All the Pretty Witches

by Lauren Quick

  “Constance Danbury. She did freelance for me. Very dependable, a flyer, and sassy. She reminded me of you, if you want to know the truth.” Butter’s quill scratched over the surface of the large parchment book. He held it up for Honora to see as the script swirled in a storm of magical ink transforming into the image of the witch that she’d seen dead in the alley.

  “That’s her.” Honora’s heart sunk. The picture showed a pretty witch with a gleam in her eyes.

  The moose groaned. “Not Connie. I loved Connie. She was nice and pretty and had the coolest hair. She brought me bubble gum.”

  “I’m sorry,” Honora said. “I’m going to find out who did this. The police have one of their best detectives on it and I won’t let her death fall through the cracks. Anything you can tell me about her would be helpful. Do you know how she got my business card?”

  “I didn’t give it to her, so I don’t know,” Butter said, his quill scratching across a piece of parchment. “I can give you her address. I didn’t know her that well. She kept to herself mostly. A good witch who always got the job done.” Butter glanced over to a wizard sitting hunched in one of the battered armchairs in the corner, taking notes in a journal. Honora hadn’t even seen him when she entered the office. Even though there was a sitting area, the office was typically empty. Honora had a feeling it used to be a doctor’s or dentist’s office and Butter just left the waiting area like he’d found it. Mostly, witches and wizards picked up jobs from Butter and left quickly.

  “Hey, Anderson. You’ve been here a lot lately. What do you know about Connie Danbury?”

  Anderson was a study in tweed and knit. He wore tweed pants, a thick woven sweater, and a knit scarf wrapped around his neck. A bright blue knitted hat topped off his toasty spring ensemble. The wizard glanced up, marked his page, and closed his book before standing to shake Honora’s hand. He was wearing fingerless gloves. Honora smiled. Spring was still a little nippy, but the wizard had to be roasting in that getup.

  “Hello. I’m Anderson Keep. Nice to meet you,” he said adjusting his thick-framed glasses. His gaze darted over her and made her feel slightly uncomfortable.

  “Honora Mayhem. Likewise,” she said.

  Butter’s head poked out of his window. “Hey, what’d I ask you, Keep? Focus. What do you know about Connie?”

  Anderson swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down above the edge of his scarf. “I’m not sure. We aren’t friends or anything. I’ve seen her around. Mostly here. She seemed nice, I suppose, but one can never tell what a witch is really like.”

  “I suppose not,” Honora said. Something bugged her about him. Anderson had an eccentric air, but a lot of witches and wizards did, so that was hardly strange, but still. Why was he lurking around? “So you’ve been hanging out here a lot?” Honora probed.

  “Trying to pick up work, mostly.” His cheeks reddened. “I lost my job a year ago and haven’t been able to find a new one. Hard times.”

  “I see. I’m sure you’ll find something and Butter’s always here to help,” Honora said. She felt terrible for suspecting him of acting strangely. Poor wizard probably didn’t have anywhere else to go. No one liked to mope around the house when they didn’t have a job to go to.

  “I do my part,” Butter said. “Now back to Connie. What else do you have on her? You gotta know something more. Personally, I thought you were sweet on her from the way you were always staring at her.”

  Anderson’s face turned beet red. “Oh, no. I barely knew her. I’m sorry I can’t be of much help, Ms. Mayhem.”

  Butter shook his head. “Nothing? You got nothing? Come on. This is for Connie.”

  Honora glanced at Butter. There was a deep crease between his eyebrows, concern etched across his face. The wizard was perceptive, though he tended to feign indifference. Connie’s death appeared to weigh on him.

  Anderson pulled at the sleeve of his sweater and glanced around the room as if it weren’t just the three of them and the moose. “I really shouldn’t be telling you this. I hate to gossip, especially about my coworker.”

  “Ex-coworker. She’s dead. Remember? Now spill.” Butter sniffed. Honora could always count on him to be brutally impatient.

  “Constance was a flyer and she’d joined a flying club.” He stared right at Honora as if this were some huge reveal.

  “Most flyers are in clubs. What’s so strange about that?” she asked.

  “The club’s very exclusive, one of those secret kinds that have strange initiations and rituals. They’re almost impossible to get into and even harder to get out of from what I’ve heard.” He raised his bushy eyebrows. “Do you know about those kinds of clubs?”

  Butter scoffed. “Of course she does. She’s an investigator and a flyer. Plus, she’s hot. Look at her. She’s got exclusive written all over her.”

  The moose snorted. “Mayhem is the gold standard of exclusive.”

  “Tone it down, you two.” Honora repressed a grin. Yes, she’d heard of exclusive flying clubs. There were more than a few of them and they were almost impossible to join without an invitation. Some witches really liked the exclusivity and secretive membership aspect of a club; it made them feel important and special like they belonged. Honora always thought they were a little too snooty for her taste, but to each her own.

  But the club was a good lead. Honora shifted back on her heels. “You wouldn’t by chance know the name of this secret club, would you?”

  “Witches of a Feather,” he said with a mischievous smile. “But that’s all I know, I swear. I’m not lucky enough to be a flyer, myself.”

  “Thanks for your help,” Honora said, thinking there was more to him. “What’s your persuasion, if you don’t mind my asking?” A persuasion was the magical talent a witch was born with.

  “I’m a magical linguist specializing in ancient magical spells and their historical significance.” Anderson held his chin high. He was clearly intelligent, but his knowledge sounded archaic and not highly employable. Poor wizard. He might be chasing skips for a long time.

  “Fascinating,” she said. Not really.

  “Sounds boring,” the moose said.

  A burst of magical energy sparked from Butter’s window. “Hey, linguist. I’ve gotta job for you.” Butter waved a piece of parchment through the opening. “A witch with sticky fingers missed her court date. How about you go find her and remind her to set a new date or else?”

  Anderson raced to the window to grab the parchment. Honora thought it was strange he would work here, especially since he was an academic. Couldn’t he have found something else? Like maybe in a library. Was he that desperate? But desperate times called for desperate measures and she’d been there once. Did he really just have a crush on Connie? As Honora left the office, she glanced at the cork message board hanging on the wall. She’d left business cards there more than once, but now she noticed they were all gone.

  4

  After leaving Butter’s, Honora dropped by a mail delivery service and scribbled out a note to Corder with Constance’s name and address. He might have already figured it out, but she wanted to share her information with him. Hopefully it would ease the tension by showing that she could play nice. She sealed the parchment and handed it over to a witch waiting impatiently. A black messenger bag stuffed with the daily deliveries was draped over her shoulder.

  Honora adjusted her goggles and lifted into the air, heading to a glitzy high-rise building. Her new workspace was a far cry from the early days, chasing skips for Butter. She glided to the ledge outside of her office and paused before entering, staring out into the sky. Her senses tingled. This case was eerily made for her—the witch was left outside her apartment in the alley, she had been a flyer involved in an exclusive flying club, and she had been carrying her business card. All that added up to a huge coinciden
ce and Honora knew better than to believe in coincidences.

  Was Corder right? Should she be careful? Did she have a reason to worry? A devious grin spread across her face. Honora scoffed at worry. She welcomed the excitement, the risk, and the danger. If someone was trying to send her a message, then bring it on. She opened the window and dropped down into her office. Business had never been better. It was so good that Jenny and Sawyer, who was such a genius that they weren’t entirely sure why he still worked as their assistant when he could go anywhere and make lots more money, were currently pitching their services at a couple of top law firms in the city. It would be great to get on retainer with some firms needing investigating services.

  That left the office quiet, tomblike quiet.

  Honora never minded being alone. Her fierce independent streak was part of her nature. She’d been alone before, but now being in the empty office, on top of being in her empty apartment earlier, made her feel unmoored, adrift, like she didn’t know where she was going in life and she didn’t like it. She didn’t need to be a detective to realize the breakup with Ren had dredged up these feelings. They’d totally pass. She just needed to keep busy, keep her mind occupied, and totally avoid those messy emotions.

  Work fixed everything. Or at least it was a good distraction and kept her from dwelling on her life. She sat behind her huge gleaming white desk and tucked in her shiny new chrome and leather chair that made her feel like she was sitting on a throne. Her office was modern with clean lines and chic white leather furniture. It was a knickknack-free zone and she liked it.

  With a flick of her wand, she levitated a heavy casebook off her bookshelf and set it on the desk in front of her. She opened the book to a fresh page and waved her wand over the surface, activating the magic inside. She grabbed a huge feather quill, a gift from her sister Clover who adored grand and plumy writing implements, dipped the nub in the ink bottle on her desk, and scribbled The Case of Constance Danbury onto the page.

  Time to tune into another witch’s life for a while.

  She spoke the usual research spells and brought up Constance’s recorded history—birth records, Haven Academy records, licenses, and club associations. She was a licensed private investigator, which made sense since she was working for Butter, and she had no recorded flying club, which also wasn’t a shock if Anderson had been right and the club was a secret. Honora levitated another book, a slim bright blue volume with a smooth leather cover and gold lettering that read Everland Flying Club Registry to her desk.

  She flipped through lists of clubs, some hundreds of years old. Of course, when she looked up Constance’s club, Witches of a Feather, there was no listing, so she flipped to the back to the unregistered section. The page was blank. She wrote the name of the flying club on the parchment and whispered the spell to reveal if the club was indeed unregistered but still tracked by the registry. Even when a club was a secret, some members still wanted to register the club so it could go down in witch history. There were many notorious secret clubs and if they weren’t registered as “unregistered” they might disappear from history completely.

  Nothing came up.

  Interesting. Time for Honora to get creative. There was another way she could get word out that she was interested in the club and that was through Soar, a swanky flyers’ club on the penthouse floor of the Skylark Tower, Stargazer City’s tallest building. She’d been to the club numerous times over the years with friends and her club once or twice. It was a little too swanky for them, but she knew it was the hot spot where trendy flyers wanting to see and be seen congregated, making it the perfect location to dig up dirt on an exclusive club. Exclusive didn’t mean it was entirely invisible. From what Honora knew about flyers, members of elite clubs wanted everyone to know it. After closing the books on her desk and returning them to the shelf, she slipped on her jacket, adjusted her goggles, and headed out.

  Soar took up the entire top floor of the Skylark Tower and had open access glass walls on two sides of the building for witches and wizards to fly directly in and out of the club. Honora landed and gazed around the gorgeous space. The color scheme was pale neutrals—crisp white, light beige, whipped cream, soft pink, and dove gray. It felt like being enveloped in a cloud. Numerous double-sided fireplaces helped keep the breezy space warm. Glittery modern chandeliers sparkled from the ceiling. A sleek bar rimmed the room, and high-topped tables littered the hardwood floor between deep cushiony couches that divided the space. It was glamorous, gorgeous, and also completely deserted.

  Honora glided around the room and waited a few moments, admiring her surroundings until a handsome wizard wearing a tight gray T-shirt strode out of the back, levitating a few cases of beer behind the bar. His head jerked up when he saw her.

  “You’re a little early,” he said with a smile. “We don’t open until seven.”

  Honora hopped onto a bar stool, making herself at home. “I know. I was hoping to speak with an employee. I’ve come here a few times with friends for parties. It’s a great space. Have you worked here long?” She returned his smile.

  “A couple months.” A thick sweep of golden hair fell across his forehead as he stocked the fridge with the bottles of beer.

  “Oh good, then you might be able to help me. I’m trying to find someone. I have this friend, who’s a really nice guy, but socially a little awkward. He met this awesome witch here a few weeks ago, but he was too shy to ask her out. Like I said, he’s a great guy and I want to help him. He’s not great in the dating department.”

  “Happens all the time. What’s her name?”

  Honora wasn’t about to mention Constance by name. “That’s my problem. I don’t know. But I do know she’s in a flying club, a very exclusive club called Witches of a Feather. Have you heard of them?”

  He glanced up, his eyes wide. “As an employee, I’m not really supposed to talk about certain clubs. Witches like their privacy.”

  “But you have heard of them?” Honora shifted on her stool. Now she was getting somewhere.

  He blew out a long exhale and ran his hand through his thick wavy hair. The muscles in his arm tensed. “Yeah, I’ve heard of them. Everyone who hangs out here has. But like I said, I don’t like to gossip.”

  “Oh, no. I don’t want any dirt on them or anything. Not like that,” she said. Actually she did want dirt and a lot of it, but prying details out of this guy was going to take finesse. “I’m just trying to help a friend. It’s so hard to find someone these days. Personally, I think love stinks.” She lowered her gaze and smirked. “But I doubt you have a problem in that department.”

  He grinned widely and spread out his arms. “Look where I work. I’m surrounded by beautiful witches on a nightly basis. You should hang out here more often. Maybe you’d meet someone.”

  “Maybe I will,” she said, batting her eyelashes.

  Flirting was one of her go-to interrogation tactics and much more fun than other dubious techniques of prying information out of a wizard. She was about to broach the Witches of a Feather topic again when a witch wearing a sleek white pantsuit walked up to the bar. Her long white hair was plaited in a complicated braid swinging down her back. Her eyes were lined with black kohl and her lips were stained a deep bloody red. Her skin was papery and creased with wrinkles that only added to her character. She had thick silver rings on every finger. Honora pegged the witch at around three hundred years old, maybe older.

  The bartender jerked up and started polishing the bar with gusto. No wonder he was a little nervous. Though they had never been formally introduced, Honora knew from her previous visits that she was the manager.

  The witched leaned against the bar. “Ken, can you bring up a few more cases of wicked ale from the back, please? And take your time. Our guest doesn’t know the meaning of the word closed.”

  “Of course, Sasha.” His gaze dar
ted nervously between the two witches. “Nice meeting you,” he said to Honora and scurried off.

  “What do you want?” the witch asked directly. “And cut the cute crap. I’m not in the mood.”

  Honora was flattered that her mere presence had pulled Sasha out of the back room. She was a legend in her days at Haven Academy—one of the best flyers the school has ever seen. Honora decided to shift strategy, slipped a business card out of her pocket, and slid it across the bar to the woman. “I need you to send a message for me. Tell Witches of a Feather I’m looking for a new club and I’d like to talk.”

  The witch smirked. “Do I look like a delivery service to you?”

  “You manage one of the trendiest clubs in the city that happens to cater entirely to flyers. If I were in an exclusive flying club, then I’d come here. I think you know the club I’m talking about. I think you know them personally. I think you can help me out if you choose and get them a message for me.”

  “You’re very sure of yourself, aren’t you?” Sasha took the card, glanced at the name and smiled wryly. “Honora Mayhem. I’ve heard of you and your family.”

  Honora forced herself not to roll her eyes. That family curse just wouldn’t die, thanks to her feisty great-great-grandmother Rosemary Mayhem and her heroic attempt to save animal familiars from a disreputable trader. It had earned her a nasty curse that had been passed down generation after generation, lessening with each one, but it still had a way of showing up when she least expected it. Honora liked to picture it as a little black cloud of mayhem.

  “We Mayhems have never been better. I’m flattered you’ve heard of me.”

  “Let’s just say that if I hadn’t heard of you, I’d have thrown you and your card right off the edge. But your reputation precedes you as a flyer and a business witch.” Sasha slipped the card into her jacket pocket. “If I see them, I’ll give them your card, but I make no promises. Consider it a favor and I will ask for a favor in return one day.” Her red lips turned up in a grin.