Reading, Writing and Necromancy Read online

  She sighed in exasperation, walking toward me. “Fine. I’m coming. But he’d better be dying.”

  “He is,” I said.

  She picked up her pace, her heels clicking against the floor in a hurried beat. I thought it might have been out of concern until she spoke. “You know, it isn’t considered necrophilia if you start when they’re still alive.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Nothing.”

  We found him curled up on the floor in a puddle of blood. His white cravat and shirt were splattered with more blood than a vampire horror movie. His eyes were closed. Puck was nowhere in sight.

  “Too late,” Vega said.

  I avoided the puddle and crouched beside him. I palpated his neck and found a pulse.

  I sighed in relief. “I brought Vega.”

  His eyes opened and fixed on Vega. I expected to see hope or relief, but instead I saw venom there. Huh. That was unexpected.

  Vega waved her wand over him. Sparkles of light danced before my eyes and blinded me. The room smelled like toffee and starlight.

  Thatch groaned and vomited blood.

  “Fucktacular,” she said. “It was someone who actually knew what they were doing.”

  She tried another spell. This spell didn’t work either.

  Miss Periwinkle rushed through the door a moment later, closely followed by Josie.

  “Felix!” Gertrude Periwinkle screamed. She looked to me. “What have you done?”

  She shoved me out of the way, and I landed on my butt, mostly avoiding the puddle of crimson. She dropped to her knees beside him, scooping him onto her lap—or as much of him as she could fit on her lap, mostly his head and shoulders.

  Exhaustion weighed down his eyelids.

  She placed a hand on his chest. Her voice erupted into a siren song, high and ethereal, filled with calm. The notes sparkled out of her mouth, flickering into brilliant flashes before dying away. It was so beautiful it hurt my eyes. I tasted fresh spring water and starlight. I couldn’t tell if this was Elementia siren magic or Celestor power.

  She dipped her face closer to his, the sparkles of song washing over him. He coughed again, but he didn’t vomit this time. Her long blonde hair dragged in the puddle, tinting the edges with scarlet. Josie and Vega whispered something in the corner. Josie’s hiss rose above the spell.

  Thatch inhaled deeply and opened his eyes. My head felt light, and I realized I had been holding my breath, afraid he wouldn’t survive.

  He sat up, flinching and clutching his stomach as he did so.

  “Don’t move. You need to rest.” Miss Periwinkle’s hands remained on his shoulders.

  Khaba and Puck burst into the room. Khaba’s eyes went wide at the sight of the blood. “Fan-fucking-tabulous. What happened here?”

  Vega edged toward the door. “It looks like he’ll live. I have better things to do.” Her usual sneer was replaced with wide-eyed trepidation.

  That was unusual.

  Thatch glared at her, his voice hoarse. “You evil bitch.”

  Vega shook her head. “I did not poison your chocolate.”

  “What?” Puck asked in indignation. “Someone tampered with my chocolates?”

  I looked to Josie. She looped an arm through mine. Did Thatch think Vega had poisoned him? She certainly was acting guilty. Khaba’s feet crunched over envelopes on the floor and broken bits of candy. He avoided the vermillion puddle.

  Vega repeated herself. “I didn’t poison your chocolate.”

  Thatch tried to rise but was too weak and fell back into Miss Periwinkle’s arms. His eyes held Vega. “No, you poisoned Miss Kimura’s.”

  She snorted. “I wouldn’t waste good poison on her.”

  “Don’t lie to me. After I detected the poison, I used an imprint charm to find the last person who touched the chocolate.” His eyes burned with fire. “It was you.”

  Whoa! So he had eaten Josie’s chocolate, knowing it had been poisoned? He’d saved her by eating it himself. He was a hero in his jerk of a way.

  Thatch raised his wand, aiming at Vega. I scurried back, not wanting to get between the two of them.

  “Hold on a minute,” Khaba said, stepping forward, hands held up in a placating gesture.

  Gertrude Periwinkle placed a hand on Thatch’s, lowering his hand to his side.

  “Felix,” she said. “Vega wouldn’t poison someone. Please, be reasonable.”

  He shifted as though he intended to stand.

  Miss Periwinkle pulled him back down. “Stop upsetting yourself before you injure yourself worse,” she said.

  Khaba pointed to Josie and me. “You two. Out.”

  I remained rooted to the ground. Vega started toward the door. Khaba snapped his fingers at her and pointed to a chair. “Sit.”

  Reluctantly she did so.

  Khaba nodded to Miss Periwinkle. “Please return to the library.”

  “But—” Tears filled her eyes as she looked down at her boyfriend. Thatch sat up and leaned against the wall.

  Khaba offered Gertrude Periwinkle a hand and helped her to her feet. “I trust he’s no longer in danger.” The kind smile he gave her turned to disgust as he eyed his stained fingers after touching her. His hand was hardly bloody compared to her own.

  Reluctantly Miss Periwinkle exited, glancing over her shoulder at Thatch as Khaba and Puck helped him into a chair. Her apprehensive expression hardened into fury as she gazed at me. Probably she wondered what I was doing in the same room with him again.

  Vega crossed her arms, her expression as petulant as a child’s. “I didn’t poison anyone’s stupid chocolate. I just… .” She sighed in exasperation. “I switched them around. I thought it would be amusing. Last year when I did it, everyone assumed it was Thatch. He never denied it, so I thought—”

  “It was you!” Josie shrieked. “You’re the one who keeps eating my chocolate.” She lunged forward. I grabbed her to hold her back.

  Thatch closed his eyes and remained leaning against the wall. “Merlin’s fucking balls.”

  “Out.” Khaba snapped his fingers at us.

  My feet tripped over each other as I walked out of the room against my will. Josie stumbled into me, and we fell out of the conference room and onto the floor of the hallway.

  “No one is leaving until we get this figured out,” Khaba said.

  The door closed between us.

  Josie climbed to her feet. “That could have been me.” Her hands were noticeably shaking.

  “I know.” I pushed myself up and wiped my bloody hand on the black of my skirt. “I guess you should thank Thatch for eating your chocolate for you.”

  “Ha!”

  Thatch had once knocked over my beer at the pub because someone had hexed it. A normal person would have just told me not to drink the overpriced swill because it had a potion dropped into it. But not Thatch. That would have shown he was a decent human being. Instead, he’d knocked it over, which had made me angry with him—until he’d revealed months later his true motivation.

  Thatch never said what he meant. He never allowed himself to appear decent or caring. It was hard to believe he’d eaten Josie’s chocolate because it was poisoned and he didn’t want her to eat it, but it appeared to be the case. The irony of the way he tried to appear bad by being good didn’t escape my attention.

  Josie stared at a smear of blood on her hands.

  It still felt so surreal. All I could see was the gush of blood coming out of him. “I didn’t know Miss Periwinkle was a more powerful Celestor than Vega. He’s fortunate she knew the counter spell.”

  “I don’t know if she is or isn’t. She might just know different magic from Vega. Her counter curse wasn’t any more complicated than Vega’s. But it was more specific. They’re lucky it worked.”

  Lucky. Maybe. Or maybe luck didn’t have anything to do with it.

  Later Khaba came to tell me that with Thatch’s imprint charm
, they could see which chocolates Vega had touched. With Puck and Vega’s assistance, Khaba had isolated whose chocolates had been switched. The chocolate Thatch had eaten hadn’t originally been Josie’s.

  It had been mine.

  He wasn’t able to identify the originator of the curse now that Gertrude Periwinkle had destroyed it. How convenient for her. She had a cure and a way of covering her tracks.

  I had a feeling who wanted me dead and why.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Jinx

  Multiple times Gertrude Periwinkle had interrupted my conversations with Thatch. She’d accused me of having a key to his room and implied I was trying to steal him from her. She must have been the one to poison my chocolate to keep me away from him. Only her plan had backfired, and she’d poisoned lover boy instead.

  Periwinkle was busy fussing over Thatch most of Tuesday so I waited until the following day to go to the library. I was determined to confront Miss Periwinkle. Maddy sat behind the counter of the library after school, reading a book.

  This was good. There were students around. Witnesses who could call for help if she tried to kill me.

  “Where’s Miss Periwinkle?” I asked.

  Maddy nodded toward the office behind her. “In her office. She’s … in a meeting.”

  Right. Is that what her and Thatch called it?

  “They’ve been in there a long time.” Maddy stared at the counter. “We could probably knock if we need her.”

  “No, that’s all right.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “How about those books you were telling me about?”

  Maddy glanced back at the office and sighed. “She has the best ones locked up. I can’t officially check them out. I decided the safest—”

  The door to the office creaked open. Pro Ro exited from within. His face was flushed and his hair damp. The dreamy expression painted all over his face abruptly died when he saw me. His eyes widened, and his frame went rigid. Miss Periwinkle wasn’t behind him, but the door to her private quarters was ajar.

  “Ahem,” Pro Ro said. “Good afternoon.” He quickly pushed past me.

  No freaking way. Pro Ro and Miss Periwinkle? She wouldn’t have invited him back to her room. She and Thatch were an item. Had they broken up? Did Thatch know about this? Maybe they had an open relationship.

  Maybe it wasn’t my business.

  I stared after Pro Ro for a long moment. Maddy grimaced, pretending to study one of the books at the counter.

  “Does Miss Periwinkle have meetings with Pro Ro often?” I asked.

  “No, that’s the first time with him.” Her gaze flickered past my shoulder.

  Silas Lupi strolled up to the counter.

  “But not the first time with someone else?” I asked.

  “I didn’t see anything,” Maddy whispered. She dipped her head back toward her book.

  “Hello, Miss Jennings,” Silas said with a jovial smile to Maddy. He didn’t even look at me. “Have you seen Miss Periwinkle?”

  “She was in her office a minute ago.” Maddy bit her lip.

  He arched his neck to see around us into the office. She obviously wasn’t inside. He strolled back to one of the tables, glancing our way.

  I lowered my voice. “Does Miss Periwinkle have meetings with Mr. Lupi as well?”

  Maddy shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t keep track of her schedule. It’s none of my beeswax.”

  I’d never known Maddy to be not interested in every adult’s personal life, especially when it wasn’t her business. Maybe she was covering for Miss Periwinkle because she’d grown attached to the librarian who mentored her. Miss Periwinkle had seen to it that Maddy’s siren’s magic didn’t draw in every boy in the school like it had previously. It could have been out of loyalty Maddy protected her mentor. On the other hand, I had experienced firsthand how convincing Miss Periwinkle could be with blackmail.

  “Is everything okay? Has she threatened you?” I whispered. I didn’t want Maddy to be in danger.

  “Gertrude!” Silas Lupi said.

  Gertrude? That was pretty informal for the Unseen Realm. Miss Periwinkle emerged from the door to her private room and into her office. She looked surprised to see Silas.

  He sauntered over to the counter. “Are you available to show me that book we were discussing yesterday?”

  Ugh. Gross. Not just Pro Ro, but Silas Lupi too? He was married.

  Miss Periwinkle remained in her office, her fingers smoothing across a stack of books with worn covers. “I thought you were coming to discuss that book tomorrow afternoon.”

  “I just couldn’t wait. I needed to see you—your book.” His brow crinkled, and desperation painted his face. He leaned forward, half his body draped across the counter as he strained to get closer.

  She smiled coyly. “I’m sorry. I haven’t located the book you requested. Perhaps this evening.”

  “Are you sure we can’t just … ahem.” He swallowed and looked from me to Maddy. “Perhaps you could show me a different title. Just something small. It wouldn’t take long.”

  Miss Periwinkle giggled. I had a feeling she enjoyed this attention.

  “Pardon me,” I said with my best imitation of a smile. “I’m first in line to see Miss Periwinkle.”

  I circled around the counter and barged into the librarian’s office. “I’m sure it will only take a sec for her to show me the book I’ve been waiting to discuss with her.”

  I gave Maddy a meaningful look, hoping she was bright enough to catch the meaning of my words. “If we take too long, you should knock.” I closed us inside her office.

  Gertrude Periwinkle’s indulgent smile for Silas Lupi faded. “What do you want?”

  “I hope you’re happy. Your spell almost cost Felix Thatch his life.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She lifted a book and flipped through the pages, feigning disinterest.

  She was a dunce at looking innocent.

  “If Mr. Thatch hadn’t thought to ask for your assistance in curing him, he would be dead. Coincidence? Or is it you knew how to cure the poison because you were the one who poisoned the chocolate?” I crossed my arms. “But maybe you don’t care. It seems you have enough lovers to occupy yourself with.”

  “My love life is none of your concern!” She snapped the book closed. “You don’t know what it’s like to be young and beautiful for the first time in over twenty years after being cursed.”

  “You’re right, I don’t know,” I said. “It’s hard for me to imagine why someone so incredibly beautiful would be so jealous and possessive of a man she isn’t even monogamous with.”

  She slapped me across the face, hard enough I tasted blood. I stumbled away from her. The corner of her desk jabbed into my hip, making me flinch.

  Miss Periwinkle poked a finger into my chest, just below the collarbone. “Listen to me, you little whore. You’re going to keep your hands off my Felix. I don’t care who else you fuck, but he’s mine.”

  “I don’t want Felix Thatch. We’re just friends.” I pushed her hand away. “I have my own boyfriend.”

  She looked me up and down and snorted. “You wish.”

  What was it with these snotty Celestors thinking I was incapable of landing a boyfriend? And yet, she must have thought I was competent enough or pretty enough to attract a man’s attention if she feared I had stolen hers.

  She backed up a step, enabling me to slide away toward the door. Most of my courage had left me by this point, but I made one last attempt to ensure my future safety.

  “I wonder what Felix Thatch will say once he realizes you were the one who almost killed him. Maybe you should keep your spells and jealousy to yourself.” I threw open the door.

  Miss Periwinkle’s voice was so quiet I almost didn’t hear it. “If you try to sully my name, you’ll regret it.”

  Maddy sat with her head bowed so close to her book, I doubted she could even read the wor
ds.

  Silas Lupi cleared his throat, his eyes on the floor. “Maybe I should come back another time.”

  From his reaction, I suspected we had been louder than I’d realized. That had to have been an awkward conversation to overhear.

  I made a beeline for Khaba’s office. The door was open while he chatted with two students about attendance. He waved and shooed off the students when he saw me.

  They eagerly ran off, probably relieved to get out of a chastising.

  “What can I help you with?” he asked.

  “I came here to tell you the name of the person who tried to poison me.”

  He gestured for me to enter. I did so, the door closing automatically behind me.

  “I just came from… .” I drew in a deep breath, nervousness making my chest tighten. “Yank swig bad hunch.” That didn’t make sense. I tried again. “Athlete strife nonbelief incertitude for cane.”

  Khaba’s eyebrows rose. “What?”

  “What I mean to say is … dubiety duels spite covets thy neighbor’s wife. No, that wasn’t right! I mean, green-eyed gargle girls poisoned the misanthrope for duplicity. Agh!” My mouth wouldn’t say the words. I tried again, but gibberish came out instead of the truth.

  Miss Periwinkle had cursed me. She had ensured I wouldn’t sully her name.

  Khaba leaned his chin onto his hand looking exasperated. “Honey, what did you do to yourself now?”

  “I didn’t do this to myself. Ghouls in New York kicked squiggle boinks.” I inhaled a deep breath and tried to say the librarian’s name. “Swizzle sticks.” I tried to say the first letter of her name. My lips formed an r sound. I tried to make my mouth make a p instead. I couldn’t do it. Maybe if I tried to say any word that started with a p. “Pig,” I said. “Pacific. Penitentiary. Performance. Pirrrrrr—pirrrr… .” I could almost say her name, but the closer I got, the more the tightness in my chest radiated up my neck. My face flushed with heat. It grew harder to breathe. “Pirr—pira—Piranesi.”

  Khaba put up a hand. “Let me guess. You know who tried to poison you, but this person cast a tongue-twister jinx on you?”

  I nodded. He laughed.