Wytchcraft: A Matilda Kavanagh Novel (8 page)

“Oh,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

“Now,” Willow said, drawing my eyes back up to meet hers. “What do you need to get this accomplished?”

“I have no idea.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. But it was true; I had no idea where to start or what to do.

“You said you needed something of Roane’s to track him,” Willow offered, speaking very slowly as if she were talking to someone with a mental deficiently. “Perhaps that is where you should begin?”

“Uh, yeah,” I said, “yeah, that would be good. Can you tell me where to find Roane’s token? If I could get that, it’ll be no problem finding him.”

“Do you really believe we haven’t already exhausted that option?” Stoirm glared down at me, his fingers mottled as he gripped the armrest, holding himself in place.

“They took his token? Why didn’t you just say so?”

“You did not ask,” Willow said. I had to bite my tongue to hold back what I wanted to say; even with their son’s life at risk, they were still playing their ridiculous games.

“Fine. Tell me where the damn thing
was
then. If I need to, I can go out there later and see if I can find the signature of the person who stole it.”

Willow and Stoirm shared a look, the brief and fleeting flutter of a butterfly’s wings, but it was enough to tell me they didn’t really want me to know where Roane’s token had been. I guessed more than one fairy token was out there.

“You might want to find different locations for everyone’s tokens,” I said with a shake of my head, earning another flesh-searing glare from Stoirm.

“The location will be delivered to you should you need it,” Willow said, though it sounded as though it pained her to agree to it. “Anything else?” Willow arched her dark eyebrows at me.

“Well, this is probably going to take up a lot of my time,” I said, letting my words trail off as I tried to screw up the courage to say the rest.

“Yes?”

“So, I probably won’t be able to take on a lot of my regular clients, and I’ll probably have to buy some supplies and travel.” I swallowed, positive they could hear it even at this distance.

“Money,” Willow said it as though the word were something filthy, obscene.

“Yes, money,” I said, lifting my chin in the air, taking courage from her offense.

“I believe you were paid to cast the spell that caught our daughter,” Stoirm said, his voice like rocks pelting my skin, making me flinch.

“Of course I was,” I said through gritted teeth. “It was a job and I don’t work for free.”

“Interesting that you don’t want to take the blame for catching our daughter, but you don’t deny taking money for what you did,” Willow said, turning her face to look at her husband. His pale skin was starting to run red, the crimson blush creeping all the way up to his dark hairline. Willow laid one delicate hand on his wrist, and he slumped back. It was only then that I realized he was getting ready to come out of his seat.

“Look, I’m not going to get caught up in your fairy word games, all right?” I said, squaring my shoulders. “You’re not going to trick me into saying something that’ll screw me over.”

Willow pursed her lips as she considered me. I could almost watch the play of thoughts race through her eyes. Stoirm however, was an open book; tiny beads of sweat were actually forming on his reddening forehead. I don’t think I had ever seen a Fae lose their cool before. A low buzzing broke the silence, and I felt my phone vibrate inside my bag, against my thigh.

“Whoa, you get a signal down here?” I asked, unable to help myself. I dug into my bag and saw Joey’s bright face on my screen. I rejected her call and shoved the phone back into the depths of my bag, turning my attention back up to the waiting Lord and Lady.

“Well?” I asked. My patience had finally run out and, with it, my fear. If they wanted to kill me, they would have done it by now, but here I was, still alive and breathing.

“Very well,” Willow said. “A payment will be delivered to your home later today, but only half. You will receive the other half when we have our son.”

“Have you considered the possibility that Roane might be, I mean, I don’t know, but there’s always the chance he could already be,” I huffed out a breath and finally said the taboo word, “dead.”

“You better pray that he is not,” Stoirm hissed.

“Right, of course,” I said, “but…”

“I think we are finished here,” Willow said. She lifted a hand and beckoned to someone behind me. The fae that had escorted me into the room materialized out of the shadows at the back of the room. “Fallon will escort you to Roane’s chambers so that you can retrieve something of his to perform your little spell.”

I glanced over my shoulder and watched the tall fairy approach, stopping a few feet away from me. He didn’t even flick his eyes my way. Apparently I wasn’t worth noticing. Maybe it was how short I was? I turned back to ask the Lord and Lady about Owen, to see if I could bargain for his freedom, but their thrones were empty, and only Fallon behind me and I remained in the audience hall.

“I guess we really are finished,” I said, shaking my head. I turned around to face Fallon, tucking my hair behind my ears. “All right, Chuckles, looks like it’s just you and me. Lead the way.”

I made a sweeping gesture and bowed at the waist. I don’t know if it was the flourish or the new nickname, but Fallon finally deigned to look at me, even if it was with an arched brow and the faintest curl to his upper lip. With a sniff nod, he turned on his booted heel and stormed out of the room, not waiting to see if I was following him.

I had to practically jog to keep up with Fallon’s long-legged strides, just another reminder what a bitch it was to be five-foot-three. Fallon led me through a twisting maze of halls until I was panting and a fine sheen of sweat had formed on my forehead and I was suddenly wishing I hadn’t grabbed my jacket on the way out of the door.

Eventually Fallon’s pace slowed as we approached an ornate wooden door. It was as dark as the earthen walls surrounding it. Intricate carvings decorated it in the formation of an aged tree with roots that disappeared into the bottom of the door while the leaves faded into the top.

I bent over at the waist, pressing one hand into my side where a stitch had formed, while I tried to catch my breath. I glanced up to give Fallon a piece of my mind when I caught him smirking down at me. Anger boiled inside of me, a white hot heat that stole whatever curses where about to fly out of my mouth. With another sniff, he faced the door again and touched the door with his fingertips. Within the depths of the wood, I heard a catch release just before the door swung open. I had a feeling only a fairy’s touch could’ve performed that little trick.

“’Scuse me, Chuckles,” I mumbled as I shoved passed him, hip checking him out of my way as I stepped through the door. I heard him mumble something equally flattering to me before he turned around and stormed off, leaving me alone, surprisingly enough. I mumbled a few more choice compliments for Chuckles before I yanked the strap of my bag over my head and practically threw it on the floor.

“Whoa,” I said, stopping mid-motion as I was unbuttoning my jacket, finally taking a second to look around the room. My entire apartment would fit inside of Roane’s room and then some. I made a mental note to let the fairies know that my going rate was double what it really was.

Roane had decorated his room in human-teenager-chic. There were dozens of rock band posters plastered on one wall; so many they had started to overlap each other like some sort of psychotic collage of black and white. His bed, a enormous California king-sized bed, was draped in black, from the sheets to the pillow cases to the comforter. There was a massive desk taking up one whole corner of the room that was covered in computer monitors and keyboards. The blue light cast a haunted glow to that edge of the room. There was clothing just everywhere. I don’t think I’d ever owned that much clothing in my entire life.

I picked my way through the room, going for the desk first since it appeared to be the place he spent most of his time, if the clutter was anything to go by. One monitor was frozen on a scene of some multiplayer role-playing game, his character a tiny waif of a human archer, sitting alone in a tavern. I glanced at the next monitor and blinked twice before reaching out to shut it off.

“Thanks, Roane, like I needed to see two nymphs in that position,” I whispered, trying to shake off the image, hoping it wouldn’t be the thing I saw every time I closed my eyes for the next month.

The third monitor had no screens open and was conspicuously showing a mundane desktop. I grabbed the mouse and pulled up the web browser, checking his recent history. Unsurprisingly, he’d cleared it for the last month.

“Of course, cuz that’s more important than turning off the porn.” I blew a stray strand of hair out of my face and closed the browser, sure the clue I’d need was hidden in its depths, but I knew very little about computers, so it was a lost cause.

There was nothing on the desk that was personal enough to use for a seeking spell. Oh sure, he used the keyboard and mouse enough to leave an imprint, but they weren’t important to him, so they wouldn’t work. I walked over to his dresser and found his collection of goth-rocker jewelry. Practically everything was black leather and spikes.

I shuffled through the spiked cuffs, wallets with various sized chains, and silver earrings, many in the shapes of daggers and fangs, but nothing called out to me. I was just going to give up and start pawing through his clothing when I saw the tiny trinket box, nearly lost among the mess. Hidden inside was a simple silver ring.

There was nothing special about it at all, no engravings, no designs, nothing, but it was obvious by the smoothed edges and slightly lopsided shape that he wore it almost every single day. It was even warm to the touch, as if part of Roane’s inner magic was hidden inside of the one metal fairies could touch. It was so much like Owen’s ring, on a string around my neck right now, that my breath caught for a moment. I swallowed past the lump in my throat and pushed those feelings down.

“Gotcha,” I whispered, dropping the ring back into the box and closing it with a snap before stashing it in my bag. I could feel my phone vibrating again as I slung my bag over my head. Situating the strap across my chest, I bent over to pick up my jacket. Digging into my bag with my free hand, I found my phone. I had just missed another call from Joey.

“If it’s important, leave a message,” I said to the now still phone before dropping it back into my bag. I took one last glance around the room, wondering briefly if I should grab one more item as a backup plan. I dismissed the thought with a shrug and turned back to the door.

“Okay,” I called out as I approached the door that was still ajar. “I’m done. Can I go now?” I stepped out of Roane’s bedroom and found myself back in the park, standing on the mound. I heard the door swinging shut behind me, but when I turned around, it disappeared before I ever heard it close.

“Guess that’s that then,” I said, shrugging my bag into a more comfortable position before heading out of the park.

Chapter 6

 “So what are you going to do?” Ronnie asked as she counted the money from the cash register. The store was in half-light as she’d already pulled the blinds and turned the open sign to close. I sat on the other side of the counter, spinning Roane’s lopsided ring on the glass countertop, my bag of spelling supplies on the floor by my feet.

“Try for the seeking spell,” I said with a shrug. “But I mean, if the Dunhallows can’t find him with all their powers, I don’t know how they expect me to do it.”

“I’m not sure they actually expect you to,” Ronnie said darkly as she stacked coins into orderly columns.

“I don’t either, really,” I said, covering the ring with my hand to stop its spin before I put it back into the trinket box. “I feel like a mouse caught by a cat that’s just batting me around until it finally gets bored and then…” I dragged my thumb across my throat and make a squelching noise.

“You still have to at least try,” Ronnie said as she wrote something in her notebook before sweeping the coins into a zippered pouch.

“Oh, I’m gonna try,” I said. “I’m just not sure how much it’ll do.”

“Give yourself more credit,” she said as she dropped the pouch into the safe under the counter before moving on to the stack of bills. I couldn’t help the pang of envy I felt at the sight of the money. If only I’d had the ability to open a shop like this when I was twenty. But I wouldn’t begrudge Ronnie her success; it was her grandmother’s shop and she only got it after the old woman had died. Not exactly the nicest way to get something, and I’m sure Ronnie would give up the shop and all the money if it meant having her grandmother back.

“I’m not saying my spells don’t work,” I said, tearing my thoughts away from the money and Ronnie’s family life. “I’m just saying there’s something a lot stronger at work here than me if two Higher Fae can’t reach their own son, their blood. You know?”

“Yeah,” Ronnie said, dropping the second zippered envelope into the safe before turning the crank that dropped the deposits into a lower level that could only be accessed by Ronnie’s secret code and thumbprint that would break the freezing spell she’d set on it.

“Do you have any leads?” Ronnie asked as she straightened up. She grabbed her purse and slung it over her shoulder before coming around to my side of the counter.

“Just one,” I said, bending over to drop the box with Roane’s ring in it inside my messenger bag. I grabbed the strap and the handles of my shopping bag, but before I could stand up straight, Owen’s ring slipped out from the collar of my shirt, swinging wide on the cord it hung from.

“What’s that?” Ronnie demanded, but her tone told me she was sure she knew what it was.

“Nothing.” I dropped my shopping bag and clutched the ring in my fist, trying to hide it as I stuffed it back into my shirt.

“Nothing my ass,” Ronnie said, her hand shooting out to grab the cord and pull the ring out of my shirt again.

“Ronnie, leave it.”

“Is that the ring you gave Owen?” Ronnie demanded, still holding on to the ring.