by Nova Nelson
I glared at him for all the good that did. “Can you help us get out of this thing or not?”
He sighed. “Afraid not. I’m sure the trick is quite simple, but it’s not in my wheelhouse. In the time above time that I’ve been alive, I’ve never had the desire to crack the cover of Beginner’s Guide to Saving Accident-Prone Witches.”
Donovan looked like he might strangle the count if there weren’t an invisible wall between them. “Fine,” he said, “we’ll just do it ourselves.” He took out his wand and mumbled a spell under his breath.
I felt in front of me, and the wall was still there.
Suddenly the temperature rose twenty degrees and the rush of heat forced Donovan to steady himself on the tabletop.
“Looks like you’ve made it angry,” said Malavic. “Might be time to put a call into the local authori—”
The front door burst open, and Tanner skidded to a stop across the wet floor. His eyes found us immediately and he charged over. “What’s going on?”
Donovan and I hollered at him to stop before he, too, accidentally crossed the line, but it was the count’s outstretched arm that caught him and kept his momentum from taking him over and into the snare.
Tanner caught his breath and his eyes went wide when he saw the state of us in the booth. A tickle of sweat running down my chest was mostly drowned out by the singeing of my skin. My fingers, especially, were in trouble, like I’d picked up a thin teacup and the heat from the boiling water was only starting to come through the porcelain barrier. But when it did, it came fast. “Witch … snare …” Donovan said, pointing.
Tanner’s eyes popped open even wider when he saw it. “Who did this?”
He looked around the pub like the culprit might just raise a hand.
“Does it matter?” I said, not meaning to get short with him, but good golem!
“Do you know how to get us out of here?” Eva asked.
Tanner’s presence had attracted attention, and a small crowd began to gather behind Ted and Malavic.
“No, but I know who will.” He drew his wand and sent a red spark into the air. It passed right through the roof of the pub, and a moment later, Bloom appeared through the front door. She wasn’t halfway over before she proclaimed, “Good goddess!”
No one had to tell her what was happening. She immediately crouched over the snare, waved a hand over the edge, and in doing so, erased a small section of the circle.
As soon as she did, it felt like a rush of arctic air rushed in on us, and I hurried out of the booth, dehydrated, and exhausted. Tanner caught me as I stumbled forward.
Eva and Donovan propped each other up long enough to lower themselves onto the sticky floor. But that grime was the last thing on our minds—after the buckets of sweat, we were all due for a magical shower, pronto.
“Culpepper,” said Bloom. “Help me search the rest of the place for more. And be careful not to get stuck in one yourself. Not all of them are designed to bring about death so gradually.” He lowered me to the ground next to Eva and set off. But before he got far, Bloom added. “Watch the ceiling, too. And the walls. They could be anywhere, really.”
“How did I not know this was a thing?” I asked Eva.
She shrugged. “Beats me. I didn’t know either.”
“You didn’t know it’s a thing,” said Donovan, “because no one pulls a stunt like this anymore. The prison sentence for leaving a witch snare that turns fatal is not worth the crime.”
“What’s the sentence?”
“Life in Ironhelm.”
“That does seem a bit harsh,” I said. “But at least it’s not the death penalty.”
“The … what?” he said, his brows pinching together. “Why would they kill someone after they convicted them?”
Eva and I shared a glance. “Because the person proved he can’t be allowed around other people?” I said.
“Because folks don’t want to pay taxes to feed and shelter him forever?” Eva added.
Donovan still seemed confused. “So … they just set the prisoner’s ghost free to go about haunting people? Sounds like a stupid solution. No, what they do to people in Eastwind who produce fatal witch snares is worse than life in prison and definitely worse than death in prison.”
“How?” I asked incredulously.
“They give them a life sentence, then they put a spell on them so they can’t die.”
Eva gasped. “Oh, that is awful.”
I seconded that with a nod.
Shortly after Bloom’s appearance, Fiona had stepped out from behind the bar to herd the patrons out of the pub and inform them she was keeping tab of how much they owed for the night, so they weren’t off scot-free.
Now, the leprechaun hugged herself over by the front door, watching anxiously with the rest of us while Bloom and Tanner completed their search. Only the three of us, Malavic, and Ted were allowed to stay.
“All clear,” said Bloom finally, and after Donovan, Eva, and I finished telling our side of things, she said, “Wait a moment. You said Jane was with you to start, then she left?”
“Yeah,” I said. Then, worried Bloom was considering her as a suspect, I added, “But only because she was chasing after—” I swallowed hard when I remembered. I couldn’t tell if Eva and Donovan had arrived at it yet. If they had, their expressions didn’t give it away. “She and Ansel had been fighting, I think, and he left, so she followed him.”
When the sheriff stepped away to speak with Fiona, I turned to Eva and Donovan and whispered, “The bar napkin. The one Ansel dropped.”
Eva was the first to understand, and she held a hand to her mouth. “You don’t think he …”
“You saw what Bloom did,” Donovan said. “All she had to do to free us was erase a small part of the circle to break it. What if it was complete except for just a small portion?”
We were on the same page. “And when he leaned down to grab the napkin, he drew the final scratch to close it.”
Silence fell over us. As strange as Ansel was acting, and as biased as he’d been lately, I didn’t believe any of us wanted to see him sent to Ironhelm.
Tanner approached after speaking with Malavic and Ted. He grasped the handles of three tankards full of ice water Fiona had filled at his request and held them out to our small, slouching group on the floor.
“Thanks,” I said, and as I chugged it down, he crouched next to us.
“Never seen anything like that,” he said. “Bloom mentioned it was a pretty advance one. You really don’t have any clue how it got there? Malavic said he saw witches sit there before you.”
“I have an idea,” I said, “but I’ll tell you later.” Tanner wouldn’t want to see Ansel shipped off to the clink for eternal life in prison either, but if I told him about the encounter with the werebear now, there was a good chance his shock would cause him to spill the beans to his boss.
And I guess part of me didn’t like to admit that my best friend’s husband had tried to kill me.
So, instead, I said, “How did you know to come here? Did someone call you?”
He shook his head and dragged an exhausted hand down his face. “Nah. I just … Well, I don’t know how to explain it without sounding crazy.”
“Give it a shot,” said Donovan.
“I was sitting on this bogus call with Olivia Bonedoggle about her familiar who she claims went missing this morning—it’s an indoor-outdoor cat and he’s gone missing for days at a time before and come back happy as could be after his adventure—when I thought I heard you”—he nodded at me—“call for help. No, not call. Just … I felt like you were in trouble?” He didn’t seem sure himself.
“You were right, Tanner,” said Donovan, “that does sound crazy. If you’re trying to score romantic points with her, there are easier ways. She has pretty low standards.”
I was still too tired to do more than shoot him a dirty look. Unfortunately, Donovan knew all about my low standards.
“I’m serious,�
� said Tanner. “I could feel you, too, a little.”
Donovan held his hands up. “Easy there. We’re just friends. Nothing more.”
“And Eva, too,” said Tanner. “I could sense her in danger as well.”
Donovan looked ready to get to his feet. “Hey now.”
A gentle shove from Tanner was all it took to push Donovan back onto his rear. “Relax. It’s not like that. I could sense all three of you in danger, but Nora was the strongest.”
“Okay,” said Eva, “that is kind of romantic.”
“But wait,” I said. “What you’re talking about, it sounds a little like ESP. Like some sort of psychic connection.”
Tanner nodded. “I’m right there with you on that. It sure does.”
“And you’d be the expert on that,” said Donovan, “seeing as you’re the only psychic here.”
Was that something I could do? Did I have some sort of telepathic powers that extended beyond my conversations with Grim?
Good goddess, I hoped not. Connecting with other people’s minds seemed a whole heap of unpleasant. And considering this was the first time it’d ever happened to my knowledge, I didn’t have a clear explanation for it.
The wooden mail flap above the front door swung open, and a large horned owl flew in, dropping a bit of parchment down in front of Tanner’s face before it swooped out again. He grabbed the paper before it hit the ground. “Gotta run.” He leaned forward to steal a kiss. “I’ll catch up with you in the morning.”
“Good luck,” I said.
With a quick word to Sheriff Bloom, Tanner hurried out the front door.
By the time Bloom was convinced she could return to her office to fill out some more reports for the Council, I wanted nothing more than to be back in bed, lying on top of the covers with no clothes, a giant glass of water, and the window open to let in the cool October air.
I opened my umbrella, after assuring Sheriff Bloom I’d be careful on my walk home through the rainy dark, and set out through Erin Park on my way back to Ruby’s.
Unfortunately, it turned out that my strange night wasn’t over yet …
Chapter Nine
The heavy raindrops hit my umbrella like tiny, frantic drumbeats as I put Sheehan’s behind me and made my way down the road out of Erin Park.
After so many days of rain, the cracks between the cobblestones had become thousands of serpentine creeks, flowing together, splitting apart, occasionally interrupted by a lodged pebble and overflowing. I hadn’t even thought to invest in rain boots until this week. Maybe I’d pick some up the following day before heading to the inspection at Medium Rare.
Light from one of the houses on my left caught my eye. A lack of curtains and blinds gave me a free peek into the candid life of whoever lived there. Or at least as free of a peek as I could make out through the blurring rain.
I caught myself staring and told myself to knock it off. Just because someone forgot to shut the blinds didn’t give me free rein for prying. But before I could blink myself free, a figure appeared through the window, and I paused to watch her.
Oh right. Hyacinth had moved to Erin Park. Someone had mentioned that the other day, just before Efarine’s unfortunate visit to the diner.
Oddly enough, Hyacinth seemed to be dancing.
Nothing I knew about the uptight elf would have led me to believe she regularly danced alone in her living room, arms in the air, hips swaying sensually.
Sensually? Ha! No. Hyacinth was not sensual. Maybe she was drunk. But she didn’t seem the type for that either.
Then I realized she wasn’t alone. Another figure appeared beside her, and it wasn’t her husband James. Whoever that was had far too big of a build to be James. He grabbed her, pulling her close to him, wrapping one arm around her waist, taking her hand in his, and the two began dancing in a slow circle. I crept closer.
Not that it would have brought me pleasure to know Hyacinth was having an affair, but …
Maybe a little pleasure. Not that she was hurting James, but that some of the best gossip around town now involved her.
And so the gossiper becomes the gossip.
Mmm … sweet, sweet Karma.
But once the couple completed half a rotation and I finally identified her dance partner, I gasped, my hand flying up to my mouth, the umbrella slipping to the side so that a cold slap of water on my head snapped me to and I readjusted my grip.
Speaking of Karma, this was mine: I’d moved closer to get the goods on Hyacinth and ended up learning more than I wanted to.
Because the man she was dancing with so intimately was Ansel Fontaine.
I backed away from the window as quickly as I could without drawing attention to myself.
Maybe it wasn’t what it looked like. For all I knew, Jane was in the other room, fixing a drink with James. Maybe Jane could even see Ansel dancing like that with Hyacinth and didn’t mind. Every relationship has different boundaries, after all.
The song must have ended, because the two left the room hand in hand, and I told myself an innocent story about how they were returning to their proper spouses to enjoy an uneventful evening of faithful marriage.
I ignored the fact that Jane had mentioned nothing about seeing the Bouquets after she left Sheehan’s. But then again, why would she? It wasn’t a secret that they’d stopped coming into Medium Rare to protest it being witch run. From what I’d heard, Hyacinth practically bragged about her personal boycott any chance she got.
The blood pounding in my ears drowned out the raindrops. But it wasn’t enough to mute the rush of footsteps pounding the stones behind me.
I turned just in time to see a hooded figure running at me, and I yelped before I could think better of it.
“Nora, it’s just me.” He pulled back his hood quickly, and I saw Landon’s rosy face staring wide-eyed.
When I looked back at the Bouquet’s window, the blinds were shut.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, returning my attention to Landon. “Anyone could see you.”
“They won’t recognize me in this,” he said, as water droplets dripped from the front of the dark wool hood. He had a point. After all, I hadn’t recognized him. “Are you okay?”
“What? Yeah. Why?”
He looked around the empty street, his hands stuffed into his pockets, and nodded for me to follow him to the side of the road where we’d be less visible in the streetlight.
“This is going to sound weird,” he began, “but I just had this feeling that something was wrong down at Sheehan’s.”
“Not that weird.” Then I proceeded to fill him in on what had happened at the pub.
“Tanner felt it too?” he asked eagerly. “So, I’m not crazy?”
I thought of the chalkboard he kept in his office at the Parchment Catacombs where he sketched out his web of conspiracies. “You might still be. But not in this case. He said he had a feeling the three of us were in trouble, and he hurried over, which, by the way, you’re way late on, so it’s a good thing we didn’t actually need your help to survive.”
He hung his head. “Yeah, sorry. I was with Grace, and I didn’t want to have to explain to her why I was rushing out into the rain late at night. So I waited until she fell asleep.”
I thought of Landon as a little brother, and as such, I wanted to offer him some sage advice about not sneaking out the second your significant other falls asleep.
But I was probably not the best person to offer that particular relationship advice, considering my track record, so I held it in.
“I think it’s the circle,” I said.
“Really?”
“I mean, what else could it be?
In usual Landon fashion, he paused to consider it fully and I could almost hear the wheels turning.
“But Grace never mentioned that happening with her and her circle.”
That was definitely for the best, considering Landon and I were part of the reason the rest of Grace’s circle was in Ironhelm. I cou
ldn’t imagine whatever ESP she might have with three prison-bound witches would be especially pleasant.
“Maybe it only happens with complete circles,” I suggested.
He shrugged. “As good a guess as any.”
A tipsy leprechaun couple headed down the road toward us, reminding me that this conversation should absolutely not be happening. “You should go back home. You know what’ll happen if people glimpse us meeting out in the rain. I think we’re in bigger danger than we originally thought.”
He nodded and turned to leave, but before he did, I grabbed the sopping sleeve of his cloak. He cast a glance at me over his shoulder, and I said, “Tell Grace where you’ve been and why. Whatever you think you’re saving her from or whatever awkwardness you think you might be avoiding … it’s not worth it.”
He didn’t say a word, just chewed his lip then nodded and left.
Chapter Ten
Since the inspection wasn’t until early afternoon, I figured I should enjoy my morning off, and I dragged Tanner out to brunch with me. He was exhausted from his night shift and hadn’t slept yet, but he didn’t complain.
Grim came along, as well, though he made no secret of the fact he wasn’t coming for the company. “Hagseed Cafe has the best roast beef hash in the entire realm. I think I deserve some after my heroics,” he’d said earlier that morning, as I’d grabbed my coat and umbrella from the rack by the front door.
He was going to milk his minimal effort during the silver attack for all he could. And I planned on letting him, so long as it meant I had him close by. I would never admit it to him, but after what had happened at Medium Rare and then Sheehan’s, and after learning about the reward for finding the North Wind in our circle, I was edgy, and having a giant, grumpy, resurrected hellhound at my side took a bit of that edge off. Grim would deny it furiously, but when push came to shove, he always had my back.