Better 'Ink Twice

by Rachel Rawlings

  A lot of risk with very little reward.

  “Bottoms up.” I calculated those risks, raised the teacup to my lips and drained almost all of its contents. I swirled what little tea remained in the cup, along with the grounds in a counter-clockwise motion.

  Margret took the cup from me after I completed the third swirl, but instead of analyzing the bits of tea leaves clung to the side of the porcelain teacup, she set it down on the placemat in front of her and covered the cup with a linen napkin. “Everything you want to know is already here.”

  “You’re not going to read the leaves?” I asked, confounded by Margret’s elaborate tea ceremony followed by an abrupt close. I looked over my shoulder at Lars and Nicholas. Both wore similar looks of confusion to mine.

  “The leaves can’t tell me what you need to know.” She waved a hand erratically, gesturing to everything on the table. “Sorry about the ruse but I needed it to look like you were waiting for an appointment. Mundanes book the bed and breakfast which supplements my income. My skills in tesseomancy are well known in the community and I’ve taken on all sorts of clients.” She gave a little wink in my direction. “No one will question your visit and if they should, you won’t really be lying about the tea.”

  Nicholas cleared his throat and interjected himself in the conversation. “You own Crane House? I thought it was a Magistrate establishment?”

  Margret laughed. “Well, it would have been a fool’s errand to come here if it was.” She reached for a new teacup off the wicker service cart beside her and filled it to the brim with tea. She eyed me over the rim of the cup as she blew off the steam and took a sip before setting it down on the table across from mine. “I admit, I was surprised when Nicholas called to make a reservation. I haven’t seen or heard from a Marks since... Well, it’s been a long time. Grim and Vincent kept too many secrets.”

  “You think?” I struggled to hold back the sarcasm. I thought Grim was an open book but since his death, the revelations came one after another. Part of me wanted, needed, to hear whatever it was Margret knew about Grim. The other part? Well, it wanted to cover my ears, scream “I’m not listening,” and run out of the room.

  “The truth can be uncomfortable, often unbearable, but we still need to hear it.” Margret pulled an envelope from her lap and set it on the table. There was a slight tremor in her hand as she shoved the worn stationary across the table. “Things will be different. You will be different. But how different? That’s up to you.”

  I reached for the envelope, but Margret clasped a hand over mine, trapping the letter beneath them on the table. “Try no to judge them too harshly.” Margret glanced between Nicholas and I. “Everything they ever did, they did out of love for you.” She let go of my hand and went back to her tea, taking a sip before addressing Lars. “Keep an eye on her. Grim’s faith wasn’t misplaced. No matter how difficult she makes it.”

  Margret finished her tea while the three of us stared at the envelope with trepidation and the expectation the specter of Grim or Vincent would apparate from within its folded pages at any moment. She left us to read the letter in private. There were no secrets with a clairvoyant of Margret’s caliber. Whatever the letter, she knew or would know before we left Crane House.

  “You open it.” I held out the letter to Lars but he wouldn’t take it. “Chicken.” I tore open the end of the envelope, careful to avoid tearing the letter inside, and unfolded a single page that had in fact been addressed to me.

  Adeline,

  If this letter reached you, you’re in Crane House with Margret. She’s a powerful ally, so be sure to stay on her good side. You’ve received more than one letter from me since my death but this will be the last. Ironic that I am writing it first.

  There are things I probably never got around to teaching you but in truth, you never needed me to teach you anything. Your skills were Goddess given. All you needed was a guiding hand. My journals and spellbooks are in the shop. If you can sit still long enough, you’ll find them and all the wards we never covered.

  But a word of caution. If you’re half the witch I think you are, there may be only one. A reversal. Unraveling a ward isn’t something a warder typically does. In fact, I’ve only ever been asked to perform it once. A request that altered the course of all our lives and set me on a path back to Margret. I just didn’t know it at the time. I should have said no but Vincent needed my help and I have never turned my back on a friend. I only wish Margret saw you in my future sooner. Maybe things would have been different.

  You’re stronger than I ever was and that makes you a target. I don’t know how many years we have left together. Just know I cherished every one. From the first time I saw you, covered in dirt, half-starved, and drained of magic... it didn’t matter. I saw the potential. Saw what you could be, so much better than me. I was lost before I found you, hiding what and who I was in a mundane tattoo shop. I didn’t know how far I strayed from the Goddess, from my magic, until she put you in my path and gave me a purpose.

  Drink the tea. Listen to Margret’s reading. It just may save your life even if it couldn’t save mine.

  Grim

  Every word he wrote felt like a sucker punch to the gut. Margret’s name raced through my mind before it tore from my lips in a scream that left my throat raw and my voice hoarse. Grim’s letter confirmed everything.

  “You could have simply rung the bell.” Margret pointed to a silver bell resting on the trolley, the slightest hint of a smirk on her face. “It seems that Grim scheduled an appointment for you after all.” She picked up my teacup and examined the bits and pieces of leaves plastered to the sides. She sucked a breath of air between her teeth and made a tsking sound.

  “Darling girl...you are Grim’s daughter in everything but blood. Like any child, destined to follow in her parent’s footsteps. The Goddess set you on this path, only I fear not to repeat history but to unravel it.”

  Magical energy built within me at a molecular level. Static charged the air, raising my hair on end like a Van de Graaf generator. I hadn’t lost control of my magic since elementary school but the vague letters, readings, and clues were too much. “Margret,” I warned as Lars and Nicholas clamped a hand on either shoulder and held me down in my chair.

  “Alright, alright.” She sat back with a huff. “I admit, I have a flair for the dramatic. If you thought your life was bad before,” Margret laughed, “well, buckle up dear. It’s about to get a whole lot worse. Grim had a tendency to block me during a reading. He didn’t do it intentionally but there was always something in the way, something that kept me from seeing the full picture. Eventually, I stopped reading him. We had our time together and then it ended. Several years ago, he came to me and asked for a reading. I hadn’t heard from him since... Well, Nicholas’s first moon ceremony.” She paused a bit, waiting for us to make the connection. It didn’t take long before she recognized the realization in our eyes.

  Something happened between Vincent and Grim the night Nicholas was dedicated to the Goddess.

  Margret continued, “I adored Grim. There was a spark between us, something drawing our magic together. I could never refuse him anything.” She talked of Grim the way an aging woman reminisced over lost lovers.

  I tamped my magic back down past my gag reflex and tried to scrub the images of Grim and Margret as a couple from my mind. Her romantic portrayal combined with the emotional letters he’d left behind warred with the gruff and gritty tattooing warder who practically raised me.

  “After that, Grim came to see me once a month. Mostly to ask about you.” Margret smiled but there was a hint of jealousy in the tone of her voice and the curve of her mouth. “What could I see of you in his future? Always so vague, but he held a detailed question in his mind while he drank the tea. It was enough to get an answer that satisfied him. Until one day it wasn’t. Vincent came through in a reading. It seemed their paths would cross again.” She shook her head.

  “Grim became enraged. Did I see anyth
ing that could place Vincent in the reading? He wanted me to time stamp it. The when and where of it all. Did I see anyone from the Magistrate with him? Did I see anyone from the Magistrate at all?”

  Lars asked the question I most wanted to know the answer to before I had the chance. “Did you? See anyone from the Magistrate?”

  “No.” Margert stared at her hands folded in her lap. “There was only Vincent and I couldn’t see what he wanted me to see. I couldn’t tell him when their paths would cross or even where. Just that they would.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “That was the last time I saw him. Maybe the last time anyone saw him if the death announcement was correct.”

  Margret looked me in the eye and outright lied. She didn’t believe she was the last person to see Grim alive any more than I did. Grim didn’t die of natural causes or in an accident. Someone saw him after he left Crane House.

  And if her reading was correct, we knew exactly who it was.

  Chapter Six

  I stood, abruptly ending my reading with Margret. Whatever else she had to say could wait. My world had been rocked enough for one day. Lars and I always assumed the Magistrate was behind Grim’s death. In our line of work, as warders, it made the most sense.

  But was that what his murderer wanted us to believe? A convenient cover to hide the truth behind his death?

  “You’ll have to excuse me.” I pushed my chair back and headed for my room.

  Nicholas moved to stop me but pulled his hand back under my accusatory glare. Visibly pale and shaken, it seemed he came to the same conclusion I had.

  Victor Marks was the last person to see Grim alive.

  Lars jumped up from his spot on the settee and followed me upstairs. After making a quick detour to his room, he joined me in mine and tossed his pile of letters on the bed. “We need to go through all of these. We need to know why. Why Victor, what did he want?”

  “I don’t know, Lars.” I slipped the black hair tie from around my wrist and pulled my hair up in a messy bun. “We came here to look for answers and all we’ve found is more questions. What happened the night of Nicholas’s first moon ceremony that drove a wedge between Grim, Vincent, and Margret? Did Vincent have something to do with Grim’s death?”

  The light filtering in through the crack under the bedroom door flickered before disappearing altogether. Someone was hovering just outside my bedroom. There were only two options. Margret or Nicholas.

  The light returned to normal when Lars replied, “It’s starting to look that way to me.”

  If Margret came to my room to eavesdrop, she wouldn’t have bolted at the first mention of Victor as a new suspect in Grim’s death. That left Nicholas— who idolized his father and no doubt struggled with the new developments as much as we did. I wanted to go after him, to stop him in the hall and console him, but the part of my brain not controlled by emotions overruled my heart.

  I needed to think.

  My best thinking was done in the chair at Something To ‘Ink About, the soft hum of a tattoo machine white noise vibrating through my mind. My second-best thinking was done soaking in a tub. Since I was without my equipment, a client, or a tattoo studio, a bubble bath would have to suffice.

  “I’m taking a bath.”

  To his credit, Lars never questioned my methods or process. “If you need me, I’ll be downstairs in the lounge.” He took his stack of letters and left me to my thoughts.

  I made a beeline to the bathroom and turned the hot water on for the tub. The bath bombs caught my eye again, beckoning me with their sweet scent and pastel colors. Before I made my final selection from the basket sitting on the top of the toilet tank lid, I performed a simple intention spell.

  It’s only paranoia when people aren’t actually out to get you.

  “Purple it is.” The soft smell of honeysuckle rose up from the tub as soon as the bath bomb hit the water. Within moments, I’d stripped out of my clothes and submersed myself in water hot enough to turn my skin one shade shy of lobster.

  And there I stayed until the water went cold, my toes resembled prunes, and the last letter in my to be read pile had been finished. Every bit of correspondence, no matter how irrelevant, between Vincent and Grim, every piece of advice he’d ever given me, everything I’d gleaned from my reading with Margret swirled around inside the blender of chaos that had once been my brain.

  Most of the letters were droll, dry, dull and any other D-word that could be used to describe utter uselessness. I knew more about the weather, life on campus versus life outside it, and the general art of small talk than ever before but none of it gave me a clue as to what happened the night of Nicholas’s dedication ceremony, the rift between three close friends, Grim’s death, and Vincent’s role in it.

  Or what any of those things had to do with Winslow’s political power grab and the Magistrate’s campaign against warders. Oh, and the small matter of Winslow’s willingness to circumvent the Magistrate, use my skills, and then discard of any evidence— i.e. me.

  Frustrated the answers eluded me, I got out of the tub and wrapped a towel around myself. I started toweling dry my hair when there was a knock at the door. I assumed it was Lars and opened it without giving the limited amount of terry cloth covering my body any thought.

  You know what they say about assuming...

  “Hey, I finished my letters. Ready to—” I swung the door open, stopping short when Nicholas, not Lars, stood on the other side. “Switch?”

  Nicholas remained in the hall, eyes wide, mouth agape with half a dozen or so letters in his hand. “I, uh...” he cleared his throat and tried to regain his composure. “I’m done with these. I thought you might want to have a look at them.”

  “Only six?” I asked while silently praying the tucked-in corner of my towel held as I reached for the letters.

  His eyes roamed every inch of exposed skin, analyzing wards he had yet to see. To his credit, he tried more than once to look me in the eyes but continued to drop his gaze and peruse the gallery permanently etched on my skin. Under normal circumstances, one would expect a man to ogle a woman’s mostly naked body for other reasons.

  Nicholas and I were far from normal.

  He reached for my arm and turned it slightly to the left for a better look at my phoenix tattoo, previously covered by long sleeve shirts since its completion. “You didn’t imbue this one?”

  “No.” I pulled my arm back and wrapped it around my midsection. “This tattoo wasn’t about binding magic or for protection.” I glanced down at my body. “I’ve got plenty of those already. This is a reminder. Not just for Karen’s memory but the Magistrate and what they’ve done to us. All of us.”

  “If the Magistrate goes away, you’ll be out of a job.” Nicholas smiled, his eyes still fixed on my arm though he couldn’t see the phoenix anymore. “But, you wouldn’t be on the run. You wouldn’t have to hide what you are.”

  “None of us would. That’s the point. Believe me, I would much rather be tattooing simple protection wards than binding my dual-natured clients.” I bumped the door with my hip, opening it all the way. “There’s no point having this conversation in the hall while one of us is only wearing a towel. You might as well come in. I’ll get dressed in the bathroom.”

  Nicholas hesitated in the doorway. “I want that for you.”

  “What? For me to get dressed?” I asked in mock offense. “Well, Mr. Marks, you sure know how to flatter a girl.”

  “Trust me, the state of your undress isn’t a problem.” He shook his head and laughed. “Or maybe it is a problem, but one I’m willing to work on. Together.”

  My cheeks warmed and no doubt reddened as I blushed from his comment. We’d been dancing around the attraction for weeks, staving off any relationship as we moved from one phase of crisis to another. But it was there and it was harder to deny with each passing day. His magnetic pull drew me in, and without realizing it, I stepped closer. Nicholas leaned in for a kiss, but his lips barely brushed mine befo
re he pulled back.

  “I saw the way you and Lars looked at each other when Margret mentioned my father.” Nicholas rested his forehead against mine. “What if he—”

  “We’ll figure it out. Margret’s a clairvoyant. It’s practically her job to talk in circles and half-truths.” I tilted my head up enough that our lips were touching again. “No one is going to blame you for what your father did. If he did anything at all.”

  “That’s easy to say now.” He stepped back, a cold draft rushing in to replace the warmth from his body so close to mine. “People keep secrets for a reason, Adeline. You may not like what you find.”

  Something in his voice, in the distance he put between us before talking about secrets, made me question whether Nicholas had discovered something after all. I looked at the letters still clutched in my hand as he turned and started back down the hall.

  “I’m going to go get cleaned up. I still have the appointment at the seminary.” Nicholas didn’t look back, just kept walking in the direction of his room and the bathroom down the hall.

  “Hey, I think I used all the hot water.” That wasn’t what I planned to say. I wanted to call him back, to ask a multitude of questions and press him for more but instead, I let him go. Whatever he uncovered was in the letters he gave me.

  “I could use a cold shower now anyway,” Nicholas replied without so much as looking back over his shoulder at me.

  ***

  Lars knocked on my door an hour or so later with a disappointed look on his face. “There’s nothing useful in here.” He sounded as frustrated as I felt.

  None of the letters I read in my original stack or the letters Nicholas gave me had anything valuable in them. “So why go to all the trouble of locking them away? If they’re just a bunch of ordinary letters between friends?”