Dorian did not instantly become awake and interested. But he did stop trying to shove her away. He understood enough about the magic to know it had its own timeline, and there was not much point in trying to argue with it.<\/p>\n
\u201cOut of my room, Mina.\u201d<\/p>\n
She left. She knew her brother well enough to know he would not be falling back asleep. His curiosity would get the best of him. She just had to wait a few minutes.<\/p>\n
Her stomach rumbled. While waiting, she could make breakfast. She would even make breakfast for Dorian. He would be less grumpy with her that way.<\/p>\n
The tea kettle had just reached a boil and the omelet was almost done when Dorian not quite stumbled out of his room. He headed right for the kettle and soon had a cup of Irish Breakfast tea. For the moment, she said nothing, just letting him drink and wake up some more. Besides, omelets were known to go bad very quickly if her attention wandered even for a moment.<\/p>\n
They ate their breakfast in silence.<\/p>\n
\u201cTell me about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mina told Dorian about the lockbox hidden under the floor in the shack. He was most surprised by the fact that the shack had a floor. \u201cBut why now? You hang out at that shack all the time. Why did you go through the wall yesterday?\u201d<\/p>\n
She told him about the Whitehaven\u2019s announcement at the restaurant the night before. \u201cThis is meant to be kept private.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay, so what do you need me for?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to try Grandpa\u2019s keys in the lockbox.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd you\u2019re still afraid of the shed.\u201d He said it with a small amount of amusement in his voice. As her older brother, even as he humored her, he was quite willing to mock her.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone would be really suspicious if I were to go into the shed. I don\u2019t even know where the key to its lock is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dorian shook his head. \u201cAnd what do I get for helping you? The magic chose you, not me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI have $20 in tips from last night. It\u2019s all yours.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c$20 for getting some keys from the shed. I guess I can do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot some keys, Dorian. All of them. I have no idea which one might work.\u201d<\/p>\n
He rolled his eyes. \u201cYes, Mina, all of the keys. But I want to see the lockbox first, and you have to promise me you\u2019ll let me see what\u2019s in it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dorian did not instantly become awake and interested. But he did stop trying to shove her away. He understood enough about the magic to know it had its own timeline, and there was not much point in trying to argue with it. \u201cOut of my room, Mina.\u201d She left. She knew her brother well enough to know he would not be falling back asleep. His curiosity would get the best of him. She just had to wait a few minutes. Her stomach rumbled. While waiting, she could make breakfast. She would even make breakfast for Dorian. He would be less grumpy with her that way. The tea kettle had just reached a boil and the omelet was almost done when Dorian not quite stumbled out of his room. He headed right for the kettle and soon had a cup of Irish Breakfast tea. For the moment, she said nothing, just letting him drink and wake up some more. Besides, omelets were known to go bad very quickly if her attention wandered even for a moment. They ate their breakfast in silence. \u201cTell me about it.\u201d Mina told Dorian about the lockbox hidden under the floor in the shack. He was most surprised by the fact that the shack had a floor. \u201cBut why now? You hang out at that shack all the time. Why did you go through the wall yesterday?\u201d She told him about the Whitehaven\u2019s announcement at the restaurant the night before. \u201cThis is meant to be kept private.\u201d \u201cOkay, so what do you need me for?\u201d \u201cI want to try Grandpa\u2019s keys in the lockbox.\u201d \u201cAnd you\u2019re still afraid of the shed.\u201d He said it with a small amount of amusement in his voice. As her older brother, even as he humored her, he was quite willing to mock her. \u201cEveryone would be really suspicious if I were to go into the shed. I don\u2019t even know where the key to its lock is.\u201d Dorian shook his head. \u201cAnd what do I get for helping you? The magic chose you, not me.\u201d \u201cI have $20 in tips from last night. It\u2019s all yours.\u201d \u201c$20 for getting some keys from the shed. I guess I can do that.\u201d \u201cNot some keys, Dorian. All of them. I have no idea which one might work.\u201d He rolled his eyes. \u201cYes, Mina, all of the keys. But I want to see the lockbox first, and you have to promise me you\u2019ll let me see what\u2019s in it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-original-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p75MAh-4N","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":298,"href":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297\/revisions\/298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}