by Elle Adams
I thought not. An angry ex-partner or spouse might unleash that type of curse, if they didn’t care about the consequences for the people who ended up as mice. But I doubted anyone could have put up with his attitude for an extended period of time. Even if he’d been a catch when he’d been younger, his personality was repellent. Besides, the curse had only kicked in in the last year.
“No other relatives?” I asked.
“Not to my knowledge,” she said. “I’m the wrong person to ask about family trees, but as far as I know, he’s the last of his bloodline.”
Hmm. If I wanted to delve into the past, the person to ask was Vincent, the oldest vampire in town. He’d been polite to me, but slightly scary, and my talking to him had ticked off the werewolves. While the wolf pack had somewhat forgiven me for accidentally getting their chief’s beloved daughter temporarily stuck in her wolf form, not to mention accidentally sending a former sort-of-rogue to their pack, I’d been keeping out of their way lately.
On the other hand, there was no need to go digging too far into history. Since the town had so few newcomers, most people would have been around a year ago. Unfortunately, since I was the only recent newbie, that still covered the town’s entire population of witches and wizards. Or at least those who were capable of casting curses.
“Do you need a wand for every magic type?” I asked. “I mean, there are types that require different props, right?”
“Technically, you don’t,” she said. “But wand magic is the most basic. Other, more advanced magic, is taught at a much later age.”
At this rate, I might catch up by the time I was forty. I barely had a handle on the different definitions—hex, curse, and spell. Unlike hexes, curses didn’t need to be cast directly at the target and could even be used from a distance, but I needed to ask the right questions to find out how one would go about messing with a job, as opposed to a person. My only experience of hexes so far had been what Blythe had done to Callie, turning her into a wolf, while I had no experience of curses at all.
“So I won’t be hexing Blythe anytime soon?” I asked.
“Hexes are more likely to rebound on the caster at first,” she said.
“And curses?” I asked casually. “Do people frequently curse their enemies here? The guy who runs the apothecary said so once.”
“Curses generally require more props. They’re very advanced magic, tricky to work—and impossible to break without knowing the caster. You’d have to really hate someone to put a curse on them.”
Yeah, I figured. The person who’d cursed Mr Falconer plainly hadn’t been bothered that twenty innocent people had also been caught in the spell, which seemed callous to say the least. Most witches were responsible with the way they used magic.
“The worst ones are illegal, right?” I asked. I still hadn’t memorised the extensive paranormal rulebook, but luckily, most of the laws required actual skill at magic to break. I was in no danger of accidentally cursing someone.
“Yes. There are a hundred and twelve illegal types of curses, but I think only Madame Grey knows them all.”
“Is there a list of the illegal curses?”
She gave a slight smile. “Not getting any ideas about that co-worker of yours, are you?”
I shook my head. “No, of course not.” I wasn’t lying. I’d become more conscious of doing it, since I’d been through a brief phase of thinking I couldn’t lie as a result of being a fairy, but that’d just been Blythe sneakily casting spells on me from a distance. They say the fairies’ ancestors weren’t able to lie at all, Alissa had said, so maybe there was some truth there, but I was too accomplished a liar to easily be able to give up the habit.
I hesitated before adding, “But I was curious, because hexes are immediate. Curses aren’t. So could you put a curse on someone and it wouldn’t come into effect until later?”
“In theory—yes. There are two parts. The cast, and the trigger. The cast happens immediately, but the target doesn’t necessarily know they have a curse on them. But when the target takes a certain action, the curse kicks in. It can also be put on an object, too.”
“That sounds like it’d make it difficult for the victim to tell who cursed them.”
“Usually they know who would have done it.”
I stifled a sigh. As long as Mr Falconer remained tight-lipped, I was running around in the dark.
“I think we’ve wandered off topic for long enough,” she said, raising her wand in a jangle of bands. “Let’s try again.”
Half an hour later, I left the witches’ headquarters and found Nathan, of all people, outside.
The town’s retired paranormal hunter and head security guard looked more like he modelled for romance novels than chased after paranormal wrongdoers. Dark hair grown a little too long, tall, broad-shouldered, and smiling at me. “Hey, Blair.”
“Hey.” Great conversationalist, I was not, but I couldn’t figure out what he was doing here. “You’re not here for magic classes?”
“No, I needed to have a word with Madame Grey about my latest security job. I remembered you had classes, so I decided to see if you were free.”
“Ah—why?” I felt my face heat up despite my best efforts to keep my cool. He’d gone out of his way to be nice to me since I’d arrived, and I’d responded by making friends with his mortal enemies. Okay, he and the shifters weren’t so much enemies as people who avoided one another. I figured he’d forgiven me for that by now, but things were still kind of awkward between us. On my side, at least.
“It struck me that you haven’t seen much of the local scene yet. I guess you’ve been spending all your time with the witches, but there’s a lot more to see.”
“Oh—I have,” I hastened to say. “Alissa and I went…” I paused. Probably best not to mention the werewolves’ favoured haunt in front of someone who didn’t get along particularly well with them. “I went to the Laughing Pixie once.”
“Oh. I never cared for that place.”
“No, I didn’t much like it either.” Mostly because I’d been there on a ‘date’ with an undergraduate in a not-so-subtle attempt to get information out of him. Nathan was probably too old for that place, but I was never any good at telling how old people were, and the paranormal element added more confusion. Look at the vampires.
“How about we go to the Troll’s Tavern?” He named a pub Alissa had mentioned, but I hadn’t been to yet.
“Now? Sure.”
Is he asking me out? I’d never been great at reading cues. He might be feeling sorry for the newbie again, except he didn’t know about Mr Falconer, as far as I was aware.
“I’m not dressed for anywhere fancy,” I blurted.
“Do you think I am? It’s fine.”
His words drew my attention to his jeans, which fit particularly well. My mouth went dry. I definitely needed a drink. At least he wasn’t a mind-reader.
The pub, as it turned out, was packed with an eclectic mix of paranormals, thankfully not including werewolves with an over-inflated sense of their own musical prowess. We picked out a spot near a bunch of tables which seemed to belong to some kind of game involving floating balls. Like a pool table, but magical.
“How do you play that?” I asked him. “With a wand?”
“No, they’re charmed. We can check it out when one of the tables is free.” He returned his attention to the menu, and we both ordered. In most of Fairy Falls’s cafes and restaurants, ordering was as simple as tapping what you wanted on the menu and putting your payment on the table. Watching the intense game on the pool tables between a group of teenage wizards helped calm my nerves down. It was a bit ridiculous feeling nervous, but I was not the dating type, and to be honest, neither were the guys I’d been with in the past, either. But I got on just fine with Nathan. If I could avoid melting in front of him like a discarded ice cream.
“You haven’t been working for Veronica lately,” I commented, taking a bite of pasta. I’d picked something that I wasn
’t likely to spill or drop. “Is Madame Grey keeping you busy?”
“Yes, she’s had some concerns about potential border transgressions between the elves and the shifters.”
“Elves?” I echoed. “They live in the forest, right?” I’d never met one, though being fairies, we were technically related. But I already knew my fairy father wasn’t an elf.
I also hadn’t told Nathan I was half fairy. The only people who knew were Madame Grey, Alissa, Rita, and my boss and co-workers. Okay, that was quite a few people. But after the near-disaster a few weeks ago when Nathan had realised I was lying to him, I’d been wary. Especially since as a paranormal hunter, Nathan had definitely captured and jailed law-breaking fairies.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m also spending a lot of time working for a wizard who makes broomsticks and seems to think someone wants to steal them. So I’m watching them for his peace of mind when he isn’t at home.”
“Is that common?” I asked, recalling Mr Bayer’s killer plants which he kept in the garden to stop people from sneaking into his shop and stealing his ingredients. “I mean, do most people who do tricky spells think people want to steal their ideas?”
“Most people? No. Unfortunately, there are some types of magic which are more volatile and dangerous than others.”
“Like wand-making,” I said casually.
“Yes, like wand-making. Mr Falconer’s the only one who can do it, as far as anyone knows.”
The only one? I’d known his gift was rare, but not that rare. “Have you ever met him? I mean, has he ever asked you to guard his wands, or…?”
I doubted so. The man clearly had his own security measures. Like the wands themselves, for instance. Also, Nathan wasn’t a wizard, so he wouldn’t otherwise have had reason to visit him.
“No,” said Nathan. “I get the impression he thinks anyone who isn’t a witch or wizard isn’t worth his time.”
Hmm. So as much as Mr Falconer had disrespected me, the fact that he’d hired me at all implied he saw my not being a full witch as a non-issue. He’d decided to deny me a wand not out of prejudice, but because he felt like being mean to someone for no apparent reason.
“You’re supposed to be applying for a wand yourself, aren’t you?” he asked. “Madame Grey said you were almost ready.”
I swallowed my bite. “Once I pass my first theory exam. Then I’ll be casting spells and hexes left and right.”
“I’ll remember to duck.”
“Ha ha.” Apparently, he’d heard enough of my self-deprecation to assume I was okay with him making fun of me.
“Was that too far?” he asked.
“No, it’s probably accurate,” I said, deciding not to bring up my disastrous wand practise. “At this rate I’ll catch up to the other witches in a few decades… possibly. And that’s if I manage not to tick off Mr Falconer. He hired me,” I added. “Hired Dritch & Co. I drew the short straw this time.”
“He needs another assistant?”
I nodded, chewing another bite. Hmm. He’d said ‘don't tell the witches’… not the ex-paranormal hunter. “I'm being coerced into helping him find an employee who doesn't turn into a mouse after a few weeks.
He stared at me a moment. “A mouse? That's why they keep vanishing?”
“Yep.”
He looked like he was trying not to laugh. “That's unfortunate.”
“You're telling me. And guess who doesn't get a wand until she finds out who did it?”
His expression shuttered abruptly. “What? He can't deny you a wand.”
“He can. I'm working for him on his job, and he’s the one with the wands. Apparently this is a sort of test.”
He shook his head. “Not if it’s a problem the wand-maker himself can’t solve. It’s not a spell, is it?”
“Nope, it’s a curse. A powerful one. And he doesn’t want me to ask the witches for help, because it’d bruise his ego. They would probably know how to set up the curse, but if it’s like a spell, it can only be undone by the person who did it anyway.”
He still looked displeased. “Perhaps, but forbidding you to contact allies seems unfair.”
“Oh, I’m telling people. Like right now. But as I said, anyone could have done it. I’m trying to find out who might have been angry with him a year ago. You were around then, right?”
“Right.” He tilted his head thoughtfully. “No, I can’t say I spoke to the wand-maker at the time.”
“Unless I ask every person in town, I guess I’ll have to do this the slow way,” I said.
“Who was the first employee to fall victim to the spell?” he asked. “That might give you a clue. He might even have put the curse on himself.”
I blinked. “I did consider that. I mean, he seems really mad about it, so I guess he didn’t mean to curse the entire job. Just one person. But I don’t know. He’s a magical expert. Surely he wouldn’t do something like that by accident.”
“Then he did it on purpose.”
“No, he’s angry and thinks someone’s plotting against him,” I said. “He wouldn’t keep hiring Dritch & Co to find new people if he did it himself. I’m surprised nobody noticed. I mean, people are going missing and his cover stories are flimsy at best.”
“Then perhaps talk to their families,” he said. “Maybe one of them angered him, or the other way around.”
“Hmm.” I nodded. “Yeah, that makes sense. I’ll get the details of the assistants’ families. If they’re powerful enough to work as an assistant to the only wand-maker in the town, then I guess their families must be pretty good at magic, too.”
Or not, if they’d accidentally got their own relative caught in a spell. But magic could be tricky and unpredictable even to expert spellcasters. Maybe Mr Falconer really had done it himself. It wouldn’t be out of character for him to be too stubborn to admit it.
We finished our meals and ordered drinks while Nathan demonstrated the weird floating-ball game.
“You can play with this.” He passed me a device shaped like a wand. “Some people use their own wands, but it’s set up so paranormals who don’t have wands can play, too.”
“Seems fair.” I twirled the wand in my hand and nearly dropped it. Oops. “So the balls float in the air, and you throw them through the hoops?” There were a series of hoops above the floating table, and it looked like you had to get the balls into the hoops on your opponent’s side of the table in order to win. Five balls, five hoops. Seemed vaguely straightforward.
“More or less.” He tapped one of them with the wand. It soared to my end of the table, straight through the central hoop.
“Oh, come on,” I said, eying the floating scoreboard above the table. “Top score on the first try? That’s not playing fair.”
He grinned. “Okay, I’ll play with my right hand, then. I’m left-handed.”
“Somehow I don’t think that’ll be an issue.”
I was right. I lost four games in a row before I managed to score one point. The table seemed to be equipped with a kind of force-field so the balls didn’t fly across the room whenever I knocked one of them wildly off course. The cocktails were not helpful in this case, though my head buzzed pleasantly by the time we left. Or maybe it was Nathan’s close proximity. He was a lot of fun when he wasn’t on duty. I had to remind myself not to actually say that, but for once, I’d managed to keep my propensity for putting my foot in my mouth under control.
Nathan walked me home, and my heart rate kicked up as we reached my front door.
“This has been great,” I said to him. “Thank you.”
“It’s my pleasure. I’m glad you liked it.”
Small talk was not my thing. Was he going to kiss me goodnight? How did one initiate that type of thing without looking like a fool? I fumbled my keys. Turn around, before or opening the—
“MIAOW.”
Several mice pelted through the door, pursued by Sky. Horrified, I didn’t stop to think. I ran after them.
“Wait!” I
yelled. If Mr Falconer’s apprentices got lost out here, they’d be eaten by the local wildlife.
“Blair?” Nathan’s tone was perplexed. I didn’t blame him. He probably had been about to kiss me. Of course, the universe had to upend a bucket of frogs on my head. Or mice. Every one of them had disappeared under the hedge. I swore, then turned to Nathan, figuring I owed him an explanation.
“Sorry. They’re not mice,” I said, my face flaming. “They ran away from Mr Falconer.”
Understanding flared in his eyes. “Oh, they’re the former assistants?”
“You’ve got it. I think my cat knew, before I did, but I don’t know why he’s randomly chasing them. The other cats here aren’t rodent-friendly. But—they might be anywhere.”
It was hopeless. It was too dark, even if I did wave farewell to dignity and crawl halfway through the hedge.
“They must understand English,” I muttered, dropping to my knees. “Hey—mice!”
Nathan crouched down beside me. “I don’t see anything. I think they must have run underneath the fence.”
“Oh, no.”
I’d yet to meet the neighbours, but most of them would think of rodents as a pest. They might even have mousetraps set up. I got on my knees and leaned underneath the hedge, twigs scraping my forehead. So much for dignity.
Nathan said, “I have a few variants of traps to catch rodents, but they might not work on wizards turned into mice.”
I withdrew my head, wincing when a twig scraped my cheek. “The only reason I wanted to help Mr Falconer was because it’s unfair that those people have to spend the rest of their lives as mice. And now they’re gone.”
“I’m sure there’s a reason your cat chased them off. Is he your familiar?”
“He thinks he is,” I said. “Let’s just say we don’t really connect. I was seriously confused on the mouse thing until I found out they were human. I thought he was adopting rodents. But maybe he’s changed his mind and can’t resist chasing them anyway. Cats.”
