My shoulders slumped from disappointment. To be completely honest, I had never really considered that the application might be denied. I had always expected them to accept so I could go over there and see for myself if I was a part of their coven or not.
“So what do we do now?” I asked, and Amy shrugged.
“To be completely honest, I’m not sure. I’m going to coven headquarters soon. I’ll ask Lita then what the next step should be.”
I nodded, trying to hide the fact that the news had hit me pretty hard. I supposed in my head I had always expected my coven to want to know who I was and to accept me straightaway. The fact that the bureaucrats at Kilokilo had said no made me feel rejected all over again.
Plus, the topic made me think of the fight I’d had with Kyran a couple of nights earlier. I hadn’t spoken to him since.
Maybe Kyran was right. After all, it sounded like there was something that he hadn’t been telling me. I got the impression Kyran knew something that he was keeping to himself, and I wanted to know what it was. After all, this was my potential coven. If there was something that I should know about them, I wanted to know it.
Hey, are you around? I texted, forcing myself to put my phone back in my pocket instead of staring at it waiting for his reply. Luckily for me, Kyran replied about a minute later.
Yeah. I’m in the forest getting herbs. Meet at the same place as yesterday?
I sent through an affirmative reply and made my way back to the Coven Gardens, where I sat by the shore and watched the water while waiting for Kyran to appear. He got there about ten minutes after I did and sat next to me on the grass.
“Sara did well yesterday,” he said.
“Did you watch the match?”
Kyran nodded. “Yeah. I was glad I got the chance to. She looked really confident on the broom.”
“She was. She truly believes she can win the whole competition, but she has to get better at casting spells.”
“I think that’s accurate,” Kyran replied. “She definitely had better broom skills than everybody else out there.”
“What aren’t you telling me about the coven of Titan?” I said, changing the subject abruptly. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk about Sara, but I wanted the answers to my own life, to the coven that I was fairly certain I was a part of.
“What do you mean?”
“There’s something you’re not telling me, isn’t there? You keep telling me to stay away, that maybe I don’t want to know the truth because the truth is worse than not knowing, but that implies that you know something about the coven of Titan that’s worth not knowing. What is it? Why does everybody seem to be tiptoeing around this fact with me?”
Kyran sighed. “I knew you were going to figure it out eventually. You’re too smart to be fooled by us, and you’re too interested to actually let it go. The thing about the coven of Titan is that they are a coven led by prophecy a lot more than any of the others. I genuinely don’t know anything about your specific situation, or anything about the coven and members of it that might relate to you. But what I do know is that when you were born, there was almost certainly a prophecy said about you. It’s probably why you were abandoned to the human world.”
“Are these prophecies true at all?”
“There’s no way to know,” Kyran shrugged. “The coven’s so secretive about them I don’t know specifics about any prophecies. I only know that it’s a major part of the culture of the coven of Titan. But as soon as I heard that you might have been from that coven, that’s what I thought of. In all likelihood, when you were born, a prophecy was given that your parents didn’t like. They probably abandoned you to the human world in the hopes that it wouldn’t come true.”
“What kind of prophecy could be so bad it would drive somebody to abandon their child?” I asked aloud, although the question was almost to myself.
Kyran didn’t answer, and as I thought about the possibilities, I began to feel more and more horrified.
Was I destined to be a bad person? Had the prophecy of my birth said that I was going to be a murderer? A thief? A serial killer? Goodness, there were so many awful possibilities.
“Stop getting ahead of yourself,” Kyran said with a small smile. Stupid elves and their ability to sense how people felt. “You don’t even know if you’re from that coven yet. It’s just a possibility, and a theory. Besides, prophecies and that sort of junk are all bull anyway. Nobody can predict the future, and we make our own destinies.”
“So you would be okay with it if it turned out it had been prophesied that your girlfriend is a serial killer?” I couldn’t help but ask, and Kyran laughed.
“Absolutely yes. For one thing, I wouldn’t believe the prophecy. For another, I know you. You’re basically the least likely person on the planet to become a serial killer. You’re much too pure hearted for that.”
“Thanks,” I said with a small smile. “I just wish I knew for sure, you know? I mean, everything points toward me being a member of that coven, but I feel like I’m never going to find out. Amy got a letter this morning; they already rejected our application to go and visit. So I can’t even go to Kilokilo and find out if I’m one of them.”
“What would you do if you went there?” Kyran asked.
“Well, I guess the first thing would be to learn one of their spells. Amy has a theory that if I learned a single spell from the coven of Titan, and then used the equivalent spell from a different water coven, it would tell us whether or not I’m a member of the coven of Titan. So it would confirm that. Other than that, I guess I just want to see what it’s like there. I wonder if everybody else from that coven looks like me, too. I wonder if I would recognize anybody. I guess I just want to see if I would belong.”
Kyran gave me a hard look. “Let me see what I can find out for you. I’m not making any guarantees, but maybe I can get you some information that can help.”
“Thanks,” I said to him with a smile. “I appreciate it.”
“See? Someone who was so evil their parents would abandon them in the human world would never appreciate anything,” Kyran said to me with a smile.
“Maybe I’m just pretending to be appreciative,” I said, sticking my tongue out at him. Still, he was right, wasn’t he? I didn’t think I was an evil person. I certainly couldn’t imagine myself killing anyone.
I was probably just overreacting, as usual.
But I did like that he was going to look into things for me.
Chapter 18
With the promise from Kyran and the knowledge that Amy was going to ask Lita what the next step should be, I had to admit as I made my way back to the house that I felt a little bit better. We were going to get to the bottom of this, even if it took a little bit longer than I wanted or hoped for.
I was walking back home, having decided that the fresh air would do me some good, when I spotted a familiar figure hanging out in front of our house. It was Derek, and I stopped as soon as I saw him. What was he doing here?
He kept walking up toward the front door, looking like he was going to knock, then turning around like he changed his mind and making his way back toward the street. I frowned as he did this two or three times, then decided I was going to make his mind up for him.
“Derek?” I called out, and the wizard looked up sharply at the sound of my voice. He ran his hand through his hair, like he was embarrassed for having been caught in that position.
“Hey, hi,” he said a little awkwardly. “You’re Sara’s friend, the one from yesterday.”
“That’s right,” I nodded. “Tina.”
“Listen, can I talk to you? It’s important.”
“Sure,” I said, motioning toward the house. “Come on in. I think I’m the only one here today.”
At least this way, if Derek tried to attack me, Mr. Meowgi was around. I wasn’t sure how much good he would do, but it was better than nothing. Still, Derek’s body language definitely didn’t look aggressive at all. He looked more ne
rvous than anything.
I let him into the living room and motioned for him to take a seat on the couch, which he did, sitting on the edge and putting his elbows on his knees. A part of me thought I should be a good hostess and offer him something to eat or drink, but he really looked like he had something to say, and I wanted him to get it out.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “You look like you have something to tell me.”
“I’ve been thinking about what you were saying the other day, about Jack,” he finally said. “I went to see Chief Enforcer Hound this morning. The guy is an idiot who wouldn’t be able to find his own butthole with both hands. Jack deserved better than that.”
I nodded. “I agree completely.”
“You’re trying to find out who killed Jack, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. If it’s someone in his life, then they deserve to go to jail. And if it’s some crazy stalker or something who wants people from the broom competition dead, then we want to know because of Sara.”
Derek nodded. “Makes sense. I think it’s probably someone from his life, to be honest. Jack hasn’t had the easiest time of it, and there are things in his past that will probably come back to haunt him.”
“The two of you didn’t really get along, did you? I could tell in the bar. You were both teasing each other, but there was more to it than that, wasn’t there? There was history there.”
Derek looked like he wanted to deny it for a second, but then he nodded.
“Yeah. You might as well know. Did you know that Jack and I knew each other growing up?”
“Lisa told me,” I nodded.
“What Lisa doesn’t know is that we were actually really good friends for a while, until we were about fifteen. I got a girlfriend, I took her over to meet Jack once, and Jack decided he wanted my girlfriend. It was stupid. Stupid kid stuff. But she eventually dumped me for him, and I never forgave him. That was what he meant when he said he always won. He didn’t mean just the broom competition, he meant in all of life. Jessica had been my first girlfriend, and he couldn’t even let me have that. He had to take that away from me too.” Derek shook his head sadly. “He could be so mean that way.”
“But you’ve moved on?” I asked cautiously. After all, if Derek was still harboring a grudge, maybe he was the one who had killed Derek.
“I thought I had,” Derek admitted. “I genuinely thought I had. But then, seeing him the other day, for the first time in years, it just brought back so many awful memories. I wanted to destroy him.”
“So you followed him into the bathroom?” I asked softly, and Derek looked up at me, a surprised look on his face.
“What? No, nothing like that. I wanted to beat him in the competition. I wanted him to lose to me in front of everybody in the magical world, with everyone seeing how much better than him I really was,” he said, his fist clenching. “To be completely honest, I was angry when I found out Jack had been killed. I was so angry. That was my opportunity, my chance to finally get back at him, to get my revenge. And someone took it away from me. Now Jack has died a hero, with everybody looking up at him as a potential winner of the broom riding competition, and he’ll never have gotten the opportunity to prove himself, but I also will never get the opportunity to beat him in public and to get my revenge for what happened all those years ago.”
So basically, Derek was saying he had no reason to kill Jack because he wanted to humiliate him while he was alive. That certainly was a new one.
“Do you know who would have had a reason to kill Jack, though?” I asked. “It could have been something from his childhood. Maybe someone who had forgotten about him, or lost touch, and seeing him in the competition brought everything back. And what about that night when you went into the bathroom? Did you see Jack?”
Derek nodded. “I saw him, yeah. He didn’t look great. I thought he had had too much to drink, but he looked like he was going to throw up, and he was a little bit disoriented. Like, he kept on grabbing at the sink to hold himself up. I’m not going to lie, I just used the bathroom and then left. I figured if he passed out in the street or whatever, he deserved whatever happened to him.”
“Only he never made it that far,” I mused. “Do you think it might have been poison that did it to him?”
“In hindsight, yeah. It might have been. He definitely wasn’t acting normally, and I didn’t think at the time that it was strange that he got that drunk considering he only had a few beers.”
I nodded slowly. “What about his past? Is there anything back there that you think can help us?”
Derek looked a little bit cagey, and I leaned forward. “It doesn’t matter now. Whatever happened, I just want to find out what the truth is.”
“I just don’t want to get anybody in trouble. I don’t actually know how many of the details from this rumor are true, and I don’t want somebody to get in trouble who had nothing to do with this.”
“I promise I’ll do my best to be discreet,” I said. “Besides, I’m not even remotely connected to the official investigation. Whatever you say to me will not get back to Chief Enforcer Hound. I promise.”
Derek studied me for a minute, then nodded. Evidently, he decided I was telling the truth.
“Ok, fine. From what I heard, there was an incident a few years back.”
“What kind of incident?”
“It was a prank gone wrong. You know, the sort of thing kids do. A wizard from another coven had come over and challenged Jack to a competition of some kind. I don’t believe it was a broom riding competition. It may have just been a straight duel. Well, Jack didn’t like that one bit. The kid who challenged him was younger than Jack, from one of the earth covens, I believe. Jack thought it was ridiculous that the kid would even try to challenge him. You have to remember, Jack was an insanely arrogant teenager, but then, he had kind of earned the right to be. He wasn’t just good on a broom; he could cast really good spells. He wasn’t great with potions, but that was normal for someone from an air coven.”
“So something went wrong in the duel?”
“Well, that’s the thing—not really. The duel itself was fairly straightforward. To the surprise of everyone, the kid Jack was dueling won, fair and square. But Jack couldn’t handle that. He never really could handle anyone being better than him, and a kid who was younger was just unimaginable. So when the kid was leaving, Jack turned and cast a disgusting spell on him. I don’t know the details of what it was, but the kid spent three months with the Healers trying to get him back to normal. Jack completely destroyed him.”
Derek shook his head sadly. “It was stupid. Completely stupid. He never should have done it, but Jack was young, and he couldn’t handle that kind of insult to his honor.”
“What happened to him?” I asked, and Derek shrugged.
“The kid’s family was pissed, of course. But there are rules about minor witches and wizards and what punishments they can face. Because Jack was fifteen when this happened, they were very limited in what kind of justice they could get. And Jack’s family was fairly influential in their town as well; I’m sure they applied a lot of pressure to make sure that Jack would be treated as leniently as possible. I’m not sure very much happened at all.”
“And the kid who was injured?”
“I don’t even know who it was. As far as I know, he moved on with his life. But you never know.”
I nodded. “And you think maybe he’s out looking for revenge?”
Derek shrugged. “It’s very possible. I mean, the guy’s life was altered forever. Jack really should not have done it. It was such a low blow.”
“Thanks for letting me know. Is there anything else you can think of in Jack’s past, any other reason he might have been targeted by someone?”
Derek shrugged. “No. That’s all I know. I hope it helps.”
“Thanks. It does,” I said, and Derek stood up. I followed his cue and led him back to the front door, where he turned to say goodbye.
“T
hanks for listening. I know it doesn’t sound like it, but Jack was a good person. He just made a few bad choices here and there.”
I nodded. Maybe it was the fact that I was trying to convince myself that there was no prophecy out there that said I was a serial killer, but I was feeling particularly generous toward people and their motives. Just because Jack had made a bad decision when he was a teenager didn’t mean he deserved to die.
“Just find who did this, ok?” Derek told me, and before waiting for an answer he headed back off into the world. I stood in the doorway after he had gone, ruminating on the words he had told me. It looked like there was a lot more to Jack’s past than I had thought.
Chapter 19
Once the others got home later that night, I told them about Derek’s visit and what I had learned.
“What if Jason was the kid whose life had been forever changed by Jack?” Ellie suggested after a few minutes. “After all, he comes from an earth coven, and his hometown is right next to Witcheopolis, where Jack was from. It seems reasonable enough that they would have known each other, what with the two places being known as the Twin Cities.”
Amy nodded slowly. “I like that theory; I think it should be explored further.”
“It would make a lot of sense,” I admitted. “After all, if Jason was the victim of Jack’s retribution, then he would have even more reason to kill Jack. Not only would Jack’s death result in Jason being picked as part of the broom competition, but it would be the perfect revenge. It would mean that Jack couldn’t compete, and Jason could win it all.”
“But Jason wasn’t at the bar that night, was he?” Sara pointed out. “He wouldn’t have had the opportunity to poison Jack.”
“Think about how many people we were,” Ellie said. “There were people there that I’m pretty sure I don’t even remember, which means it would’ve been super easy for somebody who wasn’t part of our group to come by for a minute or two and slip some poison into Jack’s drink. Especially at the end, when everybody had had a few and maybe everyone’s defenses were down just a little bit.”
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