by Elle Adams
By the time I reached the lake again, it was to find several gargoyles surrounding Casey. The siren wore handcuffs too, suggesting she’d handed herself in out of guilt. Or Sky had encouraged her to. While he sat in his innocuous cat form on the bank, the way the others avoided him suggested he’d pulled out the monstrous glamour at one point or other. And the broom was still there. Good, because I needed to hand it back over to the witches.
I crouched to pet Sky. “You chased Nathan’s dad off?” I murmured. “He’s not going to be happy.”
“Miaow,” said Sky, probably meaning, I don’t care.
“The elf king said my dad seems to think the fairies are coming here,” I whispered to him. “Is he right?”
Sky shook himself, dislodging my hand. He’d been acting weirdly, too, like the pixie. Maybe it was to do with the presence of Nathan’s family, but I had a feeling there was more to it than that.
“Blair?” Nathan’s deep voice came from behind me.
I swallowed hard. I wasn’t ready for this conversation. Especially not here. “Nathan.”
“I’m glad you’re okay,” he said. Sky hissed at him as he tried to take a step closer. “What’s your cat doing here?”
“He helped me catch this guy.” I waved a hand at Casey, who was sobbing at the gargoyles, his pleas lost under the rustle of wings. “And the siren, too.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” he asked. “I was worried about you. The police said you went into the forest…”
“To clear things up with the elf king.” My throat tightened. He hadn’t broached the subject, but maybe he didn’t want to discuss his family in front of the crowd. “Er—do you want to talk alone?”
He frowned at Steve, then nodded. “Yes, I think it’s best to let the police take over.”
I drew in a deep breath and walked with him into the forest, the thick branches closing over our heads. He didn’t speak and didn’t move to take my hand either. Sky padded at my side, still looking distrustful.
“Sky, don’t be absurd,” I muttered to him. “This is Nathan, remember? He’s safe.”
Nathan glanced down at the cat. “He doesn’t trust me?”
“He’s being a little overprotective,” I answered. “Sorry I didn’t call. My phone took a swim in the lake.”
“How’d that happen?”
I told him. The brief version, anyway. I didn’t mention his father, waiting for him to do so, but he listened in silence to my account of how I’d helped Bracken and Annabel and had caught the criminal.
“Really, Blair,” he said. “It’s a good job your cat was here.”
“Yes… when he’d finished chasing your dad away from the woods.”
A heartbeat passed. “My father?”
“Yeah, I ran into him on the north side of the lake.”
Nathan stopped walking. “You did? What was he doing there?”
“I hoped you could tell me that,” I said quietly.
Sky meowed in agreement.
He shook his head. “No. I thought he left town on Sunday night. He made it clear he needed to get back to the office.”
Truth. A little of the tension eased out of me, but not all.
“I thought he’d retired,” I said.
His brow furrowed. “So did I. But it’s not unusual for him to check up on my brother. He doesn’t have as much experience as my dad does, and often needs guidance.”
I thought of Sky’s reaction. “Did either of them mention the fairies coming back to town?”
His gaze slid to me. “No… why? Did someone tell you they were coming back?”
“My dad told the elf king by way of the pixie,” I said. “Yeah. They’re up to something, and so’s your father. He was hanging around by the lake. I don’t know what he was doing. But he told me—”
“Don’t listen to a word,” he said. “I suspected he’d try to get you alone to convince you to break up with me at the first opportunity. He already tried it on me almost every day last week and it didn’t work.”
But did you know what he told me?
“He told you I was a criminal? That my family was?” I asked.
“Yes, he did. I told you, Blair, I don’t see you like that. And you’re not a criminal.”
“I know I’m not.” My voice shook. “My family, though—”
“I can’t pretend I know why your father was arrested, but it has nothing to do with you.”
“Not him.” My voice trembled again, and my eyes burned.
“Blair? What is it?”
He didn’t know. He didn’t know.
I sank down on the forest path, whispering the horrible truth, and Nathan let me cry on him until I was out of tears.
Broomsticks wheeled in the air. I tilted my head to watch, gladder than ever that my feet were back on the ground where they belonged.
Helen had picked an empty field at a safe distance from the lake for the academy students to host their Sky Hopper game. While the elves had retrieved all the pieces of broken crystal ball from the lake—aided by the merpeople, who’d grown tired of fishing them out of the depths of the water—the High Fliers and academy students alike mutually agreed that hosting any contest near the lake felt like bad luck.
No more flying for me. I’d passed my test yesterday, and I’d be sticking to wings, wands, and Seven Millimetre Boots from now on. It’d taken some serious pleading with Madame Grey to allow Sky to fly with me, but the witch council had agreed that my wings gave me a disadvantage most other fliers didn’t have. They’d unanimously voted to let me bring my cat into my exam. I was lucky to have passed, considering Sky had decided he didn’t like flying when we were descending in the final part of the exam and jumped off the broom, landing on one of the examiners’ heads in the process.
Helen had bounded up to me the instant I’d received my test scores and pleaded with me to help out at the game, and in a moment of madness, I’d said yes. All I had to do was point my wand into the air and shoot sparks up at the sky to announce each stage of the game. Occasional floods of glitter rained on everyone’s heads, but Helen had cheerfully said it created ambience.
Besides, any activity that made me feel normal was more than welcome.
I’d heard nothing more from the pixie, or my dad. While Nathan’s family hadn’t made a reappearance and Sky was back to his usual enigmatic self, the questions lingered in the back of my mind. The hunters would always be looking for an angle, and I’d bet Nathan’s family would be reporting everything they’d seen in Fairy Falls directly to Inquisitor Hare.
As for Nathan… we’d only had the chance to talk a couple of times since my breakdown in the woods. It was clear that me and his family were never going to be on the same page, though he said Erin was already planning to pay me a visit again once she’d secured a new job. She’d left the hunters behind, same as he did. I expected her to show up on Dritch & Co’s doorstep any day now.
My co-workers had come out to enjoy the show and clapped along with everyone else when the game finished with Terrence’s former team the victors. I raised my wand, fired a streamer of glitter into the air, and applause rang out. Then everyone ducked for cover as the wind caught the glitter, blowing it into their faces.
“Oops,” I said.
“You do have a knack for that spell,” Bethan commented from behind me, picking glitter out of her hair. On my other side stood Alissa, who grinned.
“I have to be good at something,” I said, waving my wand again to make the glitter disappear from our clothes. “Don’t think I’ll be up in the air like them anytime soon.”
“Helen seems to think you will,” Alissa whispered.
“Don’t even.” I looked at the cheering students, and my gaze settled on the group of elves on the other side of the field. Even Bracken and Annabel had come out to watch.
Alissa spotted where I was looking. “Cute,” she said in a low voice. “They say they’re marrying in winter. It’ll be the town’s first elf-human wedding.�
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“And the first fairy-human one will be soon,” Bethan added, and I gave her a warning look, glad for once that Nathan had been too busy to come. He’d taken to walking along the town’s northern border himself where possible, but his father hadn’t come back.
Alissa nudged me in the ribs. I cringed, expecting to find Nathan behind me listening to every word my gossipy co-workers and best friend said, but it was Madame Grey.
“Blair,” she said. “You did a great job. I’m glad to see you getting more involved with our community.”
Madame Grey handed out praise even less frequently than Rita did. Naturally, that made me suspicious, and so did the sympathetic expression on her face.
The others moved back to give me space to talk to her. “I owed Helen a favour after helping me learn to ride a broomstick,” I explained. “And I wanted to help out the academy, too, since it took me so long to catch the killer. It doesn’t hurt to give something back to the town, considering everything you’ve done for me.”
Casey and the siren had both been jailed—the latter with a lighter sentence—and the lake was safe once again. The elves, meanwhile, were under the king’s close watch for the foreseeable future.
“You don’t owe us anything,” she said. “You’re always welcome here, Blair. Always. Don’t doubt that.”
Tears of gratitude stung my eyes. “Thank you. What… what brought this on?”
“Your mother.”
My heart did a painful flip. I thought I’d grown used to the notion that she was gone, but every time I remembered, it caught me off guard.
“What about her?” I said quietly.
“We’ve been digging into the town’s history,” she said. “My fellow coven leaders and I, that is. When she left, we all assumed she’d gone to a different paranormal community away from here. But what you told us… it paints the situation in a new light.”
You’re telling me. I’d told Rita what I’d learned, and she’d passed it onto Madame Grey. I didn’t know how I’d managed to pass my exam considering how distracted I’d been, but my wand practical had been put on hold until my emotions were back under some semblance of control.
“Your mother was by all accounts a remarkable witch,” Madame Grey said. “But a criminal… no. Certainly not while she lived here.”
“Nathan’s dad worked for the hunters,” I whispered to her. “If anyone knew, he did. And—and you heard Blythe’s mother. She said the same. And she didn’t lie.”
Her mouth tightened. “Perhaps. We’ll continue to look into it.”
It did make me feel much better to know Madame Grey didn’t believe my mother was a criminal. Sure, Blythe’s mother believed so, but my lie-sensing power wasn’t faultless. Recent events proved that, at least.
“Has anyone mentioned fairies coming back to the falls?” I asked her.
“No. Why?”
“Just something I heard. From the elves.” She didn’t know about the pixie, or my dad, and now wasn’t the time to bring up the subject. Dad hadn’t wanted me to tell her, but considering recent events, maybe he’d have a change of heart if I explained she was on my mother’s side.
“If we had, I would know,” she said. “The elves do talk to us, you know. They’re not as insular as they appear.”
“I thought they didn’t deal with the witches at all.” I was starting to think Bramble had wanted me to believe that on purpose. But while he and Twig had tried their best to prevent Annabel and Bracken from finding happiness together, they’d failed.
“I think we know that’s about to change, Blair.” Her gaze went to the happy couple. I caught Annabel’s eye and she smiled at me across the field. “But don’t let a few rumours ruin your memory of your mother. I have no doubt she loved you.”
My eyes stung again. Maybe she had, but it didn’t change the fact that I’d never see her again.
“I think she did,” I murmured. “I also think she didn’t mean for me to find this world at all.”
“And do you regret it?” Her eyes were kind, and I became conscious of the clamour surrounding me. The broomsticks landing as the triumphant students talked excitedly. My friends and co-workers gathered close by, ready to support me no matter what happened.
“No,” I said. “No regrets here.”
From the instant I’d arrived in Fairy Falls, I’d known I was in for a bumpy ride. My relationship with Nathan was no exception to that rule. But there was proof right in front of me that I didn’t have to let others’ opinions rule the choices I made.
Even a seer couldn’t know everything that was to come. The future wasn’t set in stone, not for any of us. But that was part of the fun.
Thank you for reading!
The story continues in Blair’s next adventure, coming soon.
Want more witchy fun? Try the first in my new Library Witch Mysteries series, available now.
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About the Author
Elle Adams lives in the middle of England, where she spends most of her time reading an ever-growing mountain of books, planning her next adventure, or writing. Elle's books are humorous mysteries with a paranormal twist, packed with magical mayhem.
She also writes urban and contemporary fantasy novels as Emma L. Adams.
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