Witchy See, Witchy Do (A Riddler's Edge Cozy Mystery #2)

by A. A. Albright

  There were half a dozen of them – three Magical Objects professors from Crooked College, the curator from the Museum of Magical Artefacts, a Dark Instruments expert, and a woman from the Department of Defensive Magic, but they had yet to come to a conclusion upon which they all agreed. While they argued amongst themselves, they took over Dylan’s kitchen, helping themselves to his wine and coffee and – by the looks of it – even opening up a bottle of his whiskey.

  I wished they were simply arguing about Dean’s flute and wand but, unfortunately, there was another object about which they were arguing – because before he was taken away, Dean had babbled wildly about how my broom attacked him.

  The broom (rather sensibly) had flown out through the broken door as the first Wayfarers arrived, and in its absence, Fuzz was the only one who could explain how in Hecate’s name he managed to get it to fly to my rescue.

  One of the experts had stopped guzzling Dylan’s drinks long enough to question Fuzz about that very thing.

  ‘We really ought to take this broom in for testing, along with the other items,’ said Ralph Murray. He was an old man with wild grey curls and rheumy eyes, and he was the curator for the Museum of Magical Artefacts.

  ‘Oh, sure.’ Fuzz rolled his eyes at Ralph. ‘I’ll just go and fetch it now, so you can pull it apart, bristle by bristle. Because that’s exactly what every broom wants.’ I wasn’t sure I’d ever cease to be amazed that I could hear the cat speak. He still had that same purr behind each word, so that even when he was being sarcastic I found him oddly comforting.

  He leapt up onto Dylan’s kitchen counter, so that he was (nearly) eye-to-eye with Ralph. ‘Get over it, Ralphy boy! It’s a broom. A broom is bonded to its witch, just like a familiar is. There’s no mystery here. It makes perfect sense that the broom’s bond with Aisling transferred to me when she was most in need. I mean … duh.’

  Ralph looked from Fuzz to me. ‘Miss Smith, you are barely empowered by all accounts. What your broom did makes no sense. It must be a magical object in its own right. I want to take it in for testing. So would you kindly run off and fetch it for me. Now.’

  I was just about to argue with him when Grace stalked towards us, tossing her golden-blonde curls and glaring at him. ‘It sounds to me like you should be running off and making sure that the wand and the flute are well-secured – not obsessing about a broom.’

  Ralph wasn’t quite as tall as Grace, so his efforts to square up to her fell a little short. ‘Miss O’Malley, a lot of questions are unanswered when it comes to what happened here, and I don’t just mean the broom. The other experts are convinced that the baton was the Wand of Wilma the Wicked, and that the flute was the Flute of Frederick the Fast, but I disagree.’

  Grace tapped one of her feet on the floor and crossed her arms. ‘Oh, you do? Well, that’s a big surprise. So tell me, Ralph – why do you disagree with your peers? Again.’

  ‘Because,’ said Ralph, ‘if that choirmaster did use Wilma’s wand and Frederick’s flute, then there’s no way that either Miss Smith or Detective Quinn would be alive to tell the tale. No one could have fought against those objects, let alone two people who have the combined power of a gnat. The choirmaster’s objects were clearly inferior imitations, and I have every confidence that further testing will prove me correct.’

  Dylan and Greg had been sweeping up the broken glass (well, Greg had managed to devise a spell to do it for them) but they stopped what they were doing and sauntered towards us.

  ‘Ralph.’ Dylan gave the curator a shark-like smile. ‘So nice to see you. But I don’t think I need to remind you that you’re going way beyond your remit here. This is my town, and I decide what gets investigated. So why don’t you and the rest of your mooching buddies just get the hell out of my kitchen and do the job you were brought here to do?’

  Well, I thought it was quite the zinger, but clearly Ralph didn’t agree. He turned his nose up, and then looked back at Fuzz and me.

  ‘But getting back to the broom,’ he said. ‘The broom is interesting to me. It’s a witch broom, yes, and not a wizard broom? In which case it should have very little power, just enough to bond with its witch.’

  Fuzz looked like he was about to pipe up again, but Ralph spoke across him. ‘And I am not buying what this mangy moggy is selling.’

  ‘Hey!’ Fuzz’s back arched, and he let out a hiss. ‘There’s only one person around here who needs better grooming, and it’s certainly not me.’

  I took him into my arms, stroking him and holding him tight.

  ‘The cat has a point,’ Grace said with a smirk. ‘When is the last time you let a scissors near you hair, Ralph? But questionable personal hygiene aside … there’s nothing unusual about Aisling’s broom.’

  He looked like he was about to send a biting reply her way, when another man put a hand on his arm. He had reddish blond hair and wore gold-rimmed glasses. ‘Myself and the others want to get off now,’ he said. ‘We’re all agreed on the objects. We’re taking them off to be disempowered now.’

  Ralph’s eyes bulged. ‘But I’m not finished with them! How can they be what you say they are if this silly woman managed to overcome them? No. No, I don’t accept it.’

  I assumed I was the silly woman he was referring to, and I was just about to take him to task when the newcomer took off his glasses, polished them, and shrugged. ‘Oh well. I’m sure we’ll manage without you.’

  Ralph spluttered on the spot for a second, watching impotently as the other experts clicked their fingers and left the lighthouse. Within seconds, he clicked his fingers and went along with them.

  As I watched them disappear, I turned to Grace. ‘I like that man with the glasses a lot. Who was he?’

  Grace chewed on her lower lip. Somehow, her lipstick managed to remain perfect despite the motion. ‘That’s Arthur Albright. You’d quite like his cousin Adeline Albright too, I think. But she’s in the finals of a cage-fighting competition as we speak. The two of them wrote a highly-enlightening chronicle on Dark Instruments some time ago, so they really do have the last word on those objects of Dean’s.’

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. I really wished I hadn’t liked that guy, but I did. If I’d known he was an Albright, I would have forced myself to hate him on sight. I knew that, in the witching world, sharing a surname didn’t necessarily indicate the sharing of a bloodline – almost all members of a coven, whether they were related or not, took on the same last name. But even if Arthur shared no DNA whatsoever with Arnold, he was still a member of his coven.

  ‘His name is Arthur?’ I said with a hollow tone. ‘And he has a cousin called Adeline? A cage-fighting cousin, no less. And they’re both Albrights? Does anyone in that coven have a name that doesn’t begin with A?’

  Greg laughed wryly. ‘Arthur once told me they expect to get around to the Bs sometime mid-century. And if you’re worried that he’s going to go back and report to Arnold on tonight’s events, don’t be. He’s a decent guy. He’s the Tall Tales teacher I said knows everything about everything – the one I think we should speak to about the green glow you’ve been seeing.’

  Dylan gave Greg an impressed nod. ‘Good idea. Arthur’s definitely the man to talk to about that. There could be something in one of his Tall Tales. Or maybe Adeline Albright might have come across something in the Longest Library. We should …’ He trailed off, and I couldn’t say I blamed him. If Grace was looking at me the way she was looking at Dylan, I’d freeze up too.

  Unfortunately for me, she did turn those eyes of hers in my direction. ‘Green glow,’ she said in a low voice. ‘You’ve been seeing a green glow?’

  I gathered Fuzz closer, wondering if I was going to need to send him on the attack again. ‘Em … yes?’

  23. A Little Bit What?

  A short while later, I sat in Grace’s apartment, across from Dylan Quinn. I wasn’t staring lovingly at him. But I wasn’t sneering loathingly at him, either. I was just stuck, in between Grace and Greg, with no o
ne else in my eye-line.

  Eventually Dylan and I would be alone. Even if I went out of my way to prevent that from happening, I could tell by the detective’s demeanour that he was itching to talk, and that he was going to find a way to ensure it happened.

  For now, thankfully, we were in the company of others, and we were having what you might call a meeting of minds. Or – if you want me to be more honest about it – an incredibly tense interaction.

  ‘I realise this has been a busy time for all involved,’ said Grace. ‘I mean – a witch hunter. I can’t even remember the last time I saw one of those. But busy or not, it’s no excuse.’ She turned her stare on Greg. ‘I mean, I’m not surprised that Dylan didn’t mention it to me. But you? Don’t you think that this is the sort of thing I might have wanted to know about?’ With each word she spoke, her voice rose – and with every rise, Greg recoiled. ‘I mean, why do you think I ask all of you to submit a daily report, Greg? It’s hardly because I want to know how much you enjoy the coffee in the break room, or the answers to Roarke’s latest crossword, now is it?’

  Greg shuffled a little closer to me, as if he was trying to use me as some sort of shield. ‘Um … no? Grace, I’m a bit confused.’

  ‘You’re a bit confused? You’re a bit confused?’ she cried. ‘Oh, good Gretel, Greg – how do you think poor Aisling must have been feeling? You could have helped me figure things out a lot quicker. You and Dylan.’ She pulled off her shoes, threw them across the room, and sighed. ‘Look. We’re all friends here, aren’t we?’

  Greg cleared his throat. ‘Well, right now you’re acting like the big bad boss. But sure. We’re friends.’

  ‘Good,’ said Grace. ‘And as friends, we need to look out for one another. Right now, we need to look out for Ash. She’s new to all of this. She has a crazed possible-grandfather itching to claim her. She has a whole new world to get used to. And she also has her power to figure out. I’ve been so confused about it ever since I took her to Pointer Brothers. If one of you had just told me about this, then I could have saved myself a lot of confusion.’

  I put my hand up. Yes, I’m well aware that I’m no longer a schoolchild, but at that moment, Grace seemed like the scariest teacher in the world. ‘Excuse me, but I thought we had figured it out’. I patted Fuzz’s head. ‘I went pale blue when I ate the pasta. I responded to the Singing Stone – a little over-enthusiastically, sure. And I can even understand Fuzz now. Surely that proves once and for all that I’m a little bit witchy. What else is there to figure out?’

  Once I’d finished speaking, I borrowed Greg’s idea, moving even closer to him. If he could use me as a shield, then I could use him, too. I’d seen him use his purple wand a few weeks ago. I knew he had skills.

  But while I sat there, so close to Greg that I could smell all the snacks he had in his pockets, I realised that I wasn’t yet feeling the wrath of Grace.

  Instead of shouting at me, she just shook her head, her eyes round and sad. ‘Oh, Ash! You are a little bit witchy. But now that I finally know about the green glow, then it’s likely that you’re also a little bit something else.’

  There was a moment – a very long moment – of silence. And in that moment, I looked at Greg, and I looked at Dylan, and I knew: both of them were just as afraid as I was to ask.

  ‘Jeez Louise, Gracey, just spit it out, will you?’ Fuzz said. ‘A little bit what?’

  Dylan and Greg didn’t seem to be able to hear Fuzz. I knew that a familiar had to make a concerted effort to speak to non-witches. It was possible, but it wasn’t common. So while Dylan and Greg looked on in confusion, Grace and I stroked Fuzz and broke out into laughter.

  ‘Well,’ said the cat. ‘That seems to have broken the tension in the room. So … what is my witch? I mean, apart from being my witch.’ He turned his eyes on me. ‘Because you are, you know. You’re my witch. And there isn’t a technicality in the world that’ll let you wriggle out of it. I’ve gotten way too used to daily tins of tuna to ever go back.’

  I laughed for a moment more. When I finally calmed down enough to speak, I said, ‘There isn’t a technicality in the world that would make me want to let you go, you crazy little cat.’ I turned to Grace. ‘But I have to tell you, boss lady – everyone else in this room is a lot more confused than you. You need to get to the point and tell us – what do you think I am?’

  She had stopped laughing, too, and she was giving me the sad-eyes once again. ‘I think I’ll need some coffee first. Because this could take some time.’

  ≈

  Fuzz was right about the tension being broken in the room. We were still sitting around, and we were definitely still having an incredibly serious discussion. But now we were having our discussion with coffee and biscuits instead of a whole lot of shouting.

  ‘Since the day Arnold brought you to Riddler’s Edge, I’ve been wondering if he’s right,’ said Grace. ‘Because whenever I look at you, I see Abby.’ She gazed down into her coffee cup. ‘I might look forty now. But let’s just say I’m a little bit older than that. I was Abby’s boss, all those years ago. But I was her friend, too.’ She paused to brush a tear from her cheek. ‘But ours was a friendship that was balanced on a knife-edge. Arnold was so protective of her. He barely let the poor girl out of his sight. We never got the chance to go to lunch together, or have a night out on the town. All the things I could tell she wanted to confide in me … we were never alone long enough for that to happen. But I knew she did manage to snatch some time away from her father. I knew she had someone. I knew she was in love. I just never knew who with. And I certainly had no idea why Arnold hated the man so much.’

  My eyes and ears had been focused on her while she spoke, following every single word, eating it up like it was chocolate. So when she paused, glancing at Greg and Dylan, I felt like someone had just stolen my sweets away. ‘Go on,’ I prompted. ‘You have an idea now. I know you do.’

  ‘I do,’ she said, her eyes moving from Dylan and Greg and back to me. ‘But what I’m about to say is big, Ash. So it’s up to you – do you want to hear the rest of this in private?’

  ‘Are you serious?’ Greg croaked. ‘We’re knackered, Grace. Every single one of us could sleep for a week. But you forced us to have this secret – and might I add, narky – meeting. And now after shouting at us for a good forty- five minutes or so you want me and Dylan to leave before we get to the good part?’

  ‘He’s right.’ I looked pointedly at Grace. ‘I might be a bit irritated with one of these two right now – but even I wouldn’t leave them on a cliffhanger.’

  Dylan’s eyes fell on me. ‘Me, I suppose? I’m the one you’re irritated with? I knew you were annoyed about the whole Jared and Darina thing.’

  Grace and Greg gawked his way.

  ‘Jared and Darina?’ Greg spat out some of his coffee. ‘Seriously?’

  I sat forward, shaking my head. ‘Never mind that just now. Grace, we all want to know.’ I swallowed, trying my best to keep my voice even. ‘Who do you think my father is?’

  She brought a strand of her hair to her mouth and chewed, then promptly spit the hair out again and gritted her teeth. ‘I haven’t chewed my hair since the thirties. This is what this thing is doing to me. I could throttle Arnold Albright. I really could.’ She sighed. ‘A long time ago – and please don’t ask me how long – I had a friend who was fae. Sióga.’ She looked at me. ‘The Irish faeries are known as sióga.’

  I smiled. ‘I know – thanks to Greg and his gaming addiction.’

  ‘Well, the thing about the fae,’ Grace continued, ‘is that they have a lot more power than we have. They are magic. They see it, they know it, and they feel it all around them. They’re … oh, they’re just so intoxicating to be around!’ She had more tears in her eyes, and I wondered just how close she’d been to this long-lost fae friend. ‘It wasn’t too surprising that you could see a shimmer around supernatural enclaves, Aisling. People with a little bit of power, or who have had their power suppress
ed … they often report such a phenomenon. And it wasn’t too surprising when you started to see a bit more, either. When you saw the Wandering Wood a few weeks ago, well, that could have been explained by your suppression spell finally loosening its hold.’ She shrugged her shoulders and took a slug of her coffee. ‘Maybe being around magic was forcing your real nature to the fore. Or maybe the stress and the emotion of meeting Arnold was what did it. Either explanation could have made sense. But the green glow? There’s only one explanation for that.’ She stared directly at me. ‘Aisling, that is how the fae see dark magic.’

  There was another moment of silence. And yes, it was another very long one. But this time, even Fuzz didn’t break it. All of us waited patiently until Grace spoke again.

  ‘As I said, the fae can see magic. Not just enclaves, but magical objects, magical traces – magical anything. My friend could see a sort of haze around anything magical. If you and your ship were ever being hunted down by a rival pirate, and you wanted to find some ancient OAP to help you save the day, well then, you’d better hope you had a faery on your side to help you find it faster.’

  Greg, Dylan and I shared a look of puzzlement. Hunted down by a rival pirate? Did that mean Grace had once been a pirate herself?

  Grace waved her hand and let out a light, dismissive laugh. ‘Don’t pay too much attention to my nonsense. I went off on a bit of a tangent there. My point is, fae see good magic, and they see bad. Only a faery can differentiate just by looking at something. Your witch power is coming to you, Aisling, that much is clear now that you can hear Fuzz. But if you could see a green glow around the things that the witch hunter did, then that means your fae power is rushing back, too. The way you broke the Singing Stone at Pointer Brothers? Well, now that makes a whole lot more sense to me – because fae power is so much stronger than any other magic.’

  She reached over and took my hand in hers. ‘But I know you, Ash. I know you’re going to want to know for sure. And there is a way to be certain whether someone is sióga or not.’ She cleared her throat and glanced at Dylan. ‘A vampire can tell,’ she continued. ‘My friend told me that vampires can’t stomach the taste of fae blood. I believe the exact words used were that vampires thought it tasted like crud. So … we could test this now. We could know for certain.’