Keeping part of my thoughts on the paper, I drew more power from the never-ending source and formed a magical magnifying glass in the air with golden threads of magic. It was an outline, like the door. There was a more detailed spell where you could form the magnifying glass with your third eye, but I didn’t have the skill for that. “A golden magnifying glass is what I need, to find the magical signatures I seek. Solidify now.” I let more magic through in a trickle—if I fed too much through at once, it would shatter the delicate construct. As the image took on a three-dimensional quality, I reached out and gently grabbed the handle. “Well, holy cow. I did it!”
The handle was smooth, warm, and there was an almost imperceptible vibration to it, as if it were a living, breathing being. I could only guess at why. Maybe because the magic was alive?
Excitement spun and danced through me like an out-of-control dust devil, and I smiled. I was actually doing this. Now to see if it had really worked. I held the magnifying glass above the pudding, directed energy to my third eye, and looked at the food. If there were any magical signatures or traces of magic, it should show up.
I deflated, and my shoulders sagged. Nothing. Just pudding. I never thought I’d be disappointed at seeing just pudding. Either my magical item didn’t work, or the food was fine. Maybe the tea would give me results I could be delighted with.
Saving my best bet for last, I hovered the magnifying glass over the English Breakfast. Nothing. Was I doing this right? I cricked my neck from side to side. Time for the final cup. I was going to be so disappointed if it came back blank, and I wouldn’t know if I’d done the spell properly or if it was because the tea and pudding had never been tampered with. I guessed I could save it and show James.
I made a weird noise by vibrating my tongue on the roof of my mouth in an embarrassingly poor imitation of a drum roll. “Presenting… the last cup of tea. A hush falls over the crowd. Can Lily do it? Can she see the magic?” Yep, I was having fun with it. If I failed, at least I’d amused myself for a minute. And yeah, maybe I was stalling just a tad.
Time to pull up my big-girl pants and do this. One of Mum’s favourite proverbs was, “Failure is a stepping stone to success.” I clung to that sentiment as I placed the magnifying glass over the Earl Grey.
Oh my God. Was that magic? Small golden flecks, like glitter, floated in the tea. Some were on the top, but many were within the liquid and all the way to the bottom, if I wasn’t mistaken. I magicked a glass from downstairs and poured half the tea into it, and yep, the flecks of gold were all through it. I was just about to stop watching and figure out what to do next, when a couple of the little flecks started flashing on and off. Weird. Okay, so weird was a relative term when observing magic golden bits in a cup of tea. After about thirty seconds of winking in and out, they disappeared.
Was the magic wearing out? Interesting. That meant I’d need to get this to James ASAP or get James to go order some for himself. But it wasn’t safe to call or message him. I had to assume Dana had some way of spying on me or even both of us. I’d have to trust James knew what he was doing way more than I did and go with the flow. Gah,
Or maybe I didn’t.
Maybe Dana had bugged our phones or houses magically or with normal technology, but surely she couldn’t tell if I magicked something to James. But what if Millicent was under her spell and she figured out I’d sent the tea to James? She hadn’t stood up for me the other day, although she had more important things to worry about. But before she’d been in pain, she had sat there mute like everyone else. I sighed. It was a sad day when you couldn’t even trust your sister-in-law.
Hmm. There had to be a way to get a message to James. I was a witch, for goodness’ sake. There must be something I could do that Dana couldn’t police. My eyes widened. Could I send a written paper message to his pocket? That would be perfect.
I flicked back to the contents pages of the grimoire, my heart beating a bit faster. If it were possible, it would make such a difference. I slid my finger down the “s” page. Ah, here: Sending Messages. There were subsections: voice messages; holographic messages; written messages; mind-to-mind messages. Some of those were broken down into things like, if you wanted to leave a message in an inanimate object to be found at a later date, or if you wanted the message to appear immediately. The inanimate one would be something Angelica had told me about—agents could leave a message in a painting. When the agent receiving the message turned up, the painting would talk to them as if it were real.
I turned to page 2,254. Cripes, this book was huge, which was obvious by how much it weighed, but that huge? Maybe it was like the Tardis; it contained way more than what you thought. There was no way one book could have so many pages. Maybe the pages came into being based on what you were looking for? Argh! My brain was going off on too many tangents. I needed to stick to one thing at a time.
There it was. It was a fairly simple spell—similar to moving things from one room to another, or calling something to you when you wanted it; however, if you wanted to send something to someone else directly, you had to know their magic signature so the message could attach itself to that, unless you could see the person in real life, as in, they were in the same room. And the little icon that showed how much power was involved had three witches next to each other and three hats next to each other. The first witch and hat contained a thin strip of black filled in at the bottom. The middle witch and hat were a third filled, and the last witch and hat were full. A note underneath said: This spell requires varying degrees of energy and power, which is distinctly correlated to the size and weight of the object being translocated and the distance involved.
Okay. That part was fine, since the thing I wanted to translocate weighed practically nothing, and whilst James wasn’t always in the UK, he didn’t cross oceans—that I knew about. The problem was the magic signature. I had no idea what his was. Bummer.
Looked as if I was stuck here for the rest of the afternoon and night with nothing to do. I yawned, then realised I’d been holding onto the stream of power the whole time. I released it. The magnifying glass disappeared. I pouted. “Bye, bye, magic construct. I’ll miss you. You were my first, and I’ll never forget you.”
Well, if I wanted to make the most of my time, I’d just have to memorise some more spells. I sat back on my bed, grimoire on my lap, and studied as if my life depended on it.
Because I was pretty sure it did.
Chapter 7
The next morning, I woke to a new text message from James’s burner phone. I lay on my back and held my phone in front of my face to read it. Meet me at the gallery in front of the painting where you last saw your parents. Go there at 10:00 a.m. Leave your phone at home. Tell no one and delete this message straight away.
He must fear my phone was bugged. I deleted the message and put my phone on my bed. It was nine thirty. I threw on a white T-shirt, black shorts, black cardigan, and sneakers—I wanted to be prepared in case there was any running in my near future. With everything that had been going on, it was always a possibility. At least I knew where we were going.
I had time, so I went next door and checked on Olivia. She was still sound asleep. Thank God. I then snuck downstairs—just in case Angelica was asleep, although that was unlikely, as she was an early riser— and magicked a cup of coffee. I had my coffee and a banana without any surprise visits. Then it was time to go. I hurried up to my room. After putting the lid back on the takeaway cup of Earl Grey, I grabbed it. This might be the only chance I had to show James.
I brought up my mind map and homed in on the National Gallery. I took a mental picture of the coordinates, made my door, and stuck them on the front.
I stepped through and into a clean cubicle. A toilet flushed in the stall next to mine. Wow, people must run through the front doors and straight to the toilet, which made sense if you’d travelled a long way to get here. I could imagine a bus full of elderly tourists would be totally busting by the time they got here fro
m an hour or two away.
I waited for the person to wash and dry their hands. Except there was no washing or drying. Their cubicle door opened and closed, and then the main door to the bathroom clicked shut. Ew. I screwed up my face. Wash your hands, people! How gross. Now that person was distributing wee germs everywhere. I grabbed some toilet paper off the roll. I was not touching the door handle after that.
On my way to the Canaletto where I’d taken that picture of my parents, I dropped the toilet paper into the bin.
A seesaw of nerves played in my stomach. Up, down, up, down. This was the first time I’d been back since seeing my missing parents through my camera a couple of months ago. My talent had manifested through my Nikon, and I could see things that had happened in the past, as well as real-time people who would potentially die. I hadn’t seen my parents since I was fourteen, and seeing them standing there had thrown me big time.
I swallowed as I stepped into the cavernous room that held such painful memories.
And there it was, one of Canaletto’s magnificent Venetian landscapes, although that was a misnomer since there was a lot of water in the picture. James stood there, his back to me. I walked up and stood next to him, not sure what to expect. “Hey.” My shoulders tensed. Was he still the James who loved me and would do anything to help me?
He looked down at me and put his arm around my shoulders, pulling me into a hug, which I gladly returned. “I’m so sorry, Lily. I could see what was happening in that meeting, but I didn’t dare act. I need Dana to think she has me under control too.” He dropped his arms, and I followed.
I gave him a small smile—it was a massive relief to know he could see through her crap. “It’s okay. I understand, but at first… well, I thought everyone was under her spell. How come she can’t influence us with her magic?”
“I’m not entirely sure, but it obviously has something to do with genetics and talents. Witches normally think of talents as stuff you can do. We don’t consider them in terms of what others can’t do to us, and to be honest, I’ve never met anyone who couldn’t be swayed by an influencing spell. A couple of witches have tried it on me over the last few years, but I sensed it and blocked them. But being able to deflect it without trying—that’s new.”
“But I didn’t feel any magic at the meeting. And I know that talents can be done ‘silently,’ but if she’s compelling so many people at once, you’d expect to feel some kind of magic. How’s she doing it?”
He frowned. “I don’t know. It’s possible she has some kind of cloaking device, but they’re rare and illegal. If you channel your magic through one, it’s undetectable by other witches, kind of like a silencer on a gun makes the shot quiet. If you were looking at her with your third eye, though, you’d likely see she was drawing magic. You just wouldn’t know what for.”
“I still can’t believe she’s duped Angelica.”
“Angelica is fallible. She’s one of the strongest witches I know, but Dana is too, and putting thoughts in people’s heads in order to control them is her talent.”
“And my phone?”
“Check it when you get home. Look at it with your third eye, and use a detect-magic spell. But don’t do anything else. If you destroy the spell, she’ll know. We need her to think we have no idea.”
“Okay. Do you think she knows you still have your own mind?”
“No. Let’s keep it that way.”
“Okay. Also, I found magic in this tea. It’s the one from the hospital that Olivia drank before she went berserk the other day.” I handed it to him.
He stared at me and blinked, obviously surprised. Why did everyone underestimate me all the time? He took the lid off and looked inside. The warm tingle of someone using magic caressed the back of my neck. At least it didn’t feel icky, like Dana’s had.
“Brilliant, Lily! Great work.” He looked at me and smiled. Then his smile fell, and he shook his head. “The PIB hasn’t tested anything from anywhere yet, other than the blood tests they conducted on the victims. They’re busy compiling information before they do anything else.”
“Let me guess. Dana’s in charge of that part of it?”
“No, actually, Angelica is, but Dana’s controlling her now, as you know.”
“Why do you think she’s hindering things?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Only two reasons I can see. One is that she wants Angelica and Drake to fail, paving the way for her to get a promotion. The other answer is one I like even less. She has a hand in the strife going on in Westerham.”
“That crossed my mind too. But what would she get out of it, other than the promotion thing? Maybe the two are related?” It would actually be easier if she was the one messing everything up—one perpetrator would be easier to catch than two or more. Knowing our luck, she wasn’t behind it all.”
“Maybe? But honestly, Lily, I don’t really believe she has a hand in what’s going on out there. She’s never made a secret of the fact that she wants to run the PIB one day. This could be her ticket. I know the nameless, faceless bosses who call the shots from above have had Drake on probation for the last three months. That thing with his niece put him on their radar.”
He’d given his niece, Snezana, a job at the PIB. She was the reason I’d found myself over here in the first place. She’d kidnapped James, and then she tried to kill me. Will ended up shooting her to save me. He’d killed her, but even though she was gone, the repercussions of her actions were still being played out.
“Whatever her reasons, how do we defeat her? She found me at the hospital yesterday after I’d gotten the samples. She burnt my wrist and told me if I kept investigating, she’d kill your baby. She was the one who gave Millicent those cramps the other day. Dana had threatened me earlier. That was just a warning. Next time, she plans to follow through.”
His face paled. I put a reassuring hand on his forearm. His gaze met mine, blazing with fury so hot that I could imagine his eyelashes melting. His voice was low, urgent. “How do you know she gave Millicent those cramps?”
“She said if I stepped out of line, she was going to hurt those I loved in ways I can’t imagine. That’s pretty much a direct quote. She said that to me the day I was in there answering phone calls. And at the meeting, just after Millicent started having the cramps, Dana told me if Millicent loses her baby, it would be all my fault. Don’t you remember?”
“No, sorry. I was preoccupied with other things.” He stared past my shoulder, likely thinking. His jaw muscles bunched, and I could hear what sounded like his teeth grinding against each other. Yikes.
“Please tell me you have a plan to stop her. If we don’t, she’ll be running the PIB in no time. Plus, she wants me dead. I’m practically a prisoner in my own home. If she sees me anywhere, she can pretend she thinks I’m investigating, even if I’m not. Plus, the baby.” I bit my lip and waited.
He finally looked at me. “You bet we’re going to take her down. No one gets away with harming my wife, my sister, and especially not my unborn child. I’m afraid we can’t trust Millicent right now. I’m pretty sure she would side with Dana at the moment, but I can’t mess with anything. We need Dana to think she has me in her pocket too.”
I’d suspected as much, but I was still sad that Millicent wasn’t herself. “Oh, I almost forgot. Can you give me your magic signature? I can send you notes if I have it. Then we don’t have to send text messages. Maybe we could even send some fake text messages that backup what we want her to think.”
He raised his brows. “You’ve really come a long way, Lily. That’s a brilliant idea! Where did you get that spell from?”
“The grimoire Will lent me. I have it at home. I’ve been practicing, hence the cup.” I nodded towards the tea he still held. “At least we have somewhere to start. I have a feeling it’s in all sorts of tea, although it wasn’t in the English Breakfast her dad had at the same time. And think about it; what better way to poison lots of English people than to put something in their nat
ional beverage?”
“Now we have to narrow down where it’s coming from. Once we do that, we can grab a magic signature. Great work, Lil.” He smiled.
Warmth spread through my stomach. I was proud of myself, but knowing James was proud made it that much sweeter. “So, now what? Is there anything I can do?”
He pressed his lips together, then said, “Lay low for now. I’ll see what I can come up with without Dana figuring it out. I could gather samples for the PIB. I’ll check it all out before they get it, though. When I have a breakthrough, I’ll let you know. But once we figure the who and how, we’ll need to have a plan to bring Dana down. If we give her any chance to benefit from this, it will be that much harder to get rid of her.”
Argh, lay low. That meant I was stuck inside. I supposed I could still go for my morning jogs, although there could be someone new looking for me now that the two thugs who were after me were dead. We still hadn’t figured out who was ultimately behind the kidnap and killing attempts. Oh no! “If Dana knows Millicent is pregnant, could that group who are after me know?”
He blew out a loud breath and ran a hand through his dark hair. “Damn. You’re right. I don’t know how she knows. We haven’t told anyone, and Mill’s not really showing. So now Drake knows and those two agents who were in the meeting. Shit.”
“Mill rubs her tummy sometimes without realising it. It’s a dead giveaway. That’s probably how Dana worked it out.” I sighed. It seemed the baby bump was well and truly out of the bag. “So, can I grab your signature?”
“Okay.” He held my hands. “I’m going to send it to you, like Angelica did in Paris, with the coordinates.”
Witchslapped in Westerham Page 9
