I watched carefully as she ran the items through the point-of-sale system then handed the man back his change and a receipt.
“Thank you so much,” he said to her.
“My pleasure,” Tora replied, beaming. “Tell your wife happy birthday from us!”
“I will.”
The wizard left and Tora turned to me. “Sorry, I hope I didn’t overstep.”
“Not at all,” I said. “That was perfect. You’re going to fit in just fine here.”
A few more customers started streaming in and I manned the coffee machine while Tora handled the customer service and the bakery side of things. We got into a rhythm, working well together, and I was pleased at the decision we’d made to hire her.
Kyran walked in during a brief break, and Tora greeted him like she did every other customer.
“Thanks, but I’m just here to chat to Tina,” he said, motioning toward me. I made my way to him and he pulled me aside.
“How’s Amy doing?”
“Well,” I replied. “About as well as can be expected. Titan gave her a potion to dull her senses, but Heather gave her an antidote and she seems to be back to normal.”
“Good, I’m glad,” Kyran replied.
“Have you found out anything?” I asked. After all, I figured if anybody was going to stick his nose in this business, it was Kyran. Not only did he love me, but dealing with people working outside the law was what he did.
“All of the portals are sealed,” he replied. “Including the lesser-known ones. I checked them all personally. There’s absolutely no way he came in.”
“What about in the time it took to seal the portals?” I asked. “Do you think he could have come in then?”
“No,” Kyran said. “I know Chief Enforcer King thinks there’s a chance, and she’s taking no risks, but I’m sure he’s not here. At least, he hasn’t come through the portals.”
“There are other ways to get into towns?” I asked, my eyes widening.
“Not that I know of,” Kyran said. “I mean, ok, there are the sneaky ways, like how we did it to get into Kilokilo, or how the Pacific Cove witches did it to get home. But I don’t know of any way to get into Western Woods without using the portals. But just because I don’t know about it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Magic is old and powerful, and I’m sure there’s ways of using it I don’t know about. I’ve been on this earth long enough to know that.”
I nodded. Kyran was hundreds of years old—we tried to avoid the age difference discussion most of the time.
“So you think I’m safe?”
“I do. Besides, you’ve been out here for a couple of hours now. I think if anything, Titan is going to be mad. You stole Amy from right under his nose. I don’t think he’s going to wait in hiding. He’s going to come right out and try to destroy you as soon as he can. The fact that he hasn’t come to the bakery yet says a lot.”
“Good,” I replied. “Hey, listen, can you do me a favor? Amy keeps talking about the result of her exam. She wants to know if she passed or not. Can you find out for me how she did? I don’t know any of the elves, whereas you do.”
Kyran grinned at me. “You’re never going to believe this, but someone stole some of the exam papers from the elven headquarters, including Amy’s.”
No way.
Chapter 15
“You have got to be kidding me. Seriously?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he replied. “I was over there earlier this morning. The professor is incredibly upset about it. A few of the exam papers were lost, and Amy’s is one of them.”
“Hmm,” I said, my eyes narrowing. “Do you really think that’s a coincidence?”
“Absolutely not,” Kyran replied.
“Ugh, poor Amy. What are they going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Kyran said with a shrug. “I don’t think anything like this has ever happened in the history of elven education. As you know, we’re an incredibly organized people. It’s highly embarrassing for all of us.”
I groaned. “Right. And of course, it’s quickly going to be blamed on Amy, the only witch in the group, even if it’s not her fault.”
“That’s the way things seem to be going,” Kyran confirmed with an unhappy shrug. “There’s a lot of talk about how these things never happened before they let witches into the program.”
“Ugh,” I replied. “Well, we can’t let this actually affect anything. We need to figure out who stole those exam papers, and where they are now.”
“I thought you’d say that,” Kyran said with a smile.
“Let me just run it past Ellie. Wait here,” I said, making my way quickly to the kitchen at the back. I gave her a brief rundown of the situation.
“It’s fine, go,” Ellie said. “Sara says Amy is driving her crazy and she was going to come down and help work for a little bit as well. She’ll be here soon.”
“Are you sure you’re going to be ok?” I asked. “Make sure you text me if anything out of the ordinary happens.”
“I will,” Ellie promised. “Now go find Amy’s exam papers. If you don’t, it’s not Titan who’s going to destroy us all, it’s Amy.”
I laughed as I realized Ellie was right. I didn’t want to see Amy turn into the Hulk if she realized her exam was missing, but I was fairly certain that was what would happen. I made my way out of the store with Kyran and we started walking toward the woods.
“Where is all of this happening?” I asked. I had been to The White Tree, the club where elves went, which always gave me the impression of being a sort of fancy, old-style English club, but more open.
“Elven headquarters,” Kyran replied. “It’s a certain part of the forest. I’ll take you there.”
I couldn’t believe I’d lived in Western Woods for a year and had yet to visit the elven headquarters. The two of us eventually reached the forest, with Kyran making his way along the well-trodden path like an expert.
After about twenty minutes, during which I ended up completely lost with no sense of what direction the main town was in, we arrived at the most incredible place I had ever seen. Built in the trees of the forest were about a dozen wooden treehouses, all linked to one another with rope bridges. It was so natural, so perfect, with the sun streaming in through the trees.
“The Elven Academy is this way,” Kyran said, leading me toward a set of stairs built into the base of one of the trees and making its way around it in a circle. I climbed slowly, using the bark of the tree’s trunk to stabilize myself as I rose up into the trees. I couldn’t help but look around; this was just absolutely gorgeous. We eventually passed upward through a hole in the floor and found ourselves in a large space separated into a few different rooms.
Everything about this place was incredible. The natural wood gave the entire space a warm feeling as fresh air and pine needles fell through the cracks. “Does this place get cold in winter?” I asked, and Kyran shook his head.
“No. It’s been enchanted, thanks to some witches and wizards, so that it always stays at the perfect temperature, even when it’s cold outside.”
“There are no desks,” I said, looking around.
“Elves study sitting on the ground,” Kyran explained. “It helps us feel closer to nature.”
“This isn’t exactly the ground; we’re about fifty feet up.”
“Well, the overall concept is the same. A lot of classes, in the spring and summer especially, actually take place outside most of the time, and the students only come in here to study when the weather turns.”
“Interesting,” I said. Suddenly, a tall, thin elf in a white tunic slid silently into the room, his hands clasped in front of him. His hair was a pure white color, his eyes a blue so light it was like looking into a glacier. This dude was creepy.
“Kyrandir,” he said in a low voice. “What brings you, along with a witch, to our central place?”
“This is a friend of Amy, the witch who is a student in your classes,” Kyran replied. “We were h
oping to speak with you, Filmordir, about the missing examination papers from earlier today.”
Filmordir bowed his head. “Of course. I understand there is much dissatisfaction among our less liberal-minded members as to the reason for this untimely and unfortunate event.”
That was definitely the fanciest way of saying “a bunch of elves resented Amy being allowed to study with them” I’d ever heard.
“Was anyone especially loud about their disapproval?” Kyran asked, and Filmordir pressed his lips together.
“You cannot be asking me who among the young law students you believe to be the culprit,” he answered. “We do not even know that there may be foul play involved. It is possible that I have simply misplaced the papers in question.”
“We both know you didn’t,” Kyran replied.
“You always were an impertinent young elf,” Filmordir replied. “None of the patience of your ancestors. It is not your place to try and find the person responsible for taking those exams, if that is in fact what has happened.”
“What happens now for those five students?” I blurted out. “Do they have to redo the test?”
“It has yet to be decided,” Filmordir replied. “This is a situation which we have not experienced in the past, and so we do not have a dedicated plan. We cannot simply have the students retake the test, as they would have an unfair advantage over the others. In all likelihood, the students will be assigned a failing mark unless the missing tests are located.”
My mouth dropped open. “A fail! But that’s so unfair. It’s not like it was the students’ fault you lost the papers!”
Filmordir’s eyes darkened. “And what do you suggest?”
“Write a new exam, based on the same material, and have the students take that instead.”
“But there is no way to ensure equality among the difficulty of the two tests,” Filmordir replied.
“Then make everyone write the second exam and just throw out the results from the first. But you can’t fail Amy just because you lost her exam. That’s so unfair!”
“I make no promises. As it stands right now, that is the most likely outcome from this.”
I realized I was shaking with rage. I was so upset on Amy’s behalf. There was no way I was going to let them fail Amy because someone else stole her exam paper before it was graded.
“Tell me, then, who had access to the papers before they disappeared?” Kyran asked.
Filmordir’s eyes darted from side to side, as though he were looking for a route from which to escape from this conversation. Finally, he sighed.
“There weren’t many. The students, of course. And your father stopped by, but he is of course beyond suspicion.”
I looked over at Kyran, but his face betrayed nothing. He and his father didn’t get along, to say the least, but his father had been responsible for Amy being allowed to study to become a lawyer.
“Is that it?”
“That is everyone. I saw no one else between leaving here and getting to my home, and that was where I discovered the missing papers.”
“So it had to be one of Amy’s classmates,” I mused. “Was there anyone who was more upset than others about her being allowed to study law?”
“Everyone was upset,” Filmordir said. “It goes against the natural order of things. We were forced into the situation. But there were a few elves who were more vocal about their outrage than others. Portindir and Regindir. I believe you know them.”
“I do,” Kyran said. “Tell me about the class. How has it been affected by the entrance of a witch?”
Filmordir frowned. “It has not been a good experience, although I’m sure an elf like you could not imagine why. We have never welcomed a witch into our classes in the past.”
“It sounds like you’re not welcoming one now, either,” I shot back, earning myself a glare from Filmordir.
“It is not as simple as you believe it to be to invite another species. For thousands of years we have done things in this way. But we have been told we must try, and of course, Kyran, your father is revered in this profession. If he believes it to be a good idea, then I am willing to subjugate myself to his superior knowledge and accept the witch as one of my students. And I do have to admit, she is a harder worker than I had expected, and she seems to grasp the material taught at least as quickly as my other students. I have nothing to complain about when it comes to her work.”
I bit back a smile. It figured that Amy would manage to eventually bring around even the most hardened of the thousands-of-years-old elves that taught law around here.
“Well, I’m glad to hear that,” I replied. “Amy does work very hard. How about the other students? How do they act around her?”
“For the most part, she is ignored. There have been a few incidents of outright hostility, on the part of Portindir and Regindir, but I do not believe that they would have stooped so low as to steal the examination papers. As far as the others, they mostly ignore Amy. That said, I do believe she has an admirer in the class. He would never be so bold as to approach her, but he appears to pay attention when she speaks, and I overheard him defending the idea of having a witch in the classes to Portindir a couple of days past.”
“Interesting,” I muttered.
“However, Ungordir not only has no motive, but he would not have been the thief even if he had one. His examination paper was one of the five taken.”
“So who do you think did it?” Kyran asked, and Filmordir shrugged.
“It is not for me to cast blame on my students. I can prove nothing, and therefore I shall not speculate.”
“Nice to see lawyers in the paranormal world are the same as lawyers in the real world,” I replied. “Is there no one else apart from Portindir and Regindir that may have been particularly opposed to Amy being in the class?”
“I can only say that overall, she was not accepted into the group,” Filmordir said. “But no, no one else took their actions past what I would consider to be reasonable objections.”
“Alright, thanks,” Kyran said. I followed him as he made his way to a balcony at the far end of the building, then he began walking across a thin rope bridge to another one of the buildings located in an adjacent tree.
I balked at the sight.
“What’s wrong?” Kyran called from the other side after he had nimbly bounded across the rope.
“Is that entirely safe?” I asked, looking suspiciously at the rope bridge.
“Yes, don’t worry. This bridge has been here for hundreds of years.”
“That does not make me feel better,” I shouted back.
“It’ll be fine, Tina,” he said with a small smile. “I can’t believe after everything you’ve been through in the last twenty-four hours this is where you draw the line.”
I supposed he had a bit of a point there, but I had never been a big fan of heights. I stepped carefully onto the bridge, then took another cautious step. The ropes swayed slightly under me, but they didn’t look like they were about to snap in half, which was a plus. I continued along, careful to look over at the other side and making sure not to look down, and after a minute, I had made it across.
“Perfect,” Kyran said. “Come on. Portindir and Regindir will be over here.”
Chapter 16
The two of us walked through a couple more of the tree fort buildings until we reached one that seemed to be the elven equivalent of a bar. Here there were tables and chairs, and the elves sitting at them drank from elegant-looking glasses and spoke in quiet voices. It wasn’t a thing like the more boisterous witch and wizard taverns.
Kyran led me to a table in the corner, where a couple of elves were in the middle of a deep conversation. The one on the left had short brown hair, matching eyes, and a thin face. The one on the right had platinum blond hair that reached his shoulders, along with light blue eyes that just looked mean. The fact that he scowled as soon as he looked up to see Kyran and me certainly didn’t help endear him to me.
&n
bsp; “Kyrandir,” he said. “Wouldn’t have expected to find you here, among the others of your kind.”
“Hello, Portindir,” Kyran replied. “Tina and I have some questions to ask you. Mind if we sit?” He then pulled out a chair and sat down without waiting for an answer, and I followed suit.
“We do, actually,” Regindir replied with a frown. “We’re trying to enjoy a nice glass of wine in peace. We don’t need a witch and a fake elf interrupting us. It’s bad enough we have to deal with one in our classes.”
“That’s exactly what we’re here to talk to you about,” Kyran replied. “So that works out well. We heard you’re a little bit overly aggressive in your obvious dislike of the witch in your law classes.”
“Yes, well, someone must be,” Portindir replied, crossing his arms across his chest. “The law is for elves. It has always been for elves. My father was a lawyer before me, and his father before him, going back thousands of years. Now, all of a sudden, a witch would like to involve herself in our business? That’s not acceptable, and it must be stopped.”
“Did part of that involve stealing the witch in question’s examination paper?” I asked, and the two elves looked at each other.
“I did not realize that had happened,” Regindir said, and I narrowed my eyes at him, trying to tell whether or not he was lying. “Was her paper taken? We heard some had disappeared.”
“That’s right,” Kyran said. “Amy’s paper is missing, and we think the two of you might have done it.”
“Hold on,” Regindir said, holding up a hand. “We do not like the witch. We don’t believe the witch should be allowed to study with us. But we also did nothing that would be considered against the rules. We do not like her being in the class, but we do not believe any witch is important enough to risk us getting kicked out of the program ourselves.”
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