The clock was ticking, and we had a plan that relied on the small-town version of the game Telephone. Which meant…we waited.
Or I did. Everyone else was out spreading gossip.
The news on the street—hopefully, after Ethan, Victor, and Noelle were done sprinkling a false trail of juicy news—was that the original owner of the wand had left a second bequest to the town. It was only just now coming to light, because the donor had left specific instructions for her estate administrators to deliver it thirty years after her death, two days before Christmas. It was being stored in Ethan’s office until the ball.
Who would believe such a hokey provision in a will?
A kid who read a lot of children’s detective novels, I hoped.
Since I wasn’t a town resident, I couldn’t participate without raising suspicion. Which left me here, in the sheriff’s lobby/crafting area. The inactivity was creating a desire to bite my nails, and that wasn’t a habit I’d suffered from since I was a kid.
To curb the urge, I started to pace. Up one side of the sheriff’s office to the other. I had basically no function in this plan, so I was waiting for everyone else to report back that they’d laid an appropriate bread-crumb trail of “leaked” updates on the case.
I’d already checked in with Mabel and my grandfather. The town hall had a potions room. Who’d have thought? Then again, Hidden Haven was a witch town. And it wasn’t fancy. Just a large storage closet that had been converted.
The potion looked good but had to cook a bit before they could attempt to combine it with the spell they’d tweaked to track the thief. When they were done, they’d agreed to cast from here.
Between one of the two plans, one was bound to work.
Right?
Which was when I realized my heart was thudding an anxious beat within my chest that had nothing to do with a fear of being trapped here or being subjected to sled travel.
I wanted my grandfather happy.
And Mabel and Noelle. Also, Ethan and Victor. Even Darla.
All of the residents of Hidden Haven had chosen this town as their home. They wanted to live here, safe from witch hunters or anyone else who would persecute magic users. A place where they could openly practice magic without concerns of revealing their nature to the human world.
I wanted to help Hidden Haven remain what it was, a place of peace and safety and happiness.
Corny, I supposed. And yet, that was the truth.
And the smoothest path to keeping the town concealed and all its residents happily living their dream was to find that darn wand before the ball began.
Ethan and Victor walked in together. Both were covered in a thin layer of fresh snow.
Ethan stopped as soon as the door closed and shook the flakes from his fur. “I hate to say it, but I might miss all this fur when it’s gone.”
“Right. About that. I want the story.” I glanced at the clock. We had three hours before the ball began.
“Now?” Ethan said. He didn’t sound enthusiastic, but he also hadn’t immediately refused.
Victor looked first at me then Ethan. “I’ll just make us some coffee. In the kitchen.” He pointed. Down the same hallway that led to the bathrooms. When neither of us said anything, he nodded then left at a brisk walk.
“It must be embarrassing if Victor’s in such a rush to escape.”
“No, just trying to give me some privacy.” He sat then cocked his head. It was curiously canine, unlike so many of his expressions. “You really want to know?”
“Well, yeah. Of course. It’s kind of huge. Who transforms an ex? And unless you know of a way that avoids the use of blue pixies, that’s a lot of anger, because your ex must have killed a pixie to manage the transformation.”
Granted, they were more like bugs than people, but killing a living creature for a potion wasn’t any sort of magic I wanted a part of. The types of witch potions I used relied almost exclusively on ingredients, plant and animal, that could be harvested or collected without harm. And the rare exception could typically be obtained by ethical means. For example, using the bones, antlers, teeth, etc. of animals who’d died naturally.
“No blue pixies were harmed. She tapped into the town’s magic, so it wasn’t quite so complicated to effect the change.”
I frowned, because—
“This was before the wand went missing. She didn’t know Hidden Haven’s magic would be in short supply.”
“Ah. So, what, she hexed and ran?”
He chuckled. “Yeah. Wouldn’t you?”
I looked at him askance. “No. I’m not the running sort. And I wouldn’t hex an ex, not unless they really deserved it. Did you deserve it, Ethan?”
“Maybe. She said I broke her heart.”
Interesting. Not “I broke her heart,” rather “she said I broke her heart.”
“Did you?” I asked. Seemed a fair question since he was implying otherwise.
“No. Not at all. I crushed her hopes. Dinged her pride. But she wasn’t in love with me.”
“Says you.”
His eyes softened. “No, she admitted it. Later. About a week after she left.”
I nodded. Fair enough.
“Too bad she was too far away to reverse the hex,” he said wryly. “When it turned out Hidden Haven wasn’t what she was looking for, she wanted to leave. I didn’t. But she’d expected me to follow.”
Ten years. He’d said he moved here ten years ago. Had they been together all that time?
“That’s a lengthy relationship to chuck, even if you weren’t married, over some geography.”
Ethan snorted. “First, Hidden Haven isn’t just geography, which you know very well by now. And we were only together the last eighteen months or so. We were in the same wave of new residents ten years ago, but we weren’t dating back then.”
“She decided to leave, expected you to follow, then flew into an almost-heartbroken rage when you didn’t…hexing you into a dog in the process.”
“Basically.” He sighed. “I wasn’t exactly expecting her reaction, hence her catching me off guard.”
And that right there was the source of his embarrassment. The big bad grumpy sheriff had been caught unawares. “Gotcha with your pants down, huh?”
He huffed in annoyance. Little did he know how cute he was when his doggie lips puffed out like that. “Only metaphorically.”
I hid a smile. “You think it will wear off soon?”
“Has to. Nothing’s sustaining it.”
“You hope,” I muttered.
But Victor was back with two mugs of coffee and a small bowl that looked like it might have coffee with cream.
“You are not drinking coffee.” I stared as Victor delivered a mug to me and then set that bowl on the ground.
“Please. I’m not giving up caffeine. It’s fine. I’m basically human.”
I frowned.
He frowned back. “Do you mind?”
I turned to give him some privacy while he slurped coffee. Or I imagined he slurped. I didn’t hear a sound.
Victor touched his mug to mine. “Cheers. And don’t worry. Caffeine won’t hurt him. It’s toxic to regular dogs, but he’s immune.” With laughter lurking in his voice, he added, “We checked with the local vet. And if you think he’s grumpy now, you should see him without a regular infusion of caffeine. It isn’t pretty.”
“I can hear you.” Mr. Grumpy Pants joined us. “How’d your first date with Noelle go?”
Victor rolled his eyes. “Change the subject all you want, but you know it’s true. You’re cranky like a toddler without a nap when you don’t get your caffeine hit.”
“Whatever. I—”
The lights in the room died at the same time an ominous click came from the direction of the door.
“Was that the front door lock?” I asked.
Because apparently I liked to ask the obvious whilst in the middle of a crisis.
And this was definitely a crisis. The room was dark, allowing only a shadowy outline of the interior, and magic surged all around us. Specifically within the walls of the building.
There was a magical perimeter around us.
A light flickered then solidified. A magical orb. Victor’s.
At least he had the presence of mind to act. I’d just been standing here, coffee cup in hand, startled into immobility.
Victor’s light revealed Ethan’s canine form as he jumped at the door and twisted the knob with his mouth.
Victor and I hurried to help him.
But human hands were no more successful.
“That would be a yes, Camille,” Ethan said dryly. “That was the front door lock.”
And since I was that person, the one who couldn’t help but say the completely unnecessary words, I replied, “Oh. We trapped.”