by Emery Belle
“Huh.” I sat back in my chair. “I wonder what made him change his mind so suddenly.”
Amelia narrowed her silver eyes at me. “That’s for you to find out, isn’t it? I didn’t invite you to lunch to talk about the weather.”
“Er, right,” I said, glancing out the window at the wind whistling through the barren trees. I could see heavy storm clouds moving in over the mountain, and knew I was running out of time if I wanted to find out more about Amelia’s fraught relationship with her brother and also get back down to island level before I turned into a human popsicle.
“So,” I began, casting a nervous glance at the knife still clutched in her hand, “were you and Emeril close? I never had any siblings, though I would have killed for one when I was younger.” I winced at my unfortunate choice of words… hopefully I wasn’t going to put any ideas in her head, but I didn’t want to lead off with any mention of her being cut out from his estate or, according to what Cole had overheard, banned from the fashion show.
The yeti drew the knife up to her mouth, licked it, and began cleaning out her teeth with its tip as she watched me thoughtfully. “We used to be close,” she said, digging a clump of hare fur from between her front teeth and spitting it onto the carpet. “Like I said, it was just the two of us for a long time. But as the years went on and he became a big-time star, he grew too big for his britches. When the magazines would interview him, he’d lie about his background, said we grew up in a wealthy family when in reality we were dirt-poor. He was ashamed of where he came from, ashamed of me.”
Casting her eyes to the ground, she wiped away a single tear. “Can you believe that? Me, his own sister.”
The wind began rattling Amelia’s rickety front door, growing increasingly violent as squalls of snow whipped through the air. Through the window, I could see Amelia’s neighbors hurrying their penguin inside the house and sealing the door shut behind them, and I knew if I wanted to get off this mountain alive—or avoid spending the night on Amelia’s couch, since I wasn’t sure which option was worse—I needed to press her even further.
“I went to the Snow Bunny Fashion Show,” I said, tucking my legs beneath me in an attempt to look casual, though my heart was skittering around my chest as Amelia swung her head up, looking mutinous. “Emeril was a true star—his routine was magnificent. Until, well…”
I trailed off, clearing my throat to cover the awkward moment. “Were you there?” I asked, knowing full well that Cole had seen her sneaking into the audience.
“No,” she said through clenched teeth, her eyes flashing dangerously.
When she didn’t volunteer any additional information, I pressed on, trying to ignore the ball of nerves dancing around in my stomach. “That’s too bad,” I said, “seeing as it was his last show and all… Do you usually attend them? I’d imagine he would love to give you the star treatment, introduce you to all of his friends…”
She let out a howl, and I knew I’d gone too far. Which was precisely what I’d been trying to do.
“Star treatment?” she shouted. The yeti jumped to her feet and, losing her head completely, began beating her fists against her chest. The knife fell from her hands and skidded across the floor toward me, and I discreetly covered it with my shoe and drew it within reach. Just in case.
As Amelia began tearing out great chunks of her white hair and gnashing her sharp teeth with rage, I had to sit on my hands to keep them from trembling. I was almost there… this close to finding out the truth. I could feel it in my bones. I just had to make sure that my bones didn’t end up in her next squirrel stew.
“I’m sorry,” I called, trying to make myself heard over her grunts of fury, though it was an effort to force my voice to sound calm. “I just assumed you would be a VIP. My mistake.”
“No,” she growled, closing the space between us in one enormous step and towering over me, casting the entire beanbag chair in her shadow. “It was his mistake. What did I ever do to him? Spent a few of his dollars here and there, it was the least he owed me given all I had to sacrifice so he could make his way to the top. And did he ever think to bring me with him?” She paused and looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to supply a response.
“No?” I squeaked out.
Amelia nodded, her face crumpling, and hefted herself back onto the couch. “My brother was unrecognizable in the end,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “That’s why there are some people in this community—me, included—who think he got what he deserved.”
She raised pained eyes to my face. “Sometimes I think…” She pressed her lips together, then shook her head sadly. “Sometimes I think I’d like to shake the hand of the person who did it.”
I left Amelia’s a short time later, my pockets laden with her homemade mouse marmalade cookies and, more importantly, the spare key to Emeril’s winter estate on the Frozen Island, where Isla had reportedly taken up residence.
“I had this made years ago,” she’d confided in me as she dug the gold-plated key out of a tin at the very top of her ice chest. “Emeril went through a hard-partying phase, downed more tipsy tonic in one night than I could drink in a year, and I wanted to make sure I had a way to get to him if I needed to.”
She pressed the key into my hand and closed my fingers around it. “Emeril employs at least a hundred brownies at the estate, and a few months ago he gave them strict orders never to let me in… which I found out when they began beating me around the head with a rolled-up Oriental rug last time I tried to visit.” Her silver gaze bore into mine. “You’re my only hope of finding out the truth, Wren. Go to the Frozen Island. I’ll be waiting for you when you return.”
Now, as I trudged down the mountain, I ran through every word of our conversation in my head. Amelia was furious with her brother, that much was certain, though it seemed like she had good reason to be. It couldn’t have been easy watching him climb the ladder of fame while leaving her in the dust, and the more I imagined a younger Amelia giving up everything to help her brother realize his dreams at the expense of her own, the angrier I felt.
I shivered and wrapped my coat tighter around me in a vain attempt to ward off the bitter cold, cursing myself for agreeing to meet Garnet and Hunter for ice cream when all I wanted to do was curl up under the covers with a mug of hot chocolate and a good book. They’d asked me to meet up with them on the pretense of studying for our upcoming spell casting exam that Lady Winthrop had promised would be a doozy, but I knew they just wanted to get the scoop on my conversation with Amelia. Not that I could blame them. It wasn’t every day that a witch was invited into the yeti community, which, as I’d come to learn, was notoriously secretive.
When I reached the charming pink bungalow that was home to Sugar & Spells, the most popular ice cream parlor on the island, I saw Garnet and Hunter waiting for me at a table inside, heads bent over Hunter’s spellbook.
I hesitated as I watched them through the window, noting how Hunter had drawn his chair as close to Garnet as he could, though I suspected she remained oblivious to his feelings for her. Suddenly, I felt unbearably, impossibly alone. When Garnet looked up and spotted me, her face broke into a bright grin and she waved me inside, and I pushed aside my wave of sadness as I drew up a third chair and joined them.
“Yancy thought you’d like a dragontail shake,” Garnet said, pushing the treat toward me as I tore my eyes from a group of vampires hovering excitedly over the ice cream display case while the yeti who owned the shop scooped generous portions of bloodberry into sugar cones.
I sniffed the cup tentatively; the shake was a sickening-looking pea green color flecked with orange specks. “Um,” I said, pushing it away with the tip of my finger and trying not to gag, “there aren’t actual dragon tails in this, are there?”
I thought back to my encounter with Ignis and Glacies, the magnificent dragons that guarded the gates to Sparrow Manor, the coven’s headquarters—if I might be getting booted off the island for using my training wa
nd in a time of crisis, how on earth could Yancy get away with such an atrocity?
“Of course not, silly,” Garnet said, digging her spoon into my shake and sampling it, smacking her lips appreciatively. “It’s just inspired by dragons. They’re protected magical creatures—killing one will earn you a one-way lifetime ticket to prison. No,” she added, taking another bite and frowning thoughtfully, “I’d say this is just made from your basic pigeon meat sweetened with brown sugar and gooseberry jam.”
I shoved the cup across the table, feeling slightly ill, and pulled out my trusty notebook so I could jot down everything I remembered from my conversation with Amelia. As I wrote, I gave Garnet and Hunter a recap of my time on the mountain, and Garnet’s eyes welled up with tears when I described how Emeril had turned his back on his sister when he became a household name.
“That’s awful,” she said, wiping her eyes with her sleeve as Yancy came around to collect our empty ice cream cups, frowning when he saw that I’d barely touched my shake. “Poor Amelia.”
Yancy froze midway through clearing the table and turned his furry face to Garnet. “You aren’t talking about Amelia Mabel, Emeril’s sister, are you?” He shook his head and gave such a forceful snort of amusement that Hunter got blasted in the face with dozens of tiny ice shards.
“Sorry,” Yancy said, wiping them away with a sweep of his paw, “and I don’t mean to intrude on your conversation, but I’ve never heard the word ‘poor’ used to describe Amelia. The woman’s a nutter.”
He dragged another chair up to our table and heaved himself down on it, ignoring the ominous cracking sound it made beneath him. He turned his shaggy head to me. “I’m assuming you’re trying to sniff out Emeril’s murderer?”
“How do you know that?” I asked in surprise.
He dipped a finger into my uneaten shake and brought it to his lips, then shrugged. “Everyone on the island knows about you catching Percival, so it’s only natural you’d want to help solve Emeril’s murder too.”
He leaned in closer and dropped his voice to a rough whisper. “And if you ask me, you need to ignore whatever load of crock Amelia fed to you and consider her suspect number one.”
“Why’s that?” Garnet breathed, sliding her chair closer to Yancy, much to Hunter’s dismay.
“Because she’s a liar,” Yancy said simply. “And she took advantage of Emeril’s deep pockets whenever she had the opportunity. It’s the worst kept secret in the yeti community that she ran amuck with his credit card a few years ago behind his back. He never spoke to her again, though she tried to worm her way back into his life at every opportunity.”
Which might explain why Cole had seen her trying to force her way inside the Snow Bunny Fashion Show, I thought. Had Emeril’s decision to ban her from getting in been the straw that had broken the dragon’s back? How hard would it have been to slip in amongst the other yeti models, unseen, when the security guards’ backs were turned, set fire to Emeril’s harness, and blend back into the crowd? It sounded like the perfect plan.
“Anyway,” Yancy said, tipping his head to me as he got to his feet with a groan, “I just thought you should have your facts straight. Sure, Emeril let his fame go to his head, which may not have made him the most popular yeti in the community, but he was still one of us—and we take responsibility for our own.”
He downed the rest of my dragontail shake in one swallow, then wiped the back of his mouth with his paw. “If there’s anything I can do to help you figure out the truth, just let me know.”
“There is one thing,” I said, leaning forward in my chair eagerly.
“What’s that?”
I grinned. “You can tell me how to charter one of those flying polar bears.”
Chapter 12
I asked Merry to join me on my visit to Emeril’s winter estate, figuring that Sweetpea would come in handy if I saw anything I wanted to document as potential evidence against Isla, Amelia, or Preston, my three main suspects in the yeti’s death. I wasn’t exactly thrilled to have the grumpy gnome as a sidekick, but when I’d suggested borrowing Sweetpea for the trip, he’d bared his teeth and actually snarled at me before clutching the camera amorously to his chest. Worried that he’d dig his razor-sharp teeth into my ankles, I’d invited him to come along—and he’d been more than happy to oblige, as long as I agreed to foot the bill.
“We’ll be able to get some swell pictures of the Frozen Island from the air, won’t we, Sweetpea, my love,” he murmured to his camera as we approached the front desk for Ice Flights.
The company was situated at the base of the yeti community in a large ice cave cut out of the mountainside, and pictures of polar bears soaring through the air were plastered on a banner advertising the rates for chartering a private flight to the distant island. We stepped inside the cave, and though I’d been expecting to feel the bite of frigid air against my skin, we were immediately bathed in warmth.
The wizard who manned the front desk gave us a greasy smile as we approached and smoothed the ends of his mustache. His plaid suit gave off the distinct impression of a used car salesman, and he practically salivated with excitement when I told him I wanted to charter their best bear. Because why not?
“This here’s Cadillac,” he said eagerly, shoving a photo of a magnificent—and enormous—male polar bear beneath my nose. “With him, I promise your flight will be as smooth as butter, and I’ll even throw in a free souvenir hat for both of you.”
He snapped his fingers, and suddenly Merry and I were sporting identical white-eared hats. “You can’t put a price on luxury,” he added as he showed me the price, which, thanks to the dozens of non-optional add-on items, totaled more than a month of my salary.
“A fresh shrimp lunch for the bear?” I demanded. “A mid-air wing polishing?” I tossed the photo back onto the desk. “What do I look like, a sucker?”
He gave me the once-over, his perfectly plucked eyebrows shooting up into his hairline, and I narrowed my eyes at him, silently daring him to agree. “Why don’t you show me something a little less… ridiculous,” I said, and he heaved a loud, theatrical sigh and began shuffling through the pictures of available bears.
“How about Florence.” He slapped down an image of a decrepit-looking bear with patchy fur and filmy eyes. “If you’re looking to slum it to the Frozen Island, then she’s your girl.”
“Perfect!” I said when I saw the price, counting out a handful of bronze coins while ignoring Merry’s snort of annoyance. “How long is the flight?”
“One hour on Cadillac, twenty on Florence,” the wizard snapped back, looking satisfied when he heard my gasp of surprise. “You can’t expect caviar for the price of month-old tuna fish.” He gave me a nasty grin. “I hope you brought something to read.”
I glanced back at Merry. He had removed the souvenir hat from his own head and tucked it carefully over Sweetpea, who was nestled in his arms. Twenty hours listening to the sounds of his one-way smooching sessions? No. No way. Uh-uh.
“Fine, I’ll take Cadillac,” I said, reaching into my purse and drawing out my pouch of coins. I would just have to forgo eating for the next month. But, I thought, glancing once more at Merry, if this wasn’t a desperate situation, I didn’t know what was.
“Sorry.” The wizard flicked an invisible speck of dirt from the lapels of his plaid suit and shrugged unapologetically. “I regret to inform you that he’s already booked. You can’t expect to just waltz in here unannounced and hitch a ride on our most popular bear. Who do you think you are, Lord Macon?”
“But how—” I began, outraged, then fell silent when the wizard wagged his finger at me before whipping out his wand and holding it out toward the icy cave wall.
“Ursa, ursa, ursa,” he chanted as he moved his wand through the air, carving the shape of a bear into the ice as if by, well… magic. When he was finished, the bear’s outline shimmered and then disappeared, and the cave walls shook with a low, threatening growl.
“Did I m
ention that Florence can be a bit tetchy sometimes?” the wizard said, hurrying back as the wall of ice melted away to reveal a massive snow-white bear sitting back on her haunches and giving us an appraising look through beady black eyes. Another growl rumbled low in her throat and Merry let out a squeak of fear and scurried away, leaving Sweetpea lying forgotten on the ground.
But as the bear continued studying me, her gaze latching onto mine, the tension in my shoulders melted away and I took a tentative step forward, reaching out my hand to stroke her downy head.
“What are you doing?” the wizard hissed, now cowering behind his desk. “You know what’s going to happen if you get your head ripped off? I lose my mammal morphing license, which took me years to get. Some people are so selfish,” he added under his breath while Merry nodded vigorously in agreement.
But I barely heard him, too transfixed by Florence, who was resting her head against my palm and gazing up at me, docile. “Hi there, Florence,” I whispered, scratching her behind the ears while she purred like a kitten. “I need to get to the Frozen Island to take care of some very important business, and I was hoping you might take me and my friend there.”
She backed away from me, then doubled over as if in pain. I reached for her again, concerned, but before I could touch her fur, her entire body was bathed in a shimmering silver glow. When she straightened up again, her head held high and her filmy eyes shining with pride, she unfurled two magnificent white wings with silver-tipped feathers.
Then she crouched down on all fours and looked at me expectantly, and I grabbed hold of the fur on the back of her neck, gently so as not to hurt her, and hoisted myself up before beckoning to Merry to do the same. “I don’t think I like this,” he muttered as he swung Sweetpea over his shoulder and scrambled up Florence’s back before settling behind me.
