by Elle Adams
“Depends what you mean by ‘suspicious,’” she said. “Malcolm Harker’s cat familiar keeps trying to chase the smaller animals, but that’s all I saw. Oh, and there’s a lot of noise coming from the hall. I think people are getting a bit restless.”
“I guess some of them expected to be allowed to go home tonight if they didn’t qualify,” I said.
“They all have an offer of free overnight accommodation in one of the town’s inns,” Ramsey put in. “The offer is open to all the entrants, not just the ones who qualify for tomorrow’s contest.”
If everyone chose to stay, then that gave us barely more than twenty-four hours to catch the killer before all the entrants went home. “How far have most of them travelled?”
“Not that far,” said Piper. “The contest only covers a handful of magical communities in the West Midlands, so there’s no more than four or five towns represented here.”
“So a lot of them might have come from the same place as Anne did,” I said. “And the ones who didn’t might have competed against her before.”
“Exactly,” said Piper. “Do you have any suspects yet?”
Ramsey frowned at her. “It’s not appropriate for me to tell you the details, Piper.”
“Ramsey, come on,” I said. “You know Piper has no reason whatsoever to have cursed anyone.”
“I can’t even cast a simple nosebleed curse without it backfiring on me,” she said. “As for the contest, I didn’t expect to get into the top sixteen, to tell you the truth.”
“Do you usually watch the contest?” I asked curiously. “Are there are any recurring entrants who might be rumoured to engage in suspicious behaviour?”
“I have the list of past contest entrants,” Ramsey interjected. “I think that’s all for now, Piper.”
Honestly. As Head Witch, I was supposed to be unbiased, but Piper and I had known one another since we were kids, and I knew better than to factor her in as a potential murder suspect.
“Sure,” she said. “Let me know if you have anyone you want me to keep an eye on.”
“The usual.” She’d know I meant Vanessa, so I waited for her to leave the room before shaking my head at my brother. “I don’t suspect Piper, Ramsey. She’s the least likely culprit, and she only entered the contest to keep an eye on the others for me.”
“I know, but given the circumstances, it’s better not to show bias.”
“She isn’t Rowan.” It’d shaken me to learn that Rowan had told tales on the family to the press, I freely admitted, but I wouldn’t get very far as Head Witch by shutting out my friends. “Where’s the list of past winners, then?”
“I have it at my office,” he said. “The list doesn’t tell us which contenders knew one another personally, though.”
“If their primary motive was winning, it doesn’t necessarily matter.” Not that I was moving Vanessa off the top of my suspect list, and her own motives would have had nothing to do with the contest.
The rest of the afternoon passed in a similar manner, with each entrant coming into the room one by one. The reigning champion and her raven familiar didn’t seem bothered by the questioning, but then again, judging by her track record, she didn’t need to worry about defending her title. She’d have no reason to kill off the competition.
When I mentioned this to Ramsey after she’d left the room, he said, “Maybe not, but she and Anne did come from the same town. In fact, all the top-ranked performers did.”
“Do they have a gift like our family has?” Not that it was strictly necessary to compete in a contest. Maybe their town had a particularly stringent familiar-training programme at their academy instead, for instance.
“No, they don’t,” he said. “With that being said… the next contender is Persephone Henbane.”
“Henbane.” The name set off several sparks of suspicion in my mind like fireworks. “I didn’t know any of them were entering. Is she related to Tiffany, then?”
“She’s her niece.” Ramsey called her into the room, and I studied the short thin witch who entered, wondering how I could have overlooked the resemblance earlier. She hadn’t stood out among the other contenders, but she wore the bright clothing typical of the Henbanes and had a little black crow perched on her shoulder next to her cloud of dark-brown hair.
Ramsey wasted no time in jumping into the questioning. “Have you entered any contests before?”
She spoke in a high, tremulous voice. “I entered last year.”
“And how did you perform?”
“I placed fourth.” She hovered nervously on the edge of her seat. “I hoped to do better this time.”
Placing fourth meant she’d narrowly missed out on a prize. That had to sting, especially for a Henbane witch. I’d bet Tiffany hadn’t been pleased with her.
“Is the contest important to your coven?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Very.”
I studied her, wondering if she might be as calculating as Tiffany under her nervous demeanour. Tiffany had tried to manipulate me into giving up part of my coven’s property at my grandmother’s funeral of all places, so she wasn’t what I called a good role model.
Ramsey moved on to the next question. “Have you met Anne before?”
“I saw her at the last contest, but she didn’t enter.”
“Didn’t she?” I looked at my brother in surprise, wondering if he’d known. He must have, given that he had the list of past entrants and winners.
“No, she was a spectator.” She fidgeted. “I think she was there to cheer someone else on.”
Interesting. I’d have to check with Anne’s familiar, assuming we could get a single word of sense out of that chicken.
“Is there any particular reason you want to win?” I asked. “Did you enter for yourselves or on behalf of your coven?”
“A bit of both,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “My familiar and I might not be able to understand one another’s speech like that Vanessa and her familiar, but we’re close, and I think we can win.”
An interesting comment to make. My family were the only people I knew who could speak to and understand our familiars, and while I’d admittedly forgotten the contest entrants wouldn’t have the same advantage, was her comment aimed solely at Vanessa or towards me as well? Tiffany’s jealousy of the Wildwoods for being the leading coven in town was well-known, after all.
“That’s all,” said Ramsey. “You can leave.”
Persephone rose to her feet and left while I watched her close the door behind her. “I should have remembered Vanessa would have an unfair advantage over the others.”
“Not necessarily,” said Ramsey. “Roxy Denton’s raven familiar still beat hers in the qualifying round.”
“Do you think Persephone is a likely suspect, then?” I asked.
“There’s no direct proof, but given her history with our coven, it’s safe to say she has a motive to disrupt the contest.”
“Have you been talking to Grandma’s ghost?” I asked. “Do you think I was the intended target? Because if I was, my would-be killer missed by a mile.”
“That might not be the case next time.” His expression was dead serious. “We can’t rule out the chance that this is an attempted strike against the Head Witch.”
“Are you sure it isn’t just a petty rivalry? This seems too indirect a way to murder the Head Witch.”
“So is poison.”
I gave him an eye roll. “Speaking of which, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t send your familiar to ambush me outside the coffee shop. I didn’t become Head Witch to give up my lattes.”
Ramsey made a noise that sounded like a repressed sigh of exasperation. “Prickles and I are simply concerned for your safety, Robin.”
“I know.” The camera he’d bought me over the weekend was proof that under his hedgehog-like exterior, my brother did care about me. I just wished he and Mum could let go of the image of me as someone they could mould into the perfect Head Witc
h and let me be my imperfect self for once. “Okay. Next contender.”
Despite Persephone’s presence here, I still ranked Vanessa at the top of my suspect list. Come to think of it, she’d even said she was here on behalf of her mother, which ought to be a red flag for Aunt Shannon’s involvement. I mentally added my aunt to the suspect list alongside her daughter and waited for the next suspect to enter the room.
Next up was Malcolm Harker, the owner of the striped cat who had a liking for chasing other people’s familiars. While that seemed dubious behaviour to me, Malcolm didn’t give any answers which roused my or Ramsey’s suspicions, so we let him leave.
The last of the fifteen entrants to be questioned was the young wizard with greasy black hair who owned the rat familiar that Malcolm’s cat had tried to take a bite out of. The wizard, called Nolan, let his familiar walk at his feet rather than carrying him like the others and answered Ramsey’s questions in a nervous voice.
“You came from the same town as Anne Rafe,” Ramsey said. “Did you know one another?”
Nolan shook his head. “Not really.”
“And you haven’t entered a contest before?” I asked.
“No.” He glanced down at the rat curled up underneath his chair. “I only acquired a familiar recently, so we weren’t ready for the last contest.”
Interesting, though not necessarily worthy of suspicion. My coven might have adopted the practise of getting young witches and wizards their own familiars as soon as they started classes at the magical academy, but not all towns had the same process as ours did.
“Did you speak to Anne at all?” Ramsey asked.
“Ah… she snapped at me when I suggested she should enter her chicken familiar against the other birds and not in the miscellaneous category,” said Nolan. “She seemed a bit on edge.”
“You weren’t the only one who made that suggestion,” I said. “Did she respond?”
“She told me to mind my own business.” He fidgeted in his seat. “It’s not really fair that her familiar could fly and ours couldn’t, that’s all.”
“I’m guessing she didn’t see things that way?” Ramsey asked.
“No, she seemed really tense,” he said. “I wonder if she might have known something was wrong?”
I frowned. “You think she knew someone was going to curse her?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so, but what if that pen was already in her pocket? Nobody searched her on the way in, did they?”
No, they hadn’t, but she’d arrived last of all the contenders, and I didn’t recall her removing her coat. Unless she’d intended to give the cursed pen to someone else and had accidentally touched it first, but that didn’t seem right either. Admittedly, lethal curses were more likely to backfire on their creators than not, so that kind of mishap wasn’t unheard of. That was what made it such an unreliable way to assassinate anyone, especially a Head Witch.
Ramsey addressed Nolan’s rat familiar with his next question. “Was Anne’s chicken acting oddly during the preliminary contest?”
The rat stared at him for a second and made a shuffling motion which I assumed was meant to be a shrug.
“He doesn’t talk?” I asked.
“Talk?” Nolan looked startled. “Wait, you can understand other people’s familiars as well as your own?”
“Yes, all animals,” I said. “Not just familiars.”
He looked a little discomfited. “That must be… disruptive.”
“You might say that,” I said wryly. “Did he see anything?”
The rat shuffled back under the chair without speaking, but Nolan said, “No, neither of us did.”
The questioning ended without any obvious red flags, but when Nolan reached to pick up his familiar and leave the room, he recoiled with a yelp, and the rat scurried away from his hands.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“He bit me. Happens sometimes.” Nolan let his familiar walk at his feet instead of picking him up, and I watched his tail disappear from sight through the door.
“Not well trained, is he?” I whispered to Ramsey. “Though I suppose they only recently became wizard and familiar.”
“The rat isn’t very talkative either,” said Ramsey.
“Well, Malcom’s familiar did try to eat him earlier,” I said. “Do you think someone gave the pen to Anne before she arrived?”
“It’s certainly a possibility,” he said. “Nolan and Anne were both new to the contest, but there’s not necessarily a link between them.”
“We need to talk to that chicken to find out if she saw anything herself.” She was the expert on her owner, too, but I could still hear the occasional distressed squawking noises from the other room. “What about the contenders who are in the hall? Are you going to talk to every single one of them?”
“The rest of my team will help,” he said. “I don’t think it’s worth you staying to supervise the entire questioning, though.”
“Probably not,” I said, thinking of the small mountain of paperwork awaiting me back at my office.
Before we could leave the room, Mum entered, wearing an irritated expression on her face. “Dealing with those contenders and their familiars is like herding cats. Literally in some cases.”
Horace slipped into the room behind her. “I’ll choose not to take that as an insult. Are we really offering free accommodation to every one of those contenders?”
“We have to if we don’t want to risk the killer getting away,” I pointed out. “How are they going to be organised? Will the finalists be staying in a different inn to the contenders who were knocked out in the preliminaries?”
“Not necessarily,” Mum said. “I organised the bookings with the town’s inns myself before the contenders arrived, and most of them intended to watch the contest tomorrow regardless of whether they got through or not.”
“Better hope none of them is planning another attempted murder,” I said. “How can you safeguard against that?”
“We’ll be keeping all the potential contenders’ wands locked in this room for the duration of the contest,” Mum said. “Also, all of them have been searched for any magical objects, including cursed pens. We should have done a thorough search as they entered the town hall, but it’s done now.”
If that was an attempt to blame me for not being cautious enough, I didn’t appreciate it in the slightest. “A cursed pen was not on my radar as a threat. Did you figure out whereabouts it came from? Because we’d rule out half the candidates on financial grounds alone if they had the funds to hire someone to put a lethal curse on a pen. If they did it themselves, it’s not a common skill.”
“Precisely,” she said. “The curse was likely cast by an independent expert rather than the person who carried it.”
“So they stood less of a chance of being tracked.” There were ways to identify the source of a curse, though that was more my brother’s team’s area of expertise than mine. “We didn’t ask the suspects about their skills at using curses. Would that show up in a background check?” Unless we dragged up all their grades from the academy, I imagined not.
“Did you not find out anything of note from your questioning?” Mum asked Ramsey.
“I can give you a report,” he said. “Robin is going back to the office.”
“Is she now?” I might have made a dig about technically having the authority to give him orders, but Mum ignored my tone.
“Good,” she said. “You can take that chicken back with you.”
“Excuse me?” She had to be joking. “I won’t be able to get any paperwork done with a chicken screaming in my ear.” Especially with Carmilla and Grandma’s ghost already hanging out in my office.
“You can figure out how to deal with her, I’m sure,” she said. “Go and fetch your familiar.”
Tansy. I was betting she wasn’t thrilled at having been left to watch the chicken for the past couple of hours, especially in the company of Prickles as well. I left Mum and Ramse
y to talk and headed to rescue her.
Tansy ran over to meet me at the door as soon as I walked in. “I thought you’d forgotten about me.”
“Sorry I left you in here.” I let her scurry up my arm and sit on my shoulder. “Mum insists that I have to take the chicken with me.”
“Good.” Prickles the hedgehog sat on top of a table near where Anne’s body had been, while the chicken was still sobbing in the corner. “She’s been absolutely impossible since the police removed the body.”
“It’s not fair,” the chicken wailed.
“Calm down.” I crouched next to her. “I’m going to take you out of here, but I’d appreciate it if you stopped screaming.”
“Where are you taking me?” She howled when I tried to pick her up while Prickles gave me an exasperated look, as if it was somehow my fault that I couldn’t calm down a traumatised chicken.
“Use a sleeping command,” Tansy hissed in my ear. “I think it’s the only way to get her home without her destroying our eardrums.”
“Right, of course.” I didn’t like using that sort of magic on other people’s familiars, but it was that or listen to her screeching all the way home. I leaned forward and whispered a command to her, and the chicken dozed off mid-yell, her eyes sliding closed.
I gingerly picked her up with one hand while awkwardly gripping the sceptre in the other.
“She’ll be furious when she wakes up,” said Prickles.
“If you have a list of other ways to quieten down a hysterical chicken, then feel free to ask Ramsey to send them my way.” I walked out of the room with Tansy perched on my shoulder. “I can’t take her into the office. She’ll have to go and live in the garden for a bit.”
I was less than enthused at the notion of carrying her through the middle of town, especially as it proved incredibly tricky to keep my grip on the sceptre at the same time. I felt like I’d wandered out of a bizarre role-playing game as I made my way through to the entryway.
Chloe came out of the hall to meet me by the door. “Are you going back to your office?”