“That’s not until tomorrow. But for now—especially tonight—you need to rest.” Safiya’s face was set on her, hard. “Just stay in bed. Oakley will do everything for you, and he’s been told not to leave the house under any circumstances.”
“He’s going to be really confused,” Ivy mumbled, falling back into the bed. She lolled her head over to see Safiya, the witch’s eyes blinking behind her thick glasses, deep circles beneath them. Even angry, the witch had come to her side, and she’d stayed. “Thanks for saving me again.”
“You wouldn’t be in this mess if it weren’t for me.” She frowned. “Not that it’s entirely my fault: I told you not to touch the damn spider!”
Ivy smirked at the memory then balked. It should have been terrifying, but she had been so overwhelmed by the benivoletia that a monstrous arachnid almost killing her had some kind of silver lining. Then again, maybe it hadn’t been the potion at all. “Did you get Marie back home?”
“She scurried off after you almost fell on top of her. I haven’t said anything to Calla though.” Safiya was looking back at her earnestly. “She might have been the one who set her on you to begin with.”
Ivy scrunched up her nose. She didn’t really buy it, but her mind was too foggy to reason out why, the previous week playing over in weird flashes in her brain. “Oh, hey, I have something for you. It’s in the drawer.”
Safiya slid open the nightstand, and her face brightened. “Rufus’s watch.” She held it up. “You had it fixed? For me?”
Ivy nodded, rolling onto her side. “I wanted to apologize for our…sort of…disagreement thing.”
Safiya ran her fingers over its face, and her eyes went glassy. The witch was usually overwrought and exasperated, but this time her face softened as she looked away. “It wasn’t very long,” she said, sighing, “and I know he seemed like an asshole to everyone else, but he was good to me. While it lasted anyway.”
Ivy pushed herself up onto an elbow. “Rufus?”
“Oh, gods, no.” Safiya snapped her head back to Ivy, a little laugh erupting. “But he was kind too after he found out Evan and I were dating. He treated me like his own family.”
“What? Why didn’t you tell me?” Her guts twisted at the memory of going on what was essentially a date with the dead man and felt doubly bad.
“I was embarrassed. He broke up with me over the summer, and I wanted to forget it ever happened. Evan said we were too different to make things work, and that his parents wouldn’t have liked him dating a witch, and how do you argue with dead people?” She shrugged. “It’s really hard finding someone when you’re…one of us, but then being rejected by one of your own? Totally sucks.”
“Oh, Saf, I’m really sorry. I wish I’d been more sensitive about him dying. And everything else.”
She squeezed the watch. “It wasn’t meant to be. I just liked feeling like I had a sort of, I don’t know, a place I belonged? But you were right—I was overzealous about pinning both of their murders on someone. I still thought of them as family, the only ones I had anyway, and I just didn’t want it to be an accident that they were taken away.” She sniffed, trying to laugh. “I should have been a lot more careful about what I was wishing for.”
Ivy saw her trying to smile despite a tear that had worked its way out. She reached out a weak hand and pat her knee. “Also I wish you would have told me because then we would have had a good excuse to eat a whole tub of ice cream together.”
Safiya cracked a smile. “Don’t worry, I made that mistake on my own. A couple times. Among a few others.” She yawned then, covering her mouth.
“You’re tired. You should go home.” Ivy slid back down under the covers. “You’ve done more than enough for me. You deserve a long break.”
The witch stood and pulled the curtains back on the window. Sunlight streamed in, and they both blocked their eyes from it. She turned back to Ivy. “I’ve decided to contact the magistratus tomorrow. I think, at this point, it’s the only way. I don’t want anyone else to die, but especially not you.”
“Are you sure?”
“We’ll figure something out about you and Oakley. I mean, you’ve both fooled almost everyone so far, what’s a couple wizard cops, huh?” She smiled, and Ivy nodded back. It was the smartest thing to do.
As the witch left the room, Ivy called to her, “Hey, Saf? When you and Evan broke up, what were the other mistakes you made?”
Safiya drummed her fingers on the door frame. “Oh, bought a bunch of clothes I don’t need, cut my own bangs, kissed your brother, you know, the usual.”
“You what?” Ivy sat up fast, got immediately woozy, and fell back. “Ew, Safiya!”
“Glad you’re feeling better!” Her footsteps thundered down the stairs as she left.
Ivy shifted her gaze to the netherlight fragment hovering on the dresser. It looked back at her as if it had known all along. “You didn’t say anything,” she hissed at it, and mustered the strength to get out of bed and stuff it into a drawer for safe keeping, afraid it might have actually had more influence on her recent actions than she realized.
Oakley was overly helpful. He microwaved some canned soup until it boiled, and he warned her about each step as she made her way down the stairs even though she proved nimble on her feet. She didn’t mention what Safiya said, but mostly it was because it turned her stomach to think about, and after two days of being out cold, she was pretty hungry.
Her mind finally cleared of its fog as evening rolled in. She’d showered, eaten, and been coached through a few hours of how to kill bad guys with Oakley cheering her on. He’d never really been anywhere near this excited to share something like this with her, but he’d changed a lot over the last few weeks—maybe over the last few years, she hadn’t exactly been around to notice—and she knew he deserved more credit. A little bit at least. Maybe she’d stop rolling her eyes when people mentioned him.
Ivy sat on the edge of her bed, planning to turn in early, and thought about Safiya calling the magistratus. It would be risky even if it were smart. If only she could just figure it out. The spider, the poison, the drowning—Ivy reached for the herbal encyclopedia on her nightstand to go through the evidence once more, but only the much smaller book about trees was there. This was certainly where she’d last left it, wasn’t it?
She called for Oakley, and he came storming into the room, relieved when she just asked if he’d seen the book.
“Oh, sure!” He planted his hands on his hips. “I gave it back to Hunter.”
Ivy’s mouth went dry. Maybe they were talking about a different book. Except, she remembered, she had brought the very encyclopedia full of her notes downstairs and cavalierly left it on the kitchen counter in her benivoletia haze. She swallowed and tried to smile. “You what?”
“I borrowed a bunch of books from him when I first moved in, and when he was here I figured that was a good time to give them back. No more borrowing for eternity for me!”
Why on all the gods’ green earth Oakley Sylvan had decided at that moment to suddenly turn himself around, Ivy would never know, but what she could say for certain was it was absolutely horrible timing. “So you’re telling me that you took the book that I borrowed from him with my very private papers inside, and you gave it to Hunter?”
Oakley’s face began to fall. “I, uh, well, I guess?”
“Shit!” Ivy jumped to her feet, swayed for a moment, then hurried across the room to grab her bag from the corner. “Fuck!”
Her brother was confused, but his hurt overcame that. “I thought I was helping?”
“Helping?” she shouted, bouncing off the wall as she tried to make it to the door. “Damn it, Oakley, you—” Ivy caught herself—now was not the time. Brushing past him, she took the stairs at a run and nearly fell when she hit the foyer.
“Hey!” Oakley bounded down behind her and grabbed her arm. “What are you doing?”
“I have to go!” She pulled herself away from him and slipped her fe
et into shoes by the door, steadying herself on the wall to keep from falling over again.
“Go? Where?” Oakley’s face was fighting itself, contorting between bewilderment, pain, and anger. “Safiya said we need to stay home tonight. Under no circumstances can we leave.”
Ivy pushed past him to the front door. “Under no circumstances can you leave.” She grabbed her keys off the ring hanging by the door and took Oakley’s as well, then turned back to him. “Listen, I’ve been keeping something from you. Something…big.”
“You have? Ivy…me too.”
She waved her hand in front of her face, the two sets of keys jangling wildly. “No, no, now is not the time for you to tell me about some new bad habit or that you got somebody pregnant or whatever. You just really have to trust me right now, okay?”
He was staring back at her, his bewilderment overcast with something like fear and guilt all in one. And there he was again a scared ten-year-old, just ready to do whatever his big sister said. “Okay.”
She pointed at him one last time. “Please, Oakley. It’s important. Just stay here.” And she fled out the door.
Ivy barely noticed the darkness that had fallen around her as she ran down the drive thanks to the bright light of the moon. Hunter absolutely could not see that list. Clearly he hadn’t been the one to try and kill her—it would have been incredibly easy for him to do so at any point they were alone, he could have withheld the antidote, poisoned her again, straight up slit her throat while she was trying to shove her tongue down his, anything! Even Safiya seemed to trust him now. But if he saw the list, his own name, his parents’ names, or that damn letter, everything would be—she shuddered, not wanting to even consider how he might feel.
She made it to Hunter’s condo in record time, parking crookedly on the street and flying up the stairs. She didn’t know what she was going to say as she pounded on the door. Maybe she would just run in, grab the book, and leave, hoping she could explain it all away as venom fever later—that had to be a thing, right?
When the door opened, she was on the verge of hyperventilating, but what she saw made her breath catch. In his stance, in his face, in his eyes—it was too late. He had seen it.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Ivy’s heart splashed into the pit of her stomach. He sounded so angry. “I—” She looked away from the pain in his eyes and searched the threshold between their feet for some kind of answer. “I just want to talk.”
“You shouldn’t have come,” he growled. “What were you thinking?”
Ivy nodded, her head hanging. There was so much to say, but none of it mattered suddenly, the damage done. She turned away from him and started down the stairs.
“Wait,” his voice was quick and stopped her. “You can’t—” Before she could even look back at him, his hand was wrapped around her arm, and he was yanking her inside, knocking her off her feet. “Are you crazy?”
Chapter 38
Ivy pulled away from Hunter, stumbling backward into his living room. “What are you doing?”
“What are you doing?” He threw up his hands as if she were the crazy one, his hulking form between her and the door. “What made you think it was a good idea to come here tonight?”
Her chest tightened, and she looked away. “I had to. I made a mistake.” On his coffee table The Witch’s Encyclopedia of Herbs was lying open, betraying the list of names. Beside it his cell phone was lighting up, ringing silently.
Hunter paced away from her to the far side of the living room. He ran a hand through his hair then crossed his arms to stop himself as if he’d been doing that all evening. “I mean, Ivy…” He picked up her list from the table. “You think I killed someone?”
“No!” Ivy put her hands up. “I don’t! Not anymore anyway…”
“Or my father? My mother?” He pointed at their names. “Or it’s some conspiracy between us?”
“No, Hunter, please.” She took a step toward him and he backed up toward the wall like she was poisonous. “It’s not like that. I wouldn’t have come here if I thought—”
“I didn’t even know Rufus was murdered.”
“Well, he was,” she said, a strange sort of relief taking her and the words tumbling out. “And Evan probably too. We think they’re going after the presidency and the orb, and whoever did it has been trying to kill me for looking into it.”
“What are you talking about? Rufus died of a heart attack, Evan drowned like the idiot he is, and you—” Hunter’s voice caught in his throat. He stood a little straighter. “You were poisoned,” he said, his eyes narrowing.
“Twice.” She watched as his arms dropped to his sides, his brow furrowed in confusion more than rage then.
Hunter shook his head and began to pace on the far side of the living room. “Okay, so let’s just say that’s all true. Is that why you’ve been,”—his face twisted—“hanging out with me? To figure out if I did this?”
“No!” The answer came quickly because it wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t not one either. Her eyes flicked over to the blue box still sitting on his shelf. “But I haven’t always been completely honest with you.”
Hunter turned away from her to the window. In the silence between them, his phone buzzed on the coffee table again, and they both ignored it.
“I know it looks bad—I mean, it is bad—and I understand why you’re mad, but I didn’t spend time with you because I thought maybe you killed someone.” She swallowed. “And I definitely didn’t kiss you for that reason either.”
He turned back to her. “I’m still on the list. You don’t trust me.”
“But I do.” Ivy nodded.
“I don’t even know why I’m on this damn thing.” He rattled the paper halfheartedly.
“You don’t?” She screwed up her face then eyed the book. “Oh. You don’t.”
Hunter huffed, hands on his hips. He waited, at least giving her this chance to explain.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “I’m going to tell you the truth.” She groaned. “Two truths, actually.”
He only stared back at her.
“So.” Ivy’s voice jumped up another octave, and she tapped her foot. “The truth is that I, Ivy Sylvan, am, uh?” She squinted at him then looked away, blowing out a long breath. “I’m not exactly a sylvan.”
“Okay?” Hunter shrugged. “So what, you’re halfsie or something?”
“No.” Ivy crossed and uncrossed her arms then pressed her fingertips together in front of her mouth, speaking from behind them. “Actuallythetruthisimahuman.”
Hunter was very still. “Huh?”
“I’m not sylvan,” she repeated.
“I got that part.”
“Imahuman.”
His eyes were locked on her, then they wandered across the room for a long moment before snapping back. “Wait, what?”
“I am a human!” She burst out, throwing her head back. “Just a regular, old, boring person. Not charmed, not hexed, no gifts, no spells, no extra sharp teeth.” She fish-hooked herself to show him. “I’m just me, a person, H-U-M-A-N.”
Hunter hadn’t moved. Like a rabbit in an open field staring up at a diving hawk only his eyes grew as she shouted the truth across the room. Then he asked in a humble, little voice, as if she hadn’t just announced it, “You’re human?”
Ivy gave him a single nod, the weight of the lie swept away for just a second before the horror of the truth all came crashing back at once.
Hunter staggered over to the couch. “W—h—really?”
“I know, it’s a lot.” She lowered her voice, hoarse and cracking under the weight of what it delivered. “But besides Safiya and obviously Oakley—and the actual murderer—you are the only person who knows, so do with that information what you will. I trust you with it.” She stared hard at him while his eyes focused on the far corner of the room. “If you were the murderer, well, you’d already know. But I know you’re not, I’m just telling you because you de
serve to know.”
Hunter’s silent bewilderment lasted a long time. So long that his phone buzzed to life again and fell dark before he moved. “Well,”—he sat back limply—“if that’s the first truth, there’s no way the second one can live up to it.”
Ivy’s stomach knotted. “Yeah. That. You haven’t looked through the rest of the book, have you?”
“I kinda got stuck on the whole being a murder suspect thing.”
She bit her lip. “Makes sense. So while I was trying to figure out who did it I found out some things that weren’t exactly pertinent to Rufus’s death—probably not anyway. I mean, I thought this thing was related, so I pursued some information and accidentally discovered a secret.”
“Yeah?” His voice rumbled from deep in his chest.
“Specifically, I found out what’s in that blue box.” She jerked her head toward it, and Hunter leaned forward, his eyes narrowing again. It was Ivy’s turn to pace, fidgeting there on the other side of the coffee table, the book between them. “It’s not exactly easy to say.” She glanced out the window at the brightness of the moonlight, wishing for a distraction.
“You gotta spit it out.” He was getting angry again, but his voice was notably different, tinged with a growl, low, throaty. When she looked at him, his eyes had darkened, and he was sitting just on the edge of the sofa, anxious like he might pounce.
“The box is full of letters to Rufus…from your mother.”
He cocked his head. “What? They never spoke. She didn’t even like him. And Dad hated him.”
“I bet,” she mumbled then steeled herself. “So speaking of your dad.” She cleared her throat. “I don’t think that Alastair Proctor is…him. From what I read, I’m pretty sure your father was Rufus Vlcek.”
Ivy was holding her breath, wishing he’d say or do something, but all he seemed capable of was staring off at some spot Ivy couldn’t see, seeing something she couldn’t fathom. He ran a hand through his hair, taking a breath. “How can you be sure?”
“Well, there was this one part,”—she flipped the pages of the book to reveal the folded letter tucked in near the back—“where Mae says it pretty plainly.”
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