by C. M. Cevis
“Knows what?” Asher asked.
Luna’s hands froze.
“Right,” Liza and Luna said in unison. Luna turned to face Asher, face serious.
“I know you can keep secrets like no one’s business, Ash, but this one is important.”
“Okay. I won’t tell anyone.”
“We mean it, Ash. Seriously,” Liza added. “Not even Melody.”
The smile faded from Asher face. “It is serious, isn’t it?”
They nodded.
“I won’t say a word, I swear.”
Liza and Luna glanced at each other, and Luna put down the bits that she’d been gathering.
“I’m here because I’m in the witness protection program, Ash.”
6
Asher stared at her best friend… best friends? Later. She stared at the sisters in front of her with her mouth literally hanging open.
“Witness protec… what did you witness?”
“I can’t tell you that, Ash,” Luna responded immediately.
“Okay. Can I know why I can’t know?”
Liza answered. “Knowing would put you in the same danger we’re in, and neither of us want that.”
“Plus, Graham would be pissed,” Luna added.
“Who is Graham?”
“Let me go get a few things from the kitchen,” Luna said, standing and heading towards the entrance to the room as Liza turned to Asher.
“Graham is the agent who placed us here. Luna told him that she was going to tell you about him and that she’s in the program but promised she wouldn’t tell you why. He’s already in a bit of trouble because he doesn’t check in regularly with us, so he had no idea about the coma.”
Asher frowned, confused. “Why doesn’t he check in regularly?”
“Because we can take care of ourselves and he knows we aren’t a flight risk. We’re his easy charges.” Liza laughed.
Luna returned with a mason jar and what looked like a Bunsen burner from high school chemistry. “He doesn’t know about Liza, by the way. Only me.”
“Duh,” Liza said, rolling her eyes.
Asher laughed. “Is he here? In Calidity?”
Luna shook her head. “No, but he can get here in a few hours’ drive. I do want you to meet him, virtually, and exchange numbers. He should have known about that coma, but there was no way that he could have.”
“If anything weird happens to us, he needs to know,” Liza said, leaning across the table towards Asher, who nodded in response.
“Got it.” Given this new information, she had to force herself not to consider everything that could happen to Luna. The important thing was remembering to tell this Graham person if things went sideways.
“Alright, let’s get this done,” Luna said.
She placed the mason jar to the side and poured the cubes of oddly colored wax into a small bowl and placed over the flame. A second bowl went in front of her on the table. From her bag she pulled out a knife sized between hunting and pocket. The inscribed words along the blade glowed but seemed to blur whenever Asher tried to read them.
“Why can’t I read that?” she asked, not really expecting an answer.
“It’s enchanted,” Liza responded just in time for Luna to wrap her hand around the blade and rip it through her grasp without a second though.
Asher gasped, but Luna didn’t even flinch. She squeezed the injured palm tightly shut and held her hand over the bowl. Blood dripped in a steady stream into the vessel as she whispered to herself.
“She’s setting the spell to allow the blood to tie back to her and me, even if we aren’t there,” Liza explained.
Asher nodded, her hand still at her mouth. Blood didn’t freak her out—she was a carnivore after all—but seeing someone injure themselves, brutally and intentionally, without so much as a wince was a shock to her human side. Humans didn’t do that.
“Can you get me a bandage from the hall bathroom, Ash? I knew I forgot something,” Luna said as she tipped the bowl of blood into the rapidly melting bowl of wax.
“Yeah, sure,” Asher said, watching with fascination as the bowl of bloody wax began to give off a maroon smoke. She trotted to the bathroom, grabbed every bandage she saw from the cabinet under the sink, and ran back. She’d never seen Luna work before and didn’t want to miss a second.
“Thank you,” Luna replied, grabbing a large bandage and roll of gauze. With practiced movements, the placed the bandage over the wound and wrapped the gauze tightly around her hand. She glanced at Asher’s face as she secured it in place and smiled. “Don’t worry. I can help it heal, but I want to get this done first.”
Asher nodded yet again.
“Luna keeps a salve in the basement garden—it’ll help,” Liza said reassuringly.
Once the wax was completely melted, Luna used a wooden popsicle stick to stir it before pouring it into the jar. She tied a wick around the stick and let the wick fall into the wax, leaving the stick to rest on the jar’s rim, keeping a couple inches of the wick above the wax.
“Now we just wait for that to cool,” Luna said with a satisfied grin.
“The idea is that the wax holds the power of Luna’s magic and the blood tied to us, so if you need to talk to me and Luna is unavailable, you burn the candle and I can be there with you through it,” Liza explained.
Luna nodded. “Yep, that’s how it works.”
“Good to know. A little odd, but good.” Asher laughed.
“This is probably the most normal thing about us. For example, I have no psychic ability whatsoever, but Liza does. If I ever seem to know something about someone’s thoughts, it’s because she told me,” Luna said with a smile.
“You can read thoughts?” Asher asked.
Liza shrugged. “If the emotion is strong and the connection is there, sure. But not just of someone on the street. The human idea of a psychic is totally incorrect.”
“So, palm readers?” Asher narrowed her eyes. She’d always wondered about psychics.
“If a psychic is good and legitimately has the gift for it, it is possible to read someone through touch. But it’s not as… specific as those people on TV make it seem. You can see futures, but only glimpses. And decisions made between that moment and the moment you saw could change it drastically. You can see pasts a bit more clearly, but how much is dependent on how much the vessel wants you to see. They can shut you out, even without realizing it. That’s why psychics often can’t be used on people with repressed memories.”
“I had no idea it was this involved.”
“Most people don’t.” Liza chuckled.
“I personally think I got the simpler of the abilities. Liza has way more to think about and navigate when she’s working.” Luna grinned.
“What about, like, seances, seeing dead relatives and stuff?”
Liza nodded. “That’s legitimate. As long as the ghost is actually around and wants to be seen, I can contact dead relatives and such. I can even tell you what they want to say. However, possession of the psychic can only happen if permission is given. It can’t be forced, like in movies.”
“Unless that ghost is something more sinister than a ghost,” Luna added.
Liza shuddered. “In which case you’ve got a bigger problem on your hands than a dead aunt.”
The three ladies sat in silence for a few moments before Asher finally asked, “So what do we do now?”
Luna glanced down at her watch and smiled. “Now, you meet Graham.”
~*~
Graham had made time for is meeting with Luna and Asher on an afternoon where he planned on being home. Going home for lunch wouldn’t raise any suspicions and neither would him taking lunch several hours after most people did, since both were regular occurrences for him. Instead, he had run home, made himself a sandwich, grabbed a soda, and settled on the couch with his laptop to wait for Luna to call.
She was alarmingly prompt.
“There you are,” Luna said as her smiling face came
into view. Something about seeing her on the screen and knowing that she was indeed okay made Graham’s shoulders loosen. She was a sweet girl with a good head on her shoulders, and the last thing he wanted was for his negligence on regular check-ins to be the reason something terrible happened to her.
“Here I are,” Graham said, smiling back.
The laptop shifted positions, slowly bringing into the frame a pretty redhead in cat-eye glasses and the perfect amount of freckles for her face.
“Graham, this is my best friend Asher. Ash, this is Graham, the agent who placed me here.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Mister Graham,” Asher said, waving before a look a confusion washed over her face. “Officer? Agent?”
He returned her wave. “Just Graham is fine, Asher. I’m not really fond of titles unless I’m throwing around my weight for some reason.”
“Luna said she wanted you and I to have a way to get in touch with each other, in case something like the coma happens again.”
Graham felt a pang of regret in his chest. “She’s right. As much as I was against her telling anyone about being placed in Calidity, I had no idea that she was in a coma for three weeks. That’s terrifying for me.”
“And irresponsible,” Luna added with a smirk. Asher smacked her on the shoulder.
“Hey now, be nice.”
“Thank you, Asher,” Graham said with a laugh. “I like her already, Luna. Can I just call and check in with her instead of you? She’s nicer.”
Luna mocked an offended look that made Graham roll his eyes.
“The number that Luna has for me is the best number for you to have too. It’s my work cell, but I pay more attention to that thing than I do to anything else. My mother calls me on that line.” Graham laughed.
“A workaholic, huh? That’s probably not healthy,” Asher teased.
“It’s not, but it’s why I’m so good at my job.”
“Fair enough,” Asher said with a nod.
“I’ll give Asher the number before she leaves today,” Luna said.
“Have her save it just like I had you save it,” Graham said, looking directly into the camera. Luna would know what he meant.
She nodded. “Got it.”
“Can Graham tell me why you’re here?” Asher asked, her voice low as if that would keep the laptop microphone from picking it up.
“No, he cannot,” Luna said immediately.
Asher pouted and turned back to the laptop. “You can’t tell me what happened to her?”
“Sorry Asher, she’s right.” Either Luna hadn’t told Asher about the case that had started this mess, or she’d coached Asher to say that during this call to make him think that she hadn’t told her. He was going to go with the former for the sake of his sanity.
Asher made a face. “Darn.”
Luna snorted a laugh. “Knowing Asher, we better cut this short or else she’ll keep asking sneaky questions. Plus, I figure you’re at lunch and I don’t want to take up your entire break. Thanks for talking, Graham.”
“I appreciate the consideration. It was nice talking with you both,” Graham said, smiling and waving to the camera. He wouldn’t mind getting to know the person who knew Luna’s secret a little more, but he wasn’t really good at small talk.
“Nice to meet you, Graham,” Asher said, waving back.
“Talk to you later,” Luna said, smiling before she ended the video call, leaving Graham alone with his lunch and his thoughts on the fact that his charge had just done the one thing she wasn’t supposed to do, and with his blessing.
7
Maya’s advisors had let her know that the arch had woken up days ago, but she hadn’t done anything about it other than make sure that someone there knew how to make sure nothing came through it without permission. She was pretty sure that is still led to the basement of that old house in the small northeastern US town, but who knew what magical gates with a mind of their own could do. She’d sent a runner to make sure the silly thing was secure and went back to running her kingdom.
“Your Majesty, I think we have a problem,” Lisette said, coming into the office without so much as a knock. Which probably meant there was indeed a problem.
Maya waited, watching as Lisette crossed the office, picked up the television remote, and turned the station to the local news. A commercial showed a shirtless man applying deodorant.
“Liz, you know that I hate the news.”
Lisette answered the comment with a look that said that she didn’t really care what her queen felt like disliking at the moment and turned back towards the screen as the commercial ended.
It only took a moment to see what the problem was.
“Rowan, dear, can you come in here, please?” Maya called through the intercom. She was reasonably sure her husband was down in the library.
The screen showed a young fae woman outside a condo in what looked to be one of the more populated areas of the city. “We are here today to report on the scene that, just moments ago, was alive with camera flashes and shouted questions. To whom, you might ask? The crown prince of course.”
Maya put her head in her hands as the woman on TV continued.
“Prince Gideon was arrested just moments ago as he emerged from famous actress Bonne Nuit’s condo. Miss Nuit, whose real name is a mystery, didn’t address the public regarding what was going on. We have no idea why the crown prince was there, or why he was removed in faerie cuffs. Hopefully, the crown will fill us in soon.”
Liz muted the television and turned back toward Maya just as Rowan appeared in the doorway.
“What in the world was your son doing getting arrested leaving some woman’s house?” Maya kept her voice calm with difficulty.
Rowan shrugged, walking forward until he stood in front of her desk. “I’ll be honest, I haven’t seen him since breakfast. I didn’t even know he’d left the house.”
Maya narrowed her eyes. “He talks to you more than he talks to me.”
He put his hands up in surrender. “You are always busy and don’t bother making time for the son that you birthed.”
“We are not having this conversation again,” Maya snapped.
“Right. It’s not like he’s just done something obviously public for attention or anything. Why should we discuss it?” Rowan turned and began to walk toward the door.
“Wait a minute, where are you going? We have to deal with this.”
He spun on his heel to face her, his voice hard. “No, you have to deal with this. You are the crown, remember? I’m just the man trying to be a father to our son, and as soon as I approached why I believe our son is acting out, you snapped at me. I see no reason to waste my time if you’re not going to listen.” He resumed his exit, fists clenched.
“Wait, Rowan. Please,” Maya said, standing. Rowan paused, back to her, just outside her office.
“Do you need something, Maya? Something that you will actually allow me to provide? Or may I return to my inconsequential duties?”
He was mad. Rowan wasn’t one for explosive anger, but he’d make sure that you knew he was upset and make you feel like a terrible person about it. Maya already felt like crap, and this wasn’t helping. But he was most likely right, and she needed to listen to him. He knew more about what was going on with Gideon than she did, and they both knew it.
She just didn’t have time right then.
“Can you get Gideon out of jail, please?” she asked softly.
“Of course,” he said, his legs already moving him away from her.
“And,” she called, stopping him again. “Tonight, during dinner, we can try talking again?”
Rowan turned to reveal his sharp profile. Even from this distance, she could see the disbelief in his eyes.
“As you wish.”
She hated when he said that. It meant he was still mad, and that it would take a while for him to let it go. She’d really screwed up.
“Great,” she whispered as he disappeared down the stairs.
8
The next morning was a bit full on activity, but Luna was alright with it. With the stress of telling Asher her secret out of the way, Luna felt light. Plus, Asher and Graham had seemed to get along, so she wouldn’t have to keep defending her decision to the agent. Things were looking up.
Today, the plan was to let Gerald and Eddie in so that they could start working on the new locks for the doors before her guest checked in. The check-in wasn’t scheduled until after noon, but the guys had called last night and said they’d be there first thing in the morning. That meant Luna needed to be up and ready to go before they got there, and she intended on at least having coffee ready in case they wanted a cup or two.
Liza had watched the gate again most of the night. She said something about it giving her the heebie-jeebies, but she couldn’t explain why exactly. Luna felt the same way about the thing, but she couldn’t do anything about it.
Luna’s house was sprinkled with stashes of books. She’d accumulated them throughout her teens and twenties, when she’d been so busy trying to get better at her magic that she’d almost failed all of her mundane high school classes. Some of the books had been rare and hard to find, but her father had come through for her with most of those. Whether he’d done it because he wanted to make her happy or because he wanted her to be stronger, she still wasn’t sure. It was something she’d decided not to dwell on years ago, and that choice had been working out well for her so why stop now?
When it came to witchcraft, the real stuff not the Hollywood fake, it wasn’t easy to do your research in a modern way. The internet meant that any idiot that could make a stick glow could claim that they had the piece of information that you needed to be al powerful for five easy payments of $19.99. Luna knew more witches that were more likely to phone a friend that search the internet for an answer. That had been her reason for collecting the books. Those were her lifeline when she needed to figure out something new, or a refresher on something old. They were the reason that she could do what she could do, and that was why they had their own bit of magic on them. That, and to make sure that people who weren’t supposed to see them didn’t.