9. CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER NINE
Omaera
“We need to get you into hiding,” Drak said again, following me back downstairs. “You’re not going off to find whoever did this and kill them. That is reckless and irresponsible. Particularly since you are the Queen.”
I glared at the vampire, who’d yet to show me that the smile muscles in his face even worked.
I knew all about resting bitch face, but this Nosferatu-wannabe was taking the sourpuss look to a whole other level.
I couldn’t even be bothered to respond. I was too . . . devastated, enraged, broken and confused to even begin to pick a fight with him. I’d probably kill him if I did, and I’d already killed one vampire in the last twenty-four hours. I didn’t need to make a habit of it.
I spun around at the bottom of the stairs and faced Kase. “Is part of the necromancer package that you also take care of the body in a respectable and caring way?”
“Pack—” He glanced at Maxar who lifted both brows high and nodded. So Kase nodded as well. “Yes. Yes, of course. It’s all part of the necromancer package . We see their last moments and do the body moving. Um . . . what would you like me to do with your aunt? ”
Well, now that was a loaded question. I’m sure she had a will somewhere. Or actually, if she was a human—like I thought she was until a few minutes ago—then I’m sure she would have had a will. Now that I knew she was a spellcaster mage, I didn’t know what to think or assume. Maybe she had nothing filed away for the afterlife because she didn’t think she’d ever have an afterlife.
How old was she?
Kase said he was nine hundred and fifty-six.
“What do you do with mage bodies?” I addressed Maxar.
“That’s usually up to the family. Besides you, did Delia have any family?”
Another loaded question. If she did, I was never introduced to anyone. But again, if these people were immortal, she probably had relatives out there that I’d never met. Did they have a claim to her body?
“I don’t know,” I whispered, chewing on the side of my thumb. “I . . . don’t know anything about her anymore.”
“I have a small space in my basement where I can keep her safe until you decide,” Kase said. He turned to Zandren. “I will need help removing the body from upstairs though. If you’d be so kind.”
Zandren glanced at me. He’d been the big, burly boon of comfort I didn’t know I needed until I sorely needed it. And he smelled really good. Like . . . cedar and honey. He really was Pooh Bear—but with abs. So. Many. Abs.
“The meeting with the High Council is soon,” Drak said, his phone clutched in his pale hand. “We should go.”
“I have other more important things to deal with right now,” I said, glaring at him. “Tell the Council that the Queen will not be in attendance.”
“I do not advise this,” he said through, what sounded like, gritted teeth. “They are the other leaders and will feel quite slighted if you snub the first official meeting.”
My eyes flared and heat raced up my neck and into my face. “You do not advise it? They will feel slighted ? Guess.”
His brows furrowed, and he looked at the other three men in the room before turning back to me. “Guess?”
“Yeah. Guess. ”
“Guess . . . what?”
“How many fucks I give about whether or not the other leaders feel slighted.” My closed-mouth smile was forced and full of disdain. “I’ll give you a hint. It rhymes with hero.”
Drak cleared his throat and glanced away.
Maxar smirked and snorted.
Zandren’s brows hiked up to his hairline, and Kase was looking anywhere but at me or Drak.
“My aunt, the only person on the planet—besides Gemma—who has ever given a real damn about me, is dead,” I went on. “Murdered. I’m not snubbing their meet and greet. I am dealing with my grief and figuring out who killed her. And furthermore, Drak— by the way, could that name be any more on the nose? Drak. Dracula. Seriously? Ugh—I was never consulted about whether or not today even worked for me. I was told that there would be a meeting. When last time I checked, I’m the fucking Queen. I rule this roost of a goddamned realm—until I can figure out a way to abdicate—and I will fucking tell them when and where the meeting will be. Got it? So go back to your vampire king and tell him I’m busy.” Then I spun around and stomped off to the kitchen before I turned his brains into a poached egg.
I paced the kitchen, desperately trying to engage in some deep box breathing.
That didn’t work.
Next, I tried the whole “three things calming technique”.
Three things that I could see. Okay, I could see my aunt’s favorite china teacup with the pansies on it, sitting in the drying rack in the sink. I could see the yellow, potted ranunculus on her kitchen table perfectly trapped in a ray of sunshine bursting through her kitchen window. And I could see an old and batter-splattered picture of Aunt Delia and me dressed up like maidens at the Renaissance Fair, stuck to her fridge by a flower magnet. I’d been about fourteen at the time, and she hand-made both of our dresses. We went all out with our hair and outfits and it’d been one of the most wonderful and fun-filled days of my life. Emotion choked me and I gripped the counter to keep things in check.
Okay, three things I could see weren’t enough. I still wanted to kill Drak. I still wanted to scream, and my pulse raced like I’d just sprinted up a mountain.
I needed to keep going.
Three things that I could touch.
I ran my hand over Delia’s old, nearly see-through tea towel hanging over the oven handle. The towel with the chickens and pigs on it. I’d bought it for her one year for Christmas. I was probably no more than nine. I didn’t have a lot of money when I went shopping, but I did want to get her something. So I bought her a new tea towel. She said she loved it and that it was her favorite. It probably didn’t dry so much as a spoon anymore. It was so threadbare, but she refused to part with it or turn it into a rag.
Next, I ran the pad of a finger back and forth a few times over the bumpy and misshapen spoon rest in the middle of the stove. It was green and pink, and supposed to look like a lily pad and flower. I made it in eighth grade art class. It wasn’t very good, but I gave it to her for Mother’s Day and she once again said it was her favorite. And finally, I stroked the top of the bamboo cutting board she loved to use. I watched her for hours mincing herbs from her garden, or stripping them from their stems and letting them dry. There were thousands of deep, and shallow, slice marks that crisscrossed the wood grain. If I focused hard enough, I could even hear the rhythmic back and forth rocking motion of her ulu knife against the board.
A hot tear slid down my cheek.
And lastly, three things that I could smell. Sometimes I chose to find three things I could hear, but the fact that I could hear Kase and Zandren moving my aunt’s body wasn’t something I wanted to focus on right now.
I took a deep breath and held it for a moment.
Aunt Delia’s house always smelled of lavender. She said it calmed her and it reminded her of when she grew up. Apparently, her grandparents used to run a lavender farm. That was probably all I’d ever heard her speak of her family. Or at least that was all I could remember.
Another deep inhale, and this time I pulled in the smell of lemon.
I smiled at the lemon balm herb growing happily in a pot on her bright windowsill behind the sink .
I broke off a leaf and brought it up to my nose, inhaling deeper than ever.
Aunt Delia always made the most delicious-smelling soaps, shampoos, and creams. And she put lemon balm in her salads too.
One last inhale . . .
But I couldn’t do it.
I couldn’t breathe. In or out.
I . . . I was choking. My throat seized, and I gripped it.
What . . . what was going on?
I stomped my foot loudly as panic flooded my mind.
I was going to die.
My aunt was just killed, and now it was my turn. Whoever killed her was lying in wait for me. They set a trap. Or they were still here and casting some kind of spell to suffocate me.
My eyes darted around the room in search of . . . something.
I grabbed the teacup in the drying rack and tossed it to the ground so it smashed.
Drak and Maxar raced in, their eyes wide.
“What’s the matter?” Maxar asked.
I gripped my throat and pointed.
“She’s choking,” Drak said. “What did you eat?”
I shook my head.
“You can’t breathe?” Maxar asked.
I nodded.
Black spots clouded my vision. I was running out of oxygen. I was going to pass out soon. Then, I was going to die.
“You need to relax,” Drak said calmly. Too calmly. “Demons can only be killed by beheading. Even if you black out, you’re not going to die. I think you’ve stumbled upon a spell and it’s been activated.”
A spell?
One of Delia’s spells?
Why would she cast a spell in her own home?
What did I touch that activated it ?
“You’re going to pass out pretty soon. Then the spell should run its course,” Drak said.
I shook my head. Why should I believe him? I was dying. This was it.
Their faces grew fuzzy and my lungs burned.
Who knew I had this much oxygen in my lungs? Then again, I did pull in a pretty deep breath in an effort to calm down. So much for that technique. I’ll never inhale deeply again.
You’re right. You won’t, because you’re dying .
“You need to trust me, Omaera,” Drak said.
I swayed. I was going to black out now, and the ground looked very close.
“Whoa, whoa. I’ve gotcha,” Maxar said, swooping in and catching me just as my eyes closed, the world faded, and I nearly face planted on the vinyl floor.
“And you didn’t detect the spell when you checked out the kitchen?” Drak asked with a stern, accusatory voice. At least, I think it was Drak. I still preferred to call them the vampire, bear, and mage, but using their names just seemed easier. I didn’t like that it added a sense of familiarity among us though.
None of this was permanent. None of this was eternal .
My eyes were still closed, but I was breathing.
Thank god.
I was on a familiar couch with a familiar smell. Linen, lavender, and . . . cedar?
“I didn’t feel any spells in the kitchen,” Maxar protested. “I’m not that kind of a mage. I can’t intuit all spells. She was a spellcaster, way more powerful than me. She could have blocked her spell with another spell. Why she cast a spell in her kitchen that would suffocate someone? I don’t fucking know. But don’t come down on me just because I couldn’t sense it.”
A big hand stroked my hair. “You’re awake. ”
I opened my eyes to find the man that smelled like cedar and honey stroking my hair and smiling down at me with concern in his chocolate-colored eyes.
“What happened?”
“Your aunt cast a spell, you triggered it, and it tried to kill you. But because you’re a demon, it didn’t. You just passed out. The spell ended because it thought you died. And now you’re fine again.”
I smiled in spite of it all because he was just so matter of fact. I knew I’d always get honesty from this man, no matter what. Even if that honesty hurt.
“Where is her body?”
His full lips pursed for a moment before he gently said, “I helped Kase load her into his vehicle. He will take care of her.”
My heart hurt. “You trust him?”
“I do not know him. But I hope I can trust him. You are the Queen. He knows better than to do something stupid.”
“Are you always this . . . honest and straightforward?”
He still stroked my hair. “I am who I am. This is me. I will never lie to you, Omaera. And I don’t believe in beating around the bush. Facts are best.”
“Facts are best.” I made to sit up, and he helped me. “What do you do for work?”
His smile was boyish and sweet. “I don’t really have to work. I’ve been alive so long, my investments and the money I made over the centuries are enough. But I used to be a carpenter. A very good one. I still build things when I want to. If you ever want me to build you something, I will.”
Why did an offer like that make my heart swell with joy so much? Nobody had ever offered to build me something before. I reached for his big hand and placed my palm on his. The difference in size was laughable. His fingertips and the heel of his hand were rough and calloused, but I didn’t mind.
“Your hands are so small,” he said. “How do you even catch a fish?”
That made me laugh out loud. “Well, I’ve never been fishing. But if I did, I’d probably use a fishing pole.”
He nodded. “Okay, that makes sense. But I’d like to take you to the river and teach you to catch one with your hands . . . or mouth, one day. ”
I gaped at him. “My mouth?”
He nodded again. “During spawning season, it’s easy. The fish are jumping up stream, they literally just jump right into your mouth. It’s like gumdrops falling from the sky . . . but not gumdrops and not the sky.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
He smiled. “I’m okay with that when it makes you smile.”
My brows bunched. “Wait, does this mean I’ll turn into a shifter if we mate?”
He lifted a bulky shoulder. “Maybe?”
“That’d be weird.”
“I’d love it.”
I smirked and snorted.
Drak and Maxar heard us talking and joined us from where they were arguing in the hallway.
“You’re awake,” Maxar said, coming over to stand in front of me with relief in his eyes. “Are you okay?”
I swallowed a few times, took some nice big inhales, then bobbed my head. “Everything seems to be working again.”
Drak was in the doorway to the living room. “The Council has agreed to move the meeting to tomorrow.”
I glared at him. “Oh, have they now? How courteous of them. Considering I nearly died. And my aunt did die. Thank them for their immense and overwhelming generosity, Drak .”
His gaze was level. “You didn’t almost die. Demons can only die via beheading.”
I growled at him and stood up. “Why did my aunt cast that spell?” I headed back to the kitchen.
“I wouldn’t go back in there,” Maxar said, following me. They all followed me. “She might have the place booby trapped with spells.”
“But why ?” I asked, returning to the exact spot of the crime and when I started to choke. “I was standing right here. Trying to calm down. I did the ‘three things I could see, three things I could touch, and three things I could smell.’ I was going to do the ‘three things I could hear,’ but one of those things was you guys hauling away my aunt’s body. So I went with smell. I picked off a leaf of lemon balm here and smelled it. Then I took in another deep inhale and that’s when I started to choke.”
Maxar joined me in front of the sink. “Do you think there’s something here somewhere that your aunt wanted to hide?”
“From me?”
“From someone who would try to hurt you? Maybe she made contingencies. There are spells mages can cast that are activated when they die, in order to protect things that they’ve been entrusted to keep safe.”
“So then, maybe I didn’t trigger the spell. Maybe one of you did. Zandren, you, and Kase were moving Delia’s body. Maxar what were you doing?”
“I was outside looking for clues around the house. All I found were more footprints in the mud around back. I still think Zandren should go sniff around there to see what he can smell.”
“Drak?” I asked, facing him. “What were you doing?”
“I was on the phone with the King. On the porch.”
I frowned. “Well, neither of you were hit with the spell, nor did anything weird. So it had to be me. But all I did was pick the lemon balm and smell it. I also touched the cutting board and her tea towel.”
I shook my head. This didn’t make any sense.
What was she trying to protect?
I turned to Maxar. “What other kinds of mages are there? Is there a mage that can come here and figure out all the spells that are still active or idle in the house? If Delia is protecting something, I want to know.”
Maxar nodded slowly. “Another spellcaster, most likely.” He pulled out his phone. “I’ll call Kase and see if he knows anybody in town that could come by.”
“I also want to go to that Fiddleman’s Apothecary. It’s probably a mage that runs that, right? Maybe even a spellcaster mage?”
Slowly, Maxar and Drak both nodded.
Why were they looking at me like that?
Maxar was about to put his phone to his ear, but I stopped him. “I want to know all the different kinds of mages. All of them.”
His brows narrowed, but he nodded, put the phone to his ear and stepped out into the hallway.
“What is your plan?” Zandren asked.
“I don’t quite know yet,” I said. “But I can feel something working itself out. Delia is hiding and protecting something.” Then my eyes flew open wide, and I faced Drak. “Where exactly was Delia’s body when I tossed that cup to the floor and it shattered?”
“They were loading her into Kase’s vehicle. Why?”
“Because now I’m wondering if her body leaving her house was what triggered the spell. And none of you were in the house when that happened. Then when I threw the cup on the ground, Maxar was back on the porch, right?”
Drak nodded. “And we came right in to you.”
“So had you been in here, maybe you’d have been hit with the spell too. So it wasn’t that I did something specifically, it was that her dead body was removed from the house. A shield spell of some kind came down over the house and whoever was in it was supposed to suffocate.” My mind whirred with ideas, and my heart galloped as each one of those ideas started to make sense and fall into place.
I didn’t want to get my hopes up too much, because we hadn’t even scratched the surface of what Delia was hiding or why. But, at least I was pretty certain that the spell trigger wasn’t me picking at a piece of lemon balm.
Maxar returned. “Kase said that Monjol Fiddleman is a spellcaster.”
Hope filled my chest. “Then we need to go see him. Right now.” I headed to the front door. “Drak, you stay here until we get back.”
“No,” he said, with just the slightest hint of desperation in his tone that it made me pause. No, I had to be making that up. He wasn’t desperate. He was cooler than a frozen cucumber. “I’m coming with you.”
“Why? We don’t need all four of us there. And Maxar speaks mage, and Zandren looks like he needs another meal.”
“I do,” Zandren nodded. “I’m hungry.”
“You do know most mages speak English, right?” Maxar said, probably to me, but I wasn’t really paying attention .
“See?” I addressed Drak. “You stay here. Guard the place. Bark if anybody tries to steal the newspaper.”
“I’m not staying here,” he said.
I rolled my eyes and growled which made him wince so I tempered my voice and took a deep breath to calm my quick temper. “I figured when someone nearly dies, and they find their aunt murdered on her carpet, that people are generally nicer to them. Help them. Do as they ask. Or is that just humans? Vampires don’t give a shit about someone’s loved one dying.”
His nostrils flared. “I’m coming. And you didn’t nearly die. Demons can only die—”
“By beheading. Yeah, I know. You’ve said.” This . . . man, or whatever he was, was infuriating. But as much as I disliked him, I also didn’t want to be responsible for sauteing his brain. So I just said, “whatever”, locked the door, and headed down the stairs. “How far is Fiddleman’s?” I asked, directing my question to Maxar and actively ignoring Drak.
“Only a couple of blocks,” he said, catching up to me and Zandren. “We shouldn’t have to take the subway or bus. We can just walk, right?”
I smirked at him. “Yeah, we can just walk.”
He dramatically placed the back of his hand over his forehead like some fainting damsel. “Phew.”
We arrived at the unassuming little store sandwiched between a sandwich shop and a barbershop. Fiddleman’s Apothecary and Herbs.
“I’m going to grab a quick sandwich,” Zandren said, ducking into the sandwich shop before I heaved open the door to Fiddleman’s, causing the jingle of a sweet-sounding bell.
A dark-skinned man with short, curly black hair and bright blue-gray eyes came out from a storage room to the side. “Hello folks, and how can I help you three today?” He sniffed the air slightly and smiled. “Quite an unlikely trio, I might add.”
“You will bow and apologize to your Queen,” Drak said with an angry edge of authority to his voice.
The man behind the counter gawked at him. His eyes went wide, then he swiveled his attention to me. “I . . . I’m . . . My apologies. Y-Your Majesty?”
I glared at Drak. “No. Please don’t do that. He’s being an ass.” I shot Drak another look. “Go sit in the corner. You’re being a bully.”
He didn’t move.
I deepened my stare. Then bared my teeth and hissed at him. “Go.”
He winced again because my anger was hurting his head. This time I didn’t feel too terrible about it. He was such a rude dick, someone needed to keep him accountable and put him in his place. I held his gaze until he heaved a sigh, nodded and finally sulked off.
“I apologize Mr. . . . Fiddleman, I presume?”
He nodded. “Monjol Fiddleman. And I’m so sorry, Your Majesty. But may I ask . . . what are you the queen of?”
I exhaled. “You know my aunt. Delia Refera?”
He nodded. “Your aunt?” Then his eyes widened and his face lit up. “Omaera?”
I forced a smile, though fresh thoughts of my aunt brought me back to reality like a harsh, wet slap to the face. I swallowed past the hard, spikey lump in my throat. “Yes. It would seem . . .” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “It would seem I am some secret lovechild of King Donovar and my mother, Elena Playfair. Elena died when I was an infant, but Donovar was just killed. When he died, I became Queen of well . . . the Realm, I guess? It’s been like less than forty-eight hours, so I’m still processing.”
I wasn’t sure the man was breathing. He just gaped at me with an open mouth and wide eyes. “All I know is that Delia has a niece she adores. She speaks of you often. You make her so proud.”
“She was murdered,” I said abruptly, ripping off the news like a Band-Aid.
Mr. Fiddleman gasped. “No. Not Delia.”
“By demons.”
He covered his hand with his mouth. “Oh. Oh no, no, no. This . . . this can’t be. I just saw her yesterday.”
And I wish I’d seen her yesterday. Maybe I could have prevented this from happening .
I should have gone to her right away after I was struck by lightning. But she wasn’t even home. She was away on a trip, and only just arrived home yesterday. I wanted to give her time to unpack and get back to normal.
Now, I wish I’d just come over anyway. And definitely when I felt the need to go to her last night. She taught me to always listen to my gut. And last night my gut told me to go to her.
I’d never not listen to my gut again.
Because if I told her what happened, she could have come clean about being a mage and maybe accompanied me home. We could have protected her.
I took a deep breath, shoved down my grief, and did the best I could to suppress my anger—for now. “Mr. Fiddleman, my aunt cast spells all over her house as contingencies for if something happened to her. I activated one today, or we all did, and it suffocated me. We need you to come to her house and see if there are any other spells. She’s hiding something. Protecting something. And I need to know what it is. I need to know why as soon as my father was killed and I got his power, my aunt was then hunted down and killed. Kase Blackwood came and we know that two men entered Delia’s home, both demons. They beat her and then fried her brain. They also took the most recent photo of me. So we assume they’re coming after me next.”
The bell chimed at the front door and Zandren ambled in, a foot-long sandwich in his hand and another one tucked under his arm. “I got you one since you haven’t eaten anything today.” He smiled at me as he took a bite of his own sub.
Blinking, and still trying to make sense of everything he heard, Mr. Fiddleman nodded. “Y-yes, of course.” Then he paused. “Who are these three men? If I might ask. Bodyguards?”
“Something like that,” I said blandly.
“We’re her Fated Mates and she refuses to mate any of us,” Drak said from his spot in the corner. “Even though it will help her get control of her powers.”
I glared at him. “Quiet in the corner or I’ll give you a dunce cap next.”
Mr. Fiddleman grabbed his coat and keys and followed us to the door, where he locked up. He kept shaking his head. “I’m just . . . I’m so torn up about Delia. This is just the most tragic news.”
“Do you know if she has any other family?” I asked. “I feel so stupid. This woman raised me since I was two-weeks-old and yet I know nothing about her.”
Mr. Fiddleman shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t know.”
I shrugged. “I understand.”
“You should eat something,” Zandren said, handing me the second sandwich he bought. “I wasn’t sure what you wanted. So I hope the honey-garlic chicken breast is okay?”
I glanced at him behind me. He was such a paradox.
Anybody who saw him would immediately assume he was a killing machine. Because he probably was. He could probably tear a person in half with his bare hands. While in human form too. And in bear form, I’m sure he could do even worse. And yet, he’d shown me such softness and caring. The genuine concern in his eyes over the fact that I hadn’t eaten yet, eased the ache of my tender, tattered heart.
“Just half, please,” I said, my belly grumbling. I never ate breakfast. I always waited until at least noon to eat. Sometimes later, like two in the afternoon, if I wasn’t hungry at lunchtime.
He nodded, opened up the wrapper for the honey-garlic chicken and handed me a six-inch sandwich. I took a bite as we walked.
“Is it okay?” he asked.
I nodded and looked at him over my shoulder. “It is, thank you.”
The relief and genuine happiness that creased his face tugged hard on my heart strings.
We reached my aunt’s house in no time and Maxar opened the gate for us to all step through onto the stone walkway.
All of us walked through except Mr. Fiddleman. The hair on the back of my neck lifted, and I paused just before the bottom step.
“What is it?” Maxar asked.
“This house has more spells on it than anywhere I’ve ever been,” he said, in awe, fear, and . . . sadness. He turned to me. “You say she’s been your guardian since you were a child? ”
“Since I was two weeks old. That’s when my mother died. I don’t really know how Delia and I are related though. I assume she’s like a great aunt or something. So that means my mom was probably a mage too? Or a demon?”
He still hadn’t walked through the gate, but rather stared up at the top floor of the house and the small widow’s walk coming off the primary bedroom.
Did he see something we couldn’t?
“Powerful magic is at play here,” he said. “More powerful than me.” His cheeks ruddied a little, though it was tough to see from his dark complexion. “I knew she was a spellcaster mage. I just had no idea how powerful. I . . . feel stupid not knowing. Not getting to know her better when I had the chance.”
“Did your aunt have a mate?” Maxar added.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. Since I’ve known her, she’s never had a . . . lover. But maybe? If she was centuries old, perhaps she did, and he died?”
Mr. Fiddleman nodded. “Yes. She did have a mate. He died in the war between vampires and shifters some hundred and twenty years ago.”
A noise rumbled deep and foreboding in Zandren’s chest behind me, and I turned to see him glaring death and destruction at Drak. “You mean when vampires broke the code and went after cubs?” he growled.
Mr. Fiddleman nodded. “Yes. He was a psychic mage, and he saw the war coming. But he also saw the good that would come of it. The peace that the new leaders would bring. He was executed for not warning the shifters about what would happen.”
Zandren growled even deeper. “He could have. He could have said something and we still would have won the war.”
I glanced at Drak, who was staring at the ground, a deep red stain on his cheeks.
“What happens when a mate dies?” I asked.
“The grieving period is long. Painful. But you can get through it.” The sadness in his eyes said he wasn’t just recounting something he’d read or witnessed. He’d been through it personally. The heavy bob of his throat and the way his mouth remained in a deep frown made my chest ache. Did he love Delia? Did she love him back? Was he grieving more than just the death of a friend and loyal customer? But rather, the death of a woman he’d fallen for, but for whatever reason, couldn’t bring himself to admit it to her?
I’d never been a romantic or a bleeding heart, but the idea of Delia and Mr. Fiddleman going through the rest of their lives without a mate, without love or companionship, caused the ache in my chest to get so strong I had to reach out with my free hand and hold on to the post at the bottom of the stair railing.
“Will you be able to tell us what spells are here and how we can either break them or trigger them so that way they can run their course?”
He nodded slowly. “I can try.”
Finally, he released his grip on the gate and stepped forward onto the stepping-stone path, following us up the stairs to the porch.
Maxar had explained my theory regarding the triggering of the first spell that suffocated me. Mr. Fiddleman nodded and agreed that it was plausible, and I was probably right.
We allowed him to enter the house first, since he could clearly see and sense things that the rest of us couldn’t.
He entered the study and walked over to the desk my aunt spent hours at in the evenings, recording everything she’d done that day in her journal. Most of it was in reference to the different tinctures, salves, and balms she made with her herbs. Which ones worked, which ones didn’t. She also recorded some of her recipes—which now that I think of it, were probably potions—and had a running list of all the plants in her garden.
When one leatherbound book was finished, she stored it on the bookshelf, then started another one. The wall of shelves was full of these books. And she always went in the same color pattern. Green, blue, red, brown, black. Always. Every book was dated from when she started it, to the date of the last entry. She could find a recipe in no time due to her impeccable organization and cataloging skills.
Mr. Fiddleman pulled open the top drawer of her desk, waved his hand, muttered some other language under his breath, and a big puff of pink smoke burst from the drawer.
It filled the room, and we all coughed. Maxar ran to the window and opened it, while Zandren headed to the door and began to waft it open and closed.
My mouth filled with the disgusting taste of . . . blood?
“What the hell was that?” I asked, gagging a little.
Drak, seemed entirely unaffected. He probably liked the taste, the freak.
Maxar made a similar face to mine, and Zandren showed very little disgust.
“Blood dust,” Mr. Fiddleman said. “I managed to remove the toxic part of the spell, but not the dust itself.”
“So wait, there was a toxin in that dust?” I asked.
“A paralytic, yes.”
“I need water,” Maxar said, running to the kitchen.
I took a bite of my sandwich, but that just tasted like the blood dust too. “Great, now it’s on my sandwich.”
“I’ll eat it,” Zandren said. “I eat raw, dead animals all the time. Blood doesn’t bother me.”
Right. He was a bear. Of course he ate raw, dead animals.
With my own appetite sufficiently gone, I handed him the sandwich.
“This drawer contains a key,” Mr. Fiddleman said, picking up a large, iron skeleton key that I’d never seen before.
“Where does it go?” I asked.
He made his way over to the bookcase, tapping on the books on the third from the top row, which was way taller than me. He stopped at a blue bound one and pulled it downward from the top.
Click .
We all scanned the study, searching for the source of the click . But Mr. Fiddleman seemed to already know and ducked down, then slid to his belly where the baseboard below the bookshelf had popped open an inch. He wiggled it free to reveal a keyhole.
“There’s another spell here,” he said. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to break it, but I’ll try to numb its effects as best I can.”
“Should . . . should we stand back this time?” Zandren asked, having already finished the rest of my sandwich. “Is there going to be more dust?”
“I have no idea,” Mr. Fiddleman said. He waved his hand in front of the keyhole, muttering more words in a language I didn’t understand. This time though, he closed his eyes and, with his other hand, gripped a talisman that he wore around his neck.
Nothing happened. No dust, no lightning or trembling of the ground beneath our feet.
I held my breath anyway though, as he carefully slid the key into the keyhole and turned it clockwise a quarter of the way.
A quick glance beside me showed Zandren standing there with a nervous look on his face. He also had his hands protectively covering himself.
He caught me looking. “It’s an important part of me. I’d hate for it to get blown off.”
I couldn’t hide my smirk, but focused back on Mr. Fiddleman. He turned the key another quarter of the way, and that caused a second click .
I’d been breathing again, so I held my breath one more time as he pulled the key free and with it, the panel that concealed the keyhole, to reveal a hidden cubby space with documents and folders stacked inside.
Carefully, he reached inside, but as soon as those papers and folders hit the air, they burst into bright blue flames.
Mr. Fiddleman dropped them to the floor before they burned his fingers.
Maxar stepped forward and a bright beam of yellow fire erupted from his palms and onto the blue flames, dousing them until all that remained was smoke.
And ash.
“No,” I breathed. “No.” My bottom lip trembled, and I sunk to my knees, picking up the still warm ash in my fingers. A gust of wind from the now-open window blew it off of my fingertips and onto the floor.
“I thought you numbed the spell,” Drak said, that accusatory tone back in his voice.
“I did,” Mr. Fiddleman said. “I stopped the poisonous gas from filling the room. But I couldn’t stop the self-destruct spell on the files.”
“So that’s it?” I asked. “Now we’ll never know what secrets Aunt Delia was keeping? ”
“I think the secret she was keeping was you , Your Majesty,” Mr. Fiddleman said. “For whatever reason, your mother came to her for help. And Delia made a vow to protect you. Perhaps your mother requested that you remain hidden from your father. If she was not his mate and your father took a mate and had an heir, you would still be first in line for the throne, and that heir could challenge your legitimacy. Maybe your mother knew the weight of responsibility for the person that wore the crown and didn’t want that for you?” He stood up and brushed off his khaki slacks. “I’m just . . . guessing here.”
“No. They’re good guesses. They make sense. What was my mother though? Is there a way to find that out?”
He glanced around the room. “There are still a lot of spells in here. In this whole house. It would take days for me to break them all.”
“I’ll pay you whatever you want,” I said quickly. “I have money.”
He shook his head and held up a hand with long, boney fingers. “I could never accept payment for this. Even if you weren’t the Queen. Delia was . . . special.”
“You loved her, didn’t you?”
Unshed tears shone in his unique blue-gray eyes. “I . . . I should have said something. I should have worked up the courage. She’s been coming into my shop for sixty years, and I’ve loved her for probably fifty-nine of those. She never brought you in because she was shielding you from this world. But she spoke of you so often. I feel like I know you.” His smile was sad, but so full of love. “I’ll do whatever I can to help you. To help get Delia the justice she deserves.”
“Thank you,” I whispered.
Drak’s phone rang in his pocket, and he took it out to the porch. I glared at his broad back as he went, wishing he’d just go and not come back. I still wasn’t on board with this whole Fated Mates thing. But at least Zandren and Maxar were proving themselves to be tolerable, if not even a little likeable.
But Drak was just a rude, pompous, bossy ass who—despite his insanely good looks and that smolder I’m sure he’d been perfecting for a few centuries now—could just disappear and go get locked in his coffin for all I cared.
“You don’t have to stay here,” Mr. Fiddleman said. “I’m sure you have more important places to be right now seeing as you’re the new queen. I can keep working on the spells and let you know if I find something.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Mr. Fiddleman, because I did, or at least I wanted to, but I knew that he was grieving Delia as well. I also wanted to be here when he found something. A clue, or a document that didn’t self-destruct like the Mission Impossible sunglasses.
“I can stay here with the mage for a bit,” Zandren said. “I don’t mind.”
I blinked at him. “Thank you.”
He nodded. “You should eat though. Please go find some food.”
Smiling, I nodded. “I will.”
“I’m going to go sniff around the house now, see what I can smell.” Zandren stepped toward me and cupped my jaw. “Stay safe, Little One. I’ll come find you soon.” He tucked a strand of my wild, kinky hair behind my ear. It bounced right back out again. He tried again. It bounced back out again. “Even your hair is stubborn,” he growled deep in his throat.
A shiver of something strange but wonderful, raced down my spine from his touch and my belly pooled with heat.
With an animalistic grunt, he released my jaw and headed into the kitchen at the same time Drak returned from the porch.
“The High Council has dispatched a demon advisor. She will be at your apartment within the hour. We need to go.”
“A demon advisor?” I asked.
“Someone to help you work on taming and controlling your powers,” he said. “Isn’t that what you want?”
What I wanted was to wake up from this horrible nightmare and pretend the last forty-eight hours never happened.
But I knew that probably wasn’t going to happen, so I sighed and nodded. “Right.”
“You’re okay here, Mr. Fiddleman?”
He was already breaking another spell near the fireplace in the study. We waited for him to wave his hand and mutter the words. He faced me when he finished and bobbed his head. “Yes. I’m okay. ”
I flashed him a small, quick smile and thanked him once more before Maxar, Drak, and I left.
“Do we have to take the subway again?” Maxar asked with a pout as we headed back in the direction we came. “Even the bus in daylight would be better.”
“Whatever,” I said, in no mood to argue. I just wanted to go home, flop on my bed, and cry. I needed to cry. I needed to scream.
I needed to kill whoever killed my aunt.
But first, I needed to learn how to control my powers so that when the time finally came to get my revenge, I didn’t kill everyone else around me in the process.