He stayed by the door, as if rooted to that spot.
But when the silence had stretched too far between us, I glanced over at him and he offered me a hint of a smile. So he hadn’t slipped into one of his fugue states.
I went back to my work. Kett finally moved, crossing into my office and coming back with a stool. Then he settled on it on the other side of my stainless steel workstation, simply watching me bake. It was another thing he’d never done before, though Kandy, Gran, and Scarlett often joined me in the bakery kitchen.
I felt like offering him something as a way to soften the silence — a cupcake, or coffee, or a piece of the chocolate bar I’d slipped into the pocket of my apron. But vampires drank blood. And I couldn’t offer him mine — not even if I’d wanted to. I was poison to the executioner, though he’d never held that against me.
“What are you smiling about?” Kett whispered the words, as though he didn’t want to disturb me.
I shook my head, laughing quietly. But before I could explain it to him, the timer went off for the batches of cupcakes in the ovens. I reached for my oven mitts, but Kett had already stepped in to pull out the scalding-hot muffin tins, placing them on the cooling racks set on the counter next to the ovens.
I almost laughed. Almost teased him about being domesticated, about being tamed. But then his hair fell forward across his brow in a terribly human, terribly vulnerable way, and my heart squelched.
Something was wrong.
Something he didn’t want to tell me, or didn’t know how to tell me.
Kett closed the oven, glancing down at his hand as if he’d burned himself and was surprised at that. He looked over at me.
I offered him a strained smile, showing him the oven mitts.
“Ah,” he said. “And how do I know they are done?”
I swallowed past the worry stopping up my throat. “You press down on the center, just lightly. If the cake bounces back, it’s done.”
He bowed his head over the trays, carefully testing a cupcake near the center, and nodding when he seemed assured it was ready. “And these next?” He gestured toward the muffin tins I’d filled with batter and set to the side of my workstation.
I nodded, feeling apprehension prickling the skin of my arms. “Ten minutes. Then rotate.”
Kett carefully placed the filled tins into the oven, positioning them exactly in the center of each rack. Then he set the timer.
“Are you looking for a job, executioner?” I tried to be playful as I said it, though the question came out strained.
“Am I not allowed to simply spend time with you, dowser?” he asked coolly.
I nodded, letting the subject drop. Working for a long while in silence, I systematically piped creamy peanut butter icing onto the tray of Glee in a Cup, trying to smile pleasantly as I iced the fourth of my new peanut butter cake bases. I failed spectacularly.
“I don’t want to interrupt you,” Kett murmured finally. “Perhaps I should come back later.”
“Just tell me,” I said without looking up from my work. “Just tell me what you need to tell me, and we’ll move forward.”
When I glanced up, he smiled. A sad, terrible smile.
Tears sprang to my eyes. I blinked them away. I told myself I was overreacting, reading far too much into his actions. He had simply missed me. I’d missed him.
“I don’t want to lose you.”
Ah, God. I wasn’t wrong.
“How could that ever be possible?”
He looked down, watching my hands. I placed the piping bag down.
“Is this about Benjamin Garrick?”
“No.”
“Did you drain Warner, Kandy, Gran, or Scarlett on the way over here?”
He laughed involuntarily. “No.”
“Well, then.” I wiped my hands on a tea towel printed with tiny cupcakes. “There’s nothing else you could do to lose me, is there?”
He met my gaze. “I suspect you don’t know yourself as well as you think, dowser.”
A spike of anger broke through my anxiety. “Oh? Are you here to school me, vampire? Think you’re up for it?”
The red of Kett’s magic rolled across his eyes, and the taste of peppermint flooded my mouth. I raised an eyebrow at him, challenging him further. Because apparently, me being all soft and mushy wasn’t helping him tell me whatever it was he needed to tell me.
“Are you going to stab me, Jade? Again?” He was amused. Which at least was better than whatever else he’d had going on a moment before.
“If you’re lucky, all I’ll do is skewer you. Unless that’s what you want? Because I’m not into that whole S & M thing.”
He frowned as though he didn’t get the reference. But then he laughed quietly. “If I ever feel the need to be spanked, I’ll ask the werewolf.”
I chuckled. “With the cuffs on, I imagine she could make it worth your while.”
He threw his head back and laughed.
Something tight loosened in my chest. Kett was all right. We were going to be able to get past whatever was haunting him.
The oven timer went off.
Kett glanced at me questioningly.
“Rotate,” I said, tossing the oven mitts at him. “Then set it for another ten minutes. And take the baked cupcakes out of their tins now so they can cool further.”
He opened the oven, following my instructions to the letter. I finished icing the last tray of already-cooled cupcakes.
“Jade,” Kett said, abruptly appearing beside me. “Something has … something that was planned to occur has happened under unforeseen circumstances —”
A knock sounded at the back door. The magic of the wards shifted, bringing an earthy base and a hint of butter.
“Sorcerer. Unknown,” I murmured for Kett’s sake. I turned toward the door.
He nodded, then appeared in front of me, beside the back door but out of direct sight. Pissed at having our conversation interrupted before he’d had a chance to broach whatever was worrying him, I wasn’t in as much of a hurry.
The unknown sorcerer knocked on the door again, sounding impatient as well as rather stubborn. I’d been informed on more than one occasion that the blood wards I’d coated the entire building with were fairly intimidating to newcomers. But my visitor was unfazed enough to have reached into those protections twice.
I opened the door halfway, so I didn’t squeeze Kett against the wall.
A sorcerer stood at the back door to my bakery. Her dark hair, dark eyes, and earthy undertone of magic were typical of every sorcerer I’d ever encountered. The twist of a smile she offered as she met my gaze was different, though. Sorcerers rarely smiled at me.
I knew that she wouldn’t be able to feel my magic while I was standing behind the bakery wards. That probably helped.
The fact that she was female was also unusual. Logically, I knew that female sorcerers existed. Rumor said that Rochelle’s sorcerer grandmother had held the entire territory of Hong Kong to herself for over fifty years. But like male witches, female sorcerers were unusual enough that I’d never met one.
“Jade Godfrey?” she asked — instead of introducing herself properly.
And for some reason, that put me off. That, the double knock, interrupting me while I was baking, and intruding on my conversation with Kett. Not that she could have possibly guessed at the importance of the last point.
“Adepts usually visit the bakery during opening hours,” I said.
She frowned. A few strands of silver were laced through the part in her hair, putting her possibly in her midforties. Though among those of the magical persuasion, true age was often hard to judge. She was wearing a long floral-print skirt. Gold toe rings glinted on her feet, though it had really been far too chilly in recent mornings to still be wearing sandals.
“I wasn’t told,” she finally said, after doing her own once-over of me that turned her expression dour.
I couldn’t place her accent. Latin American of some sort, by best
guess.
“I’m simply following the protocol that was laid out,” she added.
“You really aren’t,” I said, even more peeved now that I was being forced to insist on any sort of etiquette, whether it was formal introductions or when it was appropriate to drop by the bakery. And for the second time in less than twenty-four hours.
Kett chuckled quietly from behind the door. I was pretty sure the sound wouldn’t carry through the wards.
Frowning, the woman raised her chin defiantly. What was it with sorcerers and their freaking attitudes? Unless maybe she thought I was just a witch?
Well, it was going to be fun stepping past the wards and proving her wrong. “I’ll be right out.”
Her frown deepened as she glanced around the alley, lingering on the dumpsters with a subtle sneer of distaste.
I closed the door in her face, covering my childish smile.
Kett closed the space between us, brushing his fingers across my wrist. “I’ll take the cupcakes out of the oven before I go.”
“You’re leaving?”
He didn’t answer. Because, of course, he’d already told me as much.
“I’ll tell her to come back,” I said stubbornly. “You’re more important to me.”
“I know,” he said. Then he added with mocking sternness, “Do your duty, Jade Godfrey.”
I stuck my tongue out at him. Then I opened the door and stepped out into the alley.
5
A gust of wind stirred the loose curls around my face as I stepped out into the back alley. It was a bright morning, but I knew that if I shifted my gaze from the sorcerer waiting for me, I’d see the North Shore Mountains still shrouded in smoke from the endless forest fires that had plagued British Columbia all summer. It needed to rain. Soon, and in volume.
Standing with the wards of the bakery still brushing my back, I took a moment to get a good look at the Adept who’d interrupted my baking. The dark-haired sorcerer was tall but curvy. If I’d been guessing, I would have said she was of Spanish descent, though growing up and living full time in Vancouver didn’t provide me much context for that. And I might have just been jumping to conclusions based on her multicolored tiered skirt and the strands of beaded necklaces layered around her neck. The dozens of gold bangles on each of her arms could have played into the image as well — except by the way they teemed with magic, they weren’t simply accessories.
I wasn’t a huge fan of cataloging and assessing every new Adept who came to the bakery, but apparently that was my thing now. Whatever magic they wielded or whatever reasons had brought them to Vancouver, the newcomers flocking to the city all eventually came to the bakery, often bearing tiny gifts of magic for me … the Dowser. As if my favor needed to be … not bought, but at least requested. Assured. As if they needed to make certain I knew them.
Even though I was a huge fan of magical trinkets, this behavior made me uncomfortable. And not just because I’d already had a hint of how Haoxin would react if she thought a half-dragon was attempting to unofficially annex a section of her territory. But because I didn’t see myself that way. As someone whose favor needed to be curried.
During business hours, I’d simply wave a new Adept through the door, chat, give them a cupcake, and invite them to talk to whoever else — Gran, Scarlett, or Kandy — was in the bakery. But whether or not it was just my own prejudice rearing its very ugly head, I wasn’t interested in inviting an unknown sorcerer into my kitchen. My haven.
The only sorcerer I’d ever met who seemed to consistently place others before himself was Henry Calhoun. But the charming US Marshal had been bitten by Kandy, so I might have been predisposed to like him. Not to mention that he’d let me play with his nifty magical handcuffs.
Yeah, I was pretty easy to woo overall. Good chocolate or magic usually did it for me.
I stepped farther into the alley, feeling the wards slide across me as though they were reluctant to let me go. Since they’d been created and powered by the magic in my own blood, that sensation wasn’t unexpected, though personifying magic usually put one on shaky ground. As such, I always tried to ignore it when certain magical artifacts felt moody, or eager, or protective.
The taste of brown-sugar shortbread flooded my mouth. The sorcerer’s magic was dense yet buttery. A deadly combination when it came to baked goods — though I hoped the deadly part didn’t extend to the meeting I was about to have in the back alley. Mostly because, despite the magical artifacts she wore, the sorcerer wasn’t even remotely a match for me. Notwithstanding how few Adepts were a match for me anymore.
I ignored the pinch of disappointment that came with that observation, just as I’d ignored the late-season mosquitos that had plagued me after the sun set the previous night. Teeming with power and armed to the teeth, I was still no match for the bloodsucking bugs. That was everyday life.
“I’m sorry if I’ve come at a bad time,” the sorcerer said.
I still couldn’t place her accent, but her conciliatory tone was obvious. As was the increased magic swirling around her wrists. I’d been staring at her for too long.
“The bakery isn’t just a front for the Adept,” I said, trying for teasing but coming up waspish instead.
I closed the space between us but didn’t offer her my hand. She would hesitate to touch me, and I didn’t want to bully her with the gesture.
She smiled by rote, not out of joy. Up close, her eyes were a dark hazel, and the dozens of thin gold bangles she wore on each wrist teemed with power that wasn’t completely her own. Perhaps she’d inherited the artifacts from an ancestor.
“Angelica Talbot,” she said, flicking her gaze momentarily around the alley as if expecting to find someone hiding behind the dumpsters. She lowered her voice. “Sorcerer. Mother of Liam, Tony, Gabrielle, Margaret, and Rebecca.”
I couldn’t contain my surprise at the long list of offspring. Adepts rarely had more than one child, if any. And then I couldn’t help but wonder why a sorcerer would choose to relocate her five children to witch territory. That would have been a pretty big shake-up of their lives. Gran would no doubt know, but she kept her paperwork confidential.
Angelica shifted her gaze to focus on my left shoulder, rather than continuing to look me in the eye. Or to stare at my necklace, perhaps. Yeah, sorcerers had a real thing for magical objects — even more so than most Adepts.
“I was told to present myself to you.”
“By Gran?” I asked, surprised. Then I corrected myself. “My grandmother, Pearl Godfrey?”
“No. Henry Calhoun.”
A sudden smile spread across my face at the mention of the werewolf-bitten sorcerer. “Henry! I haven’t seen him in about three months. I’m sure he was just being funny.”
Henry visited Vancouver as often as his job as a US Marshal allowed, spending time with Kandy, of course, but also with Rochelle and Beau. The oracle had created a tattoo that allowed Henry to control his involuntary transformations — a tasty piece of tart-apple magic etched directly into the sorcerer’s skin.
Angelica shook her head. “I don’t believe so. He was very specific.”
“All right, then,” I said. “Hello. I’m Jade Godfrey. Dowser.” I left off all the other titles. The conversation was awkward enough already. “So now you can let Henry know we’ve met.”
Angelica nodded absentmindedly, glancing behind me toward the bakery. “The wards … are … very …”
Sorcerers felt magic, perhaps even more intensely than many witches. They had to in order to harness it, which was how they wielded power — often aided by magical objects. But witches typically sourced their power from the earth and the energy continually surrounding us. Henry Calhoun had his brilliant handcuffs. Blackwell, evil sorcerer extraordinaire and someone I hadn’t laid eyes on since he’d abandoned us on a mountaintop in China, had his amulet, along with numerous objects of power that his family had collected for centuries. Angelica apparently had her bracelets, and perhaps the necklaces as we
ll.
I waved my hand offishly. “The wards are of my construction. They won’t harm you.”
Angelica gave me a look. Yeah, now that I was standing on the other side of the beguiling wards, my big blue eyes, blond curls, and pink-frilled apron didn’t fool her in the least.
“You and your family are welcome to come into the bakery, during operating hours, whenever you wish. I’ll simply need to invite you inside the first time. Through the front door.”
Angelica nodded. “Thank you, dowser.” Then she turned and marched out of the alley without another word.
Completely thrown by the abrupt end to the conversation, I watched her until she turned left onto Yew Street and stepped out of sight. I pondered the awkward meeting that had apparently been about nothing at all as I tracked the taste of her magic. She continued to walk down the hill toward the water instead of getting into a vehicle. The Talbots were probably living in Kitsilano, then. Perhaps in one of Gran’s houses.
Then I realized what had put me off about her — besides the fact that it was apparent, even to me, that I was bigoted when it came to unknown sorcerers. That was definitely something to work on. Or, even better, to just let go of. But beyond that, it was the fact that Angelica Talbot didn’t find me charming. Not in the least. Meeting me was an annoying duty, apparently imposed upon her by Henry.
Next time, I’d woo her with cupcakes. That always worked. Unless she was gluten or dairy intolerant. Or vegan. Then every conversation would just be a strained mess.
Yeah, needing to be considered charming all the time was awfully shallow of me. But admitting it was half the problem, right? Or was that half the solution?
The influx of Adepts to Vancouver was the prime reason that Gran had gathered twelve witches, plus me, to erect a magical grid system covering the entire city. When Kandy had hatched the plan with Gran almost a year before, I’d thought it was overkill. But as I stopped tracking Angelica’s brown-sugar-shortbread magic and headed back into the bakery kitchen, I found myself wondering if Kandy and Gran had foreseen issues that I was still willfully blind to.
Champagne, Misfits, and Other Shady Magic (Dowser 7) Page 9