CHAPTER 18 #2
I set my tea down. “I, er, want to know more about this, but I’m bursting for the toilet. Shouldn’t have drunk two coffees before coming.” This, fortunately, was not a lie.
“Ah, it’s the door just past the staircase. Shall I call on Lionel to show you?”
Lionel must have been the butler. Did butlers get assigned names that sounded appropriate for butlers or was that a happy accident?
“I’m sure I can manage. Be right back.”
I hurried out, hoping he couldn’t sense my blood pressure rising.
Making my way back to the foyer, I saw the door he’d indicated, but went up the stairs instead, hoping Lionel wasn’t lurking anywhere.
On the landing, I made my way down the hall to the third door, where I abruptly felt a hand on my elbow.
I’m here.
From my tithe belt, I withdrew the maple seeds and rat’s teeth to cast an unlock charm, praying the door wasn’t enchanted to resist such spells.
The bolt clicked open. I let out a breath of relief as the knob quietly turned in Kessian’s invisible hand.
The door swung inward to an austere office, diplomas on the walls, a shelf of rugby trophies.
Most witches had studies crammed with books.
A series of filing cabinets lined the wall, all locked. Each and every one.
We didn’t have time to muddle around looking for a key. I strained the limits of my magic, shattering the teeth and using the smallest amount of each tithe possible.
Then I noticed something dark and shiny under the desk. A safe.
I only had one maple seed and a shard of tooth left. I knew as I pressed it against the dial it wouldn’t be enough. The safe’s door didn’t budge.
Self-derision was one of my greater talents, and I wasted no time in berating myself for not checking here sooner. If anything truly valuable to this investigation existed, it would no doubt be in that safe.
We’d have to return for it. Somehow. Or so I believed, until a soft touch at my wrist drew me back.
I couldn’t see Kessian, but I felt something stirring around him.
It was hard to call it magic, though it could be nothing else.
Still, it was no magic like mine. Nor like any other witch’s.
It murmured like a river, made the air damp and cold.
Kessian started turning the dial on the safe. This way, then that, moving it as if guided by intuition alone.
It clicked open.
How did you know? I asked, but Kessian didn’t answer me, and a different sound raised the hair on my arms. So quiet, I might have missed it if we hadn’t been so eerily silent in an effort to go unnoticed.
The flutter of wing beats. Warwick’s familiar had come looking for me.
I couldn’t risk leaving. It would see me, report back on where I’d been. Any second it might fly through the door to investigate why it was open.
I crawled under the desk, the only place I could hide. I didn’t know if Kessian had heard it, but a moment later, the throaty chirp of an osprey made its way to my ear, followed by the soft click of its talons hopping across the desk. Right above my head.
I clamped my eyes shut, as if it couldn’t see me if I couldn’t see it.
I’d never been the sort to break the rules or take risks.
I had once accidentally stolen a bottle of water.
It was in my hand rather than my basket while I did the shopping, and I forgot to scan it at self-checkout.
I’d returned to pay for it as soon as I’d realized what I’d done.
The risk now was far more immense, because I was about to be caught red-handed snooping in the office of a man who might have murdered my grandad. The familiar would no doubt hear me hyperventilating any moment n—
I felt something—someone—bump my knees, grasp my jaw, then warm, soft lips pressed against my own.
My body recognized the kiss before my mind could register what was happening, but it caught up with the slide of a tongue against mine, tasting tart and vaguely floral.
My eyes were already closed. I was tempted to keep them that way.
Perhaps this was one of those shared dreams with Kessian. It certainly felt that way.
The kiss broke. I opened my eyes to see Kessian, crammed under the desk with me, the osprey flitting on the windowsill, visible to us but somehow not the other way around.
“Sorry. It was the only way I could think to stop you getting caught,” Kessian said.
The invisibility potion. He’d hoped enough trace of it remained on his tongue to make me invisible and silent, too.
Such a trace amount wouldn’t last long. I had to rush downstairs if I hoped to avoid the effects wearing off. I would have to ask how he’d known the numbers to the safe later.
“You’re brilliant. I hope you know that,” I said.
Then, overwhelmed with gratitude, I took his face in my hands and kissed him, hard but brief.
I didn’t think about it. Relief and gratitude overcame my impulse control.
For all that it lasted a second, it still blazed through me, because God, I’d wanted to do this nearly every moment since he’d offered a round two.
Shock was plain in his eyes when I pulled back.
The electric taste of his strange magic tingled on my lips as I fled the office, taking the stairs down two at a time.
I went to the toilet where I was meant to be and waited for the spell to dissipate. It didn’t take long. I splashed some water on my face to cool the color in my cheeks, washed up, and returned to the conservatory.
The osprey hadn’t come back yet. Warwick said, “Are you feeling all right?”
“Yeah, er, bad stomach. Everything to do with the wraith makes me anxious.” I couldn’t tell if he believed me. I pressed on. “I wanted to ask you, what happened to my grandpa’s research on the trap?”
“Oh, I still have it.”
A flicker of alarm went through me. Because you took it from his study before burning down the rest, or because he gave it to you? “Can I see it?”
“Of course. Though, I do have a small favor to ask before I do.”
I supposed this was how rich people got rich. They never did anything for free. If Grandpa had left me the research rather than the house, I wouldn’t have to barter with a possible murderer, but he probably hadn’t thought he’d die before the research was complete.
“What would you need from me?”
“As the Keeper, your connection to the strid is quite powerful. I admired your grandfather, I did, but by the end his relationship with the strid was strained, to say the least. Understandably so! He lost two family members to it. I imagine your feelings are no less complicated. But, and I’m sure you’ve guessed as much by now, the magic of the strid is waning once more. ”
I blinked. I hadn’t guessed as much. It seemed perfectly capable of sharing its visions when I’d swam in it and when I lay my head down to dream. I didn’t say as much.
“The magic has been particularly scarce since a young man started harnessing the powers himself. The spring’s magic ought to be shared.
I hesitate to say this—I do not want to sound as though I’m blaming Edwin, after all—but to repair the strid, I believe you will need to find a way to …
forgive it. Work with it, rather than against it. ”
This conversation required a more delicate touch than I was capable of.
How could I reveal that I knew the strid needed cleansing, and that someone had poisoned it, without letting him know I suspected his involvement?
I didn’t want to discuss Kessian, either, in case my expression gave away that he was currently snooping through Warwick’s safe.
I edged around the topic. “I made a trip to Coill Darragh, where the forest is a source of wild magic, too. It told me I need to cleanse the strid, that it’d been poisoned.
Maybe the wraith is a manifestation of the poison.
If so, my grandfather’s research could help.
If I could trap it, find a way to communicate with it—”
Warwick dismissed the theory with a wave of his hand. “I don’t think it can be reasoned with, and I know you’re a man who likes to get to the point, so rather than dissemble further, let me be plain.”
His osprey familiar flitted into the room, landing on his shoulder and hissing in his ear. I tensed. Warwick met my eyes.
“Why don’t you call out your accomplice, and we’ll have ourselves a proper, honest chat?”