“You’re not a cop,” Gabi muttered, placing another pin in the board over a small village near Wolverhampton. That was another pattern—no major cities, all small towns. Which was a bit strange. Murders were less common in villages and would stand out more, but then if someone’s M.O. looked like natural causes, what reason did they have to hide? And again, Gabi told herself she had no proof a person was behind this. It could have easily been an illness or something that hadn’t occurred to her.
“That’s not good, right?” Gus asked, peering at the track of string. He’d been utterly unhelpful since Gabi had began putting her thoughts and findings—their findings—in some sort of order. Maisie had not inputted much either, though she had rolled the ball of string to Gabi when she’d left it across the room. But Gabi had to agree with Gus. It was not good.
A clear path, from somewhere near Glasgow to Tewkesbury, in a near-perfect straight line. Gabi did not like the look of it at all, though she couldn’t have said why. It was just … unnerving, to add the locations of every death—not murder, she told herself, death—and have it form a pretty straight line, not a disordered zig zag, not a chaotic ball. It was … orderly. That line had purpose.
Her mind ran fast.
“These seven are connected, that’s good, I was right, there’s a pattern—”
“Pride.”
“But Joy’s mum isn’t part of it, even though it’s all the same circumstances and it looks the same and there has to be a connection or I’ve kept this secret from Joy for nothing.”
Gus caught her shoulders, slowing her, and Gabi realised she’d been pacing around the room. She blinked, stopping, and met Gus’s concerned eyes. “I was wrong. I mean. It doesn’t make sense, does it? These are all in the past two years. How can—” Thoughts flashed though her head.
“Pride. Gabi? Use your words.”
“What if there were deaths between Joy’s mum and the first one we found but they’re just not recorded? Like we thought? The timeline would still work. Ish.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, you know that right?”
“I need my dad.”
“Well this went downhill really fast.”
“What?” Gabi shook her head. “I’m not calling for my daddy—I need Pride. I need to talk to someone who can keep up with me.”
“Rude but okay.”
“Gus, I didn’t mean—” But he was smiling, his eyes dancing with amusement, and Gabi got the feeling he was laughing at her expense. “Right. Thanks for helping. I’ll need your help later. Yours too, Maisie. But right now I need to talk to my dad.”
“Does this mean I can take a break?” Gus sagged in relief. “I’m starving. You’re like a machine, you never eat.”
Gabi waved him off, already reaching for her phone. “I’ll be in the living room. It might be a while.”
“No problem. I’ll just be freeing some shelf space in your fridge.” He added, “By eating everything.”
“Yeah, I got that. But thanks for clarifying.”
“No problem. I aim to please.”
Gabi left the room, shaking her head.
Joy
Work had gone about as well as could be expected when Joy had started her day off haunted by Perchta and her own treacherous hands. All day she’d watched her fingers as if expecting them to change, to become that sky blue colour and remain that way. She’d accidentally jammed the till in the rarely-patroned gift shop area of the nature reserve, and she’d dropped her clipboard twice while counting the number of visible Kittiwake gulls, their grey wings blending with the moody sky but the black tips of their feathers and snowy heads standing out just enough for Joy to add another tally to her list. She could never be sure if she was counting the same bird twice or five times but today she was absolutely positive she’d miscounted every single species. Luckily with a boss as laid back as hers, she hadn’t worried about being reprimanded as he turned up to check on her work roughly once every few months. As long as she checked in with him via email daily, all was good.
Well, everything job-related was good. Everything outside it was in ruins.
She attempted to corral her frazzled pink ponytail into something sleeker and tidier but gave up hope, arranging her face into a smile as she rapped on the door of the Law House. Her tired smile turned into a genuine one when the door swung open to reveal Gabi, messy and wild-eyed. Joy was safe, for the first time in days.
Joy gave her a knowing look. “What are you up to? You have your obsessive researching look.”
Something chased through Gabi’s eyes and Joy’s fast happiness stumbled. “Going through an old file,” Gabi answered but it was a lie; her fingers had twitched as she’d said it, a sign Joy had learned long ago. Something cold and compact formed in Joy’s stomach as she followed Gabi inside, down the messy hallway that had become cluttered with carrier bags since Joy had last been here, and through the doorway beside the kitchen. The storage room.
A laugh slipped from Joy at the sight of the room. Cardboard Xerox boxes had been piled high enough to reach the ceiling and covered almost every bit of available floorspace. This. This was what they were going to be organising? It was impossible.
An arm snuck around Joy’s shoulders, drawing her into a hug that smelled of lavender washing powder and lemon, a hard chin jutting into her back.
“Hey, you,” Joy said, her smile returning.
“Hey yourself,” Gus replied. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
Joy laughed through her nose. “Not because you missed me, I bet. You just want help with this…” She struggled for a word.
“Hoarder’s delight,” Gus supplied. Gabi scowled. “Mountain of mess? Organisational nightmare? Shit tip?”
“Alright,” Gabi interrupted, scowling harder. “This is my favourite room in the house, don’t be rude.”
Gus snorted and let go of Joy to lightly kick a stack of boxes so heavy they didn’t even wobble. “Maybe you should call it something else.”
“Huh?”
Joy, who had known Gus for years, understood where he was going with that comment and covered her mouth as she laughed. The tightness left Gabi’s eyes as Joy continued laughing. “What?”
“Room,” Joy said, lowering her hand. “But there isn’t any.”
She felt more laughter rising to her chest and realised it wasn’t even that funny, not as funny as all this laughter. She straightened her expression, choking back the laughter, scared if it continued it would turn to sobbing and hysterics. Scared it was already dangerous close to it. “So,” she said, forcing her voice to be cheery, “where do we start with this?”
“I’ll tell you where I’m starting,” Gus said. “In the kitchen. With the kettle on and that box of nice biscuits open.”
Gabi looked at Gus like he was a baffling statement she couldn’t puzzle out. “Do you ever stop eating?”
Gus shrugged and vanished into the kitchen. He called back, “I try not to.”
Gabi shook her head, seeing only the face of the situation. Joy, who knew Gus better than anyone, recognised it as the kindness and compassion it really was. He’d seen that look in Gabi’s eyes, seen the way cracks had spread throughout Joy’s composure. He was giving them space to talk.
Even if there wasn’t actually any space to talk.
“I think,” Joy began, “it’d be better to move everything out and start again. Where’s that filing cabinet you mentioned?”
“Joy,” Gabi sighed, edging into the room to meet Joy’s eyes. “I—”
“I don’t want to know. I mean it. I … it’s already bad enough for me right now. I don’t need anything else to be scared of or worried about. I just want…” She shook her head, struggling to voice her urgent desire. “I just want things to go back to normal.”
Gabi’s touch on her shoulder was fleeting but it comforted Joy no matter how brief. “Alright, then. You should take your coat off before we do anything. The filing cabinet’s in the questioning
room—I had nowhere else to put it and Maisie kept banging into it when it was in the hallway.” As Joy slid off her coat and went to hang it on the hook in the hall, Gabi explained, “Everything here is my dad’s files. Old cases, notes, things he thought might come in handy. Twenty years’ worth of his work. If I had a basement, I’d put it all there. There’s no room back home either; that’s full of boxes of war printouts and research books.”
“War?” Joy frowned, confused, kicking off her wellies.
“Yeah, dad’s really into old battles. He goes to reconstructions, all dressed up. I would say don’t tell anyone I told you that but he has no shame. Weirdo.”
Joy softened. There was something so pure and warm about the way Gabi spoke of her dad, even more in the insult. Joy missed that love, missed her mum so fiercely in that moment, even if she’d never called her mum a weirdo. She felt her face burn and strode into the hoarder’s dream before Gabi could see the tears burning her eyes.
“We might need a ladder,” she said, frustrated when her voice cracked.
“Joy,” Gabi said in that soft voice Joy had been hearing so often lately.
“I’m fine.” She clenched her jaw, not wanting any tears to fall. “I’m serious about that ladder.”
Gabi’s hands settled on Joy’s shoulders from behind, turning Joy to face her. “Talk to me.” She was so openly worried that Joy almost did, almost opened her mouth and poured her heart and fears into this cluttered room, but then Gabi’s touch slid down Joy’s arms and she clasped Joy’s hands.
Fear claimed her, so sharp it felt alive, a creature outside Joy that had taken possession of her and erased every other thought and feeling until Joy shook and startled and jerked her fingers away from Gabi’s. “Don’t touch me!”
Hurt flashed in Gabi’s eyes, replaced the next second by a carefully neutral expression. “Sorry. I’m sorry, Joy. I won’t. I promise. Okay?”
But it wasn’t okay. The fear had spread through Joy’s whole body, shaking and demanding until Joy couldn’t stand it. Gabi, in the same room as her, as the hands that had burned the witchcraft out of someone and made her hollow and broken. Joy stumbled around Gabi, her shoulder knocking into a tower of boxes, and she fled down the hallway and out the front door.
She had no shoes on, no coat, and it was freezing, frost still dotting the pavement, but Joy didn’t care. She had to run. She had to get as far away from Gabi as possible. Because she’d hurt her. She’d take all her magic until she was a shell like Perchta.
Pride
Gabi sat on the floor in the archive room—she’d named it, mostly because Gus kept referring to it as a dragon’s hoard—with her head in her hands, feeling shit. The filing cabinet donated to her by a woman whose name she no longer remembered had been successfully installed, the top-drawer empty save for Gabi’s file on Perchta, and the rest of the boxes had been pushed as far back against the wall as possible, stacked more orderly. Which left a square meter for sitting in. And brooding. And cursing herself.
Joy had been hurt by Perchta. She’d nearly had the life crushed from her, had been stabbed by Perchta’s claws, even if she’d been healed by Peregrine soon after. She had scars, as much as Gabi had scarring on her chest, even if the wounds weren’t as deep or ugly. Beneath Gabi’s blouse was a red mess of scar tissue, not nearly as bad as it could have been but still vivid red and guaranteed to be there for the rest of her life. Five fingers had punched into her chest and opened a hole—and she’d always remember that whenever she looked at herself.
Gabi had responded to that by craving friendship and company and touch. Joy … Joy obviously had responded by abhorring all touch. Which Gabi should have anticipated and picked up on over the past month. She should have noticed Joy didn’t want touching. She shouldn’t have tried to hold her hand. Gabi was a fucking idiot. She smacked her head, letting out a muffled scream. She’d fucked everything up, and Joy had run off, and they couldn’t find her.
The room was cleared, space organised for Gabi’s next twenty cases or so, but her life was messier than ever. All she wanted was to be safe, and for all her friends to be safe, and for Joy to be hers again. Hers to love and hug and protect. Gabi pushed off the floor and paced to the kitchen as if she could walk off the desire. As if the cold kitchen could stave off her love for Joy, which was proving more a curse than the blessing it ought to have been.
It should have gone like this: Gabi returned home with feelings for Joy, Joy confessed she still had feelings for Gabi, and they agreed to try a relationship again. Instead Gabi kept messing up at every opportunity and Joy kept getting hurt. Or at least it seemed that way right then.
Her love for Joy was not a comfort, not a safe space for Joy to return to when she was tired or hurt or scared. Gabi’s love was a weapon, and every time Gabi tried to comfort Joy, she was inflicting another wound.
“Pride,” Gus shouted from upstairs. “You’ve got a text.”
Gabi had never run upstairs as fast. She tripped on the top step but caught herself on the bannister. Her phone sat on the windowsill of the living room, where she’d worried for half an hour after going out looking for Joy, not finding her at her work or on the beach or at her home. She’d come back and, angry at herself, shoved the boxes downstairs into order. It had not, in any way, made her feel better.
Gabi snatched up her phone but all the frenzy and hope in her crashed when she saw it wasn’t from Joy, nor from anyone Gabi knew. The name was unfamiliar: Santiago Atteberry. And it wasn’t a text, it was an email. Gabi scanned the message—it was ridiculously long—and her breathing faltered.
“What is it?” Gus peered over her shoulder. Maisie wove around their ankles, curious and impatient.
“Nothing I can deal with now.” Gabi shut the email before her mind could start circling around its contents—someone replying to her post on the police boards, who thought they had a similar case to Gabi’s. She needed to focus on Joy. Joy was most important right now.
Lapis Lazuli
The Stone of Truth
Vivid blue with golden flecks, Lapis Lazuli is a perfect stone for accessing your higher mind. As it enhances honesty and the thirst for knowledge, Lapis Lazuli is an ideal stone for intellectuals and those with a desire to learn.
Joy
Joy ran, and ran, and kept racing until her legs gave out. She dropped to the pavement around the corner from the supermarket under an electric sign of a tomato, right where the high street ended and gave way to the elf encampment.
Joy couldn’t say how long she’d sat there, her bones icing over, her forehead resting on her knees before footsteps caught her attention. She expected Gabi or Gus but the voice was unfamiliar. Husky and dark.
“Joy?”
She lifted her head but her vision was too hazy to make out more than a tall shape in dark clothes.
“I thought it was you. I saw you from over the road.”
Joy scrubbed the tears from her eyes just as Peregrine sat beside her, his long legs stretched across the pavement in front of him. “What’s going on?” he asked. “Not the smartest idea to sit on the floor when it’s freezing. Unless your plan is to give yourself hypothermia.”
Joy’s throat was too swollen to speak, and she didn’t know him enough to confide in him. But … he’d been there. He was the only person other than Perchta who had seen Joy’s … power.
A weight settled over her shoulders and she startled to find a heavy wool coat draped around her. Her own, she’d left at the Law House. Peregrine now sat in a figure-hugging emerald jumper and jeans, the knees as scuffed as his shoes. “Thank you,” she managed to croak.
“No worries. So. What’s up?”
“Nothing.” She stared across the road at the assembly of white and sandy beige tents, some with domed tops, some with spires, others flat like gazebos. It had always seemed like more of a community that Joy’s, the witches spread out across the whole town. She knew that not all elves lived in the camp, that many of them had terrace
s near the high street or larger houses near the sea, but there was something wistful and welcoming about the elves who lived here. “I’m alright.”
“Remember when I saved you? When I patched you up with my debatable healing skills, giving you enough energy to go into that basement and save Gabriella?”
“Yes.” Joy frowned, wondering if he was remembering her hands and her hollowing ability too.
“Well the unspoken rule of my saving you is that you have to be honest with me. And that? You saying nothing. What was that?”
Joy smiled despite herself, his chiding lifting her mood. “A lie.”
“Well, then. What’s wrong?”
Joy’s throat was still closed up. She lowered her eyes to the hands resting innocently in her lap and asked, hoarse, “What’s wrong with me? What am I?”
“A witch last time I checked.”
Joy scowled, not in the mood for jokes. “I … I made her empty. I took her power. She’s not a witch anymore and it’s my fault.”
“She’s not a danger anymore,” Peregrine corrected, “and that’s thanks to you.”
Joy shook her head, tears welling again. “No.”
“Yes.” He sounded stern but Joy couldn’t see him through the blur in her eyes. “Seriously. You saved the whole town, made the killer stalking Agedale harmless. Well.” He paused. “She could still get a knife and go on a stabbing spree but she’s not killing anyone with her claws ever again.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better.”
“I know what will.”
“What?” Joy dried her face on her sleeve, which turned out to be the sleeve of Peregrine’s coat.
Bound Powers Page 5