The spell took over, and I shuddered at the sensation of my limbs, face, and body twisting into the new shape. I braced against it, and a shot of pain went through me, knocking the breath from my lungs. As I exhaled, I changed form easily and without pain.
My tiny heart beat quickly in my chest, and my movements seemed faster. My whiskers twitched as I looked around for Vanessa. The room seemed much lighter, though really it was my eyes being more adapted to the low light.
“Vanessa?” I said in my brain, though a squeak was emitted through my rat mouth.
“Here.”
I turned and saw her. She was iridescent and almost transparent. I understand what her reply meant, but it wasn’t really English. More like a hand gesture in my head, it gave me the vague idea of what she meant but wasn’t clear enough. Our communication was going to be limited in this form, but we had enough to get by on.
“Follow.” Vanessa ran over to a wall then straight up to a small opening. She pushed her nose into the space between the wall and the tiny door and slipped through.
I sniffed over the space, no wider than a sheet of paper was thick. Surely she didn’t just slide through? The door must have opened, and I missed it. But as I clung to the wall with my tiny rat toes, I pushed my nose to the space, and sure enough, my spectral body thinned and oozed through the impossibly small space until I popped out the other side.
I crawled through the wall of the storage room and raced after Vanessa, who was already heading toward the door that would lead us into the convention center. She pushed herself under the doorjamb, and I followed.
When I popped out from under the door, I gave my rat fur a shake and stopped. My senses were assaulted by new and yet vaguely familiar sensations. Much like a colorblind person seeing blue for the first time, I was rooted in one spot as I took it all in. The sensations surrounded me, beautiful, enchanting, powerful, and interesting. I swung my head right and left, taking in all that I could. Though they were new, I had experienced them before in the midst of casting a spell. I was able to pick up all the magic in the spells around me.
The slick, metallic magic of dragon spit being used in various cheeses was familiar from my taste of cheese early in the day. The milky, salty, marine tones of the siren milk tickled my senses. Every bit of magic had tinges and tangs of different flavors or scents. But it wasn’t a scent or a taste; it was something that I didn’t have the vocabulary for just yet. I reached out for a word that might work like “aura.” Normally the surges of magic I felt when a spell went off were all the same, but now it was as if a veil had been lifted from my eyes, and I could feel all the ways the magic was different. I wanted to run to each booth and experience the different nuances of each spell.
“Ella!” Vanessa squeaked from the corner booth, waiting for me to follow.
“The magic. It has like a scent and taste, but it’s not a scent or taste. It’s something new and different. I think it’s a new sense. I’m calling it an aura, but I don’t know if there is an official word for it.”
She stopped and sat up on her haunches. “What?”
I shook my head. I would need to wait and talk to her later; it was too complicated to explain in our current state.
She scurried off, and I followed close behind. I ran along on all four feet, marveling at the strength in my legs. I struggled to follow Vanessa as the smells of cheese and the aura of the magic surrounded me. I wanted to fall behind and explore but couldn’t.
Vanessa stopped, which I only realized after I ran straight into the back of her, my head turned to the side to pick up every scent. We tumbled toes over tails before I regained my four feet under me again.
We were back where the body had initially been found smashed flat under Granner’s cheese and where, just a few hours earlier, we had nearly died in a vat of quicksand-like queso. I shuddered from my whiskers to my tail.
Vanessa pressed her nose to the spot where I had told her I had seen the glowing green object in my vision of the murder. I scooted in next to her, deeply breathing in the scent of carpeting. There was the magic from the queso that had spilled, but more faintly, I could pick up two other magical auras. There was a crisp magic centered right where the object had glowed green. If the magic were a smell, it would be a mixture of lime and freshly cut grass. Thinking of the auras as smells helped me to really nail down what I was experiencing.
The other, broader aura that wafted about was musty and earthy, like an abandoned cabin in the woods. I walked along the carpeting, following the edges of the aura until I had marked out the area it covered. Based on the size and location, it could be the spell that had held up the world’s largest wedge of cheese until it crushed Michael.
Vanessa squeaked from her position, then a poof of magic appeared around her, the aura cinnamon and spicy. A red haze appeared, loose and billowy as if a smoke bomb had gone off, and drifted down the corridor.
Vanessa had just started following the red haze when a low-frequency horn went off, accompanied by flashing lights. We had set off some alarm, possibly by performing magic.
I raced after her, my furry feet flying. “Vanessa. Get out,” I called after her, but either my message didn’t get to her or she was ignoring me.
I followed her, screaming in my mind that there was danger and that we needed to go, but she didn’t slow down until we reached the site of Granner’s new booth. The red haze pooled and didn’t indicate any particular end point.
She raced around the space with whiskers twitching so fast that they were a blur.
I caught the edge of the same musty, earthy aura and raced up a table leg. At the top was Granner’s spell bag, and clinging to it was the same type of magic that I had found where the cheese had crushed Michael. It was no surprise that the same magic had been at both sites, but it was confirmation I had wanted.
The lights flicked on in the convention hall as I raced down the table leg and shoved into Vanessa. “Go! Now!”
Human voices, deep and booming, surrounded us as we raced between the booths back toward the storage rooms to slip out. Vanessa shimmered ahead of me as we ran. I could see the pattern of the carpet faintly through her body as she ran. The iridescent colors of her fur were muted in the bright overhead light. Surely no one would be looking for two rats during their sweep?
We darted across the aisle and were halfway to our goal when a dark shape fell in behind us. A scraggly orange cat was racing after us, catching up with each stride. It was Peter’s familiar chasing us.
“Run!” I screamed after Vanessa, though I was already going as fast as I could.
The orange menace was visible behind me, as my beady rat eyes had great peripheral vision. He loomed closer and closer with each stride. There was no way we would make it to the door given the pace at which the cat was gaining on us.
I was able to catch up with Vanessa as we ran across a booth, but then I was struck hard on my side, crashing into Vanessa and tumbling both of us under a table.
My head spun as I regained my footing, the orange cat licking his lips and yowling. His tail whipped side to side, and he crouched to pounce.
An answering hiss boomed behind us. Patagonia put her front paws on each side of us. She cried out a warning to the orange cat.
“Patagonia. No!” I cried out as she grabbed Vanessa and me in her mouth.
A deep, scratchy female voice filled my head. “Mine!” it said as magic surged around us, and everything went black.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I opened my eyes to find Patagonia’s considerable weight crushing my lungs, making it difficult to breathe. I was staring at a very high ceiling, only to realize it was the ceiling in my loft. I struggled to sit up, but my loose red hair was tangled around my arms and hands, and I had to free my limbs before I could push myself into a sitting position.
I was freezing, which wasn’t surprising when I realized I was naked. Vanessa was sprawled out a few feet away, also in her birthday suit.
“Vane
ssa!” I shouted.
She moaned in response and rubbed her eyes before scratching her butt. Her eyes flew open. “I’m naked. And sore. What happened?”
I got up and gathered my hair into a ponytail. I walked over to my couch, grabbing my discarded robe from its arm. Then I bent over to twist my dangling hair into a bun, tucking the loose ends back underneath the bun and securing the whole mess with a pen from the side table.
I grabbed a blanket and carried it back to Vanessa. “Last thing I remember was running from Peter’s familiar, then Patagonia grabbed us by the neck and… poof.”
“What?” She wrapped the blanket around herself. “Why is it so cold in here?”
I stopped and attempted to push magic back into the heating spell, not even caring if I did too much. Fortunately my reserves were low, and just a trickle came out of me. The heater clicked on, and a few seconds later, warm air started blowing into the loft.
I went into the kitchen to pull out all the leftovers. I also grabbed my channeling stone from the counter where I had left it. Knowing we would be stripping down naked, I had not wanted to risk leaving the stone unattended.
I started heating up the food, trying to process everything that we had learned in such a short period of time.
“Wait. Are you saying Patagonia brought us back here?” Vanessa tottered over, the blanket up around her neck like a stole. She grabbed a takeout box and a fork and started shoveling the cold noodles into her mouth.
“So it seems… Wait. Is that unusual? I figured it was just another thing that you forgot to tell me was possible, like being able to sense magic in that form or being able to hear Patagonia’s thoughts.”
The echoes of Patagonia’s hissing voice in my head rattled around, and I bent down to scratch behind her ears. I stared into her eyes. She licked my hand, her raspy tongue pulling at the dry skin on my knuckles, then winked at me before bounding away.
Vanessa paused midbite. “What are you talking about? Are you messing with me? Did I get hit on the head?”
I pulled my plate out of the microwave and grabbed a bite. It was hotter than expected, so I opened my mouth and huffed air in and out to cool the pasta that was burning the roof of my mouth. “I could like smell the magic, but it wasn’t a smell. Like that moment you cast a spell and you can feel the magic—it was like that, but I could sense different kinds of magic. Couldn’t you?”
Her eyes were bugging out of her head. “What?”
I grabbed another bowl and stirred the colorful mixture of vegetables. “You didn’t?”
“No.” She dragged out the word. “And you said you heard Patagonia, and she brought us back here?”
I grabbed a forkful of broccoli and blew on it before cramming it into my mouth. I wanted to stall for time. A lot of weird things had happened lately that Vanessa didn’t seem to understand; maybe it was best to deflect for now.
I turned the tables back on her. “Hey, when the alarms went off, I yelled at you to leave, but you ignored me.”
She avoided my eyes, a sure sign of guilt. “I didn’t hear you.”
“Or the alarms going off?”
“If you were so worried, you could have left.”
“Not without you. We’re a team.”
She smiled and finished off her food. She grabbed a wedge of cheesecake and ate it without a fork.
I shuffled off to my room, grabbing the book Bear had given me on the way and putting it by my bed. I dug around for an extra pair of pajamas and even found some underwear with the tags still on to give to Vanessa. Grabbing an extra pillow from the closet outside my bedroom, I returned and dropped it on the couch.
“Here. I’m going to bed.”
“Wait. Don’t you want to talk about what happened?”
“Tomorrow.” I whistled to Patagonia, who fell into step beside me as I dragged myself to bed.
***
I grabbed my channeling stone and stuffed it into my cleavage then buttoned up my shirt and adjusted the necklace my dad had given me years ago. I wasn’t sure what I was going to face today, but I figured I needed all the help I could get.
I stepped out of my bedroom and shouted into the loft. “Vanessa, you ready?”
“Almost.”
We had both received texts saying that we were expected at the casino in ten minutes for a meeting with Auntie Ann and Olivia. Even over text messages, we could tell that they meant business.
A car from the casino had driven us to my loft the previous night, so my car was still in the parking structure, and we had left Vanessa’s car there after the rat experiment. Luckily, our elders had already planned on sending a car for me this morning, and it was idling outside.
I shouted for Patagonia, who came bounding into the room. She pressed herself against my side, rubbing her head against my hip. Surely she hadn’t reached that high yesterday.
“Are you getting bigger?”
As I waited for Vanessa to join me at the door, I crouched to look into Patagonia’s eyes. I knew I had heard her voice in my head. A smoky, deep, purring voice, exactly what I would imagine a cat would sound like. I tried to call to her in my mind and waited for a response, but she just blinked slowly then flopped onto her back to meticulously clean her belly.
Vanessa raced past me. “Come on. Let’s go.”
I followed, locking the front door even though spells protected it from entry. I couldn’t be too careful. For every spell, there is a counterspell, according to Auntie Ann, and I would use every precaution available.
I hopped into the back seat with Vanessa just before the driver peeled out.
“Easy. I don’t want to crash in my own driveway.”
He called over his shoulder. “Sorry. They told me to hurry.”
He shot down my driveway, which was a ramp wrapping around the outside of the industrial building and exiting onto the street. After checking each direction, he turned out onto the street with squealing tires, leaving two black lines on the cement.
The drive wasn’t far, and by the time I got Patagonia settled in my lap instead of trying to climb onto Vanessa, we were almost there.
I lowered my voice so the driver wouldn’t hear. “Your mom knew you were at my place. Does she know that we went to investigate last night?”
“No! Don’t you dare tell her. She would kill me for so many reasons. Breaking in at night. Us going alone. Teaching you the spectral rat spell. I mean—”
“Why would she be mad about the spell?”
“Well, it’s a kinda powerful spell.”
The driver pulled up to the front of the casino and put the car in park.
“Why would she be mad about that? Is it dangerous?”
“A little bit, but I knew what I was doing.” She hopped out before I could grill her any more.
Patagonia had found some crumb or spill on the floor of the car. After I got out, I had to wrestle with her to remove her from the tempting treat. I would unhook one claw from the carpet, then she would latch the other, all while licking away at the spot. Finally she let go, and in her suddenness, I hurtled backward, barely avoiding landing on my butt, thanks to one of the attendants catching my arm.
“Thank you. I like to make a grand entrance.” I pressed a few bucks into his hand in thanks then jogged after Vanessa.
It was early enough that the gambling halls were a mix of late-night partiers and early risers. Though there were a few attendees of the convention standing around with their badges hanging from cords around their necks.
Normally, there would be clusters of attendees and vendors grabbing morning mimosas at the bars or gathering to work out wholesale deals. It was the last day of the convention, and people had been leaving since the murder, but today was different.
As I approached the convention hall, it was like a ghost town. There was no one around, even though the show was set to open in fifteen minutes, but as I passed the entrance, I could take a guess as to why. A sign stated that all magic, active and passive, wou
ld be banned inside the convention hall.
The main entrance door opened as I passed. Two women exited, wearing no makeup, their hair frizzy and wild. They paused in the doorway as a shimmer of magic passed over them. Their hair was now smooth and sleek, and subtle and tasteful makeup adorned their faces. The bounds of the magical ban must end right at the door.
The heavy door slowly closed behind them as two voices drifted out of the convention hall.
“How on God’s green earth am I supposed to sell anything when this whole area is magically dead? Should I just tell them to imagine that the cheese is warm and reminding you of Christmas morning?”
“I apologize, sir, but this ruling comes down from the marshal himself.”
“I don’t care if the pope said it. I want to talk to whoever is running this show—” The end of his reply was cut off by the door slamming shut.
I had lost sight of Vanessa and jogged to catch up.
Bursting into the room we used for training, I paused as the smell of waffles and bacon tickled my nose. Vanessa was already at the table, scarfing down cannoli and licking the filling off her hands.
“Use a napkin, Vanessa. And try to be more ladylike. It’s obscene the way you are eating. Oh, come in, Ella. Please sit down. We need to talk.” Auntie Ann gestured to a chair.
I sat and filled my plate. I put some scrambled eggs on a second plate for Patagonia and set it on the floor.
“Olivia wanted to be here, but there are problems with the convention. They aren’t saying why, but they have set up a no-magic zone at the convention. Vin says there was some hubbub last night, but no one is talking about it.”
I swallowed my buttery waffle, which was flavored with a hint of vanilla. “I need to talk to Vin.”
“I’m not sure that is a good idea. He is pretty hot. And what was with that announcement last night? We are all here to support you in your decisions, but I had no idea you were even considering it.”
Which Mage Moved the Cheese? Page 12