Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog (Magic Carpet Books) by Ysabeau S. Wilce Read Free Book Online Page A

followed me back up the Below Stairs.
    “I am still weak, it’s true, but you have lent me enough to allow me some freedom. So now we are friends and I stick by my friends.”
    The Garterobe of Resolution was a wreck. Shards of glass winked like fallen stars on the floor and in the bathtub. The sink was full of tooth powder and bath salts, and the walls and ceiling were stuck with soggy toilet paper. F OR T HIS WE ARE S OLDIERS was scrawled in red lip rouge across one of the walls. Even if I got the mess cleaned up, I could not replace the mirrors before Mamma returned. Both Poppy and I were going to be in big trouble.
    “My beautiful loo,” Val moaned, peering over my shoulder. “My beautiful loo. Do you have any idea how long it took me to make those mirrors? Weeks of utter concentration and focused desire. And the tiles—oh, the energy to make them the most perfect shade of bleachy blue, after which I was almost invisible with exhaustion—now all cracked, and filthy, too. Hotspur made a mess, but he didn’t have far to go. Don’t you ever wash the bathroom floor, Flora Segunda?”
    “Well, can you do something about the mess?” I demanded, ignoring his crack. Valefor might not be afraid of Mamma, but I was. I did not want her to see this mess and say that I had not watched Poppy closely enough. “Well, if I were to have more Anima—”
    “How much?”
    He grinned at me hopefully. “Not a lot, just more. What did you have for dinner tonight?”
    “General Chow’s tofu.”
    He wrinkled his long nose. “I’m not that fond of such spicy food myself, but all right. It’s better than nothing.”
    “But be careful,” I said. “You almost made me pass out last time.”
    “I’ll be sweet as pie,” he promised. His lips brushed mine and then parted to take my breath. A slow tingle started in my toes and wiggled its way upward, as though my blood had turned fizzy.
    “That’s enough,” I said, breaking away. “You are making me dizzy.”
    Val grinned. “Ah, I feel so much better, you cannot believe it!”
    His hair, I realized, was not black. It was dark purple-blue, the color of a damson plum, and little threads of silver sparked in the thick curls now springing around his shoulders.
    “Just clean this place up, Valefor. It’s late and I have to go to bed. Tomorrow’s a school day.”
    “You are a busy one, aren’t you?” Valefor said. “Always rushing from here to there and there to here. You ought to just slow down and enjoy life. It’s short enough as it is without you hurrying.”
    Ha! As though there was anything about life to enjoy. “Clean it up. Now!”
    Valefor flourished a long finger.
    When the sparkly purple Invocation faded, not only was the Garterobe of Resolution tidied up, but it was actually clean. The silver taps gleamed and the porcelain sparkled. The broken loo chain had been replaced, Mamma’s cut-glass bottles were lined up neatly above the bath, and the towels were soft and fluffy. The mirror showed my astonished face and Valefor’s smug smile.
    “See how helpful I can be?” Valefor said happily. “The mirror is not exactly the same, of course. I don’t have enough for that, but I don’t think Buck’s subtlety will extend to noticing the difference.”
    Valefor
was
helpful. While I let the dogs in, he whisked about the Below Kitchen, humming Gramatica under his breath and wiggling his fingers. When he was done, the kitchen was so clean that it almost sparkled. The copper pans hanging from the ceiling shone like stars, the stove glowed like a polished black pearl, and the floor looked clean enough to eat off.
    “There we are! Let’s have popcorn!” Valefor said when he was done.
    “I thought you didn’t eat food.”
    “Well, I don’t eat to live, but sometimes it is fun to live to eat. Come on, Flora, tra-la-let’s have a party! Oh please, let’s!”
    “I have to go to bed.”
    “Pah! Bed! There’s time enough to sleep when you are dead, Flora.”
    “I