Chapter Twenty-Five
I entered the house to late afternoon sunlight slashing across the worn living room. I expected to find one of the queens lounging there, but neither were present.
No broken lamps.
No fairy dust littering the floor.
Just an empty box of Cheez-Its on the coffee table.
I closed and locked the front door, then headed to the basement still clutching my handbag and the grimoire.
The place was still a disaster zone from my previous potion-making—I hadn’t had time to clean it up. I made space for the book and placed it on the counter, then opened the drawer and started going through papers.
“There you are!”
Tani exploded in front of me in a shower of pink fairy dust scaring me half to death. I sucked in a breath and pressed my hand to my chest.
“Tani! We talked about this.”
“Sorry. Was excited to see you.” She landed on the counter next to the book and lounged against it. “So, you and Mr. Hottie…?”
“Owen,” I corrected. “And?”
“He cooked you breakfast,” she said. “Does that mean he spent the night?” She waggled her eyebrows.
“That’s none of your business.” I flipped a page in one of the folders, scanning it. Nothing.
“Sure it is. I live here, too.”
“You live in the greenhouse,” I reminded her. “And if Voss has his way, not for much longer.”
That got her attention. She straightened. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” I said, turning another page. “He was on the porch when I got home with an ultimatum. He expects me to send you and Red back to your own realms.”
“I have to find Oberon first,” she said. “That was the deal.”
I ignored her grousing. “Also, the Council has given me seventy-two hours to figure this out or I’m gone as Guardian.”
Silence. She didn’t move. Her wings didn’t even flutter. Then she poofed full-size in a burst of glittery fury.
“Then we better figure this out, chica. What are you looking for?”
That gave me an idea. I stopped my frantic search and pointed to the book. “Know what that is?”
“A book.”
“Very funny.” I flipped open the cover. “Can you read it?”
She squinted down at it, flipped a page. Then shook her head. “No. Where did you get it? I’ve never seen it before.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said quickly. It mattered, but I didn’t want to explain it. “If you can’t read it, I have to find someone who can. Or something in these files that will help translate it.”
Tani reached into the drawer, pulled out a file, and slapped it on the counter like she meant business. “I can help.”
I hesitated, staring at her.
Trust was a luxury. But so was doing this alone.
“Fine,” I said, shoving another stack of folders toward her. “Then start reading.”
Tani slapped open the file and started humming as she flipped pages like she was looking for her favorite dinner recipe instead of a decoder to a magical book.
At least, I assumed it was a magical book.
The grimoire sat on the counter beside her—innocent-looking, if you ignored the fact that it felt like a live wire every time I got too close.
“Receipts. Lists. Nothing important,” Tani announced. “Human realm is obsessed with paper trails.” She paused and heaved a dramatic sigh, as if she was offended by accounting.
Then she eyed the book. “What do you suppose it says?”
“I have no idea,” I said. “That’s why I need to figure out how to read it.”
“And you think this book has something to do with closing the Crossroads?”
That was a good question.
I reached for the grimoire without thinking to steady myself, to have something solid.
The leather warmed under my palm.
Not heat from the room. Not friction.
Warmth like recognition.
My breath caught. I snatched my hand back like it had burned me.
Tani’s eyes narrowed. “It likes you.”
“I think,” I said slowly, forcing my voice to stay normal, “I’m running out of options.”
Tani closed the folder and shoved it aside. “Fine. Next victim.” She reached for another file.
“MM,” she read aloud. “Who’s MM?”
I looked over at the folder she held. The label was in Alice’s handwriting—the two letters, neat and deliberate.
“I don’t know,” I said.
Tani opened it.
Inside were notes written in Alice’s hand—but not in English. The same strange language that filled the grimoire.
“Oh,” I breathed.
“Like the book.” Excitement danced in Tani’s eyes, like she’d found the secret menu.
“But this does us no good,” I said. “I still can’t read it.”
“What do you suppose MM means?” she asked. “Initials?”
Initials. Maybe. I nodded. “Someone Alice knew. Someone helping her.”
Tani pointed to a place further down the page. “This handwriting is different. More loopy.”
She was right. Not Alice’s sharp precision. Someone else’s.
“Maybe MM’s,” I said.
Tani nodded, pleased with herself. “So your dead witch-mom had a pen pal.”
“She had an ally,” I corrected.
“Same thing,” Tani said, and flipped to the next page.
“Let’s keep looking,” I said.
We kept searching. Papers scattered everywhere. File folders stacked two and three deep. Every drawer emptied. Every page shuffled.
Delivery receipts that were at least a decade old. Phone orders from people in town that she’d kept for years. A sketch of the greenhouse out back—like she was trying to envision it before it was built.
“Hoarder,” Tani muttered as she shuffled more papers.
“Thorough,” I corrected, though by the piles of papers everywhere I was starting to agree.
I peered down in the drawer I’d emptied to make sure I got everything out when I noticed a seed catalog at the bottom.
Like it had fallen out of the folder and Alice never noticed.
The cover was bent at odd angles. I rescued it and placed it on the counter in front of me.
I don’t know why but I started flipping through it.
There, stuck against the crease in the middle of the book, was a scrap of paper folded in half. Like it had been stuck there absently.
I unfolded and read it.
MM. Old ways. Crossroads. Stellar convergence.
What did that mean?
Tani peered over my shoulder.
“Stellar convergence?” Tani asked.
“Something about the Crossroads and a stellar convergence—but what? Planetary alignment?” This was, of course, rhetorical. Tani wouldn’t know.
To prove me right, she shrugged.
Someone knew the old ways. Someone was helping her. Someone with the initials MM.
“Maybe it’s like astrology,” she said.
My brows drew together. “What do you know about astrology?”
“You know. Like Mercury retrograde. Don’t sign contracts. That sort of thing.”
I stared at her. How did she know about that?
“Maybe.” And then I forced away a yawn.
I glanced down at the book again and froze. All my thoughts fled as I stared down at the open page.
Staring back at me was a picture of the mystery flower in the cooler. The one that preferred to be in the cold with pale pink petals brushed with blue translucent edges. The name of the flower was Moonpetal.
I had a name for the mystery blooms in the flower shop. And now I had a place to buy the seeds.
“Oh.” It came out on a breath.
“What is it?” Tani peered over my shoulder at the open page.
“Moonpetal,” I said.
Maybe the note was related.
“Alice grew those in the greenhouse.”
My head snapped up. “She did?”
“Got them started,” she said around a yawn. “Then moved them to the flower shop cooler. The blooms are winter flowers.”
This felt significant. I closed the seed catalog. Then picked it up with the scrap of note and the grimoire.
“Let’s call it a night,” I said.
“Good idea.”
She poofed into fun-size Tani and vanished in a flash—leaving me alone in the basement with a stack of questions and one bright, clear thread.
Moonpetal.
Alice had been planting them long before I came home. And now I needed to find out why.