How on earth did I get myself into these situations?
Luckily, Andy waved away my embarrassment with a cheeky grin. “Wait, when you saw me with Jack the other day, did you think we were together?”
“Yeah,” I admitted with a shrug.
“Well, I’ll take that as a compliment. I’m secure enough in my masculinity that I can admit he’s hot as anything, but I fall firmly on the female side of things when it comes to partners.”
“I’m straight too,” I replied, just in case I hadn’t embarrassed myself enough already. Seriously? There was basically a zero percent chance at this point of Andy thinking of me as anything other than an idiot. He smiled at me, and I couldn’t help but feel it was the sort of smile you gave to the kid eating glue while all the others were busy making papier-mâché.
“Well, now that we’ve got that out of the way, you said you were here for some basil?”
I winced inwardly. Great, he was turning the conversation back to business. That meant he really did think I was an idiot. “That’s right,” I nodded. “You’ve probably heard about the murder of Anne Leavis?”
Andy nodded gravely. “I have, yes. It’s a tragedy.”
“Yeah. She was studying to be an assistant Healer, so they’ve given the students the rest of the day off, but they need someone to collect a bunch of herbs to make a salve for two idiot dragons that decided to attack each other last night.”
“I heard about that, too,” Andy said. “Apparently their burns are intense and they’re both lucky to be alive.”
“That’s right. But because the assistant Healer students aren’t in today, I need to get some herbs for the salves, and the wild basil is one of them.”
“And you said the field isn’t far from here?”
“Literally less than a hundred feet.”
“Well, in that case, let me come with you,” Andy said. “I’ll cast a ward to let me know if anyone comes close to the crime scene, and I can help you pick anything you need.”
An involuntary blush crawled up my face. No, he was probably just keeping a close eye on me, since Jack had warned him about me. It was nothing more than that.
“Sure,” I said, not trusting myself to say more. “The field is just over here.”
I led Andy away from the lookout, overhearing him mutter a quick spell to cover the area while he was with me. It took us less than a minute to reach the basil field.
“You were right, this is close,” he said. “Any specific way to do this? Sorry, I’m not great with potions.” The awkward smile he shot me hit me right in the heart.
“The bigger the leaves, the better,” I replied. “That’s about all you need to know. Avoid the ones that are so old they have black spots on them. Put everything you’ve collected in this container.”
The two of us started working in silence. On my part, it was because I didn’t trust anything that came out of my mouth. Andy probably already thought I had the IQ of potato; I didn’t want to make things worse. For him, I was fairly certain he was simply getting used to the plant collection. He seemed to study every leaf, like he wasn’t sure what ones were good and what ones weren’t. Non-earth coven witches and wizards were strange like that. Picking herbs was second nature for us.
Eventually, however, Andy seemed to get the gist of it and became more talkative.
“So you’ve lived in Mt. Rheanier your whole life? How do you like it?”
“I love it here,” I replied. “Honestly, there’s nowhere in the world I’d rather be. I love the mountains, I love being in the outdoors, I love the weather. Yes, even the weather.”
Andy laughed. “That part’s going to take me a little bit longer to get used to. While it does get cold in the southern parts of Australia in the winter, I’m from further north, where it’s fairly hot year-round.”
“So I guess you think this is absolutely freezing,” I grinned.
“You’re not wrong there. You’ll find me all rugged up in the middle of summer while everyone else is wearing shorts. I do have to say though, the scenery here is gorgeous.”
I nodded. “It’s what I love the most about this place. I love how you can have a dip in the lake and look up at the huge mountain. I love how you can walk in the woods and become one with nature. Sometimes, especially in the morning, I look out over the lake, enjoy the view, and just think I’m the luckiest witch alive for being able to live here.”
Andy smiled at me. “It’s obvious you love it here. Your face lights up as soon as you start talking about Mt. Rheanier.”
It was nice of him not to add that I also spoke like an actual adult witch instead of a primate who had barely evolved past drawing lines in the mud with sticks.
“I do love it,” I said. “What about you? What made you want to leave Australia?”
I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I saw a flash of sadness pass through Andy’s eyes for a moment. He quickly replaced the pain with an easy smile. “I just wanted a bit of a change, you know? I’d lived in Australia my whole life, and I’ve always been the kind of person who didn’t like to be tied down. So, one day, I decided I wanted to travel and make a life elsewhere. I ended up going to Europe for a bit, where I did my Enforcer training. Then it was a matter of finding somewhere looking to hire a wizard as an Enforcer, since we’re not exactly in high demand, and I ended up here.”
“Are you planning on staying here long? Or do you want to move on and keep traveling?”
“I haven’t really decided, to be honest,” Andy said. “I’m just going to play it by ear. I do want to stay here for a little while, at least. See if maybe I can find myself among nature, or something. Although I do have to say, I’ve never seen so many places that serve vegan food until moving here.”
I grinned. “Yeah, there’s a lot of those. You’d be surprised at how good vegan food can be nowadays. It’s not like when I was growing up and you had the options of tofu, tofu, and slightly different tofu.”
“Are you vegan?” Andy asked, and I shook my head.
“Nope. I’m afraid I love bacon and eggs too much for that. But I don’t mind eating vegan from time to time.”
I should ask him out. This was the perfect opportunity. But no, my mouth decided that now was a good time to stay shut.
“Anyway, I think that’s about enough basil,” I said instead. Really? What on earth was wrong with me? Here was a super-hot guy, an opening to ask him out on a date, and I decided to tell him we were finished with our plant collecting instead? Yeah, I had no idea why I was single.
“Ok,” Andy said, standing up while I went over and looked at all the plants we’d collected. That would definitely make more than a few batches of salve.
“I still have to go get some silverweed, but that’s on another side of town,” I said.
“Good luck,” Andy told me with a smile.
“Thanks. I’ll see you around. Welcome to town.” At least I wasn’t just spewing out word vomit every time I opened my mouth in front of him anymore.
I knew of a decently sized patch of silverweed closer to the mountain. It would have been a decently long hike, but with the broom, it took only a few minutes. I filled up the rest of my bag with the silverweed and made my way back to the hospital.
After all, they were going to need these herbs as quickly as possible.
Chapter 23
I made my way back to the hospital and followed the signs to the burn units. A couple of Healers quickly pointed me in the right direction, and a few minutes later I found the assistant Healers in a lab room. There were at least ten cauldrons lined up on the tables, and six of them had some sort of blue smoke rising from them. The two assistant Healers were seated on chairs in the corner; one was reading a book and the other was playing on his phone.
“Are those the extra herbs?” the book reader asked, getting up, and I nodded.
“That’s right. I got the basil and the silverweed. I don’t have the fresh rose petals, though.”
“Y
es, someone else was sent to get them from the tropics, and they came by with a huge garbage bag full of them a few minutes ago. Now we can get working on more salve. Those poor dragons.” She shook her head. “Luckily, they were given pain potion, so it could be worse, but my goodness, they are not going to be happy for the next week. I can’t believe their fight got that bad.”
The other assistant Healer shook his head. “Fledglings will be fledglings. Hopefully they’ll at least learn never to do that again.”
Fledglings were basically the dragon shifter equivalent of teenagers. Too many hormones, except most teenagers couldn’t shoot fire at one another.
“Thanks for this,” the male assistant Healer said. “We’ll get right back into making more salve.”
I nodded and made my way back out into the corridor. I briefly wondered if I should text Willow, but I figured she was probably hard at work.
Taking the back exit from the hospital—it was closer to home and acted as a bit of a shortcut—I passed by a crying witch. I recognized her red hair; she was one of the witches I’d seen in the lobby. She must have been one of Anne’s roommates.
I briefly considered just walking past, then stopped. Surely the witch would rather I bother her now if it meant finding Anne’s killer. I certainly hoped so.
“Hey,” I said softly. “Are you alright?” I mean, I wanted to question her, but I wasn’t a monster. I was going to make sure she was ok, first.
The witch looked up at me. Her eyes were the same shade as her hair from crying, and her cheeks were blotchy. I had never considered myself the motherly type, but I made my way over to her and took her in a big hug. I just didn’t know what else to do.
“I’m sorry,” I told the witch. “You were one of Anne’s roommates, weren’t you?”
“Yeah,” the witch sobbed into my shoulder. “I can’t believe she’s gone. I just can’t believe it.”
“It’s going to be ok,” I told her. “I know it hurts now, but eventually it’ll be ok.”
“I just can’t believe it. And in our home! We could have been there.”
“Where did you spend the night?” I asked as casually as I could.
“We were studying at Elaine’s place. It got late; we decided to crash there and go straight to class the next day. Then, when we got a break, we went home. I wanted to have a quick shower. I cast a cleaning spell on myself, but it’s not quite the same, you know?”
I nodded.
“Plus, Anne hadn’t shown up that morning. We just thought she slept in. She’s been acting a bit strangely the last few days, so I kind of figured she was just a bit burned out. Missing one day of class wouldn’t kill her.”
Realizing what she’d said, the witch clasped a hand to her mouth. “I didn’t mean…”
“I know,” I said softly. “Who else lives with Anne?”
“It’s me and Diana. We’re all studying to be assistant Healers.”
“Right,” I said with a nod. “Did you know if Anne was seeing anyone?”
“No. She was too shy. She never seemed to be all that interested in wizards.”
“Ok, thanks,” I said. A part of me wanted to ask more questions, but I also didn’t want to distress the witch any further. And besides, I had a sneaking suspicion she wouldn’t have been able to help. She obviously didn’t know that Anne had been seeing Blaze, so how could she have known who would have wanted them dead?
I stuck my head down as I walked home. I managed to step through the door approximately ten seconds before the skies opened up with a peal of thunder and began drenching the entire landscape. Raindrops pounded against my window as I looked outside.
At least now I had a few hours to think before the rain eased up. Maybe by then I would have solved the murder.
The problem was, I was completely stuck. There was no reason for Jason to have killed Anne, and there was no doubt in my mind the two murders were connected. Absolutely none.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t think of anyone who would have wanted them both dead. No one knew they were in a relationship. They had kept it completely secret. I hadn’t met anyone who had a clue they had been together.
So why were they both killed? Their lives were so different.
Willow texted me about an hour later. The rain hadn’t even begun to let up.
I’m coming over. I’m bringing Thai food.
I was never going to say no to that, especially since my refrigerator’s contents were looking especially sparse.
The knock on the door came a moment later, with Willow holding her wand above her, keeping the protection spell from the rain going. As soon as she stepped through the doorway, she shivered.
“It’s cold out!” she announced. “Colder than October should be.”
“Well, this should warm us up,” I said, taking the bag from her and moving to the kitchen, where I grabbed a couple of bowls from the cupboard.
I scooped some jasmine rice into each bowl and topped it with a generous serving of the curry, then handed Willow her bowl. This was definitely perfect comfort food during a storm.
“Thanks again for the help today,” Willow said. “I spoke to the assistants making the potions, and they were very grateful.”
“I’m just glad I could help,” I replied.
Willow shook her head. “I can’t believe one of the students was killed last night. It’s unbelievable.”
“I’m not sure Jason did it,” I replied. “The problem is, I’m completely out of suspects. I have no idea who might have wanted them both dead. No one knew they were together, and as far as I can tell, they didn’t have any sort of interaction otherwise.”
“Well, maybe someone is lying to you,” Willow said. “Maybe someone did know about their relationship.”
“Yeah, but why would anyone want to kill them for having a relationship?” I asked with a shrug. “It makes no sense. Sure, it’s still a bit taboo to date outside of your own kind, but it’s not worth killing people over. And it’s getting more and more accepted every day.”
“I don’t know. You’re the one trying to score half a million,” Willow said with a grin. “It’s up to you to figure it out, or I’m going to claim part of your fee.”
“You’ll have to claw it out of my cold, dead hands,” I said, sticking my tongue out at her. “Hey, did you know we have a new Enforcer in town?”
“Do we really?” Willow asked, and I nodded.
“I saw him the other day. He was with Jack, bringing Grandma Rosie home.”
“Oh, the Australian? Is he an Enforcer?”
“You met him, then?”
“I ran into him. He’s pretty hot.”
“Agreed. Although I’m also pretty sure he thinks I’m an idiot.”
“Uh oh,” Willow laughed. “What did you do?”
I recounted the whole story to her, which had her in stitches by the end.
“Oh, dear me,” she eventually managed. “How do you get yourself into these situations? On the bright side, if you keep committing crimes, it won’t be your intelligence that turns him off, it’ll be your self-destructive tendencies.”
“Now that’s just a low blow,” I replied.
“Is it? You abandoned your best friend for no reason.”
“He slept with my boyfriend! I thought I was going to marry Sean!”
“Well, that obviously wasn’t going to happen, was it?”
“No, but I mean, I would rather have found out more gently.”
“You’re the least gentle person I have ever met. You broke up with your last boyfriend via text message. I’m not saying you deserved what happened to you, because it sucked, but I am saying you should get over it and start being friends with Jack again. It’s been months, and he’s good for you.”
“He’s good for nothing,” I muttered, crossing my arms.
Willow raised her eyebrows. “He let you get away with breaking into the Chief Enforcer’s office.”
“Only because he felt bad for me.”
<
br /> “Yeah, well, I think you should consider it. Why on earth a nice guy like Jack hangs out with you, I have no idea.”
“It’s because my snarky personality is charming,” I replied. “You’re too nice for me, too.”
“I am, but you beat up bullies for me,” Willow said with a wink as she took her bowl to the sink. “I’m going to head off. Try not to get yourself into any more trouble than usual.”
I said goodbye to Willow and sat myself down on the couch. Was Willow right? Should I try and forgive Jack for what he’d done and go back to one of the best friendships I’d ever had?
Nah.
Chapter 24
I lay down on the couch and stared at the ceiling, tossing over everything I knew about the murder investigation in my head. What if Willow was right? What if someone else did know about the relationship between Anne and Blaze, and just wasn’t letting on? That was a definite possibility. I couldn’t discount that. But how was I going to find out who?
I needed to speak again with someone Blaze was close to. I needed to find Bridget.
Looking outside, I frowned. It was still absolutely pouring rain out, and the sun was going to be setting sooner rather than later. Still, if I wanted half a million abras, I couldn’t be precious about the weather.
Pulling out my wand, I slipped on a jacket and cast a spell to protect me from the water. I made my way outside and grabbed my broom from next to the shed, thankful for the overhang of the roof that had kept it dry.
Riding a wet broom as a witch when the rest of you was protected by an umbrella spell meant looking like you didn’t have the best control of your bodily functions. It was not a good situation.
I hopped onto the broom and flew upward. I wondered if Bridget would be in the same spot I had found her the other day. That seemed to be where she liked to hide from people. If not, I could fly to the caves and see if she was there.
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