Essence of Magic (Ruby Morgan Book 1)

by LJ Rivers

  The thought had more than crossed my mind, especially after what had happened at the Halfway, though I couldn’t be sure if that incident and what happened to those girls had anything to do with one another. The thought did make me shiver, and Mum’s words of caution whispered in my head.

  “They don’t,” I said, trying to sound confident.

  Charlie dangled her feet over the edge of the bed, her toes a little too close to my face, forcing me to sit.

  “I figured you out on day one,” she said. “Who’s to say I’m the only one who realized what you did and what you are?”

  “I guess we’re back to our ‘needle in a stack of bigger needles’ hunt, then?”

  “You bet.”

  We went back to our previous search on the magic market. And though Mum’s words were gnawing at the back of my mind, I couldn’t keep my promise to her. Not now.

  Charlie typed in a few of the names and words from the page we came across on our last search: MagX swapping, Cheap MagX and so on, but only got to the same ads.

  One search, Camelot Inc., sent us to a series of firewalls and protected sites within other protected sites. Charlie tried to get past them but had to give up.

  I sighed. “We’re not going to get anywhere with this.”

  “Then we find a different approach.”

  “Like what?”

  Charlie scooted her chair back, adjusting her glasses. “I know who Dunc’s dealer is. And where there are dealers, Harvesters won’t be far behind.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean, you know who his dealer is?”

  “Her name is Shauna.” Charlie wavered, fidgeting with her phone. “I have her number.”

  “Oh,” I muttered as I realized the connection.

  “Yeah—I haven’t been in contact with her since Diane’s party, I promise, though I can text her and ask if she can meet us for an exchange.”

  The thought of Charlie anywhere near that dealer made my fists ball up. I didn’t need her falling back into that rabbit hole.

  “As long as you promise me you’ll delete her number once we’ve talked to her.”

  “Scout’s honour.” Charlie placed three fingers to her temple.

  “You’ve never been a scout a day in your life, have you?” I laughed softly.

  “Nope.” Charlie grinned. “Guess you’ll just have to take my word for it. I’ll text her now.”

  While we waited for a reply, my mind drifted. I didn’t want to ask, but I couldn’t keep it to myself anymore. “Are we sure Dunc doesn’t have anything to do with Ilyana’s death?”

  “A couple of days ago, I would have said yes. Now, I honestly don’t know.”

  “I don’t either.”

  “Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt,” Charlie said, “and see what we can find out.”

  “Totally.”

  It didn’t take long before Shauna answered Charlie’s text.

  Fifteen. The labyrinth.

  “Where?”

  “Have you not seen the labyrinth garden yet? Come on.”

  I shook my head, and Charlie grabbed my hand, yanking me out of our flat. We passed the lecture hall where I had spent my morning and ended up at a part of campus I hadn’t seen so far. A large fountain stood in the middle of a square, surrounded by still-blooming flowers and evergreens. Charlie guided me past it and into what looked like it might well be a never-ending labyrinth of tall hedges.

  I stopped in my tracks, letting go of Charlie’s hand. “You sure you know how to get out of there?”

  “Of course I do.” She took my hand again. “We’re not going far, just far enough so no one will see us.”

  We entered into the labyrinth and pushed ourselves through a hedge wall, where people had been in and out before, judging by the broken twigs and bent stems. A twig stuck in my hair.

  “We’re here,” Charlie said.

  I looked around. The walls of the labyrinth were taller here, and I couldn’t pinpoint an exact exit. The area was spacious, shaped like a square, and a metal bench stood by the hedgerow at the far end of what almost felt like a glade in a forest. I ran a hand through my hair and stopped as my fingers caught hold of the twig. I couldn’t get it out.

  “Do you mind?” I asked Charlie, pointing to my head.

  She laughed, and we went to sit on the bench where she spent a whole five minutes untangling the twig. Not that we didn’t have time. It took another thirty before Shauna entered from the same spot we had. Her thick, springy hair gathered more leaves and branches than mine had. She shook her hair free of what she could and let the rest stay where it was.

  Shauna faced us and eyed me warily. “Who’s the tag-along?” she called.

  “She’s cool,” Charlie said.

  “Is she buying?” Shauna came closer, closing the gap between us.

  “Actually,” I interjected, standing to meet her, “we’re not buying anything today. Sorry about that. We kind of just had to ask you a question.”

  “I’m out.” Shauna turned away, but I couldn’t let her leave.

  My blood ran hot, simmering in my veins as my magic flared through me. The surge of power ricocheted through my blood, willing itself to break free. I opened my hands and shot out what was meant to be a force field. Instead, a rush of flames blasted through the air to form a ring of fire around Shauna. Sweat immediately coated her brow as she turned back, staring at me with blatant dread in her dark brown eyes.

  “What is this?” Shauna howled. “Don’t hurt me!”

  I cupped my hands and a set of fireballs formed in my palms while I stepped closer. “As I said, we have a question.”

  Charlie grabbed my forearm and I shot her a cold look, making her back up.

  “Who supplies the blood you’re dealing?” I asked Shauna, not quite recognizing my voice.

  A flame licked past a lock of her curly black hair, singeing it at the edges. “Please. Stop!” she cried.

  “Who supplies the drugs?” I pressed.

  “Greg,” she shouted. “His name is Greg.”

  “Ru! Let her go!” Charlie’s voice was shaky but determined. She grabbed my arm again, and my head snapped to look at her. “Girl, your eyes. Let Shauna go. Now!”

  I struggled against myself. Part of me wanted to let the flames have their way; they begged me to allow them to devour Shauna. But Charlie begged me not to. The fear was written all over my friend’s face. I pulled air into my lungs, focusing on the only thing I could, the purest part of myself, my healing power. Spirals of shimmering white wisps wrapped around the fireballs, dancing outwards to shift around the ring of fire. The flames died down, shooting back into my blood along with the wisps of white. They moved inside me, raging against one another until I closed my hands and commanded them to still with my mind. My blood stopped simmering, and I staggered backwards, heaving for breath.

  Shauna shifted her weight, swaying on her feet for a moment, then darted away from me faster than I thought she was able to before crashing through the hedge to disappear from sight.

  I slumped to the ground, my eyes locked on the circle of singed grass in front of me. What the hell had I done?

  “Ruby?” Charlie prompted, crouching in front of me. “Are you with me, love?”

  “I—I’m here.”

  “What the fudge happened? I knew you had some heat in there, but I didn’t know you could shoot actual fire from your hands.”

  “Neither did I until the last few days,” I admitted.

  “I thought you said Fae didn’t have those kinds of powers?” She tilted her head at me, looking every bit as confused as I was myself.

  I was shaking, trembling into a ball. “They don’t. We don’t.”

  I couldn’t wrap my head around it, so I couldn’t exactly expect Charlie to understand it any more than I did.

  “At least we got a name,” I said, hunching my shoulders.

  Charlie narrowed her gaze at me. “That was some scary shit, Ru.”

  “Tell m
e you’re not scared of me. Please. I didn’t mean to. Do you hate me now?”

  Was this it? Was this the moment when I lost the one person I thought could be my friend for life? I couldn’t blame her if she wanted to run for the hills, but I needed her to stay.

  “It freaked me out, I’m not gonna lie, but I could never hate you, pumpkin. You’re my friend, and whatever the heck is happening inside you, we’ll figure it out. Together.”

  She folded her arms around me, pulling me into a hug. “Let’s focus on this Greg for now, though. If you’re up for it?”

  I hugged her back, squeezing tight. The fact that Charlie didn’t shy away from me, even now, made my heart expand with hope.

  “I’m up for it. I think. Thank you, Charlie. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t been here.”

  “That’s my job, silly. As your friend and all. For better or worse and all that.” She gave me a hand, helping me to my feet, then wrapped her pinkie with mine. “Friends for life, Ru Ru.”

  I nodded.

  “Let’s find this Greg, then.”

  “You know who he is?” I asked.

  “Nope. Not heard of him. I know a lot of people, but there are hundreds of students on campus. I’m not exactly a walking student roster, but I can always fish one out for us.”

  We returned to Charlie’s room, and within minutes, she had hacked her way into the university server.

  “They really ought to get better firewalls,” said Charlie, her voice back to its normal chipper tone. “Let’s see if anyone is named Greg, shall we?” She typed in the name, and twelve results popped up.

  “Guess we’re excluding people first, then see who we’re left with?” I asked.

  “Good call. There’s a lecturer called Greg.” Charlie snickered. “Man, he looks ancient. I think it’s safe to assume that this guy is not fit to be a Harvester.”

  “Talk about fit.” I pointed at another name on the list. “Harvesters probably need to be well trained. That guy is too heavy, I think.”

  “Agreed.”

  We went down the list, and could easily exclude everyone who didn’t look like they enjoyed going to the gym on a regular basis. In the end, we were left with only three names.

  “Uh, Ru.” Charlie nudged a finger to a picture on the screen. “Recognize him?”

  I gasped as I recognized his face. “The janitor?”

  “The janitor, aka Greg Barrows,” Charlie confirmed.

  I stood for a moment, transfixed by the prospect. We did have two other candidates on the list, and we couldn’t be a hundred percent certain that the Greg we were looking for was even on this roster. Still, my intuition told me we had our guy. At least he was a guy, of the Harvester kind. I was almost sure of it.

  “Should we tell Jen?”

  Charlie scratched her ear. “She’s with Diane. If we’re wrong, then it would be very uncool to accuse the guy she likes. Let’s dig a little deeper and tell her once we know more.”

  Not sure if it was a good idea or not, I agreed.

  “How do you know where to look for all this?” I asked. “Aren’t these things kept secure?”

  “There’s secure, and then there’s secure,” she said. “You’d be surprised to see how many government and public services data systems are as open as Tescos. At least to someone like me.”

  It didn’t take long before she had half a dozen windows open on her computer—adoption records and child protective services among others. She searched for any records she could find on our suspect janitor. The pieces seemed to match up. There was no record of him, nothing at all to be found between the age of fifteen and the age of twenty. It was as if he hadn’t existed at all during those five years. He was an orphan, raised within the system, bouncing from one family to another.

  “Crap on a cracker,” Charlie exclaimed. “When he was fourteen, his foster parents went missing. They were never found.”

  “That’s it. I’m calling Jen.” I pressed the dial button and listened to the sound of the ring tone. No answer. “You try,” I said to Charlie.

  She placed the phone to her ear and waited. “Not picking up. She’s probably mid-shoot. We’ll tell her when she gets back.”

  I turned to the screen again, Greg Barrows leering back at me. This creep had been right under my nose since the day I arrived, and all I had seen was a handsome guy, someone who changed the lightbulbs and helped people fix their sinks and whatnots. The phrase looks can be deceiving sprang to mind. I would not make that mistake again. We couldn’t be sure if Greg had anything to do with Liv or Corinne, but I was sure about one thing as I stared at him now—this guy was a Harvester.

  We’re on to you, bloodsucker.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I took a final look into my shoulder bag to make sure I had brought extra pens and a notebook as well as a charger and my laptop, which was all I needed for a lecture on source criticism. Placing the bag over my shoulder, I stepped into the hallway and hurried to the front door. I only had ten minutes to get to the lecture hall, and this was one I hadn’t been to yet.

  “Ru,” Charlie called after me. “Wait up.”

  “I need to run or I’ll be late.”

  She caught up with me, and a sense of worry built in my chest.

  “What?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “Jen didn’t come home last night, and she’s not been back in her room.”

  My heart sank like a stone through water, and I put a hand on the wall to steady myself. “Have you tried calling her? Or Diane?”

  “Both go straight to voicemail,” Charlie murmured. “I’m worried something might have happened. What if someone snatched her on the way home last night? What if—”

  “Don’t think like that,” I cut her off. “They probably had a few drinks, and Jen is sleeping it off back at Raven Court. Plus, the other girls, Liv and Corinne, were Magicals. Jen isn’t. I’m sure she’s fine. Even if she is dating a Harvester scumbag.”

  “You’re probably right.” Charlie relaxed her shoulders. “Go on then. I don’t have any lectures today, so I’ll go to Diane’s and check on Jen.”

  I hesitated. “Sure? I could come with you?”

  “Nah. You have studies. Go. I’ll text you when I find her.”

  I didn’t want her to go on her own, but Mum would kill me if I began ditching classes before I had even started them. “Text me as soon as you know, all right?”

  “Will do.”

  I sprinted out the door and found the lecture hall five minutes too late. Lucky for me, it hadn’t started yet. The students were still murmuring amongst themselves, while the lecturer was having a technical argument with the sound equipment. I snuck in and found a seat on the back row. A guy further to the front stood to help the lecturer with his tech.

  “Thank you, Frank.” The lecturer’s voice boomed through the speakers before he turned the sound down to a more pleasing level. “Now, my name is Míng Jié Zhang, but you may refer to me as Mr Zhang.”

  There was only a hint of his Chinese heritage in his otherwise nearly perfect British. Silver strands ran through his long black hair, which was combed back over his head, falling just above his shoulders.

  “This is your first lecture on journalistic criticism. It is important that you understand the ramifications of not verifying your sources, and in this day and age, it’s especially difficult to navigate truth from deception.”

  A slide appeared on the large screen at the front as Mr Zhang dove into his lecture. It was interesting enough, and I wanted to pay more attention, but my mind kept drifting back to Jen, and our recent discovery on the janitor’s spare time activities. It didn’t sit well with me, knowing that he was a Harvester and that he was dating Jen, though I figured he wouldn’t harm her as long as she was just a normal human. Maybe he really liked her?

  I retrieved my phone, hiding it behind the screen of my laptop while texting Charlie.

  Anything yet?

  Seconds late
r, my phone vibrated with a reply.

  Nothing. She’s not at Raven, followed by a sad smiley.

  My finger slid over the screen, texting my response.

  Ok. Meet you back at Craydon after class?

  Charlie sent me a thumbs up, and I raised my head to the presentation again, a growing pit of worry settling heavily in my gut. The one and a half hours were starting to feel more like an entire day as the lecture continued. I needed to get out of there. It was as if my blood was expanding in my veins, tugging at me to leave.

  Something was definitely up.

  “Think about it. That would be all for today,” Mr Zhang announced, making me bounce out of my seat. “Make sure you check for your assignment. It will be posted on the LMS later today.” His voice faded in the background as I dashed outside and back to the flat.

  “Charlie?” I called as I ran through the front door to her room. It was empty. I dropped my bag on her bed. “Char?” I cried out.

  “In here,” Charlie replied from across the hall.

  I walked over and shifted my eyes around Jen’s room. The usually tidy space was cluttered with her stuff, and Charlie was the obvious culprit behind the mess. She was turning everything over, darting back and forth like a chipmunk.

  “Jen is not going to like this,” I mumbled.

  “Well, when she goes off like this, staying out after curfew, and doesn’t even let us know where she is, she can only blame herself,” Charlie said in a rush before kneeling by Jen’s bed, sticking her head underneath it. Moments later, she crawled back out with a wooden box in her hands. It looked handcrafted from gorgeous ebony wood, with a moon carved out on the lid, a sapphire gleaming on each corner.

  She stroked a hand over the box. “I’m so worried about her, is all.” Her fingers touched the clasp on the front. “Should we open it?”

  “Not sure what other choices we have.” I sat next to her on the floor. “She would understand, I think.”

  Together, we unhinged the clasp and lifted the lid off the box to take a look inside.