Mory looked away, wrapping her hand around her necklace. “I’m not Rusty,” she muttered. “I’m not Sienna.”
I sighed. “I know.”
“You don’t.”
“Be reasonable, necromancer.” My voice hardened. “You raised four zombies tonight and you can’t explain why. Either you’re lying and I’m an idiot for letting you walk away, or someone spelled you. Whether you want to be or not, you’re mine to protect. From yourself, if necessary.”
“Fine. And I suppose you’ll be talking to my mother? And Pearl?”
“No. Because those are your next conversations.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
“Great!” Burgundy said, overly brightly. “Maybe we’ll see you at the bakery later?”
I nodded, straightening away from the car. Burgundy took her foot off the brake and it rolled back slightly. “And stay away from the vampire, Garrick,” I said, using Benjamin’s preferred name.
Mory narrowed her eyes belligerently, but she didn’t answer.
Burgundy pulled away. But even over the purr of the engine, I caught her thrilled tone as she asked, “Vampire? What vampire?”
I sighed heavily, watching the Honda drive away on the narrow street, sliding past dark homes and parked cars. After the vehicle turned the corner, I shifted my gaze to Warner, who’d been watching me.
He raised an eyebrow sardonically. “Warning her off the fledgling vampire is simply asking her to seek him out.”
Jesus. He was right. I shook my head helplessly.
“I’m just an idiot around her. Give me demons or death-defying magic any day. I might be impulsive, but I just … I don’t know …”
Warner unfolded his arms, stepping closer to brush his fingers lightly through my curls. “Would you blame her brother’s actions on Mory?”
“Of course not.”
“Yet the same rule doesn’t apply to you?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. Life lessons from the sentinel, who had been living in the modern world for only three years, weren’t high on my list of likes.
He grinned. Sometimes I thought Warner preferred me a little pissy, a little crazy. Riled up. His smile widened. “Let’s collect the wolf. I wouldn’t mind some more time in your bed before I must return to duty.”
I nodded, ignoring the way my stomach squelched with fear rather than desire. Danger permeated every mission Warner undertook each time he walked through the portal. But he wasn’t mine to wrap up and tuck away from the world. Just as I wasn’t his to shelter. Officially married or not, we made — and would continue to make — our own choices. Together if there was time for conversation, but apart if the situation demanded immediate action. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
But that didn’t mean I couldn’t want to lock him away in my pantry with all my other favorite things.
He brushed a kiss across my forehead. “You know I always come back. I can’t not return to you.”
“I know.” Then, shaking off my own irrational reaction, I teased him. “Plus, if I ever really want your attention, all I have to do is take the instruments out for a spin.”
Warner grunted. “Hopefully it never comes to that.”
Preceded by her red-berry-and-bitter-dark-chocolate magic, Kandy appeared, strolling in from the far corner of the cemetery. Magic glinted off her three-inch cuffs, and I stuffed my hands in my pockets in order to stop myself from reaching out to stroke them as the werewolf closed the space between us. Apparently, working on Mory’s necklace hadn’t dampened my need to use my alchemy. But then, I’d always been a magpie when it came to pretty magical things.
I might have earned my living baking cupcakes while thwarting evil on the side when it became absolutely necessary. But my mild obsession with anything magical was something I maintained all of the time.
“The fledgling?” Warner asked Kandy.
She shrugged. “He’s under control. Which is more than can be said for the necromancer. If the rumors are true about necromancers being able to control vampires, then Mory’s the potential threat in this situation, not Ben.”
“Not all necromancers carry the same abilities,” Warner said mildly.
“But I imagine the necromancy working he already wears would make him especially susceptible,” I said.
“Mory isn’t going to hurt anyone, dowser,” Kandy said. “Not unprovoked. And you wouldn’t want her to hold back if she was in any sort of jeopardy.”
I nodded, turning toward the SUV.
“Plus, he’d just bore her to death with questions,” Kandy grumbled, unlocking the doors and climbing in. “Baby fang kept insisting that my cuffs had to have a name. Said all powerful artifacts should be named. Then he completely rejected me naming them ‘the cuffs of might.’ ”
“Oh! Haoxin called them ‘the Herakles cuffs.’ ”
“Helpful, dowser.”
Warner chuckled quietly, climbing into the back seat behind me and immediately stretching out and closing his eyes. “Most magical artifacts are named after their maker,” he said. “But occasionally, that gets amended if the wielder is the more powerful or influential figure. The dowser’s knife … the dowser’s necklace … the dragon slayer …”
“Is that me or my katana?” I clicked my seat belt closed.
“Both.”
Kandy started the SUV. “So what do I have to do to get the cuffs renamed, say to ‘the Kandy cuffs’? Or ‘the cuffs of Kandy?’ ”
“Immortalize yourself.” Warner’s pronouncement made it sound as though doing it was as easy as saying it. Then he added with some amusement, “Having a famous chronicler write about your exploits would do. And I’d call them ‘the wolf’s bracers.’ Not cuffs.”
Kandy sniffed, flicking her bangs in the rearview mirror while reversing away from the curb. “Shows what you know, dragon.”
“True,” Warner admitted with a smile. “Being infamous might be enough.” Then his breathing deepened as he dropped off to sleep without another word.
Silence filled the dark interior of the SUV. Kandy drove smoothly through the neighborhood, heading in the direction of the bakery much more slowly than she’d raced to get to the cemetery.
“So … you going to make baby vamp a T-shirt?” I whispered teasingly.
“Don’t you start on me, dowser.” Kandy’s voice carried a warning tone. “Benjamin is under our protection, you know? Right up to the moment he tries to bite someone without permission.”
“Even after that, I suppose …” I gazed out at the dark city slipping past my window, wondering whether I should mention that I’d tasted peppermint-laced magic again. I had no idea why Kett would have been stalking me. The vampire liked to play games, of course. Maybe he wanted to be chased? Kandy would have liked that.
But if the peppermint power I kept tasting wasn’t Kett’s? Well, then I was seriously flummoxed.
“What color shirt do you think would look good on Ben?” Kandy asked musingly. “A deep green or brown, maybe.”
I laughed quietly, then pulled out my phone and texted.
I met Benjamin Garrick tonight.
“Kett?” Kandy asked.
I nodded, changing the subject as I waited to see if the vampire would text me back right away. “Do you think raising the grid could have affected Mory’s magic somehow?”
Kandy snorted doubtfully. “How could it? There isn’t even an anchor point near the cemetery. Plus, it’s witch magic, not necromancy.”
“True.”
Turning back onto Sixteenth Avenue heading west, the werewolf fell quietly thoughtful. “What about the shadow leech? It feeds on magic. I’m just waiting for that sucker to step out of line.”
“No,” I murmured. “Also, Mory can see it. She named the little freak ‘Freddie.’ ”
“Great,” Kandy groused.
My cellphone vibrated in my hand and I glanced down at the screen, swiping to read the incoming text from Kett.
>Did he survive
the encounter?
“Kett wants to know if I slaughtered Ben Garrick.”
“Makes sense.”
“What? I don’t just go around killing people.”
Kandy just gave me another of her nonsmiles in response. “Ask him when he’s getting his ass into town.”
I applied my thumbs to my phone.
I didn’t murder him.
>Pity.
I angled my screen so Kandy could glance at it. She snorted and started to cackle, then checked herself with a look in the rearview mirror at Warner still sleeping in the back seat.
Seriously?
>No.
>You’d be all upset. And that’s dreadfully boring.
“The vampire is a joker tonight,” I muttered as I texted back.
Are you in Vancouver? Are you going to make it to the party?
>Yes.
Concise as always. Maybe he just wanted to avoid interfering with the casting of the grid when I had tasted his magic earlier, just as he would not have wanted to tangle with Mory’s zombies. Though it wasn’t like the executioner to not wade in.
I sent him a smiley face emoticon, but he didn’t reciprocate.
“You’re baking now, yes?” Kandy pulled my attention away from my phone.
“In a couple of hours, if I push it.”
“I’ll talk to Pearl about the grid possibly malfunctioning then.”
“Mory will think we’re tattling on her.”
Kandy grunted. “The grid already did the talking. I’ll just be filling in the details.”
“True.”
A comfortable silence filled the dark interior of the vehicle. The sound of Warner’s steady breathing and the SUV’s tires on the asphalt lulled me into a light doze. Then a sharp right-hand turn woke me from my slumber. Kandy skillfully wove through a couple of side streets, then actually parked in the exact same spot she’d vacated over an hour before.
The werewolf shut off the engine. But before I could open my door, she reached over and brushed her fingers across my forearm. “I’m pleased I won’t be needing to break your ass out of guardian jail.”
Warmth flushed through my chest. “Me too,” I said simply, squeezing my best friend’s hand. “Though … if someone decapitated me, draining my magic …”
“Have you been trying to murder guardian dragons in this scenario?”
I laughed, but with no humor. I was the dragon slayer, after all. “I guess so.”
“Well, then. You’d deserve it, wouldn’t you?”
“Right …”
“But that doesn’t mean that whoever came for you wouldn’t still have to go through me … and Warner … and Kett, Scarlett, Pearl, your father. Drake. Probably that damn leech, and the creepy necromancer. Hopefully the oracle wouldn’t get involved, though. Everything would go all to hell, then.”
I grinned goofily at Kandy in the dark, knowing she could see me better than I could see her. “You say the sweetest things, wolf.”
“All the better to woo you, dowser.” She snapped her teeth at me.
Warner spoke up from the back seat. “Get in line, werewolf.”
“I was here first, dragon. Plus … you can join in anytime. Just leave the sentinel’s blade out of it.”
Warner laughed, surprised enough to practically bark.
“What?” Kandy asked, batting her eyelashes at me. “I was talking about his knife.”
“Right,” I drawled.
Laughing, we piled out of the SUV, making our way to and through the bakery, then into our respective beds.
Scarlett had vacated the second apartment upstairs when Kandy returned to Vancouver. Unbeknownst to Gran, my mother had bought a house a half-dozen blocks from the bakery, over on Fifth Avenue and Stephens. Then she’d had it renovated into a triplex, selling all but the top floor and making a killing in Vancouver’s crazy housing market. Since Pearl was the real estate mogul in the family, this hadn’t gone over well.
Though it wasn’t like I could tell the difference, really. Mother and daughter still practiced their daily routine of outward politeness strained by silence.
Once home, Warner fell onto my bed without another word, making me realize that it was soon to be officially our bed.
Stripping down to a tank top and panties, I curled up next to him and tried to not fret over what had exhausted him. Or how an elf-wielded weapon had cut him so badly. Or even what he’d be doing in another couple of hours. But in truth, we both drove each other a little crazy that way, making it completely fair play.
Still, I’d been safely tucked away in the bakery for over a year now without a major incident. Until that night. But the blip with Mory, as unresolved as it felt, was oddly unsatisfying.
I hadn’t had a chance to stab anyone with my knife, so maybe that was all that was bothering me. Putting up with all the annoying itch but none of the satisfying scratching.
Warner had vacated the bed by the time my alarm went off an hour later at 6:00 a.m. He’d left a chocolate bar on his pillow, which combined with the lack of black-forest-cake magic in the apartment to let me know he’d already left the building. And the country, for that matter.
Knowing that I’d be bouncing off the walls by noon if I ate it, I examined the blue-and-gold-printed bar from Marou — a 74 percent single-origin dark chocolate from Vietnam. Then, tearing the inner gold foil even though I’d tried to be gentle, I snapped a generous piece from the bar, allowing it to slowly melt across my tongue. I savored the hints of prune and raisin that mellowed into mild espresso, with a lingering cacao aftertaste.
Consuming the chocolate piece by piece, I tugged on jeans, a navy blue-and-pink-printed Cake in a Cup T-shirt, socks, and sneakers. Then I gathered my unruly curls into a messy bun and made my way down to the bakery.
My pristinely clean kitchen smelled like lemon verbena, and the cupcakes I’d left in the antique glass cake stand I’d bought specifically for Blossom had disappeared. As such, I surmised that the brownie had made a pass through while I was asleep.
Cutting it a little tight before I needed to open at 10:00 a.m., I checked the fridges for leftover batter, finding none. That meant I’d be baking through opening in order to have at least two dozen of everything on the current menu. Bryn was usually early for her 9:00 a.m. shift, though, and her frosting technique was much more refined than mine. So I might just make it.
After setting out butter and eggs to let them come to room temperature, I liberated a glorious vat of freshly roasted peanut butter from the fridge. I’d begun to expand my peanut butter offerings, and was testing similar recipes with cashew butter from the same local roasters. Even if I found a combination I was happy with, though, the cashew butter would make for rather pricey cupcakes, and I never knew ahead of time whether the market would bear the increase or not.
Still, the Clarity in a Cup I made with eggs from Rochelle’s Westphalian deathlayer flock — marketed as local and organic, and marked up a dollar each — usually sold out moments after opening every Tuesday. The oracle, who was still slowly expanding her flock, dropped off at least a dozen eggs every Monday afternoon.
I slipped into the pantry for cocoa, sugar, and flour. Then I put my head down and fell into the peaceful rhythm of measuring and mixing. Only in my kitchen could I just allow myself to be, with no worries of magical grids and itchy feet, or of wherever Warner had been dragged off to, and whoever he might be fighting or vanquishing.
In these few hours five mornings a week, it was just me, my magic, and all the tastiness I got to play with.
Half of the cupcakes I needed for a Saturday were either out of or in the oven, and half of those had cooled enough to be slathered with icing. I had just slipped a tray of Happiness in a Cup — a dense peanut butter cake with a subtly sweet honey buttercream — onto a holding rack when the magic of the wards shifted, indicating that someone had just grasped the handle of the back alley door.
Already smiling, I spun around, tasting his magic moments before
he opened the exterior door. The early-morning sun shone through his white-blond hair, briefly kissing his skin with a golden wash before he stepped through into the kitchen.
Kett.
Dressed in his typical combo of cashmere sweater and designer jeans, all in hues of grey this time, he shifted his ice-blue gaze, scanning the kitchen for me. My smile widened, spreading across my face. And an answering smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Two steps later, I was in his arms.
He lifted me, twirling me around. His grip was bruising — or at least it would have been to anyone else. I threw my head back, laughing.
Kett set me on my feet. Curls tumbled down around my face, loosened from their clip. Barely making contact, he brushed my hair back, then pressed a kiss to my forehead.
But before I had more than a moment to marvel at that rare, intimate gesture, I noticed the tenor of his magic. It wasn’t muted, exactly. Just less intense. And though its peppermint overtones were similar, the underlying base — the dark-tinted spice I hadn’t yet identified, which Benjamin Garrick also shared — was less pungent. Less present.
“What’s wrong?” I murmured, setting my hand on his shoulder. “Are you hurt?”
He stepped away, keeping his gaze on me but breaking physical contact.
My hand fell to my side. And I waited. I waited for him to tell me where he’d been since late April. I waited for him to explain why he’d been in town hours earlier — based on the magic I’d tasted twice — but was only coming now to say hello.
“I am entirely as expected,” Kett said.
“Your magic is … back in its box.”
He nodded, just a dip of his chin to acknowledge and accept my assessment.
“I’ve missed you,” I said, stepping back to finish frosting a tray of Enchantment in a Cup — decadent chocolate-peanut butter cake with creamy peanut butter icing. I wanted to hit him with a barrage of questions — why he’d been away since the spring, why he hadn’t mentioned mentoring Benjamin, and what was going on with his magic. But I knew that he’d be more likely to share if I gave him space.
Champagne, Misfits, and Other Shady Magic Page 8