“How did you do that?” I stared at her.
“Hairdresser was a water witch,” she said with a shrug. “Good at manipulating dyes.”
“Huh.” There were different types of witches here. I was weather, Avery was metals, Sam was cooking, and Charlotte was grass. Yet, they continued to do things that I didn't actually think it was possible for them to do. Charlotte, for example, was the town librarian, and not only did she help make the paper, but she made a special plant-based ink that let her read everything written on the pages. Instead of running a greenhouse.
Seriously, magical books had never prepared me for this.
“I'll do it,” Charlotte said with a sigh. “You get your practice guard up first, then I'll do it.”
I ducked my head to hide my grin and changed it to a scowl. They really did care. Eventually, they'd have to give up and stop double shielding me. Right?
Then again, I felt that was probably the same likelihood that they would stop teasing me over almost lighting someone on fire with lightning. Even worse after the whole lightning thing on the summit.
Speaking of the devil. “Marguerite murder anybody before she left this morning?”
Sam and Avery exchanged looks. “Almost,” Avery said cheerfully. “She was very unhappy with the driver.”
“They sent her a driver?” I felt sorry for whoever been given that duty.
“It's a decent drive to the summit,” Sam said with a shrug. “And she's not allowed to drive on her own.”
“I hope somebody told her that,” I muttered.
I settled down cross-legged, trying to shake the nerves out of my limbs. Then I closed my eyes, slipping into my magic. It was easier now to grab ahold of the winds and spin them around me. It was harder to generate the protective bubble, but I could feel it, the diameter of the guard maybe six or seven feet. It felt pretty secure to me, but the other two had a point.
Out of all of our magic, mine was the most unpredictable and the most dangerous. If anybody needed to be double shielded until they got better control of it, that would be me. I opened my eyes once the bubble was sealed, looking at Charlotte as she joined her hands together with a smile.
A small green line started a foot or so outside of my bubble. It looked to be a thin little vine, and when I looked closer, I realized it was a trailing tendril of something that had grown through the concrete on the other side of the warehouse.
“Don't worry,” Charlotte said, her voice sounding a tiny bit distant from outside the bubble. “It’s not actually growing through the concrete.”
I was grateful to hear that, because I didn't really want to bring this warehouse down on her head. It really would not have been the right way to impress anybody.
Once Charlotte’s bubble was settled, the three of them took seats in a triangle formation with me in the middle.
“Let's get started.” I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath and starting the count Marguerite had taught me. There was a restlessness under my skin, and anxiety over everything that had been happening in town the past few days. My feet were starting to bounce against the concrete, and I forced myself to take a few deep breaths to try and chase it away.
It was dangerous when I got restless. It let my magic escape.
Marguerite still hadn't taught me the cool trick she did where you could see your magic outside of your body, but I was hoping to ask her to do that next time. Not for my benefit, but to help Gianna too.
“Breathe in,” Avery said, her voice soft, apparently leading us.
I focused on breathing, trying to will my mind into the calming place where it was easiest to access my magic. It didn't want to go, fighting and bucking like some of the winds I used.
I took a deep breath again in time with Avery’s counting, struggling with it. The winds that were part of my guard were fighting me, and as much as I had complained about it, I was grateful for Charlotte’s shield.
I hadn't slept well last night either, which didn't really help anything. I made myself take another deep breath.
I could feel my magic simmering under my skin, and if I could see it, I knew it would've been flaring around me, out of control. Maybe it was time to give up for the day.
There was a loud cracking sound. I almost jumped backwards when I felt the warm heat of a lightning bolt engulf me. Or jumped as much as I could, given that I was sitting down.
It was less than a split second, lighting everything up and leaving my body twitching slightly from the burst of energy. I sat there, blinking. The concrete around me was scorched, and I had no idea how they were going to get those marks off the floor.
When I finally looked at Sam, Avery, and Charlotte, they were looking at each other with wary eyes.
“Thanks, Charlotte,” I said weakly.
“You're welcome,” Charlotte said. Her eyes were wide, and it hit me that it was the first time she'd been directly exposed to my lightning magic. To be fair, it was pretty terrifying.
“That's why we keep you in a bubble.” Sam was staring like the others.
“Maybe we should call it a night,” I muttered, shifting where I sat. My cheeks were starting to flame from embarrassment, not just the heat. “And, you know, keep an eye out in case anybody heard the loud noise and wants to investigate.”
Charlotte fixed me with a dark stare. “No,” she told me. “You’re only going to get your proper apprenticeship if you actually put hard work into it.”
I made a face at her.
“You’re twenty nine, not twelve.”
I made a note to use that statement, reversed, on Gianna at some point. “Whatever,” I said in my best impersonation of Gianna. I was the grown-up one, all right.
I settled back down, trying to ignore the scorch marks. For some reason, the lightning had actually helped, and the energy underneath my skin sparked more quietly, almost docile. It was like there was a barrier keeping the magic from escaping, leaving euphoria behind that made you feel like you could do anything. Manipulate anything.
Even though I sure as hell wasn’t going to try that. Interfering with the weather was deadly enough when done unintentionally. I didn't want to start trying to screw with it until I could do something at least intentionally.
Once meditation was over (thankfully without any more incidents), we went to the pseudo-kitchenette and watched Sam try and screw with box recipes.
“What about making this one enduring?” I asked, looking at the recipe for a frittata breakfast muffin.
“To keep you going throughout the day?” Sam looked thoughtful. “Could do,” she said, reaching into her ingredient basket. She diced a couple red peppers and then mixed them into the eggs and milk. I could see glints of silver jump from her fingertips as she stirred. I could see her magic. Mentally I filed that away to ask Marguerite about.
“What else?” Sam asked, stirring the frittata mixture and then starting to fill up the muffin tins.
“Dinners that make you sleepy?” I suggested.
The three of them turned to look at me, and seriously, it was the most annoying thing in the world. “Having trouble sleeping?” Avery asked warily.
Like they had choreographed it, all of their eyes turned towards the scorch mark in the middle of the warehouse.
“Just one night,” I said crossly. I mean, after everything that had happened, a little bit of trouble sleeping was to be expected. At least in my book.
Avery studied me skeptically even as Sam returned back to baking, and I was fairly certain none of them believed me.
Sam was halfway through a cake made to knock someone out when there was a thud against the door.
That was the advantage of working with Sam's magic. It looked like we had taken over the warehouse and built a small kitchen. Weird, but not illegal. Theoretically.
I groaned internally. It was probably the bloody lightning strike. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, yet there had been lightning. My luck. “I’ll get it,” I grumbled. It was probably my faul
t, so I should be the one to face whoever it was.
I opened the door, my mouth open to apologize, and stopped when I saw who it was. “Riley?”
“Got a report,” she said casually, taking a couple steps in and looking around the warehouse. Her gaze stopped on the scorch marks. “Thought so.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and scowled at her, my cheeks heating. “It was in the bubble,” I said.
“But people still heard it,” Riley pointed out. Her brown hair had grown a bit longer, starting to curl at the edges. Maybe that was why she kept it in a bob. I stuck my hands under my armpits to resist reaching out and touching it. She winked at me, her green eyes playful. “You make my job much more difficult.”
She looked over at Sam standing at the stove, Avery and Charlotte at the table nearby.
“Hello Riley,” Avery said with a smile. Then she turned so I could see her and Riley couldn’t, and gave me an exaggerated wink.
I scowled, but when Riley turned to look at me I turned it into a polite smile. Riley raised an eyebrow.
I opened my mouth to say something sarcastic and stopped when I saw the dark purple smudges under her eyes. I’d only seen that before at the end of the last case, when the long hours hunting a murderer didn’t let her sleep. But as far as I knew, nothing had happened on our side of town.
“You okay?” I asked, resolutely keeping my hands to myself, no matter how much I wanted to reassure myself that she was okay. I wanted to hit my head against the wall. I so did not have time for this.
Riley sighed, reaching up and drawing her bob into a short ponytail. It was almost like a duck tail. I hid a grin. “Just tired,” she said, her voice grittier than it normally was. Almost gravelly from lack of sleep.
“You sure you’re okay?” I frowned. I may have taken a couple steps away from Avery and the others, so it was harder for them to eavesdrop.
Looking amused, Riley followed. “We may have a serial killer on the human side.” Her eyes closed briefly, then opened. “Although you didn't hear that from me.”
“My lips are sealed,” Sam called.
She looked at them and rolled her eyes.
“Sorry,” I said, trying to hide a grin.
Note to self: if I ever wanted to have a private conversation, I had to make sure that I was, like, five miles away from anybody else. Maybe more.
“Is that what you do when you're not busy here?” I asked, nodding towards the magical part of town.
She shook her head. “I always have human cases,” she said. “I can trade some of them off if there's a magical case that takes priority.”
That sounded at the very least to be an interesting – yet busy – job description. “Are you the only one?”
There was a tired smile on her lips. “Nah. Henry’s my partner.”
In my personal opinion that was a little bit of a weird name for a detective, but that wasn't my place to judge.
“Where’s Marguerite?” she asked, gaze sweeping the warehouse again. Then it dawned on her.
“The summit,” I said as she started to nod. I was nice and even let Riley get away with the topic change.
“Enjoying the break?” She looked at me out of the corner of her eye.
I wasn't quite sure what to say that. “It could be worse,” I said, because that felt like the most diplomatic answer. “You could be a spy.” I winked at her.
I saw Avery pretend to gag out of the corner of my eyes. My friends – cousins – were jerks.
Riley snorted, her face finally relaxing. She shifted to elbow me gently. “I like to think I have more self-respect than that.”
I could almost feel her body heat from how close she was. I was turning red and wanting to run away, but the rest of me was already resigning myself to what I was going to get from Avery and Sam once she left. Then she took a half-step back, her arms crossed back over her chest. She looked like she was a magazine model, but more realistic. Legs that went forever, hips and chest that were proportionate to the rest of her.
Not that I was looking.
I could see some sinewy muscle underneath her skin, belying her appearance. Not that I was thinking about what was underneath her clothes. Nope.
“Just keep it quiet,” she said, looking pointedly at me and then over to the others at the table. “And don't let her produce any more lightning.”
“We didn't intend to let her in the first place,” Avery said innocently.
Riley shot them a look, then me, but there was humor lurking in her eyes. I wasn't quite sure what to make of that. Was she teasing? Or was it something else? There was no way she could be flirting with me. Or maybe she was. I never really had been good at figuring that out.
“Don't do anything crazy,” she ordered, and then she turned and headed out the door. I wanted to follow, but the smarter bit of my brain made me stay where I was. Especially when I could hear the girls giggling.
“Right.” I clapped my hands together once Riley shut the door behind her. “I have half an hour before I have to go get Gianna. Let's finish this up.”
Sam looked at Avery who looked at Charlotte. “You wish.”
I groaned. “Please can we not talk about this?”
“What, you mean your crush on Riley?” Sam’s eyebrows were raised with glee.
“I do not –”
“It’s even obvious to me,” Charlotte drawled. She looked amused, and the affection in her eyes when she looked at Avery made my heart skip a bit.
“And she’s oblivious,” Avery added. “I can attest to that.”
Someday I was going to have to sit them down and ask how they met, because it sounded like there was a cute story behind it. I pointed at each of them in turn. “I do not have a crush on Riley. She does not like me. We’re friends.”
Not at all surprisingly, none of them looked convinced.
“She actually talks to you,” Sam pointed out, pulling something out of the oven. The smell of chocolate hit me hard and I sighed. Then I frowned.
“That’s not a love potion or an aphrodisiac or anything, is it?” I leaned forward, suspicious.
Sam looked at me with innocent eyes. “Want one?”
“No thanks.” I flopped into my chair, crossing my arms over my chest. “And she talks to others, too. She goes to dinner.”
“She talks to you about stuff,” Avery said.
Apparently this was a tag-team event. “She talks at dinners,” I pointed out in return.
Avery and Sam exchanged a look. “You’ll see,” Avery said. She winked at Charlotte.
I scowled at them, because I was obviously being left out of an inside joke. But, I had only been in Pine Lake for a month, and they had known each other much longer. They would tell me. Eventually.
“Get back to cooking,” I said, pretending I was in charge. I pointed to the oven. “You’re burning something.”
“No I’m not.” Regardless, Sam went and pulled a pan out of the stove. “The muffins are perfect.”
“Then we’d better taste them to make sure,” Charlotte declared.
I grinned. “Bring ‘em over.”
“I am not your servant,” Sam muttered. But she brought over the muffin tin.
Chapter Five
I knocked on the door before I opened it, just in case Gianna was distracted. I had simply run down to check the mail, but I was a proponent of better safe than sorry, especially when magic was involved.
“How could you let a child eat such things?” Mabel immediately came out of the woodwork, her expression fierce disapproval.
“Take-out every now and then isn't going to kill her,” I told Mabel, dropping my keys and phone and everything on the small table near the door.
Mabel turned, pointedly, to the stack of pizza boxes, her somewhat see-through eyebrows raised.
“We only had it twice last week.” I didn’t include the Chinese in that count, because she was looking at pizza boxes.
“Twice? You ate it for four meals.”
Aunt Mabel sounded outraged.
“Gianna,” I called, trying to get her attention. Maybe she had wandered up to her room.
“Hello,” Gianna said, bounding out of her room with a take-out container in hand. “What did you order? The chicken from last time was fantastic.” She turned and gave Great Aunt Mabel a very pointed look.
Mabel huffed, her arms crossed over her chest. “I'm going to go away until you two develop some sense.”
“You'll be waiting a while,” Gianna muttered.
I struggled to keep a straight face. “Before dinner, you want to get some practice in?” I asked her.
Hope and a little bit of fear warred in her face. “You sure?”
“Yep,” I said. My guards may not have been perfect, but I was pretty sure Gianna couldn’t do as much damage as I could. Besides, I'd be supervising, not meditating. “I’d also like to make a list of things that you might be able to do.” There wasn’t a lot I’d been able to find, so trial and error it was.
She looked at me, half confused and half something I couldn’t understand. “What do you mean?”
“Well, we know you can talk to ghosts,” I said, nodding in the direction Great Aunt Mabel had disappeared. “But can you summon them at will? Can you talk to anyone that you know is dead? Does there have to be some type of connection?” There were so many questions, and no answers so far. I had talked Charlotte into searching some of the archives for any references to spirit witches, but she hadn't found any.
Given that talking with the dead, or doing anything with the dead, often fell under the header of dark magic, I wasn't surprised. After she had gone through the archives she could read, she had switched to regular books. Those books weren't written in the type of ink she could see without opening the book, so she had to read them manually.
Gianna’s hands twisted, and she hadn’t moved.
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