by Gina LaManna
“Sorry,” I said finally. “I don’t buy it. Fool me once and all that.”
“I’ve never tried to fool you, Dani. If I’m anything, it’s honest.”
“Except for, you know, some of the work you do.”
“That’s different. I’ve never lied to you.”
“Fine,” I said. “Did you want me to tell Willa—who would immediately run to tell Jack—that my oldest brother is back in town?”
Rob blinked. “I see your point, but Dani... there is something.”
I waited, feeling any sense of hope I’d had slip away that Rob had really just come back to rejoin our family. “There always is.”
“I was wrong,” Rob said quietly. “You can take care of yourself. I’ve been away a long time, and I see that now.”
He turned those piercing eyes on me, the light reflected in them so I could see the image of myself. I couldn’t tell if the confusion and conflict was my own, or if it belonged to my brother. Or a twisted mix of both.
“Yeah,” I said, also speaking softly. “I can. I’m grown up, Rob. I’m not your little sister anymore.”
“Wrong again,” Rob said, pulling me into a hug. It was familiar somehow and, more surprisingly, welcome. “You’ll always be my little sister.”
We held the hug for a long time, longer than I ever remembered hugging one of my siblings. We hugged for so long that I suddenly began to panic. Was there really no other reason Rob was here except to see family? And if so, why now? Was he sick? In trouble?
I tensed at the same time my Comm buzzed again.
“She must be a really good friend,” Rob said, backing away. “It can’t have been more than five minutes.”
“It’s not her,” I said, cringing at the name. “It’s work. I’ve got to take this.”
Rob nodded and watched me curiously as I answered.
“DeMarco,” I said, and then listened carefully. “Sure thing. I’ll be right over.”
Rob grimaced when I disconnected. “It’s late. Are you sure I can’t walk you to the office?”
“Not the office,” I said. “Crime scene. Murderers don’t wait until morning.”
“Apparently not.” Rob shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Well, I guess I should let you go. Better not forget to tell your friend you’re running late or there might be another call to dispatch from your very own pizzeria.”
I laughed, sure he was right about Willa. “It’s good to see you, Rob.”
“You too, sis.” Rob took a step away. “And Dani, for what it’s worth—I’m going to prove you wrong.”
“About what?”
Rob issued one of his infamous winks, the ones that left women everywhere—myself included—wondering what in the world Rob DeMarco was thinking.
Then without warning, he turned and strode off, disappearing into the blackness of night. I heaved my own sigh, raised my Comm to call Willa, and headed toward death.
Chapter 2
“Odd place for a murder, don’t you think?” I waved to Sienna as she arrived at the trolley station the same time as me.
She didn’t respond. Instead, she snapped her fingers so a pair of fluffy pink headphones larger than most earmuffs appeared over her head. A second later, the beat coursed through in a muted thump, a clear sign the petite necromancer wasn’t in a chatty mood.
“Then again, I suppose no murder is in a good place,” I muttered, grabbing hold of a stability pole while Sienna shoved her hands in her pockets and balanced herself through sheer stubbornness.
“Ya don’t think?” she said dryly. “And here, I thought we had normal murders.”
“I don’t know how you can hear anything through there. It’s bad for your eardrums.”
“I work with dead people. I prefer not talking.”
“I see your point.” With a smirk, I gave a shake of my head. “I see how the corpses might appreciate your sparkling personality more than the living, breathing folks.”
We rode in silence toward Sorcerer’s Square and exited the stop near the center of the zone. Sorcerer’s Square was defined by the tall tower extending high above most of Wicked. It housed many of the borough’s sorcerers—the new, the old, and the in-training. This evening, we’d be focused on the ones in training.
Sienna and I leaped from the trolley and stepped in sync toward the only campus in the borough to offer Orientation. It made sense, really, that the Campus of Magic would be located in Sorcerer’s Square—while sorcerers, like the rest of the magical species, had good and bad guys within it, overall, they were known for their love of pure magic.
Even the bad eggs in the sorcerer’s tribe tended to respect magic, covet it, value it above all. Overall, Sorcerer’s Square was one of the safest places in the borough by sheer fact that most sorcerers couldn’t be bothered by anyone else. Their focus was solely on magic—learning it, loving it, practicing it.
We arrived on the Campus of Magic after a five-minute walk. We checked in at the front desk where a uniformed gnome who’d somehow roped himself a job as campus security stood next to a flustered pixie.
“Hello,” the pixie said. “Are you here for...”
“Detective DeMarco,” I said. “And this is the Chief Medical Examiner.”
“Sienna,” the necromancer offered. “We’re here for the crime scene.”
“Crime scene,” the pixie muttered, flipping through the guest log as if she’d find the information there. “Crime scene, right.”
The gnome straightened his shoulders and peered up at us through beady eyes. “Badges?”
“They’ll check us in at the scene,” I said. “Where is it? I got a call from the chief, and we don’t appreciate having to waste any more time in finding it.”
The gnome was forced to look over my badge to save face, but he did it quickly enough and followed it up with a grunt and a point over his shoulder. “It happened in student housing. Follow the hallway to the chapel, take a right and pass through it, then you’ll pop out in another hallway. Follow the noise.”
Sienna and I followed the instructions and headed for the first mentioned hallway. While we walked, I refamiliarized myself with the campus. Having grown up in a magical family in the Sixth Borough, I’d never spent much time here. I’d taken a few Continuing Ed classes and one or two mandatory trainings before joining the police academy, but I’d never been a full-time student or lived in on-campus housing.
Student housing was mostly reserved for those new to their powers. The Campus of Magic specialized in providing Orientation—a program for all those who came across magic later in life, which could mean one of several things. It could mean someone had grown up on the mainland like Lily Locke, completely oblivious to the entire concept of magic until her mid-twenties. Or it could mean a human had married a witch or wizard and then decided to take the next step in their magical education with a set of newly inherited powers. Or it could simply be someone wanting a thorough education about the magical world and its nuances.
I snatched a class roster from a stack near the admissions entrance lobby. Tucking it under my arm, I rejoined Sienna as we made our way through the old building toward the chapel.
The campus was known to be a place of beauty in the Sixth Borough. Sprawling green grasses rolled over the hills around the outer edge of campus, tucking in beside a small pond called Dewdrop Lake. A tiny island at its center could often be found crowded with ducks and frogs and small-statured fairies flitting between tiny houses set out by the school.
The buildings themselves were an old collection of houses that had been adapted and haphazardly modernized to accommodate current academic needs. A faint mustiness clung to most of the buildings, covered only by the scent of pine needles and apple cider that signaled the holidays were in full swing.
A Christmas tree lit up the far end of the hallway. Next to it was a table with decorated cookies stacked high and three canisters of hot beverages lined up and ready to dispense. Sienna gave me the side
eye as I grabbed a cookie, then a second, along with a mug of cider.
I shrugged, chomped into Santa’s head. “I didn’t get dinner.”
We passed through the chapel, a space that was both beautiful and somber in its appearance. Deep mahogany made up the pews, the thick posts holding up a lofty ceiling. Stained glass windows peppered the walls, causing colorful flecks of light to bounce in beautiful, eerie patterns off every surface as moonlight sliced through. Even Sienna turned down the thump of her music as we passed through. It felt like someone—everyone—was listening to our muted footsteps.
We breathed easier once we reached a back passageway that dropped us straight into student housing. Sure enough, the chatter of low-toned voices led us directly to the crime scene tape that surrounded one particular room.
Sienna and I exchanged a look before filtering down a narrow hall sparsely decorated with posters promoting team spirit and local campus events. I eyed a sign for Thursday night Trivia and a Holiday Bash for next Friday. Two events our victim would not be attending.
“Will Matthew be here?” Sienna asked. “Has someone alerted him to the incident?”
“That’s the sixty-four million dollar question these days,” I said. “I’m not sure. Haven’t spoken to him yet today.”
Sienna let the subject drop, and we checked in with the officer on the scene. A second uniform gave us a quick rundown of the situation while we extended our hands and received the Fingerprint Eraser treatment and other charms meant to help protect and preserve any DNA or Residuals evidence on the scene.
“We received an emergency call from the victim’s roommate,” Officer Renola said, glancing over a pair of thick glasses and tucking her ponytail over her shoulder. “Not much info other than that. Campus security got here first, secured the scene. Vic’s name is Mason White. We were a few minutes behind and haven’t been here long.”
“Thanks,” I said as Sienna hopped over to the body and knelt, beginning her preliminary assessment. “Where’s the roommate now?”
Renola thumbed over her shoulder. “Out in the hall. We got her a cup of tea and a cookie.”
“Her? Were they...”
Renola shook her head. “Not romantically involved. The housing on this floor is co-ed. They each had their separate rooms with a common area. He was found on the couch in the common area. Spooked her when she got home from a night class.”
“I’m going to chat with the roommate,” I said. “She’s with an officer?”
Renola nodded and pointed the young woman out to me. I followed the directions to the red-head sitting in a chair, a blanket draped half-heartedly over her shoulders. Her hands shook as she tried and failed to sip her apple cider without spilling.
I’d ditched my drink before the Fingerprint Eraser had gone on, but I regretted it after smelling the spices and watching the steam curl up from the cup. The hall was chilly; the wind whistled outside. It was possible we’d get snow before Christmas yet.
“Hi there, I’m Detective DeMarco,” I said, waving off the campus security officer. “I understand you found your roommate when you came home from class.”
She nodded, her freckles shining bright against pale skin. Her eyes were a blue reminiscent of a cloudless summer afternoon, her hair the color of autumn leaves. The woman couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, thin and fragile looking as she hunched forward and tugged the blanket higher.
“Can you give me your name, your relationship with Mason, and anything else you can remember about the night?”
“My relationship with Mason?” The woman looked panicked. “I didn’t have a relationship with him. We were randomly assigned roommates. I mean, I didn’t mind living with a male—it’s only a month-long program and we had our own separate rooms with locking doors. My mother warned me, said it was dangerous—but that’s just because she’s from Iowa. She doesn’t understand any of this!”
“Let’s slow down,” I said. “I didn’t mean to imply a romantic relationship. Let’s start with your name.”
“Olive Brick,” she said. “My name is Olive.”
“Nice to meet you, Olive,” I said. “How long have you been living with Mason?”
“Well, we both signed up for the month-long Orientation program. They have different lengths, but I thought—never mind. We were both late registries, so by the time we got in, we had slim pickings for lodgings. We only met one time before we moved in, during a campus visit. He seemed nice enough.”
“What brings you to Orientation?”
“My mother was a witch, but she hid that tiny fact from me until my twenty-first birthday,” Olive said a bit bitterly, though with some fondness as she spoke of her mother. “I understand why she did it. It was hard enough for her as a single mother of three kids. Introducing magic would have made a tough situation even tougher.”
“But you figured it out.”
“You can only start so many spontaneous fires before people get suspicious,” Olive said with a thin smile. “Eventually, my mom came clean. I did the rest; I researched, discovered the entire magical world.” Olive drifted off, staring into the distance, sparkles in her eyes. “I mean, The Isle! The Sixth Borough! MAGIC, Inc. And the rest of the magical communities around the world. I had to explore them for myself, to learn where I’d come from.”
“So, you came to Orientation?”
“I’m moving here,” Olive said, the glee evident in her voice. Until she paused, glanced over her shoulder. Her glow dimmed. “At least, I thought I’d try to get residency and a job in Wicked, but I didn’t realize it would be so dangerous.”
“It’s not, really,” I said. “I mean, it’s no more dangerous than anywhere else. Murders, accidental deaths—that happens in any culture. Magical or not.”
“I suppose.” Olive frowned. “I just didn’t see much of it in Iowa.”
“Did you see much of anything in Iowa?” I joked, and I was rewarded by a dull chuckle from Olive. “The Sixth Borough is a city just like any other metropolitan area. Now, back to Mason—do you know what brought him to Orientation?”
She frowned. “He was secretive. Honestly, we barely spoke. I mean, we were pleasant with one another—really, he was sort of the ideal roommate. I barely knew he was there. He was gone a lot. I assumed out at the library, or with friends or whatever.”
“Did he ever bring anyone back to the apartment?”
“Now that you mention it, no,” Olive said. “I mean, if he did, it was on the sly. I never saw a girlfriend or anything. No guys’ nights, nothing. Whatever he did for his personal life, it was outside of our room. I think he pretty much just slept and ate in our apartment.”
“If you had to guess, what brought him to Orientation?”
“Not marriage, that much I’m almost sure of,” Olive said. “He never spoke of a wife, never had a visitor, nothing. I suppose it’s still possible... but it just doesn’t feel right.”
“Maybe he came into his powers later in life?”
“Maybe,” she said again, not sounding convinced. “I just don’t really buy it. I mean, you see so many of these newcomers, and we’re all just drooling over everything. Magic carpets! Broomsticks! Spells! Self-decorating Christmas trees! And he seemed... used to it all. I suppose he might have just been hard to impress, but really, can you hide that much awe?”
I tried to imagine what it’d be like to discover a magical world existed after having been taught for years that powers were nothing but imaginative fodder for fictional stories. Only to find out one day that it was all true. While I couldn’t fully comprehend the shock of it, I understood Olive’s point.
“I see.” I made a note to get Lily Locke on the Comm and ask her about what it’d been like to discover she was the Mixologist after two-plus decades of living life as a mortal human. Maybe she’d have some insights.
“I suppose it was possible he was shocked and was putting on a tough guy act,” Olive said. “You know, not letting any of this cool stuff phase h
im, but it just...”
“You don’t believe it.” When she shook her head, I took a breath and continued. “We’re running out of reasons he might have been in Orientation.”
“I know,” Olive said. “I think he was planning to move here after the program, so maybe he was just going through as a formality to get used to the Sixth Borough?”
I jotted a note down to check with admissions and see if they recorded the reasons their students applied to attend the Campus of Magic. For the time being, I put it on the backburner and switched tracks.
“Anything else you can tell me about Mason? Was he involved in clubs, activities, anything else?”
Olive grimaced, took a sip of her drink and breathed out a sigh, smacking her lips against the warmth. “I really wish I could say. I don’t think so, but I’ve no clue. I have no idea where he went or what he was doing when he wasn’t in our room. For all I know, he was going out for picnics every day and not attending classes. I just don’t know.”
“Detective?” Renola called out from her post by the door. “There’s something you should see.”
“This was really helpful,” I said to Olive. “I’m so sorry you had to find your roommate like that. I might have some more questions to ask you later.”
“Sure, anything.”
“There is one more thing,” I said, hating the question I needed to ask. “Where were you this evening?”
“Wait—you think...”
“I don’t think anything,” I said hurriedly. “But we need to be thorough. I just look at the facts. We rule people out to narrow down our list.”
“List of suspects,” Olive muttered under her breath. “I can’t believe it. My mother was right. This is what I get for living with a man before marriage.”
“I don’t think—”
“This evening, I had Advanced Relationships for the Burgeoning Witch,” Olive said. At my blank expression, she continued. “It’s about how to navigate friendships, relationships, and family members now that we’re magical. It’s more of a support group than a class, really, but there were five other people who can verify I was at the study center until about ten thirty p.m. That’s when I left and came home. I must have made the emergency Comm before ten forty-five—I don’t remember exactly—but it doesn’t take more than fifteen minutes to come home, and I didn’t stop anywhere.”
