by Hannah Lin
Realizing that Lukas wasn’t answering her question, she cleared her throat. “I appreciate you checking up on me, but I need to get back to work.”
“Two hours before the shop needs to open? Must be something important that you’re doing back there.”
“Inventory,” she reminded him. It was automatic to cover up her magic, even in a town that was supposed to be filled with magic.
His eyes twinkled as he stepped back, and for the first time she thought that maybe she was seeing the real man beneath the stoic facade. “I’ll check on you later, Arabella. Let me know if you need anything.”
Arabella waited a whole five seconds after he was gone before she hurried to the door and locked it. Next time she was going to perform a dangerous spell, she’d be sure to check the door.
Wonder about the sexy neighbor later. Solve a murder mystery now.
Alone in the stock room, she pulled out the strand of hair and placed it in the dry herb mix. Hoping that the dry mustard seed would be enough, she closed her eyes and held the cauldron up.
“Magic of mine, set this spell free. Show me what I need to see.”
It sizzled and smoked and then quickly burnt out.
“Some witch you are,” Arabella muttered.
Tossing out the contents she started all over again, pulled another hair out of the jar, then pricked her finger and added a few drops of her blood into the mix.
Holding the cauldron up, she closed her eyes. This time, she felt a connection, felt the seductive pull of the magic.
“Magic of mine, set this spell free. Show me what I need to see.”
The hair started to spark and a yellow flame flared up. Narrowing her eyes, she stared at it and waited, but the flame remained constant. Gritting her teeth, she suppressed a groan.
“Heed my plea, the magic of the Risetta line calls to thee. Reveal your secrets. Reveal!”
Her voice thundered and the flame immediately turned purple. As the smoke curled into the air, she heard a male voice incant a spell. It was powerful, powerful enough to hit her even though the spell was little more than a reflection in the mirror.
“Cease!”
The flame burnt out, and she dropped the cauldron and gripped the table as she gasped for breath. Someone had placed a will stripping spell on Steven. A powerful enough witch could bury that spell deep enough in Steven and walk him out onto the rocks with a mere suggestion.
Even force him to misstep and fall to his death.
In her book, that was murder, and Arabella was not going to be able to let that go. As long as the practitioner was left undiscovered, they could do it again and again. No resident or tourist would be safe.
3
“Remember that the white candles can be a substitute for any color, but black is the stronger for dispelling negative energy.”
Bagging the candles, Arabella handed the purchase to the poor balding man who was shifting nervously from foot to foot. He believed that his ex-wife had put a curse on him and that was why his girlfriend had left him. He’d gotten a spell from Ginger, Mystic Fall’s resident goth witch, but he needed a candle.
After looking over the spell, Arabella had to give it to Ginger. She’d managed to give him a spell that might actually help. Not with the curse, but with removing any lingering remnants of his ex-wife from the house and help the man move on.
Following him to the door, she stopped short when she saw Grant walking up to her.
A middle-aged man who was greying at the temples, he towered over her when he reached her but automatically stooped his shoulders as if he was uncomfortable with his height. Being around her probably made it worse. Arabella always made everyone feel tall.
The first time she met Grant he walked right into her, literally. She’d been perusing his book shop, and he’d rounded the corner with a box full of books. It was her first day exploring the town and she’d been so embarrassed when the books crashed to the floor, but Grant was such an easy-going man. Nothing ever seemed to bother him.
“Hi, Grant. I’m so sorry, but I’m closing up early this afternoon.”
“Really?” His face fell in disappointment as he held out a piece of paper. “I’ve purchased a great new spell book, and I was hoping to sell a potions bag with it. I thought I could buy these items in bulk from you?”
“I tell you what. Let me take the list, and I’ll give you a call in the morning to see what we can work out.”
It was a great idea, but it was one that she didn’t have the time for right at the moment.
“Thanks. Diana said that you’d work with me.”
“Ah, did she read that in your palm?” Arabella joked as she took the piece of paper and tucked it in her pocket.
Diana was one of five resident palm readers in Mystic Falls. The only difference was that Diana had some real talent. She’d begged Arabella to let her do a palm reading, but Arabella was genuinely afraid that Diana would find out her magical secret. Arabella considered Diana a friend, and it was always hard to predict how people would react to the news.
“Not a chance. That woman is a little scary.” Grant shuddered before he gave her a cheerful grin. “Enjoy your afternoon.”
“You too.” One of the best things about this town was how friendly everyone was. Back in her own town, everyone knew that she and her family were a little strange and tended to give her a wide berth.
Then another of her mother and sister’s spells went awry and half the male population began to obsess with her. It took months to undo the spell, and it would take another few years of therapy before Arabella felt normal again.
All because they wanted her to find the love of her life. Instead, they’d nearly ruined her life.
Pushing away the bad memories, Arabella tried to focus on the task at hand.
Gossip about Steven’s death had already spread, and the police had searched his hotel room for good measure. Arabella needed to get into that room and see if there were any traces of genuine magic. Anything that could lead to one of the fifty or so magical vendors in town.
Because there was a crowd around the front desk of the inn it was easy enough to slip past. Steven must have been the only tenant on the third floor since the entrance at the top of the stairs was still blocked with caution tape. It made her uneasy to know that she was breaking the law, but this wasn’t something the cops could handle.
Ducking under, she made her way to the door.
“Resigno,” she whispered.
There was a distinct click, and she gritted her teeth. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a pair of gloves and opened the door. No fingerprints. She’d seen her fair share of crime shows.
Breaking and entering. She was a bona fide criminal now. Her mother would faint from shock.
The ingredients to create a spell that would strip someone of their will were rare, powerful, and expensive. Arabella doubted her own personal stash would carry everything, and she certainly wouldn’t be selling it. To the best of her knowledge, nor would any of her competitors.
It was unlikely that Steven bought the products himself, but receipts would at least give her a clue to the places that he’d been so she could see which magical entrepreneurs he’d stumbled across.
Each room at the inn had a theme, and it looked like Steven had rented a room inspired by the Ouija board. The large round table in the center of the room had a spirit board painted on it with an oversized planchette. The letters were also painted on the wall with black gauze hanging around it.
To be honest, it wasn’t very warm and welcoming. Was it a clue? Had Steven picked this room for a reason or was it randomly assigned to him?
She’d just opened one of the drawers at the desk when the door creaked behind her. Gasping, Arabella whirled around, fearing that she would have to explain her actions to a cop.
“Lukas,” she muttered.
Seeing him didn’t make the panic subside. She may have had some niggling qualms about him before, but now she had full
-blown suspicions. Gorgeous or not, something was very wrong here.
“What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing.” Quickly, he shut the door. “Have you lost your mind?”
A terrifying thought occurred to her. “Are you following me? Did you murder Steven?” Instinctively, Arabella began to summon her magic.
“Murder? The man fell on some rocks. It was an accident.”
She opened her mouth to demand answers from him when they both heard voices coming closer and closer to the door. Eyes wide in panic Arabella looked around, but there was no way out.
Reaching out, Lukas grabbed her hand and pulled her to the other side of the door so they would be hidden if it opened. He put a finger to his mouth, and she rolled her eyes. Did he think she was going to burst into song? Of course she knew to be quiet!
Lukas didn’t let go of her, and the heat continued to warm her skin. Finally, the voices subsided, and she jerked her arm away.
“You tell me who you are right now or I’m going to start screaming. I’d rather take my chances with the police.”
“Tell me why you think Steven was murdered.”
Stubborn, she clamped her mouth shut and looked away.
Lukas pressed. “Tell me how you got into this locked room. I watched you, Arabella. You didn’t use a lock pick, and I could swear that just before you found that body, you knew it was going to be there.”
Angry, she stumbled back. “You are following me!”
“I have a legitimate reason to be following you, but you are keeping secrets.” He studied her closely. “You’re the real thing, aren’t you?”
The real thing.
Instantly, Arabella’s mouth dried. No one ever dared to confront her about her magic, and she didn’t know what would happen next. Would he run in fear? Shout for the village to gather their pitchforks and torches? Or would he give her a list of people he wanted to blackmail her into cursing?
Instead, Lukas just watched her calmly as if the news didn’t bother him in the least. It was something she would have to worry about later.
Arabella folded her arms. “I plucked some hair from the victim last night, although if you were watching me, I guess you already know that. I sensed some magic in the area last night, and I used the hair to try to identify the spell. Now that I’ve done that, I’m trying to see who cast it.”
Even though he’d seen her use magic, Arabella could tell that he was struggling with the notion. She didn’t blame him, but she also didn’t have time to convince him.
“I’ve told you my secret,” she said. “Now be honest. Are you a writer intending to expose me?”
“A writer?” A baffled expression crossed Lukas’ face. “Where would you get that idea?”
“What other reason do you have for following me around?”
He smiled grimly. “I’m a private investigator, Arabella. Your mother hired me to find you.”
4
“It’s no use. Steven pretty much hit up every business in town except for mine, which is weird,” Arabella announced later after going through the pictures they’d snapped of the receipts.
They were at Lukas’ apartment above the shop, and Arabella could see why he had never invited her in.
It was obvious that he hadn’t planned on staying long. Not a single personal thing decorated the room. There was a writing desk and a chair and a blow-up mattress, all in the living room.
Arabella did her best to ignore it just as she was trying to ignore the fact that he’d managed to locate her for her mother.
“You think it’s strange that he didn’t stop in your store?” he asked as he grabbed a beer from the fridge and handed it to her. Normally she wasn’t much of a drinker because of how the alcohol affected her magic, but today she definitely needed something.
“Not just my store. There are two other shops that sell potions and individual ingredients, but he didn’t buy anything there either. He’s been to fortune tellers and palm readers and tea leaf readers and oracles. He purchased a few fictional books from the bookstore, but everything else is food. So he doesn’t want to practice magic.”
“No, he just wants to have his fortune told by thirty different people,” Lukas said wryly as he unfolded a chair from the closet and sat down.
“I guess you didn’t need to move in, did you?” she muttered under her breath while she looked pointedly around his empty apartment. They still hadn’t talked about the little bomb he’d dropped earlier.
“The landlord agreed to lease it to me for six weeks.”
She stared at her phone in silence as she mindlessly swiped through the photos before her curiosity got the best of her, and she looked up. “Why six weeks? It’s not like I’m living under a false identity. Why hasn’t my mother come busting through the door already?”
“The job wasn’t just to locate you. It was also to make sure that you were safe and happy,” Lukas explained quietly.
Guilt closed around her heart and squeezed, and she swallowed hard. Evelyn never did anything halfway. “What do you plan on reporting back?”
“I thought it might be a good idea to see this through before I send a final report.” Lukas’ lips curled in a wry smile. “Right now, I have a feeling that you aren’t safe.”
At that, Arabella shook her head. “I doubt I’m in any real danger. If there’s a genuine practitioner around, they haven’t sensed me or I would have felt their magic. The only reason I found them was because I stumbled in the path of their magic.
“A powerful enough spell leaves traces of magic that will seek to hold on to something. It’s why those kinds of spells are so dangerous. Even a non-witch could do something terrible with the residual magic if they cast a spell in the vicinity.”
Lukas cocked his head. “A genuine practitioner. Is your mother a witch as well?”
“Every member of my mother’s family is a witch, but my father’s isn’t.”
Arabella always wondered why her mother, who embraced her craft so enthusiastically, had chosen her father, but he never stood in the way of her magic. Of course, he was also the one who dealt with the more mundane part of their lives like talking to the cable repair guy, since her mother had a flair for the dramatic and often threatened to turn them into toads.
Their marriage actually balanced out.
“What made you think I was a real witch?” Arabella asked.
“On the second day I was here, I broke into your apartment. You were in your shop, but while I was there the paint color on your living room wall suddenly changed from ivory to an interesting shade of green.”
Arabella hid a smile. “I’m not allowed to paint. Magical redecorating means that I can reverse the spell before I move out, and the landlord will be none the wiser.”
“I feel like that’s somehow cheating,” he said with a faint smile.
He’d suspected from day two, and he’d still stuck around. She wasn’t sure what to do with that information.
“But wait,” Lukas said. “You weren’t in the apartment. How did you do it?”
“I only practice magic in my shop because it’s heavily warded. I can perform all the spells that I want and no one outside the shop can sense the magic. It takes energy to keep it going, so I can’t ward both my shop and apartment.
“Smaller spells, like the one I cast over my apartment walls to change the color, have no residual effect, but bigger spells draw on more powerful magic that can sometimes take on a life of its own. That’s how I knew that someone bad had happened at the falls. I could still feel the magic lingering.”
Arabella studied Lukas closely. “You’re not scared?”
“Of you?” He pulled the talisman out of his pocket. “This is supposed to protect me, right?”
Chuckling, she shook her head. He was making light of the situation, and she found that unnerving. Time and time again her sister had shown her magic to people, and they’d all been terrified, but Lukas was able to joke about i
t.
“Actually, I’m no better than the other people around here. I don’t sell any real magic.”
“You sell ingredients to spells.”
“Most potions and incantations require the use of a real witch,” she said carefully. “There are spells easy enough that non-magic users can activate them, but if I suspect that’s the case, I’ll alter the ingredients.”
“Huh,” he said softly. “So you’re swindling people out of their money.”
Stiffening, she narrowed her eyes. She hated to think of it like that.
“Most people don’t come in for real magic. They come in for a novelty experience they can’t have with their friends back home. If someone is in desperate need of help, I’ll cast a spell on them myself to protect them, but magic isn’t a game. Even the littlest spell can cause real damage.”
“Is that what your mother did to make you run?”
“Please,” Arabella snorted. “My mother doesn’t do little spells. If she had the power to turn the sky purple, she’d do it just so it matched her outfit for the day. No, my mother and my sister are go big or go home kind of women.”
“So it was a big spell.”
Arabella contemplated lying to Lukas, but there were few times when she could really open up to someone about her life, so she took the plunge.
“My sister, Miranda, is three years older than me. She falls in love at the drop of a hat and announces her secret, and when the inevitable happens, she sinks into a depression. I spent quite a bit of my time wiping memories and cleaning up after her, and as a result, I didn’t date. Ever. My mother and Miranda got it into their heads that I was depressed because I was single, so they cast a spell to help me find my true love.”
“It didn’t work?”
“Unless my true love happened to be half the men in my town, it didn’t work. Young, old, married, gay, they all came after me with declarations of love. It was a nightmare, and it took me months to clean up because my family steadfastly believed the spell had worked and one of them was meant for me.
