by Emery Belle
“Lord Macon.” Lady Winthrop dipped her head in greeting, but he ignored her, keeping his gaze fixed on me.
I shifted uncomfortably in place and tried to look unconcerned with his attention, but I could tell from the heat rushing over my face that I was failing miserably at it. Why did this man, the most important wizard on the island, seem to have it out for me, a lowly hatchling? I didn’t seem worth his time… but somehow, I was.
“What do we have here?” he asked softly, finally turning from me and sweeping his glittering eyes over Hunter, who was still holding his training wand, and then Garnet. “Ah. Our newest batch of adult hatchlings. Come to see the grimoire, I presume?”
“Indeed.” Lady Winthrop was almost breathless. “That is, unless we are interrupting you?” She peered toward the corner of the room, but it was now empty.
Lord Macon swept from the room without answering, and Lady Winthrop seemed to falter for a moment before she regained her composure and led us toward a window draped in cloths of red and black, which cast eerie shadows over an ancient book propped on a gold stand before it. The book was enclosed in a glass case, presumably for protection, though its heavy cover was crumbling slightly at the edges, and I could tell that its gold-lined pages were yellowing from time and use.
As we stood before the book, Hunter and I exchanged perplexed looks, but Garnet dropped to her knee before it and placed her index finger to her lips in a gentle kiss before pressing it against the base of the stand.
Lady Winthrop nodded her approval to Garnet, then addressed me and Hunter. “This is the Book of Life,” she half-whispered, and as she spoke, tendrils of magic seemed to shimmer in the air around us. “It is the original grimoire, or spellbook, handcrafted by the witches and wizards of the First Age. I need not tell you how precious it is.”
She pressed her hand to the glass case. “Only a select few who have reached the highest ranks of the coven are permitted to study its pages, though the magic in them forms the basis for every spell you will learn. It is our guidebook, our bible, our lifeblood.”
She bowed her head. “When I was a hatchling, my first instructor brought me here to see it, and it was only then that I understood the magnitude of the power bestowed upon me.” She ran her eyes over us, one by one. “You have been given a great gift, and an even greater responsibility. Use both wisely.”
A shiver ran down my spine as I gazed at the ancient tome, the power pulsing from it swirling over me and settling at the very core of my being. A glance at my classmates’ rapt faces told me they felt the same, and all three of us were silent as we tiptoed out of the room, as though afraid to disturb the grimoire’s resting place.
After stopping at the gift shop, where a plump little witch with a kind face sold me a bottle of perfume that changed fragrance depending on my mood, we left the manor. I studiously avoided eye contact with the dragons, who were still watching us from their rooftop perch, as we walked briskly through the jungle. Eventually, we emerged into the bright sunlight of the island’s main drag.
“Shall we go for an ice cream?” Garnet asked after Lady Winthrop had bade us farewell. She pointed to a charming pink bungalow with a blue and yellow awning and a sign in front advertising flavors I’d never heard of, and some—like bloodberry pie—that I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot wand. “You have to appeal to all types,” Garnet said knowingly as we entered the shop, which was filled to capacity thanks to the afternoon heat.
A yeti whose head brushed against the ceiling grinned at us from behind the counter, showing off a row of even, pointed teeth that looked like they could cut glass. “Sample?” he asked, sweeping a fur-covered hand over the display case, where deep buckets of ice cream glittered enticingly.
“I’ll try the bloodberry,” Hunter said, stepping up to the counter. He shrugged and gave me a twinkling smile that said When in Rome… which disappeared rapidly once he tasted the sample and promptly spat it right back out again.
The yeti roared with laughter, then held up a massive finger before grabbing a cone and scooping out a generous portion of light brown ice cream. He handed the cone to Hunter, who sniffed it tentatively and gave the yeti a questioning look.
“Brown butter and marmalade,” the yeti said with a wink, grabbing another cone. “I think you’ll find this more suited to your tastes.”
Then he studied my face for a moment before serving me a double scoop of chocolate mint fizz, which tickled my tongue and tasted better than any ice cream I’d ever eaten. The yeti handed a cup of lemon delight to Garnet, who paid for our treats while Hunter and I grabbed the last remaining table on the sidewalk.
“What was up with Lord Macon?” Hunter asked as we settled into our chairs, happily licking our cones. Despite the afternoon heat, the ice cream stayed in place perfectly, without one drop dribbling down the side of the cone. “Why was he looking at you like he wanted to turn you into an ant and squash you with his foot?”
My shoulders slumped. “So you noticed it too?” I’d been hoping it had all been in my head, but Hunter had just confirmed my worst fears.
“Noticed what?” Garnet plopped down beside Hunter, and I noticed him subtly shift his arm closer to her so that they were almost touching. Garnet, engrossed in her ice cream, didn’t seem to notice. I wiggled my eyebrows at Hunter, who shot me a dirty look, before turning to Garnet.
“That Lord Macon seems to have it out for me,” I groaned. “And I have no idea why.”
Garnet shrugged, as if having the head of the High Court hate your guts was no big deal. “He’s kind of a jerk to everyone,” she said, dipping her spoon into her ice cream once more. I had the sudden urge to slap it out of her hand. Had she not seen the way he was sneering at me?
“Maybe,” I said, “but he has no reason to single me out. I’ve only met the guy once, and he’s had it out for me since the second he first laid eyes on me.”
“Probably because you’re from the human world.” Garnet chewed on the end of her spoon as she gazed at me. “Years ago, it was rumored that his daughter ran off with a man—a human man—and ever since then, he’s harbored an intense hatred for anything that has to do with the mainland. He even tried to enact a law banning islanders from moving there, but the other members of the High Court filed a petition opposing it.”
“What happened to his daughter?” I asked, my stomach turning over as I remembered what Lady Winthrop had told me about what happened to witches or wizards who married a human.
Garnet shrugged. “Executed. It’s the law, and Lord Macon would never allow anyone to break it, even his own daughter.” She sighed. “Elevia Macon was actually my mother’s closest friend growing up. We have a ton of photos of her in our albums at home, which Lord Macon would probably order to be destroyed if he ever found out about them. But my mother would rather break her wand in two than give them up.”
She gave me a shy smile. “I’ve always wanted a friend like that.”
I smiled back at her, though my thoughts were elsewhere. Her explanation made sense, but it just didn’t sit right with me, though I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. As my mind churned through the possibilities, I was dimly aware of Hunter and Garnet chatting beside me, of a group of toddler witches zipping around the sidewalk on toy broomsticks, of a handsome vampire propositioning a fairy who was batting her eyes at him flirtatiously.
And when I still couldn’t conjure up an answer, I shook my head to clear it, took an enormous bite of my still-solid ice cream, and joined in on the conversation with Garnet and Hunter, who were arguing over whether a yeti and a bigfoot were the same species. Right now, with Cassandra’s death still looming over me, I had plenty to occupy my mind. I certainly didn’t need to add more questions to the growing pile.
Chapter 12
The next morning, I tapped my foot impatiently as I waited for Sebastian to meet me at the docks. After our confrontation with Fiona—and learning that she’d lied to us about her whereabouts on the night Cassandra died—h
e was eager to help me find a way to access the ferry’s passenger list and see whether Fiona had really left town before the murder took place. And I was eager to have him, because I had a feeling we were going to need magic to get our hands on that list, and unless that involved shooting water at it, I would be out of luck on my own.
Fifteen minutes later—and nearly half an hour since our agreed-upon meeting time—Sebastian came ambling up the road, carrying two paper to-go cups and bearing a wide grin. He handed one of the cups to me and I sniffed it suspiciously before the familiar tang hit my nose and my mouth dropped open.
“Coffee?” I asked, taking an enthusiastic sip, then spluttering as the piping hot liquid seared the back of my throat. “Glenn told me they didn’t make this on the island.”
“They do if you know the right people,” Sebastian said with a wink, blowing lazily into his own cup to cool the coffee. “I’ve been to the human world enough times to know how important this stuff is to your kind, although, to be honest, I’m not sure what all the fuss is about.” He dipped his tongue into his cup, then shrugged. “Give me a watermelon whiplash any day of the week.”
I took another sip of the coffee, more carefully this time, and as it warmed me from head to toe, I sighed happily. Even though I’d adjusted reasonably well to the island in my short time living here, there was something utterly irreplaceable about the comforts of home.
“Shall we?” Sebastian said, dumping his mostly full cup of coffee into the nearest trash can and heading for the long line of people queuing up in front of the ferry’s ticket stand, which hadn’t yet opened for the day. We slid into place between a shriveled old woman wearing a balaclava and carrying what looked horribly like a jar containing two human skulls and a pair of pasty vampires with beach towels slung over their arms and smears of sunblock on their noses.
“So what’s the plan?” I asked Sebastian, who seemed completely unperturbed by the skull staring blank-eyed at him through the glass jar. “How are we supposed to get our hands on the passenger list?”
“For starters,” Sebastian said, eyeing his watch and then glancing toward the ticket stand, “we better hope that Olfreda isn’t behind the window today or else we’re going to have a devil of a time sneaking out with a copy of the list.”
“Why’s that?” I asked, taking another sip of coffee and closing my eyes for a moment to savor the taste of the perfectly roasted beans. This had to be one of the best cups of coffee I’d ever had. I made a mental note to ask Sebastian who he had to bribe in order to have this made for me again.
“Let’s just say we went on a few dates a couple of years ago and it didn’t end well.”
I popped my eyes open and regarded him suspiciously as a sense of déjà vu flooded over me. Hadn’t I heard him utter those exact words about Karina, the siren bartender who looked like she wanted to chop off my head just for breathing the same air as Sebastian? I was beginning to sense a pattern here.
“And…?” I asked, raising my eyebrows as I looked at him expectantly, prompting him to take the story a little further.
“And…” He sighed. “Let’s just say she would rather see me at the bottom of a pile of hungry ogres than do me any favors.”
Just then, the ticket window slid open and a pretty brunette poked out her head, then beckoned to the first person in line. I held my breath and watched Sebastian’s face, waiting for his reaction. “Oh, good,” he said, letting out an audible sigh of relief. “It’s Seraphina. I haven’t dated her yet.” He frowned when he caught the expression on my face. “I mean, we’ve never dated,” he hastily corrected himself.
The ticket line moved so slow that I was practically crawling out of my skin by the time the old woman in front of us stepped up to the window and plunked her jar of skulls on the counter. “Frida,” Seraphina said in a stern voice, knocking the jar out of the way with her wand tip. “We’ve talked about this before. You can’t bring those on the ferry; it’s too upsetting for the other passengers. If you want a ride, you’ll have to come back without them.”
The old woman whipped out her own wand, faster than the blink of an eye, and pointed it directly at Seraphina’s face, which began to blow up like a balloon. Her eyes bulged to the size of saucers, her lips soon resembled those of a blow fish, and the skin across her cheeks was stretched so tight I thought it would crack.
The old woman cackled, and one of the skulls joined in, but her laughter quickly became a gasp of surprise as Sebastian blasted her wand out of her hand. It shot into my stomach, causing my hot coffee to splatter all over me, and I bit back a howl of pain.
“Sorry.” Sebastian cringed. “I’m not at the top of my game this early in the morning.” He aimed his wand at my soaked blouse and siphoned off most of the coffee, but not before the stains had begun to set in. Then he turned to the old woman, who was advancing on us with alarming speed, and wiggled his wand in a complicated-looking figure eight pattern that caused thick ropes to wrap around the woman’s wrists and ankles, binding her in place.
“Call the police,” he said to Seraphina, whose face had mercifully shrunk back to its normal size. She took a moment to compose herself, then stood up shakily and walked to the back of the ticket stand.
As she picked up the receiver and began to dial, Sebastian, on the pretext of adding our names to the morning ferry’s passenger list, tore off a handful of pages behind it, quick as a flash, and passed them to me under the counter. I stuffed them into my purse, and before Seraphina could finish up her phone call, we hurried away from the ticket line, ignoring the suspicious looks from the other passengers.
“I couldn’t have planned that better if I tried!” Sebastian said, grinning and offering me his hand for a high-five. “If I wasn’t afraid she would skin me and stuff my head in that jar next, I’d go give that old woman a big kiss.” He nodded toward my purse. “You got the goods?”
“Safe and sound.” I patted it, then looked around for some privacy, but even at this early hour, the beachfront was quickly filling up with people. A few feet away, a yeti had stretched out a bright orange beach towel that was far too small for him and was curled up on it, reading a book, while a baby zombie girl gnawed hungrily on a still-wriggling fish.
“I know a place,” Sebastian said, reading my thoughts, and he led the way down the beach until we came to a secluded cove tucked between two large rocks. As we settled onto the sand, I dumped the ferry records from my purse and straightened them out, then passed a handful to Sebastian. We perused them in silence for a few minutes until an unsettling thought struck me.
“How do we know she didn’t use a fake name?” I asked, setting down the papers and frowning at Sebastian. “She said she was trying to get away from the spotlight for a while, and if she was telling the truth about leaving the island, even if she wasn’t at Star Island, wouldn’t she use a different name so no one could find her? That’s what I would do in her shoes.”
“Impossible,” Sebastian said distractedly, running a finger down the long list of passenger names. “There are security measures in place to prevent that, because some of the islanders have been banned from using the ferry. If they, or anyone else, try to trick their way on by using a fake name, their hand shrivels up.”
I looked at him in horror. “Permanently?”
He shrugged. “Rules are in place for a reason. We have to protect the island, and those who live here.”
Frowning, I returned to my list of names. Luckily, the pages Sebastian had managed to grab dated back two months, and so if Fiona had left the island at any point before Cassandra’s murder, we would know about it. We read in silence for the better part of half an hour until Sebastian threw down his pages and blew out a long breath, running his fingers through his thick hair. “Nothing on my end.”
“Nothing here either,” I said, stuffing the pages back into my purse and kicking off my shoes. As I wriggled my toes in the sand and listened to a seagull crying overhead, I thought back to our conversation
with Fiona. “I still don’t understand why she would lie. What’s she trying to cover up?”
Sebastian lay back in the sand and propped his hands behind his head, the lean muscles of his arms flexing enticingly. “She’s obviously hiding something.” He propped himself up on one arm and gazed at me, his eyes raking over my face in a way that made me tingle all over. “And she knew we were looking into Cassandra’s death, so if she was innocent, wouldn’t she make sure to tell us the truth?”
“Maybe she didn’t think her lie could be traced so easily,” I said, scooping up a pile of sand and letting it trickle through my fingers. “After all, she had no idea about the brownie revolt, and even if she did, she probably figured there’d be no way for us to get our hands on the ferry’s passenger list. It’s not like we’re working for Kellen, and if he ever tries to question her himself, she’ll just lie again and say she never told us that. It’s not like we have any proof.”
“True.” Sebastian closed his eyes lazily, letting the sun warm his face. “I just wish we had something concrete to use against her, you know? But short of breaking into her house and looking around for evidence—”
“That’s it!” I shot up, towering over Sebastian and practically writhing with excitement.
“What’s it?” He sat up slowly and gave me an incredulous look. “You can’t be serious, Wren. Fiona Thane is one of the most well-connected women on the island. Do you really think we can just waltz up her sidewalk and pop open the front door? She’ll have all kinds of security measures in place, including things we’d never even dream of…”
He trailed off as I began pacing back and forth, muttering wildly beneath my breath as a plan began to formulate in my mind.
“I have an idea,” I said, flopping back down in the sand with such force that it went flying everywhere. Sebastian spluttered and shielded his eyes, but I ignored him. “You’re absolutely right—we just can’t walk up to Fiona’s door and ask to look around. She would recognize us in an instant and probably have Kellen on the phone before we could say boo. But what if someone else showed up? Someone who had a perfectly good excuse for being there…?”