Which Mage Moved the Cheese?

by Nikki Haverstock

  I tripped over Patagonia twice on the way to the door and once more as I followed Bear and Badger toward my sitting area. Finally I scooped her into my arms before I fell flat on my face. She vibrated in my arms, not just with happy purring but with magical energy. She had been like that since we had gotten home.

  Badger paced the floor. “I owe you an apology, Ella. I didn’t think you were taking your studies seriously, and then you do this. Dedicating your life to the study of magic. And it’s brilliant. This solves so many of the issues with keeping you hidden and safe. Why didn’t you tell us sooner? Were you worried we wouldn’t support you?”

  Badger handed me a bag of my favorite salted black licorice imported from Europe. “Are you sure about this?”

  I grabbed a piece, a tough hunk of candy in the shape of a coin, and popped it into my mouth. “I’m not sure about anything. It all happened so fast, but I made the right decision. I think. The marshal was demanding to know all these things, and…”

  Badger gestured with his hands as the words tumbled from his mouth. “It was perfect. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner. I called Leo—he was your father’s lawyer. He is going to help us get everything done legally. No one will be able to tell who you were. Did you ever talk to your dad about your desire to remain chaste?”

  “No.” I had a lot more feelings on the topic of chastity, but I certainly didn’t want to discuss it with them.

  “Leo asked if maybe you had known that you wanted to be a Monza. He said that some of the things your dad did with your inheritance seemed weird at the time but now make sense. It was in line with a mage leaving his wealth to a Monza. We don’t see that very often, but it does happen.”

  I was an adult and should handle legal matters myself, but it was easier to let him take the lead.

  He barely needed my participation to carry on the conversation. He pulled out some paperwork. “Leo sent this over. It will get your name changed to Ella Patagonia, as is the tradition of the old ways. He will also do some work to clean up everything in case someone starts snooping around your finances and properties. Why is it so hot in here?”

  I signed the papers, feeling drained. I wanted to explain everything to them, but I wasn’t supposed to discuss Gertrude’s vision with anyone. I needed to be safe, but I didn’t like that I was signing away my father’s name from my life. Shedding it would keep me safer, but I resented that I had to lose that too. The weight of the day was stacking up on me, and I found it difficult to even move.

  Instinctively, I checked my phone. No texts from anyone, though really I was just checking for one from Vin. This was the first time I had a near-death experience and he hadn’t arrived with food to comfort me. Did he think that making my declaration was just about pushing him away? Surely he knew I had feelings for him, and he was smart enough to realize how much protection this would offer me.

  Badger was still talking about upcoming plans—the changes he planned to make to my training schedule, names of people he would contact, new drills to attempt—but none of it seemed that interesting.

  “One benefit is that we don’t need to worry about you working at that casino anymore. You’ll be much safer now. And I was worried that you wanted to date that Vin guy. Boy, was I wrong.” He laughed at his perceived foolishness. “Hey, kiddo, I’m proud of you. This is a big deal. I’ll go take care of these papers and talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Uh… sure. Tomorrow evening. I’m still working at the casino’s cheese convention… I think.”

  “No problem.” He paused, waiting for Bear to join him.

  Bear shook his head. “Go on ahead. I’ll catch up.”

  After Badger closed the front door behind him, Bear turned to me. “How are you doing?”

  I had long suspected that Bear had some of the same abilities I did, but he had always denied it. He could always sense when I was at my breaking point and would pull Badger back, not when I was just tired or frustrated or bored but when I was really about to snap. But maybe he was just observant.

  “I’m… not sure.” Following Gertrude’s advice from her vision was the right thing to do to protect myself but I didn’t like it. “I have some concerns.”

  Bear nodded and waited. He could comfortably sit in the silence, often drawing out of me things that I didn’t even know I felt.

  A minute ticked by in silence, though it felt like an eternity. Finally I started talking before I knew I had opened my mouth. “Are the seers’ predictions always right?” It was out before I realized it. Was I tempting fate to ask even that? I wasn’t supposed to repeat a vision, but how legalistic was the rule? “Tiffany told me today that she had been given a vision that she would marry Vin.”

  Bear watched me, his face unreadable. If he guessed at the meaning of my first question, as I thought he had, he didn’t reveal it. “It was unwise for her to repeat that to you. Especially to you.”

  “I told her that she wasn’t supposed to repeat visions to anyone, and she called me naïve and simple.”

  “Tiffany’s arrogant. Her whole family is. Seers definitely think they understand their visions. The visions are right, but often not in the way they think. You know, there’s an old joke. How do seers make God laugh? They tell Him what their visions mean. It is much funnier in the original Latin.”

  “So people shouldn’t trust the seer’s vision?” Had I messed up my whole life on bad advice?

  “No, I’m definitely not saying that. I am saying that people should be careful in assuming that they understand everything about the vision. I had a great-great aunt on my mother’s side. She was given a vision from a seer that she was meant to get engaged to the man her parents had selected. He was a terrible man, abusive and cruel. She went along with it and was sent to the city he lived in along with a maid. A week after she left, there was a terrible fire and everyone else was killed, as she would have been if she had still been there.”

  “How terrible! But then she ended up with an awful husband, so maybe it would had been better if she had ignored it?”

  “Yes, except that the vision didn’t say she had to marry him, just get engaged. His family lived in Monza, Italy—”

  “Monza is a place?”

  “Yes. Those who follow the old ways are often called Monza after the place where they used to train. Maybe you see where I am going with this. Her parents were gone except for my great-grandmother, her younger sister, who was already married. And she had no desire to marry this man. While there, she met several women that were following the lonely path, and she joined them. No one could protest her choice.”

  I mulled over what that meant for me, but it didn’t seem to apply to my situation.

  “Great-great Aunt Colleen has always been one of my favorite relatives. I will be writing to her for advice, but for now, I brought you this.” He handed me a soft leather-bound book. Inside, the pages were covered with slanted, cramped, loopy handwriting. My eyes crossed as I tried to read the scrawl.

  “This is hers?”

  “Yes. Once you get used to her handwriting, it gets easier. It is her journal from her early days of training, and I thought it might have some significance to you. She will likely come and help you, but it might take me a while to hunt her down, and she will only come when she feels the time is right.”

  He rose to leave, pausing near the door. “I’ve sometimes wondered how many of the people that followed the lonely path did so to escape a bad marriage or a controlling family. Women often had few independent choices, but the Monza have always been there for them, and no one would tell them no. But few outsiders really know what it means to follow the old ways. Sleep well, Ella. And you might want to adjust your temperature spell. It’s burning up in here.”

  “Thanks, Bear,” I called after him as he shut the door. I tried to pull just a touch of magic from the spell, but not too much as I was still cold from my wet hair. I turned over the book in my hands as my thigh started to burn. I reached into the pocket
of my robe and pulled out my channeling key.

  It was almost too hot to hold and glowed blue. It was a moonstone egg that collected extra magic throughout the day and assisted me in particularly difficult spells. It also functioned as a key to certain locks, but I had only encountered that one other time.

  I pressed the egg to the book’s cover, rubbing it all over in hopes of something happening. The egg continued to glow, but nothing seemed to happen until I found a soft, circular indentation in the back cover. The channeling stone slid into the divot with a soft exhalation of magic. The pages glowed gently, and I opened the book to see the writing blur then reappear in a slightly different color but the same difficult-to-read handwriting.

  I spent a few minutes deciphering each word and got enough to understand that she was describing a training technique that she was using with her familiar. Patagonia pressed up against me, and the moonstone egg slipped from my grip, landing on the bony part of my ankle. A tingly pain shot up my leg.

  The writing on the page blurred, and the old script returned. Instead of a paragraph about a training technique, the paragraph described a small pond in the area. The book was locked without the use of the stone. There were actually two journals in the same book—one that anyone could read, if they could figure out the handwriting, and a second, hidden version that required the channeling stone. I would need to study this soon. The secrets inside must be important if they were locked away. I wondered who would be able to unlock the second set of writings. Any mage? Only Monza?

  Could I really be a Monza when I didn’t even know what it meant? Words were power, and at least for now, I intended to do what was required of me to follow the old ways, once I learned all of what that meant.

  The doorbell rang. I placed the book on the shelf and tucked the egg into the pocket of my robe as I raced for the door.

  When I threw open the door, I found not Vin but Vanessa.

  She pushed into the room and dropped a duffel bag on the floor. “We have to talk. Holy Hercules, it’s hot in here.” She stripped off her jacket and threw it next to her luggage as she strode in with a bag of food.

  The smell of garlic made my mouth water. After our day of magic, both in the parking structure and while drowning in queso, I was drained, though the licorice was helping me regain my energy.

  “I brought you dinner. You owe me an apology and an explanation, and then we need to go investigate.” She went into my kitchen and pulled out plates and started dishing out food.

  It was an eerie reminder that she was Vin’s sister. How often had he done the same thing—pushed his way in, offered food then decided to spend the night on the couch? Why couldn’t he have been the one here now, demanding an explanation?

  “I’m sorry, Vanessa. I didn’t know I was going to say that tonight.” And I certainly hadn’t anticipated the way it would affect everyone else.

  “Why am I always the last to know, Ella?” She stopped and put a hand on her hip.

  “No one knew.” I grabbed some soda from the fridge, not the diet stuff but the kind chock full of sugar, while mumbling, “Not even me.”

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing. It was sudden and… Here’s the thing. This will protect me until we figure out what happened to my dad and why he hid me away. And apparently it will help my training. I have a lot of catching up to do. And other stuff that I am just now learning.”

  “You didn’t know that before you declared yourself?”

  “Like you never jump in feet first?”

  “Not into celibacy, I don’t.”

  “I didn’t know about that part. I need to explain to Vin.” I grabbed a plate and speared some chicken and penne in a thick cream sauce. Stuffing it into my mouth, I moaned with pleasure at the warm food.

  “That’s the only kind of moaning you’ll be doing. Vin’s pissed. He wouldn’t even talk to me beyond mumbling about leading people on, then he disappeared with Tiffany. Tiffany! I swear if he marries her, I’m blaming you and making you come to every family event she is at so you can deal with her.”

  A deep pain twisted in my chest at the mention that Vin was pissed. I nodded and continued to eat as tears tickled the back of my eyes. Grabbing a soft breadstick, I bit it in half. The slick, buttery garlic topping filled my nasal passages with the smell. I chewed the soft bread then licked my fingers. After a moment, I grabbed a second one and stuffed it into my mouth.

  “Tell me the truth. Are you leaving?” She didn’t make eye contact and tried for a casual tone as she stuffed more food into her mouth as well. But I had caught the unsure note in her voice.

  “I have no plans to leave. This is my home now. I still need a lot of training, and I need to find out who killed my dad.”

  She nodded and ate another bite before continuing. Her words came out muffled around the chunks of chicken. “Great. I knew you couldn’t stand to leave me. Go on, eat up. We have to grundle shart.” She mumbled her way through the end of the sentence as she swallowed.

  “‘We have to ‘grundle shart’? Please don’t talk with your mouth full. It’s disgusting.”

  She chewed with her mouth open, exposing the contents within.

  I threw a napkin at her. “So gross.” I tried to chuckle, but it caught in my throat.

  “I said we have to go to work. I have a plan.” She shoveled the rest of the food into her mouth then ran over to her luggage. Dragging it into the room, she pulled out two vials and a handwritten note bearing an incantation. “I worked out a way for us to find whatever it was that Michael was looking for when he was killed.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I huddled in the coatroom next to the Golden Pyramid Casino’s live-performance theater. There was no show at the moment, and the dark room was empty except for hangers. It had taken only a little bit of convincing for me to come, though now I was regretting it.

  Vanessa was pulling off her shoes and placing them next to a handmade sign that said, “Property of Olivia Santini. Do not move.”

  “What’s with the sign?”

  “Last time, someone took my clothing. I certainly don’t want that to happen this time.”

  When we had passed through the casino, the cheese convention doors were being heavily guarded. The guards were tense and jumpy, not the kind of people I wanted to find me mid-break-in. Especially not when we had to be naked to start the spell and still would be when it was complete.

  “Maybe this isn’t a great idea.”

  “No way. You’re a big strong Monza now. Just practice the incantation.”

  The incantation was like a roadmap to the magic. Since I had never done this spell or anything like it, I needed the incantation to guide me. The vial of potion also helped. With time and practice, I could drop the incantation once I knew what the magic felt like. If I got really good, I could also skip the potion. But just like some humans can’t shoot a bow or run a five-minute mile, some mages never tackle a particular spell. And some spells were so complicated that you always needed an incantation.

  “Tell me what to expect. Will I just turn into a rat?”

  “A spectral rat. It’s like a rat made of magic. It’s an old family spell Mom and I discovered a few years ago. You aren’t really physical, so we used it to explore new towns when we were abroad for mom’s teaching gigs. But we figured out that because you are spectral, you are closer to the magic. I’ve been messing around with it for a while, and I think if I got to the spot where the object was, I could use a spell to pick up on the magical scent and find the object it was connected with. That’s assuming it is still in there.”

  “What am I going to do?”

  “Watch my back. I’m not doing this alone.” She pulled off her pants and folded them. “Come on. Get undressed.”

  I started stripping, carefully folding each item of clothing to stall for time. “Can we talk?”

  “Sure, what’s up?”

  “I mean when we’re in rat form.”

  “Telepathica
lly, but it’s not very exact.”

  “And we can’t get hurt ’cause we’re not physical?”

  “Not really. Except that one time Patagonia ate my back leg.”

  I hesitated. “Excuse me! When was that?”

  “Oh, it was before you. Like last year. That’s when I found this secret entrance to the convention hall. But Patagonia found me during the investigation and bit my leg clean off.”

  I eyed her leg, pale white in the dark room. “What?”

  She lifted her leg and shook it at me. “Obviously I’m fine. A spectral rat is all magic, so she just ate a big chunk of my magic but not my physical leg.”

  I was stalling for time, uncomfortable with new magic and continuing this investigation while so much of my life was up in the air. “What if something ate us whole?”

  “We’ll make sure that doesn’t happen. That’s why I had you leave Patagonia at home, but we better hurry before she wakes up and looks for you.”

  I had left her sleeping on a pile of catnip. She had been quite high on the quality herb, twisting and rolling in the leaves until her black fur was sprinkled with green. She had then raced around the loft, enacting her own private version of the Kitty 500. After ten minutes of running around, she had conked out on the couch mid-lap.

  “Fine.”

  I dragged off the rest of my clothing and dumped it in a pile then grabbed the potion she had given me. If the incantation was a road map to the magic, then a potion was like a car that got you there with less effort. Some spells were so powerful that you always needed a potion. And some mages were talented enough to not need a potion on certain spells. But even if you were powerful enough, sometimes it was just nice to chug a potion and save yourself the energy.

  The spell was in two vials that I mixed together. I pushed just enough magic into them to set off the spell, as Vanessa had instructed me to do. I swallowed it all before I could back out, then I started the incantation. My nose crinkled as the bitter potion coated my tongue, making my pronunciation thick and clumsy.