She surged forward, snatched another glass, and threw the pricey champagne in his face. “Ugh! I can’t even look at you right now!”
With that, she hurtled the glass across the room and it exploded against the wall.
Marco yelped. “Dios mio!”
“What happened?” I demanded, staring at Harmony, who was pressed up against the wall nearest the door.
She shook her head. “The groom started to give a toast, but then he—”
Her explanation was drowned out by Belle grabbing a pile of dessert plates from the gilded dessert cart at her side. The cart was loaded with miniature replicas of the wedding cake they’d selected for the reception. With an ugly sneer, she picked up the tiny cake and lobbed it at Eduard. It hit its target with a squelching splat.
The girl had a good arm.
I hurried forward, holding both hands up in surrender. “Belle, please, let’s regroup here. We can—”
The frosting-stained plate went flying next, sailing like a heavy frisbee.
I cringed, mentally tallying up the damages. The bill wouldn’t be mine to foot, but the likelihood of Marco ever allowing me a reservation—let alone a job for my kid sister—was shrinking with every zero added to the total.
Harmony raised her hands and before I could protest, a warm yellow light poured from her hands. “Stop!” she snapped, the magic enveloping the plate right before it crashed to the ground. With a flick of her fingers, Harmony brought the plate back to the opposite end of the table, safely out of Belle’s reach. “Enough with the dishes, lady.”
My eyes went even wider.
Belle glared at Harmony for a moment, then her expression rearranged into a pitiful, pinched look as she burst into tears. Clumsily, she rounded the table, nearly tripping over the chair beside her, and ran from the room. “It’s off! Call it all off!”
I snapped back into action and raced after her. “Belle! Wait. Please, tell me what happened.”
She didn’t stop to listen to me as she crashed out of the private room into the hallway. In a mad dash, she darted for the restrooms and I followed. I lunged and reached for her arm, only to be left with a sleeve of her buttery satin dress as it slid to the floor. From the folds of luxe fabric, a small bird rose and zipped down the hall, gone as soon as I blinked.
An outburst from the kitchen sent me racing forward again.
“Get that thing out of here!” one of the chefs yelled.
“That’s the bride!” I bellowed, rounding the corner.
It was too late. One of the waiters had a window open and the dot of a bird was soaring through it.
I sagged against the doorframe. “Well, that’s a first for me,” I groaned. “A fly-away bride.”
4
The dining room was still in an uproar when I returned; people were firing accusations across the table, too loud and jumbled to make out the particulars. Eduard was still on his feet, squared off with his own best man. At first glance, it looked like they were about to come to blows, but then I realized that Martin, the best man, was actually holding Eduard back. “Give her some space,” he told the red-faced groom.
I clipped across the room as fast as I could without running. Hellfire could rain down through the ceiling, but it was my job to keep it together. I was a professional.
“Where is she?” Harmony asked as I made a beeline to her side.
“She flew out a kitchen window,” I replied, keeping my voice low. “She’s a hummingbird-shifter,” I added at Harmony’s raised brow.
“That’s … special.”
“Tell me about it.” I twisted my fingers together absently, scanning the room. “What the heck happened?”
She cringed. “The groom was giving a toast, telling everyone thank you for coming, the usual. Everyone had a drink and he sat down, but then he popped right back up again like a champagne cork! All of a sudden, he starts going on and on about … that girl.”
A curse slipped from my lips. She was pointing directly at Bridget, the maid of honor who was rushing away from the table.
Dread filled my stomach. “What did he say about her?”
Harmony cringed. “He said he’d been in love with her since the beginning of time and—”
“He actually said the beginning of time?” I interrupted, my nose wrinkled.
“Yeah, it was pretty painful. But then it got weird…”
I arched a brow. “Then it got weird? The whole thing is weird!”
“Well, yeah. I just mean, he stood there, staring, and then the bride started crying and screaming at him. He shook his head and said he had no idea what she was talking about. His best man said something I didn’t quite catch, but he must have told him what he’d said, because next thing he was trying to apologize to the bride. Strangest thing I’ve seen in a while.”
“Stars above,” I muttered.
Harmony clucked her tongue and rocked back and forth on her heels. “So, what now? I’d imagine the wedding is cancelled? Does that mean we can go?”
I glared at her. “No. We can’t just go. I have to … to fix this!”
Harmony’s bleached brows lifted. “Not to be a downer, but I don’t think there’s much of a comeback here, Stace.”
She was right, as much as I hated to admit it. But something didn’t fit. Earlier in the gardens, Eduard had stood before the master of the ceremonies, laughing with his bride-to-be over some shared joke, a big grin across his handsome face. He had never struck me as cruel. So, why would he put Belle through the rehearsal if he’d already made up his mind that she wasn’t the one for him? What could have driven him to smash her heart to smithereens—in front of a dozen of their closest family and friends no less—an hour later? It didn’t make sense.
“Can I at least eat one of those little cakes?” she asked, eying what was left of the miniatures on the dessert cart with wanton eyes.
“No!” I snapped. “I need to think.”
Harmony started rummaging through her purse.
“What are you doing?” I hissed.
She shrugged. “I think I have a chocolate bar in here somewhere.”
I groaned and threw my hands up into the air.
“Oh my stars…” Harmony gasped.
My eyes slid to her, narrowed. “What?” I growled.
“I think—” She remained frozen, half of her arm buried in her too-large purse. “Oh this is so not good … but I think I know what made groomie go all cheater, cheater, pumpkin-eater on us.” Her blue eyes fluttered to mine and then she winced. “My potions are gone.”
“And?”
“Remember how I told you that I got fired from my potions job? When I got kicked out, I took my messed-up potions with me. One of them … well, one of them was a love potion. A sort of … experimental love potion.”
With a low groan, my eyes pinched closed.
“I think someone must have—”
I snagged her by the wrist and hauled her from the banquet room, cutting off her floundering explanation.
“What do you mean experimental love potion?” I demanded, boxing her into the nearest corner. “Of all the ridiculous, irresponsible things!”
She took a step back and bumped into a narrow table, unsettling a potted orchid.
“Hey! Watch it!” a squeaky voice cried out from somewhere above our heads.
Harmony and I both snapped to attention, looking around.
“Up here,” the voice snapped.
A small face glowered down at us, illuminated by one of the countless orbs of pale starlight. The face was scrunched and the color of russet potatoes.
“You’ll have to excuse us,” I said politely, as though it were completely normal to have some kind of troll embedded in a wall, barking out orders. “We were just—”
“This is a fine establishment, ladies.” The lines on his face deepened, which along with his haughty tone, conveyed he thought we were anything but. “We prefer to keep bickering in the hallways to a minimum.”
“Right.” I rolled my eyes and reached for Harmony’s wrist again. She snapped it away from me and huffed off toward the restrooms.
With a sigh, I followed her out of the troll’s earshot—assuming it had ears somewhere in the plastered wall. For all I knew, it could be picking up vibrations or have ears somewhere in an entirely different section of the wall. I continued in a low voice, “Tell me about the potion. What would it do?”
“We—Jess and me—wanted to make something we could actually sell. Something no one had ever heard of before. Everyone knows about love potions. But this was something special.” Her eyes trailed over my shoulder and her brows furrowed together. “It all fits. You know?”
“No,” I growled. “I don’t. Enlighten me.”
She drew in a quick breath and met my gaze. “We thought about actors, you know, always having to pretend they’re in love for a movie or TV show. We thought, wouldn’t it be cool if there was a potion that made them have perfect chemistry? No one would be able to tell they weren’t really in love. So, we came up with a temporary version of Cupid’s Arrow.”
“That’s a banned potion!”
Harmony chewed on the corner of her lip. “Technically, yes. But you can still get it.”
I groaned. Whatever was coming next, it wasn’t going to be good.
“After drinking the potion, the partaker would fall for the first attractive person they set eyes on. But it’s different in the way that it works afterward. Instead of needing an antidote, Jess added a time limit instead. Sort of an expiration date. Within minutes of drinking the potion, the person would return to normal. That’s probably why he’s now back to normal and trying to apologize. He doesn’t remember or have any residual feelings for the temporary object of his affection. We thought that was important.”
“Well, at least that explains his burst of amnesia,” I muttered, reaching up to massage my temples. “Okay, so who knew about this potion? Apparently, someone thought this would be a funny prank to pull.”
“I, uh—” She trailed off and I opened my eyes. The waiter she’d been making eyes with all night happened by, flashing her a grin on his way to the kitchen. A dreamy smile melted her own expression. “Well…”
“Harmony! Focus!” The lightbulb flashed over my head half a heartbeat later and I groaned. “You told him, didn’t you?”
Her eyes dropped to the tops of her—my—shoes. “I told him we were going to be working together and he asked if I’d worked in a lot of restaurants. I told him that my last job was in a potions shop and he was really interested!”
I groaned and held up my finger again. I didn’t need to hear any more.
“Come on! We’re going straight to Marco! He needs to know that one of his employees thought it was a good idea to dose an important patron with a mystery potion!”
“You don’t think he did it, do you?”
I barked out a laugh. “You got any other suspects?”
Harmony tugged on my arm, pulling me to a stop. “Why would he do that? It doesn’t make any sense!”
“How should I know why?” I ripped my arm back from her and narrowed my eyes. “But besides you, he’s the only one who knew about the potions. Right? Maybe he just wanted a laugh! You know, dose a groom with a love potion at his rehearsal dinner—” I threw my hands up, flicking Harmony off like a pesky mosquito as she reached for me again. “What could be more hilarious?”
“Ladies!”
I winced. We’d accidentally wandered back into the cranky hall monitor’s path. Bats!
“Sorry,” I mumbled, moments before a lightbulb flashed above my head. Not literally. Although, that would have been one of the least strange things to happen in the past hour. I rounded on my matchstick heels and glared up at the troll melted into the wall. “You’re some kind of security alarm, right?”
His large nostrils flared. “I am a guardian. I do not squawk or fuss in case of emergency.”
“What do you do?” Harmony asked.
He heaved a long-suffering sigh and shifted his russet eyes toward her. “If someone breaks in, I break them.”
Suddenly, the inky walls shimmered and two beefy fists appeared below the face. Harmony gasped and I tottered back a step. I wasn’t sure about his range of motion, but given his surly mood, I wasn’t going to risk it. With his revulsion for noise making and untidiness, I decided he had to be the love child of a loan shark flunky and a crabby librarian. Ya know, in troll form.
“Listen, we need your help,” I dared, edging closer again. Harmony looked around the hall, her eyes lifted as though waiting for more strange faces to pop out at us. “About fifteen minutes ago, there was a waiter bringing in glasses of champagne for the toast in the banquet room. Did you see anything strange? Maybe he slipped something into one of the flutes?”
The troll frowned, his lips curved in a sever arch as he thought.
“Something from a small pink vial,” Harmony added, her voice hopeful.
“Ah. You’re looking for the striking brunette in the black dress,” he replied, his features shifting into an appreciative grin.
My brow knit together. “Who?”
Harmony budged me with her elbow and whispered, “I think he’s talking about the dragon lady from your office.”
I froze in place. “Kait was here?”
She nodded. “I saw her in the ladies room after we first got here. I went to check my lip gloss and she was coming out of one of the stalls.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” I asked between gritted teeth.
She frowned. “Why would I?”
“This is my event! She’s not supposed to be here.” I waved a hand at the troll, mumbled my thanks, and then turned to hurry back to the banquet room, which had thinned out significantly. Eduard sat in his spot, his face in his hands. His best man stood off to the side talking on the phone, one shoulder turned away from his friend.
“This is crazy, Stace!” Harmony whispered. “How could she have even gotten the potion bottle?”
“She’s a witch,” I replied, twisting my lips. “In more ways than one.”
5
“Ms. Winters!” Eduard called when he spotted me in the doorway. He jumped up from his seat at the table. “Please, you have to help me. Belle won’t answer any of my calls. Do you know where she went? I have to make this right!”
“I’m very sorry, Eduard.” I offered a sympathetic smile. “I can certainly try to get in touch with her.”
He dragged his hands through his thick, jet-black hair, a pained look on his face. “I just wish I knew what came over me! I don’t even hardly remember what happened. Martin says that I confessed my love for Bridget. Which is ridiculous!” His frantic eyes snapped to mine. “You have to believe me!”
“I do,” I replied softly. I reached out a grabbed his arm.
Marco came up beside me, his features tense. “What is going on, Anastasia?”
Smiling sweetly, I turned to him. “Marco, we need to send the guests home. Can you please have the limos brought around for the remaining guests?”
Without question, he gave a nod and set off. He worked best when he had a mission.
“Now, Eduard, we need to get everyone on their way home and then I can explain.”
Several guests looked as if they’d protest being shuffled out to the front of the restaurant, but within a few minutes, Marco had rounded up everyone save Martin and Eduard and escorted them out of the banquet room.
“You know what happened?” Eduard asked me as soon as the last group was filing out into the hallway. “Please, you have to help me. I can’t lose Belle!”
“I’ll do my best. What you need to know is that you were dosed with a potent, though short-lived, love potion. The things you said weren’t true. They were the result of a dangerous spell.” I slid a glance to Harmony but then snapped around as something else caught my eye.
Kait was snaking down the hall, blending in with the last of the guests.
Staring away from Eduard and Harmony, I pointed at her. “Someone grab her!”
To my surprise, those brown arms extended from the end of the hall, stretching like a piece of gum, and locked around Kait’s wrist. “Got her!” the troll bellowed.
Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all.
I shoved through the small crowd and glared at Kait.
“What in the Otherworld is wrong with you?” she spat before giving me a once-over. “Besides the obvious!”
“You drugged my groom!”
She barked a laugh. “You’re delusional. Or drunk? Either way, Hyacinth won’t be happy about it,” she lorded in a sing-song voice.
We were the same height and our noses nearly touched as I leaned in closer. “You’ve always been jealous of me, but this is going too far, Kait! You didn’t even know what that potion was; you could have killed someone!”
She sobered. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Anastasia. You’ve really lost your mind.” She looked down at the large hands gripping her wrists. “Get off me!” she hissed over her shoulder.
“What is going on here?” Marco bellowed, charging back into the room. “Anastasia? Surly! Release this woman at once!” he barked at the troll.
The troll’s name was Surly? How … appropriate.
“She tried to wreck this wedding to get back at me for getting a promotion,” I said, loud enough for the entire room to hear. “She stole a love potion from my sister’s bag and dosed the champagne meant for Eduard. He said a bunch of regrettable things and Belle flew out the kitchen window. Your security troll is an eyewitness to the whole thing!”
Well, that was a mouthful of insanity.
“Your troll is lying,” Kait snapped, glaring at Marco.
He turned and looked up at the troll, whose arms had retracted. “What did you say?”
“I saw her with a pink bottle. That’s what the pink-haired girl asked me.”
Kait scoffed. “It was a headache potion.”
“What are you even doing here tonight?” I fired back.
“If you must know, I’m on a date!” She snorted with an indelicate laugh and shook her head. “I can’t believe you actually think I’m desperate enough to try poisoning someone!”
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