Elizabeth also didn’t comment on how often she seemed to walk in on Lily and Sebastian holding hands. The first time it happened, Lily let go with a guilty look, remembering the old woman’s words about Sebastian. But, far from seeming displeased, the lady simply smiled a knowing smile and gave Lily an approving wink. After that, Lily stopped worrying and simply enjoyed Sebastian’s comforting presence.
Trista remained quiet throughout. She accepted Elizabeth’s hospitality with polite silence, doing what she was told but isolating herself from everyone as often as possible. Lily worried about her, knowing she should be trying to reach out, establish some sort of relationship. But every time she looked at her sister, she thought of Caden’s bloody body and blank, staring eyes.
Hawkins drove them to the airport the next day, and they said their goodbyes. Sebastian clasped his forearm warmly, and Lily, feeling daring, leaned in to give him a brief but grateful hug. She would miss the steadfast manservant, especially so after thinking she’d lost him. In the quiet of Highthorne manor, she’d finally gotten around to asking him what had happened when Thiriel made him disappear. All he could say was that he had been surrounded by blackness for a second, then found himself back at the top of the cliff. He’d caught up with Sebastian and Cyril, and the rest she knew. Lily wasn’t quite sure what to think of Thiriel after hearing his story. She wanted to dislike the fae queen but was hard put to do so after the help she’d given them. If her demeanor seemed aloof, that wasn’t her fault. She was a high fae, after all.
They had a safe, if exhausting, trip back to Savannah, Trista in tow. Much to everyone’s relief, she had a passport and it survived customs’ scrutiny, though Lily knew it had to have been forged, either by John Faust’s hand or at his order.
Sir Kipling endured his time of imprisonment in the cat carrier with uncharacteristic grace. Lily was quite proud of him until she overheard two little old ladies who’d sat at the very back of the plane talking about how nice the amenities of air travel were these days: They even provided a cat to keep your lap warm during the long flight!
Despite her cat’s in-flight shenanigans, they arrived safely at Allen’s house all in one piece. They learned, upon arriving, that they’d just missed George Dee. He had left that very morning to return to his estates in England.
Her uncle’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head when he laid eyes on Trista at his doorstep. Lily overrode his sputtered protest, saying that Trista was on their side now and wouldn’t cause any trouble, even if she had helped kidnap him barely weeks ago. Despite her assurances, Allen must have sicced some of his hand constructs on her as a precaution, because a handful of them floated after her wherever she went. She reacted to it the same way she reacted to everything: with emotionless silence. Lily thought for sure she would open up once Freda had a crack at her, but her mother came away shaking her head sadly.
They decided to leave her alone for the time being and give her space, instead debating late into the night whether they should try to contact her biological mother, and where she was going to live once Madam Barrington had recovered.
On that front, at least, things were going well. So well, in fact, that after just a week—about the time Lily was due to return to work at McCain Library—Allen declared Madam Barrington strong enough to go home. While she tired easily and needed a cane to get around, the austere woman looked like a new person compared to her grey-skinned, near-death self a mere two weeks ago. She insisted, quite vigorously, on a full report of everything that had happened. Lily and Sebastian gave it together, filling in each other’s accounts and staying as calm as possible even through the end. Lily might have leaked a tear or two, and possibly sought out Sebastian’s hand underneath the table, twining her fingers between his. But other than that, she was very calm.
They decided, for now, that things needed to go back to normal. Despite John Faust and Morgan’s escape, the two had done so with nothing but the clothes on their backs. There had been no artifacts or powerful spells hidden away in Morgan’s tomb for John Faust to appropriate, and Morgan le Fay was once more a mere wizard. Personally, Lily didn’t find that very comforting. She knew she had only barely bested the ancient wizard. Morgan had been weak and disoriented from her long entombment and, in the end, it was only Pip’s distraction that had enabled Lily’s final spell to do its work.
Knowing both wizards would be stewing with implacable hatred and who knew what nefarious plans, Madam Barrington assured Lily she would reach out to her contacts far and wide, with George Dee to help on the English front, trying to get a hint of their whereabouts. But until there was word, it was best if everyone went back home to their jobs and lives, to recover and prepare for whatever lay ahead.
Freda would go back to the family farm in Alabama, though she threatened to bring Jamie to Atlanta to see Lily and Madam Barrington on a regular basis. It was decided that, for now, Trista could live in the spare bedroom at Madam Barrington’s house. The quiet and solitude would suit her, much more, anyway, than the chaos of the Singer farmhouse.
The night before they planned to drive back to Atlanta, they had a meal together in Allen’s kitchen, prepared and served by his “helping” hands. The floating constructs seemed decidedly chipper with so many people in the house to care for. Instead of hovering in a sullen flock above Allen’s head, they flitted back and forth through the house, cleaning, seeing to people’s needs, and giving Sir Kipling plenty of exercise as he followed them through the halls, waiting for his chance to strike. Of course, that wasn’t his only exercise. He and Egbert—Allen’s crab-like construct—seemed to have settled into a nice routine, chasing each other back and forth down the halls. That was, until Allen nearly tripped over their scrambling forms and yelled at them to cease their childish antics. After that—and a sufficiently long period of sulking—they confined their games of tag to the third floor, where no one ventured except Allen, and he, only when it was time for bed.
With Egbert banned from the kitchen, Sir Kipling managed not to cause a scene during the meal, content with his bowl of milk and salmon that Allen had given him—over Lily’s protests. The six of them, four wizards and two mundanes, one of them being a witch, enjoyed good southern food and amiable conversation. Well, five of them talked and Trista listened. She gave one-word answers to any questions directed at her, but other than that offered no conversation. She excused herself early and left the rest of them enjoying dessert while she retired to her room.
Later that night, when everyone was going to bed, Lily knocked on her sister’s door, needing to relay a question from Madam Barrington. There was no answer, and at first Lily assumed Trista was asleep. But then she noticed light coming from under the door, so she tried the knob and found it unlocked.
Opening it a crack, she called softly, asking to enter, but there was no answer. Sticking her head in, she looked about the room. It was empty. Apprehension growing in her stomach, Lily entered, checking behind doors and in the attached bath. No one. All of Trista’s things were missing, too.
Lily finally found the note on the dresser, addressed to her.
Dear Lily,
Thanks for taking me in, but I don’t belong here. Don’t try and find me. I’ll find you, when it’s time.
* * *
Your sister,
Trista
Sebastian found her sitting on Trista’s bed some ten minutes later.
“What’s up?” he asked, eyeing the note and looking around the room for Trista.
Lily shook her head. “She’s gone.”
“What? Where? We need to find her!”
“No.” Lily caught his hand, stopping him from exiting the room. “Let her be. She’s an adult and needs to make her own way. She knows where to find us if she needs help.”
Sebastian sat down beside her with a grunt and a sigh. “I suppose you’re right. Still, it doesn’t feel…well, safe.”
“Safe for you or safe for her?” Lily grinned. “You know she did kick your bu
tt. Twice, if I recall.”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”
They sat in silence for a while as Lily considered the past and the future, not something she enjoyed doing these days.
“Sebastian?” she asked quietly.
“Mmm?”
“Shariel said she would remake Pip from the Source. Does that mean we’re going to see her again someday?”
Sebastian heaved a long, slow sigh, fingering his wooden ring. “Not really, no. We might see the same pixie taking care of the same plot of dirt that Pip did, but it won’t be Pip, not really. She’ll seem the same: same name, same look, possibly even the same personality. But she won’t remember us. Not a thing.”
Lily felt a tear threaten to drip from her eyelid onto her cheek, but swiped it away, determined to honor Pip’s memory, not wallow in self-pity. “But…we can make new memories with her…can’t we?”
“That we can,” Sebastian agreed, face breaking into a tentative smile.
Lily’s expression turned thoughtful. “I wonder if the new Pip will like the same mixed drinks,” she mused.
“Now that, I can’t tell you,” Sebastian shrugged. “Some things must remain a mystery.”
Silence descended again, and Lily could barely hear Allen’s reedy voice down on the first floor, complaining about something his constructs had done. Again.
“Speaking of new memories…” Sebastian began, but then trailed off.
Lily looked at him, lifting an eyebrow. “Yes?”
“Um…well…would you like to, um, maybe…getacupofcoffeesometime?” he finished in a rush.
Lily shrugged. “Sure, I guess. But I thought you didn’t like coffee?”
“No, that’s not, uh, not quite what I, uh, meant.” Sebastian gave a frustrated sigh. “I meant, would you like to get a cup—of—coffee sometime…with me.” This time, he said it slowly, wiggling his eyebrows in a half silly, half suggestive manner.
Realization slowly dawned on Lily, and she felt her face grow hot, though it was nothing to the blaze that blossomed inside her. Her heart beat a traitorous tattoo against her ribs, seeming as loud as thunder in the silence.
“Sebastian…did you just ask me out on a date?” she asked slowly, trying—and failing—to contain her mile-wide grin.
“Um…well…” He rubbed the back of his neck, seeming conflicted, then finally laughed. “Yeah, I guess I did.”
Lily rolled her eyes.
“What? Is that bad?” he asked, face falling.
“No! I just thought you’d never ask.”
Silence.
“Um, okay. Well…I did.”
She gave him a puzzled look.
“Are you going to answer me? You know…yes or no?”
“Oh!” Lily exclaimed, blushing furiously. “Sorry.”
She was momentarily distracted by the sight of Sir Kipling sitting in the doorway, looking so disgustingly smug she was surprised there weren’t canary feathers sticking to his chin. Lily shot him a glare, for formality’s sake.
Turning back to Sebastian, who was waiting in tortured anticipation, she smiled.
“Yes.”
To be continued in Book 5 of the Lily Singer Adventures: Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus: Betrayal
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LOVE, LIES, AND HOCUS POCUS: BETRAYAL
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Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus: Betrayal
CHAPTER 1 - The Woes of Trying to Understand Men
Someone once said opposites attract. It was about the most cliché, yet popular relationship trope in existence: that irresistible magnetism between opposing personalities, that fitting together of two souls like pieces of a puzzle. And whoever had first said it, Lily Singer wished she could clobber them over the head with her carpet bag. Or at least shake them silly until they explained what in heaven’s name they had been thinking when they’d uttered such a confounding piece of rubbish. A hex or two might even be in order, just for good measure. For while such a theory was all well and good in the field of thaumaturgic metallurgy, it was a terrible piece of relationship advice.
It was also not something she should be thinking about while performing delicate magic, since casting required the utmost calm and concentration.
“Are you sure you should be doing this the afternoon before your big date? If you mess up my agility training device, I’ll be extremely displeased.”
Lily glared at her meddlesome feline. His feet were curled beneath him in a catloaf position as he nestled comfortably on a nearby chintz chair, “supervising” her work. “For the record, it is not yours. And if it were it would be a cat toy, not an agility training device, whatever that’s supposed to be.”
“Humph.” Sir Kipling flicked the tip of his tail, a plume of white against his grey body. “I do not have toys, nor do I have time to waste playing. I follow a strict training regime to keep myself in top fighting shape, thank you very much.”
“I see. So is this training regime something you work around the fifteen naps you take a day? Or are the naps part of your training?”
There was a silence as Sir Kipling stared at her, whiskers twitching in irritation. “Ungrateful,” he finally groused. “Ignorant and ungrateful, that’s what you are.”
Lily picked up her open eduba and used it to hide her smile, pretending to re-read her notes on the casting sequence she would use to enchant the wooden ball lying in the center of her spell circle. In reality, she already had the entire spell memorized forward and backward—her usual habit when conducting new experiments. Casting magic, especially spells one had altered or created oneself, was a dangerous business, and all wizards took extreme care when it came to magic. Those who did not inevitably met with a sticky end.
Which was why Sir Kipling had a point. She probably shouldn’t be conducting new experiments mere hours before a date with her best friend and companion in magical adventure, Sebastian Blackwell. Everyone had to have a weakness, right? Well, hers was social interaction—especially if the person involved was handsome and male, as Sebastian most certainly was. The whole opposites attract thing made it ten times worse, because—
“Well? Are you going to proceed with your enchantment before I die of old age and waste one of my precious lives?” Sir Kipling’s sarcastic meow intruded on her wandering thoughts as they attempted to careen full-tilt down the “dating” rabbit trail. She shook her head, irritated at herself. Laying her eduba down on the oak worktable, she stepped into the spell circle to examine her crafting one final time.
The piece of wood was the size of a pingpong ball, carefully etched and inlaid with aluminum dimmu runes to hold and seal the spell she was about to cast on it. Her uncle Allen—a brilliant, if rather scatterbrained wizard—had been teaching her construct magic over the past five months, ever since she had returned from her adventures in England last September. This simple crafting was her first step toward creating much larger and more complicated constructs. It would be years, possibly decades, before she was skilled enough to build something like the floating hands her uncle had crafted to cook and clean at his house, or the strange but wonderful crablike creature named Egbert, who was supposed to help him with his experiments. Of course, the crab construct was as eccentric as its maker, and it spent more time chasing mice and hoarding shiny objects than it did helping her uncle. That occasionally happened with more advanced constructs. The dozens of layers of parameter spells which gave each construct its abilities and guided its purpose were delicate. They easily picked up minor flaws unique to the crafter who created them—which is why Lily was starting with a simple wooden ball. Her plan was to enchant it with a movement spell, “programming” it to avoid all objects within a one-foot radius. In theory, if her spell worked, the ball would be impossible to pick up or catch, since it would move to stay at least twelve inches away from any approaching object. It would make a wonderful cat toy, though she would never admit to designing it specifically for Sir Kipling. If she
did, he would ignore it. Instead, she spent a great deal of time assuring him it was strictly off limits and not to be touched.
Reverse psychology worked wonders on cats.
After ensuring each of her inlaid runes were well sealed and in the correct order, Lily stepped to the edge of her circle, closed her eyes, and attempted to clear her mind. Normally she liked to sit in a comfortable crosslegged position when she cast. But she was still in the pencil skirt and blouse she habitually wore for her day job at the library above her magical basement archive, and pencil skirts did not lend themselves to sitting crosslegged. Such an outfit could be inconvenient, she would admit. But that inconvenience was a small price to pay to maintain her preferred, southern genteel, ladylike appearance. Being a lady was her version of rebellion, inspired by growing up around blunt country types and rambunctious stepsiblings who would sooner eat soap than learn manners. It had made her the laughingstock of her little rural school, but she had done her best to ignore the other children’s jibes, finding solace in her books while trying not to dwell on how different she was.
Of course, it had all made sense when she had learned that she was, in fact, a wizard. Throwing herself into the study of magic had done much to bolster her confidence and help her find her place in the world. Yet a lifetime of being the outsider—not to mention being introverted and naturally awkward—was not something easily overcome, not even with magic. Which was why not for the first, or even the hundredth, time over the past five months she wondered how in the world she had ended up dating her ne’er-do-well witch friend Sebastian, who was her opposite incarnate, if ever there was one.
She had tried dating in the past, and each disastrous attempt had only further cemented her belief that she was better off sticking to books and magic. Magic was logical and followed predictable rules. Even if it had the potential for getting out of hand, the risks of using it could be easily mitigated by a skilled and cautious wizard.
Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus Legends Page 27