Chapter 24 #2
Warm and fuzzy feelings banished, Nigel set his teacup down rather hard.
What he did she mean exactly? Surely not Officer Ward!
Exchanging a glance with Debbie, he hastened from the counter and across the shop.
By the time he stood on the doorstep, Luna was several paces down the sidewalk, kneeling.
The yellow houndsnose was before her. Sniffing avidly at something in the sidewalk.
Nigel’s stomach dropped.
Luna lifted a perplexed gaze. “He won’t let me pick him up! He seems very concerned about whatever he’s found here.”
Nigel hurried down the sidewalk. “It’s probably something nasty,” he said. “One has to be stern with wildflowers. Down!” he barked, pointing at the houndsnose. “Leave it. Come.”
The houndsnose cast him a look—a unique achievement, considering it had no eyes—then turned back to snuffling away at the sidewalk.
Luna, frowning, reached under its petals and plucked up a button.
A tiny, innocuous, mother-of-pearl button, such as might be sewn on a shirt collar.
A button she should not have been able to pry from that sidewalk, anchored by sorcery as it was, but which she, with a single tug, yanked out of place.
Nigel saw the moment of resistance, followed by the little tail of anti-glitter, gleaming with purplish aura. Dire Matter.
Luna saw it too. Which was odd—most people could not perceive Dire Matter, not without sorcery sensors. Her face lost all traces of either pleasure or concern, replaced by something hard. Angry.
“Mr. Grimm,” she said. “What is this?”
Nigel didn’t want to answer. “Erm, a . . . button.”
She looked down at the object in her palm, then flashed him another glare, sharper than before. “This is magic. Not Green Magic. This is sorcery.”
Nigel stuck his hands in his pockets and glanced nervously up and down the street. A messenger boy zoomed by on his bike, bell ringing, and Luna was just fast enough to scoop up the houndsnose before it was crushed. Otherwise, she didn’t budge. She remained where she knelt, gaze fixed on Nigel.
“This is not the place to have this conversation, Miss Talbot,” Nigel said at last. “Come back to the shop.”
Silently, Luna rose to her feet, her expression positively ferocious. She walked before him into the building, set the houndsnose down on one of the display tables, then crossed her arms. Nigel flipped the sign to CLOSED and shut the door, before turning to face her accusing stare.
“Mr. Grimm,” she said, holding up the button once more. Little puffs of anti-glitter wafted from it and scattered into the aether. “If you don’t tell me what this is at once, I will have to turn in my notice.”
Nigel felt as though a fist had planted in his gut. “What?” he gasped.
“I’ve told you already,” she persisted, “I can’t be associated with any business that utilizes sorcery. Not with this dratted heptagram.”
For a moment, Nigel fought for words. “No one will ever find them,” he blurted at last. “The spells, I mean. They’re much too subtle.”
She pointed to the wildflower on the table. “The houndsnose didn’t seem to have any trouble.”
“All right, yes.” Nigel nodded, sticking his hands back in his pockets, fists firmly clenched. “But it’s not as though the wardsmen employ houndsnose blossoms, do they?”
“Are there others?”
Nigel flicked a glance into her flaming eyes and away again. He nodded.
“Where?”
He swallowed.
Luna waited for a short count of breaths.
Then, with a little, “Oh!” she stormed past him, her shoulder brushing his, and flung open the shop door once more.
She paced out into the sidewalk, turned first one way, then the other, before marching opposite the way she’d gone before.
She took five paces, crouched. Her fingers shot out, reaching for another button, this one a little black boot button, completely innocuous, and deeply embedded in the bricks.
Much to Nigel’s surprise, she ripped it right out—which was not something a mere tea witch should be able to do.
“Miss Talbot!” Nigel cried, leaping forward and grabbing her by the shoulder, propriety be damned. He pulled her to her feet. “People can see you! You’re putting yourself at risk!”
“No,” she snapped. “You are putting me at risk, Mr. Grimm. Me and this shop and yourself and Garden and all of the flowers!” She shook the ensorcelled button at him, dispelling more motes of Dire Matter into the air. “Tell me what this is!”
He ground his teeth so hard, he feared they might crack. Then: “It’s a ward spell.”
“A what?”
“A ward spell.”
“As in . . .” She frowned. “As in Officer Ward?”
“No!” Nigel sucked a breath through his nostrils. “It’s to . . . ward off certain parties.”
“Which parties?”
“Well, in this specific instance . . .”
“Yes?”
“Wardsmen.”
“Wardsmen?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a ward spell to ward off wardsmen?”
“Yes.”
Luna narrowed her eyes. “The only wardsman to come around this shop is Officer Ward.”
“Yes.”
“So, it’s a ward spell to ward off Wardsman Ward?”
Nigel dampened his lips. “Yes.”
And Luna burst out laughing.
She laughed so hard, in fact, Nigel was obliged to grab her by the arm and drag her bodily back to the shop.
There, he pushed her inside, stepped in swiftly after her, and shut the door fast, all while she, still laughing, wiped tears from the corners of her eyes.
She did not resist when Nigel pried both buttons from her hands and tossed them into the stove behind the counter.
They exploded in little poofs of anti-glitter.
“I don’t see that it’s worth losing your mind over,” he muttered as he faced her once more.
But she went on laughing. Not quite with amusement, he realized, as he offered her a handkerchief. There was a hint of hysteria in that sound and almost as much sorrow as mirth.
“Thank you, Mr. Grimm,” she sighed at last, followed by a little hiccup.
“Thank you?” he queried.
“It’s been such a delight working with you.” She pressed his handkerchief back into his hands. “I’ve enjoyed myself immensely and am most grateful for the opportunity.”
Nigel gaped at her. With an effort, he remembered how to blink. “Wait, what are you saying?”
She giggled again; this time, he distinctly heard regret in the sound. “I’m saying I can’t work here anymore. Not if you’re practicing sorcery. Between that blast of magic you used last night and now this? It’s simply too dangerous.”
“But . . . Miss Talbot . . .” Nigel shook his head and took a step toward her, not quite daring to grasp her hand. “You’re safer with me. Please! With these wards, I can protect you—”
She cut him off with a sharp shake of the head.
“If you’re going to ward off wardsmen with sorcerous wards”—she snorted even as she spoke the words—“it’s more risk than I’m willing to take.
Green Mother knows, I’ve had to move so many times the last two years!
And, while you’ve been very generous, the truth is, I can’t afford to leave Ballycastle right now. ”
“No! You can’t leave Ballycastle.”
“That’s what I said.” She straightened her shoulders and schooled her face into more serious lines.
“Which is why I quit. Effective immediately. I’ll just have to hope someone else will give me a chance like you did.
One of the Silly Young Things said something about a position as her social secretary.
She might have meant it; I suppose I’ll have to call around and find out. She gave me her card . . .”
She went on murmuring, more to herself than to Nigel, as she moved to the counter, fetched her copy of the shop key from her purse, and set it down next to Debbie’s skull-pot. Then she gathered her hat and coat, and Nigel watched her don them both, doing up the front buttons with quick fingers.
His mind scrambled. He should stand his ground, shouldn’t he? Somehow convince her these wards were here for her own good? Because that was the truth. He wanted to keep her safe. Her and Garden, of course. They couldn’t operate their business if wardsmen kept sniffing around and . . . and . . .
This wasn’t about petty jealousy at all. Was it?
Luna turned to him one last time, the laughter quite banished from her face.
Her cheeks were pale, her eyes very dark.
“Goodbye, Mr. Grimm,” she said, a slight catch in her voice.
“I won’t forget your kindness, and I wish you all the best.” With that she turned and moved toward the door, pausing only to murmur a few words to the tiger lilies and the double-delight rose as she passed.
She was just reaching for the latch when Nigel called out, “Miss Talbot!”
She paused. Looked back over her shoulder.
“There are three of them left,” he said. “Three wards. Two more on the front street, one in the back alley.”
She blinked slowly.
“They’ll be gone by the time you arrive tomorrow morning.”
She took a little ragged breath. Her face cracked, just for a moment, revealing a flash of strong emotion: relief and gratitude mingled. But she pulled her expression back together quickly and offered only a somber nod. “Very well, Mr. Grimm.”
He fetched her key from the counter, crossed the shop, and pressed it into her hands.
Her fingers were cold and trembling, and he wished he could hold them a little longer, squeeze some reassurance back into them.
But he retracted his own hands quickly and stuffed them into his pockets once more.
“Eight-thirty,” he said. “Sharp, do you hear?”
Luna looked down at the key, swallowed hard. And nodded. Closing her fist tight, she cast him a speaking look from under her lashes. “Good night,” she said softly.
“Good night, Miss Talbot,” he replied.
Then she was gone. Out into the evening street, vanishing into the bustle and busyness. Leaving behind only her scent. And the hope that she would, indeed, return on the morrow.
Nigel stood for some while in the doorway, gazing after her. Praying to whatever gods cared to listen that he had not, in his idiocy, made an irredeemable hash of things.
“Never mind!” Debbie croaked from the counter.
Nigel swallowed through the tension in his throat. “No, I’m sure you’re wrong. She’ll come back. She will.”
The raven fluttered her wings and shook her head quickly, then fixed him with a single-eyed stare.
He glared back. “Why don’t you make yourself useful and help me pull up these damn wards?”