“Tina’s right,” Sara said. “The best way to prove you didn’t do it is to find out who did. So, we know that it has to be somebody who is in the coffee shop now. Does anyone have a pen and paper?”
“I do,” I said, pulling out a notebook from my purse and grabbing a pen as well. I tore a page out from the back and set it down on the table. Because I was such a new witch and learning new spells every day, I had taken to always carrying my spell book with me so that I could jot down any new spells I learned or overheard.
“Good,” Sara said, taking the pen and paper. “Let’s make a list of who’s in here now.”
I had to admit I liked this new, more confident Sara. This broom competition was going to be good for her in a lot of ways, I was pretty sure.
“Ellie?” I asked. “You’re going to have to help out with this part. I know virtually nobody in here.”
Ellie nodded and looked around. “Okay. We’ll start with the fairies, since Luna was a fairy and is more likely to know them and have a beef with them than anyone else. There is a table of them in the corner by the other window. I see Bella, Selena, and Celeste.”
“Okay, what about any other witches and wizards?” Sara asked, jotting down the fairy names as Ellie gave them.
“Well, Emily and Alicia Kralomok are sitting at a table together. And Carson Mase is sitting at a table by himself.”
“Shifters?”
“Those two enforcers that probably told Chief Enforcer King about the death. I don’t know their names, but they’re definitely dragon shifters.”
“Vampires?”
“Nope. No vampires here at all.”
“And what about elves?”
“Two of them. Sitting closest to the display case. There’s that one who’s the new head of the hospital, Lovandir, and his new head of accounting, Darwana.”
Sara nodded. “Okay, so one of these names has to be the one that poisoned Luna. Does anyone have any idea who?”
“Not me,” I said with a shrug. “I don’t know any of the people here. Though I had heard about Lovandir getting the job of hospital director.”
“Well, I know Luna knew all three fairies,” Ellie said. “She was talking with them when they came in. I have a feeling it wasn’t a completely friendly conversation, either. But I was already running behind, so I didn’t get the chance to eavesdrop on their conversation.”
“What did you hear?” I asked, leaning forward.
Ellie shrugged. “It was right when I was dropping off the first batch of cinnamon buns in the morning. We had just opened, and the fairies were the only customers we had so far. I heard Bella say to Luna that it wasn’t right, and that she needed to tell somebody what happened. That’s all I heard, since after that I had to make my way to the back to get the brownies out of the oven and get them decorated and out into the display cases.”
“Hmm,” I mused. “I wonder what all that was about. What about the others? Do you know how they knew Luna?”
“As far as I know, the elves and the shifters didn’t know her at all. But Emily and Alicia do spend a ton of time in here, and they’re constantly trying to get people to sign up for their magical pyramid schemes. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if it turned out that at one point they tried to get Luna to sign up for it. But that’s the only way I can imagine they knew each other.”
“I’ve seen Carson Mase and Luna together before,” Sara said. “Just around town and stuff, you know?”
“Really?” Ellie said, raising her eyebrows. “That seems a little strange.”
“That’s what I thought, that’s why it stuck out to me. They seemed like a very unlikely pair.”
“We should look into why they’ve been spending time together,” I said. “After all, it might have something to do with Luna’s death.”
“Agreed,” Ellie said. “Right now, though, I think we should go over to the fairies and offer our condolences and see if we can find out what they were talking about this morning.”
That certainly sounded like a plan to me.
Chapter 5
The three of us got up from our seats and made our way over to the table at the other end of the window where the three fairies were sitting, none of them saying anything. They looked pale, the grief of having seen their friend’s violent death written all over their faces.
“Hey,” Ellie said in a soft voice. “Do you mind if we join you? We thought the three of you might benefit from some company.”
“Sure,” one of the fairies replied in a quiet voice, motioning for the three of us to sit down. We grabbed some empty chairs from the next table and joined the fairies.
“How on earth could this have happened?” a fairy with long black hair and neon yellow wings asked, shaking her head.
“I don’t know, Bella,” Ellie said, taking the fairy’s hand in hers. “I’m so sorry, though. Luna was a lovely fairy.”
“She really was, it’s not fair,” another fairy said, this one with chestnut brown hair that reached her shoulders and pale green wings. “Luna was a kind and giving soul. I can’t imagine who would have wanted to do this to her.”
“We don’t know that it was suspicious,” I offered. After all, I had told Chief Enforcer King I wouldn’t blab about the fact that Luna had been poisoned.
“Oh, she was poisoned, that we’re certain of,” said the third fairy, with hair so light it was almost white with silver wings. “No fairy has ever died so violently and so suddenly of natural causes. We know what a natural fairy death looks like, and it’s not that. No, someone did this to her.”
“Oh, Selena,” Ellie said, shaking her head. “I can’t believe it.”
“Neither could we, at first,” the brunette fairy who had to be Celeste replied. “But when we saw her flying around like that, there was no other conclusion we could come to.”
“At least Chief Enforcer King is on the case,” Bella said. “She’s a good enforcer. I’m sure she’s going to find the monster who did this and bring them to justice.”
“Do you three have any idea who might’ve done this to Luna?” Sara asked, but the three fairies all shook their heads.
“I don’t have the slightest clue,” Celeste replied. “I mean, sure, Luna might have had a few issues in her life, and her personal life was a little bit complicated, but there was nothing anybody would have wanted to kill her over.”
“What were you talking about this morning, when I came past?” Ellie asked. “I didn’t really hear much, only Bella telling Luna that she was going to have to tell somebody what happened. Could that have something to do with why she was killed?”
The three fairies looked around at each other, and I got the distinct feeling they were telepathically deciding not to tell us the truth.
“It really wasn’t much,” Selena eventually answered. “Just that yesterday Luna had a bit of trouble with a customer. Do you know Jomund, the dragon shifter?”
“Yeah,” I nodded. Even I knew Jomund. He had been paid to knock me off my broom by a murderer right after I had come to Western Woods. At least he had come over and apologized to me, and seemed earnest about it. He hadn’t bothered me since.
“Well, he was a bit upset about his coffee, and he slammed it down on the counter and it got all over Luna. She didn’t want to tell the manager, because Jomund apologized and got a wizard friend he was with to do a spell to clean it off. He said he overreacted, and then he and his friend left.”
I looked carefully between the fairies but couldn’t tell that they were lying in any way. If that had really been the case, well for one thing, it couldn’t have been Jomund who killed Luna because he wasn’t here, and for another, no one kills people because they messed up their coffee order. That’s just ridiculous.
Ellie nodded. “We’ll let you go. I imagine it’s not going to be a fun day in the fairy community.”
“You’re right there,” Selena said with a sad shake of her head. “It’s been quite a while since we’ve had a death, and
I’m not sure there’s ever been a fairy murdered in Western Woods. This is really new to all of us.”
“My condolences,” I told them.
“Thank you. We’re going to go tell Chief Enforcer King what we can and then go be with the rest of our charm.”
“Charm?” I asked quietly as the three of us made our way back to our table.
“A charm is a group of fairies, kind of like our covens,” Ellie explained, and I nodded my understanding.
“That makes sense. Should we go and see Carson Mase? It looks like he’s just coming out from his interview with Chief Enforcer King.”
“Good plan,” Sara nodded, and we made our way to the table where he had been sitting just as he reached it. Carson looked at us, a scowl on his features.
“What do you want?” he asked, grabbing the small shoulder bag he had left by his chair.
“We just wanted to say sorry,” Sara replied. “I’ve seen you around with Luna, I know the two of you were pretty close.”
“You don’t know anything,” Carson muttered before grabbing his bag and leaving the coffee shop, the Enforcers guarding the door letting him past as he’d already spoken with Chief Enforcer King.
I raised my eyebrows at the other two. “Well, that definitely wasn’t the reaction I was expecting.”
“I don’t know,” Sara said with a shrug. “If they were close, I can understand how he wouldn’t want to talk to strangers right now. After all, he would have just seen one of his close friends, possibly even more than that, die in front of him.”
“Fair enough,” I said, watching the wizard’s form hurrying away from the coffee shop. “Do you know Carson well at all? He looks to be about our age.”
“No,” Ellie replied with a shake of her head. “Carson isn’t actually from our coven. He comes from the coven ruled by Mars, a fire coven. He moved here two, maybe three years ago. Apparently he had some issues with his home coven, something about abusive parents, and he decided that rather than trying to work through it with his coven elders, he was just going to leave. Whenever anyone asks him why he picked Western Woods, he says that he loves the rain, but that makes absolutely zero sense. For one thing, he comes from a coven ruled by fire. For another, nobody likes the amount of rain we get here.”
“That’s true,” I laughed. “Why would you live in Western Woods when you could pick anywhere in the world? Surely there are covens in Hawaii, or the Bahamas.”
“There are,” Ellie replied with an enthusiastic nod. “In Hawaii, the coven is ruled by one of the minor fire moons, although they consider themselves ruled by Pele, the traditional Hawaiian god of the volcano.”
“And the Bahamas?”
“Ceres is the ruler of their coven,” Sara said wistfully. “That’s a water coven. I’d love to visit there one day.”
“Maybe when you’re the broom riding champion of the world,” Ellie said with a nudge to Sara’s ribs. “Now come on, go speak with Chief Enforcer King so the three of us can get out of here.”
Chapter 6
Half an hour later Sara was finished with her interview and the three of us left the coffee shop.
“Do you think Amy knows what happened yet?” I asked, and Ellie shook her head.
“Not a chance. Amy was going to spend the whole day studying, which means she’s locked herself up in the library at coven headquarters and has probably cast a spell on herself to stop anybody from being able to interrupt her during her work. Although frankly, at this point, I’m pretty sure everybody in the coven knows not to disturb Amy when she’s working, especially after what happened last time.”
“Last time?” I asked.
“About a year ago, Amy was busy working on a new spell when Estelle Thurman found her to ask if she could take over her shift working for Lita, since her mom had gotten sick and wanted Estelle to take over at the shop. Estelle interrupted Amy when she was in the middle of casting a spell, and Amy messed it up. It was nothing big, and anybody else would have just laughed it off, but Amy freaked out and started crying about how she was never going to pass her exams and she was a waste of a witch and a whole bunch of stuff. It was a full-blown anxiety attack.”
“Yikes,” I said, my eyebrows rising. At the same time, I could totally picture Amy reacting exactly that way.
“Exactly,” Ellie said. “Eventually Lita came up and cast a spell to make Amy calm down. But it became a running joke at the Academy, and I highly recommend not bringing it up in front of Amy, ever.”
“She’s a little bit sensitive about it,” Sara said with a smile.
“That can’t have helped the relationship between Amy and Estelle, either,” I said with a laugh. Amy and Estelle were rivals of a sort, with both of them wanting to be the smartest witch in the coven at any given time.
“Definitely not; Amy blamed Estelle for interrupting her on purpose and I’m pretty sure Lita made them both go to counselling with her for a month or so after it happened.”
I giggled at the idea of couples counselling for two witches who were simply trying to be better than the other all the time. I couldn’t imagine the counselling sessions would have gone very well.
“I vote we go and see Randy now and get you fitted for a cool new outfit to wear when you’re competing,” Ellie said to Sara. “Then, when we’re done, we can go and find Amy and hopefully she won’t totally destroy us for interrupting her.”
“I think we’ll let you get her attention,” I said to Ellie. “But I like the idea of going to get Sara’s outfit figured out first.”
“Good,” Ellie said, clapping her hands together and squealing with excitement. “This is so cool. I can’t believe Sara’s going to be a bona fide celebrity around the whole magical world.”
“I’ll settle with not being a laughingstock,” I heard Sara mumble under her breath as the three of us strode off toward the main fashion hub in Western Woods.
The Lion, the Wizard and the Wardrobe was set up in a cute little white cottage with huge windows that displayed mannequins that moved, slowly posing as they showed off their clothes.
The three of us stepped inside and were immediately greeted by Randy, an incredibly friendly wizard with a round face and glasses that gave him a real bug-eyed look. Today, he was dressed from head to toe in cheetah print, wearing basketball shoes to finish off the outfit. On anybody else, it would have looked completely ridiculous, but Randy had exactly the right kind of attitude to pull off the kind of look that nobody else could.
“Witches! What can I do for you today?” Randy asked as soon as we stepped foot into the store. “I hope you’re settling in okay,” he told me. “I hear you’re definitely getting a little bit more excitement than you probably hoped for as you make your way around the paranormal world for the first time.”
“You can say that, for sure,” I said with a wry smile. “But I’m learning a lot and most people are super nice. I wouldn’t trade this for anything.”
“That’s great to hear. Now, have you already worn out all of the new clothes I got for you last time?”
“Actually, we’re here for Sara today,” Ellie explained. “Have you heard about the new broom flying competition that they’re doing based out of Desert Plains?”
“Sweetie, everyone has heard about that new competition,” Randy said. “I don’t even follow that sort of thing at all; Eric loves his dueling and watches it all the time, but I just find it so violent. But even I know about the broom racing competition.”
“Well,” Ellie said, drawing it out like she was a proud mom about to show off her daughter’s achievements. “Sara here has just found out today that she is going to be one of the competitors in the broom racing competition.”
“That’s absolutely fantastic,” Randy said, clapping his hands together. “Congratulations. I knew you were a wonder on the broom—you always have been, ever since you were a little witch—but to make it onto the broom racing team is phenomenal.”
“Thank you,” Sara said as h
er face slowly began to match the color of her hair.
“So obviously, we need something spectacular for her to wear when she’s competing, so we thought of you,” Ellie said.
“Well, I am truly honored,” Randy said, placing both his hands over his heart. “Yes, I think we can make you look absolutely fabulous while still making sure you have the freedom of maximum range of motion, since that’s so important for athletes like you.”
“He called me an athlete,” Sara mouthed to me as Randy suddenly disappeared into a stack of clothes. He came back a moment later with about eight different outfits on hangers in both hands.
“Right. We’re going to decide on a style first, and then we can worry about colors and effects.”
“We were thinking a dark green and gold color scheme,” Ellie said.
“Good, good,” Randy said. “First, try all of these on, and come back out to show us.”
A rather embarrassed looking Sara made her way into the changing room and came out a moment later looking absolutely phenomenal. The outfit was basically like something Catwoman would wear, black and skintight but with slightly flared out sleeves and ankles. It totally accentuated all of Sara’s curves, and as soon as she stepped out of the dressing room, she couldn’t stop moving her arms and legs around, looking incredulously at the fabric.
“I thought for sure it would be super restrictive, but this actually feels like I’m wearing a layer of water or something,” she said. “I can move around perfectly.”
“Excellent, that’s the way it’s designed to work,” Randy said. “It’s supposed to be tight but functional. Perfect for athletes who don’t want too much extraneous clothing flying around.”
“I love it so much,” Ellie nodded. “This is exactly the sort of thing that will make you a superstar.”
“Do you really think it’s that good?” Sara asked, looking at herself in the mirror.
Four-Leaf Clovers Page 3
