“It makes your butt look like the human embodiment of the peach emoji,” I said, giving her the thumbs up, and Sara giggled.
“Well, I’m not sure if it’s what I had in mind, but I have to admit, it does feel pretty good, and I do feel pretty awesome wearing it.”
“As you should; you look smoking. You’ll be the belle of the ball at the announcement ceremony wearing that.”
“Is it too much, though?” Sara asked. “After all, I still want to keep things PG rated.”
“I think it’s fine,” I said. “The sleeves and ankles give it a little bit of a playful look, and it’s not like you’re showing cleavage or anything. It’s tight, but it’s classy tight. Like something Beyoncé would wear on the red carpet. And Beyoncé is the epitome of class.”
“Who’s Beyoncé?” Ellie asked with a tilt of her head, and I sighed. It was definitely taking me a while to get used to the fact that no one here knew anything about human world pop culture.
“Only the greatest singer ever in the human world,” I replied. “But the point is, I like the outfit.”
“I do as well, but I’d still like you to try on the others,” Randy said. Ellie and I nodded in agreement, and Sara made her way back into the dressing room to try on some more clothes.
Seven outfits later, the vote was unanimous—that first outfit was the definite winner. Sara made her way back into the dressing room and put it back on so that Randy could work his magic and come up with a way to make it look even more incredible than it already did.
“You said you liked dark green?” Randy asked, and Ellie nodded.
“Yes, with gold accents.”
“I think I can work with that,” Randy mumbled, speaking to himself quietly as he walked around Sara, looking her up and down, trying to figure out exactly what he was going to do. “Yes, yes, I think that should work very well.”
He pointed his wand at Sara and a moment later she was enveloped by a puff of gold smoke that smelled exactly like the earth after a thunderstorm. When the smoke cleared and Sara was revealed once more, I gasped.
What had been a plain black catsuit before was now a very dark green, but that wasn’t the part that took my breath away. Climbing up the dress were gold strikes of lightning, moving around and flashing constantly. It was like the lightning was part of Sara. It gave her a real ethereal, magical look.
“That’s incredible,” I finally managed to say.
“Agreed,” Ellie nodded. “My stars, you look amazing.”
“That’s a winner, for sure,” Randy nodded.
“This is totally your Katniss Everdeen flame dress moment,” I said.
“What?” Sara asked.
“Sorry. Human world reference. But basically that dress is the most badass thing I have ever seen in my life.”
A blush crawled up Sara’s face as Ellie, Randy, and I threw compliment after compliment at her. She definitely was going to look like a streak of thunder flying across the sky on that broom.
“I believe you are TV ready,” Randy told her with a smile. “Do you want to take the outfit off now? I’ll have it delivered to your house straight away.”
“I kind of want to wear this forever,” Sara said while admiring herself in the mirror. “But okay. This stays hidden until the unveiling on Friday.”
As Sara paid for the outfit and the three of us left the shop, giddy with excitement, I had almost forgotten that Ellie was still one of the main suspects in a murder.
Chapter 7
“Should we go and see if Amy is done yet?” Sara asked, and Ellie nodded.
“Sure. After all, at this point she’s been studying for so long that surely her brain is turning into mush.”
Making our way to coven headquarters, I had expected us to turn and go up the staircase that led to the Academy when we entered, but instead Ellie led us hard left and toward a staircase heading down rather than up.
“Where are we going?” I asked as I looked at the Gothic spiral staircase with a mixture of apprehension and fear. This definitely didn’t look like a super friendly entrance to anywhere.
“The coven library. It’s in the basement.”
“Great,” I muttered as I followed the other two down the stairs. Not only did they look creepy as anything, but they creaked with every step I took. I knew they would have been magically enchanted to be stable no matter what, but it still didn’t make me any more comfortable with what was going on.
I followed the others down, deep into the bowels underneath coven headquarters. My mouth dropped open when we reached the bottom and found ourselves in the library.
I had never been one of those bookish people that read absolutely everything and spent all their time in the library. I mean, sure, I did enjoy reading, and I had my favorites. But I wasn’t the type of person who thought about having a library in their house or who could spend hours at a bookshop.
And yet, as soon as I laid eyes on the coven library, I knew this was the sort of place where I could spend hours upon hours.
The ceilings were high, at least thirty feet, and topped with domes like one might expect to see in a church in Rome or Florence. The built-in bookcases were high and topped with incredibly ornate white-painted gilded cornices. Large wooden beams separated each bookcase from the next, and warm light flowed from bulbs spaced evenly around the beams. Large wooden tables and leather chairs were spread around the floor, and large, antique-style globes stood on stands in between them.
“Wow,” I gasped as I looked around.
“Pretty impressive, huh?” Ellie said with a smile.
“Yeah. This is amazing. No wonder Amy spends all the time she can down here.”
“For her, it’s all about the books,” Ellie said, motioning around. “There are thousands of volumes here, almost all non-fiction, detailing everything you could possibly need to know about the coven of Jupiter. Some of these volumes are thousands of years old.”
“That’s crazy!”
“It is. We also have some stuff relating to other covens. But most of it is in reference to ours. There are a lot of reference books down here; if you ever need to know how to cast a spell and can’t find someone to tell you how, then if it’s been created, it’s written in here.”
“That’s handy.”
“It certainly is. Come here, I’ll show you how it works,” Ellie said, leading me toward a large wooden stand on which the biggest book I had ever seen in my life stood. It had to be a foot thick, and each of its pages was at least two feet wide. The words on the pages were tiny, so small I wondered if I was ever going to be able to read them.
Ellie stood in front of the book, took out her wand, and tapped one of the pages gently.
“Book of Jupiter, I require a spell that allows me to change the color of my clothes.”
All of a sudden, all of the words on the page disappeared, and they were replaced with a flowery script, written as though an invisible person were standing in front of the book and writing down the words.
Jupiter, God of Thunder, I need my clothes now a different color. Green.
“See?” Ellie grinned.
“And so that spell works?”
“Absolutely. The color at the end you can change, obviously, to whatever color you need. And whatever clothing item you point your wand at is what will change. Go ahead, try it.”
“Ok,” I said, taking out my wand. I was starting to get used to this whole ‘casting spells’ thing, and I no longer felt a flutter of butterflies in my stomach every time. I immediately let the energy in my body flow toward my wand and pointed it at my shoes as I said the words. “Jupiter, God of Thunder, I need my clothes now a different color. Baby blue.”
Sara let out a squeal of pleasure as I looked down and saw that my once-black sneakers were now an absolutely adorable baby blue color. I grinned.
“I’m going to keep them like this,” I said.
“They are super cute,” Ellie laughed. “Now, go ahead and use the book yourself.”
“Ok,” I said, stepping up to it carefully. “I just tap it and tell the book what spell I want?”
“Exactly,” Ellie nodded. “It’s a super useful tool for everyone here to use. Although to be honest, if I’m stuck on a spell, I’m usually too lazy to come all the way down here and I just ask Amy instead.”
I smiled at that as I tried to think of a spell I could want.
“Book of Jupiter, I require a spell that allows me to change someone’s hair color.” Might as well stick with the color theme, after all. I didn’t know if I was ever going to need this spell, but I figured it could come in useful one day if I ever wanted to see what being a redhead or a platinum blonde was like with no long-term effects.
However, instead of giving me a spell in return, the script that appeared on the page gave me a sharp rebuke.
Witch of water, you are not to use the spells of the coven of lightning.
The three of us stared at the words on the page. “I’ve never seen it do anything like that before,” Ellie said, her eyes wide.
“I’m guessing I’m the first out-of-coven witch to try and use the book in front of you?” I said with a wry smile, and Sara nodded.
“Yeah.”
Suddenly, a thought struck me. “Do you think the book can give me more information? Like what coven I’m from?”
A grin spread across Ellie’s face. “I have no idea, but it’s worth a shot! Try it, see what happens.”
All of a sudden I was a little bit less enthusiastic about the idea. “Um, are you sure it’s safe? What if the book decides to eat me or something?”
“It probably won’t do that,” Ellie replied confidently. “I’m pretty sure the worst that book is going to do is write a nasty note to you.”
“Well, if you say so,” I muttered. Normally, I would have run away as fast as I possibly could at the idea of some sort of mystery magic. But I had to admit, I was pretty curious. After all, we knew that I was a witch from a coven ruled by water. That wasn’t news. But I didn’t have any idea which water coven I came from. And to be honest, I really did want to know.
After all, it wasn’t like I was dishonoring my parents’ memory by finding out. My parents had never hidden the fact that I was adopted, and if they had known anything about my birth parents, I was sure they would have encouraged me to track them down if at all possible. But the fact that I had been abandoned as a baby made that impossible.
Now, in the magical world, for the first time I had the opportunity to maybe find out something about my birth parents. I didn’t let myself hope too much, but if there was even the chance that I might be able to find them, then I wanted to do it.
And if this book had a chance of being able to help, then I was going to use it.
I placed my wand back on the open page of the book. “Book of Jupiter, which coven do I come from?” I asked it and waited with bated breath for a response.
The three of us leaned over the pages as it wrote out a reply. You are a witch from a coven of water.
Disappointed, my heart sank in my chest. “Yes, but which coven of water?” I asked, unsure if I was even going to get an answer to a question phrased so casually.
That answer is hidden beneath the waves.
“I guess that’s a no, then,” I said dejectedly, moving my wand off the book.
“I’m sorry, Tina,” Sara said quietly, putting a hand on my shoulder.
“Thanks,” I replied, unable to keep a hint of sadness out of my voice.
“We’ll find out what coven you’re from,” Ellie said assuredly. “Trust me. Amy is on it. She might not look like it, but she’s searching for you.”
Just then, Amy came around the corner.
“What are you guys doing?” she asked, looking over at the book. “Searching for a spell?”
“We were, and then we discovered that the book doesn’t like Tina,” Ellie replied.
“Well, of course it doesn’t; she’s not from our coven.”
“Yeah, but the useless thing couldn’t tell us which coven she was from, only that she came from a water one.”
Amy rolled her eyes. “I could have told you that.”
“Well, you didn’t, now, did you,” Ellie retorted, sticking her tongue out at her.
“Sorry to interrupt this riveting argument, but Amy, we need to talk to you. There’s been another murder, and this time, Ellie is one of the prime suspects,” I said.
Chapter 8
After we explained everything that had gone on to Amy, she sat down on one of the chairs.
“Wow. So you weren’t kidding. Ellie probably is one of the main suspects, isn’t she?”
I nodded. “Yeah. So we definitely need to find out who actually did it before Ellie is arrested.”
“Woah. Hold on a second. Don’t we trust Chief Enforcer King to do this instead?”
“Well yeah, she’s a good Enforcer, but I mean, more eyes can’t really hurt, can they?” Sara said. “And after all, we’re actually all kind of getting good at this.”
Amy groaned. “I can’t believe you three are roping me into this. I’m only doing this because I care about Ellie and her freedom.”
I couldn’t help the grin that spread across my face. “Great! We already have a list of suspects: the only people who could have poisoned that brownie were the people who were in the shop when Luna died.”
“That means the poison had to be fast-acting.”
“Very much so,” Ellie said. “Less than five minutes from ingestion to death.”
“Did you get the impression it was a natural poison or a magical one?” Amy asked Ellie, and Ellie shrugged.
“I don’t know. I couldn’t tell. I only saw the very end of, well, Luna’s death. I couldn’t say either way.”
“We need to find out what killed her, then,” Amy said, looking at Sara.
“You know, my mom is going to be getting pretty suspicious if I keep asking her about murdered citizens,” Sara said, crossing her arms.
“You’re our link to the Healer community,” Ellie pleaded. “We all know Healers talk. That fairy Healer will have to tell someone in the hospital what killed Luna, and your mom will find out. Please, it’s important.”
“Fine, I’ll go and see her and ask,” Sara said. “She’s been bugging me to go have dinner with her, anyway.”
“Plus I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to hear about your broom competition spot,” I said with a smile.
A blush crawled up Sara’s face. “Yeah. Yeah, she will. Sure.”
My mouth dropped open. “You haven’t told her you tried out, have you?”
“I didn’t want to get her hopes up. You know, in case I failed. I figured I’ve failed my mom so many times in my life, I didn’t want her to think I might have had a chance to succeed and then take that away from her, you know?”
My heart broke for my friend and her absolutely horrid self-esteem. “Oh, Sara. I’m so sorry you felt you had to keep something like that from your mom,” I told her, going in for an impromptu hug.
“Thanks,” Sara said, returning my hug. “But it’s ok, really. You’re right, though. I’ll tell her tonight that I’ve been accepted, and she’ll be really proud, I think.”
“She will be,” Amy said. “Your mom always wanted you to do something with yourself, and being a part of one of the new big sports in the magical world definitely counts.”
“Oh yeah,” I said with a giggle. “Amy, Sara was officially accepted as one of the competitors in the broom flying competition this morning.”
“I know,” Amy replied. “I knew as soon as she told me she was going to audition. There was never any doubt in my mind that she was going to make it.”
Sara’s shoulders swelled with pride. “Aw, you guys. You’re going to make me cry.”
“And you should cry happy tears,” Ellie said. “You’re amazing, and I can’t wait to see you kick some magical butt.”
That night, while Sara was out having dinner with her mom, Ellie,
Amy, and I huddled around the kitchen table with a bottle of wine and some homemade pizza courtesy of Ellie for dinner. I pulled out the list of suspects we had created, and we pored over them once more.
“I’d like to know more about the relationship between Luna and Carson,” Ellie said. “After all, that sort of thing is frowned upon, a little bit.”
“Seriously?” I asked. I supposed I shouldn’t have been that surprised. For a town in which so many paranormals lived together, there was still a lot of segregation. Fairies stuck with fairies, vampires stuck with vampires, and everyone got a job based on what their species told them they could do as a job. Personally, I thought this was frankly awful, and I had started doing the occasional human world movie showings in the Coven Gardens in the hopes of bringing the different paranormals together.
So far it seemed to have gone well enough. While the different groups of paranormals weren’t exactly mingling together, they also didn’t seem to mind all being in the same area watching and enjoying the same movie. The first one we had watched was Spice Girls, and I had also shown Rush Hour, mainly for my cat Mr. Meowgi. I had been planning on doing another showing on Friday, but with that being the night of Sara’s official introduction, I thought perhaps I should move it up to Wednesday, instead. That only gave me a few days to get everything ready, but it should be enough.
“Yes,” Amy answered. “Not by everyone. But there still are some paranormals who believe that species shouldn’t intermingle. The most conservative take it even further and believe that witches and wizards shouldn’t even be with witches and wizards from different covens.”
I shook my head. “That’s so weird. If you love someone, what does it matter what kind of paranormal they are?”
“Agreed,” Ellie said. “But anyway, we have to consider that as a possible motive. There are some paranormals out there who would have disagreed with the fact that Luna was in a relationship with Carson, if they were, in fact, in a relationship.”
“What about the two dragon shifters, the ones who called Chief Enforcer King?” I asked.
Four-Leaf Clovers Page 4
