Ivy’s jaw dropped.
What was going on today? After being ignored for two months, suddenly Ezra was turning on the charm and admitting he was wrong? Had Lawrence McDowell killed her last night? Was she in some weird afterlife?
Maggie hummed a sad noise, “I have seen groveling work wonders, my boy.”
Ezra turned to Maggie, breaking the hold he had over Ivy. He gave her a cheeky wink before picking up another cookie. The old bird blushed.
Anne and Ivy finally walked into the kitchen.
Maggie started when she saw Ivy. “What a pleasant surprise to see you again, Ivy. Ezra was just introducing himself.”
Stella came around with a tray of tea cups. She took one for herself as she sat down. She nodded to the drinks, “Hot toddies.”
“Stella, it’s not even noon,” Maggie admonished.
“Tea takes too long,” was her only reply.
“As much as I love the thought of watching Ezra grovel, this isn’t strictly a social call.” Anne cut in while taking a seat at the table. “Not to be a party pooper but my store can’t stay closed forever. Ivy had a question for you ladies.”
Five sets of eyes turned to her expectantly. Ivy dove for one of the tea cups. She needed the liquid courage.
She cleared her throat, “You said you’ve lived in the area for a while. What do you know about the history of the territory? Before Black Bird was founded. When there was a just the Cascade Pack here?”
Patricia set down the tea tray. “We know a lot about Pinebrook and the Cascade Coven, the original founders of the area.” She practically hissed the correction.
“We were on the historical society’s board,” Stella added.
Maggie shook her head, “You both are forgetting something. We know about the Cascade Coven not the Cascade Pack,” Maggie clarified. Neither woman caught on to what she was saying. Maggie rolled her eyes and turned to Ivy. “There is a disagreement between historians in the area as to who really settled the area. One side believes the Pack was here first and one side says the Coven was. The truth is a little murky when you combine the two.”
Patricia made a rude noise. “What Maggie meant to say is that the Cascade Coven founded this territory and your town has been lying about it since. They have falsified historical records to back up their ridiculous claims.”
“You know who is behind it all.” Stella whipped out her pointing finger and started to rant. “It’s that damn Pearl Pierce. She has rabid descendant-itis. She cannot fathom a world where her family did not always rule this place. Insane bitch.”
Ivy caught Anne’s attention. What were they talking about? Anne shrugged her shoulders. Ivy glanced at Ezra. He shook his head. Okay, so they were all lost.
“Ladies,” Maggie cooed, trying to break into the middle of their tirades. They didn’t notice her. “Ladies!” Maggie put a little magic behind the word.
Teacups rattled. Stella’s hair shook. Both of their mouths snapped shut. Maggie brushed a calming hand over her hair. She cleared her throat and sent her Coven sisters a look.
Patricia and Stella ducked their heads. After a second, she twisted a finger in the air. The spilled tea rose from the table and carried itself to the sink. She sighed when she saw a cookie had fallen off the tray and broken.
Maggie smiled apologetically at Ivy. “To answer your question dear, we know about the area but in a different context then you might want.”
“What do you mean?”
Maggie bobbed her head back and forth. “We call landmarks different things. We have different major historical events. We might not even know about what you are asking about.”
Ivy tried not to groan out loud. She was at the end of her rope. It wasn’t like she had a plethora of resources at her fingertips. She scrambled to think of a solution. “If I had accurate descriptions would you be to identify landmarks or settlements?”
The three women looked at each other. It was eerily similar to the look that Ben, Ezra, and Ezekiel had shared. After a second, Stella shrugged.
Maggie turned back to her. “We could do you one better. We could show you on a map.” Ivy smiled. “For a price.” Her smile dropped.
She should have expected as much. No witch works for free. Her bartering skills were getting a work out. She pasted on a sugar sweet smile. “This is such a small thing. It barely qualifies for a favor.”
“You wish you had the credibility for a favor.” Patricia shook her head. “Like we don’t know that you’re going to disappear the instant you fulfil our bargain. You can’t collect on favors from people you’ll never see again. No, if we help you now, we want to collect now.”
Damn that old woman was perceptive. That had been her plan. Ivy sat back in her chair. She tried to seem relaxed. The last thing she wanted was Anne or Ezra picking up on her sudden tension. “I refuse to aid in any more spells. I’ve already hit my yearly quota,” she joked.
“No, no, we are fair,” Maggie assured her. “We are willing to exchange expertise for expertise.”
Ivy’s negotiating face dropped. She was genuinely perplexed. “What do you need help with?”
“We need to move the rhododendrons out front. They’re growing into the house. We don’t want to use magic and risk damaging the house,” Maggie explained.
“But we just want to relocate them,” Patricia shot Maggie a look.
Maggie rolled her eyes. “Hence why we are asking a gardener how to move them not burn them to the ground.” She smiled at Ivy. “Can you help?”
Ivy was pleased that they had asked her. She had loved working at the plant nursery. It made her sit a little taller. “That sounds like a reasonable request.” She stuck out her hand. “So, mote it be.”
Maggie took it, “So, mote it be.”
She flexed her hand when a trickle of magic heated her palm. There was barely any magic behind this contract. It tickled Ivy’s hand. She shook it off once Maggie let go of her. Three bindings in less than a day. She might as well practice magic at this rate.
“One problem,” Patricia’s voice cut through the happy feeling. “We aren’t allowed in the library.”
Damn. Neither was she. She would have to think of something. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll get you the maps.”
“Bunch of Puritanical shitheads,” Stella muttered. She looked at Ezra and Anne. “No offense.”
Anne put her hands up, “No offense taken. The townsfolks have been shitheads to you.” She thought about it for a second. “To be fair they’re shitheads to me too. It may not be because they’re prejudice. They just have terrible taste.”
A wicked smiled slowly creased Patricia’s face, “I like you.”
“Well, while you are here dear,” Maggie smiled over the top of her tea cup, “we might as well set a date for our first spell.”
Ivy’s shoulders sagged. She really did not want to stand in as the Coven’s fourth. She had made a deal though. Maggie knew that. “Which spell would you like to perform first?”
“The ward spell is our first priority,” she said.
She figured that would be the case. “How much of the original spell needs to be redone? Will new wards lines need to be drawn or is it a simple renewal spell?”
“We dug the ward lines deep into the earth surrounding the grounds. There’s no need to redraw them,” she replied.
“I checked them this morning,” Stella added as she poured more whiskey into her teacup. “They’re still straight and deep.”
That was good to hear. Drawing permanent ward lines, or in this cause digging them, took the most amount of time. “So, you only need me to stand in to recharge the ward?”
“Don’t sound so happy about it, witchling. These things take time and power,” Patricia sent her a glare.
Ivy stopped herself from glaring back. She knew that. This wasn’t her first ward but recharging a ward took less time and power than setting an entirely new ward. Instead, she sent Maggie a dazzling smile. “Do you need my help
with preparations?”
“Oh no, dear, we’re old hands at this. We have almost everything ready. We just need you here the night after tomorrow. We will start at midnight sharp,” Maggie smiled coyly.
Ivy nodded, suddenly exhausted. “That sounds wonderful.”
Ezekiel was in the kitchen when Ezra walked in. He was sitting at one of the stools set up along the island.
“Derek is watching Ivy but we shouldn’t take too long,” he said without Ezekiel having to ask. Ezra sat down on the stool next to him. “What did you find out about Lawrence?”
Ezekiel rubbed the back of his neck letting out a frustrated breath. “Everything about him is pretty normal up until about a year ago. He quit his Pack job, ‘moves’ into an apartment, and fell off the face of the earth. People stopped noticing him around town a little after that. Which is saying a lot because the guy wasn’t very social before then. I talked to his landlord; the guy knew next to nothing. Lawrence paid his rent on time. That’s all he could say.”
Ezekiel held his hand up, stopping Ezra before he could say anything. “No, he did not know where Lawrence was getting the money. Like I said, the guy knew next to nothing. I think he was hoping renting to Lawrence would get him in good with Adam.”
Ezra ran a hand through his hair. “Fuck.”
“Pretty much.” Ezekiel hated dead ends. “We might need to talk to Ivy about alternatives for the spell.”
“Yeah, call Ben too,” Ezra nodded, distracted. He stared off into space. He kept running his hands up and down his legs, working off agitated energy.
“Ezra,” he called. Ezra didn’t react. “Hey,” he shoulder checked him.
Ezra’s eyebrows dropped and his lip raised in a snarl. “What the hell, man?”
“I called your name and you didn’t say anything. What’s up?” He could smell Ezra’s tension.
Sure enough, Ezra gave him a worried look. “One of the witches said something about Ivy. She said that Ivy was going to disappear the instant she could.”
Ezekiel’s stomach dropped, “What did Ivy say?”
“She ignored it. The old woman caught her by surprise though. She smelled guilty as hell. She’s been thinking about it,” Ezra turned to Ezekiel. He looked worried. “What are we going to do? She can’t leave.”
Ezekiel rocked back in his seat, shocked. “Where is this coming from? Two nights ago, you didn’t seem too worried about Ivy leaving us. Now, you’re desperate for her to stay?”
Ezra blew out a deep breath. “It felt good to be around her the last few days. I’ve been happy. I haven’t been happy since we stopping seeing her.”
Ezekiel nodded. Neither had he.
“I forgot how happy we are together.” Ezra hung his head. He tugged his hair. “I’ve been so mad. I’ve been sick with guilt. I’ve been scared. It’s exhausting. None of that is Ivy’s fault. That’s on me. She doesn’t deserve my attitude.”
“You should say that to her,” he said honestly. “She might not want to hear it though.” They had so much work to do if they wanted another chance. They had fucked things up royally.
Ezra chuckled, “I have it on good authority that groveling will help.”
Ezekiel groaned, “Don’t tell me you roped Anne in to help us.”
“More like Maggie, the head witch.” Ezra nodded slowly, lost in thought. “Those three women,” he blew out a breath.
“So,” Ezekiel said, “did Maggie give you any ideas on how to make it up to Ivy?”
Ezra shook his head, “No, but we don’t need any advice. I already know what we need to do.”
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“We need to come clean to Cassidy and Ivy. They deserve the truth, the whole truth. If Ivy wants anything to do with us after that, then we’ll go from there I guess,” Ezra shrugged.
Yeah, that was a big if. “How do we do that?”
Ezra scratched the back of his neck. “Well, now, half the job is done since I already told Ivy about Cassidy this morning.”
“You what?” Ezekiel put his head in his hands. “Ezra, why would you do that?”
“Carol was shopping this morning.”
That also explained the phone call about Cassidy’s secret boyfriend. Carol always had insider information about their sister. She also talked a lot. No doubt right in front of Ivy. Ezra had been forced to do impromptu damage control.
He dreaded asking but he had to, “How did that go over?”
Ezra blew out a breath, “Way better than I imagined. She might not kill us the next time she sees us. We might want to get Anne a fancy chocolate bar or something. She helped smooth things over after I left to call you.”
He had no problem buying Anne boxes of chocolate if it meant she would keep smoothing things over. He felt hesitantly optimistic. “Great, now we just need to talk to Cassidy. We can ambush her about her secret boyfriend too.”
Ezra groaned, his head dropping back. “She’s exactly like us.” He gave Ezekiel a horrified look. “When did that happen?”
Ezekiel’s forehead hit the countertop, “Holy shit.”
“Uh, what are you guys doing?” Cassidy asked from behind them.
“We just realized what shit parents we are,” Ezekiel said into the tile.
Cassidy took the third stool at the breakfast bar. “Oh yeah, you guys are shit parents,” she agreed. “You’re okay brothers though.”
Ezra snarled, “Oh yeah, and how do you figure that?”
Cassidy rolled her eyes, “No parent would threaten to eat an eight-year-old.”
“She was picking on you. What else were we supposed to do?” Ezekiel defended. He had been the one to suggest going to Black Bird Elementary as a wolf.
“Yeah,” Cassidy drawled, “and parents would have told me to deal with it myself.” She smiled. “It was pretty funny to see Joan run that fast. So, what are you guys doing home in the middle of the day?”
The amused look cleared right off of Ezra’s face as he zeroed in on Cassidy. “How long have you been dating Louis Kirk?”
Cassidy gasped. Then her face screwed up in anger. “Who ratted me out?” She growled.
“I was at Chic Chick today,” Ezra started.
Cassidy’s hands hit the countertop, “Anne promised she wouldn’t tell!”
Ezekiel’s mouth dropped open. Ezra’s eyebrows furrowed.
“Why did Anne find out before we did?” Ezekiel tried to ask it in a calm voice.
Cassidy pouted. “They saw us at the diner before school.”
“They?” Ezra repeated.
“Anne and Alpha Thompson,” Cassidy muttered barely loud enough to hear.
Ezra stood up from his chair. “Great. Who doesn’t know?”
“Louis’ parents.” Cassidy put her chin on the table. “He thinks they’ll tell him to break up with me.”
Ezekiel felt his lip curl. “And why would they do that? You’re perfect.”
Cassidy sighed then sat up, “Because you guys threatened to eat an eight-year-old. Louis is worried you guys will freak out. Then his parents will freak out”
Ezra sat back down. Ezekiel threw an arm over Cassidy. “Your boyfriend is safe. You’re welcome to come hang out at the house if you want. No need to worry. He’ll get home in one piece.”
Ezra nudged her, “Your ex boyfriends however are fair game.”
Cassidy chuckled, “Okay but only exes.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Ezekiel asked softly.
Cassidy shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know. I wasn’t sure how you guys would feel. I didn’t want to make it awkward.”
“You’re our little sister. You dating is awkward,” Ezra joked.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah whatever.” She laughed then got serious again. “I didn’t want you guys to feel weird that I’m dating when you’re…” she scrunched up her nose. “Well, I don’t really want to know what you guys are doing but you’re not bringing girls around the house whatever it is.”
Ezra an
d Ezekiel shared a look. They weren’t going to get a better time.
“Actually, Cassidy,” Ezekiel cleared his throat, “we wanted talk to you about that.”
Cassidy went still but didn’t say anything.
“We met our mate,” Ezra blurted out.
Cassidy’s eyes went wide. She glanced between Ezra and Ezekiel. “Woah,” she breathed. She jumped up and threw her arms around Ezekiel before he could say anything. “I’m so happy for you both.” Ezekiel squeezed her before letting go.
Ezra opened his arms. Cassidy hit him with a thud. She rocked from side to side with Ezra. Ezekiel smiled at his sister. He just hoped still loved them after this.
“Alright,” Ezra untangled himself, “you might want to hold off on the hugs until we finish.”
Cassidy looked between the two brothers and noticed their tight mouths. Her expression fell, “Why aren’t you guys freaking out?”
“We actually met her last year,” Ezekiel admitted.
Cassidy shook her head. She opened her mouth but nothing came out. Ezekiel didn’t need a sensitive nose to know that the shock was quickly being replaced by anger. Cassidy’s face flushed red.
“You guys met your mate last year and haven’t told me?” She ended the question on a yell. Cassidy stomped into the kitchen putting the countertop between them. “I-I…” she trailed off. Her shoulders hunched as she folded her arms, “Is it me? Is that why you didn’t say anything?”
“No,” Ezra and Ezekiel yelled at the same time.
Ezra rubbed his eyes, “It’s just making it worse by putting it off.” He said under his breath. He looked at Cassidy. “Do you remember the witch who helped save Grace’s life during the rogue attack?”
Her face fell. “No,” she said in dismay.
That one whispered word cut Ezekiel to the bone.
Cassidy paced around the kitchen finally walking over to the kitchen table and dropping into one of the chairs. Ezra followed her. Ezekiel got out of his seat with a sigh but joined them at the table. Cassidy stared at the worn wood not saying a word, deep in thought.
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