by L. A. Boruff
"We've had a personal emergency," I say as Callie hides partially behind me. Glancing down at her bare feet, I remember she's only wearing my coat. Damn it.
"I see that," Captain says with his eyebrows up. "It involves all of you? And Sugar?"
"Yes, sir, I'm sorry I can't say more."
He doesn't believe a word I'm saying, that much is apparent. His eyebrows are in danger of disappearing into his dark hairline. "I'll notify the on-call volunteers," he says. "I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt, mostly because I don’t have a reason not to. But don’t make me regret trusting you."
"Thank you, sir," I say. Sugar had kept us out of trouble more than once over the time she'd worked with us.
"I'll reset the truck," he says as he cocks his head to look at Callie. "I'd be remiss if I didn't offer you my assistance. Is there anything I can do to help you?"
Callie peeks her head over my shoulder and shakes it. "No, but thank you, sir. And thank you for giving them the time to help me."
Our shift will be over in six hours, anyway. Normally one of us would check in during and after a fire call and bring the Captain up to speed, but obviously, none of us had thought of it, so he'd come in. "Update on your fire?" he asks.
I went into technical mode. "Structure fire on the outskirts of town, by the beach. We got it out before the entire house burned. No casualties, homeowner has been briefed."
"Good. Glad to hear there were no casualties."
Callie's hand tightens on mine. She knows I'm lying to him, but there's no way she understands why.
Captain stares at me for another second then nods. "Go deal with whatever you need to deal with, then."
I turn and push Callie toward the door. Best to get her out of there before someone shows up looking for Will.
Reaching out to see if anyone is near, I find the yard empty, so we scurry across to Callie's house. The back door is locked, and I push a little magic into it to unlock it, but James has it locked with magic. Instead of using more magic to try to break his spell, I knock on the door.
Will peeks out and confirms it's us before opening up. "You found her," he says in relief, grabbing Callie's hand and pulling her around me into the house. "Thank goodness."
"I never really left the house area. Even my cat wanted to see what was going on," she says softly into his shoulder. I don't like how hard he's squeezing her and how easily she went into his arms.
"We've got a lot to talk about," I say as I lock the door behind me. "Captain was at the station."
James steps into the kitchen, having heard the last thing I said. "Oh, no." He slaps his hand on his forehead. "I didn't call him."
Callie steps out of Will's hug and looks at me accusingly. "He told him there were no casualties. Why aren't you guys calling the police for an arson investigation? I couldn't hear most of what you were talking about, but I heard that that woman, the Queen, is dead."
"Come in here, please?" a soft female voice says from deeper in the house. "We both have questions for one another."
I follow everyone out of the kitchen and into the living room, where we sit around a blond-wood coffee table. Sugar enters after us. "I'll go help the Captain," she says as she eyes the people in the room. "This looks a little crowded for me."
No doubt she wants to leave before Fran thought to question who she is and why she’s here.
Callie perches on the edge of the sofa, between Will and James. I push back the desire to settle beside her, and sit with Fran on the love seat instead.
Fran opens her mouth, but Callie holds up a hand. "As you say, we both have lots of questions, and I’m so sorry for your loss. But first, I want to know who the dead woman really was and why Hank told your Captain there were no casualties."
Damn. That’s awfully cold. I raise my eyebrows and look at James. He’s British, and sometimes he comes off as cold, so if he thinks it was harsh, then it definitely was.
He looks shocked.
Come on, Callie. Get it together.
A small sob escapes Fran, and she puts her hand over her mouth. "I'm sorry."
Callie’s entire face freezes, and I see the moment she realizes how callous she sounded. "No. Don't be sorry. I'm sorry that came across so heartless.” She wraps her arms around herself, her expression far away, as if she’s looking for the right words. “I’m truly sorry for your pain and loss."
I lean forward before they get into a cycle of sorries. "Callie, we've told you. The woman was Phoebe Kranton, the Dowager Queen of all the Witches in the Eastern United States, called the Eastern Coven."
"Right, I get that." She leans back and tucks her hair behind her ear before crossing her arms. "But why did you lie to the chief? She was still a person, right? Or do things work differently with the magical?"
"Captain is a human," James explains. "He can't know."
"So who will investigate?" Callie looks outraged. "Who will seek justice? You said, it was a magical fire, intentional. Who prosecutes?"
"It should be the King," Will says. "But since he's the most likely culprit, there won’t be an investigation."
The older woman leans over, her head in her hands. “She always knew it would end like this. I tried to tell her there was another way. That our lives could end peacefully. I was wrong.”
The Dowager Queen’s death can’t go unnoticed. She deserves a proper funeral, and the people that love her deserve to attend. Traditionally, the King will have to perform the ritual to allow her spirit to settle peacefully. It is the way of our people. We could do it, but we wouldn’t be able to do it as her station deserves.
"We have to notify him," I murmur. It's the last thing any of us want to do. “Even though we know he’s the one that killed her. He’ll be forced to respond appropriately to uphold decorum. He loves decorum.”
"I’ll do it," James says. "Callie, may I have a piece of paper?"
Callie jumps up and gets a notebook and pen out of the small desk in the corner. "Here," she says as she hands it to James.
"I don't know what to say," James whispers as he stares down at the paper.
James’s past is a mystery to me, even after all these years of working with him. I trust him without knowing anything about his past.
Mine is mundane, to an extent. But I was raised in the castle and know the rules. When the King died and Will’s parents were forced to move to the human world, there hadn’t been much holding my family to the new King. They left to be with Will’s family. His parents were and are my parent’s best friends.
My time living in the castle, learning about magic at the hands of my treasurer father had taught me a lot. One of the things was how to properly address the King.
Leaning over, I take the paper from his hands. I don't know what his connection is to the King or Council, but he acts weird when we talk about it.
I scrawl out a short note and hand it back.
To His Royal Highness, Robert Kranton the First
We regret to inform you that Her Royal Highness, Phoebe Kranton, Dowager Queen of the Eastern Coven has perished in a house fire. Her body awaits your transportation for a royal funeral, as befits her station.
In Sorrow,
The Blackwood Falls Firefighters
James reads it, then turns it so Callie and Will can see.
"Looks good to me," Will says.
Callie shrugs. "I think it sounds snotty."
"They are snotty," I remind her.
She smirks. "Oh, yeah."
Fran lifts her head and stares at it. “They don’t even deserve that.” Then she leans back on the couch, her face pale.
I can’t even imagine what she must be feeling. Phoebe’s disguise had been supreme. I’d never been sure the woman I’d always seen around town was the Dowager Queen. The King died when I was a kid, and as soon as his son took the throne, Phoebe disappeared.
The rumors were vicious. But they all agreed on one point. King Robert wanted his mother dead. She had some information about
the location of his sister, who was the rightful heir to the throne.
He finally succeeded today.
An image came to mind from my childhood. Glimpsing Queen Phoebe around the castle was rare. She was known to be a recluse. I understand now why. I remember her beauty. She wore her sunflower blonde hair in a thick braid that rested on her shoulder. I couldn’t remember her face, but the image of the shining braid stuck out in my memory. It was so pretty, I’d wanted to touch it, but of course I couldn’t. I’d just bowed as she walked by.
In the town, in recent years, rumors still surrounded Phoebe. Nobody knew for sure she was the Dowager, but everyone suspected. Fran was said to be her daughter, but nobody believed that.
James rolls the paper into a scroll and does a complicated finger wiggle. The scroll floats above his hand then catches on fire, burning into ash, which then disappears. The message will burn in reverse in the castle, at whatever place they have designated for emergency messages. Tears roll down Fran's face as she sees it disappear.
"So, that's it?" Callie asks, her face gentle as she looks at Fran.
"Not quite," Will says, he too glances at Fran, then his next words come out gentler. "James, do you know why she looked that way?"
"She?" I ask. "She who?" I have no idea which she he’s talking about.
"The Dowager Queen. When we got to her bedroom, it was burned to a crisp." James’s gaze is on Fran too. I look over and see her tears have increased and her hand flew over her mouth again.
"Phoebe was in a burned chair, looking younger than I've ever seen her. Her body was in pristine condition. Not a single burned spot." James pursed his lips and sucked in a deep breath. "She was definitely dead. Of that I'm sure," he finished in a whisper.
"I know." Fran met his gaze. "She was."
James nodded. "I don't know what spell she had on herself to make her body do that, but she looked beautiful."
Fran sucked in a shaky breath. "She used an aging spell whenever she went in public to help hide her. A sort of glamour." Fran let out a forlorn chuckle. "My Pheebs was a bit vain, always had been. Since she couldn't show off her considerable beauty, she wanted to make sure she'd be beautiful when she died." Fran shakes her head. "She always knew it could happen at any time. That's why we moved frequently and hid the house well. We'd been at this house for a little over two years. We knew at some point, Robert would catch up to her and remove her influence from the world." She stops to compose herself after a few more sobs escape. "He finally succeeded, as you turned up. It's an unlikely coincidence if you ask me." Her gaze swung up to Callie, whose eyes widened like a deer in headlights.
Chapter Eight
Callie
I shift in my seat, conscious that everyone is looking at me like I'm some kind of messiah.
"But what does that mean?" My gaze flits between them all, trying to work out which of them is the most likely to explain it to me in words I can understand.
"What do you remember of your family, Callie?" Hank asks, pressing his hands together and leaning forward so his hands are resting on his knees. Suspicion is written all over his face, like he’s almost worked something out, but isn’t completely sure yet. It doesn’t take a genius to work out it’s something about me, either.
"I told you, next to nothing." There are a few flashes here and there of memories I can never hold onto, but nothing that makes me certain they're real. The only lead I ever found was that my father had something to do with this town. It's one of the reasons I ended up here in the first place. I'm still not sure if that's going to turn out to be a good thing or a bad thing.
"Who was the woman in the photograph in the hall?" James asks suddenly. It takes me a moment to realize he's not asking me.
Fran frowns at him, but doesn't clarify what he's talking about. "Phoebe's daughter," she whispers, before giving me an appraising look. "You don't think?”
"It's the only explanation," James answers.
"I know, but after all these years?" Fran continues to stare at me even though she's talking to James. "She certainly looks right."
I jump to my feet, fed up with their crypticness. "Is one of you going to tell me what's going on?" I demand, putting my hands on my hips for dramatic effect. It's not a move I've had to pull much in my life, but it's one I'm damned good at if I do say so myself.
"Sit down, Callie," Will tells me, tugging on the jacket I'm still wearing to illustrate his point. There's been no time to change into something more comfortable and that actually covers me. Not when there's an important conversation I should be having instead.
Fran takes a deep breath. "What do you know about Phoebe's daughter?" she asks me.
I sit back down, already feeling calmer than I had before, even though I had no reason to. Is someone using magic on me? No. That's impossible. Fran's just been through some major trauma, and I don't think the guys would.
"The Queen’s daughter? Nothing. Why would I know anything about her? I don’t know anything about the Queen either." Just like my family. The bitter thought is unbidden, and I push it away. Now is not the time for that kind of thinking. I don't see what the Dowager Queen's child has to do with any of this.
"She fell in love," Fran says with a smile. "That's how all the good stories start. The bad one's too if this is anything to go by."
I still don't know what this has to do with me, but I don't think the guys would let her talk like this if they didn't believe in what she's saying. Well, James at any rate. The others seem to be as clueless as I am about how this all fits together.
"She lived her life in secret, she even had a baby. But then one day, her brother learned about it and made his grab for the throne." Fran wipes away a tear as she tells the story. "I'm sorry, Phoebe always used to get upset when we talked about this, it seems to have rubbed off on me." Pain cracks over her face as she says the dead woman's name.
"It's okay." Hank puts a soothing hand on her back and rubs up and down.
Fran nods and wipes her eyes again. "Phoebe was a wonderful woman. She knew her daughter was doing something that went against our laws, but that didn't stop her from loving her child.”
“That sounds like the Queen,” James says, and there’s a gentleness in his voice that makes my heart swell.
Fran closes her eyes. “When she found out they’d gone after her daughter, she went to help. She was too late. She found her daughter and son-in-law dead, with their small baby left behind."
A stone drops into my stomach. A small part of me can see where this is going, but I'm not sure I'm ready to hear it. Finding the truth about my parents is my number one desire in life, but the thought that my mom was the heir to a big witch throne and had been murdered for it was a bit more than I could swallow at the moment.
"She cast a curse on the child, not to harm her, but to protect her from anyone who would seek to kill her."
"What happened then?" I ask, trying to ignore the nerves that have set in. "To the girl?" The rock in my gut grew in size.
The sadness in Fran’s eyes shifted to something more like sympathy. "The child ran, and Phoebe’s curse had been so good at hiding her that she unintentionally hid the babe from herself.”
Why didn’t she do more? I have so many questions, even more questions than before, and even fewer answers. Surely she could’ve unraveled her spell, or a countercurse or something. My lack of knowledge made me feel ignorant and vulnerable.
"Things happened here about that time," Hank says. “That was close to the time of the King’s death?”
Fran nods. I startle at his voice, it's almost as if this story belongs to Fran and no one else should be speaking.
"Almost immediately after the announcement of King Edmund’s death, King Robert took over and made life hell for the witches here," Hank says. "Especially if they didn't conform to his idea of how the world should be."
“His ideas?” I frown.
Witches have politics too?
"The less you know, the better,
" James mutters darkly. There's a flash of something on his face, but that doesn't surprise me. He has secrets. They all do. I just need to give them time to start telling me them.
My heart races. "I still don't understand what this has to do with me.” The timelines add up to make me Phoebe’s granddaughter, but I can't do any of the shooting magic stuff. I wave my hands in the air as if to demonstrate that I don't have magic like I've seen them do. “See? No magic.”
"You can change into a cat, though," Will points out.
I scoff. "Not on purpose. If that's my superpower, then I was saddled with the lamest one there is." Why couldn’t I have x-ray vision or something?
"It's not a superpower," Fran whispers, drawing all the attention back to her. She looks up, her gaze locking with mine. "It's a curse."
"I figured out that much, but what’s the purpose of it? Why did someone do this to me?" I blurt.
Fran moves closer to me and takes my hand. “The more I consider you, the course of events, and what I know of Phoebe’s past, the more convinced I am. It wasn’t done to hurt you.”
“How do you know?” My heart races.
Her gaze gentles. “Because Phoebe told me more.”
“More?” I wish everyone would just spit out what they know. “Can we get all the facts on the table?”
"It was to protect you from the enemies of your mother and grandmother. Callie, I believe you must be the rightful heir to the throne of the Eastern Coven."
My eyes widen. I've been feeling as if this is the direction they've been taking me, but now it's been said out loud, I don't know if I want to believe it.
"Is that why..." I trail off, unable to find the words I need.
"She wanted to see you?" Will asks. "Yes, I guess so."
"How long have you known?" I demand.
"For sure, about as long as you have. And I didn't suspect long before that," he says.
"I saw a photo of the Dowager and your mother in the house," James admits. "She looks just like you, that's when I started to suspect."
