s hallway with a huge dog. “This is a dream,” I told her, panicked, and shut the door quickly.
“Lily!” Mara shrieked, and the sound of footsteps slammed down the hall. When she saw me, she sagged in relief against the kitchen counter. “I was so worried. I was about to jump to another location and—never mind, you’re here.”
I went to her and let her pull me in for a tight hug. “There’s a normie outside this door…she saw.”
Mara frowned. “Right. We should get back to Faerie.” Her gaze ran over Liam’s wing before stopping on Cam, and she raised an eyebrow. “Did you traipse around town naked like that?”
Cam’s face went red, and he immediately covered his junk with his hands. “I’m wearing an illusion,” he said almost to himself.
Mara nodded. “A poorly built one. I can see right through.”
He gulped while Elle and I fought to hide our laughter.
“Come on. Tell me everything.” Mara waved us in.
We followed her into her office, and I clipped into my seat. Everything spun, and I knew we were back in Faerie. Easy as that.
“Okay,” I said to Mara, “so now the normie will open that dressing room door and see the inside of
