“See? No dead bodies.”
My joke fell flat. In the cellar, Derrick bumped into a cabinet and muffled an oath. I chalked that one up to a win and moved down two steps. The light from his lantern illuminated a shelving unit along the wall, and I held my breath as he rifled through the drawers.
Please, don’t find—
He found them. Vials clinked together as he removed a small box from the bottom drawer. The one with a skull and crossbones burned into the wood. They needed to stop doing that. It was a dead giveaway.
“Those aren’t mine. They were in with another order, and I was storing them until they could be properly disposed of.” Yeah, that sounded believable.
“Either way, they’re coming with me.” He slipped the narrow box into his coat and climbed the steps. “You can pay the fines for these at the agency.”
“Fines! Be reasonable.”
“I am. You’re lucky I’m not having you arrested.”
I curled my fingers into fists, afraid I might go full witch and turn him into a toad. He’d make a good toad. He had the personality for it.
Not realizing how close he’d come to living the amphibian life, Derrick walked toward the entrance. “I’ll be in touch if I have any further questions. Don’t leave the kingdom until we’ve cleared you for travel.”
I nodded, still steaming from his interrogation. Sylvia was right. He was handsome, but she’d forgotten to add cold and calculating to her description. Loather of all things magic. Good prospect indeed—I’d rather eat poisoned mushrooms than become his wife. Must remember to cast a blessing spell on whoever that wretched soul turned out to be. She’d need it.
He pulled open the door, and the little bell jingled. How could something so cheery accompany his exit? A gong or a crack of thunder would have been more appropriate.
Left alone, I sank into the chair and retrieved Ella’s ring. Exhaustion hung like a weight around my neck. I squeezed my fist, feeling the metal warm against my skin. That poor girl. It wasn’t enough to die, she had to have Detective Arrogant assigned to her case too. At least he hadn’t discovered my connection to Argus, but now, I had a missed payment and a fine to pay. As wrong as it felt, so soon after Ella’s murder, I had to pawn the ring.
“Sorry, Ella,” I whispered. “Wherever you are.” I shivered and rubbed my arms. In the moments since Derrick’s departure, an icy chill had filled the shop. Frost crystallized on the windows, and my breath fogged around my lips. How strange.
I moved to the window, apprehension slowing my steps. The frost was on the inside. Pressing my finger against the glass, I left a warm print in the ice and squinted. There was something else there, faint letters, as if someone had written them before the ice formed. As quickly as it appeared, the chill faded, and the frost melted. But not before I’d made out the words. Speaking them aloud like they came from one of my spells, I couldn’t deny the two words held a certain power all of their own.
Help me.
Chapter 4
“You’re going to melt it down?”
The pawnshop owner inspected the ring with a small lens. “Yup. It’s worth more as scrap metal. I’ll give you fifty royal coins for it.”
“Fifty?” My stomach sank. That wasn’t enough to pay my fines. “It’s an antique. Can’t you do better?”
He tossed the ring onto the polished counter, where it clattered to a rest near a tray of silver trinkets. “I already told you, it ain’t worth it. This here is what I call a sentimental piece.” His thick mustache hid his lips when he grinned. “You have my sentiments for how cheap it is.”
I narrowed my eyes at his joke and scooped up the ring. Cheap, my foot. It had value, sentimental or not. I couldn’t let it go for fifty.
The moment the ring’s metal touched the mark on my palm, it became warm. It was a pleasant feeling, something I was growing used to, like wrapping cold fingers around a steaming mug of tea. All the way into town, I’d tried to shake the tacky thought of profiting from Ella’s murder. Something strange had happened in my shop yesterday when I’d decided to sell it. Those icy words scrawled on the frosted window, barely visible to the naked eye, had me looking over my shoulder. I must have imagined them. It was probably a manifestation of my guilt, or children playing pranks. The ominous phrase repeated over and over in my mind.
Help me.
“I’ll keep the ring.” Tucking it into my pocket, I reached for the bag at my feet. “Will you take these instead?” The knot inside my chest tightened as I placed a stack of worn books on the counter. They were my mother’s, a collection that was slowly dwindling. The leather covers had darkened with age, and the parchment had warped through the years. A faint scent of must clung to the pages. “Seasoning the spells,” my mother had called it. Mostly, it just made me sneeze.
The man rubbed the white whiskers on his chin and studied the volumes, running his stubby fingers over the text. “Now, these, I can use. People like to dabble in tonics and they usually have no idea what they’re doing. I’ll mark up the books, and they won’t know the difference.”
A ghostly finger ran up my spine.Ugh.There were definitely generations of dead family witches cursing my name.
“How much for them?”
“I can do one hundred and twenty.” The man picked his teeth with a dirty thumbnail, then returned to inspecting the books. I stifled a groan as he left a smudged fingerprint on the cover.
“I want two hundred.”
