Chapter 29
Ivy called Hunter the next day and told him she’d finished The Wasn’t and Willn’t King: The Tale of Deyvan Duras. The satchel Safiya had given her was burning a hole in her pocket, figuratively—though she wondered if it eventually would catch fire if left for too long—but she was also dying to discuss the end of the book. It had been her only distraction in the evenings before bed, putting her to sleep when her mind raced with murder plots and suspects, the conversation with Calla in the woods doing nothing to help.
Ivy knocked on his door that evening with all the gusto of a scout selling cookies, taking a careful glance at Penny’s empty balcony before going inside. She practically vibrated with excitement—if she managed to pop open the box who knew what she’d find? And then of course there was just the little, itty, bitty fact that they’d kinda, sorta kissed, she had liked it, a lot, and maybe there’d be more of that.
Besides the stack of packages ready to ship out by the front door, his place was exceptionally tidy this time. He’d even put out snacks. He closed the door behind her and stood there in his sweater and jeans, cleanly shaven with his hair brushed back out of his face looking ridiculously cute, and for a moment she was mad. She was here to do work, and his nice face was making her forget all that. In fact, she forgot so much that she even took a chip when he offered one. Poison? What poison?
Ivy found herself on the couch talking about Deyvan Duras, the man who was also a bear but actually neither of those things, and how they both wished that Sylvia had gotten a little more page time. Hunter started telling her how his grandmother liked to give each character its own voice when she’d read to him. “Grandpa used to say she had a little siren in her since she was so good at mimicking the voices, but that was definitely a joke, one my dad hated.”
“He’s kinda humorless, huh?”
“Definitely. He just hated the suggestion he might not be pureblooded.” Hunter’s face reddened a little like he realized what he’d said, then spoke with speed, “But I did a lot of reading growing up. If It wasn’t stories about immoral royalty, it was stuff like herbalism and gardening.”
“Your parents were really getting you ready to take on the family business, huh?”
“They were pretty candid about what they planned for me to do with my life, yeah. Witches, warlocks, you know.”
“No, I don’t know.” Ivy tilted her head.
“Yeah, you do.” He looked at her like she was playing games with him. “They’re clannish. They want to keep bloodlines pure, all that nonsense.”
Ivy thought a moment, remembering how he’d mentioned that a warlock and a sylvan going on a date was a big deal. “There are plenty of lycans and vampires in Avalon Estates, but not a lot of other witches.”
He was nodding, looking down at his lap. “Why are we here if we’re not hexed?”
She hadn’t realized that was the question she was asking, but it did suddenly pop into her mind.
“Dad’s really proud of his heritage, but the Proctors fell out of favor long ago. Some families just have a high rate of…mistakes in their past, and it stacks up, so a community like this is a lot easier to get into. My grandparents worked hard to re-associate the name with the business, and my mother has been a big help there too. Lucky they got the Bishops to agree to the marriage, really.”
“Your parents had an arranged marriage?” She blurted it out a little more shocked than she meant to.
“Yeah.” He looked a little embarrassed. “I mean, they seem to like each other now, about to hit thirty years this month, in fact, so I guess it worked out, but I’m not a fan of the idea personally.”
Ivy sat back on the couch and looked out at the living room. It didn’t mean much, but it was something, she supposed.
Then there was a sound, a little tone that made her jump. Hunter pulled out his phone and quickly switched off the alarm, making a face. “Shit, I forgot.” He got up and went into the kitchen, and her eyes flicked to the box, but he could too easily turn back around and catch her, so she held still.
From a cabinet, Hunter pulled out a small, amber bottle, measured out an amount, slung it back, and quickly shelved the thing again. He stuck out his tongue and threw back an entire glass of water, then fixed his eyes on Ivy who hadn’t stopped watching him the whole time.
He opened his mouth to say something, but then his phone went off again, and he smirked. “Speaking of my parents, that will be my mother.” He texted a short message and dumped his phone on the counter. “Just a little thing.”
“What kind of little thing?”
“So.” He sighed, slowly coming around the bar. “When I was really young, I got sort of sick. Not contagious or anything,”—he threw up his hands—“Just this rare, charmed thing. I survived, obviously, but I need to take this stuff once a week. It makes me feel sort of horrible, and it tastes way too sweet, but it’s better than being dead.”
She blinked at him—that wasn’t a little thing at all. “That medicine keeps you alive?”
“Yeah,” he said as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
She thought a moment, considering perhaps that wasn’t so weird—humans took all sorts of things to stay alive as well. It was like magical insulin, she supposed. “So…your mommy reminds you?”
“I know, I know! I’m twenty six, I’m a responsible adult, I swear, but tell her that. At least I’ve convinced her to just text me now instead of straight up calling.”
Neither of Ivy’s parents had reminded her to do a single thing since she was about seven years old; she was actually a little jealous. “I think it’s kinda sweet,” she said with a grin. “I mean, she doesn’t want you to die for god’s sake. It’s not like she’s reminding you to wash your underwear.”
“Oh, she does that too.” He opened the refrigerator. “You want a beer?”
A jolt of panic shot through her. “No, no thanks. Anything else would be better. I mean, fine. Anything else is fine.”
He came back over carrying a few cans, none of which were alcoholic. “Not to pry,” he said putting the choices down on the coffee table, “but I noticed you don’t really drink, which is totally fine, but Oakley said you were a bartender, so I was just wondering…” He let the thought finish itself silently in the air between them.
“Yeah, people usually do wonder.” She grabbed a can of something fizzy off the table and ran a finger around the rim. He’d just been candid with her, so she supposed she owed him some kind of truth, especially after all the other lies. “I used to drink occasionally. Back when I started bartending, which was right after I sort of dropped out of a degree program in being useless, I switched over to drinking frequently. And that evolved into, like, all the time. Anyway,”—she shook her head—“one night I really outdid myself, and I woke up the next morning at this stranger’s apartment which turned out to be a huge mistake. Like a three-year-long mistake.”
“That doesn’t seem like you.”
“It isn’t anymore. But things had sort of spiraled, so I focused on what I could control at the time, one of those things being alcohol, and just let other stuff go.”
“No, I get it.” He was nodding and took a drink. “It’s just Safiya says you’re incredibly organized and helpful and funny and nice, so I never would have guessed.”
“Oh?” She opened her can and eyed him over the lip. “Boy, she was being generous.”
“Nah, just honest.”
Their talk went on long into the night. Hunter was on his third soda, but he hadn’t left the couch. Ivy didn’t really mind, she could talk—or whatever—with him all night if she had to, but the opportunity to get into the box hadn’t yet arisen.
They’d both shifted a bit closer to one another. She sat with one leg up underneath her, her knee just grazing his every time she leaned in to laugh. He rested an elbow on the back of the couch, and if he’d just put his arm down it would be around her. She kept flicking her eyes toward it, waiting, but then ov
er to the box as well. Finally, he noticed.
“Are you comfortable?”
“Oh, yeah.” She didn’t sound terribly convincing to herself, so she improvised. “I mean, I guess I feel a little weird. Like I’m supposed to be sad.” It wasn’t a lie. Ivy did think she was supposed to be mourning Rufus and Evan, but the truth was that she hardly knew them, and she wasn’t even sure how missable either one was.
“Yeah.” Hunter sighed. “I don’t think anyone’s died around here in a while. I mean, Edna did, but she was like a thousand or something. People are really on edge about it. And with the election coming up, it’s all just…a lot.”
“Ugh.” Ivy rubbed her face. “The election. It’s like a week away. I just want to forget about the stupid thing.”
Hunter grinned. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yes.” She nodded, her eyes wide. “It’s got me stressed out, and I just need to relax.”
“Well…” His lip curled up especially playful on one side of his mouth. “I can think of at least one distraction.”
Like it was instinctual, they both went for one another. He was kissing her hard and quick, and when she moaned against his mouth it only spurred him on like an animal. He pulled her onto his lap, and she grabbed the back of his head, straddling him, any rational thought flung off into the sky like a cockatrice slingshot off a taut tree limb.
Then he pulled back, and she found herself hanging there, her mouth open. “What’s wrong?”
He swallowed, catching his breath, his hands gripping her hips. “I just realized how much I’ve had to drink.”
“Oh!” She slid off of his lap, realizing she’d probably sat right on his bladder, and he jumped up, telling her he’d be right back.
She watched him go down the hall toward the bathroom with a sort of dumb grin on her face. She had a lot of questions about Hunter, but one thing she knew for sure: he was a good kisser.
Then Ivy jumped to her feet and fumbled in her pocket. This might be her only chance, she thought, pulling out the sachet full of whatever the hell she needed to get into the mystery box. The blue chest was still within reach on the bookcase, and she palmed the sachet and pressed it between her hand and her target.
“Will it work if a human does it?” Ivy had asked.
Safiya had screwed up her face and shrugged. “Magic is all about intent. Plus, I did all the hard stuff already and put it in the bag.”
Ivy repeated the words she was told in a quick voice, stuttering, but truly meaning them. “What is locked, come undone, what is secret, be made known.” There was a click, and she felt the sachet deflate as the box pinged under her hand.
Ivy could scarcely believe it as she lifted the lid. She’d done it! She’d opened the blue box and with magic no less! But there was time for neither celebration nor hesitation as the toilet flushed on the other side of the condo, and she peered inside.
Letters, many of them, folded up on all different sorts of paper. She lifted up a bit of the stack to see that some of them were so old that parts of the writing had worn away. So Rufus had a box full of letters on his desk, locked with a jinx, and someone else really didn’t want them to be read.
She could hear the bathroom door click open, and her heart started to pound. She had no time, and Safiya had told her the box would again be locked when she closed the lid. With a gulp and a prayer, Ivy grabbed the topmost letter and snapped closed the lid. Into her pocket it went, and she turned away from the case just as Hunter appeared in the room.
She felt the heat rise up in her face when he looked her over, and she bit her lip.
Hunter stopped short. “Everything all right?”
“I have to go,” she said quickly, sweat breaking out on her neck.
“Oh.” Hunter searched the ground and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Right, yeah, okay.”
“It’s late.” She gestured to the clock, her heart fluttering against her ribs like a caged but wild bird. “I just, ya know, got a lot of work tomorrow, and—”
“No, no, it’s fine.” He walked to the door ahead of her and opened it. “I get it.”
Ivy lingered for a moment, then she quickly picked up her bag from the couch and went for the door. On the porch she stopped and turned. He didn’t actually get it, not from the look on his face, but she really wanted him to understand. Ivy reached up and kissed him on the cheek, letting her lips linger there for a long moment before she ran down the stairs.
Chapter 30
“I can’t read it.” Ivy had her eyes closed, the letter held out in her hand as far as she could reach.
Safiya snatched it away. “I can!” The witch unfolded the paper, her eyes bulbous behind her glasses as they scanned the hand-written lines. Ivy had been flipping the thing over for what felt like hours, guilt making her incapable of opening the letter until she’d finally texted Safiya and told her what she’d done. Well, half of what she’d done.
She didn’t expect to get an answer so quickly, or for Safiya to show up moments later, but now that she was sitting on her bed while the woman did laps around the room, everything felt natural even though it was almost three in the morning. Luckily, Oakley was still out with whoever he’d decided to date that night, and she didn’t expect him to come back until after breakfast.
Safiya paced the length of the room from the closed door to the edge of the headboard. She held the letter taut between two hands, her lips moving ever so slightly, whispered words too low to make out. Ivy bounced her legs and drummed her fingers, taking increasingly shallow breaths. Finally, Safiya stopped mid stride, her foot hovering there as if she’d been turned to stone.
“What is it?” Ivy nearly sprang off the bed.
Safiya turned to her, lifting her eyes from the page, her mouth hanging open. She sputtered a bit, but nothing sensible came out. Then, she shook her head. “Rufus.”
Ivy nodded, of course Rufus, but what about him?
“And Mae Proctor.”
Yup, she’d stolen the blue box all right. “Yes?”
“They had an affair.”
Ivy’s whole body collapsed in on itself, the breath coming back to her. “That’s it? An affair?” She flopped her hands out to the side, palms up. “Ugh, it totally makes sense now. Those were probably all their letters from forever ago, and Mae didn’t want anyone else to find them. Geez, Rufus really got around.”
“That’s not all,” Safiya said in a hushed tone, and Ivy sat up straight again. “It doesn’t sound like it was recent.” She swallowed. “It was a long time ago.”
Ivy shrugged. “Okay? And?”
“It sounds like it ended twenty six-ish years ago.” Safiya extended the letter to Ivy, and she went to take it. “Right about when Mae got pregnant.”
Ivy froze, her arm outstretched, fingertips just grazing the page, then she pulled her hand back. “No!”
Safiya frowned, thrusting the letter forward.
Ivy shook her head, holding her hands close to her chest and leaning back.
“Ivy, it’s true.”
“Nu uh.”
“Listen. This is from Mae to Rufus. She says—”
“Lalala!” Ivy plugged her ears with her fingers and closed her eyes. “I don’t wanna know!”
“Ivy!” Safiya shoved the letter into her face. “Read it!”
With a groan, she took the page. She turned her eyes down to Mae Proctor’s elegant script, but as the letter progressed it broke down, loopier and angrier. Her words were cordial at first. She told Rufus he looked well at the last board meeting, and that he seemed happy, and for that, she was happy as well. But then it turned.
I received your last letter a week ago, and I’m very glad for some of the changes you’re considering, but I didn’t know what to say in response. I wanted to call you, but I think you’ll talk me out of the decision I’ve made like you’ve talked me out of so much before.
Rufus, do not tell him. Do not tell anyone. If you would like to trial the potion despite that I ca
n assure you it works, then by all means, let’s, but my son is not part of the deal. I don’t know what’s caused this change of heart in you, but the same can’t be said for everyone else. Hunter cannot know, it won’t do him any good. I can imagine you think this is what’s best for all of us, but it’s just not. My family will never accept him, and I don’t even want to think about what your pack will do. If he survives, where will he be left?
You loved me once, Rufus, and if you have even a memory of that love left for me in your heart, you will take this secret to your grave. Do not tell Hunter he is your son.
Ivy stared at the last line for a long time. Mae had signed it with a heart, desperate. The woman—the one who had hugged her so kindly, who had offered her a remedy for sleep when they first met—had wanted more than anything for this to stay hidden, and here Ivy was with the proof in her hands. She had the sudden urge to rip up the page, to burn it, to disintegrate it. “I don’t want to know this,” she whispered, lifting her head to Safiya.
“He was going to tell him, wasn’t he?” Safiya was pacing. “Mae didn’t want that, she said Rufus had to take it to his grave, so she stopped him the only way she knew how.”
“Do you have some kind of memory-erasing spell or something?” Ivy rubbed her head.
Safiya didn’t seem to hear. “She wasn’t going to be at the meeting that morning, but she knew about it through Alastair, so she stopped over at Rufus’s house as soon as her husband left. Of course something this important was worthy of Rufus putting us off that morning. He just wanted to talk to her, but she wanted to kill him.”
“Wait, you think Mae did it?”
“It’s the best explanation!”
Ivy groaned. “Then why didn’t she steal the box when she was there? Why’d she go back to get it?”
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