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Lavender passed two steaming hand pies wrapped in cloth napkins across the counter. I took charge of both of them, inhaling scents of cheese and broccoli and potato, while Officer Thorn did the talking.
It was the middle of the lunch rush, and the tavern was full to bursting. Lavender looked more tired than ever. When Thorn mentioned the Lost River Outlook, she didn’t seem too surprised.
“I’ll have someone get the key for you,” she said, glancing pointedly at a fellow bartender who nodded and ducked into the back room. “I’m afraid there’s no telling what you’ll find up there.”
“You haven’t had any renters lately?” Officer Thorn asked.
Lavender shook her head. “I mostly rent the mountain locations during the summer. Though we’ve had so many people coming into town for the Samhain festival, I have been tempted to book those further rooms out . . .”
Her voice trailed off, leaving an unspoken conclusion amongst the three of us: good thing she didn’t.
Meanwhile, the other bartender returned with the key, and Lavender duly passed it over the counter. Officer Thorn pocketed it as I asked, “Can you think of any reason someone would send in a tip about the tower, Lavender?”
She hesitated, and then shook her head. “I was last up there ages ago, when Violetta had just finished fixing it up. These days I leave the maintenance of the mountain properties to Daisy.”
“If you see her before I do, tell her I’m looking for her,” Officer Thorn said grimly. “We’ll be on our way. Thanks for your cooperation.”
“And lunch,” I added.
Lavender smiled faintly. “Wait just one minute.” She fished amongst her glassware and brought out two ceramic traveling mugs, which she filled with hot cider. “For the road. Be safe out there,” she said.
“We plan to be,” I promised. Officer Thorn was already turning for the door.
I caught up with her on the tavern’s porch, looking out over the Square. As I handed her one of the savory pies, I thought aloud. “When Luca and I went up there, we left by the main road going east, and then cut up along an old trail. But according to Dusty, our stranger—Purslane, or Jack—came down from the north, like he had been at the mine.”
“Believe me, I tried questioning Lark that very night.” Officer Thorn’s voice sounded as weary as Lavender had looked, and I could understand why. As owner of a large and profitable mine, Lark was cool, professional, and not afraid to butt heads with local law. She and Thorn had had run-ins on multiple occasions. But Lark genuinely cared about her operation and fairness, so I trusted that if she hadn’t had much to say about Jack, then he wasn’t involved with the mine.
Officer Thorn clearly shared my opinion. As we set out across the park, she went on, “No one there said they’d ever heard of anyone fitting his description, and they hadn’t seen or heard a peep out of the ordinary, either. And usually Lark knows everything that happens on that side of the mountain.”
“I’m with you there. So the tower really does look like a good prospect,” I mused. “Although, I have to tell you, it seemed perfectly nice when Luca and I went up. Granted, we didn’t actually go all the way to the top . . .”
“Why were you there in the first place?” Thorn asked. As she spoke she finished off her pie and then looked vaguely surprised that it was gone.
“Luca’s gotten himself involved in another tourism project,” I answered, eating more carefully as we walked.
Officer Thorn frowned up at the cloudy sky above us, then sighed. “First a tip with no crime, now a crime with no scene.”
“Not yet,” I reminded her. “Just think of the impressive presentations you’ll be making to the Guild when you figure it all out!”
* * *
Our walk up the mountain was relatively quiet, but it quickly became torturous when we made it to the tower.
Officer Thorn approached the Lost River Outlook like the walls were hiding skeletons and the furniture might jump out to bite her at any moment. It looked just as lonely and inviting as it had the day before to me. Nevertheless, I duly assisted in peering around corners and drawing a little sketch of the layout of each floor. Trailing along after the officer with notebook in hand wasn’t too unlike exploring with Luca, to be honest.
Except that Officer Thorn insisted we climb all the stairs.
We stood on the observation floor six stories up, staring at the gloomy spiral staircase overhead. I sighed.
“You should have known,” Officer Thorn reminded me.
“I should have,” I agreed.
“And you should have warned me,” she said, with a sigh of her own.
At that, I chuckled. “Well, it’s not like I would have changed your mind. Too bad neither of us can fly.”
We began dutifully climbing, up and up. The steps shook under Officer Thorn’s weight and the thin railing creaked in protest as I tugged on it for support. My leg muscles were already sore. After we’d left the observation floor behind, the stairs seemed to go on forever. Regular windows let in air and light, but nothing more—we were high enough that to look straight out was to see only clouds. And I didn’t dare look down.
At first we paused at each new story, marked by a square iron landing. Then we paused at every corner. Finally, just when I was contemplating crawling up the last few steps on my hands and knees, we emerged onto a bare wood floor.
There was nothing but windows—no benches, no murals or maps, no immediate clues. I leaned heavily against one of the window sills. It was easily six inches thick, cut straight through the rock of the tower wall. An iron lattice served in place of actual window panes. I could hear the wind whistling over the treetops below.
“This should be one of your frights for the Halloween fair,” I panted.
“Too easy,” Officer Thorn panted back. “Hardly the height of horror.”
I groaned, and straightened up to look around a little more. The only light was from the windows, a muted, overcast glow. Pulling my goggles down over my eyes helped: the magicked lenses could enhance my vision in the shadowy areas. But even so, all I saw was cobwebs, wood, and stone.
“Nothing to write home about,” Officer Thorn said, looking around.
I glanced over at her, wondering if she was making another pun. She did live behind the police station. “Too bad your tipster wasn’t more specific.”
“We’d have needed to check up here anyway,” she insisted, still gazing at the walls.
“Fair enough. But do you even want me to bother drawing it?” I asked, looking down at the police notebook I still carried. “What would it be, just a square with a little cutout where the staircase comes up? I could mark where the windows are, I guess, but there’s just the one on each wall and they’re far too narrow to let anything in, even without the bars. It’s all pretty predictable. I don’t see anything of note either.”
“Your fancy glasses don’t show you everything,” Officer Thorn said. She, too, was leaning against a wall, but when she caught my eye she pointed up.
“What?” I asked incredulously. “It’s just the ceiling. The stairs ended!”
“It’s a ceiling,” Thorn agreed. Her tone had changed, becoming brisk—a sure sign she was on to something. “Not a roof. From the outside, the top of the tower looked pointy.”
I shook my head, shivering a little as the autumn wind came through the windows. “So?”
“What we’re seeing is flat,” she insisted. “So it can’t really be the top of the tower.”
At this, I looked up again. I couldn’t imagine there were yet more stories left, but I did survey the ceiling, even as I complained. “You’ve got to be kidding. You don’t really think—”
“Ha!” Officer Thorn said when I paused. “You see something up there, don’t you?”
“I thought my ‘fancy glasses’ weren’t good enough for you,” I retorted, light-hearted, before shaking my head and trying to make sense of what I’d noticed. “It’s a normal wooden ceiling, I think, but there is the faint outline of a square above us. Right there, next to this wall. It seems to be magic.”
“Called it,” Thorn said smugly. She looked up where I had indicated and bellowed, “Hello! Police!!”
No answer came except a faint echo from the rocks far below the windows.
I shivered again. “You don’t really think there’s anyone up there? Surely Lavender would have said something. Unless somehow she doesn’t know . . .”
Officer Thorn shrugged. “I think it’s a good thing I had Trent make me some magic-banishers. You’re not the only one who makes useful things,” she added in response to my questioning look. She pushed off the wall and came over to look up toward the trace of magic I’d seen.
This time, I resisted the urge to comment. I was, quite frankly, curious about what a “magic-banisher” might be and how it would work.
It turned out to be a small black fabric pouch, stuffed full and tied shut. Officer Thorn drew it from her pocket and weighed it in her hand for a moment before lobbing it straight up at the ceiling. She had a good eye. The pouch hit squarely within the little square of magic I had seen with my goggles and exploded in a puff of dark smoke, a shower of ash, faint glimmers, and an acrid, unpleasant smell.
Once we’d finished coughing and waving the ash away from our faces, we looked up to see a hatch in the ceiling . . . with a rope ladder hanging from it.
“Trent promised it’d dispel any common spell,” Thorn said, pleased, “and it looks like it did. Eh?”
“Agreed.” I looked up at the opening through my goggles again and could see only the faint patterns of sunlight that might come from any window. Whatever illusion spell had been hiding the ladder and door was totally gone. Nothing magical, nothing stirring. “It still might be nothing more than an attic.”
“Okay, Rapunzel,” Thorn said. She rubbed her hands together, clearly riding high on the success of having found a trap door. I had to admit she had a point, but I was concerned when she added, “I’m going up.”
“I’m right behind you,” I said quickly. She might be properly trained and annoying, but still, she wasn’t going into the unknown alone.
Officer Thorn nodded and flipped her hair back from her face. She clambered up the rope staircase. I might have wished for a more covert approach, but sneakiness had never been her style. Resigned, I followed, listening intently—but I still could not hear anything other than her breathing and the wooden steps of the ladder bouncing off the stone wall. If anyone was above us, they were being very still. Or we were all alone and very, very high above the mountainside.
Briefly, I wished for Luca.
But in the next moment, Officer Thorn had hauled herself through the opening, and my head came level with the new floor. As I emerged, I could see that it wasn’t an attic at all: it was a fully furnished room, smaller and much more utilitarian than the floors far below, but still reasonably cozy and obviously inhabited. A muddy rug lay on the floor nearby. There were cloaks hanging on a nearby wall, and some kind of counter and cabinets to my right that suggested a kitchen. There were more stairs in the far corner, and larger windows, though their panes were opaque. There were the lingering scents of lemon and thyme . . .
And there was, in the middle of the floor, resting beside a crouching Officer Thorn, a body.