“Crab Rangoon is superior. It’s not even a question.”
“Says who?” Felix points the dumpling he’s holding in his chopsticks at me. “Shumai. Always.”
“I, for one, am a fan of all of it,” Trixie says, ever the diplomat. She convinced her mom to bring home Chinese takeout from the place in the next town over when she was on her way home from her shift at the hospital. The food covers one of the tables in my basement—not the ones with the tomes we were using for research—that would be irresponsible, according to Trixie.
“If you weren’t already one of my favorite people, this would have cemented your spot.” I fish out another piece of honey chicken. It’s certainly not authentic—maybe one day I’ll travel and eat food from all over the world—but for now, it’s a nice change from Matt’s.
Trixie pulls her lips between her teeth like she’s trying to bite down her smile. “Maybe my intention was bribing you.”
Even though my stomach is full, the butterflies still pick up their fluttering.
“The way you two are looking at each other is making it really weird for me to be here,” Felix says around a mouth full of food.
I snort and reluctantly break eye contact with Trixie. “Says the man I’ve always been the third wheel for.”
“Fair point,” he concedes. When I glance at Trixie again, she’s still smirking.
“Back to work,” Trixie says as she closes up her containers. She grabs a wet wipe and wipes the food from her hands before heading back to the table with the tomes. Sighing, I follow suit.
“Your gran’s here.” Trixie doesn’t look up from her laptop screen as she speaks.
Felix cocks his head, pointing his ear toward the ceiling, as he walks over. “How can you tell? I didn’t hear anything.”
“I sensed her arrival,” Trixie says, opening a book.
Felix puts down his notebook. “You what now?”
Trixie finally looks up. “Oh, um, I can sense a life force. It’s a witchy thing.”
“So I can’t sneak up on you?” Felix asks, coming over to join us at the table.
Trixie laughs. “No, but that’s nothing new. You just didn’t know about it.”
“Can you track me?”
Trixie cocks her head, considering. I find I want to know the answer too. “I think so, but that’s only because I’m so familiar with you. It doesn’t work over long distances, but I can find my mom if we get separated in the grocery store.”
“She can heal minor wounds too,” I say. Trixie’s cheeks darken. “She’ll be able to heal larger wounds as she learns to harness, maybe even bring someone back from the brink of death.”
“Damn,” Felix says, a little shell-shocked. “Can you do that too?” he asks me.
I purse my lips, my earlier pride in Trixie fizzling out. “No,” I say. “It’s something Trixie discovered in her ascension.” I debate describing runes in full but decide against it, opting for a summary. “Mine is different.”
“I didn’t know that. I just thought you could do magic; I didn’t know there were variations of it. How is yours different?”
As much as Felix has been involved in my life, I’ve kept him separate from the magic. I haven’t really used mine, so it never felt necessary. Now, I realize I’ve been keeping a part of myself hidden from him in the process.
“Trixie’s magic is almost the opposite of mine,” I start, trying to right some wrongs by at least explaining this. “Both our magic works along the lines of life and death, but hers is more life and mine is more death. Though I haven’t been able to really test what that means for me yet.”
I haven’t wanted to is a better description. Eventually, I know I’ll have to, but it’s just felt like another thing to worry about. Trixie’s magic became more intense, which is usual for most witches. Mine just got…easier. Calling on the ghosts is almost effortless, and I changed Jack into a fox with ease when he was being pissy the other day, but I don’t know what that means for the actual death components of my magic.
Plus, now that I know my rune, some of what I saw in Veritas is making more sense. The darkness I felt while looking into the mirror is lurking in me, yes, but it’s my magic too, woven into its very core. Eventually, I’ll have to do something with that information.
“Actually,” I say, “that might be something to look into.”
“What is?” Trixie asks.
“My magic. At my ascension, Gran mentioned some creatures would be attracted to my magic. Could something else, something other than a wielder, be attracted to it too?”
A line forms between Trixie’s brows. “Theoretically.” She nods. “It at least gives us something to look for next.”
Flipping back through the pages of my notebook, I try to see if there are any connections I might have missed before. Maybe I’m smarter now that I’m fed.
We’ve been trying to make a list of all the deaths that have occurred in Windrop. I’m working backward from the most recent, Trixie from five years ago, Felix from ten. The point was to try to find any connections or similarities between how they died. So far, I haven’t seen anything.
It took three brutal hours to put my list together—name, age, wielder or mortal, and date and location of death—and I’ve got nothing.
“I think I’ve got everyone,” Trixie says, leaning back from her laptop.
“Same,” Felix says, pushing his list toward her. I do the same, if only so I don’t have to look at it anymore.
Trixie scans the lists, frown deepening. “I was hoping something would jump out at me.”
“We could put pins on a map?” Felix says. Both Trixie and I turn to him, eyes wide. “What?” he asks, looking between us. “Is that a bad idea?”
Trixie pats the top of his head as she stands from the table. “No. It is an excellent idea. I’m just sad I didn’t think of it first.” Trixie disappears into one of the rows and comes out a minute later with a giant map of town.
“Where did you get that?” I ask as she spreads it out on an open table.
“There’s a whole map section. It’s fascinating, actually, since they aren’t just present maps but historical too. I can show you?”
My heart kicks up at the inflection in her tone. “Yes, please.”
Felix snaps his fingers. “Focus, ladies. Flirt later.”
Trixie rolls her eyes but nods anyway. “I don’t have pins so we’re just going to have to draw on it.” She frowns like she just said she was going to commit a crime. “We’ll each take our lists and mark the spot on the map.” She walks back to her backpack and digs around until she pulls out three red pens. I don’t ask her why she has so many red pens in her backpack. It seems like an entirely Trixie thing to have.
The process of marking up the map takes another hour, mostly because I wait until Felix and Trixie are done before I start marking so I don’t accidentally touch them. Better safe than sorry.
I thought looking at the list of names was hard, but the amount of Xs on the map turns my stomach.
“That’s a lot,” Felix says. Trixie nods, hand at her throat.
I scan the map, trying to ignore the thought that every X is a life. I don’t discern a pattern to them. They’re not in the same place or even clustered together. Some are closer to each other than others, like in the spot where Jen died, but it’s a small town; there isn’t much space to die within town limits to begin with. Then I see it.
Jen. I remember her standing by the river, looking at the spot where she died. Where my parents died. Where Felix’s brother died.
“They’re all by the river,” I say. As soon as I say it, it’s like it comes into focus. The Xs snake along the river. They’re not always right next to the river, but close enough that I could see the river if I were standing in each spot.
“They are,” Trixie says. Her hand’s still at her throat, but she doesn’t look as ashen. “They’re not drownings though.”
“No,” I say.
“It’s something, right?” Felix asks.
Trixie looks up at me, a sad smile on her lips. “It’s something.”