Page 14 of Tick Tock, Darling

“Why do you want to get into her townhome?” She studied me as if I had some ulterior motive for getting inside like going through her underwear drawer.

“Pan might have left some clue where he’d taken her. When they left, I wasn’t sure they had the shard from the Christmas Star. He probably did. But maybe they didn’t find it. It could help us find her.”

She headed for the garage and set both hands flat against the door.

"She keyed these to her own blood." Alice tipped her head, listening to something I couldn't hear. "Which is rude, honestly."

"Can you get through it?"

Please say yes. If not, all of this was for nothing.

"She taught me the ward. She never once thought about who else that meant knew it." Alice flexed her fingers against the metal. "Quae docuisti, memini. Manus discipulae. Aperi."

What you taught me, I remember. The hand of your student. Open.

The whole front of the house shivered. Something let go with a sound I felt in my teeth instead of hearing, and the garage door rolled up on its own, slow like it would have for her.

Alice was already ducking under it. "She's going to be furious."

Last time she was furious she cursed one of Enzo’s enforcers and turned him into a beast. You didn’t want to make this woman angry. I had no intention of becoming some damn ugly monster.

I shrugged. “She'll be alive."

Alice led me into the townhome. “I’m not sure she’ll see it that way.”

Antiques, tastefully done. Leather furniture. Hardwood floors she'd kept up. Garland along the mantel and a wreath on the hall door, and the tree in the front window still lit, the same tree I'd sat outside and watched her walk behind.

I'd expected incense. Magic symbols, weird statues, something. It was like walking into a librarian's house instead of a witch's.

There were spell books. Nothing else that said who she was.

Bong. Bong. Bong.

A grandfather clock was against the far wall, tall and dark, still running, ticking away in an empty house while she was in another world. I was drawn to it.

We had one in the hall when I was a boy. Wendy used to count the strikes out loud. The clock chimed midnight. The witching hour. Our clock had a secret compartment behind the face. Maybe hers did too.

I ran my fingers along the side and smiled. Just like ours. I pressed the button and the clock came open. The ticking stopped with it, and the whole house went quiet.

Nothing. Dust and a dead spider and the smell of old wood.

I shut the case. The pendulum caught and swung and the ticking picked up again like it had never stopped.

Darius came up next to me. “I checked her bedroom and her office and didn’t find anything.”

We’d only been in the townhome a couple of minutes, but Darius would have been thorough. He moved fast.

“I think I found it,” Alice said as she stood in front of the Christmas tree.

She was good. Damn good.

“Where?” I hurried into the living room.

Darius got there before me and stood next to Alice.

Alice pointed to the top of the tree. “There. That’s the shard from the Christmas Star.”

Tinker Bell was smart. Even if Pan or maybe even Wendy was looking at her angel tree topper, they probably would have missed it. An angel was holding what looked like a candle and it was bright. There was no light underneath it.