by Nova Nelson
“Wait,” he said quickly, his eyes darting from Zoe to Tanner then to me. “You don’t have an instructor? Not even a Coven-approved tutor?”
“It’s hypothetical,” I protested. But he wasn’t buying it. He hadn’t bought it since the moment the word “hypothetical” popped from my mouth.
“Okay, fine. Hypothetically, you absolutely need a Coven-approved instructor to get you certified. Or at least a Coven-approved tutor.”
“I have Ruby True.”
He laughed dryly. “Yeah, I don’t know if the Coven will count her.”
“It’s not that big of a deal,” I said. “I’m not running around waving my wand at things.”
His eyes grew large. “You have a wand?”
“No! Well, not yet. It’s on order.”
When he shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, none of us spoke, and then, finally, he sat up straight again. “Okay. I’ll do it.”
“You’ll do what?” Tanner asked.
“I’ll let the Coven know about this hypothetical.”
“No!” Tanner and I said at the same time.
“Please don’t,” I added. “It’s no big deal.”
“True,” said Oliver. “The bigger deal here is that there’s an untrained Fifth Wind witch who’s only a few weeks away from getting a wand. I assume the Coven has contacted you about enrolling in training, though, right?”
“Not that I know of.”
That seemed to puzzle him as he jerked his head back, creating a slight double chin. “That doesn’t make sense.”
I shrugged. “Maybe they don’t want me in the Coven. I’m just a Fifth Wind witch, after all. I can’t do any useful magic. I probably won’t even be able to use my wand.”
He waved it off. “No, that can’t be right. How about this? I’ll speak with the Coven on your behalf and convince them to let me become your private tutor, like I am for Zoe.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Tanner said.
“Yeah,” Zoe added. “Private lessons seem a little overkill.”
“I don’t have time,” I said. “I work here from dawn till mid-afternoon, six or seven days a week, then I have lessons with Ruby.”
“We’ll find time,” Oliver said. “I can come to your place whenever you finish your lessons with Ruby each night.”
Tanner made a strange choking sound then said, “Seems super unnecessary, Oliver.”
“Exactly,” said Zoe. “Plus, we start our lessons so early some mornings, you can’t stay up all night giving Nora one-on-one attention.”
“Zoe has a point,” Tanner said. They nodded at each other firmly.
It wasn’t hard to figure out why Tanner and Zoe were such opponents to the idea, but also, I agreed with them. Just not for the same reason. I didn’t need one more thing on my plate, but I knew Oliver wouldn’t let up until I agreed, and the last thing I wanted was for the Coven’s first impression of me to have anything to do with letting in an evil entity that may or may not have something to do with ruining people’s prized gardens.
“Okay, Oliver,” I said. “We can plan some lessons. But it’ll have to be modified because I just don’t have the time.”
“Absolutely,” he said, relief bolstering his smooth voice. “I’ll talk to the Coven and see if I can pull some strings. Maybe we can get away with just teaching you the basics and letting Ruby provide supplemental instruction based on your specialty.”
“Great. Now to answer my hypothetical?”
“Right.” He tapped his lips with the tip of his finger. “You should talk to Ansel. Have him take a look at the plants, see if he can’t offer any more information about what happened. That might point you in the right direction.”
“You’ve been very helpful,” I said, disguising the sarcasm as best I could.
As Tanner and I walked away, I grumbled so that only he could hear. “Good call. I got a recommendation to do something I could’ve thought of myself and a tutor I don’t want.”
“You can always cancel the tutoring,” he suggested. “I don’t think you need it.”
Of course I needed it. But I understood why Tanner didn’t love the idea of Oliver and me spending alone time with each other. After all, I was only human.
Figuratively speaking.
Chapter Six
“It’s not dead,” Ansel said as he examined the specimen Tanner and I brought with us to the garden center. “Or rather, it wasn’t dead, till you picked it.” He glanced up at Tanner and me. “Nice job. Anyway, it just needed a lot of water and the right kind of care. With both of those, it could have pulled through.”
“What caused it, you think?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Considering it’s the end of June, I’d normally go with drought, but this is an eremortis domestica. It’s bred to be drought resistant. We have a bunch of them here that are just fine with the weather. I can show you if you like. We keep them with the cacti and succulents because they plant well with those.”
I’d once seen Ansel fight on the losing end of a battle with a determined and thrashing cactus, so I wasn’t keen to get within fifty feet of that section if I could help it. “It’s fine, I believe you. Any guesses on what happened, then, if not the weather?”
He examined the plant again, exhaling deeply. “I can’t say. It looks like drought. That’s my best guess despite the reasons contrary. It really looks like someone just sucked the water right out of it. Did you try watering it before you brought it here?”
“Nope.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “You don’t know much about gardening, do you?”
“Always had a black thumb.” I shrugged. “Guess it comes with the death witch gig.”
Ansel turned his attention to Tanner. “And you? What’s your excuse for not trying to water a wilted plant before pronouncing it dead and ripping it from its roots? You’re a West Wind witch, right?”
Tanner held up his hands defensively. “I just figured, under the circumstances, that it was probably a goner.”
“Under the circumstances?” Ansel cast a suspicious eye on me. “Care to enlighten?”
“Not so much,” I said.
He crossed his arms over his dark, bare chest—I had yet to see him with his shirt on at work—and waited patiently for me to explain myself.
“Fine,” I said. “But you can’t tell anyone.”
“I’m going to tell Jane,” he said flatly.
“Fine, you can tell Jane. But that’s it.”
He nodded once, indicating that I should get on with it already.
“Some dark entity visited me at Ruby’s house last night, and then this morning there was a path of withered plants leading away from her porch and into the Deadwoods.” I said it as quickly as I could so the admission was like ripping off a Band-Aid.
Ansel threw his head back and laughed, and his bulging biceps relaxed as his arms fell to his sides. “You’re trouble, you know that?” He addressed Tanner next. “I hope you know what you’re getting into, dating this one.”
“We’re not dating,” I said weakly.
He rolled his eyes at me. “Right. Anyway, if this actually has anything to do with a dark entity, I’m out. It’s way beyond my pay grade. Admittedly, I don’t know much about witches or care to know much about you folks, but this has ‘witchcraft’ written all over it. Your best bet is to find a witch who knows what she’s talking about and solve this the sorcery way.”
“Ansel,” Tanner said, “don’t you think we’ve already thought of that? It was Oliver Bridgewater who told us to come see you.”
“Oliver?” Ansel said. “The nerdy one?”
“Yep.”
“And what kind of witch is he?”
“West Wind,” said Tanner. “Like me, except way smarter.”
“Ah, there’s your problem,” Ansel said, wiping beads of sweat from the side of his neck. “This isn’t a soil issue, so it’s not a West Wind problem. If the rest of the affected plants are
anything like this eremortis domestica, they’re in need of water. I’d say you best find yourself a East Wind witch to help.” He squinted at something over my shoulder. “Thaddeus just poked his head out of the shop. I better look busy. You two completely platonic friends have fun with your adventure. Hope I helped.”
As Ansel traipsed through the thick foliage and disappeared from our sight where we stood on the walkway, I turned to Tanner. “Should we go to the Coven with this?” I said. “I don’t know any East Wind witches who could help us.”
He stared at me strangely, like my sanity was up for debate. “Yes, you do.”
“But who do—” Then it clicked. “Oh. Nope. Can’t happen. He hates me. I could beg him to help and he’d refuse.”
Tanner nodded along. “Probably true. But if I asked, I know he would say yes.”
I groaned. “Please don’t make me work with him on this.”
“I’ll be there to keep the peace, don’t worry.”
I wanted to say, Like you kept the peace at Sheehan’s? But it was physically impossible for me to be mean to Tanner. Sometimes I wondered if there was something magical protecting him from meanness—no joke. No one was ever rude to him. It was unsettling, truth be told. Even when Donovan had caught Tanner and me kissing by the bathrooms, while his response dripped with disdain, his words themselves were actually a compliment: I just think you can do a lot better.
“Fine, but do me a favor and make it clear to Donovan that I am against this plan from the start.”
“Fine, fine.” Tanner put his arm around my shoulder and we started down the path, heading out of the garden center and toward Ruby’s house.
Maybe it could work out okay as long as Tanner was there actively mediating. Maybe sharing a common goal with Donovan would divert his focus away from his inexplicable hatred of me and toward something more productive. Then, who knew, maybe I could show him that I’m not whatever awful thing he imagined me to be.
First, of course, I would have to figure out what that thing was. Then I would have to make sure I wasn’t it.
Ugh. I was such an idiot. Why did I care about whether or not Donovan Stringfellow liked me? With few exceptions, I never cared about that kind of thing. I was Nora Freaking Ashcroft, self-made woman and restaurateur! Not only that, I was Nora Freaking Ashcroft, self-made witch, survivor of death, and co-owner of the most successful all-night diner in town! I’d done the whole self-made thing twice. Twice! And I was the first to admit that working hard and building something for yourself meant leaving a lot of bitter people in your wake. It hadn’t bothered me before, so why did it bother me now?
Was it because Donovan was Tanner’s best friend, and having the best friend dislike me put my relationship with Tanner in jeopardy over the long term?
Sure. I’d go with that. It was respectable enough.
Plus, I was afraid that if I dug deeper, I’d unearth something I wasn’t as comfortable believing.
Grim was easy to spot as we passed the long row of attached homes leading up to Ruby’s porch. Normally, the overgrown rosemary bushes in Ruby’s garden would have obscured him from view in his favorite spot.
But.
Yeah, not currently a problem, and his bulky black form stood out against the painted blue wood of the porch.
His hulking presence almost distracted from the old necromancer on the porch swing wearing a stern frown as she rocked back and forth with a dead wormwood plant spread across her lap.
“Hi, Ms. True,” Tanner said cheerily, but his voice wavered slightly. Also, he never called her Ms. True. They were on a first-name basis by now.
Tanner was nervous.
And why wouldn’t he be with the way she glared at us? Well, at me.
“Well, look who it is,” Ruby said as I paused at the bottom of the stairs. She rocked in the swing in a precise rhythm as she spoke.
“I’ve been working on it,” I said, trying to cut her off at the pass.
“And yet”—she grabbed the tea kettle from beside her, which I hadn’t noticed, my full attention having been on her angry expression—“still no tea.” She removed the lid and tilted the kettle so I could see the empty insides. “Every time I fill it up, it goes right back down.”
Holy shifter, this was not good. Ruby’s tea was like a sacrament for her. And the fact that my dumb actions had deprived her of it for an entire day did not bode well for my living situation. “I’m sorry,” I said.
Her voice became sweet like antifreeze. “Don’t be sorry, dear.” Then her soft expression faded. “Just fix it, for fang’s sake, before I do decide to raise an army of the dead and take out this boring and gossipy town once and for all!”
I glanced cautiously at Tanner, whose wide eyes were glued to Ruby. What was the beverage equivalent of hangry? Whatever it was, Ruby was rocking it right now, so much so that she didn’t care if the neighbors heard her talking about raising an army of the dead.
“I promise I’m working on it, Ruby. And I’m going to keep working on it as soon as I get off my shift tomorrow.”
Tanner hurriedly stepped up onto the first stair. “I’ll give her the morning off,” he blurted.
“What?” I said, whipping my head toward him. “I don’t need—”
“That’s a start,” Ruby replied, but she did sound mildly subdued.
“That way Nora can get to work on it as soon as she wakes up. We’ve already decided which East Wind witch she should talk to, so it’ll be fixed right away.”
“Not soon enough,” Ruby said, shaking her empty kettle.
“Bring your favorite tea to Medium Rare tomorrow and I’ll brew you a cup. And throw in some bacon, no charge. How about that?”
Oh, he was good. More than that. Tanner was a miracle maker.
The corners of Ruby’s mouth twitched, and I was sure she was about to crack a smile. “Yes, that will suffice for now.” Then she stood and marched inside.
I rounded on Tanner. “How are you going to find someone to cover for my shift this late?”
“Details,” he said, running his hands down my arms. “And the prospect of running the entire diner on my own tomorrow morning is much less frightening than letting you sleep in a house with Ruby when she’s that upset. She’s been known to lash out when her routine is disrupted.”
“Really?” With the exception of what I just saw, Ruby had always seemed to run on an even keel. Then again, I’d never seen her tea rituals disrupted before. So maybe Tanner had a point.
“Yeah. This could be just another rumor, but I heard that one of the reasons she never officially joined the Coven was because they scheduled morning lessons when she usually ate breakfast. They tried to make her go anyway, and she cursed all of them with sleep paralysis for a week until they gave in.”
“Mm-hm. Yeah, I’ll take tomorrow off.”
“Great. I’ll send an owl to Donovan. He usually works evenings, so he should be available tomorrow morning. I’ll catch him up to speed and tell him to be nice to you.”
Like that would work.
I groaned. “Do I have to?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you know another East Wind witch we can ask?”
Tanner shrugged. “Sure. I know plenty of East Wind witches. But Donovan’s the only one I trust to not only keep this low-key, but also keep you safe.”
I doubted that last bit but decided not to rain on Tanner’s parade. Maybe Donovan’s loyalty to his best friend would outweigh his distaste for me. After all, he’d kept it quiet about what he saw at Sheehan’s when that could have just as easily been the talk of the town for at least a day and a half until some new minor scandal cropped up.
“Fine.”
“He’s a good guy,” Tanner said. “You two just got off on the wrong foot when he thought you were framing me for Bruce’s murder.”
“That’ll do it,” I said. “Is holding grudges a East Wind witch thing?”
Tanner laughed. “No, but admittedly, it is a Donovan
thing. The flip side of it is that when he’s loyal, he’s really freaking loyal.”
“Fine, fine. I’ll go see him tomorrow morning.” I hollered up to the patio. “You hear that, Grim? You’re coming with me bright and early. No excuses.”
“Over my dead body.”
I grinned at Tanner. “Perfect. Grim is one hundred percent in.”
“Let me know how it goes afterward, okay?”
“Of course.”
“Lunch on me. You can bring Donovan with you, if you want.”
“Oh great! A lunch date with my favorite witch,” I said sarcastically.
Tanner flashed me his confident half-grin. “You better watch out, Nora Ashcroft. Donovan Stringfellow is Eastwind’s most eligible heartbreaker. I would hate to see you fall victim.”
“There’s only one person I’m likely to fall victim to.” And then, much to Grim’s vocal disapproval from his spot on the patio, I leaned forward and snuck a quick kiss from Tanner before heading inside.
“This has necromancy written all over it,” Ruby said from her overstuffed chair in the corner of the parlor. She closed a book called Shift Work and set it aside as I entered, took my place at the parlor table (I really needed to invest in a comfy chair for myself), and waited for the lecture to commence.
Ruby didn’t disappoint. “My best guess is that it’s shoddy necromancy of something powerful. The attack was targeted, but the entity’s heart wasn’t into it. I was able to banish it without much effort, but its powerful signature still lingers.”
“So what does that mean for us?”
She wagged a finger at me. “Oh, no, you don’t. There’s no us in this. Only you.”
“Samesies,” said Grim from the hearth.
“Nice try. As my familiar, my problems are also your problems.”
“Does it work both ways? Because I’ve had this dryness right below my tail that—”
“Definitely doesn’t work both ways.”
I returned my attention to Ruby. “Fine. What’s this mean for me?”
“A powerful entity controlled by weak necromancy? I’d say that it spells trouble. Big trouble. And I’d be surprised if you were the only one it affected. No, whatever this is could shake loose from its summoner without much effort, if it hasn’t already.”