Spellbound in Amberhollow

1. Freddie

Freddie

I am going to hunt down whoever the fuck invented fitted sheets.

I don’t know who they are. I don’t know where they live. I don’t know if they’re even still alive, which is a minor inconvenience because I have a lot of rage I’d like to direct somewhere productive.

But I will find them. And when I do, I’m going to make them spend an entire evening at the Everfall Inn trying to wrestle one of these hellspawn pieces of fabric onto a bed without losing their damn mind.

“Come on,” I hiss, gripping the edge of the sheet and pulling it toward the corner of the mattress. “You have one job! You’re literally a rectangle with elastic. Why are you fighting me?”

The sheet, naturally, does not answer.

I’ve got two corners hooked over the mattress and the other two will not cooperate. I yank the bottom-left corner down, and the top-right pops off with a little snap, and the whole sheet folds in on itself like a sad, fitted taco.

I’ve been making beds at the Everfall Inn since I was sixteen years old.

Aunt Delphi runs this place like she’s preparing us for war.

You could bounce a coin off the sheets if you do it my way, she’d say, standing in the doorway with her arms crossed while I re-tucked a corner for the fourth time.

It’s been thirteen years. I’m a grown woman.

You’d think by now my hands would just know what to do, the same way you don’t think about how to tie your shoes anymore.

But no. Apparently, at twenty-nine, fitted sheets will ultimately be my downfall.

I consider wadding the whole thing up and chucking it straight into the fireplace.

It’s right there, crackling away across the room as if it’s taunting me to do so, and it would probably feel amazing for about four seconds before I had to explain to Delphi why I’d set a guest’s bedding on fire.

That woman terrifies me. Even though she’s only about five feet tall and I’m nearly an entire foot taller than her, I have no doubt in my mind that she could thoroughly kick my ass.

The hearth seems to sense my mood, hissing and crackling louder as my frustration spikes, throwing a fresh volley of sparks against the iron screen. I unclench my jaw, forcing a slow breath through my nose to pull my temper back down until the flames settle back into a sizzle.

I always forget how reactive my magic here could be.

Honestly though, I don’t mind the heat. It’s a gloomy, freezing evening in Amberhollow with a bone-chilling cold that seeps right through the thickest wool sweaters and straight to the joints.

I’ve left the window cracked an inch. The crisp bite of the mountain air licks against my warm skin, raising goosebumps along my arms, and the contrast feels amazing after almost nine hours on my feet.

The old wooden walls creak softly around me, settling in for another cold night. Somewhere downstairs, I can hear the faint clatter of dishes being put away and the distant murmur of the last guests finishing their drinks in the dining room.

Everfall is never truly quiet, and it’s partly why I love it so much. It’s exponentially harder to get lost in this disturbing, discombobulated little noggin of mine.

I square my shoulders, take one more deep breath, and try to figure out which godforsaken corner actually matches the top left of the mattress.

I pull, I tuck, I lean my whole weight into it—and the stupid thing snaps back, rolling itself into the middle of the bed again like it’s proud of what it’s done.

Motherfucker.

An unmistakably smug snicker cuts through the crackle of the fire.

Down by the worn corduroy armchair in the far corner of the room, Jett is sitting on his haunches, pitch-black against the floorboards, methodically dragging a bubble-gum pink tongue over his front paw.

He doesn’t even look up at first. He just pauses his grooming long enough to shoot me a sideways, amber-eyed look that radiates an unhealthy dose of unadulterated judgment.

“If it’s so bloody easy,” I mutter, glaring down at him while leaning against the mattress edge, “why don’t you come over here and do it?”

Jett lowers his paw, resting it flat on the rug, and gives a raspy chortle. “And miss the opportunity to watch you look completely moronic? Please. I pleasantly appreciate a rare moment of entertainment around this place.”

I roll my eyes so hard I nearly pull a muscle in my neck. “You’re a real ball of encouragement in a time of need, you know that Jetty?”

My cat smirks back at me. “I try.”

I glare at him a second longer than necessary, not that he cares at all, and then something snags in my brain.

I glance at the door behind me. It’s barely open, just a sliver.

Sometimes I leave it open when I’m working in a room alone so I can hear if anyone’s coming down the hall, but I swear I didn’t tonight.

“When did you even get in here? I didn’t hear the door open.

” It didn’t help that I’d had my headphones on while blasting “Moonage Daydream” at nearly full volume, but that was besides the point.

Usually my magic gave me enough warning to keep anything or anyone from creeping up on me, like the sensation of fingernails lightly dragging against my skin, and it hadn’t this time. Which was odd.

Jett finally deigns to look at me properly, gold eyes half-lidded, insufferably pleased with himself. “I guess these—what did you call them again? Useless?—paws aren’t actually a complete waste after all. I can be stealthy when I need to be.”

I cross my arms. “I didn’t say they were useless, I said you were useless. That’s an important distinction. And let me take a wild guess: Delphi banished you up here because she caught you licking the cinnamon butter off the dinner plates in the kitchen again, didn’t she?”

“That’s a very likely possibility. You know how I feel about Flora’s cinnamon butter.”

“Jett! C’mon! People are going to think I’m a terrible mother. I raised you to have more dignity than that.”

He flicks his tail once, a dismissive wave of black silk. “Says the woman wrestling with the linens.”

I open my mouth, and then clamp it shut.

Unfortunately, he has a point. The majority of my patience has officially left this inn, and my dignity has fled somewhere along with it.

I stare down at him, wondering for the thousandth time why I ever decided to rescue the ungrateful little goblin.

I found him almost a decade ago—back when I was eighteen and still fumbling my way through life—squawking his tiny kitten lungs out like he was announcing the end of his days inside of a hollowed-out log behind the old potting shed during a freezing downpour.

He was the size of my palm, half-starved and already very unimpressed with me.

So naturally, I’d brought him inside.

I’d toweled him off in the kitchen while Delphi told me not to get too attached, and then I looked at him, a little fur ball of rage, and thought, well, you’re quite the little diva already. I had to have him.

I named him after Joan Jett, one of the most iconic women of our time, because his fur was a glossy, pitch-black mirror of her legendary hair.

Not to mention, it matched my own thick, messy raven-colored mane, and I foolishly thought we’d look like a cool matching pair.

Instead, he grew up into the feline equivalent of a teenager who would rather swallow a bucket of acid than be seen in public with his mother.

He yawns, a pink cavern of a mouth that shows off entirely too many sharp teeth. I point at him. “You’re lucky I love you, Jetty boy. Or else your ass would be grass.”

Before Jett can formulate a suitably insulting comeback, a tap-tap-tap raps against the door frame and Aunt Delphi sticks her head through the gap. “How’s it coming along, Winifred?”

Only Delphi and my parents have ever called me Winifred and lived to tell about it.

A few wisps of strawberry-blonde hair are already slipping out of the tortoiseshell claw clip anchored to the back of her head, and she has her wire-rimmed reading glasses perched low on the bridge of her nose.

She’s definitely been locked in the downstairs office wrestling with the inn’s ledger books.

I look down at the sheet, a mangled, defeated lump on the mattress. “As expected, I guess you could say.”

She steps in, sighs a sigh that’s been aged like a fine wine over the last thirteen years, and gives me a playful bump with her hip. “Have I taught you nothing, kid?”

I throw my hands up. “You should know by now that putting me in charge of the beds was a terrible idea.”

She laughs. “You just don’t have the patience to deal with anything that takes longer than sixty seconds and a temper to match a kettle at full boil.”

I don’t disagree. Patience has never been my strong suit, and neither has keeping my mouth shut, which are apparently a package deal.

Her brown eyes narrow on Jett in the corner, and she points one burgundy colored fingernail at him like a queen delivering a decree.

“And you. If I catch you licking the butter off the dinner platters in the kitchen one more time, your favorite enchanted silver-minnow flakes are getting permanently revoked.”

Even Jett freezes, stiffening his spine and sitting a fraction of an inch straighter on the rug. Delphine Rowley has that effect on people. Apparently cats, too.

Delphi reaches out and grabs the opposite corner of the fitted sheet, nodding toward me. “Grab your end, Winifred.”

I grumble under my breath, reaching for the fabric. “And I can’t just call Grimm over here to snap this thing into place with a quick spell, why again?”