by Gina LaManna
“I talked with my Rangers,” he said abruptly. “We sat down and reviewed our best practices and rules. All of them.”
“I suppose you had to, what with Zin becoming a Candidate.”
“All of the rules. Not just that one.”
“Mmm.”
He turned to face me. “I wanted to make sure I wasn’t changing the rules for selfish reasons. We’re a team at Ranger HQ, and that wouldn’t be fair.”
“That’s very noble of you. Then again, I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
“We decided to open up the rules regarding relationships,” he said. “It’s on a trial basis right now. Turns out, most of the Rangers have a—shall we say—special sort of friend on the side anyway. It was unanimous.”
I cleared my throat. “That’s great. I’m sure it’ll make a lot of ladies happy.”
“Will it make you happy?” He looked out of the corner of his eye at me as we reached the front of the bungalow. “Because that’s the only lady I care about.”
“It does make me happy,” I said slowly. “But it’s also just a rule. A note scratched on a piece of paper. What would really make me happy is if you threw the rule book away and told me how you feel.”
Ranger X’s expression briefly flashed discomfort. Then he nodded. “Fair enough. Here’s what I want: I want to get to know you. Last time we talked, I was upset. I was angry, too emotional, and I shouldn’t have used that time to talk about us. But I’ve thought about it a lot, and I want to take things slow. I want to take you on a real date with a real kiss.”
“And your career?”
“I plan on staying on as Leader of the Rangers for as long as I’m able,” he said with a mischievous sort of grin. “Someone has to watch over Zin as she learns the ropes.”
“I like this plan,” I said. “If you’re happy with it.”
“I’ll be happy if you’ll have dinner with me tonight.”
I bit my lip. “We’re celebrating Zin’s accomplishment. It’s not the best time, I’m really sorry.”
“Another night, then,” he said. “No problem.”
“No,” I said suddenly. “Come with me tonight. The others would love it.”
Ranger X pulled me into a hug, dipping me low, dusting a kiss against my lips. “I’ll be there.”
“No, you won’t,” a voice called from behind us. We both straightened up so fast I got dizzy. “Not if you keep kissin’ like that. I’m tellin’ Mimsey on y’all if you don’t stop makin’ out in front of the bungalow. It’s unprofessional.”
“Don’t be a snitch, Gus,” I called to the old man tapping about on the porch with his cane. “Or I’m going to tell Mimsey you don’t like her toast. I see you hiding it under your plate.”
Gus fell silent, and I knew we had a deal.
“Get inside,” he growled finally. “We’ve got work to do. Your antidote for the poison is finished. It’ll burn if you don’t untangle your lips from that hooligan’s face.”
Ranger X spluttered. “Hooligan?”
“Yer a hooligan!” Gus pointed his cane at him. “Stop distracting my girl from her studies.”
At Gus’s words, my heart melted a bit. “I’ve gotta go,” I said to X. “I’ve been working on a potion to combat the poison Thomas was brewing, just in case we ever need it.”
Ranger X grinned. “He already thinks I’m a hooligan. Might as well live up to my reputation.”
Right in front of Gus, he kissed me on the lips and twirled me in a circle. He made the show a little extra long until Gus started cursing a blue streak. It was too distracting to ignore, so we broke apart with broad grins.
“So, what’s it called?” Ranger X asked as I made my way up to the bungalow a few moments later. “The antidote. Just in case I ever need it.”
I glanced inside the storeroom, smiling at The Magic of Mixology which, thanks to Zin, had been retrieved from The Forest and placed back in its safe. Still smiling, I turned back and took a bow. “Witchy Sour, comin’ right up.”
** **
Epilogue
Later that Evening
I made my way through The Twist dressed, as Hettie had instructed, in a black robe that covered my face and swished around my ankles. The hour was late, the moon creeping toward the sky as flowers the size of my kitchen table bloomed to either side of the path.
A few minutes later, swatting at a swarm of zingers—the magical nickname for mosquitos—I stumbled out of The Twist and into the well-manicured yard that Hettie called her lawn. Squinting, I realized that I wasn’t alone.
A second person dressed in all black robes stood at the front door. Just as I hesitated, trying to recognize his or her figure, the door swung open and a hand beckoned the stranger inside. The door closed just as quickly as it’d opened.
I hurried forward, hoping that Hettie hadn’t assumed it was me under that robe. I crossed my fingers, wishing the other guest to be friend, not foe.
I jogged down the cobblestone path and cleared the bridge over Hettie’s decorative, bubbling brook in an instant. I was at the front door with my hand raised hardly twenty seconds after the first figure had disappeared inside.
Hettie had called me here tonight for one reason.
She’d promised me answers.
After my tussle with Thomas in The Forest, I’d been left with some burning questions. Gus and Ranger X didn’t seem particularly chatty when I brought them up, and Poppy and Zin were either clueless, or they were great at pretending to know nothing.
“What are you doing? Knocking?” The door swung open, and Hettie’s eyes danced across the lawn. “What didn’t you understand when I told you to be discreet?”
“There was someone here before me—” I stopped abruptly at Hettie’s obvious stare. “Oh, you were expecting someone else, too.”
“Yes,” she grumped. “Come in now before the entire world sees you.”
“Nobody can get through The Twist unless you ring them in,” I said, stepping into the echoing hall that looked out of place from the cottage-esque exterior. I lowered my hood. “Well, and West Isle Witches, but nobody followed me.”
“I’m glad to see you can obey some instructions.” Hettie closed the door firmly behind me, and I scanned the hallway, looking for a tiger. I was pretty sure it didn’t exist, but I’d gotten into the habit of checking, just in case. Better safe than sorry, especially when it came to Hettie’s tricks. “Come out to the porch. It’s charmed to keep all sound inside so we won’t be overheard.”
I followed Hettie to the rear of the house where a full-sized wraparound porch spanned the length of the back wall. “Who else are we waiting for?”
“You’re both here.” Hettie gestured to the porch.
“Gus?” I moved forward as he pulled his hood back from his face. “What are you doing here?”
“This is my meeting, not his.” Hettie clapped her hands. “Attention on me, por favor.”
Feeling more confused than ever, I took a seat in a rickety old rocking chair and gave Gus a curious side-eye as I waited for Hettie to clear her throat.
“Lily, I asked you here tonight because I think it’s time you learned a few answers to those questions you’ve been annoying everyone with lately,” Hettie said. “You know, the ones about your history, and all of that jazz.”
“Annoying everyone?” I said faintly.
Gus gave a subtle roll of his eyes and a shake of his head. If I read his look right, he was telling me not to argue.
“Wonderful,” I said instead. “Answers?”
“When we brought you back to The Isle a few months ago,” Hettie said, “we wanted you to learn and grow and adjust organically to the culture. We knew it’d be a shock after spending most of your life in the human realm. We would have brought you over sooner, but unfortunately due to the curse, that wasn’t possible. We couldn’t find you. It took years and years to crack that curse.”
“Mimsey and Trinket have mentioned that before,” I said. “Who c
ursed me?”
“Your own mother cursed you,” Hettie said. “She made it impossible for us to find you for twenty-five years.”
“What?” I cleared my throat. “Why would she do that?”
“She wanted you to live to see your twenty-sixth birthday.” Hettie’s pace slowed, her eyes darkening as she remembered. “I can’t say that I blame her.”
I shook my head, still not understanding.
“She knew you had the Mixology gene, or suspected it, at least. I think we all did on some level when you were born. There’s something about you, Lily. A power that seeps from your pores. Even as a baby…”
She trailed off, and then cleared her throat. “I’m sorry. Your mother is my daughter, and sometimes…” Hettie stopped to gather her breath. “She was my daughter, I should say. Almost a year after you were born, your mother slipped into the dark of night and brought you to the mainland. You see, The Faction realized you had been born. The next Mixologist had arrived, and for them, that was dangerous.”
I looked over at Gus, but he was too busy staring at his hands, listening, to look back.
“If your mother had stayed on The Isle with you, we would have trained you from birth. You would have worked hard, you would have been pushed to learn and understand and do great things, even as a child. And, most importantly, you would’ve had a target on your back.”
“Your mother came to me,” Gus interrupted. “The night she left for the mainland, she came to me with you as a babe, cradled in her arms. I’ll never forget it.” He shook his head. “Her eyes…they were on fire. I’ve never seen such a look before. She loved you, Lily, a lot.”
“Why did she take me away?” I asked. “I like it here. I would’ve liked it here, even if it was dangerous.”
“It was more than dangerous.” Gus folded his hands in his lap, continuing to stare at his fingernails. “You wouldn’t have survived. The Faction would’ve targeted you before you became an adult, before you realized your full powers, and they would have eliminated you. When your mother came to me asking for my opinion, I gave it to her. She asked if it would be selfish of her to steal you away, to curse you so that nobody could find you until you were old enough to understand the risks yourself, and I told her no. I didn’t think it was selfish then, and I don’t think so now.”
“My mother cursed me herself…” I still couldn’t understand it. Not completely.
“I advised her to do it,” Gus said. “And I stand by my words. I helped her escape that night, though we couldn’t tell anyone else. I’m still sorry that your mother couldn’t say goodbye, but it was just too risky. If someone suspected, if someone interfered with the curse, all would have been lost.”
“What happened to her?” I swallowed. “Is she…alive?”
Gus blinked, once and then twice, before continuing. “The Faction realized what was happening as soon as she reached the mainland. They got to her, but it was too late for them to find you—the curse had already been enabled. Your mother was not as fortunate.”
“And my dad?”
“Lily, the man you grew up with is not your father,” Hettie said. “He was a decoy.”
I shook my head. “Excuse me?”
“Ainsley.” Hettie stepped forward. “You know the name?”
“Are you talking about my assistant from Lions Marketing?”
Hettie laughed. An actual chuckle. “I suppose.”
“What about her?”
“She is so much more than a marketing assistant,” Hettie said. “She is a Guardian.”
“I don’t understand.”
“MAGIC, Inc. is the name of our central governing body on the mainland. It stands for Magic and Guardians Investigative Committee. Ainsley works as a Guardian, and that means it’s her job to watch high-risk targets.”
“That’s impossible,” I said. “She only worked with me for a short time.”
“She’s been around,” Hettie said. “We learned of her after your twenty-fifth birthday. The curse was also a protective charm, and it meant that Ainsley was bound to you for the length of the curse—twenty-five years—and it was her duty to protect you from any and all harm.”
“That’s impossible,” I said again. “She’s not old enough to have been around that long.”
“Aging as a witch is much slower than aging as a human.” Hettie’s face turned mildly amused. “In Ainsley’s world, she’s only been watching over you for two years. She got the job on her twenty-first birthday, a young little pipsqueak. She just turned twenty-three.”
I frowned. “But what about Poppy and Zin? Are they my age?”
Hettie nodded. “The slow aging only begins as an adult. Children grow at the same rate as human children. It’s only once witches hit adulthood and full power—sometime between the ages of twenty and thirty—that the aging process slows. You, Poppy, and Zin are all just beginning the process, but Ainsley started early. Probably on her twentieth birthday, if I had to guess.”
“Back to Ainsley…” I said. “So, she has been watching over me my entire life?”
Hettie nodded. “Did a good job of it, too.”
“She’s magic,” I said flatly. “She knew about magic this whole time.”
Hettie nodded again. “More than you, I’d say.”
I frowned, trying to process. “Does that mean I can see her again if she already knows about this world?”
My grandmother waved a hand. “Of course you can. But let’s focus for now. Time for parties later.”
“Let me get this straight. The man I always thought was my father was a decoy. Who was he?”
“A Companion.” Hettie winced. “A shifter from the mainland who was tasked to protect you.” She gave me an apologetic expression. “I hear he wasn’t the most friendly soul. Sorry about that. But he turns into a bear, and I hear he’s pretty ferocious. You couldn’t see that part, of course.”
At this point, my mouth just hung open, and I gave up trying to make sense of anything. “Then who is my real father?”
Hettie shook her head. “I can’t answer that for you. I don’t know. Your mother never told us.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“We don’t have time for that story today,” Hettie said. “I’m sorry, you can talk to your aunts about that some other time, though they don’t know anything either.”
I moved on, even though my head was spinning. “The curse broke when I turned twenty-five.”
“It broke just after your twenty-sixth birthday, and that’s when we came for you,” Hettie said. “Well, Mimsey and Trinket at least, since I was feeling lazy and didn’t want to make the trek to the mainland.”
“How thoughtful.”
Hettie ignored me. “In retrospect, the curse was the best gift your mother could have left you with, even if it was the most frustrating thing in the world for a quarter century. We looked for you, we searched and searched and searched but we couldn’t find you.”
“Neither could The Faction,” Gus said. “And now, we have you here. A powerful Mixologist. We need you now more than ever, and it’s thanks to your mother that we have you here today. The curse saved your life.”
Staring at the two of them through eyes as wide as dinner plates, I shook my head. “I thought I came here for answers. I have more questions than ever.”
“We need to talk about what happened with Thomas,” Gus said quietly. “I owe you some explanations.”
“You?” I turned to him. “What haven’t you told me?”
“I stole The Magic of Mixology,” Gus said, beginning with something I already knew. “I had to do it to prove my loyalty to The Core.”
“The Core,” I said quietly. “The group of five people formed to fight The Faction.”
Gus nodded. “The Core was made up of me, Harpin, Turin, Thomas…and the leader.”
“Do you know the leader?” I asked, looking between the two. “Do you?” I asked Hettie.
“Nobody does.” Gus shook his head
. “I explained to Hettie about The Core only because she needed to know, and now you do, too. But it must be kept secret. Turin and Thomas are gone now, but The Core must remain.”
“Turin. I saw him,” I said quietly. “He came to me before Thomas…”
“I know,” Gus interrupted. “Turin could see what was happening. He suspected Thomas. When he sensed the end was near…”
The room fell silent.
“Turin took The Elixir to protect you,” Gus said. “Thomas was after him already. He may have already been poisoned by Thomas. Taking The Elixir gave him one last chance to help.”
“He was poisoned,” I whispered. “He saved my life.”
“It’s what he wanted, Lily.” Gus got to his feet and took a few steps over. He rested a hand on my shoulder. “All of us who joined The Core vowed to give our lives to serve.”
“Why is Harpin allowed into The Core?” I asked, pulling my head out of my hands. “He’s terrible.”
Gus’s breath caught. “I don’t disagree with you, but the leader chose Harpin.”
“The leader also chose Thomas.”
“No,” Gus said. “We thought the leader chose Thomas, but really, Thomas tricked his way into the group. We didn’t realize it until it was too late. By then, Thomas had already inflicted too much damage. He even took my cane, probably to frame me, and left it in The Forest.” Gus’s fists shook with rage. “If you hadn’t found him, he would’ve killed me and set me up to take the fall for the deadly potion. Thomas would’ve escaped.”
“And Zin, does she have a role in any of this?” I looked to my grandmother.
“Zin has her own path to follow,” she said. “And it is not the same as yours. In fact, it is of the utmost importance that you not tell her, nor Ranger X, about The Core.”
I frowned. “But you know about it, and I know too. Plus, there’s Gus, Harpin, and the leader. Don’t we want more people on our side?”
“Rangers are loyal first and foremost to other Rangers,” Hettie explained. “The Core is loyal to The Core. Do you see our issues? Should Zin become a Ranger, we may have our differences, however slight.”
