Wedding Bells and Midnight Spells Read online

  A plant hung from the ceiling in the corner near the desk, another on Vega’s wardrobe. When I stepped past it, the Venus flytrap jaws snapped at me.

  “Not exactly,” I said. “Thatch wants to elope, but I want to have time to plan it out and make sure we have a nice ceremony and a reception.”

  Vega stalked closer, eyes narrowing. “Remember what I said. You are not to have a wedding first, and don’t you dare try to outdo me.” The red flowers on her black silk pajamas resembled blossoms of blood. She was as tall and lean as a model, every contour of her sharp as a razor, from her cheekbones to the angle of the flapper bob she sported. No part of her had softened or rounded with her pregnancy, even though she must have been a few months along.

  Then again, there was a shimmer around her middle, the suggestion of a glamour being used to disguise something.

  “It’s going to be a small wedding,” I said. “Whether it’s before or after, it isn’t going to be like anything a Fae prince would throw.”

  She jabbed a red lacquered nail at my chest. “It doesn’t matter. I was engaged first. I will be married first. You aren’t allowed to elope.”

  I crossed my arms. “That’s between Felix Thatch and me. You don’t get a say in it.”

  “Yes, I do. I’m your roommate. I’ve had to put up with you for years, therefore I get a vote. Besides, if you elope and you don’t give me any notice, how am I going to have time to pick out a dress to be your maid of honor?”

  “Um… .” I said. “You aren’t going to be my maid of honor.”

  “Don’t be droll. Of course I am. You don’t have anyone else to ask if you’re going to keep this secret like Thatch wants.” The corners of her mouth turned down. “Just don’t insist I wear pink to your wedding. It has to be black, red, or silver.”

  It was a good thing I had told Josie I was getting married before this conversation. Vega was the last person on earth whom I wanted next to me at my wedding. For one thing, I would look even shorter than I already was if I stood next to her. For another, I would have to listen to every snide comment she made under her breath.

  She strolled to the other side of the room and opened her wardrobe. She selected a black dress with silver sequins. The beaded fringe made it perfect for dancing. “When you are my maid of honor, you’re going to wear something like this.” She looked me up and down. “Only midget-sized.”

  I was so focused on her snarky comment, I almost didn’t notice the rest of what she’d said. “When I’m your maid of honor?”

  “Yes, of course. It goes without question you’ll be my maid of honor. You’re my best friend.” She smiled, genuine happiness touching her eyes.

  I was so astounded, I didn’t know how to reply. I was her best friend? I thought she hated me. She insulted me and complained about having to share a room with me. She was not my best friend. Josie was.

  Yet, Josie didn’t know my secrets. Vega did. She knew I was a Red affinity and never had shared it with anyone. As much as she threatened to tell everyone about Thatch and me when we’d been dating, and endlessly complained about him, she’d never given us away. In a way, Vega knew me as no one else did. Even so, that didn’t make her my best friend or anyone I wanted to be a bridesmaid, let alone a maid of honor.

  Did she really consider me her best friend? Sure, I had saved her life several times. I’d earned her respect, possibly from torturing her by feeding her brownies against her will. And I had survived the time she’d nailed me into a coffin. That wasn’t friendship in my book.

  She placed a hand on her belly. “Do you want to feel the baby kick?”

  Without waiting for an answer, she grabbed my hand and placed it on her belly. Her stomach was perfectly flat, or at least it looked that way, but when I closed my eyes, it felt curved with months of pregnancy. She must have been using a glamour to hide her curves. Something nudged my hand.

  Vega giggled.

  I felt guilty now, knowing Vega considered me a friend, and all this time, I had considered her a fiend. She wanted me to be her maid of honor probably because I was the only person who tolerated her, and she wanted to be close to someone, though her methods of friendship were unorthodox at best.

  I didn’t have the heart to tell her she wasn’t my best friend. I didn’t want her for my maid of honor, but I didn’t know how to broach the subject without hurting her feelings.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Tricks Are for Kids

  I smiled, joy percolating in me as my students came into the classroom on Monday morning.

  “Good morning! Are you ready to do some art? Today is going to be a great day,” I said.

  Students yawned and rubbed their eyes.

  “How much coffee did you have this morning, Mrs. Lawrence?” Balthasar Llewelyn asked.

  “It’s Miss Lawrence. I’m not married yet.” My smile faltered at that.

  Had I given myself away? No. Students trudged to their seats, trickling in and slowly getting started. No one paid much attention to me or that I’d almost given myself away.

  Everything about the school day was perfect. I didn’t lose my temper when Trevor, the underaged student attending the school by special arrangement, ate my crayons. I gave him his dog bone instead. When a student with an Elementia rock affinity somehow closed another student into the stone wall and refused to release him, I remembered that Ludomil Sokolov, our custodian, also was a rock affinity. I sent a student to get him to help the student out of the wall. Ten minutes into seventh period, while I was giving students a sculpture demo, a student from Jackie Frost’s class came to my room to make up an Elementia test. My class wasn’t any quieter than hers, and I was busy teaching, but I graciously accepted the student and let her sit on the steps that led to the closet where it was semiquiet.

  Nothing could ruin my day. Or so I thought.

  Near the end of seventh period, an origami crane fell on my head. I jumped back and looked up. No one was there.

  “Did someone throw that?” I asked.

  Students looked around.

  “Throw what?” Hailey Achilles asked.

  Hands shaking, I discreetly tested the pink-flowered paper for spells, using the one for checking for curses and poisons like Thatch had taught me. I wasn’t supposed to use magic in front of others because it was better to let people think I hadn’t recovered from being drained. But now that the Raven Queen knew what I was capable of—as did as the Silver Court—I suspected there was less need for secrecy.

  I used the spell to test for malevolent magic but came up with nothing. I asked Imani Washington to double-check it. She came up with nothing.

  I tried not to let panic lurch into my tone. “Get Mr. Thatch. Now.”

  “What’s wrong?” Imani asked.

  Hailey jumped to her feet. “I’ll get him. I run faster.” She dashed off.

  I pushed my awareness out, trying to sense an intruder, but there was none. Imani kept asking me about the origami crane, which didn’t exactly help with the concentration I needed to use my superpower.

  She placed her hands on her hips, making no effort to appear discreet as she spoke loudly. “Why are you so jumpy? What’s really going on?”

  I pressed my lips closed, not willing to send my students into a panic.

  It felt like forever before Thatch arrived with Hailey. The clock said it had been four minutes. I kept trying to get students to go back to work. Thatch tested the paper for magic and toxins.

  Nothing ominous came up.

  “There’s residue of a minor charm,” Thatch said.

  He unfolded the paper and examined each side. Nothing was written. No secret message revealed itself.

  Thatch took me by the elbow and escorted me into the back stairwell that led to my closet. Fortunately, the student who had been there earlier had finished her test. He closed the door behind us and hugged me in the darkness.

  “Don’t worry,” he said.

 
“How can I not worry?” I’d told him about the first one in the note I’d left for him after the first crane had dropped in the administration office.

  “It was probably a coincidence. You are in an art classroom. Students make art in art classrooms.” He stroked my hair and kissed my face.

  But the crane itself wasn’t nothing. It was a message. I had feared the first one was from the Raven Queen, but the more I thought about the handwritten card and the choice of sending an origami crane led me to believe otherwise.

  I drew back. “Derrick, my former boyfriend, is sending this to threaten us.”

  “Tell me, did you actually feel Derrick’s presence? Did you see him?” Thatch asked.

  I hadn’t, but I still knew it had to be from him.

  There had been that one time in high school when I’d gotten angry with Derrick for playing a joke on me and I wouldn’t speak to him. He’d apologized by stuffing my locker with origami cranes. According to folklore, it took a thousand paper cranes to grant a wish, but he hadn’t owned that much origami paper. His wish had been for us to be friends again. It only took twenty cranes to make his wish come true. Then there was the time we’d been dancing at homecoming and origami cranes had magically rained down on us.

  This had to be a message from Derrick.

  After-school, Art Club on Monday should have been a joy. Instead, I kept thinking about the crane, wondering why Derrick had chosen now to make himself known. Elric said he was safely away on the other side of the world. I didn’t think Elric would tell him I was getting married, or if he did, not so soon. Unless the Raven Queen had captured Derrick again and told him.

  Then again, if she had him, she could use him and his magic. Surely I’d turned him into a Red affinity just as I had with Vega when I’d revived her. If that was the case, what did the Raven Queen need me for? Couldn’t she have been satisfied with having Derrick and Thatch’s sister, Odette?

  Why did she have to torture me like this? Was this all for her morbid amusement?

  Even if the Raven Queen did have Red affinities in her employment, it didn’t mean they understood how the Fae Fertility Paradox worked or how it could be solved. The Red affinities in her keeping might have sexual problems similar to Thatch’s, lightning orgasms that cooked a partner into a smoldering corpse. Nor was it apparent whether the Raven Queen understood how to create a Red affinity as I had done with Vega and Derrick.

  If she were going to produce an army of Red affinities whose magic could attack any Fae or Witchkin, it was possible she still wanted to capture me. Or Felix Thatch and me.

  It was difficult to concentrate in Art Club. I created watercolors, showing a dozen of my students who attended how to use salt to create texture. It took the soothing calm of blending bright colors in transparent washes to return me to my happy place. Thatch and I were getting married. No one was going to stop us. We even had Khaba’s support.

  Or at least he wasn’t going to fire us and throw us to the Raven Court.

  I focused on the details that made me happy. I was so excited to tell my mom. And I needed to go shopping for a dress. It would not be hot pink. But maybe my striped stockings would be.

  “You’re in a good mood today,” Imani commented.

  “Yes, I am.”

  She covered her smile with a hand. “I take it you and Mr. Thatch aren’t fighting anymore?”

  “Nope.”

  Hailey and Maddy hunched together, conspiring. Maddy peeked at me and whispered to her friend. I knew those two were up to something.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Did you kiss and make up?” Maddy giggled.

  I gave her a sharp look and shook my head at her. “Inappropriate.”

  Imani hid her smile behind a hand. “I like it when you get along.”

  “Mr. Thatch is in a better mood too.” Greenie said. “Thank God. Alchemy is torture when he’s crabby.”

  I walked around the horseshoe-shaped arrangement of desks, giving students feedback. Trevor sat doing his homework. He smiled up at me as I passed.

  “I like your ring. Is that an engagement ring?” Maddy asked.

  “No! What? Why would you think that?” I asked.

  Because I wore it on my pointer finger, I’d assumed no one would suspect it was an engagement ring. I needed to get it resized, but when I did, I wouldn’t be able to wear it in public. Now I wondered if I’d made a mistake.

  “It looks like a wedding ring,” Maddy said.

  “Plus, we might have overheard Mr. Thatch mention it to someone.” Hailey waggled her eyebrows suggestively. At least she kept her voice quiet.

  “Who?” I asked. Thatch had insisted on my secrecy because he didn’t want the students to know.

  “I’m not a narc,” Hailey said.

  “When are you getting married?” Maddy asked.

  My face flushed with heat. “No. We aren’t—” I swallowed. I didn’t want to lie. They would find out eventually, but they were supposed to find out after. No one was supposed to know.

  Hailey burst into laughter. “That’s not what Mr. Thatch said.”

  “What did he say? Who did he tell?” I couldn’t believe he’d been so careless to allow students to overhear him. Who would he have told? Probably Gertrude Periwinkle, the school librarian. He would have felt obligated to inform her so it wouldn’t have come as a surprise after their affair. Although, he might have discussed it with Khaba—especially if Khaba had gone to see him and pressed him on the subject.

  The four girls burst out laughing.

  “What?” I asked.

  “We were just messing with you,” Hailey said. “We didn’t hear him tell anyone.”

  Maddy hid her smile under her hand. “I just suspected. He seemed too happy. Like when Miss P had enchanted him with her siren magic.”

  “Except he doesn’t act as stupid.” Hailey crossed her arms, satisfaction crossing her face. “So when’s the date?”

  “Congratulations!” Imani hugged me. “Can we come?”

  “Is the whole school going to be invited?” Greenie asked.

  “That would be so cool!”

  Now the rest of the students in Art Club joined in the excitement. If Maddy and Hailey could have asked without involving other students, I might have been able to swear them to secrecy, but a dozen? No way was that going to stay secret.

  Trevor stopped chewing on his dog bone. “Who’s getting married? Will there be food?”

  I sank into a chair. I had failed yet again to keep a secret. Before dinner, the entire school would know. Panic surged inside me.

  “You can’t tell anyone!” I said. “It’s dangerous. We don’t want any Fae to know and stop us or curse us. Mr. Thatch has a very dangerous fairy godmother.” I didn’t dare say it was the Raven Queen. It wasn’t their business.

  Imani’s cheerful smile faded. “You don’t want anything bad to happen like it did to my grandfather and grandmother on their wedding day. Grandpa Elric told me about what happened. Millie’s fairy godmother cursed them to keep them apart. That’s how she got in, right?”

  She was talking about Millie and Dox Woodruff, teachers at the school who had been engaged to be married almost a hundred years ago. They hadn’t been able to keep their elopement secret either, and a wicked fairy godmother had gotten them. I hoped the same fate didn’t fall on us.

  “What do you mean? How did the fairy godmother crash the party?” I asked.

  “I think Grandpa Elric said there’s some kind of magical bond with a godmother and godchild. And something about Fae etiquette and being invited and their right to be present. There are a lot of rules for this realm I can’t keep track of.” Imani turned to her friends. “Which means no one is going to say a word, right?”

  They nodded emphatically.

  If there was a moment when my future husband was at risk of dying, it was on our wedding night. I would do anything to stop that from happening. I would
kill anyone who threatened our happiness.

  That didn’t make me evil like Alouette Loraline, did it?

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Bitching Hour or Any Hour with Vega

  I needed to inform Felix Thatch that our engagement was no longer secret. Unfortunately, Thatch wasn’t in his office or room after Art Club was over. I left a note on his desk before I went to dinner. He would be so mad at me. He would say I had jeopardized the safety of the students. Plus, he was so big on privacy. I dreaded telling him. I couldn’t imagine how he was going to handle it.

  I covered dinner duty with Pinky.

  “Where’s Josie?” I asked him. “I thought it was her turn tonight.” I’d wanted to confide in her now that I could.

  Pinky waved me off. “She’s busy with something and asked me to cover. What are friends for, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said glumly.

  Pinky’s grin grew wider, revealing perfectly straight teeth. “Oh, and by the way, the librarian asked if you could come down to the library after dinner.”

  “Did she say why?”

  He ran a hand through the shaggy sable fur covering his face. “Uh, something about some books? I think you have some books out she needs back.”

  “I don’t have any books checked out.”

  He fidgeted with the fur on his chest. “Maybe I’m mistaken, and she has books for you. In any case, she needs you to get down there right after your duty is done.”

  Thatch had told Gertrude Periwinkle. She would probably congratulate me and then sob. She would try to reassure me she wanted Thatch to be happy with me, and if I were lucky, she wouldn’t suggest a threesome.

  My good day was slowly descending into a panic attack waiting to happen.

  I found Gertrude Periwinkle at the counter in the library, quietly instructing Maddy. When the two stood side by side, the librarian looked as if she could have been the younger siren’s mother. They were both tall and blonde, like fifties bombshells. Gertrude wore her newest witch hat, one with miniature animal skulls nestled among blossoming flowers. The hat tilted fashionably to one side.