Cackles and Cauldrons Read online

  Vega flung back the blanket and hurriedly stuffed more into her teeny purse.

  Josie whispered, “Do you think I could put my—”

  “Not a chance,” Vega hissed. “The Morty magic in your items will break it.” She eyed me venomously.

  I didn’t blame her. I had broken the false bottom in her coffin. Who would have known? I hadn’t even had my cell phone on.

  I checked the screen. Oh wait. I had. Oops.

  Josie heaved her bag out of the coffin. “Will you let me come with you and store my stuff with yours?”

  Vega grimaced. “It looks like we have to now. I don’t want that invisible minion coming in here and finding your filth.”

  Five minutes later, we headed out of the room, sneaking past the open door to Grandmother Bluehorse’s quarters.

  She shook her mossy staff in the air. “That’s for medicinal purposes. You can’t confiscate it. I have arthritis.”

  One of her marijuana plants levitated near the door.

  “If you just fill out the proper form with the secretary, she’ll give it to the principal, and he can formally approve or disapprove of your medicine. I’ll make sure I put a note on this in Mr. Khaba’s office so no one will throw this away.”

  I wondered if any would be left if they stored it in there.

  “How long is that going to take?” Grandmother Bluehorse asked. “I can’t get to sleep at night if I don’t have my medicine.”

  Camelia murmured something too quiet to hear.

  Grandmother Bluehorse’s voice rose. “This is not an illegal drug in the Unseen Realm! It is legal here and in the state of Washington. Medications didn’t have to be federally mandated in the Morty Realm before in order for staff to be able to keep them in our rooms.”

  I ducked my head and kept going. I felt bad for Grandmother Bluehorse. She had to be at least a hundred years old. If she wanted to use some herbal remedies to take care of her pain, it seemed like she was old enough she’d earned that privilege.

  Josie, Vega, and I all headed toward the library. Vega set a brisk pace, chin held high as she imperiously stared down at students loitering out in the hallway. I hoped I hadn’t forgotten about anything incriminating in my room.

  The library was often closed during dinner, as was the case tonight. When Vega touched her wand to the handle, the lock spell asked in a creaky voice. “Cinderella is a fairy tale written by which French author in 1634?”

  I looked to Josie and Vega and whispered. “Is it the Brothers Grimm?” I thought the Brothers Grimm were German.

  “Hans Christian Anderson,” Vega said with confidence.

  “Wrong. You are unworthy and denied entrance,” the door announced.

  “Brothers Grimm,” I quickly amended.

  The door said nothing. It didn’t unlock for us.

  “Vega!” I said. “You just ruined our chances of getting in.”

  Vega snorted. “Well, maybe I didn’t want to get in anyway.”

  “Shut up!” Josie said. “Now we’re all doomed.”

  The door burst open, pushing me back. Gertrude Periwinkle stood in the doorway. “You’re all wrong. The answer was Charles Perrault.”

  Vega shoved Josie and me into Gertrude and pushed her way in, pulling the door closed quickly behind her. “Are there any students in here?”

  “No. It’s dinner.” Gertrude eyed Vega. “I was about to head to the cafeteria and—”

  Vega marched past, heading to the back of the library.

  “You can’t check out any books right now. I’m going out,” Gertrude said.

  “I thought we could check out books even when you aren’t here,” Josie said.

  I followed Vega.

  Gertrude hurried after us. “Some people have had their privileges revoked. Some people have behaved irresponsibly and haven’t returned my library books.”

  “I paid your stupid fine, didn’t I?” Vega asked. “You go have dinner. I’m just going to be a second. I’m not going to remove any books from the library.”

  Vega removed her wand from her sleeve, lassoing a loop of sparkling stars around her head. It radiated outward.

  “What did that do?” I asked.

  “Checking for invisible security guards. None present,” she said.

  From the way Gertrude frowned, I could see she didn’t believe Vega. I had to run to keep up with Vega’s long legs as she headed around bookshelves. She stopped at the door in the wall.

  “Alohomora,” she whispered. She placed her hand on the knob.

  Nothing happened. I reached for the door. Vega elbowed me out of the way. She tried again.

  “That door is locked,” Gertrude said from behind us. “I’ve never been able to get in, in all the time I’ve worked here. I’ve tried enchanted skeleton keys. I’ve tried spells. I even called a dwarf locksmith.”

  I placed my hand on the handle. It clicked. As I opened the door, cold air greeted me. The aroma of vanilla wafted from the floor below.

  Vega swore. It looked like I could do something that she couldn’t. I might have been tempted to gloat if I didn’t think Vega might fillet me alive for it.

  “How did you do that?” Gertrude asked.

  She knew what my affinity was, but I couldn’t tell her the truth. Not with Josie here. She didn’t know.

  Vega descended into the darkness.

  I turned back to Gertrude. “Do you have anything you need to hide?”

  “No. They took all the books away they deemed inappropriate. The old principal didn’t have a problem with me keeping them as long as I didn’t check them out to students.”

  “Yes, well, the old principal was a murderer and a rapist.” Vega lit her wand as she descended. “Now he’s dead. Long live the new principal.”

  Josie used an Elementia spell to light her way. “Is this a secret passage?”

  Gertrude inhaled deeply. Cautiously, she stepped down after us. “It smells like fermenting ink.”

  I closed the door, not wanting any invisible security to come in after us. By the time I made it down the stairs, fumbling in the darkness without light, Gertrude and Josie stood in the first room, staring at the forgotten tomes that lined the shelves.

  “By Nimue!” Gertrude said. “These books! They’re ancient.” She selected one from a shelf. “This might be the last intact copy of Merlin’s Lost Philosophies.”

  Josie stood in a corner reading from a different book, her bag still flung over her shoulder. “If only it wasn’t forbidden. I could take it back with me and read it in my room.”

  “Not without checking it out first,” Gertrude said.

  Vega was absent from the room, but there were rooms beyond this one.

  “What kind of magic did you use to get in here?” Gertrude asked me.

  “Um. . . . I can’t tell you.” I nodded to Josie and gave Gertrude a meaningful look. I took Josie’s bag from her and stored it in a corner. I placed my electronics behind her bag.

  My belly grumbled for dinner. “Mission accomplished,” I said. “Shouldn’t we go now?”

  “I don’t want to ever leave,” Gertrude said.

  Josie replaced her book in a vacant spot in the shelf. “I could stay forever.”

  I wondered if they were enchanted. Maybe these books were the equivalent of Fae temptation. Maddy had once been lured by a pearl because it had appealed to her siren side. I had been lured by art supplies—though I had resisted. Maybe there was some kind of Celestor magic lure. Or I just hung out with bookworms.

  A catchy title in Old High German caught my eye. Lineage of the Lost Red Court. At least, that’s what I thought it said. I would have to ask Vega to be sure. I skimmed the pages, seeing if I recognized any names. At the end, along with many other names, were Galswintha and Brunhilda Doskova. They were reputed to have been murdered along with the others from the Lost Red Court. I knew from Galswintha’s account that she and her sister had escaped t
he devastation upon their kin and court.

  There were too many other words I couldn’t understand in the book, so I put that one aside. I must have been in the genealogy and peerage section. I wondered if I might find something useful about the Princess of Lies and Truth, or maybe I could find another copy of the book that had gone missing that Gertrude Periwinkle had accused Vega of never returning.

  “Does anyone have a word-search spell to help me search for something?” I asked.

  Josie’s eyes remained glued on the book she was reading.

  Gertrude looked up. “What do you want to look up?”

  “I need to know about the Princess of Lies and Truth.”

  Gertrude untucked her wand from her sleeve. She waved it in the air, incanting in another language. Stars sparkled around her with the celestial magic of her secondary Celestor affinity. Josie glanced up. Twinkling lights dispersed and drifted through the books, weaving in and out. Several congregated at a book on a shelf too high for me to reach. Gertrude reached it with ease and handed it to me. I followed more lights hovering before another book.

  “Cool,” Josie said. “Do you think you could do that for me? I want to find a book on cures for jorogumo venom. Thatch shouldn’t be the only one who knows antivenom remedies.”

  It was unlikely she was going to find anything because the cure wasn’t a potion as he’d claimed.

  In total, I found five books. The lights served as guides, not just to the books but for the correct pages as well, helping me find the correct place the name was listed in each manuscript. In the first one, the Princess of Lies and Truth was mentioned as having allied with the Queen of Pain and Pleasure during the Wild Hunt. I knew the second title as one that belonged to the Raven Queen, though this particular book didn’t explain who was who or have an index to help with other titles I found.

  In the second book, the princess’s title was included in a long list of mysterious Fae who had attended a grand ball that sounded like an orgy. The Raven Queen was mentioned by her other title, Mistress of Darkness and Forbidden Delights. Something had happened at this orgy/dinner party that caused a multi-court feud that ended with the hosts kicking guests out.

  In the third book, I became distracted when I accidentally found the name “Thatch” and the lineage that went back to Robert de Tateshall of the Tattershall castle from Lincolnshire. The name was spelled in multiple ways. Apparently a Morty baron had married into a Witchkin family, and some of these were reputed to be part of the Lost Red Court until they’d been killed off. It made me wonder where Thatch’s Red affinity came from.

  I even found a book listing the Bloodmire lineage. That reminded me we hadn’t seen Vega in a while. The thing about Vega was that as long as you could see her, she would probably be talking about killing someone, but that also meant she probably wasn’t doing it. If she wasn’t around, who knew what kind of horrible thing she might be doing.

  “Has anyone seen Vega?” I asked.

  Josie snorted. “Who cares?”

  Gertrude continued reading.

  More drifting lights from Gertrude’s spells led me to books in other rooms. I found Vega standing over Galswintha, her hands on the corpse’s shoulders. She muttered something under her breath. Her face was red and sweaty.

  Already I could tell something was up that I didn’t want to know about.

  I didn’t dare go past the doorway. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Remember what happened the last time we were here?”

  Vega ignored me.

  “What happened last time?” Josie asked from behind me.

  I jumped. “Sorry. Didn’t see you there.”

  Josie repeated the question, her eyes locked on Vega.

  “Nothing,” I said quickly.

  “What is she doing? Did Vega kill someone?” Josie asked.

  “Why can’t I do all the things you can do?” Vega demanded. “I can make her skin supple and smooth. I can restore her muscles. I just can’t revive her. Why? What’s wrong with me?”

  “Nothing is wrong with you.” If she had been anyone else—anyone who wouldn’t have stabbed me in the eye with her wand—I would have hugged her.

  “Are you talking about necromancy?” Josie squealed.

  Vega glowered at her. “Yes, Little Miss Goody Two Shoes. Do you have a problem with that?”

  “Why do you want to be able to bring the dead back to life?” I asked, trying to speak gently so I wouldn’t ruffle her feathers. “Does this have something to do with Dox Woodruff?” She wasn’t going to be able to resurrect her lover from a past life now that his body was ashes. Plus, she now had a hot Fae prince as a boyfriend/business associate. Wasn’t that enough for her?

  I had hoped that when I’d healed the spike in her heart she would be able to release the past. Maybe Dox’s death hadn’t been her wound.

  “It’s none of your business.” Vega released the corpse’s shoulders.

  “Are you saying Clarissa resurrected someone with necromancy?” Josie stared at me with horror in her eyes.

  Vega stalked past us and out of the room. Her heels clicked across the floor. I tried to think of an excuse. I hated the way Josie looked at me like I was a pariah.

  “It was Morty magic,” I said. “CPR, remember? When I revived Vega.”

  “Oh yeah. That’s right. I’d forgotten.” Josie laughed, but there was a nervousness that hadn’t been there a minute before.

  She eyed the corpse. Maybe she feared it would rise.

  “We should get going. Dinner will be over soon,” I said.

  Vega’s heels clunked up the stairs.

  I tried to get Gertrude Periwinkle to join us for dinner, but she insisted she was only hungry for knowledge. She was too busy devouring another book to even look up.

  Josie and I found Vega standing at the door a moment later. She muttered under her breath. That’s when I realized she couldn’t get out. I felt bad for her. She wasn’t used to being bad at anything.

  I placed my hand on the door, and the lock clicked. The door swung open.

  “How is it you were able to open that door and Vega wasn’t?” Josie asked.

  “I wasn’t actively trying to do any magic. It just happened. I have a lot of accidents. It was like that.” I hoped I wasn’t giving away too much about how my magic worked. “Did you know Silly Putty and Post-it notes were accidents too?”

  I debated whether it was safe leaving the door open. If the principal or the new security guards came into the library, they might find the door open and go down. They would find all our contraband items, and worse yet, find a library of books full of forbidden knowledge. I didn’t want Principal Dean to burn them. I called down to Gertrude to communicate the problem with leaving the door open.

  She stepped into the passage where I could see her, a pile of books under her arm. “That’s fine, dear. Just leave me. I can stay here all night.”

  “Um. . . . What if you have to pee?” I asked.

  “I have a spell for that.” She smiled, her eyes bright with excitement. I hadn’t seen her look so eager since she’d been dating Thatch. “Would you put a sign on the library door to say the library is closed after dinner? You can come back in the morning to let me out.”

  It sounded like the sexy librarian was going to have a thrilling night of literary ecstasy she would never forget.

  Josie tugged me out of the secret chamber. I closed the door behind me and asked Josie to check the latch to be sure it was truly locked. We made it a few steps around the bookshelf before I crashed into someone. I bounced off of a large frame and stumbled back into Josie, taking her down. On the plus side for me, she broke my fall.

  Not so great for her. She groaned. I rolled off her.

  “Excuse me,” a male voice said. His breath came out heavy, almost wheezing.

  I squinted into the darkness. “Who’s there?”

  “Rudy McDougal. Security.” A hand clasped my arm
and hauled me to my feet.

  I helped Josie up. “Sorry about that. I didn’t . . . see you there.” I laughed at my own joke.

  Josie groaned again. “You’re worse than Khaba.”

  He snorted. “I bet you think you’re clever. As if I haven’t heard that one before.”

  Apparently Rudy knew his Cinderella trivia better than we had if he’d gotten in. I wondered if this was a routine sweep or Vega had tipped him off to get us in trouble out of spite.

  “Where is Ms. Periwinkle?” he asked.

  “Her room,” I said.

  “Dinner,” Josie said at the same time.

  Rudy’s voice was gruff, no-nonsense. “What are you two doing, sneaking around the library when it’s closed?”

  “Reading,” I said.

  “Dropping off library books,” Josie said.

  My hands felt clammy. I forced myself to smile, to not look at Josie like someone guilty might.

  “We were just leaving,” Josie said.

  “Uh-huh. Sure you were.” A little thudding noise came from the floor in front of us. It took me a few seconds to realize he was tapping his foot.

  “It isn’t a crime for teachers to be in the library when it’s closed,” I said. “Gertrude lets us check out library books when she isn’t in.”

  “Does she now?” His tone was snotty. “I’ll be sure to ask her to confirm that later.”

  He’d need some serious luck finding her.

  I didn’t like not being able to see what he looked like. I wasn’t supposed to reach out with my awareness without Thatch, but I was tempted to do so here. I stretched out two feet in front of myself and sensed the tension in his body. Rudy was suspicious, a wariness in his large frame, but he wasn’t angry. I couldn’t see him exactly, but I sensed the contours of his barrel chest and double chin. His heart worked hard to support his three hundred pounds. The weight in his chest was heavy against his lungs and heart. I wanted to ask him when was the last time he’d seen a doctor and talked about his cholesterol or heart disease.

  Not that it was any of my business. Plus, asking would have raised too many questions about my magic.

  “Nice meeting you. Say hi to Gertrude when you see her.” I edged away from where he was standing and headed toward the door.