by Nova Nelson
I grabbed three slips of owl paper and a pen from the box that we kept on a small table by the front door, and sat down at the parlor table. The first letter was for Sheriff Bloom. This one was the longest since I needed to detail the evidence, being sure to include the bit about Seamus’s slip-up in Sheehan’s, before I sent it off.
The second letter was to the High Council, specifically Mayor Esperia. This was a little trickier to write, since I didn’t know the mayor but had heard stories about her petty vendettas and didn’t want to end up on the wrong end of one. I explained that I needed to meet with the Council to discuss a personal issue that might benefit some of the council members. I hoped she’d take the hint. For good measure, I mentioned that the issue was a side project I’d been forced to work on due to the limited staffing in the Eastwind Sheriff’s Department. If anything was going to nudge them toward approving a line in the budget for another officer, it would be feeling the lack of investigative power personally.
The third letter was addressed to Landon Hawker. It simply said. “You were right. Seamus.” I was sure he would ask for details later, and I would be happy to explain in full once this was settled and I could get back to my normal life. (Ha! Kidding. That wasn’t a thing for me.) Maybe I’d tell him about it over a tall drink that I definitely owed him.
I rang the bell below the owl perch on Ruby’s front porch, and a moment later, one of the courier owls was off into the pre-dawn sky with three letters clutched in her claw.
“I’m surprised to see you here so early,” said Tanner as he popped into the dining room where I was refilling the salt shakers.
I held up one of the shakers to the light, examining a dark speck buried between the white grains. Eh, it was probably fine. “Couldn’t sleep.”
“Yeah, I imagine not. Not after the night you had.”
Aw spell. I was busted, wasn’t I?
I set down the shaker and straightened up, flashing him a futile grin. Arms crossed, he leaned with his shoulder against the frame of the kitchen door. “Ah yes,” I said. “Of course you heard. How many people stopped you on your walk over to tell you?”
“Five. No, wait. Six. Lance Flufferbum tried to stop me, but I told him I already knew and I didn’t want to be late for work.”
While the casualness of leaning against the wall might seem like usual Tanner, his body was rigid, stiff as corn chips left out overnight. “Care to give me the real story? Because I just spent the last half hour being told about how my girlfriend and best friend were seen sprinting from Sheehan’s hand in hand with two werewolves in hot pursuit.”
I crinkled my nose. “Sorry. I guess I should have sent an owl, but I wanted to tell you in person.”
“You could have come over, Nora.”
“It was late.”
His hands formed fists by his side as he pushed off the wall. “I don’t care!” he snapped.
I took a quick step back and he dragged a hand down his face. “I’m sorry,” he added. His bunched shoulders sagged. “Nora, you know you can come over any time, day or night, and I won’t mind.”
“I know.”
“Okay. Then why didn’t you?”
I couldn’t tell him the real reason, because I didn’t want to put words to it. So, instead, I said, “It wasn’t safe. Lucent and Slash might’ve still been out there.”
“Where were you then? Where’d you and Donovan hide out?”
A light turned on in my head. “Oh, Tanner. No, we didn’t … We ran to Ruby’s, but just for a second, then he left.”
“Right,” he said quickly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean for it to sound like I thought you two …” He didn’t finish the thought, though, waving it off, his brows pinched. “No, that makes sense. You wouldn’t want to be out late after something like that.” He tied his apron around his waist and nodded. “You know what? I trust you.” He smiled, but there was a slight cringe around the corners of his eyes, like he was bracing himself against some inevitable blow. “Whatever you were doing in Sheehan’s with Donovan, that’s your business. I trust him, too, so.” He crossed the distance between us, pulled me in by the arms, and planted a soft kiss on my forehead before moving past me to pour himself a cup of coffee. “Any word on when we might be able to roll out the queso?”
“Right. About that … There’s been a big development.”
He spun on his heels to face me, mug in one hand, coffee pot in the other, and an intrigued smile turning a corner of his sandy-rose lips. “Do go on …”
And just like that, there was the Tanner I loved.
Or, not quite loved, I don’t think, but … you know what I mean.
16
“Perhaps you’ve misunderstood,” Ruby said, later that evening, “so I’ll be clear. I don’t really care what happened at the Lunasa Festival. If I did, don’t you think I would have gone?”
We stood shoulder to shoulder at the kitchen counter as I chopped carrots and she rubbed pepper and seasonings onto a slab of beef for the stew.
“The reason I didn’t bother attending was because I’ve been to countless Lunasa Festivals, and each one presents its own new and unique flare up of town drama. One time, oh, twelve years ago, Stu Manchester had it out with Anton Gargantua so severely, we weren’t sure either one would pull through. Earth only knows what it was even about! Those two probably can’t even remember. Then, a few years after that, two South Wind witches had too much to drink and got frisky together in the woods just off the green. Started a forest fire that took seven days and every East Wind witch in the town to extinguish. If I remember correctly, Bloom even had to call in a couple of dryads from Avalon to help with the effort.” She shook her head. “No, whatever drama happened this year, I have no interest in it.”
“Even if it involves a Guilt Gale hitting the High Council?”
She froze then craned her head to glare up at me. “Especially if it has to do with a Guilt Gale. And I suggest you lose all interest in it, too. Nasty stuff. You do not want to stick your hands in that. Trust me.”
“I don’t really have a choice,” I said.
“Of course you have a choice!” Ruby scolded.
I finished chopping the carrots and dumped them in the pot then moved on to an onion. “I already know who did it, so—”
“Great! Have Seamus reverse it himself then.”
“I would, but—“
Wait a second.
I squinted at Ruby. “How did you know it was Seamus?”
She hardly spared me a glance as she pounded the seasoned meat with a mallet. “Please. Simple deduction. It’s a Guilt Gale. The leprechauns are known the realm over for being ancient masters of the guilt trip—and you should see them cast a Grudge Grip, too; it’s really something. So then the next question is which leprechaun would be enough of a numbskull to not only conjure a Guilt Gale, but put it against the High Council? Well, there’s only one person, let alone leprechaun, in all of Eastwind idiot enough to do such a thing, and that is one Seamus Shaw.”
I realized my mouth was hanging open, so I snapped it shut. “Holy spell. Wish I’d just asked you sooner. Would’ve saved me a lot of trouble.”
“I’m saving you a lot of trouble right now, dear, by telling you not to meddle in it.”
“But it’s a ghost thing. I’m a Fifth Wind witch. Who else is going to lift the curse?”
“Only one way to find out, and that’s by not doing it yourself. Let someone else step in and fill the void! Personally, I don’t see the hurry to rid the High Council of the curse. Let them suffer a bit more. Won’t kill them.”
“Why are you so opposed to me handling it?”
Ruby began hacking the slab of meat to tiny pieces. “Because your approach is that of a necromancer. A single spell has many different entry points, depending on the natural abilities of the one casting or closing it. For Seamus, it’s a safe procedure. But that’s because he’s coming at it from the angle of a leprechaun with a whole set of skills different from yours.
He has powers with ancestor spirits, yes, but not necromancy, per se. Meanwhile, for you to get at it requires passing through the veil in such a way that you’re actually tapping into past lives to get there.”
“Past lives? Those are a thing?”
Ruby chuckled and popped a small piece of the raw beef into her mouth. After chewing and considering it, she swallowed, tossed the rest of the beef into the pot, and said, “Of course those are a thing. But they’re a thing we’re not even close to covering yet. You have at least a couple years’ worth of lessons dealing with spirits from this life before you can safely peel back the layers and venture into your past lives.”
“I have past lives?”
Ruby reached up and patted me on the head. “Now you’re getting it.”
“Does everyone have past lives?”
“No. Immortals don’t. Neither do those brought into being by belief alone. But all witches do.”
So many questions. “And I have the power to travel back to my old lives?”
“Of course you do.” She flicked her fingers at the pot like she was flinging off droplets of water, and a fire started underneath. “But to say I don’t recommend it would be gross understatement. You have a fairly easy life, Nora. Sure, you occasionally have a close encounter with a spirit, and maybe your feet hurt after you work a double, but you’re not being tortured. You’re not starving. You’re not a slave of any kind—and trust me, there are many kinds. Throughout the ages, such a life as yours has always been a rarity, and the powers that be don’t allow souls to get more than one such life every few dozen. This life you’re enjoying, it’s a vacation. I can say that with certainty. You may think you want to know what happened to you in past lives, but I can assure you it’s nothing pretty. Not in any of the recent ones, which you would have to sort through first to get to the others.” She nodded at the cutting board above which my knife hovered in midair. “Finish that up before the water starts to boil.”
I did as she said, letting my thoughts crystalize before I bugged her more about this new ability that had taken me by surprise. “To get at the Guilt Gale, I have to visit my past lives?”
Ruby sighed. “Of course you think it’s that simple. No, you don’t have to visit your past lives if you either know what you’re doing—which you don’t—or you get very lucky—which doesn’t sound like you. What you must do is open the door to your past lives. We haven’t done that yet, and for good reason.”
“Is opening the door a bad thing?” I asked.
“You tell me, Nora. Has opening a door ever come back to bite you in the hide?” She smiled and jerked her head toward the front door of her home.
Right. That one time when I let a demon in. “That was different. I was distracted and it knocked three times—”
“Think of it like this: past lives always knock thrice. Trust me, you don’t want to start letting them in.” She flapped a hand wildly in the air. “Or don’t trust me. What do I know anyway? I’m just your mentor. I’ve only been through all of this before myself. But no, it’s fine. I’m sure you know better.”
Whoa. Either this past life stuff was serious business or Ruby had skipped her morning tea. She was usually sarcastic, but her tone was a hair more biting than that.
In fact, she sounded worried.
“Can you at least tell me where I can find how to fix this curse? That’s not to say I’ll do it, just that I want to learn about it.”
She sniffed the air, looking around. “You smell that?”
“Smell what?”
“Ah.” She nodded. “Must’ve been the steaming pile of unicorn swirls that popped out of your mouth just now. But sure, you can look it up. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, though.” She pointed across the room at the bookshelf by her reading chair. “The one with the purple binding and the white lettering. Page nine hundred and fourteen, I believe.”
When I blinked rapidly at her, she said, “I would appreciate it if you didn’t act so surprised every time I demonstrate that I know what I’m talking about. I do have half a century on you, you know. So, imagine, if you will, everything you’ve learned in the past six months since you crossed over. Now multiply that by one hundred. And then multiply it by two, because I’m smarter than you and spent more time each day studying it when I first arrived in Eastwind.”
I made sure to put my back to her before rolling my eyes.
But she did raise an interesting point.
Once I was seated with the book open in front of me at the parlor table, I paused. How many abilities did I have that I didn’t know about yet? Hundreds? Thousands? Then my mind jumped to the one I’d discovered the night before, the one that had saved Donovan’s hide.
“Ruby, can Fifth Wind witches”—I tried to think of the words for it—“extinguish lights?” No, that wasn’t quite right. It was close, though.
She tapped the wooden spoon on the side of the pot, set it to the side, and turned to face me full-on across the room. “Come again?”
“Like, make light go away. Magical light.”
She clasped her hands in front of her, intertwining her fingers. “I believe you’re talking about quenching. And yes, extremely powerful necromancers are able to do that without much effort.” Even from ten feet away, her intense gaze made me fidget. “But there’s no reason I can think of why you should worry about that, since you’re almost as far away in our training from learning to quench as you are from learning how to cross into past lives.”
“Right. Of course.” I forced a smile, and that’s how the conversation ended, with my denial and her apparent knowledge that I had most definitely, without a doubt, accidentally quenched without meaning to.
What she might not have known, however, was just how easy and naturally it had come to me, like I couldn’t stop it if I’d tried.
And that was a fun fact I would be keeping locked away. Because as much as the knowledge would worry Ruby, it worried me much more.
17
My previous guess about the High Council being located somewhere near the Parchment Catacombs was wrong.
The High Council wasn’t located near anything technically in Eastwind, as far as I could tell.
I learned that only as Grim and I approached the clock tower in the middle of the Eastwind Emporium early the next afternoon. The market was bustling and I waved hello to a few of my regulars as I passed them in the street.
We reached the clock tower and stopped. That was all Ruby had told me: “When you reach the clock tower, you’re there.”
I’d assumed it would be blindingly obvious, despite never having seen an entrance to the council chambers before while in the Emporium.
“Any ideas?” I asked Grim.
“Yes, but you won’t like it.”
I groaned. “You really couldn’t pee on our way here?”
“I could, and I did. You act like emptying one’s bladder is a once-a-day thing. Maybe it is for you, and way to go, but I wasn’t put together like that.”
Grim would be no help. I looked around, but it wasn’t until I spotted the plaque under my feet that it started to make sense. It read, Please wait here until your appointment time. Thank you. The Eastwind High Council.
I leaned back looking up at the hands of the clock. And just as I did, the second hand completed a circle and the clock struck four o’clock, my meeting time.
I felt off balance, like the a small tremor had moved beneath my feet, and when I looked down from the clock face again, the tower was still ahead of me but everything else about my surroundings had changed. I glanced up again. The sapphire August sky was gone, replaced by a vaulted ceiling high enough to fit the clock tower underneath.
“So that’s how it works,” said Grim beside me. Everyone else in the Emporium had disappeared, and now it was just us standing in a tall stone-walled rotunda with the clock tower at the center. The space extended at least fifty feet in every direction with windowless stone walls smoothed by time.
“Glad
you made it, Ms. Ashcroft,” a woman said. The voice echoed, coming at me from many angles so that my ears were no good in locating the source.
I turned and there they were. The High Council. Seven members on seven stone daises, each towering a dozen feet above the ground with marble stairs spiraling down around the columns.
I supposed the effect they were going for was intimidation, but considering my first encounter with most of them was at a cook-off, it was too little too late. Instead all it did was provide me with a clear view up their nostrils once I’d approached to stand on a much lower speaking platform. The platform designated for their guest was a semicircle, with a curved railing around the front, telling anyone who should be so lucky as to stand on it that they were quite close enough to the mighty High Council of Eastwind.
I’d been censured by the student council once in high school for skipping class too frequently after the principal thought it would be appropriate to make me face a jury of my peers to decide my punishment.
This felt a little like that—silly, mostly for show, created by a bunch of people whose need for superiority was so intense that they’d concocted this scheme and made everyone else follow along.
“Thanks for meeting with me,” I said, but before I could go on, Liberty Freeman stood from his seat and hurried down the dais stairs, approaching with his arms wide and his grin wider. “If it isn’t Lunasa’s cook-off queen!” He waved me over to meet him halfway, so I did. Turning down a genie’s request, no matter how friendly he may seem, is a stupid idea.
He wrapped me in his arms so tightly, pressing me up against his firm chest, that all I could do in return was bend my wrists and flap him a few times on the back.
He let go, but gripped my arms just under the pits and held me at arm’s length to get a good look at me. “When can I look forward to another taste of that queso?” He pronounced it wrong, but I let it slide.
“As soon as we sort things out today, I think,” I said.
