Unfortunately, it definitely wasn’t to be, and a few minutes later the three of us left the bar. There was no back exit from the bathroom, no clue as to the identity of the killer, and all we had was a single suspect.
I supposed it was better than nothing.
By the time the three of us got home, Amy was sitting at the table in the living room with about two dozen books open in front of her and a large notepad on her knees.
“Good, you’re back,” she said. “Tina, I need a little bit of your blood.”
“What on earth for?” I asked, a little bit alarmed. Blood wasn’t exactly the sort of thing that you casually asked a friend for.
“I’m working on your application for a visitor’s permit to Kilokilo,” Amy explained. “Part of the application involves you giving a tiny sample of blood.”
“Well, that’s a little bit weird,” I said. “But I guess it’s fine. Can you check what coven someone is from by their blood? After all, in the human world, you can test for a lot of things in blood.”
“Unfortunately, no,” Amy said. “That would be all too easy. But in the magical world, a lot of covens believe in the magical property of blood, and that you can test whether someone is good or evil from their blood. Personally, I think that’s just some sort of fake magic created by people trying to make money. But there are covens out there who believe in blood’s magical properties and that you can tell things about a person from their blood, including their future.”
“And the coven of Titan is one of those?”
“It appears that way. To be honest, I had never heard about it before. But that goes with the territory with that coven. We know so little about them in general.”
“I just wish I could get a solid answer.”
“As far as I’m concerned, you are from that coven,” Sara said. “After all, look at the reaction from Karen Voda when she saw you. That’s the reaction of somebody who recognizes someone from their coven and has no idea why.”
“But she just thought that because we looked alike,” I said. “There is no guarantee that I am from her coven. Besides, I was abandoned as a baby. How could anybody know who I was? My bet is that nobody from my coven knows I’m even alive.”
“Maybe,” Ellie replied skeptically. “But I still think that’s your coven. I hope they accept your application to go visit Kilokilo.”
“Me too,” I replied. “But what if they do? Amy, are you applying as well? I don’t really want to go there alone. I don’t know enough about the magical world for that.”
“I am also sending an application,” Amy said. “Don’t worry about that. If you have to go alone, it’s a bridge we can cross when we get to it.”
I nodded and made my way over to the couch, where I sat down next to Amy and helped her fill out the application form. As soon as it was finished, rather than going out to the mailbox, Amy simply pulled out her wand, pointed it at the envelope, and muttered some words, and the envelope disappeared.
“There. Both applications are now off to Kilokilo,” she said. “I honestly don’t know how long it should take until we get a reply, but hopefully it won’t be too long. Now, how did the day go for the three of you in Desert Plains?”
Sara, Ellie, and I shared a look. Amy was definitely not going to be happy about us investigating yet another murderer. Even if it was in the interests of keeping Sara safe.
Chapter 11
After we had placated Amy—a little bit, at least—and convinced her that we were acting in Sara’s best interests by trying to solve a murder, the four of us split up to do our own thing. Sara went outside, telling us that she needed to practice her broom riding before her competition the following day. Amy had to go to work at coven headquarters, and Ellie decided to go out to Hexpresso Bean and see what pastries she was going to make the next day. She had been offered her job back after initially being fired, and she had accepted under the promise that her salary would increase by twenty percent. I was exceptionally proud of her for holding out for the extra money, which she absolutely deserved. Ellie’s baking was like nothing anybody else could make, and I was glad to see that her services were as appreciated by the manager as they were by the customers.
As for myself, I texted Kyran to see if he wanted to hang out. We had started seeing each other officially, but Kyran still wasn’t comfortable being out in public very often. He still felt that my association with him cast me in a negative light with most of the community, and I knew he was super sensitive to the possibility.
You around? Want to grab something to eat? I texted. His reply came through a moment later.
Sure. Want to grab something from Two Wizards? We could have a picnic on the far side of the lake in Coven Gardens?
I smiled at the thought, then replied. Sounds good.
Personally, I couldn’t have cared less if people knew that Kyran and I were seeing each other. He was an elf, and even though he didn’t do a job that was traditionally reserved for elves, he did a lot to protect both the magical world and the human world from bad magic, and I was proud of him for doing that.
I made my way on my broom to the ’50s style diner that did what I considered to be the magical world’s best comfort food and placed an order for takeout. Twenty minutes later, I had a bag full of onion rings, burgers, and a couple of bottles of pop. Perfect for a lakeside lunch. Hooking the bag over the front of my broom, I flew over the Coven Gardens, over to the very far side of the huge lake in the middle. I loved the Gardens. Ever since I had been here for the first time, it had been my favorite part of town, with its huge green space, gorgeous lake, and plenty of trees. It was the perfect place for a picnic, especially on the far side where most witches and wizards didn’t venture. I landed about thirty feet from the shore, onto a soft patch of grass, and as soon as I did Kyran stepped out from behind the trees. Of course he had been hiding.
“Hey,” I greeted him. “How’s it going?”
“Good,” he replied with a grin, pulling out a large blanket and setting it on the ground in front of us. “Even better since I got your text.”
“Excellent,” I said. “I don’t know about you, but I am absolutely famished right now.”
“Same,” he replied. “I spent the morning hunting down a vampire who made his way into the human world and decided that it was easy hunting.”
“Really?” I asked, grabbing one of the burgers from the bag and taking a big bite. “Is that a common problem? What happens to humans when they’re bitten?”
“It’s not like what you see in human world media,” Kyran replied. “A human bitten by a vampire doesn’t turn into a vampire themselves. They simply die.”
“So vampires have to breed to keep their kind alive?”
“That’s right,” Kyran replied. “It’s not too common to have a vampire develop a taste for human blood. Frankly, human blood is considered among the lowest of the low in terms of quality.”
“Hey,” I argued. Even though I wasn’t human, I had spent almost all of my life thinking I was, and I didn’t like to think that human blood was considered the worst of all the different types.
“I don’t make the rules, I just tell you how vampires think,” Kyran said, raising his hands as if in surrender. “On occasion, though, you’ll find a vampire who gets addicted to the taste of blood, and when they find that they can’t get away with sucking the blood of creatures in the paranormal world, they sometimes go to the human world to get their fix instead.”
“So basically, they have to be super desperate to settle for human blood,” I said, and Kyran nodded.
“That’s right. Luckily for me, by the time they hit that point, they’re usually so desperate that they’re not being particularly subtle about their attacks, and it’s easy enough for me to find them, hunt them down, bring them back to the paranormal world, and have them placed in a blood addiction facility run by vampires.”
“That exists?” I said, my eyes widening.
“Sure, there ar
e a few of them around. None in Western Woods, since we are way too small of a town to need one, but I sent the vampire to one not far from here.” He grabbed a handful of onion rings and began chewing away at them.
“How about you? What have you been up to?”
I spent the next ten minutes alternating between shoving my face full of food and telling Kyran everything that had happened since the night before.
“I didn’t get a chance to watch Sara on TV,” Kyran said. “I had planned to initially, but then I got news that the vampire had crossed back into the human world, and I spent the whole night chasing him. You’re saying that this Karen Voda looked exactly like you?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Although, frankly, that kind of took a backseat when Ellie discovered Jack’s body. We are worried that it might be some crazy witch or wizard who's going to go after a number of the different broom riding competitors, which might include Sara.”
Kyran frowned. “I don’t think there’s a huge risk of that.”
“Neither do we, but any risk is more than we want Sara facing.”
“I can understand that,” Kyran nodded. “Of course. You will be careful, though, obviously.”
“Obviously. And I’m really looking forward to finding out stuff about the coven of Titan. I mean, they sound very secretive, and there’s no guarantee that it is my coven, but I just want to know for sure.”
Kyran gave me a hard look. “Are you sure you want to know?”
“Of course I’m sure,” I replied. “I’ve gone my entire life without knowing anything about where I’m from and who my biological family are. Now, not only do I know that I’m a witch, but I have a pretty solid lead that might help me find out who my real parents are.”
“I’m not sure it’s such a good idea,” Kyran replied, and I felt something inside of me bristle.
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to be discouraging, but you’re talking about a coven that’s based on secrets and hiding from the rest of the world. There are obviously a lot of secrets there. In fact, someone wanted to keep you so secret that they left you in the human world instead of keeping you in the paranormal one. To me, that tells me that someone—probably your mother—didn’t want you to ever know where you came from. She had to have a reason for that.”
“So?” I snapped. “Maybe that reason was that she didn’t want her parents to know. Maybe it’s something completely innocent.”
“Maybe it is. But maybe it isn’t,” Kyran replied. “I’ve heard a lot of stories from the coven of Titan, and none of them have ever been good.”
“Have you ever been there? To Kilokilo, I mean.”
“Once,” Kyran admitted.
“What was it like?”
“Strange. It was unlike any other paranormal town I’ve ever been to. I didn’t interact with anyone, obviously. They couldn’t know I was there or I would have been arrested. I didn’t have a visiting document.”
“How did you get in, then?”
“Thanks to some elf magic and a portal no one else knows about.”
“Can you take me there?”
“No,” Kyran replied.
“Why not?”
“Because frankly, it’s too dangerous. Something is going on here, Tina. I know you want answers, and I hope you get them eventually, but you have to realize that this story isn’t necessarily going to be all sunshine and rainbows for you. I know you want to go to Kilokilo, find your family, have them love you, and then have the perfect life, but from what I know about this coven, that’s just not a likely outcome at all.”
“Whatever,” I muttered, throwing the empty burger wrapper back into the bag with a little bit more force than I had intended. “Just because you don’t get along with your family doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing is going to happen to me.”
“I know,” Kyran replied. “I just don’t want you to get in over your head, ok? What you told me about Karen Voda practically running away when she saw you, that’s the sort of thing that worries me. Why would she do that if she didn’t even know who you were?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. But don’t I have a right to find out?”
“Of course you do, but the problem is, it could be dangerous.”
“Dangerous how? Seriously, everyone keeps going on about how secretive the coven of Titan is, but no one has come up with any real firm stories telling me why I should stay away from them.”
Kyran sighed. “That’s because people are trying to protect you. I’m trying to protect you. Trust me, stay away from this. At least for now. You’re better off being more subtle about things than running in and introducing yourself as one of them.”
He leaned over and put his hand on mine, but I pulled away.
“Thanks for your concern, but I can take care of myself. And until someone tells me for real what is actually going on, I’m going to go ahead and try and find my biological family.”
I got up, hopped on my broom, and flew off, the wind on my face blowing the tears that flowed from my eyes into the evening wind.
Even Kyran didn’t want me exploring this further. What on earth was so awful about the coven of Titan that people wanted me to be careful about this?
Chapter 12
I didn’t want to go home and face the others. Not right now. I needed some time to think. Had I overreacted, snapping at Kyran like that? I didn’t think so.
I had expected him to be supportive. I had expected him to tell me that it was a good idea, and that I should try to find my coven. After all, I knew he didn’t exactly get along with his family—or anyone in the paranormal world, really—but that didn’t mean I didn’t want to find mine. He knew what it meant to me to find out where I was from, possibly more than anyone in Western Woods. And yet here we were, with a big clue, and it seemed like a whole lot of people, including my boyfriend, were opposed to the idea of me looking into it.
That wasn’t entirely fair, of course. After all, just that afternoon Amy had put together the application form to get me a visitor’s permit for Kilokilo and sent it away. The other girls seemed to be on board with me finding out about my coven, whether it be the coven of Titan or not.
But I couldn’t help but feel like there was still a bit of apprehension there. I knew Amy wasn’t totally comfortable with the fact that there was very little information out there on the coven. And I would have thought that Lita might have been able to pull some strings, what with being the head of the coven and all.
But maybe I was just imagining things. Maybe I just wanted things to move along so quickly because I had never been this close to knowing where I had truly come from.
I just wanted answers. But then, as I thought about it, I supposed there was no real rush. After all, I had made it almost thirty times around the sun without knowing where I had come from. What was another few weeks, or maybe even months, before I got a real answer? In the grand scheme of things, maybe I was rushing a little bit too much.
Eventually, as the sun set completely, I made my way back home and went to bed without seeing any of the other girls. We all had our own problems to deal with, our own things to worry about.
And I knew tomorrow was a big day for Sara. My problems could at least wait another twenty-four hours. The next day was going to be huge.
When I woke up the next morning, Mr. Meowgi followed me down to the kitchen.
“Do you need me to teach Sara any kung fu moves?” he asked, stalking after me and bounding down the stairs.
“I think Sara will be ok without them, but I’ll ask,” I said with a smile.
“Everyone can always benefit from knowing kung fu. Or karate. Or jiu-jitsu. Any martial arts, really. You can never know when the knowledge of a martial art can give you an advantage over your opponent. And if not, I can always direct her to some good pep talks. There are some excellent ones to really get someone in the mood to fight.”
“You have weird hobbies for a cat,” I replied, giving Mr. Meowgi the
side-eye. “Besides, all anyone needs for a good pep talk is an old Jock Jams CD.”
“What is Jock Jams?” Mr. Meowgi asked, tilting his head, and I smiled.
“One day I’ll show you, and it’ll change your life.” The two of us made our way into the kitchen, where the aroma of scones drifted toward me. Sara was sitting at the breakfast bar with a plate full of them, looking, well, green.
“Hey, how’s it going?” I asked cautiously. Ellie had her back to us, busily working on a potion.
“I feel like I’m going to puke.”
“Are you sick?” I asked, suddenly worried.
“Worried sick. I don’t think I can do this. I can’t do it.”
“You can do it,” Ellie said firmly without turning around. “Seriously. I know you’re nervous, but this is what you were born to do. As soon as you get on that stage, you’re going to be fine. You know you can fly, better than anyone else.”
Sara nodded, but I could tell she wasn’t convinced.
“Eat the scones,” Ellie ordered. “I’m making you an extra strong nerves potion, but the scones are also filled with something that will help.”
“I don’t want to eat the scones. I feel like I’m going to puke.”
“And if you don’t eat anything, you’re going to pass out on your broom from a combination of nerves and hypoglycemia,” Ellie said. “You’re an athlete now. Eat like one.”
“Yeah, or I’ll eat them instead,” I said, picking a scone from the plate and taking a big bite. A burst of blueberry flavor came through and my eyes widened in appreciation. “Yum. Seriously, Sara. These are delicious, and you should eat one.”
“Fine,” Sara said, picking at the corner of one of the scones and popping a little bit into her mouth. Straightaway she looked a little bit perkier, and a little bit less like she was going to need a bucket any second.
Amy came down a moment later. “Alright, I’m all ready for the big day,” she announced. “I have the recorder ready to tape all of Sara’s event. Do you know who you’re competing against tonight?”
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