by Nova Nelson
Something brushed up against my foot underneath the table. Probably unintentional. But then that thing continued rubbing up my foot to my calf, slow strokes creeping up a little higher. I met Donovan’s eyes, and my stomach tightened as he licked his lips.
“Nuh-uh,” said Ted. “Drink!”
“Huh?” Donovan said, playing innocent. “Why?”
“You know why,” said Ted. “Drink. Both of you.”
I groaned and stared mournfully at the awful drink, but I did as I was told.
My stomach clenched again, but this time it was to keep from retching.
With my eyes watering from the spiciness, I said, “Okay, go on. I’m listening.”
“Good. Donovan?”
His lemon-face kept him from speaking, but he nodded as his left eye twitched.
“As I was saying, I’ve seen this before.”
“And what caused it?” I asked.
His sigh was a death rattle. “We never found out for sure. But there are only two types of creatures currently living in Eastwind who are powerful enough to pull this off on their own.”
“And those are?”
“Genies and angels.”
Ugh. Another dead end. “It’s not Bloom,” I said.
“Of course it’s not Bloom,” he replied quickly.
“And it’s not Liberty or Emagine. I already spoke with them.”
He nodded his hooded head. “If you believe them, then that rules out all the known individuals. There are other possibilities, though. For instance, this might have been executed by a witches circle. A complete one, not these four-person groupings the coven passes off as circles.”
“Ruby and I aren’t part of a circle, so unless there’s another Fifth Wind in town—”
“No, that I would know about. I felt it the minute you and Ruby entered Eastwind. I’ve felt nothing similar since.” He paused, tapping his gloved fingertips on the table. “That only leaves one other possibility.”
Donovan, recovered from his last sip, was able to speak again. “And that is?”
Ted turned toward him. “There’s some other powerful creature hiding in Eastwind.”
Chapter Seventeen
“I don’t know,” Donovan said, looking at me. “That seems unlikely. My coins are on it being Emagine.”
“It’s not,” I reiterated.
“You sure about that?”
“Well … no,” I said, “I’m not sure, but I can’t see why she would cast a spell that made people fall for past loves.”
“Loves?” Donovan said, looking at me strangely.
“Drink,” Ted and I said at the same time.
He grunted but obeyed, and I continued. “If she wants to be with Liberty, it doesn’t make any sense for her to make him pine for his past relationships. That’s not to her benefit.”
Ted cocked his head to the side. “Liberty is being affected, too?”
“Oh yeah. Poor guy even called Emagine by the names of two of his exes.”
Donovan sucked in air like he’d been punched in the gut. “Oooh, that sucks.”
I nodded.
“Wait a second,” said Ted. “Liberty has never had a love interest that I’ve known about.”
“He said they were from before he came to Eastwind. Apparently, that’s why he came here in the first place, to get away from them.”
Ted was silent. Something clearly bothered him about that, but I couldn’t guess what.
At last, he spoke again. “Has anyone else not originally from Eastwind— Oh for the love of darkness! Drink!”
I yanked my hand from Donovan’s knee and used it to grab the glass and take another sip.
“Sorry,” I croaked, my tongue and throat burning. “What were you saying?”
“I was wondering if anyone not originally from Eastwind was having feelings for past loves outside of Eastwind.”
It was the same thing I’d wondered earlier, and I still didn’t have a good idea of the answer. “Ansel and Jane started having feelings for Bruce and Heather when they passed back through the veil,” I said. “They were outside of Eastwind … I think.” I tapped a finger to my lips. “Or … I don’t know how that works with the afterlife.”
“Wait,” said Donovan. “Heather … Lovelace? Ansel and Heather had a thing?”
I nodded.
Ted breezed past the gossip. “But did they start having those feelings before the spirits returned, or was it only after they passed through?”
“Not sure. From what Bruce and Heather said, it was right after they started having the feelings that the veil opened for them and they stepped through.”
“Makes sense,” said Ted. “It’s almost Halloween, so of course the veil is thinning and opening in various places. Still, the question remains: do people feel anything for those outside of Eastwind?” He bowed his head toward me. “You must have had romances prior to coming here, right?”
I shrugged. “Sort of. Nothing serious.”
“And have you thought about any of them since the spell settled in?”
I considered it. There were only a handful of men who I’d felt more than a passing interest for back in Texas. Reid, my sometimes man who I’d visited in New Orleans right before I died, was pretty close to a romance, and I hadn’t thought about him in months. Then there was Steven, a couple years before that. We’d dated for about three months, and I thought he might be the real deal until I discovered another woman I worked with thought he might be her real deal, too.
I closed my eyes, trying to paint a clear picture of Steven in my mind.
Nope, nothing there.
“No, I don’t feel anything for them,” I said. “But they were sort of garbage, so.”
“I don’t think that matters,” said Ted. “Is there someone else we can ask?”
“You think it’s that important?” Donovan asked.
“I think it’s crucial,” said the reaper.
I looked around and found just who I needed. “Be right back.”
When I returned to the table with Zoe Clementine, Ted nodded approvingly. “Good thinking.”
“What’s up?” she asked cheerily, looking at each of us in turn.
I remained standing next to her. “We have to ask you a personal question, and I promise it’s important and I also promise none of us will mention what you say afterward, right?” I glared mostly at Donovan.
“Of course not,” he said, glaring right back at me.
A cloud of concern passed over her sunny expression. “Oh, okay. What’s that?”
“Were you ever in love before you came to Eastwind?”
Her mouth tightened for a split second, and I worried she might not respond. Then she heaved a sigh and said, “Yes. I was. Twice. I was a fool both times.”
I waved off the last bit. “That’s okay. Love does that. But I have to ask, and again, we won’t tell Oliver, but have you been thinking about those past loves lately?”
Her brows pinched together tightly above her nose as she craned her neck around to look at me. “No, why?”
“You swear? You haven’t thought about returning to them in the last couple days?”
A crease appeared between her brows. “I swear.”
Instead of responding, I looked at Ted, wishing for once that I could see under the shadow of his hood to read his expression. I turned back to Zoe. “I’ll explain later. We can grab coffee soon and I’ll fill you in.”
Her face lit up again. “Oh, that sounds great! Have you been to Necro Coffee? I love that place.”
I gritted my teeth and refrained from saying, “Of course you do.” Instead, I forced a smile and mustered a, “Yeah, that place is nice. Sounds good.” I glanced back at Oliver, who was watching us with suspicion, and then I added, “You shouldn’t keep him waiting. If he asks, we had a question about koalas.”
She nodded and hurried off, and I scooted back into the booth, taking a quick sip of the drink when my foot accidentally brushed up against Dono
van’s in the process.
Cringing against the taste, I asked, “You get your answer?”
“Oh yes,” said Ted. “And this does make it interesting.”
“How so?”
“You said Liberty had been thinking about his old loves, right?”
I nodded. “Right.”
“And he left Zatrian to escape them.”
I nodded again, waiting to see where he was going with it. But I didn’t need to wait, because it clicked.
“Oh swirls,” I said. If the theory held that that the spell only affected people when both parties were within the realm … “One of Liberty’s exes is—”
“No,” Donovan corrected, his eyes wide. “Not just one.”
We both turned to Ted who drummed his gloved fingers on the tabletop. “We might have a much bigger problem on our hands than I’d originally suspected.”
Chapter Eighteen
“What else did he say about his exes?” asked Ted.
I wracked my brain, only starting to understand the gravity of the situation. “He said … what was it? He said he went for the same type again and again.”
“Oh boy,” Ted said, bowing his head as he shook it slowly. When he looked up again, he waved someone over.
Malavic reappeared by the table. “You know, I’m not your waiter. If you need—”
“A wormwood resurrection with a twist of lime,” Ted said.
The count jerked his head back. “A wormwood resurrection? Must be serious.”
“It is,” barked the grim reaper. He snapped his fingers, making a sound like breaking twigs. “Let’s get on it!”
The count jumped and scurried off, and Donovan and I sipped our drinks carefully until Ted had his drink in front of him. It smoked slightly and the smell of rotten eggs wafted over from it, doing nothing to help settle my stomach. At least Malavic got to put some distance between it and himself, which he promptly did.
Ted downed it in one tilt of the glass.
“Um, sharing is caring,” I said. “Want to fill us in here? I mean, I can guess that we’re totally screwed, but I’d love to know the details of how.”
He steepled his fingers together on the tabletop. “Liberty mentioned two names of women from before he entered Eastwind. The obvious assumption is that both of them must be in Eastwind. It would be strange for them to be in Eastwind without letting him know unless they were behind the spell and didn’t want him to know. A case of jealous exes teaming up is certainly frightening, but it also seems a little farfetched.”
“No offense, Ted,” said Donovan, “but there’s not much about this situation that doesn’t seem farfetched.”
“True enough. Perhaps there are two tremendously powerful beings hiding at the fringes of the realm. I won’t rule it out. Heh. But something else about this points in another direction. That phrase: he had a type.”
I shrugged. “Who doesn’t? Until Tanner, I went for basically the same jerk over and over again. We all get stuck in our cycles.”
“Hear me out,” Ted continued. “It’s possible that Liberty doesn’t have multiple exes in this realm. He just has one. One who’s appeared in multiple forms. He might not have even known it was the same woman he kept dating.”
“Wait, what are you talking about? Liberty dated someone who was … switching disguises?” I couldn’t hold back the laughter at that ridiculous idea. No way a genie would be tricked by someone in, say, a fancy wig.
“Not disguises, per se,” Ted mused. “Not even magic in the traditional sense. There are beings that can become new people.”
“Doppelgängers?” Donovan said. “I read about those, but they’ve been banished from Eastwind and Avalon and most of the other civilized realms.”
“Heh. So you think,” Ted added unhelpfully. “They could be among us and we would never know it. That’s the whole rub with them. But, no, it couldn’t be a doppelgänger we’re dealing with here because they can’t cast spells. There are only a small number beings capable of conjuring a love spell like this.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. “Because I saw a list in the library, and it filled two pages.”
“Well, sure, heh. What I meant was a small number relative to the volume of creatures that exist throughout all the realms.”
“Ah.”
“And one in particular sticks out to me.”
“And that is?” asked Donovan, sounding as impatient as I felt.
Ted leaned forward. “An archetype.”
“A what?” I asked. “Did you just say archetype?” I’d seen that on the list in the library, but my mind had mostly skipped over it, dismissing it as what I thought I knew it to be. Granted, I’d learned about archetypes back in high school English, so my understanding could have been incredibly flawed.
I mean, clearly it was.
“I didn’t think there was any proof that those existed,” Donovan said.
“Oh, there’s proof, all right,” said Ted. “I’ve seen one with my own eyes.”
“Slow down,” I said. “What is an archetype?”
Ted’s heavy, rattling exhale sent goose bumps rushing over my arms. “It’s hard to explain. An archetype is hardly more than an essence. It takes on physical forms, sure, but it’s more ethereal than that. Each form may look slightly different, but there’s one common thread running through each.”
“What was the archetype you encountered?” I asked. “And was it in Eastwind?”
“No, no. This was before I was tasked with reaping here. I worked in a realm before this one—never mind what happened to it because it wasn’t pretty. They had a similar tradition of placing coins over the eyes of their dead, which is completely unnecessary, but I do always like it when people tip. Then suddenly, there were no more coins. It took me a while to muster up the courage to start asking people about the change. After all, I didn’t want to sound greedy, but it was curious. After speaking to a few family members of the newly deceased, it became clear: they had been putting coins on the eyes of their dead. But someone had been taking them.
“Well, this went on for a few hundred years, and every now and then someone would claim to have seen who stole the coins, but the descriptions never matched. Then the tradition of leaving the coins died out, and other things started going missing. Small things at first, but after a few decades of misplaced magic lamps and ritual pottery, I finally caught someone in the act of stealing, and chased him down. He tried every trick in the book to convince me to let him go, but I knew the moment I laid a hand on him that this was something more powerful than I’d dealt with in a long time.
“He was sentenced to death immediately—they didn’t have juries or due process there. But he managed to escape from his cell before the sentence could be carried out. I didn’t see him again. But months later, I found the cave where he had been hiding. And in it, all the things that had gone missing for the last three hundred years.”
“And you think that was an archetype?” I asked.
Ted nodded. “It certainly fits the lore.”
“We aren’t dealing with a thief, though.”
He waggled a gloved finger at me. “Precisely! There are varieties of archetypes, probably too many to count. I was dealing with the thief, as you said. Over the years, he was many different people, but always a thief. He stole indiscriminately and for the sake of the act. What we have now is different.”
“Okay” I said slowly, “that sounds like what I thought an archetype was, but it also doesn’t.” I took another sip to help me think straight. “For example, there’s the virgin archetype, right? She appears in art over and over again, like a stock character. But it’s just an idea that lives in our head. It’s not real.”
“It is real,” Ted replied. “And I can tell you that if we’re talking about one of Liberty’s exes, we’re not talking about the virgin. Heh.”
“Who are we talking about then?”
“It’s more like a spurned lover,” said Donovan.
&nbs
p; “Right! Good call, Donovan. Heh.”
Donovan shrugged. “Takes one to know one, I guess.” His gaze turned toward me, and I ignored the pang of guilt.
“Sounds like we need to talk to Liberty,” I said.
“You need to do more than that. You also need to have a word with whichever gods you worship, make sure you’re good with them.”
I exchanged a hesitant glance with Donovan before saying, “That’s super reassuring. Thanks, Ted.”
His posture slumped. “I’d really hoped it’d be longer before I had to start cleaning up the corpses of my friends …”
“The corpses?” I spat. “Wait, we’re just talking about a love spell here. There’s no reason to believe it’ll get us all killed!”
Ted laughed. “Have you seen what love does to people? Drink.”
Donovan stopped rubbing his wand up my thigh and did as Ted said. So did I, just for good measure.
Donovan gagged. “It just doesn’t get any easier the more I drink.”
“How do you stop an archetype?” I asked.
“Not entirely sure. You don’t kill it, I do know that. They’re unkillable. However, stopping the love spell might be possible. You may even be able to banish the archetype, if you’re especially savvy.”
“Hints?” I asked.
“You would need to combine the basic elements of love in a more powerful spell.”
“The basic elements of love?” Donovan echoed.
“Oh! I actually know this!” I chimed in. “Connection, Emotion, Will, Intellect, and Spirit. Right?”
“Heh. Nice one, Nora. Yes.”
Donovan held up his hands. “Wait a second. You just listed off powers from each of the five winds. Are you telling me that it would take a complete circle to combat the archetype?”
“I am,” said Ted. “It would require quite the connection ritual. Eastwind hasn’t seen a complete circle in—”
“I’m in,” I said, staring at Donovan who was staring right back, his icy blue eyes an open invitation.
“Me too,” he said.
“Before you two take off into the Deadwoods again,” Ted lectured, “I suggest you consider what I actually said. A complete circle. Meaning you would need three others.”