Reg returned to the B&B and breathed a sigh of relief. Hopefully, Starlight had behaved and had not destroyed anything or had an accident while she was gone. He knew where she was going, but a cat couldn’t be expected to be in control of all of his bodily functions or instinctual behavior.
Chapter Thirty
The bags were heavy and Reg wasn’t paying attention to anything around her as she walked up the sidewalk to the front door. She shifted her load to try to free up one hand to knock or try the door. She wasn’t sure what the proper protocol was at a B&B. Did she ring and wait for the owner to let her in, or just go in as if she lived there, which she currently did?
“Regina.”
His voice went through Reg like an electrical shock. She spun on her heel and found herself face-to-face with Corvin.
“What are you doing here?”
“Shall we go inside?” he gestured to the door, making a motion to open it for her. Reg swallowed and looked around her to consider her options. At her house, she had wards set to prevent Corvin or anyone she didn’t give permission to enter her home. But she hadn’t even thought to protect her room at the B&B. She had been too tired, too distraught, and although Sarah had given her some instruction, she’d never attempted it by herself before.
She was able to shield herself from Corvin, though. She had done it before; it wasn’t really a problem as long as she was strong and well-rested. But she’d barely gotten a couple of hours’ sleep under her belt.
“To talk,” Corvin said, raising his brows at her. He looked around as if there might be people listening to them on the street. “I’m sure you would like some level of privacy.”
Reg scowled at him, the muscles across her forehead tight. “What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you to return.”
“How did you know I was here?” She shook her head. “Did you follow me?”
He gave a little shrug, as if embarrassed.
“How did you find me?”
“You know that we are connected.” He spread his hands apart. “I don’t know how to break that connection.”
Even if he wanted to. Which Reg was sure he didn’t. He had been delighted to follow her there, away from the protections and Sarah’s watchful eye. He was happy to get her by herself.
“So you… spied on me psychically?”
“No more than you have done.”
Reg swallowed. That much was true, but she hadn’t thought he had been aware of it.
“You really want to talk about this outside?” Corvin asked. “We are safer indoors, where we can put up a shielding spell.”
Reg set down one of her bags and rubbed her forehead. “Corvin… I don’t want you here. You shouldn’t have come here!”
“If you are in danger, I can help.”
“What makes you think I am in danger?”
He motioned again to the door. Reg gave in. She gave the knob a twist and opened the door. Corvin picked up the bag she had set down, and Reg led the way through the house to her room. Reg saw Mrs. Agnes peer at her from the kitchen.
“We didn’t talk about you entertaining men here,” she said, warning in her voice.
“He’s not staying.”
She didn’t stay to hear what else Mrs. Agnes had to say about it. She used the key she had been given to unlock her door and ushered Corvin in.
Starlight was sleeping on the bed. He stretched and yawned, squinting in Reg’s direction. Then his mouth shut with a snap. His ears folded back and he snarled at Corvin.
“Cat,” Corvin sneered, not liking Starlight any better than Starlight liked him.
“Both of you be civil. Corvin is not staying.”
Corvin shut the door behind him. Reg decided she’d better take care of Starlight first. He had been waiting patiently for her, and she didn’t want him to be crabby about not being fed or being able to relieve himself and to take it out on Corvin. Although Corvin could probably use a little comeuppance. She ignored Corvin’s presence while she unpacked her bags and got everything set up for Starlight. Starlight went immediately to the litter box and Reg pulled the bathroom door shut most of the way to give him some privacy. She put some kibble in a bowl for when he was done, ducked out to put her ice cream in the freezer in the kitchen, then finally faced off against Corvin.
“You shouldn’t have come here.”
“Probably not,” he agreed. “But I wanted to make sure you were all right.”
Or to take advantage of her distressed state.
“As you can see, I am just fine.”
“I’m not sure I would call this fine.” Corvin looked around the room with its homey, feminine decorations. “This isn’t exactly home.”
“It will do until I sort things out.”
“You are not planning to return to your cottage?”
“I don’t know yet. Have you been talking to Sarah?”
“No.” He frowned. “About what?”
“She called me. I just wondered if the two of you were in cahoots.”
“You know how Sarah feels about me. Suffice to say, we are not collaborating.”
Reg stared at him for a minute, trying to figure out what to do next. She folded her arms across her chest. “What do you know?”
“What do I know.” Corvin rubbed his whiskered chin and leaned back against the closed door. “I know that you are in the middle of this Magical Investigation, but I’m not sure what it is all about. I know that you and the investigator have… not been getting along. That there was an incident last night. And I know you left home and came here.” He displayed his hands palm-up as if to show he had nothing else. “That’s it.”
“Hasn’t he talked to you? Julian?”
“Yes. He has talked to me. But he didn’t want to give me any information about what concerns they have. I would have put any worries they have to rest, I can assure you.”
“Davyn seems to like him.”
Corvin raised an eyebrow thoughtfully. “Indeed. Well, I did not find anything to like about him. What is it he’s investigating in the Everglades?”
“What did he ask you? What did you tell him?”
“He just asked about where each of us was on each day. The progress of our search. I’ve answered in generalities. No details.”
“What did you tell him about me? About what happened while we were there?”
“I told him… that you were helping us to locate a missing person. Your arrangement was with Damon, not me… and as little as possible about our movements.”
“You told him that I sleepwalked and disappeared?”
He surveyed her unemotionally. “You did.”
“You know I wasn’t sleepwalking.”
“I told him that we thought you had been sleepwalking. It was the only explanation we could come up with at the time for your absence.”
“And after that? You didn’t tell him anything I told you?”
“I said that you couldn’t tell us very much. That you were confused and disoriented, and we didn’t have any idea what had happened to you while you were away.”
Reg nodded. She hadn’t thought that Corvin would give Julian any details. Damon might. He was a security guard and was far more likely to be open and honest with what he perceived to be a legitimate investigation. But she had told Damon even less about the missing time period than she had told Corvin.
Neither of them said anything for a while, gauging the options and weighing their words. Reg sat down on the end of the bed, tired. She wanted to crawl back into bed and sleep the rest of the day away. She didn’t want to think. She didn’t want to have to deal with her problems. She thought she had left everything behind, and there was Corvin, following her and sticking his nose into her business.
“Julian is with the Endangered Species department,” she told Corvin finally.
He probably knew that already. If not, it probably wouldn’t be hard to find out.
Corvin nodded slowly.
“He w
ants to know about Tybalt.”
Corvin groaned. “Are they seriously concerned over the disappearance of a swamp goblin?”
“Death,” Reg corrected.
“And MI thinks it’s their job to find out what happened to him and put additional safeguards in place.”
Reg nodded.
“You really don’t need to be worried about them. They are… they don’t have a lot of power. They are mostly bureaucratic.”
“Tell Julian Sabat that.”
“He’s young. He’s just cutting his teeth.”
“Well, I don’t want to be the case he teethes on.”
Corvin snorted.
“Sarah is going to complain about him,” Reg said. “She figured that would go farther than me doing it.”
“I’m sure she’s right. She probably knows half of the department over there. The older staff, anyway.”
There was another period of silence. Reg didn’t offer any more information.
“What happened last night?” Corvin asked eventually.
“What do you know?”
He pursed his lips. “I wasn’t there,” he said slowly, feeling his way through the conversation.
“But you know something happened. Who talked to you and what did they tell you about it?”
“No, no one said anything. I felt something from you. Your… emotions carried through our connection. I wasn’t eavesdropping, but your emotions were very strong and I couldn’t help knowing something was happening.”
Strong emotions. That was one way to put it.
“I had a confrontation with Julian.”
“But not at your house.”
“In the grocery store. I’m sure it’s all over town this morning. All you had to do was stay in Black Sands and you would have heard all of the details.”
“Why a confrontation in the grocery store?”
“I was picking up some treats. He was picking up wine for him and Davyn.”
The raised brows. Silence, waiting for her to go on. Reg could hear Starlight chowing down on his dry kibble. At least he wasn’t yowling at her about serving him substandard food. She couldn’t manage anything better at the moment. She would give him some canned food later in the day when she could summon up the energy.
“Julian was bugging me,” Reg said, her voice sounding juvenile in her own ears, like the kid in the back seat on a car trip. He’s bugging me. He’s in my space. He’s looking at me. “I might have… accidentally exploded his bottle of wine. And then… things kind of escalated from there.”
It sounded trivial and ridiculous when she recounted it. It was hard to explain the fury she had felt at being the brunt of his bullying. Again. She wasn’t going to take any more from Julian Sabat.
“Escalated how?”
“There was shouting… he drew his wand…”
“He drew his wand?” Corvin repeated, aghast. “In public?”
Reg nodded. “Right there in the grocery store.”
“Unbelievable. I would complain to MI too. If I didn’t tear his head off first. Drawing a wand on you.” His eyes swept over her as if looking for an injury. “You seem to be in one piece. I gather you handled it.”
“Yeah. I kind of took it away from him, kept him from doing anything else.”
“Where is the wand now?”
“I gave it back,” Reg assured him quickly. “I wouldn’t take something like that with me. I don’t even know how to use it. I wouldn’t want to have an accident.”
“No. You wouldn’t. You are quite powerful enough without wand magic as well.”
“I just… I didn’t know what else to do. I had to get out of there. I can’t deal with him or his questions anymore, and now there’s going to be some kind of investigation into me taking away his wand. I don’t want to get clapped in some smelly prison or bound for a hundred years.”
“I think he would be more likely to get into trouble than you, but…”
“I’m not going to take that chance.”
“So you’re not coming back.”
“I can’t. Not right now.”
“You should have the chance to tell your story. Contact his superiors. Let them know what happened. They’re not going to lock you up, trust me.”
Reg hadn’t managed to stay out of jail thus far by giving her side of the story to the police. She avoided contact with them wherever possible. She recognized when she was in a bad situation and she left. She got to where she was by using her brain, not by telling sob stories to the cops.
“You won’t reconsider?”
Reg thought about what she had told Sarah earlier. To hold her cottage for another month. Wait and see what happened. But Corvin was less of an ally than Sarah. And if he thought she was slipping away from him, leaving Black Sands for good, he might be even more desperate to steal her powers than ever before. And she didn’t want to have to fight him.
“I can’t say. I don’t know how this is all going to turn out.”
“Some fortune-teller you are.”
Reg laughed. It was the case, though, that fortune-tellers could rarely see anything about their own futures. When she thought about Julian and his investigation and about her empty cottage in Black Sands, all she could see was the way he had attacked her in the store, drawing his wand, just as he had used the pen at The Crystal Bowl.
Red eyes, lightning streaming from his wand. Fury written all over his features. She didn’t know what he was authorized to do if he decided she was guilty of something, or if she attacked him. Could he kill with his wand? Or was that only TV? It was hard to know what was really real. She hadn’t grown up in a magical community like Corvin had.
“I don’t want to have to deal with Julian Sabat. I’ve told him I don’t know what happened to Tybalt. Unless they can prove otherwise… that’s all I’m going to say. I’m done.”
Corvin nodded. “That’s probably the best course of action.”
She was glad he hadn’t told her that she should go back, explain everything that had happened, and throw herself on the mercy of MI. Because she wasn’t going to do that.
“So… you’re staying here with the cat for how long? Until the investigation is closed? That could be a long time.”
“I don’t care if they close the case or not as long as I don’t have to talk to Julian again.”
There was a tap on the door. Both of them flinched, and Corvin moved away from the door.
“Breakfast time,” Mrs. Agnes invited from the other side. “And if you want to bring your guest… you can.”
Reg wasn’t ready for breakfast. She looked at Corvin. His eyes lit up. To get there so early in the morning, he had probably left Black Sands just hours after Reg and consumed nothing but gas station coffee or chocolate bars.
Reg rolled her eyes. “Fine. We’ll do breakfast.”
She looked at Starlight to make sure that he would settle. “We’re going to go get our food. Are you okay here by yourself? Go to sleep?”
He looked at her and then turned his head to stare at Corvin.
“He’s going to have breakfast and then go back to Black Sands,” Reg told Starlight. “Right?”
“I don’t want to leave you alone here, defenseless.”
“I’m hardly defenseless.” Corvin knew that she was strong. She had a lot of power she could draw on if something happened and she was in danger. Julian didn’t know where she was. Corvin was the only one who had any idea.
“It’s better if you don’t stick around here,” she told him. “Two people are a lot easier to find than one. You’re not exactly inconspicuous.”
“Neither are you.”
“Well, I’m going to stay undercover. I’m not going to go wandering around town. If I don’t go out, no one will see me.” She shook her head at him. “Come on, two new mysterious strangers in town? Two unknown vehicles on the street. People will talk, even if it is just speculation. Word will get out. Next thing you know, Julian and his cronies will be crawling all
over this place.”
“I think you’re giving him too much credit.” Corvin sighed. “Yes, I will go home. But you call me if you need me.”
“I don’t need you.”
“But if you do.”
“I won’t.”
“Reg.”
“No. Just go home. Don’t follow me anywhere else. Don’t talk about me to anyone. Don’t let anyone get crazy and file a missing person report. Just keep everything quiet on the home front.”
This appeal seemed to suit him better than just being sent back home. He would take care of business in Black Sands. He wouldn’t be abandoning her, but he didn’t actually have to do anything.
He opened the bedroom door. “I bet you’ll be back in time for the closing ceremonies.”
“I wouldn’t take that bet.”
They adjourned to the dining room, where Mrs. Agnes had lain out a large breakfast spread. Corvin sat down and ate a couple of plates full of food. Reg did the best she could, but wasn’t hungry. There was plenty she could filch that would hold off hunger for the rest of the day, but with Mrs. Agnes right there watching, Reg couldn’t exactly wrap it up in a napkin on her lap. Reg had a feeling she saw more than she should through those thick lenses.
Corvin turned on the charm and Mrs. Agnes fell for him hook, line, and sinker. She leaned toward him, fluttering her eyelashes at him and preening, smoothing out her shirt and readjusting the neckline to the best advantage. But Reg couldn’t smell any scent of roses from Corvin, which told her that he was just using his good looks and smile. He wasn’t using magical charms on Mrs. Agnes.
There was also an older couple at the table. They were staying in one of the other rooms. It sounded like they had been there for a few days already. Everybody was polite and friendly and, eventually, Reg couldn’t stand it anymore. She pushed herself back from the table.
“I need to lie down for a while. I’ll see you later,” she told Corvin.
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