The Shatterproof Magician (The Inscrutable Paris Beaufont Book 4)

by Sarah Noffke

  “Hey.” Paris took off her backpack when she neared the two animals. “I have the rocks, and it’s a full moon. So it appears we have everything that we need. Well, if Curie is ready.”

  She gave the owl perched on a large boulder next to the creek an unsure look.

  The owl hooted as if that was all the reply necessary. Paris took that as a yes, looking over her shoulder at Faraday still in the distance, her expression saying. “Are you freaking coming? I did this for you, Jerk Face.”

  The squirrel got her drift and hopped along, joining the other two.

  “Hi.” Faraday looked down at the ground.

  “Can we get this over with?” Edison asked.

  “I’m ready,” Curie said stuffily.

  Paris glanced among the three of them. “Wait. Weren’t you all friends? Why is there no reunion?”

  The stag huffed. “Of course not. We were associates, and that’s all.”

  “Science and magic brought us together,” Curie explained. “I found through my notebooks, things that Faraday and Edison had scribbled—”

  “Same here,” Faraday chimed.

  “Yes, so I followed Curie’s notes,” Edison explained.

  “Then you all time traveled as animals,” Hemingway guessed, striding forward. “You intended to—”

  “Make animals talk freely,” Faraday supplied.

  “Except we got stuck,” Edison added.

  “Now, here we are,” Curie finished.

  “Three scientific animals from different timelines, who had a good mission that went wrong,” Paris summarized.

  “We’ve been stuck as animals ever since,” Edison confirmed.

  “Lost from our lives,” Curie continued.

  “All against our will,” Faraday muttered.

  “Well, I’m here to help you fix that.” Paris pulled the polished river rocks from the bag that Papa Creola gave her, laying them in front of each animal. She gave the owl a pointed look. “What happens next?”

  Curie hooted once. “Your spell is one of transformation. That can’t happen until we’ve time traveled. Can you help us, magician?” To Paris’ surprise, the bird looked at Hemingway.

  He nodded, a sturdy expression in his eyes. “I can do it. When you time travel, when the rocks are still glowing, I can transform you back to what you once were, when you’re back in your timeline.”

  “We were human,” Edison said stuffily.

  “We were scientists,” Curie informed him.

  “We were trying something new,” Faraday added shyly.

  Hemingway glanced at Paris. “I can help. Once the time travel rocks are activated, I can use a transformation spell safely.”

  “Okay.” The heaviness of the moment hit her. “Then I guess we have to activate the rocks.”

  She stood back, the moonlight making her feel like she was in the spotlight. “Are you all ready to do this?”

  “Yes,” Edison answered.

  “Of course,” Curie stated.

  “Not at all,” Faraday muttered.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  “What?” four voices asked at once.

  All heads turned to look at Faraday.

  “We need you,” Edison stated.

  “You can’t stop us,” Curie said.

  “What?” Paris repeated.

  The squirrel shook his head and hopped forward toward the stag and the owl. “You don’t need me…not to time travel and transform. Because we did the original spell together, sharing each other’s notes, we needed each other for this part. We have to be together. But I don’t have to time travel or transform for you to be able to.”

  “You’re not going back to your time?” Edison asked.

  “It’s complicated,” Faraday answered.

  “But if you don’t go back…” Curie didn’t finish the thought.

  “I think you both still can,” Faraday stated. “You need me here to complete the original spell.”

  Paris stepped forward. “Faraday, what are you saying?”

  The squirrel turned and looked at her, and if she’d never felt love before, she knew it then. He lowered his chin and regarded her with such fondness.

  “Pare, I don’t want to go back,” Faraday said. “I want to stay with you. This is my life now.”

  She was suddenly speechless. “But Faraday, you have this whole life to return to. You haven’t been able to tell me about it, but it has to be better than sleeping in my sock drawer.”

  He shook his head. “That’s what you don’t understand because I could never tell you. I didn’t have a life before you. Not really. I didn’t have friends or a mission or anything like what I do now. I had science and my experiments, but I have that in this life too. Here I also have you and the college and your friends and things that make me feel excited. Why would I want to go back to the nothing that I had?”

  “But…” Paris didn’t know what to say, and she didn’t have any words.

  That’s why when the ding on her phone echoed, she reached for it in her pocket.

  No one seemed to mind when she retrieved the phone and read the message from Papa Creola. His message was simple and heartbreaking, and Paris had a hard time reading it aloud.

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  “What does it say?” Faraday asked, as the one who knew it had to be important if it came through right then.

  “It’s from Father Time,” Paris admitted, staring at her phone, the tears choking in her throat.

  “He wants us back on our timelines,” Faraday guessed.

  Paris nodded.

  “He won’t let me stay, will he?” the squirrel asked.

  “He will,” she said, surprising everyone. “But there’s a caveat if you do.”

  Paris looked directly at Faraday, suddenly feeling like they were the only two in the Bewilder Forest. She blocked out the others, knowing that it needed to be about her and him right then.

  “Faraday, Papa Creola says you can stay in this timeline for a magician’s lifespan, which you possessed,” Paris explained, reciting the message the best she could. “But you have to remain a squirrel for that entirety. Never returning to being a man. Ever again.”

  She tensed, clenched her hands tightly, and prepared to lose her friend forever—something she’d been preparing for all this time.

  To her surprise, Faraday smiled at her. “Then the decision is rather easy.”

  Paris nodded, swallowing down her remorse. “I figured. I understand. I’ll miss—”

  “The decision is easy. I’ll remain a squirrel,” he stated.

  “What?” everyone echoed.

  Faraday grinned. “I was never happy as a human.” He looked at Paris intently. “The only thing that’s ever made me happy was being a part of your world, Paris Beaufont. If you let me, I’d like to stay with you forevermore.”

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Paris simply could not believe it. She really couldn’t…

  Faraday was supposed to desert her. He was supposed to abandon her like everything else in her life. Instead, he was choosing to stick around after being given the choice of a body and a life.

  Paris had a hard time believing it, but she did, and when she stepped back, she saw the most memorable sight of her entire life.

  The time travel stones activated, hovering in front of Curie and Edison in the air. They shimmered and glowed and disappeared as bright as the glowing moon overhead. Then the whole thing was over, well, besides that Paris was face-to-face with a squirrel who had sacrificed his entire life to be with her.

  That was a lot, she realized.

  That was like marriage—except there was no diamond ring—and she got that this wasn’t marriage.

  Still, it felt like forever, although no one had ever proposed to her.

  Yet, she wanted Faraday by her side always, and in many ways, she was glad he’d made the decision. Still, she had a squirrel friend forever, and it felt weird and right, and she was secretly very happy for it.
r />   Her best friend had chosen her, and it made her feel unbelievably loved.

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  “It’s such a relief.” Headmistress Willow Starr looked proudly at the love meter. It had recovered. Not entirely, but it was at least over thirty percent, whereas before it was getting close to zero. Paris had worried that it would go into the negative, something that hadn’t happened in a very long time. She hoped that one day, the love meter could be well over fifty percent and higher. Maybe over one hundred percent. What would a world like that be?

  “It is nice to see the love meter recovering.” Mae Ling stood beside the open window in the headmistress’ office in the fairy godmothers’ mansion—the spring breeze sweeping into the room. It suddenly reminded Paris of Dash falling from the twenty-sixth floor at FriendNet, and she shuddered slightly.

  As though sensing Paris’ sudden tension connected to her trauma, Mae Ling shut the window and turned to the group. “You two did good work on this case.”

  Headmistress Starr nodded in appreciation, picking up her feathered quill. “Saint Valentine is very pleased and was very impressed with your work when I gave him the details that you’ve provided about the mission. He was shocked to learn that someone orchestrated this all with the motive to sabotage love.”

  “Someone who I think could be an agent for FGA.” Paris glanced at Christine, who was back in her blue gown, her orange hair grayish once more.

  Christine nodded. “Yeah, I tried to get more out of that handlebar mustache guy, but he didn’t know anything. He said that the consultant who showed up at FriendNet talked only with Dash privately.”

  “He was wearing a black suit,” Paris said. “Like the FGA agents.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not enough for us to draw any conclusions,” Willow stated with regret.

  “Well, maybe now that Saint Valentine is involved with FriendNet he can get the security footage, and we can see who the guy was,” Paris offered.

  The leader of FGA had decided not to shut down the social media site, saying that he thought that although someone used it for evil, it could also bring good. Saint Valentine contended that it could as easily bring people together, creating love, as break them up. However, there would be strict company supervision from agents at the Matters of the Heart office only.

  Willow frowned. “I asked about that. Unfortunately, it appears that whoever this consultant was, they used magic to ensure they didn’t appear on any security cameras. There’s no record of their visit.”

  “See, it has to be an FGA agent,” Paris nearly exclaimed, adamant on the subject.

  The headmistress shook her head. “I’m sorry, but we simply don’t have enough information to support that conclusion. It could as easily be a magician or any of the other magical races.”

  “They don’t have a motive to sabotage love,” Paris argued.

  Willow sighed. “An FGA agent has zero reasons to do so. They are in the business of creating matches.”

  “For the wealthy, famous, and elite.” Paris was almost vibrating with frustration. She knew something was going on behind the scenes but couldn’t figure out what it was—yet.

  “Someone did try and murder Saint Valentine,” Christine added. “So things aren’t all hunky-dory at FGA.”

  “We don’t know that was an agent,” Headmistress Starr repeated. Her stress showed in her eyes.

  “Actually, we do,” Uncle John said from the doorway.

  “Detective Nicholson.” The headmistress stood and waved her feathered quill. Another poufy armchair appeared beside where Paris and Christine sat. “Please come in. You have an update on the case?”

  “Yes.” Uncle John held up a piece of paper. “I got the report back from Bep at the Rose Apothecary on the poison.”

  Headmistress Starr waved her quill again, and Paris recognized the silencing spell she’d used to ensure they weren’t overhead in the hallway. She glanced at Paris and Christine. “I trust you’ll not disclose anything we hear.”

  Before either girl could answer, Uncle John said, “It won’t matter. This news will spread very fast. I’ve already called in my FLEA officers, and I’m here asking that you open a portal for them to enter Happily Ever After College.”

  “Your officers?” Willow asked. Paris knew why he’d dispatched the agents, but she knew that the fairy godmother was naïve about such things.

  “To make an arrest,” Uncle John informed her. “I’ve solved the murder, and I know without a doubt who created the poison that killed Agent Opal. All the evidence points to only one person.”

  “Who was it?” Willow’s voice shook.

  “The poison was confirmed as being made by a fairy,” Uncle John began. “Furthermore, Bep was able to extract the magic used to create the binding of the deadly nightshade, a process that must happen for it to be odorless and tasteless. She found remnants of a certain gem in the potion.”

  “Remnants of a gem.” Mae Ling’s eyes narrowed. “The agents all channel their magic with instruments that possess gems.”

  Willow nodded. “Yes, it’s how they brand their magic. A tracking device of sorts.”

  Uncle John drew in a breath. “I’m well aware. Remnants of topaz laced the poison.”

  Paris gulped suddenly.

  Christine gasped. “I knew that guy was trouble.”

  “Agent Topaz,” Headmistress Starr said in disbelief. “So it was an FGA agent then?”

  “It appears there’s more contention within Saint Valentine’s ranks than we originally thought,” Mae Ling offered wisely.

  “I knew that the FGA agents and board didn’t fully support everything that Saint Valentine has been doing, but murder?” Willow said, as though the act that she had witnessed was just setting in for her.

  “There’s a lot more at stake for FGA than love,” Mae Ling stated. “The current Saint Valentine’s administration has challenged traditions and ideology, and some hold onto that more than life itself.”

  “It would seem so if Agent Topaz was willing to murder someone,” Willow murmured, her eyes distant as the shock hit her fully.

  “I also think, after conducting the interviews and doing a full search of the campus,” Uncle John began, “that Paris was supposed to take the fall for this.” He gave his niece a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry, but I had to search your room.”

  Paris nodded, not at all put-off. “I understand.”

  The tension on his face deepened. “That’s when I found this.” Uncle John pulled a small clear pouch from his pocket. Inside and visible was something Paris recognized—deadly nightshade.

  “Wait!” Paris exclaimed. “That’s not mine!”

  “Dum-dum-dum!” Christine sang. “The plot thickens.”

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  “I didn’t think it was yours,” Uncle John said in a consoling voice. “I didn’t think you’d take the deadly nightshade. I know that I’m biased, but I knew you wouldn’t try and murder someone…well, on purpose.”

  He was alluding to Dash’s death, which she didn’t technically do, but his blood was sort of on her hands.

  “How did that get in Paris’ room?” Willow looked between Paris and her uncle.

  “I don’t know,” the detective answered. “I believe someone planted it to indict Paris for the murder. However, a recent conversation with Hemingway about the deadly nightshade got me thinking. I did some research on demon blood and found something of particular interest.”

  “Demons can’t touch deadly nightshade,” Mae Ling cut in.

  Uncle John nodded. “Yes, I found it interesting when Hemingway explained that Paris’ demon blood had caused the deadly nightshade to start popping up. That’s when I went to her father, Stefan, who is a demon hunter. He explained that before he could sense a demon to track them down, he would look for deadly nightshade, knowing that meant a demon was close by. However, ironically, the plant can be used to weaken the demons. He used to break down the plant and dip his weapons
in it. Then he got bitten and couldn’t touch the stuff because it also caused him pain. Most wouldn’t know this information even if they knew Paris had demon blood since it’s very specialized knowledge.”

  “Like someone who was trying to frame Paris by planting the deadly nightshade in her room,” Christine interjected in sudden realization.

  “Exactly,” Uncle John confirmed. “Touching the plant doesn’t harm others. It’s only when they ingest it.” He withdrew a black berry from the pouch and held it out in the palm of his hand. “If my suspicion is correct, Paris won’t be able to touch this.” He offered his niece a regretful look. “I’m sorry, Pare, but I need you to touch this.”

  She stood, nodding. “It’s okay. It will only hurt, right?”

  “Yes, Stefan said it wouldn’t cause lasting damage.” Uncle John answered.

  Paris swallowed, extended her hand, and cautiously placed her fingertips on the berry. Immediately, her hand seared as if she’d suddenly touched fire. Smoke billowed up from the berry, and Paris yanked her hand back, hissing from the pain.

  Uncle John also pulled his hand away, putting the deadly nightshade back into the bag. “I’m sorry, but that confirms my point. There’s no way that Paris stole or created the poison.”

  “So Agent Topaz murdered someone and framed Paris for it,” the headmistress said, shaking her head.

  “I believe so, but we will have to try him before we can fully confirm it. I’ll need to take him into custody with your permission,” Uncle John stated with confidence.

  Willow gave Mae Ling a sturdy expression. “Please open a portal for the FLEA officers. It appears that they need to make an arrest.

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  The entire school was gathered on the Enchanted Grounds when the officers from the Fairy Law Enforcement Agency led Agent Topaz out of the mansion and down the long walk.