“She had a habit of sneaking out of the dorm to see him. It was what she was doing that night, according to the last entry.”
Well, that put a different spin on things. It didn’t seem likely a secret boyfriend would be connected to a Keeper spell. Maybe it was a case of bad timing. She might have been on the way to meet the boyfriend when the killer attacked. If so, it was possible the guy had seen or heard something.
“Did you tell the police about the boyfriend?”
A guilty expression crossed Melanie’s face. “Only that she might have been meeting someone.”
I debated whether or not I should hand the diary over to Sheriff Brackenberry. In the ordinary world, this would be considered evidence and not handing it over could get me in big trouble. But this was the magical world. All the rules were different here.
“Please,” Melanie said, her voice trembling again. “You’ve got to help. The police are just going to screw up like they always do.”
“What makes you think I won’t screw up?”
“You’re Moira Nimue’s daughter. She can do things nobody can.”
Melanie’s attitude toward my mother was so different from the norm, I was taken aback, unable to respond.
She went on. “And you’re a dream-seer. That gives us a better chance than the police. I want to find the killer and make sure he gets what he deserves.”
I shivered at the menace in her tone. It reminded me why The Will restricted the use of combative magic. Melanie Remillard would kill the guy if she got a chance, no question.
“So will you look into it?” Melanie asked.
I considered the question. Since I was already looking for the killer, I didn’t see how taking a more hands-on, detective-like approach would hurt. Besides, the idea was sort of appealing. I might actually get somewhere. It would certainly be easier than trying to muddle my way through Eli’s dreams.
“I’ll try,” I said. “But I’ve got a couple of questions.”
Melanie sat up, looking eager. “Ask me anything.”
“Do you know if Rosemary was wearing a ring on her right hand that night?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Why are you so sure?” asked Selene.
“Because she only had one ring and she never took it off, not since her father gave it to her last summer for her eighteenth birthday. She loved that thing—don’t know why. It was pretty enough, but it was made of iron, of all things.”
Iron had lots of magical properties, including the ability to repel ghosts and other spirit-based creatures. “Hang on. I thought iron was poisonous to fairies.”
Melanie shook her head, a slight grin on her face. “Nope. That’s just a rumor fairykind started back in medieval times to trick ordinaries into believing we’re less dangerous than we really are.”
“Oh.” I should’ve guessed that. Magickind started rumors about themselves in the ordinary world all the time, the latest example being the ordinary pop culture obsession with vampires as misunderstood victims who’d rather kiss a human than kill one. So not true.
Melanie said, “But it’s not completely false. We’re not fond of iron, in general. Especially as jewelry. It has a way of messing with our magic. It doesn’t block it exactly, but it can sometimes make a spell go awry. Nobody wants to set the sofa on fire when you’re trying to light the lamp, you know?”
I understood the dilemma all too well. Shame I couldn’t blame my magic going awry on something as simple as an unfortunate piece of jewelry.
“What did the ring look like?” asked Selene.
“Just a band with a couple of imbedded diamonds, and a silver coating on it so you wouldn’t know it was iron.”
If Rosemary had only gotten the ring last summer, then she hadn’t been a Keeper for very long. Did that mean the Keeper spell was new, too? I tried to think of the most current events among magickind, but nothing struck me as significant. Not that I paid a lot of attention to that sort of thing. Then again, it was possible the spell wasn’t new at all. She might have been made part of a preexisting spell through a transference ritual. Given what Lady Elaine had said about the Keeper ring being a rite of passage, that seemed more likely.
“Do you think the ring has something to do with her murder?” said Melanie.
“Maybe.”
A loud crack of lightning made us all jump.
Melanie glanced at her watch and blanched. “I’ve got to go.” She stood up. “If you have any more questions, let me know.”
“Okay.”
She picked up her bag and slid it over her shoulder. She looked back at me, her expression deadly serious. “Promise me something. I want to know who it is. I want to be the first.”
Not hardly, I thought as I gave her an unenthusiastic nod. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.
But I had a sinking feeling it was too late to back out now.
8
Wannabe
I didn’t read any entries in the diary during school the next day since I was too afraid of getting caught with it. The day went by quickly and smoothly all the way until sixth-period alchemy, by far my worst subject. Alchemy was basically chemistry, but with magic ingredients. I just didn’t have the right temperament for it, unlike my lab partner, Britney Shell.
Britney was a mermaid with curly strawberry blond hair and eyes the color of aquamarine set in between a rather large, bulbous nose. Like all mermaids, her pale, almost translucent skin held a natural sheen that made her glisten in strong sunlight as if she was wet. And also like a lot of mermaids, she was painfully shy, almost socially comatose. It was this same shyness that made her so good at alchemy. She had no trouble ignoring distractions while she carefully counted the number of stirs and added the right ingredient at the right time.
If our teacher, Ms. Ashbury, would only allow Britney to do all the hands-on stuff for us all the time, my grade would’ve been a lot higher. But Ashbury was an equal opportunity teacher, which meant today was my turn to do the mixing while Britney read the instructions for the cooling draught we were tasked with making.
“Add this on stir twenty-one,” Britney said, holding out to me a vial of pureed bladderwrack leaves. I took it from her when I reached nineteen, trying not to be distracted by the odd webbing of skin in between her fingers. She never bothered to hide it with a glamour. You’d think I’d get used to stuff like that, but it seemed I never did.
Still, I managed to dump the bladderwrack into the beaker at the right time, turning the bubbling liquid from gray to dark green.
“Good job,” Britney said in her tiny, musical voice.
I beamed at her, delighted with how well I was doing. But then my gaze fell on Eli at the next table. He was watching me with an expression that sent jitters bouncing along my nerve endings. It wasn’t hostile, exactly, but inscrutable and full of that intense vibe I usually got from him, as if he were more physically present than everybody else in the room. All day yesterday and today he hadn’t said a word to me about getting him in trouble with Lady Elaine, but he just might be thinking about it now.
I ripped my gaze off him, running a nervous hand through my hair. When I dropped the hand to my side, I hit the ragwort jar on the table, knocking it to the floor.
“Crap,” I said.
“We need to add that next!” Britney sounded close to panic as she stooped, trying in vain to gather up the minced leaves strewn among broken pieces of clay. “Don’t lose count,” she added.
“Twenty … seven, twenty-eight.”
“Here, use ours.” It was Lance. He set a jar full of dark leaves on the table in front of me.
Without thinking, I picked up the measuring cup, dipped it into the jar, and then dumped the contents into the beaker just as I reached thirty.
Boom.
A streak of lightning exploded from the beaker, shattering it. Hot liquid splattered my hair and forearms, which I had managed to raise in front of my face just in time. I yelped in pain, and ran to the s
ink, quickly rinsing off the liquid before it could burn my skin.
“What’s going on here?” Ms. Ashbury stomped over to us, her face livid with anger, and her dark eyes blazing in between her hooked nose. I’d never seen a witch look more like a witch in my life. Even her dyed-purple hair looked menacing. “Are you all right? What happened?”
“Uh…” I sputtered. “I have no idea. I just added the ragwort, and it exploded.”
“What ragwort? Show it to me.”
I looked at the jar Lance had brought over, realizing my stupidity.
Ms. Ashbury picked it up and smelled it, her nose wrinkling. “This is mountain ash, not ragwort. What were you thinking?”
“It wasn’t her,” Britney said. “Lance gave it to us. He did it on purpose.”
I smiled at her. It took a lot of courage for someone like Britney to call out Lance on one of his tricks.
Ms. Ashbury glanced at Lance, who was barely holding back a grin. She pointed a long, crooked finger at him. “You know better, Mr. Rathbone. Detention. Monday morning. My office.” She looked back at me. “Be more careful next time, Dusty. Now you and Britney clean this up.”
The bell rang a few minutes later, and Britney and I were only halfway through sweeping up the mess. Eli came over, carrying a dustbin. I glared at him, convinced he’d played a part in what happened.
“They don’t need your help, Mr. Booker,” Ashbury said from the front of the classroom.
Eli frowned, looking ready to argue, but he set the dustbin on the table beside me and left.
Good riddance.
* * *
When I arrived at Eli’s room that night for our next dream-session, I was still angry and determined to ignore him. At least I’d brought my own reading material. As I expected, Eli was awake again, sitting at the desk and doing work in a textbook while he listened to music. The song issuing from the stereo on the desk beside him was a familiar one.
I froze, my mouth open in surprise. “You’re listening to Black Noise?”
Eli looked up, his eyebrows raised. “Sure, they’re the best.”
“I know.”
He tilted his head as if in disbelief. “You like them?”
“No, of course not,” I said with an exaggerated eye-roll. “I just know all their songs by heart because I hate them so much.” I paused. “They’re only my favorite band in the whole world.”
Eli folded his arms and leaned back in his chair. “Mine too. Cool.”
A flutter went through my stomach—he and I actually had something in common. Other than the dream-seer thing.
“Nobody here’s heard of them,” Eli said. “I guess they’re not big enough yet. It kind of—” He broke off as a horrible sound, like a cross between a foghorn and a car accident, burst out of the speakers. Scowling, Eli slapped the top of the stereo. “Stupid thing. It keeps doing that.”
I stifled a grin. “Have you tried being nice to it?”
“What do you mean?” Eli said, turning down the volume.
I stepped forward and gave the stereo a little pat. “It’s just forming its animation personality. If you’re nice, it might be nice back.” That was one of the theories, at least.
“Okay,” Eli said, a note of disbelief in his voice. “What’s that?” He pointed at Rosemary’s diary tucked under my arm.
“Nothing. Just a diary,” I said, remembering that I was supposed to be mad at him. I sat on the sofa across from his desk and opened the book to the last entry.
“Cute hair,” Eli said, his voice amused. “Were you going for a punk rocker look or something?”
I screwed up my face at him, visualizing my appearance. My hair was covered in pale pink polka dots from where the cooling draught had landed, bleaching it. “You like it? It’s your handiwork after all. Awesome dirty trick by the way. I really appreciate it.”
“What? I didn’t do that to you. Lance did.”
“Oh, sure. You were just an innocent bystander.”
He slammed the book on the desk closed, then folded his arms, assuming his most menacing posture. “I had no idea that was mountain ash or that it would shoot off lightning. Why would I know? I’m new here, remember? Oh, and I’m the only person who can’t do magic in an all-magic school.”
“You’re not the only one,” I said.
“What?”
“Never mind.” I didn’t feel like explaining the halfkinds-are-usually-sterile thing to him.
My gaze fell on the spine of the book he’d been working in—Alchemy Projects for the Non-Magical. Geez, the administration might as well give him a scarlet letter to wear on his chest. A big, red “O” for ordinary. Or zero. Take your pick.
No wonder the guy hated me.
Unsure what to say, caught between lingering anger and something like regret, I returned my attention to the diary, hoping he would fall asleep quickly. The final entry in the diary was dated Sunday, the day Rosemary died:
I’m going to see F again tonight in Coleville. I’ve decided to end things. He used to make me feel so great, but lately when he kisses me he seems cold. Then there’re his strange questions about my parents. He’s hunting for something. I think I know what, but the idea of him being after it is so unbelievable. I’m going to confront him tonight, if only for my own peace of mind.
“So whose diary is it?” Eli said.
“Rosemary Vanholt’s,” I answered automatically.
“Really?” To my surprise he sounded interested. “Any clues about who killed her?”
I closed the diary and stared at him, leery, but could see no reason not to tell him. “Maybe. She was supposed to meet somebody that night. A secret boyfriend.”
“Yeah, I heard she was dating someone in secret. I’ve asked around trying to figure out who, but no luck so far.”
“You’ve been investigating Rosemary’s murder?”
“My dad is a detective.” He hesitated, cracking his knuckles. “And it’s sort of what I want to do. Be a cop. Maybe even join the FBI.”
I snorted.
“What’s so funny?”
“You always struck me as more of the criminal type.”
He grinned. “How would you know?”
Uh … my brain stuttered. “Everybody knows that you were the guy who spray-painted Mr. Patrick’s car last year.” He’d been rumored to have done a lot of other things, too, but that was the only one he’d gotten in trouble for that I knew of. Like my mom, he seemed capable of charming his way out of a tight spot. Must be nice to be so good-looking.
Eli sighed. “I guess you would believe that.”
I raised my eyebrows at him. Was that a denial? “What do you mean?”
“Nothing.” He gestured toward the diary. “So are you investigating, too?”
“Sorta. But I’m not exactly getting anywhere.”
“I’ve got something that might help.” He pulled out a piece of paper from the desk drawer, yawning hugely. He drew something on the page, then stood and handed it to me. Goose bumps went up my arm when our fingers touched for the briefest moment.
I ignored the sensation and stared at the paper. He’d drawn a grid with labeled columns across the top: Name, Motive, Method, Opportunity. In the Name column he’d written Frank Rizzo. Frank was a senior and a Mors demon, one of the more heinous of the kinds. Mors magic was fueled by death. Before The Will, they were known to start wars in order to generate feeding grounds. Now their magic was fueled by special potions whose primary ingredient was collected at ordinary hospitals. The idea turned my stomach.
“The person who fits in all those categories is most likely the killer,” said Eli, taking a seat on the chair he’d occupied during our last dream-session.
“Why Frank?” I didn’t know him personally, just rumors about his bad reputation.
“It’s probably nothing, but he told me he was the secret boyfriend. Pretty sure he was lying, but you never know.”
“Right,” I said, my body tensing. Frank’s first initial was
quite a coincidence, and he definitely wasn’t appropriate boyfriend material for the consul’s daughter, either.
“Hey, you didn’t tell Katarina about my dreams, did you?” Eli sounded half-drunk with sleepiness.
I grimaced. “Not hardly. Why do you ask?”
“She’s just been really friendly to me the last couple of days. It’s weird, but I never used to remember my dreams before you came along.” His eyes drifted closed, and I stood, setting the diary and paper on the sofa before coming over to him. I waited for his breathing to deepen.
“I’m sorry,” he said, surprising me, “that Lance did that to you. Do you think the pink will fade?”
“I hope so.”
Eli smiled, his eyes still closed. “You should get back at him. I think he might even respect you for it. He’s a heavy sleeper, you know.”
Revenge against Lance was an intriguing thought. I opened my mouth to ask him if he had any suggestions on what I could do, but he’d fallen asleep. I sighed, and then joined him on the chair and in his dreams.
* * *
Eli’s dream that night proved to be a bust. It was about ice fishing on Lake Erie with his dad and Katarina. Boring, cold, and pointless, although at least I made it through the entire session without getting booted, intentionally or otherwise. Progress.
Best part of the night by far was after the dream ended. With Eli still asleep in the chair, I rummaged in Lance’s desk, found the perfect ink pen for the job, and then snuck into the bedroom portion of the dorm. The pen was a come-and-go pen, the kind you could only buy in a magickind novelty store for a lot of money. Like the name suggested, anything written with it would sometimes be present and sometimes not. A little lever on the side of the pen controlled the charm that designated when the ink would appear. I set it eight hours ahead, about the time I figured Lance would be eating breakfast.
Eli was right about him being a heavy sleeper. Lance didn’t wake once.
* * *
It worked better than I could’ve hoped. The words appeared right as Lance crossed the cafeteria with his tray the next morning, “jackass” written across his forehead. A wave of laughter and finger-pointing followed him. Sitting next to me, Selene was beside herself with glee, her body wracked by huge guffaws. I’d never seen her so happy. As soon as Lance realized what people were laughing about, he immediately looked for me.
The Nightmare Affair Page 9