I blinked. He was actually meeting my eyes, and what I saw in his was the strangest sort of torment. This guy ... this guy had problems. He thought he could insult me, insult my friends, and that I’d just hang out with him when he snapped his fingers. I was outraged. And yet ... I was still rooted to the spot.
For a long, weighted moment, our eyes locked. And his phone continued to ring, and ring, and ring ...
‘Wanda? You all right?’
My head snapped around at the sound of Gabriel’s voice. He was scowling at Will. Well, of course he was. He was doing exactly what I should have been doing. Scowling at Will was the correct response in any situation.
‘Hey Gabe,’ I said in the brightest voice I could muster. ‘I’m coming in now.’
I scurried inside to the ball, and I didn’t look back at Will as I went.
25. Three Weeks Later
I was minding my own business when it happened. Okay, so maybe minding my own business was a bit of an overstatement. Take two: I was arresting a witch who had been selling love potions to humans when it happened.
Either way, it wasn’t much different to any other day since I’d become an officially working member of the Wayfairs. Tracking down wayward witches was my business now. And I was loving every minute.
‘What’s the problem?’ the witch said testily as I bound him in magical rope and began boxing up everything on his shelves. ‘All I was doing was spreading the love around.’
I looked around the grotty shop on Capel Street. He had been dumb enough to set up shop around the corner from Eile Street, the other enclave in Dublin City. The weredogs had given me the heads up, and here I was.
‘You made a gorgeous nineteen-year-old charity worker think she was in love with a fat banker. A banker who put all of the people she’s helping out on the street in the first place. Oh, and there was the vegan you matched with the butcher, too. Let’s not forget about that one.’
He gave me a blank-faced stare. ‘Never heard of opposites attract?’
‘Sure I have. Maybe you can try it out for yourself when you’re in Witchfield. See if you can be the prisoner who falls in love with his prison guard.’
I was just throwing a bottle of Up All Night stamina potion into the box when I heard a plaintive meow from the front of the shop.
‘Your familiar?’
‘Don’t have one,’ he grunted. ‘Hate animals, I do. Stinking little fleabags.’
I ignored Saint Francis of Assisi and opened the front door of the shop, looking up and down the street. A pile of boxes next to a nearby rubbish bin began to move, and then to meow. A moment later, a fluffy white kitten peered out at me, a sparkling diamante collar around her neck, and little pink booties on her paws. The whole ensemble was topped off by an empty yoghurt carton on her head.
‘A-are you the Wayfarer?’ she stuttered.
I approached the kitten and picked her up, chucking the yoghurt carton into the bin. ‘Oh my stars, you’re so fluffy! I mean, yes, I’m the Wayfarer. Or so they say.’ My stomach began to churn. ‘I guess you’re here to tell me your witch is dead.’
The kitten began to shake and mewl in my arms. ‘Oh no, don’t say that. She can’t be dead. Tell me she’s not dead.’
I stroked her gorgeous fur to calm her down. ‘I’m sorry, Kitty. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. But if your witch isn’t dead, then why did you come to find me?’
‘My witch isn’t dead, but she is missing. She’s the prettiest little witch you ever saw. You have to help me find her.’
Little witch? Oh dear. That did not sound good. ‘Tell me more. Her name, for starters.’
The kitten looked up at me with her big, round eyes. ‘My witch’s name ... my witch’s name is Candace.’
≈
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A Trick for a Treat Page 18