by Emery Belle
But my contract was nowhere to be found, and when I heard Cole say goodbye to his visitor and close the door, I shoved the rest of the pages back into the folder before stuffing it haphazardly back onto the shelf. I had just turned away when Cole walked back into the room, and I could feel that my face was warm with guilt. “I was just looking at your books,” I said, praying he didn’t notice that I was slightly winded from panic.
His eyes locked onto mine, his gaze hard, scrutinizing. I held my breath—this was it, I was sure of it. I’d blown my chance.
Then he gave me an easy smile. “I’ve been collecting them for a lifetime,” he said, then settled himself back onto the couch and indicated the seat beside him. I perched tentatively on it, and he gave me a long, searching look, as though he was waiting for something.
Which, I realized, he probably was. Like waiting to find out why in the world I’d dropped by his house unannounced, especially when he’d never invited me over, or even given me his address. Good god, I was practically a stalker.
I cleared my throat nervously and blurted out, “So do you have any plans for the weekend?”
Wrong. All wrong. I may as well have asked him about the weather.
He gave me a curious look, and I decided to try again, forcing myself to look up at him. “The Sparrow Coven is having a dance next weekend, and I was wondering if you would like to go with me.” I hesitated. “As my date.”
His eyebrows lifted in surprise, and… Was that a look of genuine pleasure on his face? My heart lifted. I grinned at him, and he smiled back, causing my stomach to flutter with the force of a thousand butterflies. I thought I caught his eyes lighting up for the barest of seconds, but then he pressed his lips together firmly and shook his head.
When he spoke next, his tone was grave yet gentle. “I’m immensely flattered that you asked, but I don’t think it’s a good idea.” He gazed down at his hands, flexing his fingers. “It’s a policy of mine not to date any of the women I’ve been hired to protect. Keeps things from getting messy.” He glanced up at me, his dark eyes soft. “You understand?”
“Of—of course.” I managed a tight smile and blinked rapidly, warding off the tears of embarrassment that were threatening to spill out. “I understand completely.” I stood up and slung my purse over my shoulder. “It was nice seeing you, but I really must be going. Thanks for the lemonade, and sorry to have barged in on you like this.” I walked to the door, trying not to rush, but I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
Cole seemed frozen in his seat, but when I reached the door, he came to, jumping up and calling, “Wren?”
I turned, one foot out the door, and met his eyes. I could see his throat bobbing as he swallowed, and we seemed to stare at each other for an eternity before he raised his hand in a slight wave. “It was nice to see you.”
“You too.” I held his gaze a moment longer, then walked swiftly down the sidewalk and into the darkening night.
“Wren? This is a surprise.” Sebastian’s hair was slightly disheveled and he was holding a tankard of ale when he opened the door to his apartment and found me standing there. He held the door open wider, and I could hear the soft blare of the television set coming from behind him. “Would you like to come in?” His tone held a hopeful note that made my heart feel just a little less bruised.
“No thanks.” I wrapped my arms around myself. “I was wondering… do you have a date for the coven’s dance?”
“No…” he said slowly, running his hand through his hair. His eyes searched my face. “Do you?”
I shook my head and took a breath. “Would you like to go with me?”
He nodded. “I would.”
Then he stepped back from the door and gestured for me to enter. And after the barest hint of hesitation, I stepped inside.
Chapter 9
“Remind me again why I’m doing this?” Hunter said as we trudged up the dusty road to Hattie’s house, sidestepping a bright orange lizard winding its way around the potholes. We reached the rickety patio and climbed the weathered steps, and I experienced a strong sense of déjà vu as I stepped up to the door and bent down to examine the handle. Kellen had placed a sturdy padlock on it, and though I tugged on it with all my might, the lock didn’t budge.
“You’re doing this,” I said, looking around the patio for a heavy object, “to make up for hexing me in class the other day.” I rubbed my stomach, giving him a pointed look. Spying a broken brick in the corner of the patio, I grabbed it and began slamming it against the lock.
Nothing.
“Give it here.” Hunter tugged the brick from me and squinted at the lock, then raised his arm above his head and brought the brick smashing down, breaking the lock into two equal pieces.
“Nice.” I gave him an appreciative look as he kicked open the door and stepped inside. Garnet’s rejection seemed to have given him an edge that I hadn’t seen in him before, and I had to say, I kind of liked it.
The tiny house was dark and still, and I felt my skin crawling as we entered the living room. The dreamcatcher still hung on the wall, its blue feathers swaying gently in a breeze that trickled through the room, though all the windows and doors were shut. I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering slightly, and hurried over to turn on a lamp, which bathed the room in a soft orange glow. The porcelain witches stood on the mantelpiece where I’d last seen them, and I bypassed them as I made my way down the hall to the bathroom, Hunter at my heels.
“This place gives me the creeps,” he said as I turned on the bathroom light and looked down at the chaotic scene that had been left largely untouched—I assumed Kellen was preserving it as evidence. The droplets of blood on the tile floor had been wiped clean, but the stains remained on the carpet, trailing all the way down the hallway toward the living room. Producing a small knife from my pocket that I’d purchased earlier that day, I squatted down and began carving a hole in the corner of the carpet near the wall.
“What are you doing?” Hunter hissed, sounding alarmed—and much more like his old self. “This can’t be legal.” He hovered over me nervously while I finished cutting out the carpet square and wrapped it carefully in a bag before placing it in my purse. Then I dragged a small side table down the hallway, positioning it directly over the square of bare floor I’d left. Kellen would be none the wiser.
“I want to see if there’s a way to have the blood tested,” I said, rearranging the postcards of Magic Island sitting on the table that had become jostled when I moved it. “Maybe someone can tell me what species it came from… you know, witch, ogre, zombie. That way I can start narrowing down my pool of suspects, because right now I’m down to Pearl… or anyone on the island.”
“Hmm.” Hunter looked at me thoughtfully. “That’s actually a really great idea, if you can find someone. I’m impressed.”
“Why thank you.” I gave a little curtsy. “This isn’t my first rodeo, you know.” By now, I was starting to consider myself an expert investigator. I was two for two, which was much more than Kellen could say about himself in recent weeks. Pretty good for a girl who hadn’t even graduated past her training wand.
We padded further down the hallway toward the bedroom, and I glanced around, noting once more that Hattie’s wand remained on her nightstand. Was Hattie one of those rare witches who was able to perform magic without it? I silently kicked myself for forgetting to ask Pearl—as Hattie’s former best friend, and a wand expert, she was sure to know.
A wave of sadness ran over me as I spotted one of Hattie’s outfits laid out on a chair beside her bed—probably what she had been planning to wear to the daycare on the day she went missing, before her life had been so brutally interrupted.
“Wait here,” I said to Hunter, then walked over to Hattie’s nightstand and began rooting through the drawer, moving aside a pair of reading glasses, a few old quilting magazines, and a vial of potion that I recognized from my mixology book as a sleeping solution. Maybe her conscience had been keeping her
up at night, I thought, picturing Glenn’s red-rimmed eyes the morning after Kellen had interrogated him. A knot of anger rose in my chest, and I reminded myself that I was doing this for him.
I was just about to give up my search of the nightstand when, beneath a few scraps of fabric, I found a photo of Hattie that had been ripped in two. Looking more closely at it, I saw that an arm was around Hattie’s waist, and her face was alight with happiness as she leaned into whoever was standing beside her. The photo had been taken on the boardwalk at sunset, providing a breathtaking view of the island’s coastline and the stunning blue-green waters surrounding it.
“I may have found something,” I said, waving the photo in the air. Hunter joined me at the nightstand, looking down at the photo over my shoulder. He plucked it out of my hands to study it as I swept my fingers into the corner of the drawer but came up empty. Sighing in disappointment, I took the photo back from Hunter and tucked it into my purse, knowing I would probably never know the identity of the other person—the other half of the picture had probably been destroyed long ago.
I arranged the nightstand the way I’d found it—sans photo—before leaving Hattie’s bedroom. I was heading for the front door, eager to leave in case Kellen happened to show up, when the fireplace caught my eye and I stopped, peering at the motionless porcelain witches. The one I’d been talking to the morning of Hattie’s disappearance was frozen in the same position I’d left her in, as was Dolores, her neighbor who was still fighting off her invisible enemy. I prodded both of them, not expecting anything, so I wasn’t disappointed when they remained immobile, their eyes glassy and unseeing.
“Let’s go,” I said to Hunter, switching off the lamp I’d turned on earlier and feeling my way toward the front door. Reaching it, I pulled it open, then paused when I heard a faint noise coming from somewhere behind me. “What was that?” I asked, frowning at him.
He cocked his head, listening, then shrugged. “I don’t hear anything.”
I was halfway out the door when I heard it again—a tiny cough.
Hunter swung around, his eyes widening behind his glasses. His hand drifted to his pocket, where he’d stowed his training wand, but I grabbed his arm to stop him. “Hello?” I called into the dark room. “Is someone there?”
The coughing grew louder, turning into a full-on hack by the time I switched the lamp back on and looked around wildly. My gaze fell on the fireplace, where the porcelain witch named Dolores had sprung to life and was clutching her throat, her eyes practically bulging out of her miniature head. Concerned, I walked over to her, then came to a dead stop when I realized she was now pointing her wand directly at my heart.
“Don’t come any closer!” she yelled, jabbing her wand wildly in my direction. I raised my hands in surrender, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Hunter doing the same. Two bright spots of color had appeared high on the witch’s cheeks, and her straw-colored hair was escaping her bun. She gave one more gasping, shuddering cough, narrowing her beady eyes on us. “You poisoned me, and now you’ll have to die.”
Then, in one swift motion, she sent a bright green light hurtling toward us from the tip of her wand. Hunter pulled me away just in time, and the curse crashed into Hattie’s living room wall instead, sending chunks of plaster falling to the ground.
Snarling, she raised her wand again, but before she could aim another spell our way, Hunter was racing toward her; he yanked the miniscule wand from her hand before she could react and placed his fingers on each end, threatening to break it in two. The witch shrieked and reached for him, swinging her arms in useless arcs, then, realizing her efforts were futile, she slumped to the ground.
“Just finish what you started,” she said dramatically, tipping back her head and opening her mouth. When we didn’t react, she closed her mouth again and eyed us suspiciously. “Well? Why aren’t you getting on with it?”
I glanced at Hunter, who was still holding the wand and looking as bewildered as I felt. Taking a tentative step toward the witch, with my hands still raised so she could see I was no threat, I peered down at her flushed porcelain face. Now that she had no wand for protection, she shrank away from me, but her back soon hit the fireplace.
“We’re not here to hurt you,” I said quickly, seeing the panic in her eyes. “Why would you think we were trying to poison you?”
“Because the last time I was visiting myself here, someone did,” she said dramatically, pressing the back of her hand to her forehead.
“What do you mean, visiting yourself?” Hunter asked, stepping forward. When she caught sight of her wand in his hands, she threw him a filthy look and crossed her arms over her chest. I snagged the miniscule wand from between his fingers and placed it at her feet.
“There,” I said, ignoring her gasp of surprise. “Now you have a weapon, and we don’t.” Even though Hunter and I were carrying our training wands, we still weren’t permitted to use them outside of our studies, rendering them virtually useless. “Now if you don’t mind, we’d like to ask you a couple of questions.”
“Why are you here?” she asked, keeping her eyes fixed on me. “Where’s Hattie?” She frowned down at my purse, as though I’d stuffed the missing witch inside.
“I was hoping you could tell us that,” I said. “When was the last time you saw Hattie?”
“Couldn’t say.” The witch shrugged. “It’s hard to keep a sense of time when you’re constantly traveling back and forth between yourselves. I don’t even know what year it is.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “You aren’t one of those lunatics from Salem, are you? Because if you try to hang me, I’ll pluck out your eyeballs and feed them to Ginger’s dragon.” She nodded toward the witch next to her, who was frozen in the act of stroking the scales of a magnificent purple dragon breathing fire made of swirling orange and red glass.
I quickly assured her that we weren’t, then tried to get her to focus on the task at hand, which was hard to do when she kept pointing her wand threateningly at Hunter and cackling. Clearly, this one was missing a few screws. “So,” I prompted for at least the fifth time, “can you remember what Hattie was doing the last time you saw her?”
“The usual,” the witch said, waving her non-wand arm casually in the air. “Arguing with Fletcher. This time they were threatening to curse each other to the Frozen Island. ’Course, Hattie doesn’t stand a chance against him, and she knows it. Fletcher is a powerful wizard. Just look at the magnificent job he did with creating us.” She swept her hand grandly around the fireplace, indicating the row of porcelain witches.
There it was again—Fletcher. The name that kept coming up again and again in relation to Hattie. When I asked Dolores who he was, she let out a disbelieving laugh. “Didn’t know Hattie very well, did you?” she said smugly. “Everyone who’s anyone knows who Fletcher is—her husband.”
I couldn’t stifle my gasp of horror. “Her husband?” I shrieked, causing the witch to jump in alarm and direct her wand at me. A few red sparks flew from its tip, and Hunter stepped forward, placing a hand on my shoulder and shooting me a look of warning. Tread carefully around this one, it said.
So I took a few seconds to collect myself, then tried again, more calmly this time. “I had no idea Hattie had a husband,” I said, forcing my tone to remain pleasant even though inside my stomach was boiling with anger. Did her betrayal of Glenn know no bounds? “How long have they been married?”
“Well, like I said, I have no concept of time,” the witch said, tapping her chin thoughtfully. “But I remember the big news of the day was that human nutter who kept chopping off his wives’ heads. King Something-or-Other.” She cackled again. “Little did he know they were all sorceresses who could regrow their heads like that.” The last word was accompanied by a snap of her fingers.
“Henry VIII,” I said, feeling slightly faint. “That was hundreds of years ago. Hattie has been married to Fletcher for centuries. First Arthur, and now this?”
Dolores frowned and shook her he
ad. “Arthur? Don’t know anyone by the name of Arthur. Unless… is he that pudgy one whose breath always smells like peanuts?” As she waved her hand in front of her face, wrinkling her nose, my lips curled into a snarl and I advanced toward her, eyes snapping with rage.
Before I could reach her, Hunter stepped smoothly around me, positioning himself in front of Dolores and keeping me behind him with a firm hand on my arm. “Can you tell us what you remember from the last time you were awake?” he said, steering the conversation back to neutral territory. “Hattie is missing, and we’re trying to find out what happened to her.”
“Missing?” Dolores’s face drained of all color and she let go of her wand, which clattered to the mantel. “Why didn’t you say so before? We have to help her!” She looked around wildly at the other witches for help, but they remained as motionless as ever.
“That’s what we’re doing,” Hunter said gently, “but we need some information from you. It’s important that we speak to any witnesses.”
Dolores shrugged. “Well, like I said, the last time I saw Hattie she was fighting with Fletcher. But I don’t always catch her when I’m here—I don’t really have control over which of myselves I visit every day or how long I’ll be there. Sometimes it’ll only be for a few seconds—that’s head-spinning, mind you. I was Fletcher’s first creation, and he hadn’t really worked out the kinks yet.”
“His creation?” I asked, poking my head over Hunter’s shoulder.
She nodded and indicated the witches around her again. “Fletcher owns a souvenir shop.” She pulled a face, as though the words left a bad taste on her tongue. “He crafted each of us in his workshop, then imbued us with magic and sold us at his shop. Once the islanders caught wind of us, we began selling like hotcakes. Fletcher couldn’t keep up with the demand, so instead of creating new witches he keeps multiplying the ones he already has. Last time I counted, there are three hundred and twelve of me, all over the world. Ginger over there’s lucky.” She jabbed her thumb in the direction of the witch petting the dragon. “She was a special edition, so he only made ten of her.”
