by Nova Nelson
Donovan shrugged. “I don’t have any answers for you on that.”
“That’s okay. I have a plan. You in?”
“Depends on what the plan is.”
“I book a room at the Ram’s Head Inn, and—”
“I’m in.” He stood up. “When do we leave?”
“Definitely not until I finish my food. But don’t get too excited. It’s for surveillance purposes.”
He waved that off. “That won’t take all night.” He nodded at my remaining food. “Finish that up, then let’s get going. Would be a shame to waste a second that could be used for… surveillance.” He made a show of surveilling me, and I rolled my eyes.
But still, I hurried and finished my food. I was focused on solving this case, sure. But a gal’s also gotta have some R&R.
I didn’t even bother asking Grim if he would come. The gagging noises issuing from him after Donovan’s comment said it all.
Chapter Eighteen
Room six at the Ram’s Head Inn was available, which was lucky. It meant we shared a wall with Leonardo and Serena. But, as we quickly found out, the walls were most definitely made of stone and no sound made it through from their room. That was probably just as well, since there was no telling what Donovan and I might hear that we definitely didn’t want to. They were, after all, clearly in love—they may have been lying about other things, but anyone could see that part was true.
I should have known it would be futile to book a room with him and stay focused on the job. But keeping an eye on Leonardo and Serena came first. I had a sneaking suspicion that at some point in the course of the night, one of them would be leaving the room.
“Not now, Donovan,” I said, batting his hand off of my arm as the two of us reclined on top of the quilt, leaning against the solid oak headboard.
“Why not? It’s almost one in the morning. They’re probably just sleeping. And if I’m not allowed to do the same…”
“I’m never taking you on a stakeout again,” I muttered.
But what can I say? It was late, my resolve had thinned, and before I knew it, my ability to deny Donovan was gone.
The bed squeaked beneath us as his overeager kissing turned into a frenzy. But then, I heard something else squeak from out in the hallway. It took a minute for my brain to process, what with all the other sensory input flooding it, and when it did, I shoved Donovan off of me and jumped up. Thankfully, there was no dressing needed, besides my boots and jacket, and I hurriedly slipped those on and turned to stare at him. “You coming?”
He looked like at me like I was speaking gibberish. “Wha— where are we going?”
“Someone just walked out of your brother’s room. We’re going to follow.”
He groaned slightly as he got to his feet. “Fine.”
By the time he had his boots and coat on, I was worried we wouldn’t be able to find who had left and where they’d gone.
But as we stepped out into the dark night, I spotted movement all the way up the street, heading toward the heart of town.
But who was it? Serena? Leonardo? The Fifth Wind?
They turned a corner and I grabbed Donovan’s arm and practically dragged him along. “Come on.” I would have been better off bringing Grim. Sure, he would have griped at me and insisted on taking Monster with us, and he’d probably have expected all kinds of bribes, but at least he wouldn’t have distracted me with a make-out session and then dragged his feet when it came time to hustle.
We hurried as fast as we could without our footfalls echoing loudly down the empty street.
Our pursuit ended in Fulcrum Park.
Standing just at the edge of a streetlamp’s glow stood Leonardo Stringfellow, his hands jammed in his coat pockets, his collar pulled up to partially obscure his face. He bounced on his toes as he twisted to look around, and I wasn’t sure if he was cold, nervous, or both.
We crouched low behind a thick row of hedges and peered out.
“What’s he doing?” Donovan whispered.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” I replied.
Minutes passed, and as he pulled out a pocket watch, holding it close to his face before jamming it away again, it became clear he was waiting for someone. But who?
Malavic, I thought on instinct, then tried to clear it from my mind. My bias was surely going to get me in trouble one day.
But wait, could it be the Fifth Wind? Could he be in league with Leonardo? Could Leonardo have paid him to spy on me?
Before my speculation could gain its footing, I heard the footsteps approach from somewhere in the blackness of night. They had the confident, clear rhythm of someone who felt like they belonged wherever they were, not those of a creeping stranger from out of town.
But from which direction? Fulcrum Park was in the very middle of Eastwind, and the town itself was constructed as a series of concentric circles with multiple spokes cutting through to the geographic center point. That meant it was difficult with the sounds bouncing around to even be sure whoever it was wasn’t approaching from behind us.
Leonardo wasn’t sure which way to look either. His head swiveled in all directions.
“Ah,” he said, “there you are. I was waiting, and I thought you would stand me up.”
“I should have. You’re a fool for arranging this, and I’m clearly a fool for agreeing.”
I recognized the voice just a moment before Ezra Ares stepped into the same splotch of light as Leonardo.
“This whole thing is foolish,” Ezra went on. “I don’t think you know what you’re asking for.”
“I know exactly what I’m asking for,” Leonardo replied petulantly. “Just because you have experience with it doesn’t make you the expert on it. And it definitely doesn’t make you the guardian of it, the one to dole out the secrets or not.”
Ezra held up his hands. “Not what I think at all. I’m just significantly older and wiser than you, and I thought I’d give a final warning so no one could say I hadn’t.”
“I can stop if I decide I don’t like it.”
“In theory, yes,” said Ezra, “but in practice… it’s not that easy. You don’t pick up where you left off. You pick up where you would have been if you’d never stopped. And it doesn’t happen gracefully, I can tell you that. I’ve never tried it, but I’ve seen others who have.”
I struggled to sift through their cryptic words to uncover the string that tied it all together. Was this some sort of a witch drug deal we were watching? Was that even a thing?
Leonardo shrugged off the South Wind’s warning.
“I hope you have a good reason for dabbling in this.”
“It’s not dabbling, and I do.”
“And that is?”
“Her. Serena. You saw her.”
“Ah yes.” Ezra sighed. “The elf. I should have guessed. But while that makes sense, it doesn’t make this a less foolish decision.”
“Pardon me, Ares, but you have very little room to judge my motivations. You’ve been keeping this up for… how many years?”
“Too many,” he said, and his usually lively voice sounded distant. “And I did it for the wrong reasons.” He chuckled dryly. “Love. I suppose that’s as good a reason as any.”
From beside me, Donovan hissed, “What the fang are they talking about?” and I replied by slapping my hand over his mouth.
“Here’s the contact,” Ezra said, holding out a slip of parchment. “He knows to expect you.”
“He’s out of Avalon, right?”
“Yes. Not far from Edgewater.”
Leonardo looked down at the paper then up at Ezra. “And you promise you won’t tell anyone?”
“I won’t. But I also won’t have to. People will start to notice soon enough.”
“People can notice and gossip all they want. They do that enough about you, don’t they?”
Ezra nodded. “One last question for you before you go.”
Leonardo stiffened. “Okay. What’s that?”
&
nbsp; “How could someone with your reputation for intelligence have been so totally oblivious to your tail?” And then he pointed straight at the spot behind the hedges where Donovan and I were crouched.
Chapter Nineteen
“Swirls!” I hissed.
Donovan cast me a what-do-we-do? glance. But the jig was up. At least for one of us.
“Stay hidden,” I whispered. I was sure I could get much more information about the nature of this visit if Leonardo didn’t know his brother was around. “Good eye, Ezra,” I said, standing slowly.
The South Wind opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off. “It’s just me.” I shot him a look that I hoped he knew meant “please don’t say what you were about to say.”
Maybe it was because he’d been close with Ruby for so long and knew when it was time to play along with a Fifth Wind, but he nodded almost imperceptibly.
“Nora?” Leonardo asked. “What in the siren’s song are you doing here?”
“Spying on you,” I said. “I thought that was obvious.”
“And how much did you hear?”
“All of it. But don’t worry. I won’t tell. I just need an explanation.”
Ezra cleared his throat. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to get some sleep before work.”
I motioned for him to get on with his night, but Leonardo didn’t even spare him a glance. The East Wind’s eyes stayed locked onto me.
He seemed like a deer in the headlights, so I got him started with, “It’s not about the money, is it?”
He deflated as he said, “No. It’s not.”
“How much of what you told me was a lie?” I asked.
“Not that much,” he said, as if that made it better. “I did invest most of my money in a project that went bankrupt. But we’re not hard up. Serena comes from a lot of money.”
“So I’ve noticed. You two ought to have gotten your stories straighter. She wasn’t exactly frugal on our ladies’ day.”
He cursed under his breath. “I’m sure she thought she was. She just has very different ideas about how much things cost. She won’t stop talking about how cheap everything is here.”
We were getting off track. “Why don’t you spell out what this middle-of-the-night rendezvous is all about so I don’t have to keep guessing?”
Leonardo sighed, and I could sense the fight seeping out of him. I might have felt sorry for him if he hadn’t misled me so badly. “Okay. I didn’t come back to Eastwind for money.”
“Yep, we covered that already. What did you come back for?”
He held up the paper. “For this. For information. I— I can’t stand the thought of growing old while she stays young.”
“Serena?”
“Yes. I love her. More than I thought I could love anyone, actually. I knew there was a way to slow the aging process, but I didn’t know who to ask in Avalon. It’s illegal there.”
“And here,” I reminded him, “so I’m sure Ezra would appreciate it if you don’t implicate him in this.”
“Oh please. This whole town knows something’s going on with him. And it seems everyone’s long since turned a blind eye to it.”
“For now, sure,” I said. “People prefer rumors to truth, so I’m sure no one’s asked him outright, or if they have, they’ve been more than happy to accept whatever unicorn swirls he gave them. But if it gets out that a Stringfellow has beaten time, people might take a stricter interest in the truth.” I paused. “Wait, is this why you were meeting with Count Malavic? You thought he could… did you ask him to turn you?!”
“What? No! No, no, no.” He shook his head adamantly, then added, “Sure, the idea had occurred to me, but no. After Ezra and my uncle refused to help, I thought Malavic might have been around long enough and had dealings with enough shady people to know who to contact about this sort of thing.”
“You went to your uncle for this? What would he know about it?”
Leonardo looked around to make sure no one was around to overhear. But he obviously didn’t do a thorough job of it, skipping right over where his brother was still hiding. “He has a history of unsavory business practices. Officially, my grandparents stopped exporting Eastwind spring water when it became illegal. But everyone in the family knows he kept on doing it for years after that. It was part of why he claimed my grandparents’ fortune should go entirely to him. He made them quite a lot of money.”
“And then you killed him when he wouldn’t give you the information you were looking for?” I didn’t believe it, but I wanted to see his reaction.
He glared at me. “Of course not. I asked him if he had any connections that could help me out, and he accused me of spying for my parents to try to get dirt on him so they could take his money. I assured him that wasn’t the case. I’m not sure he believed me, but he said I ought to go talk to Malavic about it. So that’s what I did.”
“Sounds more like he was trying to get you into trouble with someone on the High Council than help you.”
“That could be the case. But either way, he was very alive when I left. He screamed at me to leave, so I did. I hurried my hide out and headed straight for Sheehan’s, where I’d planned to send an owl for Malavic to meet me. But he was already there.”
Of course he was. Being treasurer on the High Council reportedly paid like a full-time job, but it was hardly that. And since the count’s favorite pastime was orchestrating displays of emotionally charged chaos to keep him mildly entertained, he practically lived in the pub… when he wasn’t catching some beauty sleep in his coffin, that is.
The sudden smack of rushed footsteps coming from behind Leonardo yanked my attention toward the source. I turned just in time to see a massive shape lunging toward him.
“Watch out!” was hardly out of my lips before the thing was on him.
“Gaah!” Leonardo went down, the body of his uncle on top of him.
And just as quickly as Giovanni had appeared, Donovan was out from behind the hedges, sprinting over, spells shooting from his wand like they’d been just waiting to escape. But they hardly more than bounced off the dead man’s back.
I gripped my wand in my hand and could have snapped the thing in two for how much use it was giving me while Leonardo and Giovanni tussled on the ground, rolling, writhing.
“Hold still!” Donovan shouted.
His brother tried to say something, but two rotting fingers in his mouth put an end to that, and he gagged instead.
Finally Donovan managed something that sent Giovanni flying. The body hit a rock bench and crumpled, and I was sure the fight was over. But as Donovan knelt down by his brother (“Were you spying on me, too?” Leonardo snapped), the corpse got up and came back for more.
Donovan pulled Leonardo to his feet and together they shot spell after spell at the thing, streaks of green streaming from their wands and exploding off the shell of a man. At the last moment before Giovanni got a grip on Leonardo’s throat, another one of Donovan’s shots managed to work, sending the corpse through the air again to buy some time.
“My sleep spells aren’t working,” Donovan said. “Why aren’t they working?”
Leonardo didn’t answer, but I had an educated guess. “Because you’re not hitting the source. You’re only hitting a puppet.”
Ooh… I really don’t want to do this. I thought about the cricket. At least Giovanni’s rigor mortis hadn’t fully set in. I didn’t have to worry about snapped arms and legs…
I shut my eyes and did as Ruby had taught me, feeling dirty and hesitant every step of it.
Something was blocking me from moving on, though.
Oh right.
I pulled off the staurolite pendant and stuck it in my pocket. It was like removing a lead blanket, and instantly, I could tell this was going to be much easier than I’d openly admit.
I had to imagine things from his perspective. Okay. Easy enough. He was coming straight at the three of us—Leonardo shooting futile jets, Donovan occasionally getting a good hit
(would it hurt? would I feel something?) and me standing there with my eyes shut like a useless prop.
When I first entered the body, it felt restrictive and cramped. And then I felt him. The other presence. Male—no doubt in my mind about that. But could I see his face? I tried to draw that image forth, but nothing came through. But I could feel his shock. He didn’t expect me to pull this off. And then I saw a flash of something else.
For a split second, it was as if I’d stepped into his head. And I recognized right away what he was staring at. The number on the door clicked it all into place. And then just as suddenly, he was gone, I was back in Giovanni, and I had the place all to myself.
Oh joy.
And to answer my own question, I could feel the blasts, but barely. They weren’t painful, but they did make it difficult to keep my feet—no, Giovanni’s feet—under me. Him. Us.
“Stop,” I shouted, but to my horror, it came from Giovanni’s mouth in a garbled moan.
Shivers ran down my spine, and I evacuated the body as quickly as I could.
I opened my own eyes just in time to see him crumple to the ground.
And then my knees went out from under me.
“Drained” didn’t even begin to cover it. I felt empty and a stranger in my own body all at once. When I’d jumped into the dead guy had I completely abandoned myself? Was that how I’d been able to knock out a necromancer who was likely much more trained than I was? Was my body soulless while my consciousness wasn’t in it?
All questions for Ruby.
But for now, I just felt like I needed to sleep for a year.
Donovan dropped to my side the moment I began to fall, but he didn’t catch me before I hit the ground. Thankfully, my head landed in grass, not on the stones of the walkway.
As Leonardo approached Giovanni’s limp body and jabbed it a few times with his wand to make sure it wouldn’t get back up, Donovan said, “Nora! What in the hellhound just happened?”
