Chapter 16
Feed Him to the Pigs
I’m aware that Rowan’s family is well-off…but I don’t think I’ve fully comprehended what “well-off” means.
I stare at the massive colonial house in front of me, marveling at the extensive gardens and buildings.
There’s a carriage house that actually houses carriages, a glorious, Victorian-style glass greenhouse that might be bigger than my cottage, a red and white stable set in a lush pasture, and beautifully landscaped walkways that connect them all.
“This is where Rowan grew up?” I ask Ryder, feeling like we’ve wandered onto a movie set. Surely places like this don’t exist in real life.
“I know, poor guy.” The elf chuckles to himself. “They barely scraped by.”
He’s still carrying the pastry box because I gave Nadine my keys, and she wasn’t at the shop yet, so we couldn’t get in.
Ryder called Anna to warn her we would be coming, and she opens the door before we reach the top of the sweeping entry steps.
“If it isn’t my favorite Neilfellow,” Ryder greets her. “Thank you for letting us come over so early.”
“Where’s Rowan?”
My pint-sized mate flaps his wings, drawing his cousin’s attention to the stone deer he’s perched on.
“Oh,” she says softly. “You really are an owl. And you’re so tiny.”
Rowan fluffs his feathers, probably offended. But facts are facts.
Anna looks different at home. Instead of the pressed and polished city council secretary I’m used to seeing, she’s just…Anna. Her hair is down instead of in a chignon, and she’s not wearing any makeup. Her feet are bare. She’s in jeans and a lightweight sweater, holding a mug of coffee.
“Can we come inside?” Ryder asks.
“Oh, of course.” She steps away from the door, inviting us into the foyer. “What’s with the pastries?”
“They were for the tea shop. You want one?” He opens the box and waves his hand over the goods like a big-city street dealer trying to make a sale.
She contemplates her options. “You sure?”
“Go for it.”
She takes a croissant from the box.
I turn around to tell Rowan to hurry up, but he’s left his perch.
“He must have already flown inside,” Ryder says.
“You know where to go,” Anna says. “I’ll leave you to it.”
“Do you want to take these to the kitchen?” Ryder asks. “Perhaps your staff will enjoy a little treat.”
Staff.
“You said they’re for the tea shop,” she says.
“No reason to carry them all over town. By the time we’re done, I’ll need to box up a new selection anyway. I’d hate for these to go to waste.”
“Oh, all right.” She accepts the pastries. “I’m sure they’ll like them. Thank you.”
“We’re going to snoop around Rowan’s stuff now,” Ryder says.
Anna laughs. “Have fun.”
“How many people do the Neilfellows employ?” I ask as I quietly follow the elf through the house.
“Let’s see. They have a housekeeper, the maid who helps her, a gardener, and a groom. They used to employ a driver as well, but he retired a few years ago. These days, Mrs. Neilfellow just calls Hudson if she wants to go somewhere.”
The more I learn, the less it makes sense that Mrs. Neilfellow accepted me so quickly. Pedigree is obviously important to these people, and I’m just a little tea pixie from the West Coast.
Rowan waits for us on the floor outside a door.
“This is Rowan’s suite,” Ryder says, letting us in.
“I’m sorry, his what?”
“I know—wild, right?” He looks at Rowan, grinning. “Such a sad, meager existence.”
We step into a living space. It would be modest for a house, but it’s generous for a suite. There are a couple of couches, a television, and lots of bookshelves. The furniture looks antique and expensive, and so does the rug.
A massive four-poster bed is visible through an open doorway at the back of the room. A set of glass French doors to the left appears to lead to a study.
Ryder and I follow Rowan into the bedroom. I look around, curiously taking in the space.
“His aunt bought those at some fancy auction,” Ryder says, noticing me studying the trio of abstract art canvases on the wall. “They cost a small fortune. Rowan hates them.”
I laugh softly, wondering what kind of art Rowan would have chosen for himself.
There’s a tall glass case housing several chess sets. A few knick-knacks sit on the dresser, along with a prestigious-looking plaque that appears to be an award from Mablemyer. Everything is neat and tidy, as expected.
A flash of color catches my eye as I pass the wastebasket. There are only a few scraps of paper in it, along with what appears to be a scrunched photo.
Morbidly curious, I retrieve it. My lungs paralyze when I unfold it, and my heart feels like it stops.
Rowan and Keira stare back at me, looking beautiful in what can only be an engagement photo. I imagined them, but seeing the real thing is so much worse.
It must have been in the room when Rowan returned. He threw it away, though. It’s better to find it in the trash than taped to a mirror.
Glad neither Ryder nor Rowan notices me snooping, I let the photo fall back into the wastebasket.
We have more important things to think of right now.
Rowan shuffles through a wooden nightstand organizer with his beak. With each passing second, his movements become more frantic.
“Did you leave it there?” I hurry over. “Is it missing?”
The only thing worse than Rowan being an owl again is not being able to talk to him. We must find the amulet.
He turns to me, flapping his wings, extremely ruffled.
“Do you think someone took it?” I ask. “It sounds like there are a lot of people in this house, after all.”
“Everyone has worked here for more than a decade,” Ryder says. “I can’t imagine someone would swipe it.”
Then what happened to it?
Panic rises in my chest, impossible to push back this time.
I know Rowan is right there, but it feels like he’s gone. It’s just like when he turned into a man and my owl friend disappeared, except in reverse. And to be honest, I much prefer Rowan’s man form.
I press my lips together, refusing to break down. The rain pattering on the windows gives me away, though.
Rowan studies me, looking helpless.
“I’m fine.” I take a deep breath, willing the words to be true. “Let’s talk to Anna again.”
Anna doesn’t know what happened to the amulet, so we have no choice but to ask Rowan’s aunt if she’s seen it—which means telling Rowan’s aunt that he’s an owl again.
We wait for her in the sitting room. The couches are fussy, uncomfortable, and look like they came from some French museum.
Rowan perches on the armrest beside me. He shifts back and forth, unable to stay still for very long. I almost reach out to pet him, but that feels weird now.
“Thanks, Arista,” Ryder says into his phone. “I’ll see you soon.”
“Did she let you have the morning off?” I ask when the elf ends the call.
“She did.”
I feel better having him here while we try to navigate all this, especially since he’s so comfortable with Rowan’s family—and I am so not comfortable with them.
Mrs. Neilfellow enters the room with Anna fifteen minutes later, her hair perfect and makeup done. Apparently, that’s what we were waiting on.
She stops dead in her tracks when she sees Rowan, gasping softly. Her hand rises to her chest as if she must protect her heart, and she whispers a horrified, “No.”
The woman looks genuinely upset.
“He’s okay, Mrs. Neilfellow,” Ryder assures her. “We’ll figure out how to change him back again.”
“Rowan.” A soft sob escapes her as she crosses the room, looking like she wants to pick Rowan up. Her face scrunches, and her eyes become moist. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
I glance at Ryder, confused…because Rowan’s aunt sounds weirdly guilty.
The elf meets my eyes, raising his brows, noticing as well.
Mrs. Neilfellow turns to Ryder. “You can change him back? You can do that?”
“Yeah, sure. Ansel did it once. I’m sure he can do it again. But right now, we’re looking for an amulet that allows him to communicate with us while he’s in owl form.”
“An amulet?” She swallows, dabbing her eyes. “What kind of amulet?”
“It was small. The stone was brown like a tiger’s eye,” I say. “Elven-crafted.”
She winces. “Did it have a broken silver chain?”
“It was silver, and it might have snapped when we changed him back. So maybe.”
She turns to Rowan, looking like she’s going to start crying again. “I saw it in your room, and I sent it to my jeweler in Boston to have the chain replaced.”
Oh my word.
“So, it’s in Massachusetts?” Ryder asks, sounding like he’s trapping in a groan.
“I’ll have Brandon take me down today,” she says earnestly. “I’ll get it myself and bring it back.”
I have no clue who Brandon is, and I don’t care. “How far away is Boston?”
“Only about three hours,” Anna answers.
“I’ll return with it by this evening,” Mrs. Neilfellow promises.
“In the meantime, we’ll see if we can change him back.” Ryder stands. Carefully, he asks Rowan’s aunt, “There’s not anything you know that might help us…is there?”
Her expression goes carefully blank. “No. Nothing. Why?”
“No reason…” Ryder turns to me. “Let’s go see Ansel.”
Anna follows us outside. Once we’re alone, Ryder says to her, “Your mother is hiding something.”
“I noticed that as well.” She glances back into the house, worried.
“Why don’t you see if you can get it out of her?”
“I’ll do my best, but you know how she is.” She studies Rowan, who’s returned to his spot atop the deer. “Keep me posted, all right?”
“Sure thing,” Ryder says. “I’ll have Marshall call with updates.”
Unamused, she narrows her eyes at the elf. “Good luck with that.”
He shoots her a roguish grin. “Bye, Anna.”
Rowan flies ahead of us as we make the fifteen-minute walk back to town, finding a tree far ahead and waiting for us to reach it before he flies to another.
It’s barely drizzling, just spitting rain. The weather is a clear picture of the dam I’ve built for my emotions. It’s holding for now, but it’s starting to leak.
“What’s going on with Anna and Marshall?” I ask, desperate to distract myself from our situation.
“They were together for five minutes—even managed to keep their relationship hidden from her mother. Then they just…dissolved. It’s been years, but they still talk to each other in clipped sentences, can barely make eye contact, and get all shifty when the other is mentioned in conversation.”
“What happened?”
“No one knows. They were already at odds by the time Rowan disappeared, and that situation didn’t help one bit.”
“Rowan said Marshall blamed the Neilfellows for not looking for him.”
“They believed he took off, but Marshall knew better.” He glances ahead at Rowan, making sure we won’t be overheard. “Me? If I’m honest, I wasn’t sure. After all, I would have ditched town to get away from Keira.”
“But you were friends—good friends. Surely you didn’t think he would abandon you, too?”
“I didn’t, but we never found him, and I didn’t know what to think. He left his cell phone and his driver’s license. Everything. It was like he walked away from his life.”
We continue in silence for several seconds, and then I nudge him, biting back a grin. “So…Keira’s really awful, huh?”
The elf looks over, giving me a conspiratorial smile. “The worst.”
He chuckles when a ray of sunshine breaks through my magically induced gloom.
“Pretend you didn’t notice that,” I say, wishing my magic were a little more subtle.
Rowan waits for us outside Ansel’s shop.
The door is still locked. I knock, expecting it to take a while to get his attention as it did earlier, but the sorcerer answers almost immediately.
“Did you get the amulet?” he asks.
“Rowan’s aunt sent it to her jeweler in Boston.”
Ansel wrinkles his nose. “Who has a designated jeweler?”
“The Neilfellows,” Ryder deadpans.
Grunting, Ansel ushers us inside, shaking his head like it’s the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard.
We follow him to his workshop. Rowan lands on a large rock on the workbench. He ruffles his feathers and turns his neck, looking like he wants to say something.
“Okay, so we need to—” Ansel is interrupted by a knock at the front door. Frowning, he commands, “Ignore it. Whoever it is, they don’t need me that badly.”
But the visitor is insistent.
Ansel swears, not happy about another interruption, and marches out of the room.
Curious, with nothing better to do, we follow him.
Ansel opens the door. “We don’t open until—” The words end in a growl when he realizes who’s standing on his doorstep.
“Don’t slam the door!” Russell cries. “I have something important to talk about!”
Why the criminal mage decided to show up now at all times, I don’t know.
“Kit won’t need a restraining order if I get rid of you,” Ansel snarls. “My grandpa’s side of the family raises pigs—I know how to get rid of a body.”
“Ansel!” I exclaim, horrified.
“Kit!” Russell’s face lights up when he sees me. “I’ve been trying to reach you for days!”
“And I’ve been ignoring your calls for days. You’d think you’d get the point.”
He pushes inside the shop, stopping only when Ansel extends his wand. On instinct, he throws his hands in the air. “Wait, you don’t understand! I discovered something while I was trying to salvage the trace amount of magic that was left in the broken dust pendant.”
“You have three seconds to leave my shop,” Ansel tells him. “One—”
“Now, just a minute!”
“Two…”
“He’s here,” I sigh. “We might as well listen to what he has to say.”
Ansel looks like he’s going to argue, but after several tense seconds, he nods abruptly. “Fine, what did you discover?”
His tone makes me think he wasn’t joking about the pig thing. The sorcerer is proof that it’s dangerous to rouse night owls too early.
Russell gazes at me as though I’m the most interesting conundrum he’s ever encountered. Then he boldly announces, “Kit is a shifter.”