Snitch Witch

by J L Collins

  I was going to have to compare them for real. The problem was the fact that all evidence in the evidence room had to stay there. And I couldn’t exactly summon the statue from the Athenaeum to the locker. I frowned, glancing down the corridor to where the light from the small room up front came from. Uncle Gardner had already told Queen Mabily that the evidence never left the room. I guess I’m going to have to make a liar out of myself. Yet again.

  I carefully slipped the short sword in the waistband of my pants, tucking my tank top over it and into my pants. If I could keep faced away from Gustavo, I knew I had a chance. I’d have to grab my wand and do a quick disabling charm though, so the short sword wouldn’t set off any of the wards. It was a tall order and as much magic as I could wield, I was no magician.

  Careful not to look suspicious, I strode back down the corridor, my hands calmly at my sides. Gustavo had his head bent down, filling in the weekly crossword puzzle in the Spell Haven paper. Maybe I’d get lucky after all.

  “Finished already?” he asked without looking up.

  “Yep,” I said, doing my best to sound nonchalant. The short sword’s weight against my back felt heavier by the second.

  He scratched a long word across some empty boxes, sighing. “Well. Another one done.” He looked up at me, looking me up and down a moment before handing my wand back. “Good luck with the case. Looks like it’s going to be a tough one to crack.”

  “It’s definitely going that way,” I agreed, my cheeks flushing with heat as I shoved my wand into my back pocket carefully giving it a little flick toward the door as I did so. “See you around, Gustavo.”

  He gave me a nod. “Sure thing, Miss Brady.”

  I walked backward a few steps; my throat dry as parchment until I was past the invisible ward boundary. With one last polite smile, I turned and walked back down the hall toward the elevator.

  I wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved or worried. It really shouldn’t have been so easy to sneak evidence out of the room like that. But it worked for me, so the best I could do was to make sure my small victory wasn’t in vain.

  My finger hovered over the button with a red star that would take me to the main lobby to leave. Shoot, I almost forgot! I meant to come to the MARC headquarters for another reason too—to look back over Zoya’s statement in the case file. Which was probably sitting on top of Uncle Gardner’s desk, no doubt. I punched the button to take me up to the top floor instead.

  Of course his door was locked—but the trick to this was knowing what special incantations Uncle Gardner would use to keep his office secure. My uncle was stubbornly set in his ways —now I just had to hope his privacy endeavors were too.

  I pulled my wand out, careful not to bump into the short sword as I crouched to eye-level with the doorknob. I stuck the tip of my wand into the small mechanical lock, waiting until I heard a soft whirring of gears. I was going to need an old spell to get through, that was for sure. “Oscailte dom teacht, tríd gach constaic. Lig isteach mé.” I whispered just loud enough. As the gears all aligned and clicked into place inside, I stood waiting again until the barrier spell around the door was visible. It wavered blue like the reflection of a pool on your face at night.

  “Isobel, Reaghan, Erie, Gwendolyn. 00100.”

  The barrier evaporated and the door slowly opened for me. I closed my eyes for a moment, thankful it had actually worked.

  Casting an illumination incantation, I lit one of the larger candles in the room. I didn’t want to draw too much attention to the room from beyond the windows, so I had to be careful. Rourke’s case file was stacked on the top of a neat and orderly pile of other folders on Uncle Gardner’s desk. I sat down in the chair behind the desk, flipping it open until I found the statements and pulled out Zoya’s.

  “Witness found victim’s body outside the Dark Craft section, on back, shown in picture 1A. She found him at approximately seven o’clock in the morning, immediately sending for help via the MARC Shadow Hands office . . . Yeah, yeah, I know that,” I mumbled, following the rest of the statement through with my finger. “Witness’s wand was missing. Witness claims she had a terrible headache before she found victim. Okay . . . that checks out.”

  I squinted at the next few lines, trying to read the scrawled handwriting. “All right, Zoya,” I said softly, sitting back in the chair after fixing the file back to the exact way it was. “Your statement makes sense. But that doesn’t mean you didn’t let something slip at the bar.” I chewed on my lip.

  It was getting late, and I knew that Fiona-Leigh was already going to be irritated with me once I got back to Aunt Bedelia’s place. Checking the clock on the wall, I groaned. Definitely later than I’d hoped.

  Tonight, I would spend the rest of the evening with them. But first thing tomorrow morning, I was going back over to the Athenaeum with the short sword in hand.

  21

  Stolen Time

  I pushed the doors to the Athenaeum open, thanking the Shadow Hand that was standing by it for letting me through. The library’s lights all brightened around me as I walked inside, welcoming me back.

  Zoya was thankfully standing up at the front desk this time, stamping a small stack of manila cards. Judging by the look on her pale face, she was possibly even more exhausted than I was.

  “Hey there,” I said, walking up to her. Even though I had the whole walk over to think about what I wanted to say to her, nothing really came together in my head. I was just going to have to wing it.

  She jumped; her cool blue eyes wide as she let out a squeak. “Oh, my goodness. I didn’t see you there, Gwen.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sneak up on you like that. I just figured you heard the doors open . . .”

  She nodded. “I thought it might be Dennison, the young man out there who let you in. It’s nearly time for them to switch out, I believe.”

  Hopefully not too soon. I didn’t exactly want any of the Shadow Hands to see me with an important piece of evidence outside of headquarters. “Gotcha.”

  “Were you looking for something specific?”

  Was it just me, or did she seem a little too eager? I took a better look at Zoya, noting the way her eyes blinked as she regarded me too. I knew she was an anxious person, but she was being downright twitchy.

  “Actually, I kind of wanted to check out something—one of the statues. The Fairy Knight statue by the Recipes section.”

  She gave me a smile but it didn’t really reach her eyes. “Okay. The floor’s all yours. I’ve got to finish with these over here.” She pointed to the stack of cards that looked like they might take her maybe ten more minutes to get through.

  I just nodded. “Thanks.” There was no reason to involve her until I figured out how to approach her about her drinking habits at Harm’s Charm, anyway.

  Making sure the short sword was concealed well enough before turning away, I headed over to the statue in question. As soon as I got within fifteen feet of it, I knew I was right. The arrogant-looking Fairy Knight was wielding a sword that could’ve been an exact copy of the one I was hiding. I glanced around, making sure Zoya couldn’t see and that no one else was lurking nearby before untucking my shirt and retrieving the sword.

  “Whoa.” Same size. Same details and style. The only difference was the statue was made of pure stellarnite—a special mineral that only grew in Danann. The shiny stone surface was nearly metallic looking but the short sword in my hand was a lackluster iron of sorts. I rubbed by thumb along the edge again, wondering how such a dull sword was worth any good to anyone.

  “Did you want anything to—” Zoya stopped short at the sight of me with the short sword in hand. “Gwen? Is that the sword you found outside?”

  I had no idea how much she knew about the regulations of the evidence room in the MARC building, so all I could do was hope for the best and that she wouldn’t blow it for me just yet. “Yes? I was wanting to um, compare the styles of weaponry. I thought it might give me a better clue as to wher
e it came from. I realized that this one,” I said, lifting up the actual sword, “looks incredibly similar to the one on the statue here. Don’t you think?”

  Her eyes slid from sword to sword. “I guess it does sort of. That one you’re holding though is the oddest weapon I’ve ever seen. Doesn’t really look real, does it?”

  Her words sunk in slowly, but it scratched at the surface of something new to me. What if it wasn’t a sword at all?

  “You know, you might be on to something there,” I said, pulling my wand back out of my pocket. “The question is . . . if it isn’t some old Fairy-made short sword . . . what is it?”

  Placing the evidence down on a nearby study desk, I waved my wand counter-clockwise over the short sword, whispering, “Reveal to me what you hide, show to me your truest side.”

  Electric blue smoke unfurled from underneath the object, curling upward until it completely covered the sword in a bright blue gaseous swirl so thick, we could no longer see through it. The swirl of magic evaporated as I snapped my fingers.

  I sucked in a quick breath. To my left, Zoya let out a gasp so loud it almost seemed fake. But the expression of horror etched on her face was very convincing. There, lying on the table, was not a short sword but a broken ivy-colored wand. It didn’t take a genius to figure out whose it was.

  “I-I . . .”

  I turned on her, my hand steady on my wand just in case it was necessary. I didn’t want to think it was, but I also wasn’t willing to take the chance of getting my eardrums blown out or worse. “Zoya. Is this your missing wand? Would you care to tell me what it’s doing disguised as a weapon that was found not far from scene of the crime?”

  She drew in a shaky breath, her great big eyes welling up with tears. “I don’t know!” she half-sobbed, her mouth quivering. “This . . . this doesn’t make any sense!”

  “You’re telling me. You told us your wand was missing! And don’t deny it because I just checked your statement. Please tell me the truth Zoya. Please?”

  Her hands tightly squeezed the back of the chair at the table. “I truly don’t know. But . . .”

  I raised a brow. “But?”

  Zoya looked as if she were steadying herself for something. I kept a close eye on her hands, ready to stall any sudden movement on her end.

  “A couple of nights ago . . . I was getting ready for bed. My head started hurting. Even my vision went blurry. It worried me a little, but I thought maybe I was just tired. I laid in bed, but the moment I started drifting off to sleep my head felt like it was going to split open. I hurried to my pantry to find my pain-relieving tincture, thinking that might help. And that’s when they started.”

  It was as if all the bones of her body had disappeared, the way she slumped down into the chair as she pulled it out. She stared down at the broken wand, not daring to touch it.

  “Hazy thoughts that I couldn’t remember. The worst déja vu I’ve ever had. But I don’t think they were just random thoughts.” She quickly shook her head, the dark bun her hair was in threatening to come loose. “They were little snips of horrible . . . horrible memories,” she whispered.

  This did not sound good at all. “You can tell me, Zoya. What kind of memories?”

  Tears fell from her long lashes and she drew her knees up under her chin, reminding me all too well of Fiona-Leigh when she was younger. “Rourke. What happened to him.”

  My heart pounded; my thoughts raced. I couldn’t think of what to do—should I go ahead and stop her there, wait for Uncle Gardner? But I took in the panic on her face and thought it better to find out what I could on my own for now. If Zoya was ready to give me information we so desperately needed, no matter the cost, then I wasn’t about to ask her to politely pause her crying to wait for everyone else to show up.

  “Go on.”

  “My wand. I remembered my wand first. Lying on the courtyard ground, cracked in two. But then . . . I saw them—”

  “Saw who? Sorry, Zoya,” I quickly backed off, realizing I was making things worse. This was suspect interrogating 101 and I was off to a bad start. Some might even say failing.

  “The Renaldi Twins. They’re two Changelings that Rourke’s told me about before. Just the worst kinds of creatures.” She visibly shuddered, and I reached out to clasp her hands in mine, knowing now that she was no threat to me.

  “I remembered them dragging me outside of the back, to the courtyard. And then . . . the worst part of all . . .” there was soft sniffle before she sobbed much harder, her whole face wet. “Rourke was reaching for me. Standing there at the boundary line. He looked terrified. I could tell he was going to step over it, and I think I was telling him to stop.”

  The wheels in my head were already turning. I wanted to ask her why she waited to tell anyone, but her hesitation made sense. If she wasn’t sure of what happened, then how did she know she wasn’t the one responsible for Rourke’s death? No one would ever think Zoya could do something like that, especially given that she was in love with him. But I could see how she’d be terrified of others knowing. We needed to know the full extent of what happened.

  “Zoya? I think I have an idea. I’m trusting you to stay put, okay? I’ll be right back.”

  I didn’t give her time to answer as I raced across the library to the other side, with the exact location pinpointed in my brain. “There,” I said, yanking out the book I’d spent countless hours studying back in my Inner Sanctum days. I tucked ‘Animus Memoriae’ under my arm and ran past the oracle desk, skirting around it until I found Zoya still sitting at the same table by the statue. Well, at least she wasn’t a runner. That made things a little easier.

  “I’m going to do a memory spell, okay? We’re going to need to see everything that’s missing from your memory. It may be . . . unpleasant,” I said, figuring there was no point in sugar-coating the truth. I didn’t know whether she had done the spell on herself or what, but clearly something happened that she wasn’t meant to see.

  Zoya bit her lip. “Do we have to?”

  “I’m afraid so. If not me and right now, then it’ll be the Shadow Hands in the interrogation room most likely. It’s not a terrible place or anything, but I imagine it might be easier to get it over and done with here. With a friend.” I placed the book down on the table by her wand and pulled out the chair next to her for her to sit in. “What do you think?”

  There was a reluctant nod of her head, and I knew this was all she could give me. I studied the index of the book, remembering that the chapter on altered memories was near the back of it. I flipped to it, scanning over the words as quickly as I could. “Okay, here we are. The Retrieval of a Lost Memory.”

  Luckily for us, it didn’t require anything fancy. I asked her to link hands with mine, saying the incantation aloud together. If I wanted to see everything through her eyes, we needed to sync up our magic.

  “Once forgotten, now retrieved. Zoya, your stolen memories are now freed.”

  My arms shook from the energy shooting up and down them, Zoya’s and my powers transferring to one another for a combined power of vision and memory. Her hands gripped tightly to mine, shaking from effort. I only saw her long enough to see her eyes glowing an eerie gold color, until I was suddenly overcome by the hazy image of a hand over a door.

  I was walking out onto the library’s grounds, my voice higher than usual as I called out for Rourke. I stopped short when I saw two ogres standing at the end of the courtyard, wearing matching menacing grins on their faces. A fear built up inside of me that felt foreign. Not my own, but still palpable at the same time. I tried to walk backwards, back into the library where I knew I was safe. But I wasn’t fast enough. Their long strides brought them to me much quicker than I would’ve guessed for two huge, ugly looking beasts.

  I tried to scream, to reach for my wand at the same time, but massive hands closed around my throat before I got the chance, lifting me up off the ground. The wand clattered to the ground and black spots popped in my peripheral, my le
gs dangling helplessly—all I could do was grab onto the rough hand for dear life, trying to hoist myself up and relieve the strain of gravity. I was vaguely aware of the sound of my wand cracking nearly in half after the other ogre stepped on it.

  The one holding me brought me against his chest in a sort of chokehold, facing me out toward the library’s back doors. He laughed. “Pitiful little thing, ain’t ya? Without your weapons, you’re nothing.”

  My vision swam in front of me but I picked out one thing I hadn’t noticed before. Rourke.

  He was standing with his hands raised in front of him, the shimmery defenses of the Athenaeum at his disposal. He was shouting something but I couldn’t hear well enough. I was losing too much oxygen, even with the ogre loosening his grip around my throat. My eyes felt heavier than ever before.

  Rourke’s voiced managed to reach my ears. “Let her go!”

  The other ogre stood beside us; his arms flexed. “Come out. Come get her if you want her so badly.”

  My eyes widened. Something was wrong. The shimmering magic that was like a wall between us made me fearful. Realization hit me like a sick twisting in my gut. Rourke couldn’t leave the Athenaeum defenseless. He had to stay put. And though he had the power to stop them before they got near enough to him to be a real threat, they would kill me. Easily.

  Rourke walked past the boundary line, his hands up in surrender. He kept his eyes on both of the ogres, and tried to talk some sense into them. “There’s no need for anyone to get hurt. Put her down.”

  I was airborne, the grass thankfully helping to soften the blow of my body. Everything hurt. I’d been thrown a dozen feet behind the ogres—or the ogre and a woman? Were my eyes playing tricks on me? The ogre was no longer the huge, looming beast he’d been a moment ago. He was now a woman, a woman who looked just like Zoya…

  Everything was happening too fast to keep up… Rourke was using none of his magic to stop the ogre who’d been holding me from advancing on him. Rourke tried to dodge him to run toward me, but he was too slow. The ogre, whose shape rippled in front of my very eyes, was now a man I didn’t recognize. His hand was around Rourke’s throat now, and he turned to face away from me, while Rourke’s arms flailed on either side of him.