13. Rolling pins are a witch’s best friend
ROLLING PINS ARE A WITCH’S BEST FRIEND
gus knows how to finds things.
gus also knows how to hide them…
— gus
It takes a lot of explaining for Riordan to understand that this is a good thing.
I know I have a tendency to start using technical jargon when it comes to witchcraft, and though his eyes seem to cross a little, he listens intently to every word I say before reaching out, caressing the edge of my jaw with his fingers, and telling me that he’ll do whatever it takes to help me find the lodestone if that’s what I want.
Any witch worth her salt would love to get their hands on a true lodestone.
The promise of power alone, and the history tied to it…
yes, I want to find it. And, I realize with a start, there’s no one else I want with me when I go off in search of an ancient witch artifact that, like Morrigaine’s mirror, I won’t use…
but, Hecate, do I want to at least hold it and feel the power thrumming off of it at least once.
And doesn’t that just go to show how quick your world can change?
A wolf. I’m willing to walk into the woods with a wolf.
Only he’s not just a wolf. He’s Riordan, and he means it when he says he’ll pin his chief deputy badge on to lead me around Moonburrow and help me pick out one ordinary-looking rock (that’s not as ordinary as it appears) that might be buried anywhere.
And that’s how, within days of Garnet Brooks’s journal bit me, I find myself spending nearly every waking hour with a wolf shifter as my constant companion.
A month ago, that sentence would’ve been the beginning of a horror story. Now it’s just another Monday.
I don’t know how it became our routine. Every morning, I’m up and dressed by nine.
Riordan is at the back door, knocking precisely as the clock strikes, and we head out together.
Once Gus realizes that our search has nothing to do with Olivia’s murder—and that we’re basically wasting our time in the woods, searching for a rock—he stays behind with Honey.
She winks at me, handing a bag of goodies to Riordan before we go, knowing that the Beta will share them with me while we’re on the hunt.
Afternoons are spent in the library, making a dent in the piles of books.
Riordan takes his newfound designation as volunteer librarian seriously.
No matter how many times I tell him that he’s not responsible for my mess, he refuses to leave until he’s helped me clear at least two of the large piles.
At this rate, we’ll be done ahead of Ash’s predicted timeframe, and if the opossum shifter is happy to talk over me and tell Riordan he can stay and help, I let it go because, well, that’s a good thing.
The library needs to be open again, and Ash…
he was kind enough to let us borrow Garnet’s journal.
Evenings… somehow, they became routine, too. Once we leave the library, Riordan insists on dinner. He has this fascination in making sure I don’t go hungry, and since I’m usually peckish after we’re done for the day, I go along with it.
Ash isn’t the only one who knows about the journal.
We told Max about the book and the power of lodestones the morning after we found it.
We had to. He’s the sheriff, the Alpha, and, according to Garnet’s research, the modern borders of Moonburrow might be almost identical to the borders of Avalon, which means most of the landmarks we need to investigate in order to search for the lodestone are on land controlled by his pack.
Riordan’s status as the Beta will get us in anywhere his badge wouldn’t, but out of respect for his brother’s position, we had to tell Max.
We did not tell Delilah.
At least, not yet.
Garnet supposedly left Moonburrow voluntarily.
There’s no proof she didn’t, and her journal is filled with research that could turn out to be nothing more than the enthusiastic theories of a witch obsessed with lost artifacts.
Still, the fact that she abandoned it bothered me enough that I wanted to keep what we found quiet until we knew more.
Max agreed.
And when he said he wasn’t going to mention the possibility of a true lodestone being in town to anyone until we found it, I gave him a sideways look.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
His gold eyes narrowed. “That wasn’t a nothing look.”
He’s not wrong. “Was it more of a perhaps keeping important things from your mate hasn’t worked out particularly well for you lately look?” I ask innocently.
Sorry, Max. You put me in an uncomfortable position, trapped between an angry and naked opossum shifter and the ghost of a witch who is nothing more than a pain in my ass. If he thinks he’s getting me in trouble with Honey, he has another think coming.
From across his seat at his desk at the sheriff station where we had met up with Max, Riordan coughed into his fist.
Max glared at his brother.
I shrugged my shoulders, hoping he takes the hint. Now, whether or not Max told Honey after that is between him, his mate, and whatever couch the Alpha might’ve ended up sleeping on if he didn’t, but I did my best.
Since then, Riordan and I have been working our way through Garnet’s journal.
She did most of the hard work. There are maps, sketches, copied passages from books I’ve never heard of, and descriptions of landmarks that haven’t existed for centuries.
One old boundary marker is now a fountain outside of the community center where the shifters in Moonburrow and the local coven trade off rec areas for weekly meetings.
A stream that once cut through Avalon was rerouted decades ago, though Riordan could still follow the depression left behind through the woods.
There’s an enormous oak on pack land that Garnet believed was the same tree described in a journal written by one of Avalon’s original witches.
That’s where having Riordan as my partner in this helps a whole bunch.
See, I have magic. He has a nose and an inherent understanding of where Moonburrow’s borders extend even without the help of the still active wards.
When Garnet’s notes describe a patch of land where wild lavender supposedly grew around an old ritual site, I can pick up remnants of magic in the soil while Riordan tracks down the same plants farther into the woods.
When one of the old maps uses a rock formation as a marker, he takes one look at the terrible sketch and announces that he knows exactly where it is—and he does.
And while I know that this isn’t the reason I’m in Moonburrow, I can’t help but get excited.
The more landmarks we verify, the more convinced I become that Garnet was right.
Avalon existed and, because the lodestone was supposedly buried here, the magic eventually lured shifters this way until Moonburrow was built almost directly over it three centuries after the witches disappeared.
Thanks to the former head librarian, we found Avalon. What we can’t find is the lodestone.
That’s partly because neither of us knows exactly where it was buried apart from somewhere on pack territory, and partly because I have absolutely no idea what exactly I’m searching for.
“I can see magic,” I explain for what might be the tenth time as we stand near the edge of pack land one afternoon.
“That doesn’t mean I’m some sort of supernatural metal detector for artifacts.
There are so few of them left, and no one has seen one out in the wild in centuries…
I don’t know what it looks like or even feels like. It can be anywhere.”
Garnet marked in her book at least seventy-five possible locations. Considering she didn’t make any note on how she figured out those spots or if she checked them, we’re following the landmarks the best we can and hoping for the best.
Riordan waits for me to finish my mini-rant before he says in a familiar, deadpan tone: “I thought true lodestones were made of stone, not metal.”
What? “Yes. Lodestones like the key to the wards Max has can be made of glass, crystal, or stone. True lodestones are always a magnetized mineral, and definitely a rock. Not metal.”
“You said metal detector.”
I poke him in the side. “You know what I mean.”
His mouth twitches. “Yeah. I do, Pen. But don’t worry. I’m sure there’s no rush to find this thing. If we do, we do, but until then, I don’t mind that it’s just the two of us looking for it.”
I bite down on my bottom lip. “I just feel bad. We’re supposed to be solving a crime so that no more witches get hurt. And instead of that, I’m focusing on finding a lodestone that, if it fell into the wrong hands, would be catastrophic.”
Like Morrigaine’s mirror. I decided it was best to put it out of sight, out of mind so that it wasn’t a temptation to me or any other witch after what happened with Olivia…
“I’m still investigating,” he tells me, and I don’t know why I’m so surprised that, unlike me, he can do two things at once.
“Really?”
“Yeah. Searching for the lodestone… it’s peaceful.
Being outdoors… being with you instead of being at a desk…
I can think better than I have in ages. Max has a couple of leads he’s following, and a few wolves who definitely lied to his face that he wants to interrogate again.
We’re making progress. Real investigative work takes time, and in between that, why not search for an artifact that can change the world? ”
I like the way he thinks. “So we keep searching?”
“As long as you want to, my sweet witch.”
Later that night, I wake up sometime after midnight because I have to pee.
That’s not so unusual. If I drink too much before bed, I sometimes have to get up instead of sleeping through the night, and that’s what happened.
What is unusual, however? Is hearing something downstairs while I’m washing my hands with the bathroom door open. It’s faint, but I heard it, a sound so out of the ordinary because, once Honey locks up the bakery, there shouldn’t be any noise down there.
And Honey? She left with Gus and Max more than six hours ago after she finished wiping down the kitchen.
Tiptoeing over to the flimsy door that’s the only barrier between the upstairs apartment and the stairs that lead into the industrial kitchen down below, I freeze and listen.
There it is again.
It’s a scrape, then a dull thump. Silence. A soft whining sound.
What the…
Unless Honey returned to the bakery for something in the middle of the night, it can’t be her.
It’s too loud and kind of throaty to be Gus.
I also know it can’t be Olivia. Riordan has been bringing me fresh wormwood every couple of days, asking politely that I keep some upstairs, some in my car, and a sprig in my pocket.
I haven’t seen Olivia since, and I’m not sorry about that.
Considering how much she frothed at the mouth to get her hands on Morrigaine’s mirror, I’d hate to think how she would react if she knew about the lodestone. She’d dead, but with enough spectral energy, she might be able to grab it and who knows what would happen after that?
So, no. It’s not Olivia, but if it’s not Olivia, and it’s not Honey or Gus, who the hell is downstairs?
My pulse begins to pound as I think about what to do.
Logically, I should call Max or Riordan. They’re powerful wolf shifters and the heads of the sheriff department. If there’s an intruder, it would be smart to call them and have them drive over and check it out while I hide out upstairs.
Instead, because spending a couple of weeks helping investigate murders has given me an entirely undeserved amount of confidence, I decide to go downstairs and check it out myself.
I can’t rely on my spellcasting to save me.
The last thing I need is to blast an intruder and have the spell reflect and put me out of commission instead.
That’s why I dart into the small kitchen upstairs, grab the first heavy thing I can think of—one of Honey’s spare rolling pins kept in a lower cabinet—and slowly ease open the door before easing down the stairs.
Heart in my throat, I make it all the way down to the dark, empty kitchen before I breathe again.
I don’t reach for the light switch because I don’t know why.
I just don’t. Relying on my night vision, I peer around, about to let out a sigh of relief that I imagined it all when the door to the bakery pushes open and, if I hadn’t already had a bathroom stop, I might’ve pissed myself.
My night vision has adapted enough that I can’t deny what I’m seeing: a big, black wolf pads into the kitchen as though he has any right to be inside of Dough You Believe in Magic.
A big, black wolf. Just like the description that Olivia gave about her murderer. The witch killer.
And I’m a witch.
Thankfully, I’m also a witch with a rolling pin.