Upside Down Magic (Good Bad Magic #6)

Chapter 20

TWENTY

“ Are those the members of the coven?” I asked excitedly, taking a photo with my phone.

“ You’re the witch, you tell us,” Dorsey said. Then , after a pause, “ What coven?”

“ The old dark coven that used to operate here. This is supposedly their spellbook.”

Dorsey eyed the spellbook with new interest. “ Is it?”

“ No stealing the spellbook,” I admonished. “ You’re an air mage, remember?”

“ Sure .”

She kept looking at it, though, and I could see the gears turning as clearly as if her skull was transparent. “ No stealing, and no calling on witch friends, either. If something happens to it, Ian will know it’s you and drag you to jail.”

Dorsey let out a disgruntled sound, which I took to mean an agreement. I focused on the list of names.

“ Why would they list the names for everyone to see?” Ian asked.

“ A way to make sure everyone was full in,” I guessed.

“ To blackmail them later on,” Dorsey said.

“ And probably that.” I wiggled my eyebrows at her. “ Evil people like to do evil things.”

She sniffed and tried to look at me down her nose. “ Are we done here? I have a business to run even if yours is in shambles.”

Ian tapped one name on my phone before I could toss it aside and do something to Dorsey that would shame generations of the Oakes - Avery line. “ I know this family. They moved out of Olmeda about the time I came back.”

Which didn’t mean they hadn’t left a “gift” behind for the community to find. Maybe they’d had a beef with Bagley and now the rest of us were paying the consequences? I went down the list of names to find no mention of Leeman .

“ Can you move the pages back to a random one?” I asked Dorsey .

“ I don’t see why—” She broke off as Ian leaned in and pinned her with a cold, hard stare. “ Fine , fine. Lord , what a pair you two are.”

The pages moved again, less springily this time, until the book lay open on some drawings of different herbs and a few explanations in English about their properties. I read through them quickly, but there were no mentions of uses for evil.

“ This will do,” I agreed.

“ Gee , thanks,” Dorsey muttered. “ You better give me to someone good for Secret Santa after all this.”

“ That’s not how Secret Santa works, Ms . Dorsey . It’s random.”

“ Random my ass,” she said under her breath.

I chose to ignore that and we went back to the bed and breakfast in Ian’s SUV . Current happenings might have me on edge, but I wasn’t soulless enough to make her walk all the way back after spending a big chunk of her magic.

Back in the bed and breakfast, Dorsey took her seat behind the reception counter while we beelined up to Lilian’s room. I had no doubt the moment we were out of sight, Dorsey would follow to try to listen in our conversation.

If she hadn’t done us a solid with her magic, I would’ve considered leaving a warning ward on the door. Nothing terrible, of course, maybe a tiny zap of magic, or turning her ear blue, or giving her hives.

“ Don’t let the evil forces surrounding you drag you down to their level.”

“ Thinking of hexing Dorsey ?” Ian asked knowingly.

“ Grandma would not approve.”

“ Sometimes , we need to be our own person.”

“ Ian Cavalier ,” I said with mock censure, “are you proposing I turn into a mean girl?”

He barked a laugh. “ Alchemy that powerful doesn’t exist.”

My answering smile was so wide it threatened to split my face in two, and I was tempted to have my way with the man right there in the hallway. Reluctantly , I knocked on Lilian’s door.

Spells to fix, Shane and Brimstone to help . The reminder was like a bucket of ice, and all my focus snapped instantly to the problem at hand. No time to flirt with Ian . I could do that later when people’s magic wasn’t at stake.

Lilian opened the door and ushered us in.

“ About time. What did you find?” she asked as we took the same positions as before—me on the sofa, Ian looming by the wall.

“ We found the original coven’s spellbook.” I showed her the list of names. “ Ring any bells?”

She studied the names then shook her head. “ I don’t know any of them.”

Meaning , wherever the families were, they hadn’t attained a coveted spot in the high echelons of witchy hierarchy.

“ Anything else?” she asked.

My shoulders slumped. Finding the spellbook and the names had seemed like a huge win at the time, but the truth was we were no closer to fixing the underlying issues. “ Nothing else.”

“ The paranormals affected?”

“ Still the same,” Ian answered.

Or Shane was, at least. I felt a pang of guilt that I hadn’t checked on Brimstone too.

“ That’s good.”

“ And you?” I asked. “ Any changes?”

She touched the glass surface of the coffee table and sparks flew at the contact point. “ Also same.”

“ Did your tests reveal anything?” Ian asked because I was too busy wincing in empathy. Having your power turn on you like that was beyond sucky.

“ As a matter of fact,” Lilian said with satisfaction, “they have.”

I leaned forward eagerly. “ They have? Do you know how to fix things?”

“ I might.”

The desire to clap and thrust my fists into the air was so overpowering I went ahead and did it. “ Yes !”

“ It won’t matter, though, unless we find the source,” she said dryly. “ It might just happen again and again.”

Lowering my arms, I reminded myself I was supposed to be a professional. “ We already know it’s something to do with my shop. Using a neutralizing spell there should take care of it.”

“ That was my thought as well. However , if whoever did the spell is still around, they could simply do it again.”

“ Doesn’t a spell this powerful require a lot of power?” Ian asked.

“ It would, yes,” Lilian said. “ I believe once we neutralize the spell, it will give us plenty of time to figure out who and how they did the spell before they attempt it again—if they don’t decide to simply cut their losses. However , it’s important we figure out the source, in case they decide to do it again.”

As long as my friends were returned to normal and my shop stopped being a hazardous zone, I was fine with devoting every hour to running down all our suspects and leads. “ I’m on board with that. Did you devise a potion or spell to neutralize the magic?”

“ A potion. It should cleanse the shop and fix everyone’s symptoms.”

“ But ?” Ian asked.

“ But we’ll need a powerful witch to perform it.”

Meaning it was beyond my capabilities. “ Someone from Montel ?”

Lilian slammed that possibility right into the wall with a sharp wave of her hand. “ Nobody in Montel has the kind of power we need either.”

It made sense. The spell affecting Shane , Brimstone , and Lilian was obviously incredibly powerful and complex. It’d take someone of Lilian’s power to counteract it, since Lilian couldn’t herself. As lovely as Montel was, witches of that caliber usually lived the good life in the big cities.

“ Who should we use then?”

“ A friend of mine. I’ve already contacted her and she agreed to come. She’ll be arriving in the morning.”

A thread of unease snaked down my spine. A high-ranking, powerful witch who was friends with Lilian Valenti … I almost dreaded asking. “ Who ?”

Lilian smiled coolly, as if she was about to mention a superstar’s name. “ Tammy Summers .”

The witch I’d interned under, who had taught me nothing except how she liked her coffee.