Witch out of Luck

by Elle Adams

  “If you do not give us instructions, how can we know?” Bramble said. “You told us to come back later.”

  “That wasn’t—” I broke off. Clearly, elves didn’t operate by the same rules as humans did. “Okay, I’ll try to help you. But I don’t think I can convince Steve. Like I said, I don’t work for the police and I’m not a detective. Steve kind of hates my guts, actually.”

  “You made a promise, Blair Wilkes,” the king said. “See to it that you keep it.”

  The dismissal was clear. I left the cave, pursued by the certain knowledge that the elves might inflict a worse humiliation on me than a glitter-wielding pixie if I turned my back on the case.

  Talking to Steve wouldn’t be pretty, though. He and Nathan were barely on speaking terms and the only reason they hadn’t kicked off a major argument over the last couple of weeks was because they’d left one another to do their own thing. On the other hand, it didn’t have to be Steve I spoke to. I could try one of the other gargoyles. The receptionist didn't hate me, but she wasn't one of the gargoyles with the power to give someone a life sentence on a whim.

  I'd made a promise. Now I had to keep it.

  I walked down the woodland path, then beat my wings and took to the air. While the gargoyles had trouble fitting their huge leathery wings down the narrow paths, my wings were as thin as net curtains and wove among the trees as easily as the pixie did when it fluttered around the house. My limbs occasionally smacked into a tree when I went too fast, but I had to admit I was much more coordinated in this form than I was as a human. Perhaps my clumsiness came from my glamour, the same way my propensity for accidentally destroying technology in the normal world had come from the spell hiding that I was paranormal even from myself.

  Maybe the harder I denied what I was, the more likely it was to come spilling out. Who was I kidding, thinking I could have a nice normal dinner with my boyfriend’s straight-laced family? Pushing my magical nature under the table was like trying to ignore a house fire.

  After a few minutes, I found myself in a part of the woods I recognised, not far from the lake. I’d been here before a couple of months ago when Alissa and I had been trying to solve the murder of a pirate wizard’s ghost, killed by his siren girlfriend. Dating a paranormal who could sing until you drowned was hazardous, to say the least. Might something similar have killed Terrence? Even if it hadn’t been malicious, sirens’ magic was known to be deadly and Terrence hadn’t exactly been at his most observant.

  I stopped walking, spotting the lake glistening through the trees. Since I was here, it was worth getting the sirens’ version of the story, not to mention it’d be a welcome distraction from my disastrous evening.

  The sirens rarely swam in the shallows, preferring deeper water. They were also reputed to be unpredictable, not to mention crafty, so messing with drunken students seemed right up their alley. I walked right to the edge of the water but didn’t see any signs of life.

  All right, I’d check by the falls. They seemed to like that area. I was still in fairy mode, so flying down to the river was simple enough. Aside from the crash of the waterfall, the small cave was deceptively peaceful-looking. Flecks of glitter splashed my skin from the falls. The spray could temporarily undo fairy glamour. Sirens could use glamour, too so perhaps they were hiding.

  “Hey,” I called out. “Are there any sirens here?”

  I flew over the river, which widened as it merged with the lake. Had Terrence drowned in here, or had his body washed into the cave from the lake?

  I jumped in mid-air when a head popped up next to me. Unlike the blue-haired merpeople, the sirens looked close to human—albeit inhumanly beautiful. This one was no exception. Her glossy black hair fell around her face, and her skin was clear as porcelain without the wax-like quality vampires had. “Oh, hello,” she said. “You're the fairy girl, right?”

  “Uh, I guess I am.” I looked like a fairy now, after all. “Can I talk to you?”

  She pulled a face and dove underneath the water.

  “Hey!” I said. “Wait, don't go.”

  Her head emerged again. “What do you want?”

  “I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions. That's all. Did you see what happened here the other day? When Terrence drowned?”

  “Are you with the human police?” She kicked up and down in the water, her hair fanning out in dark waves.

  “Not exactly,” I said. “But I heard Terrence might have spoken to one of you before he died. Did you know him?”

  “Not well.” She kicked onto her back. Sirens didn’t wear much clothing, and her sheer dress showed me far more than I wanted to see. “He was fun.”

  Was she the siren Terrence’s classmates had said he’d been flirting with?

  “Did you see him the day he died?”

  “Mm.”

  I'd need a more concrete answer if I was to get my inner lie detector to work. “I heard he had an argument with his classmate over going to swim with you, or something.”

  “Humans and their odd arguments.” She flipped her hair. “I liked him. He made me laugh. I did speak to him the day he died. I told him I'd meet him at the shore when the others were gone.”

  Truth.

  “Did you use your song on him?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “No. I didn’t want to bewitch him. I wanted a friend.”

  She’s not lying. But there was some distinct discomfort in her tone that suggested she wasn’t telling the whole truth.

  “Did someone push him into the water?” I asked.

  The siren flipped over, splashing me in the process. “No, I think he fell in. Humans are clumsy like that.”

  That didn't tell me much. Even if he'd lost his balance, there was his water-controlling power to consider.

  “Doesn't your song cause wizards to lose their senses?”

  “Yes.” A spray rose as she kicked her feet, her expression agitated. “But I didn’t use it on him. I like the academy humans.”

  True. But I’d been fooled by a siren before. One of them had even got around my lie-sensing power when she’d used her song to sneakily put it on mute. There wasn’t any real way to counter a siren’s song either unless I got my hands on another item similar to the harp that the pirate ghost had. He’d had to procure it so he could listen to his girlfriend’s song without diving to his death in the water and it hadn’t worked out well for him in the end, anyway.

  The siren swam into the cave. “He was found here, right? Maybe he got tangled in the weeds.”

  “Hmm.” I flew as close to the water as I dared and plunged my hand into it. The weeds weren’t thick here, but he might have drowned further out into the lake and washed into the cave.

  Or someone had moved his body into the cave to hide it and throw the police off the trail.

  A flash of glitter caught my eye. I flew closer to the falls, frowning. That wasn’t the spray of the water, but something solid and glassy. A bottle. Specifically, an empty wine bottle.

  Another glint came from behind the spraying water. I tilted my head, squinting through the falls. Was there a cave behind the waterfall?

  I sucked in a breath before ducking my head underneath the falls, reaching for the cave—and a hand grabbed me by the neck, throwing me under the water.

  I thrashed, alarmed by the sudden attack. My head broke the surface of the water and I gasped for breath, flailing to grab the nearest surface. My hands grasped the bank and I pulled myself upright. Blinking water from my eyes, I twisted around and found myself face to face with the drunken elf I'd seen before. He leaned out of the cave behind the waterfall, oblivious to the glittery water raining down on his head.

  “What are you doing?” I spluttered, spitting out water. “Did you just try to drown me?”

  Bracken the elf squinted at me. “No. Did you try to touch my bottles?”

  From the side view, I could distinctly see the small cave, where a small mountain of wine bottles lay beside the elf.

/>   “I didn't know they were there,” I protested. “Do you normally attack people who try to take your possessions from under the falls?”

  He hiccoughed and didn’t answer. I pulled myself onto the bank, shedding glitter in the process.

  “Why are you here?” I asked him. Caution urged me to tread carefully. If he’d lash out and try to drown me, maybe he’d done the same to Terrence. His grip had been surprisingly strong considering the state of him, and maybe even a water wizard would have trouble fighting against the sheer thunderous power of the waterfall.

  He ducked his head back into the cave. I coughed, glancing around. The siren had disappeared. She must have swum off. Not that I blamed her.

  “You’re the fairy,” Bracken said from behind the falls. “Blair, the fairy.”

  “Yeah, why not. And I know you’re called Bracken.” I sat down on the bank, debating, then asked, “Were you trying to drown me?”

  “I didn’t try to drown you,” he said, his voice muffled behind the water’s spray.

  “It sure looked that way.” I shook out my damp hair. Even my wings were soaked through, and glitter sprayed the shore when I moved. “You dragged me under the falls. Did you do the same to someone else on Sunday?”

  “No, no!”

  True. “If you didn't do it, you were by the waterfall, right? Did you see what happened to Terrence?”

  “Who?” he said.

  “Academy student,” I told him. “He drowned here in the lake on Sunday. The police are looking for leads and they’re accusing two of your people because you were so close to the water. Did you see?”

  He leaned through the waterfall again, the falls drenching his longish dark hair. “I wasn’t here.”

  “Come on, you know that’s not true,” I said. “I saw you on the path. You called me a filthy human when I tried to stop you falling into the lake.”

  He blinked a couple of times, his gaze clouded. “I don’t… remember.”

  Truth. Though maybe it didn't count. I wasn't sure if my lie detecting ability worked when the person in question didn't actually remember anything. I'd yet to test that one.

  “Do you remember seeing any other people that day when you came to the falls?”

  “No.” Without warning, he collapsed in tears, the sound of loud sobbing rising alongside the crashing falls. Then he jumped through the falls, into the water. I worried for a moment that he’d drown himself, but he emerged a second later, dripping wet, and swam to join me on the shore.

  “You said some unpleasant things about humans,” I reminded him. “When I ran into you. Do you really not remember any of it?”

  “No.” He howled. “I hated her for ditching me. I don’t even remember how I got here.”

  “Who’s ‘her’?” I asked. “Who are you upset with? Is it Annabel?”

  He howled again at the sound of her name. “Yes, yes, beautiful Annabel. She broke off my heart, and nobody cares!”

  “What about the other elves?” I said. “They were here too, weren’t they?”

  He sniffed again. “Yes, they’re threatening to haul me back to the king in person. I don’t want to go back there. I quit.” He set his jaw defiantly.

  “The king is concerned about you,” I said, alarmed at his sudden outburst. “So are your friends, Bramble and Twig. Bracken, did you know the police are blaming you and the others for Terrence’s death? He drowned in the falls, right here. Are you positive you didn’t see anything?”

  “I don’t remember.” He slid back into the water and dunked his head under the falls again.

  True. He wasn’t lying, but I’d have to wait until he sobered up to get any more sense out of him.

  “Are you sure?” I raised my voice over the crash of the falls. “Did you see any other people around here that day? In the water or otherwise?”

  His head emerged. “I saw a lot of humans. I remember some on broomsticks…”

  “The High Fliers.” They’d still been in the sky when the academy students had finished their game. And they had a good view of the lake from up in the air. Maybe one of them had seen what’d happened.

  The High Fliers would have to wait. When I flew out of the cave and back to the forest, rain had begun to fall, washing the glitter from my skin. I wasn’t up for flying in the rain, and besides, it was getting late.

  Time to go home… which meant facing the utter chaos I’d left behind. Maybe squatting in a cave behind a waterfall wasn’t such a bad life plan after all.

  “Oh, Blair,” said Alissa, shaking her head at me. “You don’t do things by halves, do you?”

  “You’re telling me.” I buried my head in a cushion on the sofa. “Nathan hasn’t even texted me since I disappeared, and I don’t blame him. I thoroughly screwed up.”

  I’d spent the last half-hour explaining my nightmare of an evening. Alissa insisted on ordering takeout and we sat eating pizza on the sofa, accompanied by the cats.

  “Miaow,” was Sky’s contribution to the discussion.

  “It’s all right for some people,” I told him. “You’re a cat. You can just disappear from awkward situations without anyone asking questions.”

  “He didn’t like Nathan’s family, then?” Alissa bit into her second slice of pizza.

  “He didn’t like his older brother, Jay.” I lifted my head from the cushion and grabbed another slice. “He seemed fine with his other siblings. But he usually understands that some events are humans-only. I don’t get why he was just—there.”

  “Maybe he thought you were inviting him.”

  “That’s no reason for the pixie to take up an imaginary invitation, too.” I chewed a mouthful of pizza. “He covered everything in glitter, including Nathan’s family. Then the elves yanked me into the forest. It’s my own fault. I said I’d go with them and I didn’t specify when, so they picked the worst possible time by default.”

  “Ah,” she said, wiping her fingers on a napkin. “I’d be really specific with them next time.”

  “Not sure there’ll be a next time,” I said. “Nathan’s family thinks I’m a freak, and the elf king is dead set on me defending his drunken friend to Steve the bloody Gargoyle. Did someone spike my drink with a lucky latte?”

  “Nope, it’s just you, Blair.”

  “Wonderful. And on top of that, I nearly drowned.” I explained my ill-fated encounter with the elf behind the waterfall.

  “He tried to drown you?” Her eyes widened. “Okay, that doesn’t seem like an innocent man, heartbroken or not.”

  “I know,” I said. “Believe me. But if I don’t prove to Steve that the elves didn’t do it, then they won’t tell me about my family. Again.”

  “That’s blackmail.” Alissa sipped from a glass of wine she’d brought out—not of the elf variety. “I know the elves don’t follow human rules, but… do you think he committed the crime?”

  “He doesn’t remember,” I said. “And the other two won’t admit anything. I don’t think they did it, but my lie-sensing power doesn’t work as effectively if I’m dealing with someone who has no memory of what they did and why.”

  “I guess it’s hard to defend someone with no memory,” Alissa observed. “It also seems a weird place to hide, behind the Fairy Falls.”

  “You’re telling me,” I said. “He was hiding from the other elves, heartbroken because he was dating a human and she ditched him. Not sure why. I wouldn’t think most people would then snap and murder a stranger, but he was completely addled and ranting against humans the day Terrence died.”

  “Ah,” she said. “Who was he dating, do you know?”

  “Annabel, the seer’s granddaughter,” I said. “You know, the one I accused of cursing Mr Falconer’s apprentices. He’s the reason she quit that apprenticeship, actually, so I thought they were serious. Not sure she’ll want to speak to me, but it’s her or Steve the gargoyle. Who knows, maybe she can coax a confession out of him.”

  Not that it’d make my relationship with the elve
s any less fractious, especially if it turned out he was guilty. The elves hadn’t said what they’d do if that was the case, but I doubted it would involve them telling me the latest news on my family.

  “Maybe,” she said. “I’d tell you to leave the elves alone, but…”

  “But they know my family,” I finished. “And since Nathan’s family hates me, at this rate, the fairies will be all I have left.”

  6

  The following morning, Sky woke me up by licking my face. My first instinct was to look out the window for any signs of the pixie or the elves, but knowing my luck, they’d leave me alone until the next time I tried to meet with Nathan’s family. Assuming there was a next time.

  “Why me, Sky?” I said aloud.

  “Miaow.” His tone suggested he meant to say get a grip, Blair. Or he wanted me to feed him.

  It wasn’t all bad news. I was pretty sure the siren was innocent and less sure on the elves. It was still raining, so unless it cleared up by the time I got out of the office, talking to the High Fliers was out. At this stage, the best thing to do would be to talk to Annabel. She might not be my biggest fan, but she’d quit her apprenticeship to be with Bracken and from his reaction, whatever had caused their breakup must have been serious.

  On the other hand, she had not been thrilled with me the last time I’d caused the police to haul her in for questioning. When I’d been investigating the curse on the wand-maker’s apprentices, Annabel had been the natural suspect after I’d found out her grandmother and the wand-maker had argued shortly before the accident that had caused permanent magical damage to the old seer’s mind. I’d later learned that she’d been the wand-maker’s apprentice herself for all of a week until her relationship with the elf had led her to break it off. She’d been lucky, because if she’d stayed any longer, she’d have been turned into a mouse along with the other apprentices. While I’d helped solve that particular dilemma, Annabel had enough awareness of my lie-sensing power to be able to get around it if she wanted to and wouldn’t be pleased that someone else she cared about might be implicated in a crime.