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“I’ve got your back too,” Philomena said, blinking into being to stroll along beside me. She gave me a wink and twirled her sun umbrella. The last few times she’d appeared, she’d looked a little translucent. I thought maybe she’d faded a little more. It seemed rude to call attention to that, though.
“Thank you for the company,” I said dryly.
“Oh, I mean it. You should see what I can do with a parasol when threatened.”
I had to smile. “I believe it.”
I sat down on the picnic table near the signpost to wait. Apparently Margo had shown up early. As soon as my bottom hit the wooden boards, a stout figure with a short-sleeved cardigan pulled over a pastel flowered dress emerged from the thicker woods to join me.
“Nowthereis a witch,” Phil murmured, and I couldn’t argue that.
Margo Elands fit the look of a stereotypical witch so well she’d probably made every faction of the Assembly cringe at least a little. Her dress might have been in pastels, but she had a knob of a chin and a jutting pointed nose, her eyes dark and deep-set. Her coarse wavy hair was a mix of gray and white, but I could tell from a few flecks still remaining that it had once been a dark mahogany brown. I guessed from the lines on her face and the slight stiffness with which she walked that she was in her sixties and a little worse for wear.
“My mysterious anonymous friend?” she said, looking me up and down.
I hadn’t given her my name or any identifying details in case the Assembly had been monitoring her. “Yes. Ms. Elands?”
She waved that name off. “Margo is fine. What can I do for you, dear? I take it this isn’t just about you wanting something from the shop.”
“It’s not,” I said. “Although—has everything been all right? When I saw the shop was closed, I couldn’t help worrying.”
She shrugged. “I’m starting to get a little arthritis in my joints. Sometimes it acts up enough to be a problem, and I take a couple days to rest. I don’t get so many regulars at the shop that it usually disturbs anyone.”
“Well, nothing suspicious about that,” Philomena said. “You were worried for nothing.”
A breath of relief rushed out of me. Nothing I’d done had gotten Margo into any trouble. Assuming this meeting didn’t.
I resisted the urge to glance over at my guys. If she hadn’t already noticed me arriving with them, it was probably better not to draw her attention to them.
Her eyes had already sharpened anyway. “What exactly did you think might have happened to me?”
“Well, I…” I rubbed my mouth. There wasn’t an easy way to put this. “The best I can explain it is I’ve gotten into some trouble with the Assembly. Or at least part of the Assembly that’s dealing out their own justice without anyone else knowing much about it. I know you’ve had some… issues with the more conservative members in the past?”
Margo’s sturdy body had stiffened. “They didn’t like some of the things I dug up and talked about from our past. That’s why I’m living out here and not in Seattle the last twenty years. Can’t say I miss them much. But you don’t want to mess with them, young witch. I promise you, you don’t.”
“Vaguely foreboding,” Phil said, wrinkling her nose. “Not very helpful, madam.”
I didn’t have any humor left after that warning. Tension wrapped around my chest. “Idon’twant to mess with them. But they seem set on messing with me. I just want them to back off. I was hoping maybe from your time there, from dealing with them, you might have some advice on how to maneuver around them, or find their weak spots, or—”
Margo was shaking her head. “I don’t want to get mixed up in this,” she said, taking a step back. “I didn’t come out too badly from the trouble I got into. I’d like to keep what I still have.”
“You don’t have to do anything,” I said quickly. “I wouldn’t ask you to stick your neck out. After you leave the park, you can forget you ever saw me. It’s just, if there’s anything you could say that might help…”
A pleading note had crept into my voice. I winced inwardly at it. But Margo hesitated.
“They’re not all bad, you know,” she said. “I had plenty of friends in the Assembly. It just doesn’t do much good when the ones who crack the whip have their heads on backward. You want them off your tail? That’s all?”
I nodded. “I’d disappear from witching society, just keep to myself and stay away, if they’d let me.”
She sighed. “Well, I can tell you this much: If your spark is kindled, you’d better keep your magic to yourself. They’ve refined the art of tracing magicking at a distance over the years. And not just that magic was worked but by who, as if you’ve left your signature on it. You cast a spell, and they’ll know your general area. Cast a couple more, and they’ll pinpoint you exactly. I’d imagine that’s how they’ve followed you so far. You want to disappear? You keep that power under wraps.”
She gave me a sharp bob of her head and turned. “Thank you!” I called after her as she hurried off. My throat had gone tight.
The enforcers could trace my magicking. Then every spell I’d cast to build our shield, to enchant our pendants, to heal my consorts in the last few days—I’d been drawing our enemies to us every time.
Could I possibly keep us far enough ahead of them to wait them out nowwithoutcasting a single spell?
Chapter Fourteen
