“There’s a secret?”
She nodded. “Imagine you’re holding the egg inside your mouth. Let your jaw drop down and forward, and cup your tongue. It gives focus to the oval form.”
“My aunt never told me about that.”
“She wants you to figure it out yourself, the hard way. She’s actually a very good teacher, considering she doesn’t have much experience as a mentor. Actually, her methods would be more than adequate... if you were the typical sixteen-year-old novice.”
“Was that how old you were when...?”
“Yes.” She tossed back her espresso and set the tiny cup down with a clink. “Is our friend still with us?”
I looked over the empty chair where Ishmael had been. “He’s gone,” I reported. “I didn’t even see him go.”
“Our girl talk must have bored him into the next dimension.”
“Or he suddenly remembered he had other pressing business.”
“Ishmael’s pressing business days are over.” She pursed her lips. “Lucky guy.”
“If you say so.”
She took his vanilla latte and set it before herself. “I don’t like to see good coffee go to waste.”
* * *
Maisy and I continued to talk shop—spells and potions and magical creatures. In what seemed like no time at all, an hour had passed.
“Sounds like it’s getting busy out there,” Maisy said, pushing her chair back. “Sundays start late, but the place can really fill up, between the joggers and the church crowd.”
I smirked. “The church crowd comes here?”
She smirked back. “If they only knew their delicious coffee was roasted by a witch!”
“Oh, they might not even care. Half of them are probably shifters and gnomes, knowing this town.”
She got to her feet. “Zara, as much as I would love to continue this long overdue meeting of ours, I do need to supervise my employees.”
I got to my feet as well. “Thank you for letting me take up your Sunday morning,” I said. “We should do this again some time.”
“We should,” she agreed.
I was about to make a joke about joining her “book club,” if that was indeed what they called their coven, when I spotted something on the shelf behind Maisy. It was the karambit. The curved blade I’d dropped off the night before at the DWM. Or at least a very similar one.
A tiny croak came out of my throat.
“Zara?” She followed my gaze to the knife. She turned and picked it up.
I sucked in air and took a step back reflexively.
Tension filled the air. My senses tingled and time slowed.
Maisy narrowed her coffee-black eyes and took a step toward me. I took another step back.
“Zara, you seem upset about something,” she said, brandishing the blade casually. “Are you afraid of knives?”
“Maybe a little bit,” I said. It wasn’t a lie. My daughter and I both had a powerful dislike for TV scenes where a character is shown chopping vegetables. Not quite a phobia, but definitely something.
Maisy was no dummy. She knew something was up. Slowly, as though tasting each word, she said, “But there’s something about this knife in particular that you’re reacting to.” She swished it from side to side, watching my eyes as I tracked the blade. “Talk to me.”
Her mouth blurred, the air around us crackled, and she cast a spell. It was fast and complicated, and something I’d never heard before.
I felt a buoyancy form, like a bubble in the pit of my stomach, and then words spilled from my mouth. “Ishmael Greyson was beheaded by a knife like that.” The spell made me talk! I swallowed hard, but doing so couldn’t stop the words from coming. “That must be why Ishmael led me here today. We were walking aimlessly, or so I thought, but then we ended up here. With the weapon that killed him.” As the last words left my lips, I felt an immense sense of relief. It had to be a side effect of the spell.
“And you actually think I killed him,” she said flatly. “Thanks a lot.”
Whatever she’d cast on me was short in duration. The buoyancy in my stomach was gone. I felt no more unnatural compulsion to speak, and yet I did. I had questions.
“You have to admit it’s an unusual blade,” I said.
“I admit nothing. It’s a pretty knife. That’s why I have it.”
“What do you use it for?”
She stared at me with narrowed eyes for a long moment. The coffee shop was getting busy. A din of laughter spilled into the cool back room.
Finally, she said, “Okay. I’ll tell you what the knife is for, but you need to keep both of your hands where I can see them.” She nodded at the round cafe table that stood between us. “Place both of your hands on the table.”
I considered my options. Maisy Nix and the karambit were between me and the only exit. To my sides and behind me, the walls were all concrete blocks. If I was getting out of that storage room, it would be through Maisy Nix.
She made an impatient tsk sound. “Zara, just put your hands on the table. I’m not going to hurt you.” She held one long-fingered hand to her chest. “I’m more worried about you getting excited and shooting me by accident. So, would you put your hands on the table, please?”
I didn’t want to, but I placed my hands on the table anyway, of my own free will. The table’s burnt and scarred surface was warm. Warmer than it should have been, given the temperature of the storage room.
Maisy’s fingers twitched, her lips moved almost imperceptibly, and I felt the familiar tug in the air of a powerful spell being cast. Another one. This was stronger than the spell that had compelled me to speak. The table beneath my hands became hotter. Not hot enough to burn, but enough to make me want to pull away. I pulled away, but only jerked my shoulders. My hands were stuck. Magically glued to the table!
I used my telekinetic powers to reach for the nearest thing—a big bag of coffee. It would be perfect for knocking over Maisy while I made my escape, dragging the jinxed table with me if I had to.
But the bag of coffee didn’t even budge. Those particular powers of mine weren’t working. It was as though I’d been dosed with witchbane again. Had there been something in my vanilla latte? I tried casting the pink fog spell. No fog.
“Relax, Zara. It’s only temporary.”
I gave her a bewildered look. “Did you dose me with witchbane?”
She gave me a horrified look. “I’m not a monster,” she said.
“If it wasn’t witchbane, what did you do? Was it a spell, or the table?”
“It was all me.” She grinned. “Although... that old table has been jinxed so many times over the years, I wouldn’t be surprised if it got a few ideas of its own. Zinnia has told you about Animata, right?”
“Animata? Is that why you killed Ishmael Greyson?”
The grin fell off her face. “I didn’t kill anyone, you silly witch.”
“Not recently,” I said.
She snorted.
I tried wiggling my fingers, then sliding my hands, then lifting up slowly, then quickly. With each attempt, I could swear I felt the table letting go and my hands wriggling or pulling away, but when I looked down, my hands hadn’t moved at all.
“What is this magic?” I asked.
“A steadfast spell.” She frowned. “Zinnia is right. You haven’t been paying enough attention to your novice lessons. You should be able to identify spells being cast on you. And you should have known better than to put your hands on the table.” She shook her head. “You shouldn’t have let me block the only exit.”
“I might not know everything, but I do know that witches aren’t supposed to cast spells on each other, except in the event of an emergency.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Such as pushing another witch out of the way of an oncoming bus?” Her eyes twinkled. “Lesson one: Witches aren’t supposed to cast spells on each other. That is exactly what we tell the novices. For their own protection.” She pursed her lips. “But how is a witch suppo
sed to learn combat magic if she’s never given the opportunity to duel?”
I stopped struggling against the table, adopted a relaxed pose, and gave the tall, dark-haired witch a polite smile. “Are you saying that this, right here, is a teaching moment? I love it. Teach me. What’s the counter to a steadfast spell? I swear I’m a quick study if you give me a chance.”
“Not so fast. First, don’t you want to know what this pretty knife is for?” She floated the karambit in front of herself. The sharp, curved blade glinted as it rotated through the air languidly.
“If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather you told me than, uh, demonstrated.”
She shook her head. “If I was going to kill you, Zara, you’d already be dead.”
I swallowed hard. “Hearing you say that is not as reassuring as you might think.”
She used magic to grab the same bag of coffee beans I’d tried to lift. She floated the bag to herself easily, and then, in one swift movement, used the karambit to slice open the burlap bag. A handful of dark brown beans fell to the floor and scattered noisily, punctuating the tension.
Maisy brushed her hands together, even though she had touched neither coffee bag nor karambit handle with anything but magic.
“And that’s what I use the knife for,” she said. “Our garbage collector gave it to me. He found it next to someone’s trash and thought it would be perfect for opening bags of coffee.”
“Whose trash?”
“How should I know? You can ask him yourself, if you want. He’s an honest man, so I know it’s the truth.”
“An honest man who gives people knives from the garbage?”
“I ran it through the industrial dishwasher,” she said. “And he was right about it being handy for opening coffee bags, as you’ve seen for yourself.”
My scalp itched. I wanted to scratch it, but my hands were still locked down to the table.
“I believe you,” I said calmly. “I guess that if you had used that blade to chop off someone’s head, you wouldn’t bring it back into work the next day and use it for opening bags of coffee.” The table was cooling underneath my palms. “But you can’t blame me for being suspicious.”
“I suppose not.”
She snapped her fingers.
My arms felt cool and light.
“You’re free of the steadfast spell,” she said. “Give yourself a moment to recover.”
I shook my arms and edged toward the exit.
She said, “And please don’t try to blast me with any of your novice magic and force me to teach you a real lesson. My employees don’t know about my abilities. I’d hate to be put on spot, having to explain why I’m hauling your unconscious body out of here.”
“I’d hate that, too.” I twirled my tongue and cast an easy spell. Plumes of pink fog rose from the floor around me.
Maisy groaned. “Your aunt is right. You don’t listen.”
“Just testing,” I said. “I’m not blasting you with anything, not unless you consider a few wisps of pink fog a threat.”
She grumbled.
We stood where we were, neither of us moving as the fog dissipated.
Someone had to say something, so I did. “Well, that happened,” I said flatly.
Maisy said, “This actually went pretty well for a first real meeting between two witches.”
“Gosh. I’d hate to see a bad meeting.”
“Power is a tricky thing,” she said. “Having it doesn’t make life any easier.”
“If you say so. You weren’t the one permanently high-fiving a table.”
She glanced around, as though looking for a topic change. “I’d offer to team up with you and Bentley to help with the Greyson case, but... I don’t want to.”
“May I ask why? Aren’t you worried about this evil menace that’s on the loose in town?”
“That’s not a fair assumption, Zara. I worry about a great many things. But a truly wise and powerful witch knows when to pitch in and when to mind her own business.”
I looked around at the shelves of coffee beans. “Plus, you’re probably busy running this place.”
She snorted. “You think this is all I do? You have no idea what I do for the people of this town. No idea.”
“How could I know? I didn’t even know you were a witch until yesterday, when I tried casting that threat detection spell in here only to have it splash back in my face.”
She shook her head. “I countered it by reflex before you’d even finished casting. Zinnia loves that spell, but it doesn’t do much. Sometimes I wonder if she’s an OCW.”
“Obsessive Compulsive Wimp?”
“Overly Cautious Witch.”
I pressed my lips together tightly to keep from laughing. Overly Cautious Witch? They say nothing’s funnier than the truth. But I couldn’t laugh. I didn’t dare even smirk. Zinnia was my aunt, my family. I wasn’t about to throw her under the bus for a moment of mean-girl bonding with Maisy Nix. Zara tries to be a good niece.
Maisy asked, “Do you know the punishment for being an OCW?”
“No. What?”
She deadpanned, “Old age.”
I nodded. It was the truth, but the kind of truth that wasn’t funny.
There was a scratching sound on the floor. Maisy was using magic to propel a broom to sweep up the fallen coffee beans. I was puzzled by this. It would have been easier and simpler to levitate the beans directly, but what did I know? The woman’s skills far exceeded my own.
In the softest tone I’d heard her use that day, she asked, “Would you like to know what I was busy with the night Ishmael Greyson was killed?”
“Your alibi? No need. I’m crossing you off my suspect list. We’re good.”
“But wouldn’t you like to know?”
I picked up on her second offer. She wanted me to want to know. “Yes,” I said, as I imagined she wanted me to.
She reached out with one long arm and grabbed the broomstick mid-sweep. Her hair loosed itself from the high topknot and flew out, as though electrified by contact with the broom.
“I’d love to show you,” she said, her voice as silky as the black hair settling around her shoulders. “Have you ever flown, Zara?”
“I’m guessing by the way you’re holding that broom, you don’t mean on an airplane.” I took a second look at the broom now that it was in her hands. It did not look sturdy enough to hold one witch in the air, let alone two. Was she actually talking about flying on a broomstick?
“No,” I said. “Not like that.”
She closed the space between us in two easy strides, and grabbed my hand. A static charge passed through me, and my own hair whipped up as though swept by wind.
“Then let’s fly, Zara. Let’s fly.”
“What about your Sunday crowd? What about...?”
She blinked her coffee-black eyes slowly. “Don’t tell me you’re worried about a handful of church ladies having to wait a few extra minutes to get their decaf dry cappuccinos.”
“I suppose they can wait a few extra minutes.”
“They can.”
“How’s your schedule?”
“I believe I have some time right now for a flight.”
She hooted with excitement, making her hair and mine whip up again.
Chapter 28
Of all the days to wear a pencil skirt, I had to be wearing one the first time another witch invited me to fly on her broomstick.
“Just hike it up,” Maisy Nix told me, tucking her long, black hair behind one ear confidently. “Nobody’s going to see your underwear out here in the middle of nowhere.”
We stood at the side of an old logging road, a few miles inland from the outskirts of Wisteria. We had gotten there in Maisy’s car, with the broomstick in the back seat. She’d explained that while she could cast a sky glamour to disguise us in flight, and thus we could have taken off from the alley behind Dreamland Coffee, it wasn’t worth the magical energy expenditure, not to mention the risk of being seen. The
sky glamour was a sturdy spell, but not guaranteed to work on all beings and modern recording devices.
I used both palms to draw up my skirt. “Are you sure I can’t ride side saddle?”
She used one elegant, long-fingered hand to wave along the length of the broomstick in her other hand. “Do you see any saddle on this thing? Let alone a side saddle?”
“About that,” I said. “I have a question about ergonomics and comfort. Doesn’t the broomstick ride up?”
“It would ride up if you sat on it with your full weight.”
With my full weight. Did she mean...? In a flash, the solution hit me. There was a spell that subtracted most of a person’s weight without affecting their size. I’d even seen it used, on my unconscious coworker, Frank.
“The body buoyancy spell,” I said excitedly. “Is that what it’s for? For witches to lighten themselves for flight?”
She gave me an appreciative look. “You have been learning!” She reached toward me. “Come closer and I’ll cast yours. You can do mine. It lasts longer when another witch does it for you.”
I couldn’t help but take a step back.
Maisy stomped her boot impatiently, sending up a plume of dry dust from the old road. “Don’t be such an OCW.”
“Full disclosure,” I said with an emphatic hand gesture. “The last time someone cast that spell on me, I died.”
Maisy frowned. “That’s not a known side effect of the body lightening spell. Did they make a mistake with the phrasing?”
“There was an unexpected interaction. I had been electrocuted shortly before they cast the spell. And by they, I mean Zinnia. You’ve probably figured that out, since she’s the only witch I know, besides you.”
“And Fatima.”
“And Fatima,” I agreed. How quickly I’d forgotten about Fatima. Poor girl. Something told me she was easily forgotten by others, too.
“Let me check something.” Maisy looked down and kicked some pebbles. The pebbles scattered, but not naturally. They rolled as smoothly as glass marbles on smooth pavement despite being lumpy, random shapes on rutted dirt. The pebbles, about two dozen of them, surrounded me in a tidy circle and rolled to a stop.
I stared down at the pebble ring in wonder. I’d seen a lot of powerful magic in my short second life as a witch, but it was often the simplest things that surprised me the most.
Wardens of Wisteria (Wisteria Witches Mysteries - Daybreak Book 1) Page 21