I texted Darius. What have you learned about Percy?
He didn’t reply until after I’d changed into a pair of sweats and brushed my teeth. It’s barely been four hours, he wrote.
I climbed into my bed and patted the mattress for Random to join me as I texted him back: Time’s running out what are you doing hurry please
He called me. “I’ve got some calls in,” he said. “I don’t think it’s the app though. He’s here at the winery with me. He’s not faking it. He’s wrecked.”
“That’s his talent,” I said. “Fooling people. Maybe he’s drinking springwater cocktails in his room and plotting his next kill.”
“Have you met this guy? A silver jacket wouldn’t give him a spine.”
“But maybe that’s—”
“His talent,” he said. “Yeah, I hear you. Just not buying it.”
“How about fae or demon activity? Any hint at all it wasn’t a witch?”
“Well, here’s the thing,” he said. “We didn’t sense that gargoyle either, until it started chucking things at us. With years of Tristan living there, and all the fae in this town and the demons coming in and out, hunting them, and the wellspring, I’m starting to consider we’ve been overconfident in our screening.”
“Great,” I said. “So it could be anything or anyone.”
His voice lowered. “I might have found something. Promise me you won’t overreact.”
“Found it where?”
“Promise to stay chill?”
“I’m in bed in my pajamas with my dog,” I said. “What are you afraid I might do?”
“I never know what you might do,” Darius said.
The line was silent. “OK,” I said finally. “I promise I won’t overreact.”
He made a skeptical humph sound and then said, “I found a hint of Percy’s footsteps in the room. I know what you’re going to say—”
“He wasn’t supposed to cross the threshold,” I said, perhaps a little too loudly.
Darius didn’t answer right away. “I knew you’d overreact,” he said finally.
“It was the leaf, wasn’t it? It helped you see the evidence.”
“I felt like a complete idiot waving a leaf around a crime scene, but yes, it showed me he’d been in there, but—”
“I knew it!” I pounded the bed, disturbing Random, who got up and jumped to the floor.
“You promised.”
“I’m not overreacting,” I said. “I am reacting appropriately. What’s his excuse? I assume you confronted him about it?”
“He said he didn’t think it counted since it was what they always did—reaching into the room but not entering. He said he’d tried not to touch the floor, but he must’ve slipped when he was helping Bosko take off his jewelry for the night, as usual.” I began to interrupt, but Darius raised his voice and spoke more quickly. “The trace of him didn’t go more than one or two paces into the room. Even with the leaf.”
“You’re sure? Maybe I should come—” My feet were already on the cold floorboards.
“Absolutely not. The exodus spell is about to ramp up. You might find yourself in North Dakota.”
“You’d like that,” I said.
“Not quite yet. Raynor would blame me. Stay where you are, and I’ll keep an eye on the clumsy app.” He sighed. “Seriously, Bellrose. Of all the people to suspect of murder. If you ask me, he’s got more of an Incurable Inability than you do. Just today I watched him rescue a fly from a spiderweb.”
“I suspect everybody,” I said. “So should you.”
“You realize, of course, that includes the daughter of Malcolm Bellrose.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m a serial killer,” I said. “Let me know if anything turns up. Don’t be afraid to wave that leaf all over the place. If any of the other agents give you a hard time, tell them to talk to me.”
“Good job not overreacting.” He hung up.
Chapter Thirty
I woke up before dawn in a sweat, my heart pounding. I’d been having a bad dream about Birdie, a toxic mixture of reality and anxiety.
Wiping the sweat off my forehead, I rolled over and picked up my phone. It was too early for a polite call, but letting my friend suffer wasn’t polite, either. The exodus spell was now strong enough to reach me through the wards of my house. Even Random, curled up next to me with his head burrowed under my hip, seemed to be trying to get away from it.
She picked up so quickly, I decided she’d already been awake.
“Sorry to call so early,” I said.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“I’m fine. I’m worried about you,” I said. “How’s your headache?”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m snug as a bug at my place. You taught me such good boundary spells, didn’t you? I can barely feel a thing.”
I was relieved she was so calm. “So your head doesn’t hurt anymore?”
“Do you call all your friends before dawn to ask them about a little headache?” she asked. “I’m not a child. You don’t have to take care of me.”
Her words echoed Seth’s, and I was momentarily embarrassed. “Sorry, but you’re new to magic, relatively speaking.”
“I’ve decided you’re the one who needs looking after. You neglect yourself,” she said. “Tell you what. Let’s have a pact. I’ll load up my car and you’ll load up yours. Then if we have to leave, we can make sure we leave together.”
“Load it up and come over here,” I said. “It’s safer.”
“I told you. I’m safe here.”
Maybe I could appeal to her intrinsic helper nature. “Random would be much happier if you were here with him. He misses you.” I scratched his ears, sending out a spell to soothe him. He took this to mean he was getting an early breakfast and jumped up and ran to the kitchen. He couldn’t be suffering from the spell too badly.
Birdie fell silent on the other end of the line. Finally she said, “He has you. What else could he need?”
Her compliment struck me dumb for a moment. “I-I— I’m worried about you. I’d feel better if you were here.”
“I’m just down the road, ready to go when you do, anywhere you want,” she said. “But I’m not leaving until you are.”
It was typical of Birdie to be so loyal, but I didn’t want the burden of her well-being on my conscience. An unwanted image of Seth flashed in my head. We did what we had to do for the people we cared about. Or changelings. Whatever kind of creature.
“All right. You promise you’ll load up your car and be ready to go?” I asked. “You’ll need to be ready to leave. There might not be much warning.”
“Same goes for you. You’re strong, but you’re still human. Just because you’re a witch doesn’t mean you can’t get hurt.”
“All right, all right,” I said. “I’ll finish packing.” I’d already started.
“Load up the car. Get all ready. Swear it.”
“I’ve told you, Birdie, it’s too dangerous for a witch to make vows.”
“It’s too dangerous not to, right? That’s why you’re calling me before dawn?”
I sighed and closed my eyes. She was the first real friend I’d had in a long, long time. The realization made me feel better than any spell. “I promise. I’ll do it right now,” I said.
“Me too,” she said warmly. “I’ll be here. I’ll be right here, waiting to go with you.”
The sky was lightening with the rising sun when I put down the phone. True to my promise, I hurried to gather my essentials and load them in the Jeep. Heartbreakingly, most of my jewelry supplies would have to be left behind—blocks of wood; pine cones; bags of dried evergreen needles, sorted by species; stacks of lumber; dusty strips of bark; boxes and boxes of stones I’d collected from beaches, hiking trails, and ravines—it was far too much to bring with me.
The thought of never seeing it all again made me kick a bag of compost, but I had to be realistic. The metal and finished beads, smaller and more valuable, were in sepa
rate boxes, in preparation for a day like this one, and I stacked them in the back seat with a frustrated sigh. At least, no matter what happened to Silverpool, I’d have the seeds to begin working again.
Daily items like clothing, kitchen tools, home furnishings—all could be replaced. With money I didn’t have, but that was a separate problem. It was real enough, however, to make me even angrier.
At last I sorted my filing cabinet. It was a massive, old-fashioned hunk of steel that would take a crew of muscled bodies to get it out of my house. Given its contents, magic wouldn’t budge it an inch; it was brilliantly, permanently warded (by myself), and even I couldn’t cast a spell to lift it now. Instead, I moved my treasures into plastic tubs and stacked them up by the door. I wouldn’t risk putting them outside the walls of my house until I had to.
Because I was leaving most of my belongings behind, I was done loading the Jeep in less than an hour. Sweaty and short-tempered, I paced around my kitchen and shoveled trail mix into my mouth as I tried to make my brain unravel the mystery of Bosko’s death.
The genie. Percy. The ring. Flor. Raynor. Darius. The Protectorate. Seth. Birdie. Helen.
Helen. What had she found out for me? If I was going to give her my staff, she was going to have to work for it. I picked up the phone and hit her number.
“Do you realize what time it is?” she snapped.
“You picked up right away,” I said.
“This is my thinking time,” she said. “I don’t like to be disturbed.”
“I was thinking too. I thought of you. What have you learned for me?”
“I hear the town you live in is about to become even less hospitable than it has been to date,” she said. “What kind of precautions have you taken for your payment to me?”
“Gee, Helen, I didn’t know you cared so much about me. I’m fine, thanks. I’ve got the Jeep loaded up, ready to go.”
“I of course encourage you to continue the hunt for knowledge, but maybe you could move the staff to a safer spot. There’s a shipping store in Riovaca that takes odd-sized items.”
I stopped pacing around my kitchen, struck by her callousness. Of course she was mercenary and drove hard bargains, but I’d thought we had something stronger between us. A mutual respect, a camaraderie, a warm alliance. More than my own absent, anonymous mother, she’d been there for me during my lonely young adulthood. I’d had to pay her, but wasn’t that better than nothing?
“You could just hide it a few miles up the road in the forest and wrap a protective enchantment around it for a few days,” Helen continued. “Just tell me where. My phone has this thing on it that can read location links. Cast a spell above it with one of those bags of herbs I’ve given you, maybe that cast-iron frying pan, and I’ll be able to see through the enchantment. Even if you don’t make it, I should be able to find it.”
I sank into a chair at my kitchen table. She didn’t really care about me. I’d been too eager for scraps, being grateful for whatever minimal assistance she’d given me, thinking it actually meant she cared.
What a dope.
“What have you learned about Percy?” I asked coldly. “The more useful your information, the more likely I’ll survive and you’ll get the staff.”
“Can’t you just hide it—?” she began.
“No. Tell me what you’ve learned now.”
She huffed lightly into the phone. I heard birds chirping in the background, and I could picture her outside on her deck, looking up at Diamond Heights and Sutro Tower. She’d built quite a cozy fortress of solitude in her old Victorian, trading in knowledge, hearth magic, and influence to pay for it all, and there was a time when I’d thought that was what I’d wanted too. Just my own space. My work. My art. A source of income to pay for things that didn’t cost me too much emotional or physical toil.
But hearing the callousness in Helen’s voice, I saw my dream differently. How lonely it was. How pathetic and sad to only interact with other people in a commercial, selfish, unemotional way.
I didn’t want to be Helen when I grew up. She was no better than Jen Bardak, an inhuman spirit forever bound by buying and selling. Humanity was better than that. All of us, witches or no, were forged in that magic.
Remembering Birdie’s caring voice, the love she’d always been quick to share, a warm flush came over me, bringing tears to my eyes.
And how about Seth? He was angry with me, but he was alive, he was safe. I’d done that for him just because it had been too painful not to. Brightness was powerful in a way Shadow could never overcome.
I was running out of time. “Well?” I asked.
My tone must’ve broken through to her, because she replied in a more humble, agreeable voice. “Percival Tuff was a student of the Steelgrass School when he was a teenager,” she said. “Up in Oregon—I don’t think you ever spent any time there. It was never much and it’s closed now. Your father wouldn’t have wanted to be associated with it. I have a friend whose wife used to work as an herbalist there. She remembers Percival.”
“And?” I asked.
“Kurt Bosko killed a teacher there who’d been a favorite of the students. Unfortunately for the school, when Bosko put a silver stake in his heart, his entire class saw him turn into a charcoal briquette.”
“Unfortunately for more than the school,” I said. “The kids witnessed a brutal killing.”
“It was a history class,” Helen said. “They’d thought the teacher was nonmagical. Just one of those guys who learns about witches and sticks around. He’d taught human history with an emphasis on the magical. Kids loved him.”
“Including Percy?”
“Especially him. Word was Percival was a big fan of the demon teacher. The other teachers liked him too, which should’ve tipped them off right away—regular teachers usually hate the popular ones. They get all the love.”
“If I were a parent of one of those kids, I’d pull them out the next day,” I said. “Is that why the school closed?”
“Bosko convinced most of them it was the best lesson they’d ever have for their entire educational career,” she said. “No, the school closed in spite of the killing, not because of it. Witch parents draw the line at schools being stupid enough to put a demon on faculty.”
So, Percy had a reason to carry a grudge. But had he had the guts to actually kill him? And why now, after all these years?
While I was still talking to Helen, Raynor broke in somehow and kicked her off the line. One moment I heard Helen’s voice suggesting I wouldn’t want a demon teaching any theoretical child of mine if I were a parent, and the next moment I heard Raynor apologizing to Helen for cutting in but suggesting she get her nose out of Protectorate business if she didn’t want to spend her sunset years in the Mojave.
“Hey,” I said. “I was talking—”
“I’m taking you off the case,” Raynor said.
“What? After one day? Right. Listen, I’ve learned Percy had reason to kill Bosko,” I said. “I think his timing was because of the ring. He couldn’t bear to watch him kill again, and he knew the ring and the job in Silverpool would lead to more killing. So he used some magic we didn’t know he had, killed Bosko, and took the ring. He took the ring because he knew some other agent would just take his place and use it to k—”
“Stop. Forget what I told you. Leave it to us.”
“But I’m so close—”
“I’m only going to say this once, and I’m wrapping it with a spell to hide the fact we ever spoke. Got it?”
A chill ran across my shoulders. Was I finally on the right track? Raynor knew more than he’d been able to tell me. Something involving powerful players in the Protectorate. Did Percy have connections? Somebody from his old school? “Got it,” I said.
“As soon as I hang up, you’re going to say goodbye to your gnome friend, get in your car, and start driving,” he said. There was a long pause. “Agreed?”
He didn’t specify where I would drive. Right now I felt an u
rgent need to go to the winery and confront Percy. “Agreed.”
He sighed long and loud into the phone. “I was forced to tell the Protectorate that the opal ring, which was entrusted to Protector Bosko on the day before his death, was missing from the trunk in his room when we discovered the body.”
“Percy took it,” I declared, seeing my theory unfold.
“No,” Raynor said. “I did.”
I fell silent, reeling with disappointment. I’d been so sure. “When?”
“When nobody was looking,” he said. “I think it’s for the best if it goes missing permanently, don’t you think?”
I leaned against the kitchen counter. I’d been sure it was Percy. But if Raynor had the ring, and Percy hadn’t killed him for it, then… my theory fell apart. “Maybe Percy just couldn’t take it anymore, and he snapped. Silverpool seemed remote, as good a place as any to do away with his hateful master.”
“Forget it. Nobody cares who killed Bosko. If it was his app, if it was a demon, if it was you. They don’t care. He’d been a loose cannon for years, making a lot of powerful witches uncomfortable. They made him Protector to get him out of the way. Now that he’s dead, even better.”
“Could one of those guys have killed him? Is this a cover-up?”
“Stop searching for conspiracies and see the obvious: Bosko made lots of enemies, and one of them caught up to him.” Raynor let out a frustrated grunt. “Now New York wants to look as if they’ve done something without actually working at it. Burying a distant wellspring is easier than tracking down the dozens, possibly hundreds of enemies Bosko made over the years.”
“But just yesterday, you wanted me to do it.”
Raynor sighed again, loud and long. “I’d thought you’d have more time. Silverpool is my jurisdiction,” he said. “They really hated Bosko. I didn’t realize how many witches had a well-known motive for killing him. Some of those mages are powerful and would like to be off the hook as soon as possible.”
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