“Didn’t seem to bother you a couple of hours ago.”
Kandy flashed her nonsmile at me. Her teeth were very white in the deep shadows of the landing. I really needed to get more lights installed. The werewolf lifted and tilted the large ceramic pot by her front door. It must have weighed at least seventy-five pounds including dirt and dying bush, but she hefted it as if it was nothing. Apparently, that was where she kept her spare key. I guessed werewolves needed a lot of spares … keys, phones, clothes, and hair dye at least.
Mory sidled up, placing me between her and Kandy. The werewolf noticed and offered another spine-tingling grin. “Don’t let the blondness fool you, fledgling. The witch stabbed a nine-hundred-pound grizzly in the ass today. She just keeps her claws better hidden and painted pink.”
I raked my bright, dark pink OPI-lacquered nails at Kandy. The color — lyrically named Feelin’ Hot Hot Hot — needed a touch up, actually, before I served any customers tomorrow.
Kandy snorted and let herself into her apartment. I noted that she didn’t close the door behind her. Still keeping an eye on the necromancer, I guessed. Or maybe Desmond was staying the night with her, rather than at a hotel as I’d assumed, and was currently looking for long-term parking. I wasn’t sure how I felt about having him easily accessible in the middle of the night.
I turned to let Mory through the wards that protected my apartment. I’d been doing a lot of that lately, letting potentially dangerous people get way too close to me.
“My cat Lester loved marshmallows, even untoasted,” I said as I reached out to the magic surrounding the door, walls, and windows of my home. “If you accidentally left a bag out, he’d totally molest it.”
“What?”
“Your magic tastes like toasted marshmallows.”
“And, so? Your cat is going to molest me?”
“I don’t have a cat,” I said. My mind eagerly flashed back to the vision of Desmond in the forest. His green-flecked eyes, his powerful body, his long hard —
“You’re really weird for a witch,” Mory said, interrupting a train of thought that was going nowhere psychologically healthy. “Aren’t you supposed to be all earthy and shit?”
I sighed. “I’m not that kind of witch.”
I pulled the magic of the wards to me and over Mory. This effectively let her into my apartment, though it didn’t fully key her to the wards. She could enter now accompanied by me, but not later or again on her own. Yeah, I was full of new tricks these days.
∞
My place looked very different than it had three months ago. Then, when I’d arrived home after 2:00 a.m., all blurry-eyed and dragging a practically nameless dance partner with me, the two-bedroom apartment was … well, pretty unlived in. Maybe even uninviting. Not intentionally, but I’d spent the two previous years of my life devoted to opening and running a successful cupcake bakery on one of the busiest streets in Vancouver. My apartment — and life in general — had taken a back seat.
Then, after everything that had happened with Sienna and Rusty, Scarlett had moved in. And my mother never did anything in half measures.
The changes to the space had been subtle at first. A new silk or linen couch pillow and an orchid on the kitchen island. Then I suddenly had matching glassware, and the dining set I’d been slowly collecting from a local potter became a full set of ten. No matter that I had no dining room table capable of seating ten dinner guests.
The table showed up a week later.
Everything Scarlett added fit my handmade, local esthetic perfectly. The table, for instance, was made from hundred-year-old reclaimed fir. And, oddly, I never saw anything delivered or a single bill.
Tonight, the lamp hanging over the dining table dimly illuminated a gorgeous handblown glass vase … or maybe it was a large misshapen bowl. The colors swirled around in it — golds, blues, and greens — in a way similar to how I saw magic. I wondered if my mother knew that when she picked it out. And yes, there was now a dimmer switch for the hanging lamp — which itself was crafted out of some sort of old steel box — where there’d once been no lamp at all.
“Nice place,” Mory said. Even her compliments came out dour and angsty. Oh, to be a teenager again … not.
I instantly felt bad for generalizing the fledgling necromancer. I’d never lost a brother at fifteen. Sienna had lost her dad at thirteen, and that had been difficult for her. But honestly, not for me. Actually, I’d lucked into fulltime sister after that, so in a purely selfish way, her father’s death and her mother’s abandonment had been a bonus for me. I certainly hadn’t wished them dead or anything, but … never mind.
“My mom has been staying,” I said as I crossed to the kitchen. The fridge was full of food. Also a new development, courtesy of Scarlett.
I pulled out fixings for a turkey sandwich and watched Mory slowly wander around the living room. The door to the craft room, aka the second bedroom, was slightly ajar, but it was dark within. I guessed that Scarlett was asleep. I could feel her magic — the base of fresh-cut grass and lilac that she shared with Gran, topped with strawberries and white chocolate.
I spread mayo on a slice of whole wheat bread.
“I’m not lying,” Mory said as she settled onto one of the stools at the island situated between the living room and the kitchen. The grand room was open concept. I’d renovated the kitchen when I moved in — gray granite counters, stainless steel appliances, and the kitchen island — as it was the only room that really mattered to me. Scarlett had replaced the cheap stools. They’d been so badly weighted that they were constantly being knocked down.
“I know,” I answered, trying to push thoughts of falling stools, broken bowls, and murdered werewolves out of my head.
I sliced tomato and placed it on top of Havarti cheese. I salted and peppered the turkey on the opposite side of the sandwich, flipped it closed, plated it, and slid it across the counter to Mory. The necromancer eyed it distrustfully while I put together another for myself.
“How do you know I eat meat?”
“You’re a necromancer.”
“What? Eww.”
I laughed quietly. I never felt much like laughing these days. Mory’s presence in my apartment didn’t make that any easier.
“I thought there’d be cupcakes,” she said, though she didn’t look up from her sandwich.
I felt tears well up, quickly turning to the sink to wash and dry my hands before Mory saw them in my eyes.
Then I crossed to the fridge, pulled out three cupcakes, and put them on one of my jadeite plates. I put the plate on the counter. “For dessert.” Then I crossed with my sandwich to sit beside Mory.
She finally took a bite of her sandwich. After this went down okay, she inhaled the rest.
I didn’t feel much like eating, but I made an effort. I passed the second half of my sandwich to the fledgling necromancer and she ate it without comment.
“What kind are these?” she asked, her mouth full of partially chewed sandwich. She meant the cupcakes.
“Solace in a Cup,” I answered. My voice only cracked a little. “Chocolate carrot cake with chocolate cream-cheese icing.”
Mory, her sandwich finished, reached for a cupcake. She swiped a bit of icing from the top of one and sucked it off her finger. “Did Rusty like these ones?”
Ah, there it was … I fought past the tight space in my chest. I spent so much time mourning Sienna, trying to not mourn Hudson, and distracting myself with magic theory that I hadn’t really thought about the kind man who I’d hoped was a monster underneath for my sister’s sake. I wanted Rusty to be the evil, perverted one, so that Sienna could be innocent. But even now — though the tribunal had convicted Rusty posthumously as Sienna’s conspirator largely based on my hearsay testimony — I still wasn’t a hundred percent sure he’d ever killed anyone.
I cleared the clog of emotion out of my throat and tried to answer calmly. “Rusty never tried these ones.”
/>
“Oh,” Mory said. She peeled the paper off her cupcake and tried a bite. “Mmm. Good.”
My heart constricted in my chest even tighter. I abandoned the uneaten eighth of my sandwich and reached for a cupcake.
“So … Solace in a Cup, eh?” Mory asked, still chewing her second bite.
“Yes.”
“Because … you’re sad, right?”
“Yeah.”
“There aren’t any shades here.”
“No?” I answered. “But they wouldn’t be able to get through the wards, would they?”
“Oh. Maybe not.”
“You thought someone died here recently?” I was practically shoving the cupcake down my throat in an attempt to steady myself, once again smothering my emotions in chocolate and icing.
“Um, yeah.”
“Downstairs. Sienna. Downstairs.”
“In the bakery? I was in there today and I didn’t see any shades in there either.”
“Who let you through the wards?” Different protections warded the bakery, keeping out anyone magically inclined. Once invited, however, an Adept could buy as many of my cupcakes as he or she pleased. Humans could pass without issue, of course.
“Your Gran.”
“Did you speak with her?”
Mory shrugged and went for a second cupcake.
“Did you expect to see Sienna’s ghost in the bakery? Is that why you think she’s alive?” Even as I said it, I attempted to ignore the completely inappropriate bloom of hope in my heart.
“No.” The edge of finality in Mory’s tone made me suspect the conversation was over.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I was exhausted, but I dreaded calling Rusty’s mother — if I could get her number off Mory — so I was dilly-dallying with the food.
Obviously, the skinwalker’s spell didn’t come with a restful sleep side effect. God, that was yet another thing Gran was going to hold against me. Maybe I just wouldn’t mention it. Thankfully, there was no way the vampire or shifters would be forthcoming about me kind of saving their asses.
Mory had rolled the cake-crusted paper cups into rolls. She fished her phone out of her pocket and opened her messaging app. Then she slid the phone over to me.
I tried to ignore the multiple instances of where are you and come home please that spanned back days, just focusing on the last two entries.
@Amy’s 2nite
Okay, Mory. Have fun.
“This is not Amy’s,” I said, secretly pleased I’d correctly guessed the fledgling necromancer’s nickname.
Mory sighed and tapped her screen to open another set of messages. These were addressed to an Amy.
Waiting 4 Jade.
Cupcake Witch?
Yeah
That ok?
Fine
Ok. Text me
Cupcake Witch? If the Adept world only knew the truth about me … well, then — according to Gran, Scarlett, and Kett — I’d be sold off to the highest bidder. Honestly, I already felt a little like that when Desmond and Kett fought. Though I wasn’t completely sure they were actually fighting over the possession of my fledgling alchemist powers, or whether they just really loathed each other in that interspecies way.
“So text her, then,” I finally said as I stood to clear the dishes to the sink.
“Am I sleeping here?”
“The couch is available.”
“The couch looks okay.” Mory bent over her phone to text her friend.
“What sort of Adept is Amy?” I asked, because I really hoped a human wasn’t referring to me as a witch. I was still a little fuzzy on the exact ways that other powerful Adept kept their identities secret from the human world — such things were the purview of the various Councils, Conclaves, and Convocations. But I still knew that Mory could be in a lot of trouble if she was showing off to humans. It helped that people didn’t see magic when they didn’t want to see magic. Miracles, disasters, and the unexplained, yes — but not magic. Children, human or otherwise, saw more, of course. A teenager might believe Mory if told that things such as witches and necromancers existed.
“Like a quarter witch or something,” Mory answered. Vancouver boasted a relatively tiny Adept community. Hardly anyone was full-blood around here. I used to think that included me. Technically Mory was half-witch, half-necromancer — as her brother Rusty had been. The necromancy usually only manifested fully in the female line, though the magic was latent in the male members of the species, who often could see or feel ghosts, but not communicate with them. Rusty had inherited a slight spell casting ability from his father along with a talent for reviving neglected plants and such. Necromancers and witches didn’t usually mix, but within such a small community, it was bound to happen.
I turned the lights off in the kitchen, keeping the oven hood light on as I used to do for Sienna when she crashed here. The bed in the second bedroom had been Scarlett’s first addition to the apartment. Before the bed showed up, I hadn’t even known my mother was planning to stay.
I skirted the island and offered Mory a throw pillow and a hand-knit blanket. The pillow was new. The blanket was a gift from Gran.
She tossed the pillow to one end of the couch and held the blanket to her chest. Her gaze was fixed on my feet. “You’ll take me tomorrow? To the place that Rusty died?” she asked quietly.
“I really don’t want to.”
“But you will? You don’t have to stay … or even come in.”
“I wouldn’t leave you there alone. Maybe your mother —”
“She doesn’t want to talk to him.”
Jesus. I didn’t want to talk to him — or be in the same room while his sister talked to him — either. The very idea of ghosts freaked me out. And a ghost of someone I knew? Freaky as hell.
“So you’ll take me?”
“I have to bake tomorrow. If you wake up and I’m not here, you can find me down there.” I pointed to a closed door off the living area that led downstairs to the bakery kitchen. “Don’t leave from the front door, unless you don’t want to come back.”
“The wards will still keep me out? I thought …”
“Yeah. I’m not that kind of witch.” I turned toward the hall that led to my bedroom. “Bathroom is here. New toothbrushes under the sink.”
“You’ll take me, won’t you, Jade?” Mory whispered behind me. It was a whisper I shouldn’t have been able to hear so clearly. But ever since I’d opened the portal and connected to the magic that flowed through it, I could do lots of new things. I almost didn’t turn back, but guilt was a whip-snapping motivator.
“I’ll think about it,” I said over my shoulder. I could barely see Mory’s face in the dimness of the living room. Her eyes were two dark holes.
She nodded her chin, then curled up on the couch.
I restrained myself from going back to tuck her in. My sister had killed her brother. After she ate parts of him to access his latent necromancer power. Tucking in wasn’t on the list of things Mory was likely to accept from me.
I was surprised she’d let me feed her, except the cupcakes were always a draw. Not many people were capable of refusing one after they’d laid eyes on it. Hence, the popularity of my bakery.
Attempting to ignore — as I always was these days — the whirling, unanswered questions and lingering heartbreak that was always on my mind, I climbed into bed without changing or brushing my teeth.
∞
If I slept, I didn’t notice. True, I didn’t need much sleep these days — but no sleep at all was ridiculous.
Perhaps I didn’t sleep because I didn’t want to dream.
I rose before my 5:00 a.m. alarm and padded out to check on Mory. She was sprawled with utter abandon across my couch and snoring in short bursts like a puppy. But she’s not a puppy, I warned myself as I pulled my hair into a ponytail. Then I looked up to meet Scarlett’s gaze.
I’d felt my mother’s magic approach before
I saw her in the doorway of the second bedroom. Wrapped in a navy silk dressing gown, she smiled at me as she always did … a tender smile just for me, as far as I’d ever seen. Not the blazing one she used to discombobulate her prey. Though perhaps ‘prey’ was an erroneous and uncharitable word, because everyone always felt special in Scarlett’s presence. I’d never once heard of any of her lovers referred to as jilted.
“Rusty’s sister,” she murmured as she approached. Her strawberry blond hair always looked as if she spent hours in hair rollers that I’d never once actually seen. Maybe it was some sort of hair spell?
“Yes,” I murmured back.
“She wouldn’t come in earlier.”
I nodded and moved into the kitchen for a banana, aka my breakfast.
Scarlett followed me. I knew our eyes were the same color, but on her, the blue looked endless and deep. On me, they looked just like blue eyes. She was wearing multicolored hand-knit socks that completely clashed with the silk gown. Gran’s handiwork.
“You were home late and are up early,” Scarlett said.
“Yes.” I didn’t elaborate and she didn’t question me further. She just brushed her fingers along my forearm, leaving her magic tingling on my skin, then retreated back toward her bedroom. This had been going on for months now, but the silence between us wasn’t uncomfortable, just years deep.
I crossed to the bakery exit and looked back to see Scarlett lean over to tuck the blanket around Mory’s feet. True, my mother didn’t feel like I did about Sienna, but no one defined what behavior was appropriate for her. If she wanted to tuck a wounded teenager in, she would. I’d never aspired to be anything like Scarlett, and had actually strived to be her complete opposite — stable, homey, and focused. But now I wondered if that might have been the wrong path all along.
∞
Even after losing Sienna in more ways than one only a floor below, the bakery was my haven — one that Scarlett and Kandy and Kett kept coaxing me out of. The kitchen was swathed in stainless steel, including the two long tables that I’d had custom built slightly higher than normal. That way I didn’t lean quite so far over for so many hours every day. Though my apartment cleaning might be considered neglectful, I kept my bakery spotless. Sometimes I stood in the walk-in pantry — loaded full of chocolate, sugars, and spices — and just breathed. I once considered hauling my yoga mat in there, but I figured I didn’t quite have enough space between shelves. Though, lately, I came and went from the pantry as quickly as possible, because I didn’t like to lay eyes on the door to the basement. Yeah, my sister had almost ruined one of my favorite spots in the world. Almost.
Trinkets, Treasures, and Other Bloody Magic (Dowser Series) Page 8
