by Nova Nelson
“So it was a while, then, before you put two and two together and discovered the body.”
“Probably a few minutes at least. Although, the play was so good that I’m not sure how much time passed. It could have been two minutes or two hours.” He chuckled and shook his head at what Ruby assumed to be his fond memories of the show.
“According to my mental math, it couldn’t have been more than about fifteen minutes.” She paused. “Was the play truly that good?”
Ted leaned forward and in a hoarse whisper said, “It was fantastic.”
“Yikes,” said Clifford. “No play is that good.”
“It is somewhat suspicious, isn’t it?” Ruby replied silently.
“One more question, and then I’ll thank you again for the drink and be on my way. After the elf perished, did you complete the job?”
“You mean, did I usher him into the afterlife?”
She nodded.
“Sure did. Right away. He was a little disappointed, but he was ready to go.”
“Did he say anything about his death?”
Ted gasped, a hand flying to where his heart might have been had he possessed one. He leaned away from her like she’d just blasphemed. “No! Absolutely not! Reaper code of ethics requires us not to talk about the death with the dead. Our objective is to get them from one plane to the next without triggering any memories that might cause them to decide not to go. That means no talking about how they died, and no trying to console them with how good of a life they lived.”
“Then what do you talk about?”
Ted shrugged a shoulder, and it crackled like eggshells underfoot. “This and that. They usually have questions about where they’re going, and I answer them as best as I can, putting a positive spin on it, as the case may be. But mostly we talk about scufflepuck.”
“Scufflepuck?” She was familiar with the pastime (one could catch a heated match of it at Sheehan’s Pub seven nights a week), but she’d never found it particularly interesting.
He shrugged again. “Yeah, people like talking about it. It calms them.”
She decided to drop that topic and get back to the important one. “You’re telling me Bron Danann moved on?”
“I am.”
That was huge. She’d suspected as much this far after his death, but the confirmation was critical. She would need to think on it more. But she’d prefer to do it somewhere else.
“That feeling you get when someone is about to be killed,” she said. “Do you have it right now?”
Ted cocked his head to the side, silent for a moment, then replied, “Nope.”
“Great.” She carefully scooted off the bench and stood. “Then I think now’s a good time for me to head home.” She thanked Ted for the drink she didn’t touch and hurried clear of the Outskirts as quickly as possible, banking on Ted’s instincts that she would make it back to the town proper alive.
Chapter Eight
Ruby was already exhausted from walking all over town, but a quick cup of tea at A New Leaf perked her right up. She guessed Clifford was also ready for a long nap, having missed his usual mid-morning, noontime, and early afternoon ones, but he didn’t show it as they left the teashop and went to a more upscale locale to meet with the only one of the two elves who had agreed to meet on such short notice.
She hadn’t received any response from Magnus Taerwyn, but Dalora Greyborn was generous enough to carve out some time for her, though the woman wouldn’t degrade herself by meeting somewhere that lacked the necessary class.
That was how it transpired that Ruby, still clad head to toe in loose-fitting black garments, came to arrive at the doorstep of Garden Variety. While she and Clifford waited for the restaurant’s host to greet them, she browsed one of the menus tucked into a slot on the host stand. She’d never eaten here or even set foot inside, despite the restaurant having opened its doors long before she’d landed in Eastwind.
She examined the menu and arched an eyebrow at the prices. What she would normally pay at Treetop Lodge for a complete steak dinner could only get her so much as a cup of summer squash soup. And the prices soared even higher when she moved to the list of entrees. There was no trace of meat to be found on the menu. She held it low for Clifford to see, and he scoffed.
“Why even open a restaurant if you’re not going to offer meat?”
Ruby shrugged, replaced the menu, and took a quick look around at the early dinner guests. They were mostly elves, but she also spotted a few druids and even a table of four witches. The noise from conversation throughout the dining room was subdued, but of course it was—leafy greens never did rile up a crowd. Everyone was probably feeling a bit foolish for paying so much for something they could easily grow in their own garden.
The hostess, a young witch Ruby didn’t recognize from around town, greeted her. “Table for one?”
Ruby didn’t miss the witch’s appraising look. Was she worried she’d be fired for seating a Fifth Wind? She didn’t even look at Clifford, which was just fine. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t seen him there, all fiery fur and hulking bulk. “I’m here to meet Dalora Greyborn. Is she here yet?”
“She just came in. I’ll show you to her table.”
Dalora’s back was to them when they approached, and Ruby admired the elf’s sleek copper hair, strands of which hung over the back of her chair, nearly brushing the flagstone floor.
“Mrs. Greyborn?” the hostess said.
When the elf turned to look, her gaze landed immediately on Ruby, who was momentarily startled into silence by the woman’s brilliant emerald eyes. “Mrs. True?” she said.
“Miss, not missus,” Ruby corrected her. “And Ruby is just fine.”
The hostess left and Ruby settled into the chair opposite. When she looked up again, Dalora’s eyes were glued to Clifford as he lowered himself to the ground.
“He comes with me,” Ruby said.
“I see that. Is he… your familiar?” She said the last word like it stung the tip of her tongue.
Ruby wasn’t surprised. For those who weren’t witches, familiars were always a strange concept. And because the familiar of every other witch in town was feline, they mostly kept out of sight, sleeping at home while the witches went about their business. Only a few ever brought their cats with them, and why would they in a town where werewolves and werebears were a dime a dozen? Eastwind’s weres usually possessed self-control when it came to their hunting instincts, but “usually” by no means meant “always.” She had heard more than one rumor over the years about familiars making a narrow escape.
“Yes,” Ruby said. “From what I’ve read, hellhound familiars are as common as Fifth Wind witches. Exactly as common, in fact.” She didn’t miss Dalora’s distasteful flinch at the words “Fifth Wind.” The elf’s alabaster skin seemed impossibly smooth for someone who, by all accounts, was easily over two hundred years old; and even the slightest facial twitch was noticeable on the pristine palette.
“We saw each other just the other day,” the elf said.
“Did we?”
“Yes. In Ezra’s Magical Outfitters.”
Ruby racked her memory. Yes, she had seen an elf leave just as she was entering.
“Are you friends with Ezra Ares?” Dalora asked.
“Yes, you could say that.”
The smallest hint of a smile appeared at the corners of Dalora’s lips, and she seemed to relax. “He’s a good witch.”
“He’s also a bit of a crook.”
At that, the elf finally relaxed as she chuckled. “He doesn’t like to play by the rules. At least the ones that don’t make sense. I can relate.”
“What rules haven’t you been playing by lately?” Ruby asked, feigning innocence. There was something about Dalora’s demeanor that felt more like armor than simple propriety usually did, and Ruby was determined to get underneath it.
“I wouldn’t even know,” Dalora replied before sipping from the glass of water in front of her. “I don’t pay
much attention to what is and isn’t allowed in Eastwind.”
“What about in Tearnanock?”
The elf paused, her almond eyes narrowing. “You know about it?”
“I do. I know a great many things. Part of being a Fifth Wind.”
“Bloom told you about it. It had nothing to do with being a Fifth Wind,” said Clifford from beside her.
“She doesn’t need to know that.”
A fairy fluttered over to their table and took their order. It wasn’t lost on Ruby that an establishment clearly built to appease the elven population didn’t have a single elf working in it. She would be shocked to see an elf “demean” him- or herself enough to work in the service industry.
Ruby declined any food, ordering only a hot chamomile tea, but Dalora ordered herself a beet salad with sprinkled goat cheese and diced almonds.
“You know why I asked to meet, don’t you?” Ruby asked once the waiter flew away.
“You mentioned Bron in your letter.” She paused. “Have you spoken with him?” Her postured stiffened again as she asked it, and her face spoke of having smelled something rotten.
To be fair, there were days when Ruby found speaking with the dead just as unappealing as Dalora seemed to find it.
“No, I haven’t spoken with him. I did, however, just speak with Ted a few hours ago and he confirmed that Bron has passed into the beyond without a fight. He’s at peace now.”
“You don’t know that,” Clifford corrected.
“What ultimate outcome he earned in his lifetime is a mystery to me. Might as well give her hope he’s not being sliced into a thousand pieces.”
She didn’t have a clear understanding of what happened to spirits once they died, assuming they weren’t lingering and dropping in on her all hours of the night. She’d read about reincarnation, and that seemed likely enough. But records of those few who remembered their past lives indicated that quite a bit of time passed between one death and the next birth, and no account was provided for what each soul endured during that in-between time. Was it like the Heaven and Hell of the Bible? She doubted it, partially because she knew both Heaven and Hell to merely be two realms among the many, not supernatural spaces reserved for the souls of the dead.
Dalora’s expression showed only the tiniest hint of emotion at the mention of her friend moving on, but what that emotion was, was indecipherable to Ruby.
“Do you have any reason to believe Bron would have jumped from the clock tower of his own accord?”
The elf wasted no time shaking her head. “No. He would never. He was too proud to do that, and he had no reason to.”
“Was he depressed? In debt?”
“Absolutely not. Bron and I have been friends for centuries. We can share anything with each other. He’s had hard times like that before and told me about them. I have no reason to believe he would suddenly start keeping such things from me. We’ve always had each other’s back. Or rather, we did. And now…” It was the closest she’d come to genuine sadness—a mere flicker of her slim nostrils.
“What do you think happened to him, then?”
She shrugged. “Murder is the only thing I can think of.”
“What did he do for a living?”
“Nothing. He had money.” She paused. “Sometimes he fixed clocks for a hobby.”
Elves were renowned for their skills in horology, and most of the clocks in Eastwind were elven. They kept time flawlessly without an ounce of magic. It made sense that Bron would do that as a way to both pass time and remind everyone of his lineage.
And the fact that an elf had fallen from the very tallest clock in Eastwind had not been lost on Ruby. But not even her Insight had a clue as to how that might be significant. “Could he have been servicing the clock?” she asked. “Perhaps he fell, and it was a simple accident.”
But Dalora scoffed. “You aren’t familiar with the history of the clock tower, are you?”
Ruby cocked her head to the side. “I suppose not. Care to enlighten me?”
The waiter set down Ruby’s tea and Dalora’s salad. The beets did look delicious. Not delicious enough to warrant the cost, though.
The elf tucked in before going on. “Its official name is Fallia’s Eye, though no one has called it that in years. No, now it’s just ‘the clock tower.’” Her tone made it clear that she was not keen on this development. “It was a gift from King Precion, a token of peace when the first elves discovered Eastwind.”
“Not sure how they discovered a realm that already had people living in it,” Clifford muttered.
“It was an elf-made masterpiece for generations. And then through misuse and poor handling, it eventually needed maintenance—elven clocks don’t require that if properly cared for—and rather than bringing in an elven clockmaker from Fallia, they used magic.” She stabbed at her salad like the beets had insulted her. “Once you use magic on a masterpiece like that, it’s never the same. No elf will touch it.”
“Which means Bron wasn’t up there to maintain it,” Ruby concluded for her.
“Exactly. He wouldn’t have been caught dead.” She cleared her throat and straightened her spine. “Poor choice of words.”
Ruby allowed her a moment to work on the salad and regroup while she served herself some tea. The calming chamomile scent wafted up to meet her nostrils as soon as she peeked under the lid. She held it open a bit longer than necessary, hoping to give Dalora a dose of it as well. Goddess knew the uptight elf could use it.
Finally, Ruby said, “Do you know of anyone who would have wanted to push Bron from the clo— from Fallia’s Eye?”
The use of its official name had the intended effect, and Dalora didn’t hesitate to respond. “Ignatius Hopper.”
Ruby couldn’t disguise her shock at hearing that name. Hopper was a well-respected figure in Eastwind society. He’d been pleasant to Ruby and Clifford on the two occasions they’d crossed paths. Werebunnies didn’t usually take to Clifford, but Hopper had gone so far as to toss the hellhound the last half of a ham sandwich once simply because her familiar was slobbering conspicuously at the scent of it. “And why do you believe Ignatius Hopper might have pushed Bron from the tower?”
“Ignatius had asked that Bron work on an elven clock he had. Bron agreed. They used to be friends, you know. They got along quite well. But when Bron told Ignatius he would need more time to work on the piece, Ignatius grew impatient. Well, you know how long a truly unique timepiece can take to fix once an unskilled hand has tinkered with it”—Ruby did not but decided not to mention it— “but Ignatius wanted it fixed right away. Bron reminded him that he wasn’t getting paid for the work and that he would take as long as he needed to return it to its original quality. It went on like that for a while. And recently, it escalated.”
“Escalated to the point of murder, you think?”
Dalora shrugged. “Possibly. You know how those werebeasts are. They can just snap.”
Ruby hadn’t found this to be truer for weres than it was for anyone else, but she nodded along.
“When you say it escalated…?”
“Oh, letters and such. Ignatius didn’t know how to get into Tearnanock Estates, so hate mail was about as much as he could do so long as Bron stayed within our community. And I urged him to do so until he could fix the clock. But he clearly didn’t listen.”
“And how long had he been working on this clock prior to his death?”
She considered it. “Perhaps four or five years.”
Ruby choked slightly on her tea. “Four or five years?”
“Ah yes. Of course, that would seem like a long time to a short-lifer like you. Ignatius felt the same. But all great things take time.”
Ruby ignored the slight. “I understand the disagreement, but I also know Hopper to be one of the more decent people in Eastwind. I have a hard time imagining him committing murder over a clock.”
“He accused Bron of stealing it. He said he’d find out where Bron lived and take i
t back himself if he had to, but he was going to get it back one way or another.”
Ruby still wasn’t convinced, but for the sake of propriety, she nodded. “I understand. I’ll pass the tip along to the sheriff and have her look into it.”
That seemed to pacify the elf enough that she returned to her salad.
“Just to cover all the angles,” Ruby said a moment later, “you can’t think of anyone else in town who would have wanted him dead?”
Dalora’s eyes locked onto Ruby’s, as if trying to read between the lines. At last, she said, “No. I can’t think of a single other person in Eastwind who might go to those lengths.”
There it was, then. No help whatsoever.
It was unusual for Ruby to wish a ghost would visit her, but in a strange case like this, she found herself longing for just that. Surely, Bron would have had more useful information.
“One last question,” Ruby said, “and then I’ll leave you to your delicious salad.”
Dalora Greyborn pressed her rosy lips into a thin line and arched her eyebrows expectantly.
“Do the words, ‘the fifth’ have any meaning at all to you?”
Dalora blinked and a shadow seemed to cross her face. Then she set her jaw and smoothed her expression until it reminded Ruby of the surface of a quiet pond on a windless day. “You mean other than the Fifth Wind I’m speaking to right now?”
“Yes, other than that.”
“No. It has no meaning. And at the same time, it could have a thousand meanings.”
“I understand. Nothing specific, then?”
“No. Nothing comes to mind.”
It didn’t take Sheriff Bloom’s angelic abilities of judgment to know Dalora was hiding something. But it also didn’t take a genius to know Ruby wouldn’t be squeezing an ounce of that information from the elf, no matter how hard she tried.
“Very well,” Ruby said. “Thank you for your time. I’ll keep you apprised if we discover anything else about Ignatius Hopper.”
Which meant, of course, that they would likely never speak again. And that was just fine with Ruby.
