A Catastrophic Theft

by P. D. Workman

  “Sarah, did you actually see Starlight come into the house? Or did Corvin just tell you that he did?”

  Sarah stared at her and Reg was afraid she didn’t understand what Reg was saying. She opened her mouth to prompt Sarah further. Sarah gave a little shake of her head.

  “Starlight wouldn’t come into the house.”

  “No,” Reg smiled, relieved. “He wouldn’t, would he? Do you think Corvin really saw something? Do you think maybe he saw a different black cat?”

  “The one in the garden?”

  Reg let out a puff of breath. “Yes. The one you saw in the garden. Do you think that’s the cat Corvin saw?”

  “A cat didn’t steal my necklace.”

  “I saw it too.” Marian was standing in the doorway, listening in.

  “What did you see, though?” Reg demanded. “Did you see a cat in the house? A cat with the necklace? Or a cat in the yard? Corvin says it was Starlight, but Starlight hasn’t been out of the house, so maybe he saw the other stray that’s been hanging around.”

  “I saw the cat in the yard. Corvin saw it going into the house.”

  “How? It couldn’t get in through a locked door.”

  Marian considered for a moment, then shrugged. “Through a window? A hole in the screen door?”

  “How did he say it got in?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t specify.”

  “I think he’s making it up. Maybe he saw it in the yard like you did and it gave him the idea, but I don’t believe he ever saw it go into the house.”

  “Frostling wouldn’t have let a cat steal the emerald,” Sarah said, her voice quiet and whispery.

  “Cats are predators. Wouldn’t he have been afraid?”

  She chuckled. “Haven’t you ever seen a mama bird go after a cat? A parrot is a big bird. No cat would stick around if he was attacking.”

  “What about another bird?” Reg asked, thinking about Davyn using birds to send his missives. “What if someone sent a raven or something to steal it? Or maybe one saw it through the window. They like shiny things, right?”

  “Corvin?” Sarah asked.

  “Him. Or another warlock. Or someone else. Is it a possibility?”

  Sarah’s shoulder lifted in a little shrug. “I don’t know. I don’t know how Frostling would have responded to another bird. Do you really think Corvin took it?”

  Reg sighed at the wistfulness in Sarah’s voice. “I think he’s the most likely suspect.”

  “I thought that was you,” Marian said.

  Reg gave her a warning look. She wondered how Marian would like it if her hair ignited. She suppressed a smile at the image and tried to block Marian from reading her.

  “Corvin needs magical artifacts more than anyone,” Reg pointed out. “Something as powerful as the emerald… it would be a huge temptation for him, wouldn’t it?”

  “But he couldn’t come into the house. I have wards against those who enter with the intent of doing harm.”

  “He came in with you yesterday.”

  Sarah looked at Reg, her eyes clouded with confusion. “I didn’t see Corvin yesterday.”

  “Yes, you did. You had dinner with him over at The Crystal Bowl. He and I had an… argument. You weren’t home until late, hours after that.”

  “I didn’t go out yesterday. I was just home, resting.”

  Reg glanced over at Marian, looking for her opinion of Sarah’s confusion. Marian gave a shrug. Sarah was an old woman. Ancient, if Reg were to believe what she’d been told. Memory slips were normal. But it didn’t help Reg to solve what had happened.

  “So if Corvin came in with Sarah yesterday,” she spoke to Marian, “then either his intentions were good, or Sarah invited him in, right?”

  “I’m a psychic, not a witch. I don’t know all of the ins and outs of spells and charms.”

  “Sarah.” Sarah was starting to drift and Reg touched her arm to rouse her again. “Did you invite Corvin in? Have you invited anyone in lately?”

  “No. No one.”

  “How could someone get in if you didn’t invite them? Is there another way around the wards?”

  Sarah brushed a fringe of gray hair away from her face. “Wards are not the strongest spells. They have to be very specific, and it is best to have several of them. You can talk someone into releasing their ward, or inviting you in. Or if they have something that belongs to you…”

  Reg thought about that. Her mind flashed to the business card that Davyn had given to her, which she had insisted he put in her mailbox rather than touching it or bringing it into her house. She never had taken it out.

  “If you have something that belongs to them… like what? Anything? What if I left something here on purpose and came back for it later? Could I get through the wards?”

  “I don’t have wards against you,” Sarah said. “Not unless you wish me harm.”

  “I don’t!” Reg said immediately. Her eyes got suddenly hot and stung. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. I want you to get better. I want you to be well again. But what if Corvin—or someone—gave you something, and then came back for it later? Would that allow him past your wards?”

  “Yes, probably.”

  Sarah covered a yawn. Her eyes were drooping. Reg could feel waves of exhaustion emanating from Marian. She scowled. “Stop that!”

  Marian’s eyes widened. “What?”

  “I’m trying to talk to her. Stop trying to make her more tired.”

  “I wasn’t…” Marian trailed off. “You can feel that?”

  “I can feel everything you do. So stop trying to influence me or to influence Sarah around me.”

  “But I wasn’t… She needs her sleep. It’s better for her if she just rests. The more energy she expends, the faster she’s going to fade.”

  Reg looked down at Sarah, her eyes closed peacefully. “Okay. I don’t want to run her down. I was just hoping she could help some more. Anything she can tell us about who might have been here or who might have been able to get past her wards… I’d really like to be able to find the emerald before it’s too late.”

  “It might already be.”

  “I know. But… I can’t accept that. I’m going to find that necklace. I’m going to find it, and it’s going to be in time to help her.”

  “Do you really think you’re getting any closer? Whoever took it must be long gone by now. Why would anyone take it and then stick around?”

  “Someone like Corvin? He has such a huge ego… he’d be sure no one could ever find him out.”

  Marian gave a shrug that conceded the point. Reg was sure that she wasn’t the only one who found Corvin to be a huge pain in the neck, with an ego as big as a hot air balloon.

  Devastatingly handsome with the magnetism to match, but a huge pain in the neck.

  “I want to take another look in the room the emerald was displayed in before I go,” Reg said.

  Marian raised an eyebrow. “I’ll come with you.”

  “I don’t need an escort.”

  “Well, if I’m with you, no one can accuse you of having taken anything.”

  “The emerald is already gone. It’s a bit late for that.”

  “True, but Sarah has other items of value. If any of them were to go missing, you wouldn’t want to be a suspect. Especially since two valuable articles have already disappeared.”

  Reg breathed deeply. Two artifacts. Not just the emerald, but the knife too. Which made her all the more sure it was Corvin. A blade imbued with powerful fairy blood was just the sort of thing he would want. It was not the kind of thing that a treasure-hunter after valuable jewelry and gems would have been attracted to. It was a fine blade, sharp and well-wrought from fairy steel, but it wasn’t the type of thing that would have caught the eyes of someone who was looking to make a bit of quick cash. That’s the kind of thing that would only be appreciated by someone who knew its story. And if that person were also able to imbibe in the powers it held…

  “Let�
�s go, then.”

  She led the way to the room Sarah had previously shown to Reg and Detective Jessup. It looked just as it had. Reg looked around carefully before stepping in. She caught sight of Frostling, snoozing on his perch, and kept a close eye on him. She didn’t want to get attacked again.

  “This is where it was,” Reg said unnecessarily, pointing to the glass-encased display.

  She and Marian walked over to it reverentially. Reg had opened the case when Sarah had shown it to her previously, but it was closed again. Reg touched the glass, engaging the spring-loaded opening mechanism, and watched it open just as it had the first time. She and Marian just stood there for a moment. Reg glanced over at Frostling, watching for any sign he was ready to attack. But he seemed to be asleep. Maybe the loss of the emerald was making him age as well, or his health was tied to Sarah’s.

  Reg examined the display case closely. The molded form that normally held the necklace in an attractive configuration. The lock. The edges. She looked at the glass from several angles, looking for fingerprints or tool marks. But surely the police had already dusted it for prints and anything else that was out of place. Reg’s eye caught on the edge of something with a soft shine, and she ran her fingertip along one of the tracks that the display case settled into to dislodge it.

  “What’s that?” Marian asked.

  “A ribbon.” Reg held up the long curl of black ribbon that had been camouflaged by the black velvet and black tracks of the display case. She examined it. “This must be the ribbon that the emerald was strung on.”

  Marian nodded. “It’s about the right length. But would she just have tied it on? That doesn’t seem secure.”

  Reg looked at the ends of the ribbon. There were no creases where it had previously been knotted. “It doesn’t look like it. Maybe she puts a fresh ribbon on each time, and this was a fresh one for next time. Or maybe it was for something else.” She glanced over at the slumbering bird. “Maybe it’s the bird’s. It had just fallen into the crack, here.”

  Marian peered at it. “Can I touch it?”

  Reg wanted to say no just out of spite. Marian was her rival and had not been very gracious toward her. But it wasn’t Reg’s ribbon and she had been able to touch it. Maybe Marian could get a vibe from it that Reg wasn’t in tune with.

  She held it toward Marian, the ribbon lying on her hand. Marian reached out to take it, and their hands touched, sending a sharp jolt through both of them.

  Both women immediately jolted back.

  “What was that?” Reg demanded.

  Marian eyed Reg suspiciously. “When I was young, there were these little trick toys called joy buzzers. You hid it in your hand when you were going to shake hands with someone, and then gave them a jolt. Just like that.”

  Reg was still holding her hand out in front of her. She splayed her fingers, making it obvious that she wasn’t holding anything hidden from Marian.

  “I don’t know what it was,” Marian said. “Some kind of psychic connection? Or aversion?”

  “Yeah.” Reg’s fingers were tingling, but there was no damage. She dangled the end of the ribbon for Marian. “Do you want to take it?”

  Marian reached out carefully. She touched the ribbon. With both of them holding it, it was like a living thing, warm and substantial.

  “Very odd,” Marian said. She closed her eyes, focusing her psychic powers. Reg took a deep breath and did the same. If it was the ribbon from the emerald, then would touching it allow her to find the emerald? If she and Marian worked together…?

  Neither of them spoke or moved for some minutes. The ribbon was weighing heavily in Reg’s hand. She inched her hand toward Marian’s, feeling for a shift in the current between them. She reached a point when the air between their fingertips seemed to be buzzing, and pushing any closer was uncomfortable.

  “It’s like when I tripped a pixie spell,” Reg told Marian. “I was in the shadow world and whenever I tried to touch anyone who was part of the real world, it was like this. And to come back, I had to hold hands with someone in the real world, even though it hurt.”

  Marian stared at Reg, scowling.

  “What?” Reg asked.

  “Are you making all of that up?”

  “Of course not. Ask Detective Jessup or Corvin. They were there. Corvin was invisible too. And Jessup was the one who had to bring him back.”

  “Who brought you back?”

  “Calliopia. A fairy.”

  Marian still looked angry and disbelieving. “This… polarity between us… you’re not doing that intentionally?”

  “No.”

  “Let me hold it.”

  Reg dropped her end of the ribbon into Marian’s hand. Marian examined it and ran the satiny fabric through her fingers.

  “A pixie spell.”

  “Yes,” Reg agreed. “That was what made me invisible. There is this whole thing between the fairies and the pixies…”

  “I’m aware of the animosity between them. But I’m not sure how you got mixed up in it.”

  Reg took a breath to explain, but Marian raised her hand to stop Reg. “I’m not actually asking. I’m just thinking about what I know of pixies.” She looked down at the ribbon.

  “What about them?”

  “They tend to be dressed in rags. Not because they don’t value fine clothing, but because they wear them forever… until everything is worn and patched and falling apart. Something like this…” She wound the ribbon around her fingers. “This would actually be very valuable to them.”

  “A ribbon?”

  Marian nodded.

  Reg didn’t argue it. She didn’t know enough about the other magical races in Black Sands to advance any opinion or theories. “The pixies that I’ve seen have been pretty dirty and worn,” she agreed. Ruan and his family. The pixies that they’d fought underground. They all had the same blue eyes, messy brown curls, and tattered clothing.

  “The thing is,” Marian said slowly. “Pixies are fond of swapping.”

  “Swapping what?”

  “Swapping one item of value for another. They don’t have the same concept of ownership as we do, but they do believe in a sort of a rudimentary payment system, where if you take an object from someone, you pay for it with another object of value.”

  “Bartering.”

  “No… not exactly. When you barter, both parties have to agree on the value of the item or service, and have to agree on how one is going to pay the other. But a pixie’s swap is different. They will take an object and replace it with one that they deem to be valuable, without agreement with the owner.”

  Reg had no idea where Marian was going with the lesson on pixie currency. She motioned to the ribbon and opened her mouth to make a flippant comment, and then she stopped, her words frozen in the air. She gasped like she’d taken a punch in the gut.

  “You don’t mean… that a pixie might swap, say, a fine ribbon for an old emerald.”

  Marian nodded. “Look at it. It isn’t worn at all. It’s never been tied. Pixies never have anything brand new. It would be very valuable.”

  “But surely they would know how much more expensive the emerald was.”

  “Emeralds come out of the earth. Pixies like to lay claim to anything that comes out of the earth. They probably have unheard of treasures in their vaults. Sarah’s little trinket… they’d see it as something that was already theirs and should be returned to them.”

  Reg swore. Had Marian cracked the case?

  “Can you see it?” she asked. “If you try to find the emerald, can you see it now?”

  Marian looked at Reg like she was crazy. “I can’t do that.”

  “Well, not before, but now that we have a better idea of where it is, and you have the ribbon in your hand, can you focus on the pixie caves and see where the emerald is?”

  Marian shook her head. “I’ve never been able to do a seek, Regina. I don’t mean I just haven’t been able to find the necklace. I mean I’ve never been able
to do one at all.”

  “Not at all,” Reg echoed. “Really? Never? Not even when you were a little girl?”

  “It took me a lot of time to develop my abilities. When I was little… it would never have even occurred to me to try to find something using just the powers of my mind.”

  “Oh.” Even though Reg had been told by several of the residents of Black Sands that her psychic powers were quite powerful, she hadn’t really believed that they were better developed than those of any other practicing psychic. But Marian was confirming it. She had never even been able to find an object. “I… didn’t know that. I just assumed that everybody else was like me. I didn’t mean…”

  Marian shook her head. “Don’t try to apologize, it just makes it that much worse. You take it.” She tossed the ribbon to Reg. “Can you get anything?”

  Reg was glad to get the ribbon back into her own hands. She felt so much better being able to hold it. If only she could use it to find the emerald. She concentrated, trying to remember the way Sarah’s emerald had looked the night of the dance. So warm and bright and alive. It had not been threaded on a black ribbon. It had been on a gold chain. One that looked as if it had been braided like rope.

  “Where is it?” she murmured aloud. She wasn’t grandstanding, but needed to talk it through. She needed to hear her own voice somewhere other than in her own head. “The emerald is in the pixie realm. Show me where. Let me see the cave.”

  ⋆ Chapter Twenty ⋆

  A

  ll she could see was… nothing. Not blackness, but blankness. No cave. No avaricious pixie. No vault. No necklace. Reg was so angry she wanted to throw something across the room, but all she had in her hand was the insubstantial ribbon. She wanted to hit the wall. She wanted to hit the person who had stolen the necklace. She closed her hand around the ribbon, squeezing it tightly. If it were a living thing, she was going to crush the life out of it.

  There was a squawk of alarm from Frostling on his perch. He flapped his wings suddenly, and Reg immediately cringed, throwing up her arms to protect her face, sure he was coming after her again.