‘That’s because I don’t know all the rules, okay?’
“That doesn’t even make sense.” She slid the fingerprint in front of the black oval window in the drawer and stood aside. “You’ve been doing this for centuries, right?”
‘Try millennia.’
“Even worse. Literally any other magical would agree with me when I say that’s plenty of time to figure out what the hell you’re doing.”
‘Do you really think I’ve had experience with any of this before? It’s a first for me too. Coin comes out of the box, fae guy handles it in all the wrong ways, and bam. First phase of the reckoning I didn’t even know about. Mostly.’
The drawer slid open with a bang, and Jessica couldn’t help the small laugh escaping her. Looked like they were back on track for the witching vault doing its job.
‘Yeah, because we’re closer to figuring out what we have to do next.’
“No we aren’t. I couldn’t find a single thing about how to fix…you. And then here you are, the little voice inside my head popping back on because I went out and got hammered. How is that us figuring out anything?” She peered over the side of the open drawer and found a white leather Dior handbag. “Seriously? The elf can’t leave her three-thousand-dollar purse in the vault because the reckoning started?”
‘Hey, forget the purse.’
“Sure. But this is still part of the job—”
‘Just listen to me!’
The pendant blazed hot against Jessica’s chest, and she gripped the edge of the elf woman’s safety-deposit box before doubling over at the pain. The pendant swung away from her chest and dangled there in front of her face. “I am listening. But you don’t get to just jolt me a surface burn whenever you feel like it.”
‘Sure I do. Maybe if you’d listened to me earlier and checked out that green-fire burn, it wouldn’t have hurt so bad.’
Taking a deep breath, Jessica gingerly tested the glass pendant. It was cool to the touch, so she straightened again and let it fall against her residually burning chest. “Just tell me what you need to tell me.”
‘I’m trying.’ A small hum wove through Jessica’s mind. ‘Your memories. The missing ones.’
“We’ve already been over this.” She reached over the side of the open drawer and grabbed the handles of the elf woman’s massively expensive handbag. “I didn’t know they were missing memories until two days ago. So I don’t have answers for you either.”
‘That’s not what I’m saying.’
Jessica slammed the deposit drawer shut with a bang, and the oval window pulsed once with green light. Trying to anticipate another unwarranted attack, she glanced down at the glistening black floors, but the only bursts of green light came from her small footsteps backward. No urgent pulse. No warning ripple outward before the witching vault tried to bash her brains out against the walls.
‘That’s not what it was trying to do, either. I think.’
“Okay, I admit I actually missed your voice in my head for a day. But if you can’t start making sense, what’s the point?”
‘Jessica. Your memories. My magic. I think they’re connected.’
She paused halfway to the door and cocked her head. “Why?”
‘That’s the big missing piece, isn’t it?’
“I didn’t even know these memories were missing two weeks ago when you chose me for this job. It shouldn’t matter.”
‘But it does. Look, you have missing parts of you. So do I.’
“Like all the things you can’t talk about without shorting out like a bad cell connection.”
‘Well yeah. That’s part of it. But I didn’t just appear out of thin air, witch. Someone made me. Intentionally.’
Hey, at least the bank didn’t think it was a mistake.
‘I heard that.’
“Great.” Jessica stalked toward the witching vault’s door. “So what about the someone who made you?”
‘That’s what I’m getting at. This vault closed up on its own the first time. Maybe because of something you did—’
“Come on. You can’t blame me for that.”
‘What did you eat for breakfast that day?’
She rolled her eyes, opened the door, and stepped into the hall. The bank closed the door behind her again as an apparent afterthought. Don’t try to tell me what I eat has an effect on whether or not your magic’s broken.
‘I’m just spit-balling here. But seriously, think about it. I get you in here, little convict witch with her magic broken—’
“It’s not broken,” Jessica muttered under breath.
‘Broken. Removed. Same thing. It doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to. And then I start falling apart? Not literally, of course…’
She plastered another smile onto her face when she stepped into the lobby, lifting the heavy, expensive handbag out to the side. “This is everything, right?”
The elf woman looked Jessica up and down with her lips still pinched together. “You must be joking.”
“No, I’m really not in a joking mood right now.”
The woman scoffed. “Yes, it’s everything. I do hope you make it a habit of paying more attention to detail. If there were anything else in there, it’s your job to make sure you find it.”
Jessica dropped the bag onto the desk with a thump, then handed over the sheet of paper now without a fingerprint but turned a bright emerald-green. “And that concludes our business. Have a nice day.”
“As soon as I leave.” With a final sweeping glance around the lobby, the elf dragged her handbag off the desk and slung it over the shoulder of her faux-fur jacket. Her nostrils flared again, and she let out a derisive humph before hurrying toward the front door.
The bell jingled on its string and clacked against the frosted glass as the door shut behind the day’s first customer.
Sinking into the rolling desk chair behind her again, Jessica sighed and gave the growing pain in her head a quick massage. “So one elf gets to withdraw her things from the vault. Does that mean we’re officially back in business?”
‘We were never really out of it.’
“You know what I mean.”
‘Look, I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this, but I know just about as much as you do at this point.’
“And you expect me to believe the vault just suddenly decided to cooperate so we could get that purse out of the drawer and the elf out of the bank?”
‘Well, we could start with the fact that she wasn’t keeping anything dangerous, life-threatening, explosive, or related to opening the Gateway in said purse. How’s that for starters?’
Jessica sat up in the chair and scooted toward the desk, her eyes wide. “You’re saying the vault’s discriminating now?”
‘Big surprise that you’re not on the naughty list, right?’
She puffed out a sigh and scanned the lobby. “So that orc the other day—”
‘The one in the alley?’
“No. The one in the lobby. He wanted to empty out his box. But that was a no-go. So…what? You’re only letting benign magicals make transactions now?”
‘Jeeze, it’s like we’re in a broken-record fight.’
Jessica snorted.
‘Listen to me. I’m. Not. Doing. This. How much clearer do I have to make it?’
“You’re a magical bank talking in my head, who swallows up dead bodies and spits the occasional bloody clue back out again so I can take a hint. You wiped me off the records map. Got rid of my felony and any trace of me in the legal system. And I’m supposed to just take your word for it that you’re not in control anymore?”
Now that she said it out loud, it was a hell of a position to find herself in. And if that really was what the bank was trying to tell her, that meant someone else on the outside—literally—had way more control over this place than anyone but Jessica had to a right to manipulate.
‘Okay, let me stop you right there.’ The bank let out a massive sigh that made her eyel
id twitch. ‘I’m still in total control of myself, so you don’t have to worry about talking to, like, a puppet or anything.’
“I’m pretty sure I’m the puppet when we’re in a magic fight.”
‘Ha-ha. Good one. Look, I’m talking about the founders’ magic, okay? The stuff that built me. Same stuff that stuck the you-know-what upstairs next to your room and thought it’d be a good idea to tie me to an owner’s life force for the rest of my existence. And theirs. Get it?’
Jessica crossed one leg over the other and folded her arms. “You’re being dragged along by the magic that built you.”
‘Well when you put it that way, it sounds completely ridiculous.’
She smirked and closed her eyes.
‘First time for everything, though. I know enough about myself and how all this works to say you shouldn’t have taken that coin out of the fae’s box.’
“Not this again…”
‘But hey, I was wrong, okay? You handled it fairly well. After I stepped in and took over your body for a few seconds. No big deal.’
Jessica spun back and forth in the chair, gripping the armrests and staring at the front door. “Get to the point.”
‘Yeah, quit interrupting me, and maybe I will.’ The bank took a deep breath and blew it out again in a rushing whir. Which was starting to become less strange despite its lack of mouth, lungs, and actual breath. ‘I wasn’t ready for the reckoning. You weren’t ready for the reckoning. And somehow, we’re both still alive. Well…you are, anyway. And I’m not infested with a bunch of greedy asshats who only want me for my portal. I have feelings too. And I’m made up of a lot more than just a creepy doorway in the hall that leads to a different world…’
“Wait.” She sat up straighter in the office chair, but the bank just kept yammering away.
‘But you had to take out the coin. That was the first magical domino.’
“Hold on a second—”
‘What’s the next one? I have no idea. But the second you started reconsidering that stupid choice you made to stick the best magical parts of you in a little tin box, my lights turned back on. So to speak. And now I have to explain this whole situation like I’m talking to a baby mouse instead of a fully grown witch who can understand the words coming out of my… Well, the words in your head.’
Jessica’s knowing smile slowly returned. “Without shorting out.”
‘Huh?’
“You’ve been talking about the magic that built you and this first phase of the reckoning, whatever it is, and the Gateway. Without going all staticky.”
The bank was silent for a moment, then a small, uncertain whine filled Jessica’s head.
‘Huh. Yeah, I have absolutely no idea how that’s even possible.’
“Maybe it was something we did.” She shrugged. “Or maybe we just needed a few weeks for this reckoning whatever-the-hell to kick into gear so we can move on to the next phase.”
‘Don’t ask me what that is, witch. Can’t help you there.’
That was fine. Because now there was actually a thread of hope with this whole messed-up situation. If the bank could start coherently talking about its purpose for the first time in millennia without freaking out and running around in proverbial circles, then it could actually help Jessica figure out how to keep this place from getting into the wrong hands. Maybe even turn this whole mess back around and call off the reckoning altogether. Maybe Jessica didn’t have to finish what she’d started…
‘Okay, don’t take it that far. There’s no going back from what you did.’
She chuckled. “Are you sure?”
‘One hundred percent. Serves you right for ignoring my warnings, anyway. But you’re right. We’re getting somewhere. And now you need to figure out what those lost memories are that you were never supposed to get back.’
Slowly scooting the chair toward the desk, Jessica wrinkled her nose at the ceiling. “Why?”
‘Hello? Because I can’t do what I’m supposed to do with missing magic, and you can’t do what you’re supposed to do with a big-ass gap in your timeline. Why is this so hard to understand?’
No. Whatever memories Jessica had had stripped from her own mind, those were gone for a reason. Just like the most potent aspects of her magic.
‘And I’m telling you those need to be reabsorbed. Or whatever you wanna call it.’
“That’s not gonna happen.”
‘Why the hell not? You’ve been asking for answers for weeks, and now that I’m giving them to you on a proverbial silver platter, you’re just gonna tell me flat-out no?’
A shadow darkened in front of the frosted-glass window in the front door, and Jessica was already on her feet by the time the metal crow reanimated and let out its warning caw. “That’s pretty much it, yeah.”
The bank growled in her head, and the noise made her woozy all over again. She steadied herself with both hands on the desk and hunched her shoulders, trying to settle down and regain her balance.
‘I can make it a lot worse than that, too. You don’t get to say no anymore, Jessica. We’re in this together. I chose you. You signed the contract.’
“I’m not picking up that box to undo the Shattering,” she muttered as the front door opened with the jingle of the bell.
‘You’re scared. I get it. I mean, no, I’m not exactly sure what being scared really feels like, but there’s no reason for you to go there now. Not with me. We still have a long way to go, and I wanna hear you tell me yes for once. So how about it?’
Jessica slowly lifted her head to look at the newest customer stepping through the front door of Winthrop & Dirledge and froze.
‘Jessica?’
Her entire body ran cold at the sight of that fucking know-it-all smirk she’d planned to never see again for the rest of her life.
No.
Chapter Twenty
‘Wrong!’ the bank shouted in her mind. ‘I already said you don’t get to say no anymore. Especially not when I’m right here telling you we have an actual shot at handling this shitshow you unleashed with your stubborn—’
Shut up. If Jessica could have hissed in her mind, she would have.
‘Why? Because we have a client? I know you too well already, witch. You don’t give a shit about—oh.’
Yeah, big oh. It had taken the bank long enough to pull up that little nugget of familiarity from her mind, and Jessica really didn’t think she would’ve been able to explain in that moment anyway. Because now she was staring at the dark, sharp features of Mickey Hargraves himself.
Her old boss looked right back at her with that stupid smirk, and his brows flickered together. Then he glanced over his shoulder at the bank’s front door as it closed, as if he’d actually thought he’d stepped into the wrong establishment.
Honestly, he had. Tabitha might’ve put up with his bullshit—though the scryer hadn’t said a word about knowing the asshole, and why would she have?—but Jessica wasn’t having any of it.
She pointed at the door, and the sound coming out of her own mouth sounded like some angry, feral animal. “Get the fuck out.”
“Jessica.” Mickey chuckled as he pulled off his driving gloves and shoved them into the pocket of his navy peacoat. The same damn jacket everyone in Corpus had pitched in to buy him three years ago for Christmas, despite the fact that most of them didn’t even celebrate Christmas among themselves. But Mickey did. And Mickey always got what he wanted, didn’t he?
Not today.
“I can’t exactly say I expected to find you here,” he added, gazing around the lobby with wide eyes.
“Whatever you think you need in here, you don’t.” Jessica hadn’t lowered her hand, and they both realized at the same time that she was still pointing at the door. “I said get out.”
“Seriously? That’s the worst way to greet an old friend—”
“Fuck you.”
The slimeball Matahg stopped dead in his tracks, his fake-ass smile diminishing visibly. “Come on, J
ess—”
“Don’t say my name. Don’t even look at me.”
“You’re being particularly abrasive.”
“To the scum of the earth who set me up and ruined my life?” She snorted. “Abrasive is the least of it.”
“Please.” Mickey rolled his eyes and headed toward her again. “You’re the only one responsible for ruining your life.”
“I didn’t betray myself, Mickey. That was all you.”
He held her gaze as he approached and finally stopped a good four feet away from the desk. Good for him, because if he’d gotten any closer, she would’ve torn his fucking eyes out. For a moment, they just stared at each other, then he dipped his head. “And you took it like a champ.”
“Jesus Christ.” She studied her old boss’ face, completely at a loss for words.
‘Want me to kick his ass?’
Butt out, bank. This has nothing to do with you.
‘It does when your pulse just blasted through the roof and you ran through at least five different ways to commit revenge murder. All of them quite satisfying, I might add—’
“You really need to get out,” Jessica hissed, unsure whether she was talking to Mickey or the bank or both.
The man who’d framed her for murder and turned her in to MJC custody without so much as blinking didn’t blink now, either. But his smile returned. “Just like you did, huh? After all the evidence stacked against you, I was sure you’d be in MJ Pen for the full five years.”
She cocked her head, daring him to step closer and see what happened. “Sorry to disappoint.”
Mickey squinted at her and leaned slightly forward. “No you’re not. You’ve disappointed me so many times, Jess, but you were never sorry.”
The fucking nerve of this guy…
Jessica’s hands clenched into fists at her sides, and she funneled all the strength she had left into holding back. With all her magic intact and the element of surprise, she could have blasted his ass across the lobby, and Mickey Hargraves would have been nothing but ash and dust before he ever hit the wall. Trying that now would only make this an even bigger joke than it already was.
The Cursed Fae (Accessory to Magic Book 2) Page 18
