Amber felt like she was losing whatever hold on him they might have had. “I don’t suppose you could tell me about these time manipulation spells? Is that one of your affinities as a Henbane?”
“Sorry, no.”
“Anyone I can contact from the Henbane or Caraway clans who might be able to help me? Do you have a Henbane grimoire I could look at?” she asked. “Willow and I lost all the family spell books in the fire.”
Edgar’s right eye notably twitched. “I don’t know where it is. It’s lost even to me. I’m not sure why I have to keep telling you that.”
“Tell me what? You don’t know where what is?”
“It’s hidden even from me.” He tapped his temple, hard, three times in quick succession. “Locked. No one knows where the key is. But at least it’s safe.”
Brow furrowed, Amber glanced over at Willow, who mirrored her confused expression.
“Edgar?” Amber ventured, when the seconds ticked by in silence.
“It’s been lovely to see you, but I’m feeling a bit under the weather now.” He then proceeded to rub his temples with his fingertips in slow methodical circles, eyes closed. “The lights are hurting my eyes. I need a nap. Perhaps … we can … maybe we can resume this another time?”
Willow tugged on Amber’s arm when Amber did little more than stare at her cousin’s bowed head. “Amber, c’mon, let’s go. He doesn’t look too great. We should let him rest.”
Amber only allowed herself to be pulled away a couple of steps before she said, “Are you sure you don’t have any grimoires here? Not even a personal one? We could take it with us and bring it back the next time we see you? Caraway, Henbane, Blackwood—I don’t care which clan, really. I just need—”
Edgar slammed both hands onto the kitchen island, causing Amber to flinch back a step. Willow let out a yelp of surprise. “Get. Out.”
“I—”
“Out, Blackwood! I have nothing for you! It’s probably not even here anymore. It’s gone. Just like everything else.” Then he squeezed his eyes shut and clutched at either side of his head, fingers grasping at his unkempt mess of black hair.
“But—”
“Now!”
Amber let herself be pulled then, and she hurriedly walked out of the kitchen, heart hammering. When Willow seemed confident Amber was actually following her now, she let go and hustled her way to the front door. Amber could hear the click and shlock of locks disengaging even though Willow hadn’t made her way across the dark foyer yet. Moments after stepping over the threshold, Amber suddenly turned back, quickly locating the light switch on the kitchen wall.
One finger poised atop it, she gazed into the kitchen to see Edgar squatting with his back against the cabinets, knees pulled to his chest, fingers still clutching at his hair. His eyes were shut, brow scrunched. The lines marring his forehead were back with a vengeance.
“Feel better, cousin,” she said softly, then shut off the light and rushed after her sister who’d managed to get the door open.
Edgar’s plaintive wails followed them out of the house and haunted Amber’s thoughts well after they’d driven away.
Chapter 11
A day after Amber and Willow’s rather upsetting visit with their cousin, Amber had to attend one of the bi-weekly planning meetings for the Here and Meow Committee. In all the chaos as of late, her duties for the festival had started to fall by the wayside. At least she had Willow in town a bit earlier than planned; she could help Amber get some of her scheduled work done.
From what Amber had heard, the lion toy had been a roaring success. Literally. And given Vicky’s excited chatter over the phone earlier that morning, Amber thought it was safe to assume this one hadn’t bitten anyone. Amber wasn’t sure what she would have done had Willow not stepped in to help her.
Now, as she sat at a traffic light a block away from Purrcolate, she tried to make herself focus on the upcoming meeting, not the fact that she was going to see Jack for the first time in almost a week. As her mind wandered, her tongue snaked out one side of her mouth and swept across her bottom lip. She immediately shuddered, the lingering taste of the protection tincture she downed before leaving hitting her with a fresh wave of revulsion. While Gretchen had known that the Penhallows were masters at glamour spells, she hadn’t known about the extra wrinkle caused by the curse: they could become anyone at any time and could hold that shape for as long as they wanted.
Thanks for that extra dose of paranoia, Edgar.
The protection tinctures Gretchen whipped up lasted twelve hours at a maximum and started to become less effective with time. So, like clockwork, the three Blackwood women downed the horrible things at noon and midnight, constantly assuring they were safe from at least one blast of warped magic. Amber just wished they didn’t taste like exhaust fumes.
Amber’s apartment looked like the lab of a mad scientist. Her toy-making supplies had been swept into boxes and plastic containers soon after Gretchen’s arrival. Dried herbs, fresh herbs, plant extracts, mortars and pestles, hot plates, jars, small vials—they covered nearly every surface in Amber’s tiny studio.
Last night, they’d all been awoken and lurched into an immediate panic at the sound of glass shattering on the floor. It took several minutes of scrambling around in the dark, muttering curses, for the women to realize that, no, a Penhallow hadn’t just shattered the windows of the shop below, but that a curious pair of cats had taken to late-night prowling around Gretchen’s stash of glass jars full of foul-smelling leaves, and knocked them off the counter and onto the kitchen tile. If the sound hadn’t rudely roused them from sleep, the stench of the fermenting bava leaves surely would have.
In order to get back to sleep, the three women had to use wind-shifting spells to shove the putrid air out a temporarily opened window.
After the ordeal, Gretchen sheepishly promised the next batch would taste better. Amber had shoved the remaining bava leaves in the garbage disposal when her aunt was in the shower that morning.
As far as Amber was concerned, the things got progressively worse with every batch.
Amber’s stomach knotted further as she pulled into Purrcolate’s lot. What was she supposed to do when she saw Jack? Pretend she’d never gotten his voicemail? Or his text message? Breeze in and give him the ice princess act so he’d got over his crush on her and moved onto someone more normal? Apologize profusely and claim she’d been caught up in family drama? That last one wasn’t a lie, at least.
Ice princess was probably the best bet. If he thought she was an awful person, he’d give up once and for all. Yes. Dating non-witches was a truly horrible idea, no matter what Willow said. There was no sense in being this worked up over a guy who would take off as soon as he knew the truth about who she was, right? Might as well nip this in the bud now and save them both from the misery.
Steeling herself, she marched confidently across the parking lot and pulled open the door in her best approximation of a stone-cold witch.
Jack was behind the counter by the register, chatting with a male customer. Larry, Jack’s brother, was rearranging pastries in the long, rectangular display case at the other end of the counter.
Larry looked up first. “Hey, Amber, long time no see, lovely.” He abandoned his task so he could rest his arms on the counter and grin at her. “How are you? Can I get you anything before you head in? The usual suspects are already in the conference room—human and pastry alike—but can I get you something else?”
Her gaze involuntarily flicked to Jack then. He looked up and grinned, his pretty blue eyes twinkling. Amber’s mouth inched up on one side before she could remind her face that they were going for ice princess. Ice princesses didn’t smile. Ice princesses glared, assuming they could muster the energy to make eye contact with the lowly peons beneath her. But no, her face was doing whatever it wanted.
Larry groaned dramatically. “You two need to just go out already. Just the way you two are looking at each other right now is mildly obs
cene.”
Face flaming, she glanced over at Larry. Was she really leering at Jack? If she was involuntarily leering now, she was going to hightail it out of here. But Larry was smiling at her.
“Don’t embarrass her!” Jack said, throwing a wadded-up bar towel at his brother. “Can’t you see you’re embarrassing her?”
Larry deftly snatched the towel out of the air, then flung it over his shoulder as he resumed his work at the pastry case. “What’s embarrassing is that you won’t take this lovely woman out on a real date. Not an impromptu meeting at the Sippin’-flippin-Siamese of all places.” He said all this without looking at them, engrossed as he was with positioning the scones just so.
Jack’s face flushed, and he rubbed the back of his neck. After shooting Amber a cautious glance, he gestured with his head for her to move further down, presumably to get out of earshot of Larry, the man with superhero hearing. Jack pulled off his apron as he walked, then draped it over the stool. When he reached the end of the counter, he lifted a flap in the surface to let himself out. “Be back in ten!” he called to Larry.
Larry waved a hand in acknowledgement, but only had eyes for his pastries.
Amber followed Jack to the far corner, away from both Larry and the few patrons in the café. She sat across from him at one of the round black tables, the surface speckled with little flecks and swirls of gray and brown. Faux granite? It was very chic, she thought. Did they buy these in town? They certainly weren’t from the Shabby Tabby.
Why was she even thinking about this?
She held her purse tightly in her lap. She felt like a kid who was in trouble and had just been sent to the principal’s office to learn her punishment. How was she supposed to explain why she hadn’t called?
It was then that she noticed the faint bruises on her hands and wrist from that dang lion toy nipping at her. They looked so much starker under the fluorescent lights. She wondered if Jack could see them.
“How’s your aunt?”
The question snapped her out of her thoughts. “Oh, um … she’s better. What happened to that maid was—is—a shock. We’ve all been staying at my place. The studio is a bit cramped with three people.”
“She too spooked to stay at another hotel?” he asked. “I mean, I would be.”
“Something like that.” She scooted a little closer to the table, folding her hands on top. Her purse felt heavy in her lap. Unable to look at him, she worried a peeling cuticle. “Look, Jack, I—”
He placed a hand over hers to still her nervous picking. One of his thumbs idly swept over the bruise marring the fleshy pad of her thumb. “You don’t have to apologize, if that’s what you were about to do. Don’t feel pressured to do … anything. Aside from Larry’s very embarrassing commentary, I don’t think it’s any secret that I like you. Been maintaining a middle-school-level crush for quite some time.”
Amber managed a laugh, flattered and unsure of how to even address what he’d just said.
“And maybe the timing is off right now because of everything that happened with your aunt. And your sister is in town,” he said, removing his hand, though keeping his arm on the table. “Maybe you’re not interested—”
“It’s not that,” she said quickly, the words tumbling out before she realized she was thinking them, let alone saying them. “I’m just a bit of a mess, is all.”
He shrugged a shoulder. “I’m okay with messes. But, honestly, call me if you want to. Or don’t. I just wanted you to know I’m interested. If you want to go out sometime, I’d take you anywhere you want to go. Even somewhere in … Marbleglen.”
“The scandal!” Amber whisper-hissed, bristling as was required whenever someone mentioned the name of Edgehill’s rival town. “This middle-school-crush must be truly epic.”
He blushed furiously. “I haven’t made you a mixtape yet, but I’m thinking about it.”
Amber laughed again, and despite her mind screaming at her to not—absolutely not—get caught up with another non-witch, she said, “A real date sounds great.”
“Excellent.” He coughed, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ll call you this weekend?”
Amber nodded, standing up, strapping her purse back on to her shoulder. She fought the urge to reach out and shake his hand, as if they’d just completed a job interview. “Sounds good.”
With an awkward smile, she hurried toward the conference room where the ladies and Nathan were likely already starting the bi-weekly Here and Meow Committee meeting. She assumed all the scones had been devoured by now.
As she walked past the counter, Larry, without looking up, held out his hand. “Bout freaking time!”
Amber offered him a high five, not slowing her pace.
“You’re both horrible!” Jack called out from the other side of the café.
Amber found it difficult to keep the smile off her face for the entirety of the meeting.
A few days later, just after flipping her open sign to closed, ready to simply collapse behind the counter for a quick power nap instead of grabbing lunch with Willow at the Catty Melt, her cell started to ring. Problem was, she’d misplaced it. Again.
Unlike the last time she’d lost her phone—when Connor Declan had swung by the Quirky Whisker to lightly interrogate her in the days after Melanie’s death—she was alone in the shop, which meant she could use magic this time. The Bowen sisters had left for lunch already, and Willow had run upstairs to get her purse. Aunt Gretchen was, presumably, still sleeping. Whatever illness she’d contracted before her arrival in Edgehill still had a hold on her. She slept often.
Briefly closing her eyes, Amber cast a quick locator spell. She’d had to use said spell so often, all she needed was to hold the image of her cell in her mind and flick her wrist. Her body lurched forward an inch, her magic pulling her toward the object in question. She walked toward the toy display, then abruptly came up short when she spotted a small basket filled with Christmas-themed toy cats. What are these doing out? She’d put them in storage back in early December. Seeing them made her frown with regret.
There were a dozen of them, all white with varying patches of black. All black paws for this one; black-tipped ears for that one. They all wore floppy Santa hats and had collars of holly or bells around their necks. Her grand plan had been to set them up on a table in the shop and have them meow Christmas carols like a tiny plastic a cappella choir.
Once she’d gotten them all set up, and they’d meowed a perfect rendition of “Jingle Bells,” she’d been utterly delighted with herself. But then she’d immediately worried the magic was a bit too advanced to explain away. When she’d asked Willow’s opinion, she’d agreed. So Amber had disabled their magic discs and sold them as plain, stationary Christmas décor. This dozen was all that remained.
Part of her was still sad no one had witnessed the feline choir—aside from Tom and Alley, that is. And only Alley had mildly appreciated it; Tom had growled his discontent from under the bed.
Her cell, somehow, was ringing from inside the basket. Amber plunged her hand into the pile of cats, bells on some of their collars tinkling.
“Chief Brown” was on her screen for all of a moment before the call ended. What on earth could he be calling her about?
Before she could call him back, a meow sounded. She glanced down into the basket that she still squatted in front of. She watched as a cat righted itself, shaking its head. The white ball at the end of its floppy hat knocked the cat in the nose. Bells tinkled and more meows vibrated out of tiny plastic throats. The basket was a sea of writhing black-and-white limbs and paws. Then they all started to meow, but not in any recognizable pattern.
She stood quickly, turning to look over her shoulder where she was sure Willow would be standing at the base of the steps, a smirk pulling up the corners of her mouth.
But Willow wasn’t there.
“Hello, Blackwood.”
Amber yelped, whirling to face the basket of cats. They all sat in neat rows now, peeri
ng up at her with golden glossy eyes. They blinked in unison.
Amber’s breath was shallow. Not because of the display of magic itself, but because she could only assume the Penhallow was doing this. Her attention snapped to the glass windows of her shop. Tourists milled about outside, but she didn’t see anyone with their hands cupped to the glass, peering in.
“It’s rude not to say hello, Amber.”
Lips pursed, she stared at the cats, her phone still clasped tightly in her hand. “What do you want, Penhallow?”
“Tsk, tsk,” the cats said as one, their little pink tongues clicking against little white teeth. “I just want to talk. One witch to another. But these pesky wards won’t let me in.”
A literal mental warning bell went off, like a distant alarm clock in her mind. A sign that someone uninvited was trying to get past the protection spells Willow and Aunt Gretchen had encased the building in.
What seemed like moments later, Willow and Gretchen were pounding down the steps from the studio.
“Amber!” Gretchen called out. The panic in her voice caused a twinge in Amber’s chest.
“I’m here,” she said, gaze still focused on the cats. “I’m okay.”
After they’d scanned the room, her aunt and sister took a spot on either side of her.
“Ah, the whole Blackwood clan together again,” the cats said.
Willow gasped. Gretchen cursed.
“I ask again: what do you want, Penhallow? Why are you here?” Amber said, her own magic waking up. This cursed witch was after her family. She wouldn’t stand for it, and neither would her magic.
“Give me the Henbane grimoire and I’ll be on my merry way.”
It wasn’t what Amber had expected, and her brows pulled together. Willow grabbed her hand—out of fear or solidarity, Amber couldn’t be sure.
Gretchen spoke before Amber could, her voice carrying its usual steely edge. “We don’t have Annabelle’s grimoire. It was destroyed in the fire fourteen years ago.”
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