Chapter 22
Penny
We sat in Griselda’s coffee shop with the blinds drawn and the door locked. The Witches Brew was closed every Monday to give Gigi a much-deserved day off.
Lily worked from home every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and she’d brought her laptop so she could look busy while she was here. She was adamant that figuring all this out for me was more important than troubleshooting code.
We had a lot on our plate today, and the first question was to figure out how they had gotten my location.
I retrieved my phone from the spelled bedside table and turned it on. It went through its usual processes, and I entered my passcode. But layered over the expected wallpaper, I got a pop-up asking if I wanted to turn on the GPS for some map app instead. There was a choice to deny or accept, but before I could choose, the Accept button flashed, and the pop-up was gone.
“What the—”
“Gimme!” Lily held her hand out.
I handed her the phone.
She went into my apps list. “Did you catch the name of the…never mind. Found it. MapLocate. This isn’t a map app. Well, it is, but it’s not one you use to get around. It locates your device so you can find it if you lose it.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose.“I don’t remember downloading anything like that.”
“And you don’t remember making an account?”
“Definitely not.”
“Well, that’s your culprit.”
“But how did it get on my phone?”
“Gimme a sec.” She fiddled around with my phone a little more. “According to the downloads history, the app was installed around lunchtime on Thursday.”
That was the day of the Wedding That Wasn’t.
“Deanna!” Gigi and I exclaimed together.
“That little bitch!” Gigi continued. “During hair and makeup! She had your phone, didn’t she?”
“Yes indeedy. She grabbed it out of my hands while I was making a playlist, and it wasn’t locked.”
“I knew she was up to no good.”
Lily had never liked Deanna. Not since my cousin had gone on that voluntourism trip to India and had returned acting as if she’d single-handedly saved the entire country from starvation. Lily had zero patience for savior complex shit like that.
Gigi didn’t like Deanna either, but unlike Lily, she was able to keep her feelings to herself. Lily spoke her mind and rarely did things just because she should. She and Deanna had been this close to throwing hands on Thursday.
The funny thing was, Deanna pretended she was so worldly and well-traveled, and while her resume looked great, anyone with any real-life experience could tell she was talking out of her ass after only a short conversation. She was fake as fuck and only regurgitated the stuff she knew she was supposed to say.
The only people she fooled were others like her, who apparently made up much of the upper echelon of the business world.
I had never understood why she had such a hate-on for me, but she made a point at every family gathering to one-up me, even though I refused to play her game. It totally made sense for her to be behind all this.
One thing did not make sense, though. “I had my phone with me yesterday. I didn’t physically bring my phone with me to Delerium. I used my magic purse—” Even as I said it, I knew when it had happened. “Shit! I took the phone out to use its camera as a mirror to check my lipstick when we were in line at the entrance! That must have been long enough to ping the location.” I sighed. “How do I make it stop?”
“Oh, that’s easy. Just uninstall the app. I can do that right now if you want.”
“Sure. As much as I’d love to send her on a wild goose chase, I don’t have the energy.”
With that out of the way, we focused on the problem of the spell.
I was happy to report that, so far, I hadn’t had any more unwelcome suitors come my way. But I wasn’t sure if that was because they were all still being held by the EA or if the concealment spell had actually worked.
“What happened after I left yesterday?” I asked Gigi as we flipped through her collection of spell books.
“Well, the EA and the police both came to talk to me, since all the crazies outside had said they were there to ‘vie for a witch”s hand’, and I was the most obvious witch in the vicinity. But when they saw me, they all said I was the wrong one.”
“Isn’t the lady above the bookstore a witch, too?” Lilly asked.
“Yep. They went to her next. I might have mentioned that, to deflect their investigation. The hottie bear shifter EA agent left his card and said to call him if I needed him for anything.”
“For anything?” I asked, waggling a brow.
“I’m pretty sure that’s how he meant it, too, but I’m not going to risk it. He could just be trying to get into my house to sniff around. Maybe I’ll call him when all this blows over.”
It was already mid-afternoon when our stomachs started to complain, reminding us that we’d had nothing but coffee all day. That was also when Prax pulled into the parking lot.
“Hello, ladies. Missed me?”
Gigi and Lily rolled their eyes, but my heart skipped a beat at the sound of his voice.
“I’ve got some great news. I think I found the perfect temporary apartment. It’s a million times better than the one we saw this morning.”
Thatone had been a bust. The landlord hadn’t mentioned in the listing the smell of cat pee that permeated every inch of carpeting in the cramped little space. I noticed it the second I stepped in. The lady showing the place kept assuring me the landlord would get it cleaned up, but I couldn’t leave the place fast enough. The place had set off my allergies, too.
“I’d be happy to move in based on what I already saw, but we can go again anytime if you’d like to have a look. It’s above a pub, but Daryl, the owner, told me the soundproofing is excellent. He owns the whole building and lives on one-half of the second floor, and he did the soundproofing himself. And the kicker is we’ll have one of the Redrock brothers living just above us.”
“Redrock? As in Redrock Protective Services Redrock?” I asked.
“Yes and no. The fourth brother, Griff, isn’t part of the business. But I know him and his mate, Emily. I talked to them, and Emily said she hardly hears anything from downstairs. With that love-finder spell still in place, it might be a good idea to have someone like him as a neighbor. Daryl is ex-EA, too, so he’d be another useful guy to have around.”
“That does sound ideal,” Gigi said. “And probably a whole lot safer than my place if something like yesterday happens again. I’ve met the Redrock brothers and their mates. They come here sometimes. No one in their right mind messes with gargoyles.”
“Sounds terrific. Let’s go look. But after I eat. I’m starving.”
“Me too,” Lily said. “But, don’t hate me, our stomachs gotta wait a wee bit longer. I just got a message back from not_a_wizard, the guy on the forum with the mermaid and the harpy.”
We all crowded behind her to read the reply. According to not_a_wizard, there was a way to nullify the spell. Pretty straightforward, too: it was a simple redirection of a forget spell. He’d needed amplification since he’d cast it by himself, but the three of us together should be able to do it on our own.
There was one caveat, however. The second spell made everyone the love-finder spell had sent him forget he existed, including the sweet nymph he’d half fallen for already. The nymph had up and left without a trace, and he’d been looking for her since. All he had to go on was that she’d mentioned her home being at the foothills of a mountain, but which mountain, he had no clue.
“No.” It was Prax who spoke first. “Absolutely no way. There must be another option that doesn’t involve fucking with my memory. I refuse to forget you.”
“That’s just the spell talking,” I said, despite loving how his words made my heart skip a beat.
“No, it’s not. I like you. And I still would, even if there’d been no spell. There must be another way. Also, how does he even know his nymph made it home safely?” Prax was pacing now. “What if she forgot more than just him? What if the spell made her forget where her home was? Or her name?”
Shit. I hadn’t even thought of that. “I can keep the concealment spell on and see if that’s enough to deter the other suitors.”
I also didn’t want Prax to forget about me. I secretly hoped that the spell was right about him and he was the one.
“I agree with Prax,” Gigi said. “I think we should do some more research first before trying anything. I’ll consult my nana and see what she knows.”
“I can have a peek at the Darlington library,” I said. “I’ve been wanting to visit there anyway.”
“And I’ll keep checking the forums.” Lily closed her laptop with an air of finality. “Okay, now we can go for some noms.”