by Dodge, Lola
“Thanks.”
Was that the first time Wynn had ever thanked me?
For anything?
He grabbed a T-shirt from the floor and pulled it on. “What are you planning?”
“Nothing yet. I wanted to talk to you first.”
He thumbed his chin with what I could only describe as a thoughtful expression. And probably the most positive response he’d ever given me. Way to go, Mom.
“It all comes down to money.”
“Everything does.”
Wynn snorted. That thoughtful expression melted straight off his face, and his nose lifted into the air.
“What?”
“You? Worried about money?”
“Yes, me.” Anger tasted like iron between my teeth. Wynn was in debt, but it didn’t sound like he’d ever gone hungry. “Do you have any idea what it’s like for witches outside Taos?”
His nose tilted back level. “Figure you manipulate everyone the same anywhere.”
The barb hit me in the gut.
My fingertips tingled from healing magic—now tinged with a hint of flames and death as every power I had tried to claw itself free.
I clenched my fists.
Now I understood Wynn’s damage.
He was lumping all us witches into an evil mass.
I jumped over the floor weapons, heading for the bathroom that connected our rooms.
I didn’t expect him to give me a medal. I’d messed up so many times, so many things. I wasn’t perfect. But I was trying my best.
When I went to wrench open the door, I realized I was still gripping the jar of ointment. I hurled it at his face.
He caught it—because of course he would—and lifted his brows like I was the crazy one. Anger flamed. “What big wrong have I done you lately?” I’d tried to reach out to him, talk to him, connect with him. I was literally sitting at his bedside and tending his wounds. And I’d cooked him a freaking omelet. “If you don’t want my help, fine. I’ll stop trying.”
I stormed through the door and was about to give it the most satisfying slam of my life because I’d finally told Wynn off.
But he jammed his foot in.
I tried to pull it the rest of the way closed. Wynn curled his fingers around the door, already strong enough to overpower me. Unless I stopped fighting.
When I let go, the door snapped back. But he was wise to my tricks. He caught it before it knocked into his chest.
“Now what?” If he didn’t leave me alone, I’d turn him into ash. Or maybe a zombie. I wasn’t exactly in control of my death magic did.
“Sorry.”
I blinked. “You’re…”
“Sorry,” Wynn repeated. “Thanks for helping with the ointment.” He gently shut the door between us.
My rage evaporated.
In its place, absolute amazement.
Wynn apologizing?
To me?
Ten
I spent the night in the house kitchen, cracking eggs and separating the whites from the yolks. There was a spell that made it a cinch, but I didn’t dare touch my magic.
I was wrapping my giant bowl of egg whites in plastic when Wynn popped into the kitchen. He’d left me alone for hours in the house. Please let that become a trend.
He flipped around one of the kitchen chairs and sat leaning his chin against a gauntleted forearm while I finished cleaning up. I almost caved and asked him what he wanted, but I wasn’t speaking first.
Not this time.
Instead, I busied around the kitchen, drying bowls and wiping countertops, eventually forgetting about him.
“I’ve tried everything.”
I jumped at his voice, almost dropping my rag. “Everything for what?”
“To earn money. I was only allowed to work the odd security detail before Agatha hired me.”
“Zed really doesn’t want you to pay him back?” A sour taste crawled up my throat. “He wouldn’t actually…”
“Chop me up for parts?” Wynn’s lips twisted. “You don’t know him well enough.”
“Not happening.” I wouldn’t let it happen. Agatha wouldn’t let it happen. And I sure hoped Wynn wouldn’t let it happen. “There are other ways to earn cash.”
“I’ve tried pawn shops, loan sharks, blackmail. I can’t even buy lottery tickets. No one will sell to me.”
“I can earn money.”
“How?”
Great question. Even if I ended up earning a baking stipend or whatever, it wouldn’t be a drop toward the crazy amount Wynn needed.
We’d need piles and piles of—
My breath caught.
Piles and piles of gold and gems.
Like the ones that weirdo vamp kept offering. Wynn wouldn’t like it because I didn’t like it, but there wasn’t any other way to make quick cash. Or quick gemstones. “Girrar—”
“No.”
That was fast. “We don’t have a lot of choices.” And my death magic hopefully wouldn’t hang around forever. “It might be time to make a deal.”
“We can’t trust mannikins. Especially not that mannikin.”
“You’re not wrong.” I leaned against the countertop, trying to think through all the hoops we’d need to hula to make this work. “First I need to figure out if I can bake the death spell without Agatha’s help. If I can, we’ll ask what the Syndicate knows about Girrar. If he’s not a total hazard, we can meet him somewhere neutral and figure out terms.”
Because if I was baking murder macarons and putting them out into the world, I was going to have a whole long list of conditions about how they were used. I didn’t want to kill anyone or have their deaths snarling up my conscience or karma.
“Too many ifs.”
“Maybe. But we don’t have to rush into something stupid.”
Wynn straightened in his chair. “You can’t get hurt.”
“I don’t want to? I’m not into risks when I can avoid them.” Wynn, on the other hand… I could still picture him standing in front of that giant crow.
He should give himself a lecture.
“You done here?” Wynn hopped from the chair, giving zero sense that he’d had a near-death experience with a mythical creature.
I pushed the bowl of covered egg whites back into the corner of the countertop. “Done.”
“Let’s sleep.”
“Okay.” For the split-second until Wynn started shadowing me up the stairs, I could convince myself that we sounded like friends.
“Are they deadly enough?” Wynn leaned over my tray.
After casting a dozen extra wards around the kitchen, I’d spent the day baking and filling twelve dozen macarons and each one was a perfect matte-black sandwich.
Well. Not all the rounds were perfect—it was only my second time making macarons—but the color was exactly the same underneath each sprinkle of grave dirt.
More importantly, each macaron gave off the same subtle aura.
A greenish-blackish death wish.
I could feel it when I let my fingertips hover over the metal bucket where they were imprisoned, but I couldn’t feel it at all if I didn’t use my magical senses. The macarons could pass for black sesame, sprinkled with peanut powder.
“They’re deadly enough.” I crimped around the bucket with foil and scrawled POISON on it with giant letters, hoping to avoid any accidents.
“What next?” Wynn asked.
“Next we’ll talk to Agatha. But I’m curious…” I pulled my bowl of egg yolks from the fridge. My magic felt as highjacked as ever, but I wasn’t as tired as I should be after using any kind of magic all day.
As an extra experiment, I whipped off a quick batch of pastry cream over the stove.
When I took the cooked milk and sugar mixture off the gas and started tempering my egg yolks, everything went textbook. The pale yellow color. The froth that bubbled up while I whisked. It thickened normally, too. I bit my bottom lip as I stirred in butter and vanilla—the last step.
The cus
tard smelled divine.
Could I make something normal without screwing it up?
But whisking and whisking, the color darkened. Sunny yellow soured to a sickly shade more like pus.
As I’d feared.
The custard curdled. Yellow churned to gray, then black. I tipped the whole thing into the sink before it started to smoke and corrode my saucepan.
I wasn’t sad I’d tried.
I had to keep trying.
Wynn flicked on the garbage disposal while I hosed the mess down the drain. It sounded like bones grinding. I hadn’t even been going for an enchantment—just a plain vanilla custard.
“Time to talk to Agatha.” I hoisted the bucket of macarons I didn’t dare let out of sight.
Agatha and Lonnie were typing away at their computer desks in the office. Fondant jumped chair in the corner as soon as I darkened the doorway.
Her tail plumped into a bottle brush and she hissed a hiss so piercing I had to drop the bucket to clap my hands to my ears. Lonnie did the same, but Wynn yanked me back, lunging between me and the cat.
“Calm down, baby doll.” Agatha scooped her familiar from the floor and smoothed its fur. Fondant stopped the hiss but still growled at a frequency no regular animal should be able to hit. “I guess I don’t have to ask what you’ve been up to all morning.” Agatha nudged the bucket away from her and Fondant with a toe.
“Success.” If success meant being able to murder people with baked goods. “I was wondering if I could do something with them?”
“Absolutely. You can set them on fire. The way you take to arson, ritual flame will be a snap.” Agatha kept patting her cat.
“I know how to cast a ritual flame.” Sure, I had gaps in my witchcraft knowledge, but my head wasn’t totally empty. “I mean, I was wondering if I could sell the macarons.”
Agatha’s hand froze, mid-pet. “Sell them? To who?”
“Do you know a mannikin named Girrar?”
“Girrar? Do we have a Girrar on our books?” Agatha glanced toward Lonnie, who pulled up a spreadsheet. “What flavor is he?”
“I thought he was one of Xavier’s friends. He has fangs.”
“Sorry, dear,” Lonnie spoke up from her desk chair. “It doesn’t matter what he is. We can’t be selling death magic from the shop.”
“You wouldn’t be selling it.” I’d take the responsibility.
And the blame.
“And all the enchantments we provide the mannikins are benign,” Lonnie added. “Toffees to stop blood cravings. Donuts to help our more exotic friends go unseen. Never anything that could harm. The Syndicate forbids that type of spellcraft.”
Agatha wouldn’t meet my gaze and I wondered if Lonnie knew about all her back-alley customers. “What if I come up with a contract for the Syndicate to approve? I definitely don’t want my magic used to hurt anyone.” I believed too much in karma.
“Possibly…” Lonnie tapped a pencil against her lower lip.
“It’s still death magic. You’d have to strike a hell of a bargain.” Agatha folded her arms over her bodice.
I’d been planning on that already. “Would you take my side with the Syndicate?” I’d spoken in front of them before, but I was younger than their youngest member by at least thirty years. Agatha’s voice would be better received, especially for such a batty request.
“You get all your ducklings paddling nice and neat, then we’ll talk.”
“Can you dig up some info about Girrar? I won’t go near him until we’re sure he’s not a threat.”
“That I can do, cupcake. But fair warning. If he’s one of the vampire queen’s minions you don’t approach him at all without her say-so.”
“Fine by me.” I didn’t need trouble with a vampire queen heaped on my problem pile.
“I’ll put in a word to Fiona. She’s in charge of keeping tabs of our mannikin friends.” Agatha pulled out her cell phone.
“She’s a Syndicate member?” I didn’t remember a Fiona, but I only knew a few of the town’s senior witches by name.
“Bingo.” Agatha kept typing on her phone, then seemed to forget I existed.
I was considering slinking out of the office until Lonnie gave me a finger wave. “I’m sorry it took so long to get everything set up at the bank. Here’s your credit card, debit card, and ATM card. Your salary’s set up to direct deposit, and the shop will cover anything you put on the card.”
My name was embossed on each card in slick silver letters. ANISE WISE. “For me?”
It was a stupid question, but really?
All this? For me?
“Your stipend’s set at a thousand a month.”
“A—” I choked on my tongue. “Thousand? Dollars?”
I’d never earned that much a month, even when I had full-time hours at the grocery store.
“Make it fifteen hundred.” Agatha flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Let her have a little fun.”
“I’ll wire over the extra,” Lonnie said it like she was handing over a stick of gum—not hundreds in cash.
“That’s too much.”
“Enjoying yourself is part of your training,” Agatha said. “Lack is the worst headspace for spellcraft. You’ve got to treat yourself right if you want to cast real magic.”
What spellbook ever said that?
I stared blankly at the cards until Wynn cleared his throat, snapping me back to reality.
Agatha was handing me more money than I’d ever had in my life and it didn’t come close to buying Wynn’s freedom.
Eleven
Agatha forwarded me Fiona’s message the next morning.
Agatha—
Happy to help.
Girrar belongs to the vampires. Has a debt at the peddler and bad habit of panhandling around town, but no infractions registered with the Syndicate. Queen Anyssa says green light to a deal, but death magic is tricky business.
Have your Anise see me if she’s serious about setting up a sale. I’ll work up a formal contract her and Girrar.
-Fiona Sith
I was serious. Which meant seriously approaching Girrar. Stomach churning, I headed for the garage with Wynn.
“If you want to shoot people, you’d better let me drive.” I hopped into the driver’s seat and for one of the very first times, he didn’t argue or glare. All he did was adjust his hooded sweatshirt in a way that made me think he was actually readjusting whatever firearms were stashed under there.
What fun.
I was worried Girrar might’ve left his spot and we’d have to visit the vampires at home. Luckily, he was still camped out at the blinking light.
“Throw a U-turn.” Wynn tensed in the passenger seat. “I’ll do the talking.”
“Okay.” It was the first time he’d ever volunteered to talk to anyone, and I was all about letting him take control, especially after spotting Girrar’s fang-smile.
With no cars coming from either direction, I swung the car around so the passenger side was closest to the patch of crusty median grass where Girrar’s feet were planted.
Wynn rolled down the window. “We want to talk terms.”
“Make a deal.” Girrar’s speech was half chop and half jitter. “Yes. Yes, let’s.”
I kept my hands tight on the wheel. “Can you meet us at three o’clock?”
“Yes. Three on the clock.” His bunched shoulders bobbed with excitement.
“At Fiona’s,” Wynn said. “You know where she lives?”
I wasn’t imagining the flicker of something across his expression, but I couldn’t read the emotion. Girrar smiled away whatever emotion had taken hold. “Yes. At Fiona’s. Three on the clock.”
“Come alone,” Wynn added.
“Alone,” Girrar agreed.
“See you at three.” I hit the gas.
Wynn rolled up his window. “Easy.”
“That’s because this was the easy part.” We already knew Girrar wanted what I was offering. The hard part would be negotiating terms
I could live with.
During the next few hours, it felt like a pebble was sloshing around my stomach. When it was finally time to head out, the pebble had sprouted spikes.
I let Wynn take the wheel because I wasn’t sure I could focus on the road. Instead, I plugged Fiona’s address into GPS and watched us drive closer to her dot.
Fiona lived outside Taos, partway up the mountain in Arroyo Seco. I’d never been before, just seen it on the map. Supposedly, most of the resident mannikins camped around here.
It was smaller than I expected. Not a city or even a town. Just a bunch of houses and tourist shops crowded along the one patch of main road.
An ice cream sign blew in the wind up ahead, but we had to turn off before we could check it out. No matter how the negotiations ended, I figured I deserved a sundae after.
Fiona’s cottage was down the only side road. Wynn parked us in the gravel driveway, but the car barely fit with the giant silver Twinkie trailer parked in front of us. The trailer was covered in a layer of brown road dust and golf-ball-sized dents.
Shabby.
Girrar’s?
Wynn glared at our surroundings. “I don’t like it.”
The two-story cottage looked cute as anything, with carved green shutters and sprawling gardens. Trailers and shacks spaced out between the landscape of sage bushes, but they were too far away to be considered real neighbors. We were too far away from a grocery store for my taste, but the mountain backdrop was almost a fair trade-off for the isolation.
Nothing about the place gave me bad vibes. “What don’t you like?”
“Everything,” Wynn said.
The hum of the vortex was definitely deeper here, like a vacuum cleaner running on the opposite side of the house.
I guessed that was why the mannikins lived so far outside town. I zipped my jacket against a chill. “If anything doesn’t feel right, we’re getting out of here.”
“Yes,” Wynn agreed.
We climbed two steps to the porch. The front door opened before I could knock.
“Anise.” The sharp-chinned woman who answered the door put a little hiss on the back of my name. Anisssse. “So good to see you.”
Fiona wore a floral house dress and her graying hair in a twist like an old-timey housewife. I offered her the bakery box I’d brought as an offering. “Thanks for agreeing to mediate.”
