by Nova Nelson
That much effort put toward downplaying it and reassuring the sheriff that it was fine was as clear an indicator as anything that the attack had been severe and significant. Otherwise, why would Ruby have sent the letter in the first place? Bloom hoped the witch was lying low today and tending to her health. Of all the days to stay at home and do nothing but read, this would be a good one.
And now the letter was just one more disparate bit of debris knocking around Bloom’s mind as she tried to stitch together a coherent theory about Bran and Dalora. There had to be something tying them together. Some reason why each of the elves was present for one of the performances, why both had decided to climb the long stairs of the tower to the top, and why they had ultimately, whether with help or without, stepped over the edge.
Protesting the play, perhaps? No. That didn’t make sense. No one was less enthusiastic about the new local theater scene than Ruby, and even she wouldn’t be bothered to protest it.
The berry stains were another anomaly she couldn’t connect. There was Ed Willow’s fruit stand just near the clock tower. Was it a matter of convenience, then, or did using berries rather than some other substance have a significance? Ruby had sarcastically suggested that Ed might be a person of interest and should be interviewed, and if the talk with Magnus she already had planned for later in the day didn’t provide any useful information, she might find herself resorting to that. Ed would, of course, be accommodating, as he always was, but it would ultimately be a waste of time. She could feel that in her gut.
The most persistent question she kept coming back to, the one that would help direct her investigation the most decisively, was the one she just couldn’t find an answer to: did the elves jump of their own accord, or were they pushed? Or perhaps they were manipulated. That was one of the things Dalora’s memory loss hinted strongly at. But only one. There could be a purely medical reason for why her mind had taken an eraser to the moments leading up to the traumatic plunge.
There was no evidence or eye-witness testimony to support that either of the elves had been pushed. No one, as far as she’d heard, had seen anyone else up there. Not even Ruby.
A quick knock, and then the door to her office opened and Deputy Titterfield stuck his head in. “Someone here to see you, Sheriff. He seems pretty distraught. Says he has important information about the clock tower case.”
“Thank you, Deputy. Send him right in!”
In the moments that followed, her mind raced with the possibilities of who it could be. Titterfield said “he” but he didn’t name him, which meant the deputy didn’t know the man’s name.
Before her mind could reach any conclusion, the door opened again, and in came a tall man with silky strawberry blond hair down to his waist.
It was an elf if she ever saw one. And she surmised that she could cancel her plans for the rest of the morning. She no longer needed to track down Magnus Taerwyn.
Because he’d just walked into her office.
“Magnus, I presume?”
His posture froze like she’d just shot him with an ice charm. “Yes. I didn’t think you’d know my name. I— I’ve never been in trouble with the law.”
She gestured to the open chair across the desk from her, and he moved to settle himself in it while she cleared the stacks of forms neatly into the corner of her office with a flick of her wrist. “It was only a guess,” she said, settling back down into her own seat. “What can I help you with?”
He blanched slightly before launching into it. His oak-colored eyes were overlarge, and dark patches uncharacteristic for his kind formed half-moons below his bottom lashes. “Bron and Dalora. They’re my friends. Were my friends. Well, I guess he was my friend and she still is my friend.”
He was clearly nervous. Though he held himself with the same basic dignity expected of elves and kept his spine straight, he wrung his hands in his lap as he struggled to find the proper verb tense for his unfortunate situation.
Bloom already had questions prepared for him for when she sought him out later that day, but she thought it best to simply wait and let him speak. He clearly came here for the express purpose of talking.
“I just… I know this might sound paranoid, but I believe I might be next.”
She inspected him carefully. “Next for what?”
“Jumping off the clock tower!”
She nodded. “If you’re worried about it, might I suggest not doing it?”
“That’s just it! I don’t know if I can resist! Bron had a good life. I never had any indication that he would do something like that. He can’t have done it himself! He just can’t’ve. Maybe someone was blackmailing him. Or he was hypnotized. Anything! It just wasn’t him.” He took a deep breath. “As soon as I’d heard about it, I knew something wasn’t right. And Dalora…” He paused again, and Bloom caught a hint of deep history there. “Never. No, never.”
“You don’t believe she would do it either?”
He shook his head decisively. For all his insecurity, he did seem sure about that. “Whatever happened to Bron happened to her. That seems obvious. They went in the exact same way.”
Bloom narrowed her eyes and decided to risk it. “Did you hear anything about a stain on her shirt?”
Magnus’s smooth skin wrinkled at the corners of his eyes. “What do you mean? A stain? I don’t know anything about that.”
In that case, far be it from Bloom to taint the source. She folded her hands and set them on her desk. “I know it’s all very hard to understand when things like this happen, Mr. Taerwyn. Thankfully, Dalora is okay and should be released from the healing house soon. But you should know that it’s not uncommon for those close to someone who dies at their own hand to copy the behavior shortly after.”
He blinked. “I don’t follow your meaning.”
She hated to do this, but sometimes the best way to squeeze all the relevant information from a person was not to ask directly, but to antagonize just enough. “I mean, I’ve seen situations before where someone within a community tragically takes his or her own life. And shortly after, one or more of those closest to the deceased duplicate the act, mimicking the details to the letter. I don’t claim to understand it, but my best guess, if I had to make one, is that the reenactment is a way of reconnecting with the one they’ve lost, of trying to see things from their loved one’s eyes, maybe answer some of the same questions. Or perhaps they fear that if someone they loved and respected lost hope that means there is no hope for anyone.” She leaned back in her chair and kicked her legs out beneath her desk. “I’m here to assure you that there is always hope. And I speak from a place of experience. I’ve seen it time and again. In the moments when life seems most hopeless, that’s where the deepest and richest wells of it can be found.” She paused. “You’re not here to provide information, are you?”
Her implications about his friends had rattled him enough, it seemed, because when he spoke, it was with a thinly veiled fury. “No. I have no information to give you, especially if you’re looking for evidence that my two friends attempted to take their own lives. They would never do that.”
“What do you really believe happened, then? Pretend I need the evidence to believe it and act upon it. What is your gut telling you?”
“That Bron was murdered, and whoever forced him off the edge also attempted to murder Dalora. And I believe whoever did it is going to do the same to me!” His chin quivered and he lowered his voice to hardly more than a whisper. “Please, sheriff. I need your protection.”
“Who do you believe would want to murder you and your friends?”
His eyes lowered to his hands as he said, “I don’t know.” He met her stare again. “But you know as well as I do that if you live long enough, you amass enemies.”
“How long have you been alive?”
“Just over four hundred years.”
She nodded. “You’re old, even for your kind. And your friends?”
“Just about the same.”
/> She sighed. “You’re right, that’s plenty of time to rub a few people the wrong way. But generally speaking, who have you rubbed wrongly enough that you now fear lethal retribution?”
He answered without hesitation. “No one.”
But with his words came a flash of warm, pulsating guilt that shot off of him and hit her square in the chest. She didn’t even have to gaze inside him to find it.
Did she think he would tell her the cause of it? Not a chance.
“Well, Mr. Taerwyn, I hear your concerns. And I would love to provide you with, for lack of a better phrase, round-the-clock security. But as you may or may not know, the High Council only supplies us with enough funds to employ myself, Deputy Titterfield, and part-time help at the front desk. We don’t have a body to spare.” She paused, inspecting the genuine fear in his eyes. That, at least, wasn’t a lie. “For what it’s worth, I have no reason to believe you are in any grave danger at the moment. What I suggest is that you stay away from the Emporium for at least a week. If you’re concerned about replicating the scene, don’t provide an opportunity for it. Simple as that. And do stay calm. I know you’re going through a period of great mourning for your friend. Take time to experience that pain. I promise it doesn’t last forever. It’s simply a dark tunnel through which one must pass.”
“Don’t lecture me about loss,” he snapped.
She didn’t flinch a muscle. Instead, she merely thought, Well, isn’t that interesting? “I don’t mean to lecture. But dealing with loss is a lesson one must learn over and over again.”
“And I have,” he said. “Over and over and over again! All due respect, Sheriff, but you don’t know anything about me and what I’ve been through. You come from Heaven, so perhaps you’re a little ignorant to the way things work outside of Heaven and Eastwind, but let me tell you, sometimes it’s nothing but loss, nothing but pain.” He stood. “If you can’t offer me a single bit of protection, then I’m done sticking around and listening to your patronizing advice. There are a million other things I’d rather do with my time. Or what’s left of it.”
Even though his sudden rage was diminishing, she knew better than to say another word to him. When the fire was raging like this in another, all words became tinder, no matter the intent behind them.
He slammed the door behind him, and she waited until she heard the exterior doors of the station slam as well before getting up from her desk.
As she stepped into the hall, Deputy Titterfield poked his head out of his office to check on the commotion, and Bloom smiled. “Don’t worry, Morris. You’re not needed at this moment.”
She made straight for the front desk, where their receptionist wouldn’t be arriving for another few hours and grabbed a slip of owl parchment and a pen. She wrote the letter in her clearest cursive, and folded it up, sealing it with the wax stamp of the Sheriff’s Department crest. And then on the front, she wrote the recipient’s name: Stu Manchester.
The boy would be released from Mancer Academy for the weekend in a matter of hours. And she doubted he would mind the homework she was assigning him.
Chapter Seventeen
The bell above the front door of the Pixie Mixie Apothecary jingled, and Ruby’s Insight gave her another swift kick in the seat of her pants.
I know, she told it. I heard you the first time.
Ruby asked Kayleigh if she could speak with Stella, and one look at Ruby was enough for the store’s owner to stop her shelving and hurry to it.
“I don’t look that bad, do I?” She looked down at Clifford.
His tail, which had been lazily wagging at the sight of Kayleigh, dropped like stone. “No. Of course not.”
“You’re a terrible liar. But thanks for trying.”
A moment later, Stella Lytefoot fluttered out of the back room of the Pixie Mixie. She had brown hair so dark it flirted with being black, and while she was equally as beautiful as her partner, her features were much more defined, almost severe. Her sharp nose appeared chiseled from marble, and her dark eyes carried a nonstop intensity in them.
Part of that might have been due to the fact that Stella’s mind had a nonstop intensity to it. She was a master of potions and a top candidate for Eastwind’s Most Brilliant.
She was not, however, a contender for Eastwind’s Most Tactful.
“Who strangled you?” she asked by way of greeting.
Kayleigh groaned and returned to her inventory.
“Not sure. But Ezra insisted I come see you and get a little treatment for it.”
“He was right, telling you to do that. Follow me.”
Ruby and Clifford did, and they quickly found themselves in the back office of the Pixie Mixie where Stella was reported to spend most of her waking hours and many of her sleeping ones, as well. The walls of the windowless room were lined with shelves that held jars and bottles of all shapes and sizes with contents just as varied. Almost none were labeled from what Ruby could tell, and those that were simply had small signs below them that said things like, very deadly and mostly deadly, and nope, not this one.
“Have a seat,” Stella said, motioning to a chair at the long stone table that ran down the center of the space.
As Ruby complied, Stella popped the lid off a wooden container on the top shelf, reached her small hand inside, and pulled out a bone with dried bits of muscle and tissue still clinging to it.
Ruby was already readying herself to politely say no thanks, when Stella asked, “Can he have it?”
Clifford wagged his tail, scenting the air like mad in the direction of the bone.
“What is it?” Ruby asked. Obviously, it was a bone. But different animal’s bones had different properties.
Stella didn’t appear offended by the question. “Jackalope,” she replied. “Chewing it will create a slight feeling of euphoria for him.”
“You mean more than chewing bones usually does?” She looked at her familiar and didn’t miss the drool already pooling at the corners of his jowls. “Yes, that’s fine.” She patted his head. “He’s earned it today.”
Stella tossed him the bone and he snatched it out of the air. “Did he help fight off your attacker?”
“He did.”
The pixie nodded promptly then zipped over to another shelf where she began rooting through different containers, gathering various ingredients in her arms. “You said you didn’t know who it was. How is that possible?”
“She woke me from my sleep. She was in my face before I could do much, and I didn’t recognize her. Clifford said she had wings, though.”
Stella set the last of the ingredients down on the table and began sprinkling them one by one into a large cast-iron cauldron.
“You can touch iron?” Ruby asked. “I thought all fae avoided it.”
“We do. It’s painful, like if you touched a hot pan on the stove. But a bit of accidental contact here and there is worth it for me. Besides, it’s not that painful for pixies. Not sure why, but we’re not as sensitive to it. Fairies, though… phew, they do not like it.”
“What about elves?”
Stella sprinkled something white into the mixture that looked and smelled a bit like goat cheese but made a distinct farting noise the second it touched the other ingredients. “Elves pretend iron doesn’t affect them, and then they subtly avoid it. I couldn’t honestly tell you how much it repels them because they’re too dignified to talk about it. Even for posterity. Trust me. I’ve asked.”
“You don’t sound like a fan of elves.”
“I don’t have to be,” she said dryly. “They’re a big enough fan of themselves.”
Ruby enjoyed Stella’s conversation very much. But then again, she always did love a straight shooter.
“What else can you tell me about your attacker?” the pixie prompted.
“It was a spirit.”
Stella’s thin lips parted as her mouth popped into a small O. Her concoction was temporarily forgotten as she stared up at Ruby in amazement. “A spirit wa
s able to grab you and do this much damage?”
“Yes,” Ruby said, “I was surprised, too.”
“Is that usual?”
“No. But it’s not unheard of with the highly powerful ones. And she wasn’t able to grab me completely, just enough to cut off my air.”
“Did you pass out?” Stella didn’t even blink as she asked the question, and Ruby found herself feeling more like a science experiment than a witch.
“No.”
“I’m surprised to hear that. You look like a mess. I’d have expected you to have passed out.”
Ah, so that bluntness wasn’t always her friend. “I was very close to it. Clifford scared her off before that happened.”
“You said you were speaking with Ezra earlier.” She returned to her mixture, grabbing a large pestle and mashing furiously. “Should I take that to mean you’re going to be warding your room better later?”
“Indeed.”
Stella crushed something that looked like dried dung into the cauldron and said, “Could this attack have anything to do with the elves jumping to their deaths?”
She wasn’t sure how Stella’s mind had made it there, but she had no problem being honest. “I believe so. And only one actually died. Bloom managed to save the other.” If she was looking for relief from the pixie, she was looking in the wrong place.
“Do you think you’re being targeted for your involvement in investigating it?”
“That I don’t know.” Ruby was being targeted, though, wasn’t she? The berry stains. Were they singling her out? She wasn’t sure what else “5th” could pertain to.
