“I still can’t believe it was Jason making those potions the whole time,” Willow mused, eyeing the other half of my bowl of chili.
I pushed it over to her, and she immediately grinned, grabbing the spoon and taking a huge mouthful.
“Yeah, it was him. Which probably explains why so many dragons ended up in the hospital if that’s who he was mainly selling to. He sucks as a wizard, and so probably messed up the potions a few times, which would have led to adverse effects.”
“What an idiot,” Willow said with her mouth full. She swallowed, then continued. “I’ve seen a few of the cases of dragons who took bad potions. They hallucinate like crazy and start basically going insane. We have to get the antidote into them as soon as possible. The problem is, sometimes, in their delirium, they end up shifting. Luckily, the only time we had a dragon send a giant fireball down a hallway was at three in the morning, so nobody was hurt. Chief Enforcer Loeb has been looking into who’s been doing it, but of course, if no one is willing to give up the seller, there is not a lot she can do. I can always tip her off, now that I know.”
“I wonder why nobody was giving up Jason,” I mused. “And I wonder how Blaze found out it was him.”
“I bet Blaze went and bought some of the potion just to find out who is selling it,” Willow said. “After all, that sounds exactly like him, especially since his best friend and his sister had both used it, and his best friend ended up here once.”
I nodded. Willow was right; buying the potion to find out who the seller was did sound exactly like Blaze. Still, why not go straight to Chief Enforcer Loeb? I wished I knew a dragon well enough to ask about the process, then realized maybe Bridget would be willing to help me.
After all, she had bought from Jason. She would be able to tell me exactly how his system worked, and maybe fill in some of the answers.
“I need to speak with his sister,” I said to Willow.
“And I need to get back to the wizard who accidentally managed to make his eyes disappear,” Willow replied. “The potion to make them grow back should be finished in a couple of minutes, so I’m sure he’ll be relieved to have his sight back.”
“If he waits a couple of months though, he’d have the most epic Halloween costume ever,” I said with a grin, and Willow laughed.
“That’s for sure. The other day, a lion shifter cub accidentally ran into his room, took one look at the wizard’s empty eye sockets, and ran out the other way screaming. His mother told him that’s what happens when you go exploring by yourself.”
This time it was my turn to laugh. Willow bussed the tray with the chili, thanked me for letting her eat it—“I’ve been working for the last twelve hours without a break, so I was ravenous”—and the two of us split up once more with the promise to get dinner soon so I could catch her up on everything.
I was going to go find Bridget and see if I couldn’t get a few more answers.
Chapter 14
I made my way back to the caves, only to be told by the shifter guarding the entrance that Bridget had gone out for a fly to try and clear her head. I made my way back home, questions turning over in my head.
To my chagrin, as soon as I reached the cottage, I saw a face I definitely didn’t want to see. It was Jack, standing on my mother’s front stoop, along with another wizard. Had Jack broken up with Sean already? If he had, I was going to stab him. The least he could do after completely breaking my heart and then grinding it into a fine dust for good measure was to have a long-lasting relationship with my ex.
Curiosity overtook hatred as the dominant emotion and I made my way toward the front door.
“What’s going on here?” I asked, with Jack and the other wizard turning toward me. They were chatting with my mom, who looked even more haggard than usual.
“We were just saying goodbye to your mother,” Jack said. “Thank you again for your assistance.”
“I swear, I don’t know what’s wrong with her,” my mom said, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I’ll try and knock some sense into her.”
She closed the door, and I found myself facing the other two wizards. Not that I really noticed Jack. I was fixated on the other one, who I didn’t recognize. He was tall, a few inches over six feet, with sandy blond hair that was messed up just enough to give him a permanent bedhead look. His blue eyes glimmered with curiosity as they looked at me. He was dressed similarly to Jack, with form-fitting clothes that revealed just enough of his body to confirm that he spent a lot of time at the gym.
I swore, some men got all the luck.
“And who is this?” I asked, motioning to the new guy.
“This is Andrew,” Jack said with a small smile.
“Please, call me Andy,” the wizard replied, holding out a hand. His Australian drawl was long and, I had to admit, super sexy. I took his hand, looking up at him curiously.
“So what were the two of you doing here?” I asked. “And what does Grandma Rosie have to do with anything?”
“Unfortunately, your grandmother and Connie were caught attempting to steal files from Enforcer headquarters,” Jack said, tilting his head slightly. “Apparently, word that security was beefed up after an intrusion the night before didn’t quite make it to them.”
“Oh, really,” I said, raising my eyebrows slightly.
“I was surprised, really. I thought someone as, erm, well-connected as your grandmother would have heard about what had happened.”
I understood what was happening here. Andy didn’t know that I was the intruder in question, and Jack didn’t want him to know about it.
“I suppose my grandmother isn’t as well-connected as you thought, then,” I replied. “She’s a little bit of a lone wolf. Well, a wolf duo, if you count Connie. But our family prefers to work alone on things.”
Jack nodded in understanding. “I guess that must be it. Luckily, she and Connie were contrite enough that Chief Enforcer Loeb decided not to press charges.”
“I guess that runs in the family too,” I said with a grin, earning myself a warning glance from Jack. I supposed he wasn’t close enough to this new boy toy of his to have told him about what had happened. How long had they been together? It couldn’t have been long; I had only caught Sean and Jack a few months back. Maybe things between them weren’t serious.
Wait, what did I care? I was pissed off at Jack for how he’d treated me.
“Alright, well, that’s everything here. Thanks,” Jack said officially with a formal nod.
“It was nice to meet you,” Andy said to me with a smile.
“It was very nice to meet you, too,” I replied. Why did all the super-hot wizards have to be gay? Things just weren’t fair sometimes.
I frowned to myself as Jack and Andy made their way down the street. They kept a professional distance from one another; I hadn’t heard of Jack and Sean breaking up, so I imagined that when they were out in public, they made an effort not to show their affection.
Where was Andy from, anyway? He wasn’t local to Mt. Rheanier. I knew that much. It wasn’t just the fact that I knew every member of our coven, or the fact that everything about Andy screamed water coven. It helped that he had a foreign accent. No one who grows up in Washington ends up sounding Australian. Not even by accident.
I was going to have to ask around, see what people knew about this new blossoming relationship. There was a time when Jack would have called and told me everything, and a tiny, tiny little part of me pined for those days. But then the reasonable part of me took over and declared that Jack was as good as dead to me, and that if I ever found myself in close proximity to a knife while he was around, he’d be dead to everyone else, too.
I paused outside my cottage but didn’t go inside. After all, no one ever made half a million abras by sitting around watching TV because the person they wanted to speak to wasn’t around. I was just going to have to find Bridget myself.
I instead grabbed a broom from the side of the cottage and soared into the sky. T
his wasn’t a thing I did often. I was an earth coven witch. I was happier with my feet planted firmly on the ground, but I also wasn’t bad on the broom. I gripped the handle a little bit harder than an air coven witch might have, sure, but I also didn’t get dizzy when I looked down.
I let the air whip my hair around as I wondered if maybe I shouldn’t have grabbed a thicker sweater before zipping through the sky. I decided against turning back and grabbing one; this was a perfect excuse to make a nice hot chocolate when I got home.
I soared up about two hundred feet and started looking around as I flew above the lake. My eyes scanned the skies, looking for the shape of a dragon that might be Bridget. It was funny; I had actually never really looked at the landscape from this vantage point. I could see everything from here. A couple of witches having a picnic along the beach despite the cold weather, the shimmer of the sun on the lake, the top of Mt. Rheanier, even the lookout where I had seen Blaze’s body. There was a shifter standing at the lookout now, obviously making sure no paranormals got too close to where the body had been found in an attempt to get clues.
I knew the dragons liked being close to the mountain, so I turned my broom to face Mt. Rheanier. I made my way around the mountain, circling it a few times but seeing no sign of Bridget. On my third pass around, just as I was telling myself I should just give up and go home, I spotted a glimmer through the trees as the sun’s rays caught on a couple of black and yellow scales.
I couldn’t guarantee it was Bridget—I was pretty bad at telling the shifters apart when they were in their animal forms—but figured it was a pretty good shot and flew down to the clearing where she was curled up.
“Bridget?” I asked from a safe distance when I landed, my hand on my broom, ready to fly back up into the sky on a moment’s notice. After all, the dragon looked like it was sleeping, and I wasn’t entirely sure how waking up a sleeping dragon was going to go for me. It wasn’t the sort of thing I did on a regular basis.
The dragon’s eye opened, and a moment later Bridget shifted back into her human form. Relief washed over me as I realized it was actually her. “Hi,” Bridget said to me. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you,” I replied. “I was wondering if I could ask you a few things.”
“I guess. I came out here looking for a bit of peace. Everyone always looks at me with sadness in their eyes. They all walk on eggshells around me. No one mentions Blaze at all, except to tell me how sorry they are. I just hate it all so much. I feel like an ingrate reacting like this, since I know everyone means well, but at the same time, I don’t really know how I feel, you know? I’m just so angry someone did this to him, and I want them caught.”
I nodded. I had been young when my father died, young enough that I never really knew him or understood what was going on. I had a few memories of the funeral, but they were mostly blurred impressions more than distinct memories. I hadn’t lost anybody close to me since I was old enough to really understand death, but I could imagine how confusing it must have felt to Bridget.
“I heard that you were a frequent user of Jason Oakland’s potions,” I started, and Bridget narrowed her eyes at me.
“Who told you that?”
I shrugged. “Word gets around. Listen, I don’t care. As far as I’m concerned, do what you want with your own life. But is it true?”
Bridget eyed me for a minute, as if trying to decide whether to tell me the truth, then eventually came to a conclusion. She sighed, her shoulders dropping as she looked at the ground. “Yeah. I wouldn’t say I’m a frequent user, though. I just do it sometimes. It’s rough living in a small town, you know? Especially when you don’t need to work. I just kind of feel empty a lot of the time, and the potions make me really feel alive, you know?”
“Did you know that other dragons ended up in the hospital after taking them? Jason isn’t exactly the world’s most talented wizard.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m friends with a witch—she works as an assistant Healer—she always tests mine for me. She knows I take them, since she takes them with me. That way, because she can test them before we take them, we never get sick.”
Another assistant Healer? My eyebrows rose. I wondered what the odds were that Bridget and Anne Leavis were friends. “What’s the name of your friend?” I asked.
“Kirsten Dail.”
I frowned. So it wasn’t Anne. The fact that they were both assistant Healers must have been a coincidence.
“Did you know that Blaze had been arguing with Jason about the potions? He didn’t want Jason selling to you anymore.”
Bridget gave me a sad smile. “I did know, yes. I’m sure Blaze wanted to keep it a secret, but Jason came to me a few days ago. He told me he wasn’t going to be able to sell to me anymore. Wouldn’t tell me why, but I knew. It was exactly the sort of thing Blaze would have done.”
“Weren’t you mad at your brother?”
Bridget shook her head. “No, not really. I mean, sure, it was going to be more difficult for me to get potions. And the night before he died, I told him to stay out of my business.” She stared off into space for a minute, her eyes watering. I imagined that conversation may have been the last one she’d ever had with her brother. “But the reality was, I didn’t depend on the potions. I wasn’t addicted, the way some other paranormals are. I took them on occasion, and this just meant that I was going to have to find a different supplier in a different town. It wasn’t going to make my life all that much more difficult. Besides, you’re right about Jason. He’s a terrible wizard, and frankly, the quality of his potions had gone downhill the last few months anyway. Three times Kirsten found batches that would have landed us in the hospital if we’d taken them. It was time to move on from Jason as a supplier no matter what.”
I looked at Bridget carefully as she said the words, but she definitely appeared to be telling the truth.
“Do you know why Jason’s quality had gone down?”
Bridget shrugged. “Don’t have a clue.”
“Ok,” I said, deciding to change tactics. “Did you know Blaze was in a relationship?”
Bridget’s eyebrows rose. “No, he definitely wasn’t.”
“He was; I spoke to her myself and I saw messages between them.”
“Her?” Bridget said. “No way.”
This time it was my turn to give Bridget a small smile. “You thought your brother was gay.”
“I did,” Bridget confirmed. “I always thought he had a thing for Daniel. Daniel is the most promiscuous dragon in town, though, and only goes for the ladies. You’re saying Blaze had a thing for a female dragon?”
“She wasn’t a dragon, but yes.”
Bridget shook her head. “No, he wouldn’t have dated outside of the species. Not a chance.”
“Well, he did. He kept it secret since he was afraid of what your parents would think.”
“They would have hated it for sure,” Bridget said. “I mean, I don’t really care either way, but our parents are old-fashioned. That’s why I always thought he was staying in the closet, too.”
To be totally honest, I didn’t see what it was about Blaze that made Bridget think he was gay. But then again, given my own romantic history, someone had obviously gone to town on my gaydar with a baseball bat at some point. What did I know?
“So you had no idea he was dating a witch.”
“None at all,” Bridget said, shaking her head.
“Ok,” I said. “Thanks. If you think of anything else, come and find me, ok?”
“Yeah,” Bridget replied.
I went to fly back toward town, but then stopped. “Do you know how close anyone else is to solving this?” I asked.
Bridget shrugged. “I’ve spoken to a few people. Your grandmother and Connie were here the other day, asking me about Daniel. But to be completely honest, I have no idea.”
“Ok, thanks. Oh, and just one more thing,” I continued, a thought popping into my brain.
“Yeah?”
<
br /> “Did Blaze know that the quality of the potions you were taking had gone down recently?”
“I don’t see how. I certainly didn’t tell him.”
I nodded, getting ready to fly back to town.
“Wait,” Bridget said suddenly, and I looked at her expectantly.
“Can you keep what you know about Blaze and his relationship private? It’s not about me,” she added quickly. “I just don’t want our parents to find out. It would break their heart, and I’d just rather they never find out about it, you know?”
“Yeah,” I replied with a nod. “No problem. It’ll just be between us.” I could understand Bridget not wanting her parents to have to go through any more pain and suffering than they were already feeling. I flew back off toward town, deep in thought. Bridget hadn’t told Blaze that Jason’s potions were getting worse, but I could think of one more person who might have done so.
Chapter 15
I immediately made my way back to the hospital and found Willow.
“Do you know how hard it is to try and communicate with a wizard who turned his head into a giant dandelion?” Willow asked me. “I had to try and figure out exactly how he did it so I could reverse the spell, and let me tell you, it was not easy.”
I smiled at the thought. “Well, I imagine it ended well?”
“Yeah, dandelion-head is back to being old Cameron Kilmer.”
“Let me guess, he was trying to make his plants grow bigger, and it all went awry?”
“You got it,” Willow grinned. Cameron was an amateur gardener—emphasis on the amateur—who was convinced he was Rhea’s gift to gardening and had recently begun attempting to enter the local largest gourd competition, in which the best gardeners in the Pacific Northwest got together and showed off their biggest pumpkins, squashes, and zucchinis. The competition was taking place in a couple of weeks, and it looked like Cameron was trying to give his plants a nudge in the wrong direction.
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