by Gina LaManna
I returned my attention to the front door, where the cops were speaking to what appeared to be the maid, judging by her black dress, white apron, and the slightly frantic quality to her words. “I came home, and the safe was wide open. Nothing else had been touched.”
I scooched the broomstick back a few feet, careful not to let my Invisibility Incantation lapse as I shook off the eerie tingling sensation racing down my spine and focused on the conversation at the mansion.
“May we speak with the owner of the house?” one of the policemen asked. This guy looked like he might be fond of donuts. He was also fond of handlebar moustaches, beer, and not wearing a belt, judging by my quick assessment of him.
The woman twisted her hands in her apron. “He’s just arrived home. I haven’t had a chance to alert him yet.”
“Can you get him out here?” the chubby cop asked. “We’ll need to gather some information from him.”
“Need information from whom?” A voice rolled across the night like an avalanche—deep, powerful, terrifying. “I’m the owner of this house.”
“Dimitrius Frost?” Hotterson asked, stepping closest to the door. “I’m Detective Wesley Beck. We’re here about a reported robbery.”
“A robbery?” His voice lilted higher, though he didn’t sound entirely surprised. “You’ll have to excuse me, I just returned from an evening out and have not been made aware of what’s happened.”
He stepped back from the door, conferred with his maid in low tones. I tried to eavesdrop, but their voices were too low, muted by the distance between us, so I took the moment to appreciate Hotterson standing there, hands in his pockets, scowl on his face. He looked great—so great, in fact, that I almost missed the return of Dimitrius to the conversation.
“You’ll have to excuse me for a moment.” Dimitrius turned back toward the policemen waiting on his doorstep. “I’ll need some time alone to review the contents of my safe. Please feel free to wait here. I’ll return once I’ve determined whether anything is missing.”
Wesley agreed, albeit hesitantly, and faced the other officers as the door to the castle closed behind him.
“Shouldn’t you have gone with him, Beck?” his chubbier counterpart asked. “I don’t like the feeling of him.”
Beck—which seemed to be what everyone had been calling him—ran a hand through his hair. He ignored the question and, without warning, glanced up almost directly at me. He stared so intently into the sky that, for a moment, I thought I’d lost my concentration and the Invisibility Incantation had lapsed. A shiver jolted through my body.
Then the moment passed, and his eyes swept over mine. That millisecond where I thought he’d seen me was nearly responsible for my having a heart attack and falling off my broom for the second time that day, but luckily, a voice called his name—Beck, again—and he dropped his gaze from the clouds.
My heart pounded in my throat as I descended to the outskirts of the estate, landing with my feet on the ground in a patch of foliage dense enough to cover my figure. When I was safe, I let the Invisibility Incantation expire.
Though I wanted to hear what Dimitrius had to say, I needed a moment to gather my wits about me. Otherwise, my risk of accidentally flying without an invisibility spell would be greatly increased, and I didn’t want to be slapped with an Indecent Exposure fine on my birthday.
The mansion was situated in the northernmost part of the city, surrounded by acres and acres of wild lands bursting with trees and dotted with lakes. It was as remote as a city escape could get while still being twenty minutes away from the downtown attractions.
A crack sounded a few feet away, sending my already racing adrenaline into ultra-high gear. I probably burned through half of my birthday cake right then and there. Clutching a hand to my chest as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I discovered the source of the startling noise.
“Dang it, V,” I said as a cat with fur the color of smoke slipped out of the bushes. “I told you to stop following me!”
The two of us had a sort of love-hate relationship that could only exist between cats and humans. He always tried to eat Harry the blowfish, hence his nickname: V, short for Voldemort.
No matter how many times I locked the doors and windows or put kitty kibble outside the house to bribe him away from my blowfish, he always ended up inside my apartment. I’d never thought cats liked blowfish until I met V.
“Why do you insist on scaring the bejeezus out of me?” I shook my head as the cat slithered between my legs. Then I looked around and made sure nobody was watching before I bent down and scratched behind his ears.
“Don’t judge me,” I said, staring into the cat’s eyes as I rubbed him some more. “I’m not creeping on anyone. I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on here. It’s sort of my job, and if you really think about it, I’m already involved. The policeman hit me, so it’s not my fault I’m hiding back here.”
V had the tendency to show up during the most embarrassing situations. It was a little alarming, actually.
“It’s not my fault,” I insisted again, but the cat’s eyes held a glint of disbelief in them—at least I’m pretty sure they did. I was a witch, not a cat whisperer, so I had no clue what was really going on in his furry little head.
“Fine, I’ll go home…after one last drive-by.” I stood up, mounting my broom as I shook a finger at the cat. “Leave Harry alone tonight, got it? I bought you that fancy steak treat thingamabob that everyone says cats love, so just eat that and be happy. Stop bothering me.”
He whined, growled, and made that weird sort of purring noise in his throat as I kicked off the ground. I wasn’t two feet into the air before he’d slunk back into the darkness.
True to my word, I made one last swoop around the estate before heading home. A few police cars still sat out front, but far fewer than when I’d crashed onto the scene face first.
This time I kept my distance, both from the ground and the estate. I circled high in the sky along the edges of the moat. A bridge spanned the inky-black gap between the inner lawn of the castle and the outside world, and the steel bars of the gate hung open to allow the free passage of policemen in and out of the driveway.
Most of the windows in the castle were dimly lit, a warm glow flickering behind ancient stone window sills. As I swooped past a window with a view into one of the many hallways, I caught a glimpse of an old-school fire-burning lantern on the wall.
Only the bottom level of the estate appeared to be lit with modern electricity. I dodged between two spires twirling up from the top of the castle, hovering out of sight as the Frost King returned.
I pushed closer to the front, but I didn’t dare go an inch past the overhang for fear of being recognized. At the moment I was invisible, but all I needed was a lapse in concentration and all would be ruined.
“I’m pleased to say there has been no robbery,” Dimitrius announced to the crowd of waiting officers. “My maid called prematurely and was spooked by a false alarm. Goodnight.”
I eased into the open night sky, struggling for a glimpse of the pair. The owner of the house stood cloaked in shadows, his face invisible from my line of sight. Beck stood with rigid shoulders, watching as the Frost King vanished from the doorway.
“If we could just step inside—” Beck called into the empty space.
“I’m sorry, it was a mistake,” the housekeeper said in a brittle voice stepping into the lighted entryway. “I called too quickly. Please, leave us alone. I’m sorry.”
In the tense silence that followed, I inched back behind the overhang. My mind was whirring. Someone was lying. Details weren’t adding up. The owner was hiding something, but what? What had spooked the housekeeper?
I took one final lap around the castle as Beck handed over a business card and said his goodbyes, stalling only as a shadow in the attic window caught my attention. A flash of white clothing, a dark handprint against the glass, and then a sound.
I couldn’t be sure if the cry
for help was real or imagined, a faint whisper against the night breeze as I strained to hear. I swooped closer but as I neared the rooftop, the crackle of magic leapt to attention, and I was forced to retreat. By the time I returned to the window, all signs of the mystery figure were gone.
I waited a long time—thirty minutes, an hour maybe—but all was silent.
Finally, when there was nothing left for me to do there, when the very last of the cop cars had left the premises, I sped toward home.
Chapter 3
This time, I made it to my apartment without incident. The shadow from the castle’s upstairs window had me spooked, and the eeriness of the whole evening fiasco left me with goosebumps.
It was late when I landed on my broomstick pad, and I blamed the hour for my somewhat sloppy descent through the French doors. The whole French doors thing made my apartment sound extremely fancy when really, it was anything but. Every witch worth her wishes knew that a good set of French doors was necessary for a frequent air traveler.
One could always tell where a witch lived in this neighborhood. Simply look for a set of French doors on the second floor or higher because really, there was no other reason to have such glamorous doors leading out onto a patio the size of a bathroom mat.
French doors worked best for flying charms. A few years back, I’d replaced the real glass in mine with a substance called Ghosted Glass. This material acted like glass, looked like glass, and probably even tasted like glass should anyone care to lick my windows, but the difference between Ghosted Glass and the normal stuff was that it allowed the owner and select guests to fly seamlessly through it. No cracks, no shattering, no hassle, and best of all—according to my mother, anyway—no fingerprints to clean.
Alighting on the mat I kept inside the doors, I hung my broomstick up on a rack that looked like it should hold pool sticks. My feet ached, and I kicked off the black heels I’d worn to my birthday party.
“Hey, Harry,” I said, walking over to the huge tank in my living room. Harry the blowfish puffed up his big, fat self, a sign I took to mean he was hungry. I dropped a bit of food inside, grabbed a wine glass and a bottle of cabernet from my kitchen, then plopped on the couch in front of the tank.
“Tough day?” I asked Harry.
He was too busy nibbling on the food and de-puffing himself to respond, so I took that as my cue to talk.
“Me too,” I said with a groan.
Pouring a glass of wine, I lay back and stretched my legs, happy those stupid shoes were off my feet for good. On a normal day I went with black pants, black tank top, and a cropped leather jacket my mother had bought on sale because it made me look feminine. I had a pair of badass leather boots that worked for shoes, since heels were too difficult to keep on during flight.
A few sips—big sips—of wine later, I’d filled Harry in on my day, from my birthday party to the shadow in the window of the castle.
I added an epilogue about the debacle between my broomstick and Beck. “Landed flat on my ass,” I told Harry. “Really embarrassing. More embarrassing than talking to a fish.”
Only after I’d filled Harry in on every detail did I realize I hadn’t once mentioned my almost-kiss with Ace. Up until an hour ago, it’d been the highlight of my life, and then Beck had swept in and my mind had gone on the fritz.
“It’s those eyes,” I told Harry. “They’re the color of…” I paused, glancing at the few bottles of liquor I never used but kept stashed on my shelf for decoration. “Rum. He looks like rum, and I bet he’s fun like rum, and I bet he tastes like a nice delicious rum on the rocks.”
Harry gave me a shake of his head. I squinted at him, making a blowfish face myself. Then I stood up and poured the rest of my wine bottle down the sink to prevent me from going completely nuts.
My mother had told me to stop talking to so many animals and get some friends, but lately I’d been so busy with my job that my only friend had been Lily Locke, my former target.
I’d spent a good chunk of time working undercover as her assistant at a marketing firm in the Twin Cities, and she hadn’t even known I had magical powers, which shows how close I keep my friends. Though I’d liked her a lot, we hadn’t discussed much in the way of personal details; neither of us were the chatty type.
Then, she moved miles away, now tucked into a magical safe haven called The Isle, and I wasn’t allowed to contact her yet. So much for a long-distance friendship.
“Fine, I’ll get a friend, Harry. I thought you’d be enough, but I suppose mother knows best.”
As if it’d read my mind, the phone rang.
“Can you hand it to me, Harry?” I called to my fish. When he didn’t respond, I reached over and grabbed my cell from its resting place on the coffee table. “Hello?”
“Ainsley, this is Declan Davis.”
“Oh,” I said, sitting up straighter. “Hey, boss. How are you?”
“I’m calling you from a pay phone, and it’s not me on the line, do you understand?”
My confusion grew exponentially. My boss, the Declan Davis of MAGIC, Inc., was a bigwig in the corporate world. Some said that back in the day, around the same time my father was working for MAGIC, Declan Davis had been a star Guardian in the agency. However, since I’d joined the team a few years back, he’d always been the one calling the shots from behind a desk.
The one thing that everyone said about Declan Davis? He followed the rules, to a T, which was why his off the record call caught me off guard. I was nearly certain Mr. Davis hadn’t so much as stolen a pen from the supply closet, let alone called me without Agency permissions.
“I understand.” I struggled to sound coherent, but I’d just been talking to a fish. I was a bit of a lost cause; I was just grateful I hadn’t finished the bottle of wine. “What can I do for you, Mr. Davis?”
“Have you visited the Iron Range with your father?”
“No, never.”
“You’re aware of the treaties between the Frost Kingdom and MAGIC, Inc., yes?”
I squinted, doing my best to recall the boatload of materials I’d been instructed to read during my first months on the job. While I’d read most of them, a few of them I’d skimmed past and called it good. “I’m aware of them, not all the details.”
“From what we’ve been observing, the new king, Dimitrius Frost, is slowly but steadily encroaching on the bounds of our agreements. We’re worried that if he continues in this way, it could mean horrible things for MAGIC, Inc. territories. He’s already taken a nearby community, a small population living just outside the Iron Range’s legal boundaries, and he’s brought them under his rule.”
“Is it illegal? Can’t you arrest him?”
“He hasn’t broken any laws,” Declan said on a sigh. “The community—a small tribe known as the Snow Society—voted to join the Frost Clan. However, I have my doubts that it was voluntary on their part.”
“You think he strong-armed them?”
“He made it look as if it was their choice, but I just can’t believe it’s true. The Snow Society has always thrived on independence. This will be the first time in centuries they’ve submitted to another king’s rules.”
“I don’t understand why you’re telling me this. I’ve never met Dimitrius,” I said. It was a tiny fib; I’d seen the man, but I’d never been introduced. I was fairly certain my boss wouldn’t approve of me creeping on a crime scene to which I wasn’t assigned—especially since there were humans and politics involved, two of the touchiest subjects at MAGIC—so I didn’t bring it up. “Nor have I been to the Iron Range.”
“He’s in MAGIC, Inc. territory, and he hasn’t notified us of his arrival. I know you were at the castle earlier, and I know you’re aware he’s here.”
I swallowed and made a gargling noise, racking my brain for reasons I should be able to keep my job.
“I was there, personally. You shouldn’t have been sticking your nose into places where you don’t belong.”
“It was an a
ccident!” My face flushed, and I felt my cheeks begin to heat. “I didn’t mean—”
“I’m offering you an off-the-books job,” he said. “Look into the situation and report your findings to me directly. I want to know what Dimitrius is up to and why, sooner rather than later.”
“Why isn’t this agency business?”
“If word gets out that we’re investigating the Frost King, that will only make things worse. If he’s not out to take over MAGIC territory, we’ll just upset him, show him that we don’t trust him. If he is pursuing a hostile takeover of our territories, I fear that him finding out we’re aware will only exacerbate the problem.”
“Okay,” I said cautiously. “I will help in any way I can.”
“Good. Then I’ll forget about you poking around a crime scene where you had no business being in the first place.”
I didn’t have an argument for that one, even though it still wasn’t technically my fault.
“A hint? Look for his sisters,” Declan said. “There are three children of the previous Frost King—twin girls and the prince. Dimitrius, Fiona, and Margot. The current king, Dimitrius, is rumored to have killed his father to claim the throne for himself. On the day of his death, the Fire Princess vanished completely.”
“And the other sister?”
“We’ve been in communications with the Ice Princess, Fiona. She’s loyal to MAGIC and is an inside source in the Iron Range.”
“I sense a but coming.”
“We’ve fallen out of contact with her in the past few weeks,” he said. “Locate her, and you’ll have some answers. Understand, Ainsley? Find out where Dimitrius has locked Fiona, and find out why he’s breaking our treaties.”
“I understand,” I said, my fingers trembling at such a high-priority job. “I’ll do my best.”
“Don’t do your best, Ainsley, get the job done. There isn’t a try this time because if you and I fail…”