Amy looked like a cat that had just gotten into the cream.
Kyran and I left the room and watched from the other side of the one-way glass while Chief Enforcer King began interrogating Ellie once more.
“So what happens now?” I asked, gesturing toward them. “Ellie’s been arrested, so now what?”
“Well, there will be a trial,” Kyran said. “While a lot of the exact terminology is different from the human world, in reality the process is fairly similar to what you’re used to. Ellie will be tried for Luna’s murder, and if she’s convicted, she’ll be jailed for whatever amount of time the judge finds to be reasonable. In this case, she’s likely looking at a sentence of at least twenty years.”
My stomach turned over. “You’re joking.”
“No, I’m not. My father will do his best for Ellie, but to be perfectly honest, if you have an idea who else might have done this, I definitely recommend trying to gather evidence yourself. And hide it from Chief Enforcer King, but not my father. He’ll need any evidence he can get at the trial to show that someone other than Ellie committed the crime.”
I felt my stomach jolt once more. I couldn’t believe it had come to this.
Chapter 20
I listened in with Kyran for a little bit while Chief Enforcer King explained to Ellie exactly why she was under arrest. It was mainly due to her ability to poison the brownie without anyone noticing, in the back, before giving it to Luna, and also her known proficiency with plants and potions.
Eventually, I felt the room was too stifling and had to leave. I couldn’t imagine how Ellie must have been feeling. Kyran followed me out into the now-dark night.
“Do you have any leads?”
I shrugged. “I mean, I guess so. We do have a finite list of suspects; the only people who could have poisoned the brownie were the ones in the café when Luna died. But I don’t know who among them might have done it.”
“Well, you had better figure it out, and quick,” Kyran said, his mouth a firm line. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it for you: trials here rarely end in acquittals. Ellie is in trouble, and while my father will do everything he can to help her…”
He trailed off, and I nodded. I didn’t need Kyran to finish the sentence. I knew what was at stake.
“We need to do something,” I muttered, almost to myself.
“Alright,” Kyran replied. “What are we going to do?”
I looked at him, a look of pure confusion on my face. “I haven’t got a clue.”
“Then we start from square one.”
When Sara came into the house a few minutes after Kyran and me, she poked her head into the living room and her eyes widened a bit.
“Oh. I didn’t realize you had a visitor,” she said.
“Yeah. Sara, this is Kyran,” I said, and he smiled at her. “He’s helping me. We need to figure this out. And fast. Can you come help?”
Sara nodded and came into the room. I couldn’t help but notice that she sat on the chair at the far end of the table, as far as she could possibly get from Kyran. I felt a bit sad at that; I knew Kyran was considered an outcast from a lot of Western Woods society, but I figured if anybody should be able to understand what it was like not fitting into traditional roles, it would be Sara, whose mother so desperately wanted her to become a Healer or some other proper witch profession.
“What are we doing?” Sara asked, looking at the notes I had spread out over the table.
“Starting over,” I said. “We need to look at everything again. Everyone again. We need a way to rule people out.”
“Well, we know that everyone on that list was in the coffee shop at the time of the killing,” Sara said. “And no one left, you said.”
“That’s right,” I nodded, then I turned to Kyran to explain. “I was sitting facing the front door, so I had a perfect view of it. I’m one hundred percent sure that no one left the coffee shop after we arrived, and given the timing of when the brownies had come out of the oven, that means only the people who were still in the coffee shop when Luna died could have poisoned her.”
“Alright,” Kyran nodded slowly. “So, Sara, you were facing the counter?”
“Yes,” Sara nodded.
“Did anyone get up and go toward it, that you saw? Or, more importantly, do you know if anyone didn’t get up at all?”
“Oh,” Sara said, her eyes widening. “Of course. Let me think. I’m not sure, really.”
“I can help!” I said, jumping up and running into the kitchen. I rushed to the fridge, where I found a potion Ellie and I had made just the day before Luna’s murder. Pouring two tablespoons into a cup, I made my way back into the living room and handed the glass to Sara, who scrunched her nose at it.
“Ugh, why do the best potions always have to look so disgusting? What’s this one?”
“A memory aid,” I replied. “I made it with Ellie a few days ago. She said to store it in the fridge, as it would last a week, and Amy loves to go through it. Sure enough, about half of it’s gone missing since I made it.”
“Well, if it hasn’t done any harm to Amy, I’m sure I can handle it,” Sara said, plugging her nose and downing the mixture in one go. “Hm. That tasted a lot better than it looked. A bit like cookie dough. Chocolate chip cookie dough.”
“Do you remember anything?” I asked, and Sara’s eyes widened.
“Oh, it’s all coming back to me now. Wow, this stuff is incredible. Where has it been my whole life? Ok, I can see everything perfectly. We were at the café. The two witches, they went up to the counter. They were complaining to Luna about something, but I couldn’t hear what. But they were definitely complaining. Luna went to the back for a minute. Oh, and she came back with something on a plate for them. And then Carson got up. He was leaning against the counter, trying to look over at something, teasing Luna I think. They were laughing, anyway. Then he sat back down, and the three fairies went up to see her. Celeste, Selena, and Bella. They looked like they were just having a chat, and then Celeste ordered something, because she handed some money over to Luna. Then, well, then that was it. A moment later…” Sara trailed off and closed her eyes. “Goodness, if there was one thing I didn’t want to remember, it was that,” she added in a small voice.
“So that eliminates a few other people in the café,” Kyran said. “The shifters in the corner, for example?”
Sara nodded. “Yes. They never once approached the counter.”
“Neither did the two elves?”
This time Sara shook her head. “Definitely not. The way they were sitting I could see them the entire time. Neither one of them left their chairs.”
“Do you remember if anyone reached toward where Luna had kept her brownie?” I asked, but Sara shook her head.
“I couldn’t see. One of the empty chairs from the table where the elves were sitting blocked my view of it completely. I could see the counter where Luna was serving, but nothing behind it.”
I nodded disappointedly. That was too bad; it could have made our search a lot easier if we’d been successful.
“So that narrows down the suspect list considerably, anyway,” Kyran said. “What else have we got?”
Despite working on the list for another two hours, Sara, Kyran, and I never got any further. Eventually, after finally admitting that we were stuck and figuring that maybe sleeping on it was a necessity, Kyran left and Sara and I made our way to our rooms.
“She’s going to be ok, isn’t she?” Sara asked me as we split up.
“She will,” I answered, hoping I sounded more confident than I felt. “Don’t worry. We’ll find something. We’ll figure this out.”
“I sure hope so.”
Chapter 21
I had bad dreams that night, each one worse than the next, and the type that you don’t remember when you wake up, except that you know they were nightmares.
“Ugh, stop moving around so much. It’s like sharing a bed with an overly excited hippo,” Mr. Meowgi complained, an
d I glared at him.
“This is my bed, I’ll remind you. You’re just a guest, and you should be more polite to your host.”
“Maybe if the host didn’t move around so much.”
Grumbling to myself about my brain—and my cat—and how neither one was exactly being nice to me, I made my way into the kitchen and opened the fridge to get a glass of cold water. Checking the time on my phone, I groaned. It was just after six in the morning—early enough that I had absolutely no desire to be awake, but late enough that there was a good chance I wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep.
I drank my water, then yawned and looked around. Yeah, as tired as I was, there was no way sleep was happening anymore. I peeked into Amy’s room, but she wasn’t back, and Ellie’s room showed she was still under arrest as well.
Maybe an early morning walk would help clear my head.
Making my way out of the house, I started wandering aimlessly toward town, letting the cool air against my face wake me up and hopefully give me a little bit of insight into the killer’s identity.
The streets were relatively deserted this early in the morning; a few vampires walked around, probably making their way home after a long night before the sun came up. My feet ended up taking me to the Coven Gardens, which was one of my favorite places in town. After all, the gardens were large and well manicured with nice, meandering paths and a large lake in the middle. I felt drawn to the lake, probably because of the water coven I was a part of. Maybe being close to that much water could help me figure something out that I hadn’t considered yet? I wasn’t sure. I was still discovering exactly what impact the water had on my body and my powers.
As I reached the lake, I smiled. This place really did make me feel more centered, more at peace. It was a cold morning, but there was no wind, so the water on the lake was calm and perfect, reflecting the trees and sky on its perfect mirrored top.
Making my way to the edge, I looked down and thought that if it got any colder, the lake was probably going to start freezing over at night. Without knowing why, I took off my boots and socks and put my feet in the water.
Gasping as the cold hit me, I still didn’t take my feet out. It was cold, sure, but manageable. I had always been able to handle cold water better than anyone I had known growing up—I fell into a lake once in the winter when I was just little, and my parents were shocked at how I seemed fine when I got out of the lake. The staff at the hospital they took me to in order to check for hypothermia were shocked at how little negative impact the cold water had had on me. I supposed it, again, had to do with my coven.
Unfortunately, however, I wasn’t immediately struck by any sort of epiphany telling me exactly who had killed Luna. I was definitely uncomfortable, and it all seemed to be for nothing.
“Hey, you! What are you doing there?” I suddenly heard a voice call out from the path behind me. I turned to see Emily and Alicia, the two older witches who had been in the coffee shop the morning Luna died, looking over at me suspiciously. They were definitely older, and absolutely sisters. With the same curly gray hair, the same hooked noses, and the same beady black eyes, Alice and Emily were the closest thing to stereotypical witches I’d seen since moving to Western Woods.
“Oh, it’s just you,” Alicia said when I turned around.
“Who did you think I was?” I asked, stepping out of the water, shaking my feet and then slipping them back into my boots.
“Well, I wasn’t sure, to be honest,” Alice replied. “I figured some sort of troublemaker. We get all sorts these days. Things aren’t the way they used to be, when paranormals knew their place and everyone got along. These days, you need to be extra careful, because you never know who’s out to get you.”
“Are you talking about Luna, the fairy that was killed?” I asked.
“Oh, that was rather dreadful,” Emily said, shaking her head.
“That’s exactly what I mean, though,” Alicia replied. “She might have been nice enough. Certainly she wasn’t good enough at her job to deliver a coffee when it was still hot, but that’s nothing to kill someone over. But I know she had started seeing that strange fellow, the wizard from one of the fire covens. I saw them together when they thought there was no one around, a few weeks ago. They were canoodling like that sort of thing was perfectly normal.”
I shrugged. “Maybe it is perfectly normal. Who’s to say?”
“It’s just not right,” Emily hissed. “A fairy, being with a wizard? No, wizards are meant to be with witches, and that’s that.”
I decided not to push the subject and moved on to the topic of Carson Mase. “Do you know the wizard well? The one she was with?”
“No, he never really did involve himself in the coven. Some of the witches and wizards that move here from other covens immediately immerse themselves in our community. But that young wizard wasn’t one of them.”
“That said, he does seem to be a nice young man, apart from his choice of lovers,” Emily interrupted. “He works at my dentists’ office, preparing their potions. He really knows exactly how to make some very advanced and excellent potions.”
“Oh?”
“Last year I had a tooth that needed to be extracted. Normally, that sort of thing isn’t painful, but it does take a couple of days for the swelling to go down, and one’s mouth is a little bit sore immediately after the surgery. However, Carson Mase gave me a potion that he said uses some of the plants his coven makes good use of, and I walked out of that office like nothing had happened.”
“Well, that’s good,” I said, my mind whirring. If Carson Mase was that good at handling potions, maybe he knew a lot more about plants than I had given him credit for. Maybe he would know exactly what exploding puff was and where to find it, even here in Western Woods.
“It’s too bad he doesn’t seem to want to involve himself with the coven, though,” Alicia said. “He just spends all his time with various fairies.”
“Well, I’m sure he has his reasons,” I replied. To be honest, having heard Carson Mase’s story, if I had grown up in the situation he had, I wasn’t sure I would want to spend all my time hanging around witches and wizards either. It didn’t sound like our species had been especially kind to him so far in life.
“Right, right. You think we’re just old-fashioned, but this is how things have always been. Some things are done the way they are for a reason.”
“Do you know where Carson might be now?” I asked.
“I haven’t got a clue,” Emily replied. “How on earth would we know? He’ll probably be getting to work shortly, though. You could try the dental office; that’s likely your best bet.”
“Thank you,” I said to them, then stopped. “By the way, what were you complaining about to Luna that day, before she died?”
Emily sighed. “It all seems rather stupid now, doesn’t it? That morning, I think Luna might have been a bit distracted. I thought it was because her boyfriend was there in the café as well. But when we got our coffees, they had already gone cold and were practically undrinkable. Then, on top of that, where I had asked for a Hocus Focus muffin, as I had planned on doing my crossword later on that afternoon, Luna brought over an Energy Cranberry muffin. I only get those on mornings when I want to get some exercise.”
“Ah,” I nodded. So it was nothing that anyone would kill over, not even some judgmental old witches like Emily and Alicia.
“I swear she gave you the wrong muffin out of spite,” Alicia said, giving her sister a look that said you should know better. “After all, you complained to her just two days earlier, as well.”
“Yes, well, I felt that the cinnamon bun I’d gotten didn’t have enough frosting,” Emily sniffed.
“Of course it didn’t. And so this time, when she saw us, Luna decided to give you the wrong muffin and leave the coffee out to cool for a few minutes before bringing it over to punish you.”
“You’ve said that before, but I just can’t see a nice fairy like her doing that. Besides, wh
ile I complained, I was always very polite about it.”
I had a sneaking suspicion Emily wasn’t quite as polite when she was complaining as she made herself out to be. I had worked enough jobs in retail in the human world to know exactly what type of customer Emily was, and politeness generally didn’t factor into it at all.
“Alright, thank you,” I said, making my way back to the path, thinking the entire time about what I had learned from the two old witches. While they were probably annoying to deal with as customers, I couldn’t really see that being a reason to murder.
Especially since I’d just learned that Carson Mase was very skilled with plants and potions. I had a sneaking suspicion I’d found out who the murderer was. Now I just had to find him.
Chapter 22
Making my way out of the Coven Gardens and into town, I realized I didn’t actually know where the dentist’s office was. On the other hand, a quick glance at my watch told me it was still only seven-thirty, and so presumably I had about ninety minutes to try and find it before they opened for the day.
Instead of asking someone for directions, therefore, I decided to wander around and try to get a better handle on what was where in town. After all, I knew how to get to all the places I frequented, but I didn’t really know where anything else in town was.
I ended up finding the dentist’s office after about twenty minutes of aimless wandering, not too far from coven headquarters. I traced my steps back to a small bakery tucked away at the back of a black-and-white gothic building, from which wafted the smell of freshly-baked bread, with a sign above the door reading The Spell of Bread, and I decided I was going to give that place a try while I waited for the dental office to open.
I passed through a wrought-iron gate and into a little courtyard where a couple of picnic tables sat on the grass, all of which were empty, but which I figured must have been a great place to enjoy breakfast in the spring and summer when the sun was out and it was warm enough to eat outside. Slipping past the tables and in through the thick wooden door, I found myself in a low-ceilinged, dark store with all sorts of breads on wooden shelves against the back wall.
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