Chapter 12
Delia
The tranquilizer dart sits on our kitchen table, gleaming dully under the overhead light.
I turn it carefully with my fingertips, feeling the weight of what it represents—evidence, finally, after days and days of nothing but dead ends and half-formed theories.
Jasper hovers near the doorway, while Whiskers perches on the counter, his red eyes fixed on the slender metal cylinder that might hold the key to unraveling this whole nightmare.
I close my eyes, centering myself, feeling the magic tingles beneath my skin, ready and waiting to be used. With gentle breath, I blow across the dart. It trembles, then rises, suspended in the air above the table.
"Find your owner," I command, my voice firm.
The dart quivers, then shoots across the kitchen like a miniature missile. It embeds itself with a solid thunk into our investigation map on the back wall, precisely at the dot marking the Pennington Falls Public Library.
Whiskers' whiskers twitch. "Oh, perfect," he drawls. "Nothing suspicious about that at all."
Jasper strides to the map, his expression skeptical as he studies the dart's position. "Could be a fluke," he suggests, but I can tell he doesn't believe it. "Or maybe it's just pointing to where the catacombs exit."
I join him at the map, standing close enough that his scent washes over me. Pine needles. Winter frost. That indefinable something that belongs only to Jasper. "No, the spell was specific. It's not showing where the dart's been; it's showing where it came from."
"The library?" Jasper's eyebrow lifts, disbelief clear in the gesture. "What, is there some evil librarian harvesting hearts in their spare time?"
"I mean, have you ever met Greta?" Whiskers mutters, his little ferret mouth pursed in disgust. "She’s more likely to shush you to death than commit actual homicide." I ignore him, fixated on the dart and the map.
I picture the reading rooms and their odd patrons, the archive rooms, the photo developing rooms, the private study rooms. “Or maybe,” I say, pulling the dart from the wall, “it's the only place in town where someone could learn how to brew up a tranquilizer that even a magical toxicology panel can't flag.
Maybe whoever this is, was sneaking in through one of the tunnels beneath town. "
“Do you think the killer could be a hunter?” Jasper suggests.
“It would make sense on how they move so fast and leave so little evidence," I reply, the gears in my head already spinning.
For the next two hours, we dive deep into the rabbit hole of online research.
Whiskers assists by pointing out keywords with his paw, leaving smudgy prints on my screen that I don't have the heart to wipe away.
Jasper paces behind me, periodically leaning over my shoulder to read something interesting, his breath warm on my neck.
"Here," I say finally, clicking on an old article about hunter bloodlines. "According to this, hunters were thought extinct for past fifty-six years. The last known active hunters disappeared in the late 1960s, and supernatural communities worldwide celebrated the end of that particular threat."
Jasper leans closer, his breath warm against my ear as his finger lands on the screen. "Blackwood," he says, voice dropping to a whisper. "Well, that certainly leaves me with a few questions."
“Agreed.”
I navigate through genealogy websites, census records, obituaries—anything that might connect Cassie to hunters. The puzzle pieces begin to lock into place, forming a picture more terrible than I imagined.
"Look at this," I breathe, opening a scanned newspaper clipping from fifteen years ago.
The headline reads "TRAGEDY IN THE WOODS: FAMILY KILLED IN BEAR ATTACK, DAUGHTER STILL MISSING."
Cassie Blackwood's childhood photo stares back at us from the black-and-white newsprint. She can’t be more than eleven. Face streaked with dirt, hair in wild, pale pigtails, a crooked smile that manages to be both innocent and unhinged at the same time.
"What if the missing girl is Cassie?" I say, the realization striking me like a physical blow. “What if her parents were—”
"Hunters," Jasper takes the word right out of my mouth. "And she lost her whole family to something supernatural, went “missing“, became the town’s beloved librarian, and is now on some kind of vengeance tour."
The implications tangle in my brain, knotting tighter with every second.
If Cassie is the missing Blackwood girl, and she truly is the last of her bloodline, then everything she’s said to us is a shell game, misdirection.
She’d know the tunnels better than anyone.
She’d be bold enough to talk to us every day, feed us sympathy, even “help” with the investigation.
She’d know exactly what the sheriff’s team was up to, what magical consultants had checked, and what could slip through the cracks.
She’d have the paranoia to set traps in the tunnel system, after seeing one of her victims alive and asking questions.
What I can’t make sense of is why.
Hunters hated all supernatural creatures, but Cassie’s been here for years.
She sits on the town festival committee.
She fosters abandoned animals for the shelter.
She bakes her own sourdough for the holiday swaps and always bends the rules for late-night returns at the library.
I scroll through hundreds of library photos on the town’s website, searching her face for any sign of malice.
But all I see is the good-natured, slightly nerdy woman who organizes author signings and donates her vacation days to the Reading is Healing program.
There’s nothing there.
No flicker of darkness or heartbreak, just a kind of relentless optimism that's always felt a little too eager to be true.
Jasper straightens behind me, bracing his hands on the back of my chair. "It's always the nice ones," he says, shaking his head.
“Why would she start now? After all these years?" I ask out loud. "If she wanted to kill us all, she could have started years ago. Why wait until now?"
Whiskers climbs onto my lap, “Maybe she just…snapped.” he offers. “Maybe she’s always hated us, it just took her this long to figure out exactly how to do it without getting caught.”
Maybe.
I press my fingertips to the screen, tracing the outline of that child's face. "Imagine watching your family torn apart," I whisper, my throat tightening despite myself. "All that grief with nowhere to go but inward, until it calcifies into something monstrous."
"Don't humanize her," Jasper warns, his voice suddenly hard. "She cut my heart out, Delia. She did the same to three others that we know of. Whatever happened to her as a child, she's made her choices."
He's right, but the tragedy of it all still weighs on me. A little girl, traumatized and broken, twisted into someone who harvests hearts from supernatural beings. I think of how easily it could have been different if someone had helped her heal instead of feeding her hatred.
"The question is," Whiskers interrupts my thoughts, "why take the hearts? What's she doing with them?"
I stare at the dart still embedded in our map, pointing accusingly at the library. "I think it's time we pay Cassie another visit to find out," I say, determination hardening my voice. "Before she collects another trophy for her sick collection."
Jasper's eyes meet mine; face carved in granite. "Tomorrow," he agrees. "First thing."
I nod, but something cold slithers through my insides. We've identified our killer, but the hunt is far from over.