Witch Undercover
Page 9
I had a few work-related anecdotes memorised just in case—stripped of any magical context—but I most definitely would not be mentioning that I’d spent most of yesterday hanging around a market full of goblins and elves while my boss skipped around under a giant umbrella with fairy wings on it. My foster parents knew I was a Harry Potter fan, but that would definitely be taking it too far.
Still, I was happy enough to let them take over the conversation with tales of their adventures in Australia, while I said as little as possible to avoid accidentally letting anything magical slip out. Just when I’d dared to begin to relax, a familiar miaow drew my attention. Sky sat outside the cafe, licking a paw.
“Sky!” I rose to my feet, not surprised in the least to see him lurking outside the door. At least he hadn’t brought his new friends from the market along with him. “Mum, Dad, meet Sky. He’s my… my new pet. I’d say I adopted him, but it’s more the other way around.”
A few people stared at us when I crouched down to pet him, but Sky was firmly in his normal-cat mode and didn’t draw any unwelcome comments. Though that might change if the staff realised there was a cat on the doorstep. He purred, enjoying the attention as my foster parents cooed over him.
“He knows he’s not allowed to come in, but he couldn’t resist coming to see me.” I scooped him up into my arms. “Sky does whatever he wants. He refused to let you leave without introducing himself.”
“Hello, Sky,” said Mrs Wilkes. “I’m Blair’s mother.”
A pang struck my heart. Recent developments notwithstanding, she and Mr Wilkes were my parents, and while they’d fielded a few questions from me on my birth parents throughout my life, I’d mostly left the subject alone. I didn’t know how I’d explain how my curiosity had led to the earth-shattering discoveries I’d made in the last few months.
I certainly didn’t know how I’d ever explain that my biological father was in jail. Innocent or not, there was no explanation which would fit into their neat view of the order of the universe. The fact that the paranormal hunters might have set him up via magical means and also brought about my biological mum’s death were equally off-limits. It was safer to let them continue knowing nothing about the covens, or Blythe’s family, or the hunters. Still…
The sound of screaming came from down the street. My heart sank, and I backed into the doorway to the café, hoping against hope that the source of the noise would pass us by.
“Is someone in trouble?” Mrs Wilkes approached the door, her husband behind her. Please, please don’t let it be anything magical. Please.
A wild-eyed man staggered down the street, pointing at me. “Wings!”
Oh, no.
8
The man kept staggering towards me, while passers-by stopped to stare at him—and by extension, me. He wore a jacket stained with mud and a pair of dirty jeans, while his hair was tangled and his eyes too wide, looking at something that wasn’t there. Or rather, something that was there. Namely, me.
“Wings!” he yelled. “Monsters, everywhere!”
“What’s he babbling about?” someone said.
The stranger advanced towards me until I had nowhere to run except inside the café. The problem was, the door was blocked by curious onlookers, coming to see what all the racket was about. Sky made a rumbling growl, and I cringed, mentally pleading with him not to shift into his monster form
“Monsters!” yelled the man, jabbing a finger at me. “Wings!”
Wait, could he see Sky’s monster form? Sky seemed to realise there wasn’t anything he could do to help, because he jumped out of my arms and hid behind my legs. Even if there hadn’t been an audience surrounding me, I’d never be able to get answers from the stranger. He had no idea where he was or what was going on.
“What’s wrong?” asked Mrs Wilkes, coming out of the café. “Is he drunk?”
“Or mad?” put in Mr Wilkes from behind me.
The stranger’s expression was glazed, his eyes wide open. He has the true sight. He saw my wings, and as long as there were no other paranormals around, I’d stick out like a troll among goblins. The stranger lunged forwards, his eyes crazed, but Nathan caught his arm, preventing him from touching me. “Whoa there,” he said. “Calm down.”
“Does he need help?” someone said.
“Do you know him?”
I have to do something. Hadn’t Madame Grey said she was sending someone to keep an eye on me in case any of the usual chaos I attracted showed up? I scanned the streets, looking past the bewildered and wary humans, and spotted a familiar figure near the back.
Alissa. My shoulders sagged with relief. She’d be able to help the stranger without giving away the magical world in front of the humans. As I caught her eye, she lifted her wand, and in a flash of light, the man collapsed in Nathan’s arms. More people crowded closer while Alissa made her way through the crowd with her wand concealed up her sleeve.
Then came a second flash of light, and everyone froze except for me, Alissa and Nathan. Alissa made her way to the man’s side, crouching down. “This will only last a minute. I’ll zap a cover story into their heads, so they think they saw Nathan carry him over to an ambulance, but I’ll need your help, Blair.”
“Sure.” I reached for my wand. “What should I do?”
She glanced at Nathan. “Can you move those two back inside the cafe? The others will be a bit confused, but Blair won’t have to explain herself to them.”
“Sure.” Nathan guided Mr and Mrs Wilkes back into the cafe. Trying not to look at their frozen expressions, I moved to help him out. Alissa joined us, engaging in some complex wand movements in front of the frozen onlookers. Then she walked outside, still waving her wand in swirling patterns that made me dizzy to watch.
There came another bright flash of light, and the man’s body vanished—and so did Alissa. She reappeared an instant later, and with another wave of her wand, the crowd came back to life. Everyone moved at once, except for me. I remained standing, wondering what they thought they’d seen. Thankfully, though, nobody acted at all like they’d seen multiple people vanish in front of them.
Alissa leaned over to whisper, “I whisked him into the hospital in Fairy Falls. Then I threw an illusion spell over everyone, so all the witnesses will think they remember seeing him get carried away in an ambulance.”
“Judging by the fact that nobody is panicking, I’d say it worked.” I glanced at Nathan, who faced my slightly dazed-looking foster parents in the entryway to the café.
“Someone you know?” asked Mrs Wilkes.
“Ah, this is Alissa,” I said to them. “A friend of mine. She’s just on her way out now.”
Alissa gave me a grateful nod and walked out the door, disappearing from sight. While we’d narrowed avoided a bigger scene than there might have been, now she had to handle another human who’d come into contact with the magical world, right after the first victim had recovered.
We took our seats in the café again, but the mood was ruined, my nerves on edge. Mr and Mrs Wilkes thought I was stressed about the strange man’s shouting at me, and I didn’t argue, because it was true. Just not for the reasons they thought.
As my gaze fell on the clock, I remember I’d already promised I’d meet up with those fairies at the market in less than an hour. I couldn’t possibly be less enthused at the notion, but with someone else potentially under the effects of goblin fruit, it was more important than ever that I found out who was targeting normals.
Besides, after what I’d just witnessed, a spate of fairy drama would be a welcome relief.
Sky padded alongside me as I walked back to Fairy Falls, with Nathan on my other side. The sounds of the market’s music and merriment drifted across the fields and hills, while the gleaming outline of the half-frozen lake drew closer by the minute.
“I don’t understand how that guy found his way to the market,” I said to Nathan. “You’d think security would have spotted him. The fields are surrounded.”
“Yeah, I can imagine.” I wished there was such a thing as a selective earplug charm so I could put the eerie music on mute. “It even got me, in the end. I guess it’s hard to blame goblin brew if the whole market causes people to lose their senses.”
I’d drank the goblin brew knowing what I was getting into, but the market itself carried a dreamlike sensation which was always one step from transforming into a nightmare.
“I’d still put at least some of the blame on the goblins,” Nathan said. “And nobody reported seeing a normal come into the market yesterday at all.”
“Guess we were tempting fate by going out this morning, though,” I murmured. “As soon as we turned our backs, someone else fell victim to the goblin brew.”
“He might not have been to the market,” he said. “Or to Fairy Falls, either. It wouldn’t be difficult for someone to buy goblin brew and take it outside the market to give to unsuspecting humans. Someone who thought it was a laugh, maybe.”
Hmm. Like the elf who made a habit of drunkenly wandering into normal towns, for instance. I needed to speak to him again, but first, it was almost time for me to meet up with those two fairies from yesterday. They probably remembered last night much more clearly than I did.
“I have to go and meet those two fairies now,” I said to Nathan. “But I’ll see you later, okay?”
“Sure.” He looked down at Sky. “Will you take him with you? I don’t like the idea of you potentially running into trouble again.”
“I know better than to drink the goblin brew this time around.” I pressed a firm kiss to his lips and wrapped my arms around him. “Have I ever said you worry too much?”
“You were almost attacked by a madman earlier.”
A madman bewitched by a fairy. I heard the unspoken words. Granted, the two fairies hadn’t exactly been nice to me the first time we’d met, and it’d surprised me that they’d agreed to a meeting so readily. Perhaps they planned to mug me and tie me up in a tree. Who knew how fairies’ minds worked?
“Sky will out-monster the monsters, trust me,” I reassured him.
“I’m going to join up with the security team over the hill,” he said. “I’ll be a minute’s walk away if you need me.”
“Sure.” I released him, my nerves skittering again, and made my way downhill with Sky at my side.
As the market’s clamour drew nearer, my heartbeat kicked into gear. I wouldn’t have minded having Nathan to keep me company, but I needed to present myself to them as a fairy and not a witch if I wanted to get any answers. Calm down, Blair. They won’t hurt you in broad daylight. As long as I didn’t go near any goblin brew, I was safe.
I snapped my fingers and turned into my fairy mode before flitting downhill. I skirted the market, debating applying an earplug charm to block out the music. While it wouldn’t have as strong an effect on me now that I wasn’t drunk on goblin brew, just being nearby muddled my human senses. Several of the people who’d been dancing last night were still prancing away, wild-eyed, feet flying, limbs slick with sweat.
If I’d been more assertive and willing to engage in confrontation, I’d have gone to give those goblins a stern talking-to about their claims that goblin brew had a less strong effect on fairies, but I had zero desire to end up being turned into a toadstool. Besides, it was past three o’clock. So where were…?
There they are. The two fairies waited on the hillside, their hair loose and flowing, their wings beating behind their shoulder blades. They wore dresses patterned with flowers, and crowns of flowers woven together atop their heads. The blond one wore a red dress and the brunette wore blue, while their pointed ears and elegant features made them look like sisters.
“Hey.” I flew to a halt in front of them. “I came, like I said.”
“So you did.” The blond fairy, Holly, giggled. “You looked like you were having a good time last night.”
I smiled weakly. “Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be drinking any goblin brew again.”
“But you did enjoy it,” said her brunette companion.
“Until I woke up.” I decided to push on while I had the chance. “Did you know two humans—normals, not witches or wizards or anything—have fallen under the effects of goblin brew? Both of them in the last week.”
“I wouldn’t know a normal from a witch,” said Holly. “They look the same.”
“Witches have better dress sense,” added Heather. “You’re not all fairy, are you? If you were, you wouldn’t live here. With the humans.”
I assumed that wasn’t intended as an insult, but it was a little difficult to tell. Her tone was halfway between awe and disbelief.
“My mother was a witch,” I explained. “She died when I was a kid. And my dad… he’s a fairy.”
“Your dad?” she echoed. “Who is he?”
“He’s…” Wait. I didn’t even know his name. He’d always signed his letters as ‘your father’. “Um. He knew Tanith Wildflower. She was my birth mother.”
“Who?” asked Heather.
Argh. Why didn’t I think to ask him? Of course he couldn’t actually sign his correspondence, in case someone intercepted his letters, but I couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to me until now. I wished I’d asked my mum’s ghost while I’d had the chance.
“Tanith was a witch,” I said to them. “She lived in Fairy Falls… a few years ago.”
More like decades. She and my dad had met in secret and she’d then left the town, which meant that even most people from Fairy Falls had never known my dad existed. And, of course, the fairies who hadn’t lived in Fairy Falls would never have heard of Tanith.
“And she’s the reason you’re looking for a Pixie-Glass?” asked the blond fairy.
“Um. Yes, it is. But your friend, he said it might have—”
“MIAOW,” said Sky loudly, drowning out my words.
The two fairies jumped at the sight of Sky, who exuded a surprising level of menace for such a small animal. His fur bristled, as though he was prepared to glamour himself into a giant. I shot him a pleading look, but he ignored me.
“Oh, is he a fairy cat?” Heather asked.
Sky growled. Uh-oh. “Sky can be a little… untrusting of strangers.”
“Yes, they’re a rare sight even in the market,” said Holly, apparently unconcerned about the danger. “They generally keep to themselves. Is he a friend of yours?”
Sky continued to emit a low, threatening growl which sounded more like a tiger than an cat. “Sky, stop that.”
“Miaow.” Sky advanced on the two fairies, shrugging me off, and transformed into his giant monstrous cat form. A huge shaggy beast with dark fur suddenly filled the space where my cat had been sitting, and Holly and Heather jerked away from him with alarmed beats of their wings.
“What’s he doing?” asked Holly.
“I have no idea,” I said. “Sky, behave.”
I placed a hand on his back, disarmed by how solid and giant he felt. Even knowing the monstrous disguise was a glamour, it was difficult to resist backing away from his growling and hiding from sight.
He shook me off and swatted at the two fairies with a paw. They flew backwards out of reach, and then in unison, they turned around and soared downhill, melding with the crowd heading into the market.
“Sky.” I made to chase them, but I’d never catch up with two fairies fleeing at a high speed. “What was that for?”
“Miaow,” he said, his voice still an unnervingly deep growl.
“Blair?” Nathan hurried over to me, eyeing Sky’s monstrous form. “What did they do?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Sky just chased them off when I was in the middle of asking if they knew my dad.”
“Miaow.” In a blink, Sky was back to his usual self, as though nothing had happen
ed at all. He sat there and licked a paw, casual as ever.
“Did they know anything?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know his name. How mad is it that I never asked? I mean, that’s the least of everything he didn’t tell me, considering he was afraid the hunters might intercept his letters to me, but still. And they didn’t know my mum, of course, because she wasn’t a fairy. I really screwed up.”
“You didn’t screw up, Blair,” he said. “I don’t blame you for wanting to speak to them, but—”
“But the odds were against me. I know.”
There were so many other questions I’d wanted to ask. Maybe my dad was unknown even among the fairies, but the leader of the hunters might not be. On the other hand, I wouldn’t have done myself any favours if I’d asked how a fairy had come to rule over the most powerful anti-paranormal force in the region. Caution outweighed curiosity—for now.
My gaze travelled over the market, past the laughing, dancing crowd. Even after my night of dancing, I felt a world apart from everyone else here, weighed down by the secrets I kept.
Nathan drew me into a hug, pressed a kiss to my forehead. “It’s okay, Blair. You did your best.”
I exhaled in a sigh. “I guess I should head to the hospital and see how that poor guy from earlier is getting along.”
After I’d seen Sky off—or rather, he saw himself off, striding off towards home without so much as a miaow of goodbye—Alissa met me outside the hospital.
“My grandmother just read me the riot act,” she said. “Apparently I wasn’t supposed to use the transportation spell in front of a crowd. I said I erased their memories and made sure they won’t remember a thing, but she’s not happy.”