Chapter 19
THE COMPACT
wait…
where did cousin go?
— gus
Penelope’s head shoots up. The second she sees me, relief floods her face so quickly it almost hurts to look at. She clambers to her feet, crossing the cell quickly so that she can curve her fingers around the steel bars separating us.
“Oh, thank the goddess. I didn’t think I’d be able to ever explain.”
At Max’s urging, I say, “I’m here now. What did you want to tell me?”
“You have to listen to me,” she blurts out. “It’s about the compact.”
The compact?
I’ve been carrying it ever since Penelope looked ready to snatch it from me during Ash’s surgery. Without thinking, I reach into the pocket of my jeans and pull it out.
“This old thing?”
Penelope stares at it like I just produced the damn Holy Grail out of thin air instead of my pocket.
“Yes,” she whispers. “I’m so relieved to see you still have it. That no one’s stolen it from you yet.”
Stolen? I don’t like stolen. “Why would they?”
I twist my wrist. The silver compact catches the harsh overhead light. It still looks ordinary to me. It’s scratched and slightly tarnished. Honestly? It’s something that was forgotten in the bottom of a dumpster until I found it and sensed the slight hum of magic coming off of it.
“A decade or so ago, a careless witch lost that compact. I know you think it’s just a mirror, but in the right hands…
to the right witch… the magic it can accomplish is priceless.
It can amplify spells, it can ensure a spell works every time…
and, if you have the sight, one side can even help see the future.
The stories about Morrigaine’s mirror are legendary.
It’s one of our oldest artifacts, and every witch knows that the taste of its magic is unlike anything available today. ”
I glance at it again. “This old thing?”
Penelope nods. “That’s why Olivia had to have it. Only she didn’t know it was a compact. That’s part of the magic. Sometimes it’s a standing mirror. Other times it’s a hand mirror. And now—”
“It’s this,” I say, shoving it back in my pocket. “What do you mean, Olivia had to have it? Didn’t you… you know… kill her?”
Penelope’s face clouds over. Her bright blue eyes dim.
“Never. I would never do that. I was just trying to convince her that there were other ways to get the compact. You see, when Olivia went to your store as the coven healer, she went with the intent to look over Ashton because that’s what her coven leader told her to do.
But when she stepped inside… she sensed the magic.
She knew you had a priceless artifact, she just didn’t know what it presented as now.
That’s why she insisted I come. Not because I’m the cursebreaker…
you know that Ashton was never cursed… but because I come from the great witch Morrigaine’s line.
If anyone would be able to pick out the artifact, it would be me. ”
In a way, she’s right. She did notice it was magic… after I grabbed it for its magnifying side and shoved it under her nose.
“Olivia,” murmurs Max. Forever the sheriff, he reminds me why I’m here. “What happened with Olivia?”
“What happened with Olivia?” I repeat.
Penelope shudders out a breath. “She waited until this morning. She knew I was with you last night, and early this morning, she confronted me. Olivia asked if I’d figured out what the artifact was.”
“And?”
“I told her I had.”
Oh, shit. A bad feeling starts creeping up my spine.
“She asked if I had it. I told her that I didn’t, and she insisted that it was our payment for helping with Ashton. That she tried to let herself into your shop to take it a few days ago, but she couldn’t get through the lock.”
Well, that explains who tried to break in to my store…
“And then she pulled out a gun,” Penelope adds, and my breath catches in my throat. “She told me she’d shot at you. Just to scare you away from Moonburrow. And she said, if I didn’t go and use magic to get the compact for the coven, she would shoot me.
“I didn’t kill her,” Penelope explodes, eyes suddenly wild.
“I used magic to knock the gun out of her hand. It backfired. Goddess knows, my spells always backfire. But when the gun went off, it went into the wall. I swear to Hecate, it didn’t hit Olivia.
I don’t know why she fell or why anyone’s accusing me of her murder.
She wasn’t bleeding… she seemed unconscious, but she was breathing when I left.
I didn’t want to give her the chance to shoot me, so I ran out of the coven house. ”
Max’s jaw is tight. I don’t know how Penelope’s story to me matches any of the details from the crime scene, and his face isn’t giving anything away.
And then he moves so that he’s in front of the cell instead of lurking on the side so that Penelope can’t pretend that the sheriff hasn’t heard every single word she’s said.
“Why didn’t you tell all of this to Riordan before he brought you down here?”
Penelope squeezes the bars. “I did.”
Outside the bars, Max goes notably still.
Penelope gasps and, wrapping her arms tightly around herself, takes a few steps away from the bars. Her bright blue eyes are shining now thanks to the unshed tears that have filled them. “I told him, but he didn’t believe me.”
That doesn’t sound right. Not really. Riordan might be cursed and emotionally repressed enough to implode at any moment—which he seems to have proven today—but he’s not an idiot.
He’s fair, too. In Moonburrow, the Alpha is judge, jury, executioner.
With Max out of town, that duty fell to Riordan.
Thanks to his alpha wolf, he’d know if Penelope was lying.
I glance at Max. I get the feeling that he’s using his own wolf to gauge Penelope’s story—and his face isn’t calling her a liar.
I look at Penelope again. “What happened?” I ask her. “With Riordan, I mean.”
Penelope swallows hard. “He told me to sit down and be quiet.” Her expression crumples completely, bewildered and heartbroken all at once. “And I did.”
Oh, shit.
“It was like…” She shakes her head weakly. “Like I couldn’t speak at all. I couldn’t move. I just sat there for hours. Then the sheriff came and he wanted to talk. I couldn’t. He said be quiet… and I was quiet.”
Outside the bars, Max’s golden eyes flare angrily while he keeps the rest of his emotions locked down. He doesn’t have to bother. He knows what happened now, and so do I.
Riordan lost control of his curse.
Penelope’s voice shakes harder now as she says, “And when I finally could speak again, I knew I had to tell you. Whatever happened to Olivia, it’s not done.
It won’t be until the coven gets their hands on the compact.
She didn’t work alone. She boasted there were multiple witches who wanted the coven to have the artifact returned to them to give them the power they need.
You’re not safe while you have it. And I…
I don’t trust myself with it. Not now…” She shudders out a breath, then gives a quick shake.
“I’m sorry. It’s just…” She looks at me, then Max.
“Did you know the chief deputy is under a curse?”
I know. Max definitely knows.
I guess it only makes sense that the cursebreaker noticed it, too.
“I didn’t understand it at first,” she admits. “There was something there that distracted me… something about Chief Deputy Lobo that blocked my magic when I first met him. But now… now he’s gone, and I think it’s my fault.”
“How do you know he’s gone?” demanded Max. “Did you put a spell on the Beta?”
She lets out a hollow laugh. “If I did, you’d know because it wouldn’t work any way that I intended. No. It’s not that. It’s—”
I don’t know if Penelope explains to Max how she’s able to sense Riordan’s absence. Maybe she did. Maybe she stopped talking. It doesn’t matter. At that exact moment, a piercing whistle sounds in my ear, so loud that it’s all I can hear.
I flinch hard enough that I nearly stumble and slam into the steel bars.
Max cocks his head at me. “You okay, Roxy?”
I will be. But, considering that’s the charmed alarm that means someone just crossed the border spell of my shop without me in it, I don’t know if I can say the same about my treasures.
Once I can pretend like the alarm didn’t almost blow my poor eardrum out, I make up some excuse about needing air.
Max buys it because he’s distracted. Penelope buys it because she looks one wrong word away from tears again.
Honestly, I’m not even fibbing. The second I step outside through the back exit of the sheriff’s station, purposely avoiding the front where my mate is waiting with the rest of the clan, the cool evening air hits my face hard enough to cut through the pressure building behind my eyes.
Someone’s in my shop. Someone is on my territory.
The border spell doesn’t go off unless someone forces entry, actually makes it inside the store, and I’m nowhere nearby to stop them. Right now, everybody I care about in Moonburrow is either emotionally compromised, exhausted after a long day, or both.
Nope. Not dragging them into danger. Besides, it’s probably just Crystal returning while we’re gone to try and steal something else to pawn before slinking back to Virginia in my raccoon mugshot shirt and old sweatpants.
Still, after getting shot at once already—and another murderer on the loose because I sure as hell don’t think Penelope is responsible for Olivia’s death—I’m not taking chances.
I duck into the alley behind the station, strip fast, and shift before anyone can wander outside and catch sight of me gloriously naked.
Snap. I’m suddenly four-and-a-half feet closer to the asphalt.
Deep brown fur ripples across my skin in a familiar rush as the world sharpens instantly around me, scents and sounds exploding into focus all at once as I cede control to my mischievous and reckless yet incredibly protective raccoon.