AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No,” Joy breathed. She’d never once surrendered her wand—notever. It hadn’t been out of her sight for even a moment since she trawled the cave along the seafront for a piece of amethyst large enough. Her wand was narrow, twice the length of her hand, and glittered like heaven was trapped inside it, alternately lilac, gold, and starlight white. It was part of Joy, as a witch’s wand was part of any witch.
To hand it over …
“Yourwand, Mackenzie.” Paulina crowded closer to Joy, so close Joy could make out the tiny hairs on her cheek, the freckle on the edge of her nose, the seething hatred in her eyes. “I won’t ask again. Don’t make me take it from you.”
Joy’s hand shook wildly as she slipped it into the inside pocket of her coat, handsewn specifically to hold her wand close to her heart. She could fight Paulina … but she didn’t dare. And maybe it made her a coward, but she was too afraid to fight.
She held on tight to the crystal, hesitating the whole way as she lifted it out, inch by inch. Paulina snatched it from Joy before she could prepare herself for the wrench of handing it over, and a sob crashed up her chest and out of her mouth. To see Paulina tuck that wand into a pocket in her cloak,Joy’swand…
It was nothing after that to be shoved into the cell, to hear the metal clang as she was locked inside and to then feel the zip of magic as Paulina tipped three drops of a potion over the lock.
The Head Witch walked back up the slope, a spring in her step.
Joy curled her shaking body up on the thin mattress on the floor. Sounds poured from her, cries and half broken words and pleas. She was alone. She had never been this alone before, not even when she’d ached with loneliness and prayed for her mum to come back. This was a new level of emptiness. And her normality, her careful, precise armour against that void of grief … it had a crack right through the middle of it.
FOUR
GABI
Gabi felt like a zombie the next morning as she threw her coat on and pulled her hair into a tight ponytail. She hadn’t had a single hour sleep, not with going through her notes and the samples she’d collected, plus poring over Joy’s statement and having to conduct a post mortem on the dead girl. Gabi hadn’t found anything to suggest who had killed her. No blunt force trauma that required more strength than Joy possessed. No traces of DNA. No sign of a witch’s curse.
At least Gabi had a time of death—sometime between seven and nine a.m.—courtesy of the flies swarming the body and the absence of salt water on her clothes; the witch had been killed after the tide went out.
What spoke the most to Gabi was simple: she could find no killing blow, she couldn’t say definitively how the girl had died, beyond the posthumous carving on her face. Which meant there was magic at play like she first suspected, either fae or elven power or witch’s magic. There were plenty of spells that didn’t leave the taint of a curse, and they were more than capable of killing someone.
But even with magic responsible, what she found during the post mortem was … strange.
The girl’s torso was cut all the way down to her stomach, and her insides had been filled with rubbish. Old cat food tins and empty crisp packets—things the killer must have dug out of someone’s bin.
Gabi had spent a long time going through that rubbish painstakingly for a clue to the person who had put it there, but there was nothing. So, she returned to the theory of magic.
Fae magic tended to drown or suffocate people, thanks to their connection to sea and storm, but there was still a chance the killer was fae. Or the nature-based elves could be responsible, Gabi’s own people. Their magic was tied to the environment, and usually harmless, but on the spot, Gabi could come up with a handful of ways their power could be used to kill without leaving a mark. And witchcraft … Gabi didn’t truly understand all the ways it could be used. Their magic was limitless.
It brought her no closer to finding out how the girl had died, which brought her no closer to finding the killer. And all the while Joy was locked in a cell in Town Hall, relying on Gabi to prove her innocence—or guilt. But Gabi rolled her eyes at herself for even thinking that. No, no matter how much time had passed or how different Joy was, there was no way she’d kill anyone.
And even if she did, she wouldn’t scoop out their innards and replace them with trash.
The wind that hit Gabi when she opened her front door woke her from the fugue of sleeplessness. She hefted her bag higher on her shoulder and headed up the road, walking with purpose towards the crumbling, elegant building of Town Hall at the end of the road, right on the sea’s edge.
She had to shake off her uncertainty, had to appear a hundred percent confident or Paulina would pounce on Gabi’s doubts, and then she’d never get this job. Her trial would fail, her future in Agedale dead. She could still find work in another town, but … there was something about this place now that she was back. Agedale was calling to her—the rush of the sea, the obnoxious screams of the gulls, the salt and sand smell of it, and the distant spires of tents in the elven community.
It was home.
She wanted tostay—against all odds, despite running from this place when she was eighteen, she wanted to stay.
“I’m here to question Joy Mackenzie,” Gabi told Paulina’s pretty assistant when she crossed the unnatural lobby—intact and opulent but surrounded by ruins. Katrina, the woman’s name tag read. A new addition to Agedale whom Gabi had never seen before. Blonde, pale, with brilliant blue eyes and a disarming smile. Gabi was not immune to her charm, but the spell didn’t last long, the reason she was here cutting off any flirting before it could begin.
Katrina consulted her computer screen and flashed Gabi a smile. “Right, I can see you on the schedule. Would you like help finding the cells?”
“I’ll be fine,” Gabi replied with a tight smile. She’d been here with her dad a few times before she went to uni, back when he’d been showing her the ropes of his job, hoping she’d take the reins from him instead of going to Liverpool. “But thanks for the offer,” she added genuinely.
Katrina smiled again, all perfect white teeth and glittering eyes, but Gabi struggled to smile back. She was remembering Joy yesterday, tears streaking down her face, blurring the freckle just above her mouth, an aberrant spot in a freckle-less face.
Gabi’s heart clenched as she moved deeper into Town Hall. She fought back memories as they assaulted her, but she had no armour against them. She’d never really moved past them, never moved on the way her roommates at uni had tried to convince her to.
But they said that about first loves, she reminded herself, her usual refrain. First loves never left you. This was normal.
The air grew colder as she pulled the heavy door open, left unlocked just for her, and began to descend the damp, musty staircase. She knew the history of these cells, knew the famous names who’d occupied them over the years, knew the gruesome stories of what jailors had done to their prisoners. The idea of Joy down here, even if shehadkilled that girl on the beach … Gabi moved faster, taking steps two at a time. She didn’t think Joy was a killer, not if she was being honest with herself. But the things Joy had said the last time they spoke and the cruel, callous way she’d treated Gabi for months before that …thatgirl might be cold enough to kill someone.
