CHAPTER NINE

Monday

 

“Fiona, doll, you gonna call this meetin’ to order?”

I watched, fascinated, as the woman with glittering orange hair and shrill voice who chewed gum like a Valley girl directed this question to my mother and wondered how fast my mother would turn her into some kind of small animal. Or if they really did those sorts of things here in witch land.

Although they had plenty of animals already present. Apparently the council members often brought their familiars to the meetings, a small detail my mother hadn’t mentioned to me. I knew she wasn’t big on familiars—at least that’s what she’d told me—but I would’ve loved to have brought Xander for the festivities. Although I supposed if Xander wanted to come, he would’ve just showed up.

Regardless, he would have been enamored with the falcon sitting on Vivienne Dandy’s shoulder. At least, I thought it was a falcon. I’d never actually seen one up close and personal before. There was also a bunny curled up next to Posey, Fiona’s niece, which I guess made her my cousin, and a ferret next to Gordon Magnum. He was adorable—the ferret, not Gordon—and I really wanted to play with him.

Judging from the look on Fiona’s face as she observed the orange-haired woman, though, the small animal spell was still a possibility. “My dear Theodora. I’m well aware of what time it is,” Fiona said. “We’re waiting for one more attendee.” Her eyes swept the council chambers one more time, looking, I assumed, for the elusive Blake Alexander, who had yet to show up for his first meeting as our esteemed legal counsel. And my esteemed tutor, or coach, or whatever he was doing. I assumed this because his seat with his gold-plated name on the table in front of it was the only empty seat left.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect at this Magickal Council meeting. I knew Mazzy was on the agenda, and that made me nervous. But Fiona seemed very blase about the whole thing. She had escorted me here tonight, which meant she’d grabbed my hand and I’d barely had a chance to blink before ... poof! We were sitting at this table, in this giant room with cathedral ceilings and crazy cool etchings from floor to ceiling. The setup was similar to other councils I’d seen, like in North Harbor where city council members sat on an elevated platform behind a big fancy table with fancy chairs, although that was nothing compared to this place. The chair I sat in was made from lush leather and the heavy mahogany table could’ve been something out of the Royal Family’s meeting room.

The council members, however, would probably not be the types of people who would hang out in the Queen’s presence. There were four men and seven women besides me and Fiona, and they ranged from kind of normal to straight out of a TV show in appearance. They weren’t wearing pointy hats or anything, but still—you had Theodora and her giant orange hair crusted with gold sparkles, and Christobel with her long, ivory lace dress, Goth makeup, and killer boots with the five-inch heels. Ember, with a short, platinum bob who wore all white, from her dress to her shoes. Alan, with long, thick black hair that women must envy. Gordon, the professorial type with his gray ponytail and what looked like a raven feather tucked into it. Vivienne, who seemed grandmotherly but had a sharp streak in her. And Jet, the quietest member—aside from me—a skinny guy with short hair, glasses, and a nose piercing that connected to an earring.

I’d been part of two other council meetings so far—the first, my swearing in, which had been purely ceremonial, and one other, which I’d spent worrying that I would have to talk. Like when you went to a new school and had to stand up and tell the class something about yourself. God, I hated those moments. I’d always wanted to vanish into my desk. I’d worried this would be worse, but they’d gone surprisingly easy on me. I figured it had something to do with Fiona.

What was even more fascinating to me was that I was actually related to some of these people. Fiona had promised that as soon as I got settled, she’d have a party for me here in this realm with my other family and some close friends. It was kind of mind boggling to me. I’d had such a tiny little family for so long, and it had whittled down to no one after Grandma Abby died. And now it seemed like I had a huge family to whom I needed to get acclimated. For example, Fiona had four sisters—so I had a lot of aunts. I could hardly wrap my mind around it.

I figured they felt the same way about me. Like Posey—my cousin—and her rabbit sat across the table from me but she had barely looked at me. Posey had more of a librarian vibe than a witch vibe, maybe because she hadn’t looked up from her book since I’d been here. She had the same red hair as I did, but it hung flat and limp. She wore a simple black dress, no jewelry, and seemed perfectly comfortable being alone in this crowd of people. I wanted to talk to her but she didn’t seem all that friendly. Christobel, however, had been super friendly from the start. I also knew she was a distant relative on my Grandma Abby’s side.

I spent some time trying to tune into auras, but there were too many of them and it was overwhelming. I abandoned my efforts and sipped my coffee, which Pete had given me before I’d “left” for the meeting—the teleporting aspect of this whole new life was still so weird to me—with a promise that he’d done a little something to it so it stayed hot all the way to the bottom of the cup, for which I was grateful. There was not much worse than your coffee going cold halfway through. And I was exhausted. I’d gone to yoga this morning after all, so I hadn’t had a chance to meet Todd, and the shop had been busy all day so I hadn’t even spoken to him. We’d exchanged casual texts, but that was it. Josie had pointed out to me—again—that I needed to address the situation.

I would. Eventually.

The door to the council chambers crashed open and a man strode in. He had the hurried gait of someone running late, but he didn’t look rushed or frazzled. Instead, he flashed a lazy smile at the group gathered around the table as he took his seat at the end, tossing his too-long black curls out of his eyes, which settled on me as they passed over the crowd. He wore jeans and a button-down shirt with a casual jacket, and he hadn’t shaved. He looked just like the picture Zoe had showed me. He took a seat at the council table in the one empty chair.

Blake Alexander. In the flesh.

Damn, was my first thought. Everyone was right—he was hot. It was even more apparent in person. But he also looked like he was confident in his hotness. He probably didn’t hesitate to use it to his advantage.

“My apologies,” he said, his gaze traveling over the council members. “I had a leprechaun consult that ran over.”

Unfortunately, I’d just taken a sip of my coffee, because I promptly choked on it. Leprechaun consult? Was he kidding? What in the ...

Fiona shot me a look. Blake’s amused grin settled back on my face. I could read the curiosity in his eyes.

“Darlin’, you can be late anytime you want,” Theodora murmured, completely unfazed by the leprechaun reference. “Just walk a little slower on your way over to your seat, ’kay?”

Fiona shot her a look and rapped her gavel against the table a bit harder than necessary. “This meeting of the Magickal Council will come to order. Roll call please, Serenity.”

Once Serenity went through the names of all the members, she paused and looked at Blake, then at my mother.

Fiona sighed. “Do you need me to introduce Blake, Serenity?”

“Well, yes, please,” Serenity stammered a bit. “Since you’re the chairwoman.”

“Fine. Council, please welcome Blake Alexander. He is our new legal counsel and will replace Manfred Wooley as our representative. Any questions?”

No one had questions, but most of them welcomed Blake, except for Oscar Sageblood, the one member of the council who seemed to outwardly hate me. Oscar sneered at him a little.

“Great. Let’s get to the agenda.” Fiona paused and flicked a finger at the screen on the wall. A scroll appeared with the agenda on it. It had one topic: Mariza Diamond.

I shivered a little. I’d known it was coming, of course, but just thinking about the day I’d found Mazzy in my shop, nothing more than a puddle of slime, made me feel sick.

“So.” Fiona looked around the room. “We’re all aware of what happened to Ms. Diamond. As you all know, we haven’t had a genie incident in nearly fifty years. This is a very brazen, disturbing act that has our community quite unsettled. And it’s up to us to take further action and get to the bottom of this. And ultimately, we have the power to free Ms. Diamond if we put our resources and our heads together to uncover who did this. Which would also help us prevent future attacks. Because as you all know, if they get away with it once, it becomes easier to do it again, and again.” She sat back. “So who wants to start?”

“Well,” said Oscar, “why don’t we start with your daughter, Fiona? After all, this happened at her mortal place of business, right? Timely, given her grand reentrance into our world.”

All eyes in the room turned to me. I froze, feeling my face turn as red as my hair, not sure what I was supposed to say. Here I was the newest member of the council, placed here as the heir apparent to my Grandma Abby, and I couldn’t seem to string a sentence together. I hope she wasn’t watching this from afar and wishing her seat had just gone to a vote.

“Oscar, you’re so predictable,” Fiona said with a sigh. “As you all know, my daughter had just been introduced to her heritage and her powers at the time of the attack. She didn’t even know what it meant to be genied. So it’s a good try, but I’m afraid accusing her of something has no basis in reality.”

“She’ll still have to give a report to our police,” Oscar said. “She’s a witness, if nothing else.”

I didn’t like his suggestion. Actually, I didn’t much like him at this point.

“Leave her alone,” Ember chimed in. “She’s not the issue here. Mariza is where we should focus—whatever she was involved in could give us a clue. She was a reporter, after all. Which meant she could have been looking into something that someone didn’t like.”

“Excellent point, Ember,” Hattie Blandon said, winking at me. I liked Hattie—she came off as a little flaky, but I could see by the way she watched people that she was no dummy. I sensed she preferred it that way so she always had the upper hand. “Has anyone spoken to her newspaper colleagues? Have the police been looking into this?” She looked at Fiona.

“Of course, Hattie,” Fiona said, a little impatiently.

“I’m sorry Fiona, but if this was a random attack, why was the location of the act at this particular store?” Oscar asked pointedly, ignoring Hattie’s attempt to take the conversation in a different direction.

I didn’t like the way he spoke about me as if I wasn’t there. I also didn’t like the fact that he still hadn’t made eye contact with me once. I was a peer now. I was on this council, and I deserved to be treated with some respect.

“I didn’t say it was random, if you were listening,” Fiona said. Her voice reminded me of a freshly sharpened knife, gleaming and ready to take on its victim.

Before she could go any further, Blake cut in.

“May I make a suggestion?” he asked. When Oscar opened his mouth, presumably to protest, Blake ignored him and went on. “We need to appoint a subcommittee with members from this council, along with members of our police force, to plan for a deeper look into this. I don’t think it makes sense for the whole council to dedicate their time to it. The council should be here to discuss findings and make decisions on next steps. If everyone agrees, I’ll take the lead in organizing that subcommittee.”

“Fabulous idea,” Theodora said, batting her spiderweb eyelashes at him. “I’ll volunteer!”

Blake returned her smile, though his own held a twinge of amusement. “Thank you, Theodora. I think we’ll limit this to four from this group, just so we make sure we keep everything flexible and fast-moving. I’d like to recommend Fiona as chairperson, as well as Ember, and Alan. Violet will, of course, be there in an advisory capacity due to her proximity to the issue.”

“Blake’s proposal makes sense to me,” Fiona said, before anyone could chime in. “All in favor?” She raised her gavel—which was covered in glitter—and looked expectantly around the table.

Oscar gave a derisive snort, demonstrating that he was clearly not in favor. The rest of the committee looked at each other, then almost in unison raised their hands—with the exception of Serenity. She and Oscar were the only naysayers.

“Approved.” Fiona banged her gavel, then looked expectantly at Blake. “Can you work with the police force for their representation and set up our first meeting? Time is of the essence.”

“Done,” Blake said smoothly.

Fiona nodded and then moved on, opening the floor for a roundtable. Blake caught my eye and winked. I felt my face turn red and looked away.