He turned on his seat, wrapped his hands around mine, and brought my knuckles gently to his mouth.
He’d been far more tactile with me ever since I’d nearly been taken under by the curse. There was a panic in his eyes that had never been there before, and I wished I could make him see that I was okay, that I wasn’t going anywhere.
I understood that what he’d seen happening to me must have forced him to relive the painful last memories with his wife. It broke my heart for him, and I wished I could undo it all and make him forget that night had ever happened, but I refused to tamper with Zane’s memories. Mucking around in one’s brain was a very bad idea and could lead to unintended and catastrophic results for the individual. It was considered to be a very dark form of spell casting and never, ever to be done lightly.
Zane wrapped his arm around my waist and tugged me gently to his chest, kissing the crown of my forehead. “That’s guilt talking, not you. You did nothing wrong, Zinnia.”
I whirled on my seat, feeling on the verge of tears. My throat was so tight. “You don’t know that. You can’t know that. I’m a witch,” I hissed low. “A witch. I keep my herbs in the back. And I’ve been so tired lately. You’ve even mentioned it to me. What if I... what if I didn’t use sugar but—”
“You didn’t.” Zane took my wildly waving hands in his and squeezed them tight, drawing them to his chest and staring at me with an unflinching gaze.
“I might have,” I hiccupped miserably.
“Zinnia,” he breathed. “Why do I get the impression like you want it to be?”
I squirmed, cringing at just how easily he could already read me. He sighed, shoving his fingers through his thick, wavy brown hair, causing the tips to poke straight up. I bit my bottom lip, resisting the urge to reach up and pat them into order.
“Okay,” he said in a deep tone. “Fine. Let’s just pretend you did, but we both know you didn’t, but for the sake of this conversation, say you did. The entire town saw you almost die, right?”
I thinned my lips but nodded slowly.
He shrugged, and my heart quivered. Zane was so handsome, so very handsome, staring down at me with his piercing blue eyes and chiseled face. His mouth was tightly clamped with obvious frustration. Dressed in a pair of tan trousers and a burgundy button-down shirt, he always looked so nice and well put together. But I did not, not today.
Today, I’d done nothing with my hair, and my black dress had a stain on the front that I should have just spelled away, but I was scared. I was scared, sick, and worried. They’d been hurt in my diner. I was the witch. I should have had this place warded well enough not to allow that to happen, yet it had.
It had.
So it had to be me, because if it wasn’t, if it hadn’t been me, then that meant I was no match for the witch who’d harmed them. And the idea of that hurt so bad, it was hard to breathe.
“Does that make sense?” Zane asked.
I jerked guiltily, aware that I’d tuned him out. My eyes widened, and his brows lowered before he sighed deep and long.
I grimaced, ready to mumble an apology, but he held up a hand to cut me off.
“The wheels in your head are spinning faster than you’re allowing the facts to sieve through,” he murmured tenderly. “You’re terrified, and you’re not listening to reason, Zinny.”
Feeling terrible, I tipped my head back and stared at the ceiling, noting the discoloration on the tiles that had accumulated from years of steaming plates of food. This place really needed a good cleaning, top to bottom. That wasn’t a bad idea, actually. If there was some sort of residual toxin in this place, a good scrubbing could get rid of it.
“Witch, look at me,” Zane snapped, but not unkindly so. I looked at him, and he shook his head. “God above, you get in your head too much. Listen to me and listen well, sweetheart.”
“Zane, I am listening.” I patted his hand, feeling guilty because I hadn’t been at all.
He gave me a look that said he knew darn well that was a lie. I wasn’t sure how this male knew me so well. The magick of my aunts’ love charms had no doubt helped, but it was eerie to me how quickly we’d grown to understand one another.
I would be despondent if anything ever happened to him or Edward under my watch.
“Zinny.” He squeezed my fingers, forcing me to pay attention to him. “Tell me, how adept is your aunt Hyacinth with herbs?”
“Very,” I said without thinking.
“Good.” He nodded, giving me an encouraging grin, and I couldn’t help but grin back. “Now, say you ingested one of those herbs—the killing ones or whatever they are. How well do you trust that your aunt could reverse the effects?”
“Completely, if she found me early enough, that is.”
He nodded. “Exactly. And when a banshee sings, do they not do that the very instant that catastrophe strikes?”
I opened my mouth, ready to deny it, but instead I blinked. Then I blinked again. “Bloody hell,” I said in a tone of disbelief, locking eyes with him.
He gave me a soft but sad smile.
He was right, completely and totally right. The very second the banshees had begun to wail would have been the moment the three had ingested the curse. That would have been more than enough time for my aunts to reverse the effects of any kind of poison or toxin.
It hadn’t been me. The flood of relief was also mired in a sea of guilt and regret for ever doubting my aunts. There was only one reasonable explanation that could be had, and I wasn’t at all happy about it.
Blue Moon Bay had been infiltrated by a dark witch, and not just any dark witch, but the very blackest kind.
Goose bumps ran over my flesh, making me prickle all over as I slowly eyed the diners around me, wondering if the witch had left at all.
Maybe he or she still walked among us. Maybe even now, the witch sat in one of the booths, sipping on juice while shoving their gullet full of flapjacks and warmed maple syrup.
My nostrils flared as I stared at the young, old, and everyone in between, spotting faces I knew and many that I didn’t.
No one acted out of the norm. There were a few tired and sleepy-eyed humans about, those just passing through and taking a few hours to catch up on rest before resuming their trek. I saw Evangeline, the nightclub vampiress, delicately sipping on a frosted mug of chilled blood while she lazily read through a bridal magazine.
Always a bridesmaid, but never a bride, that one.
There were some children, staring wide-eyed at Sunshine, the faery who in her boredom had crafted an entire moving and working Black Ages village out of paper napkins atop the table at which she sat. There were knights on horses and marching soldiers. There was even a tiny smithy hammering iron, its tinny ringing echoing.
Meri had even dropped by and was feeding Malachite fermented shrimp. The kitty now came skulking about every evening at this hour for handouts. Meri had been quieter than usual lately, looking preoccupied with her own matters, and though I wanted to ask her about it, she in no way looked as if she wished to be bothered. She wouldn’t even meet my eyes, or anyone else’s for that matter.
The bell above my door rang, and a shiver raced down my spine before I even had a chance to see who it was. My hands balled into fists as I slowly turned in my seat.
I had precognition. It wasn’t terribly powerful, not like Aunty Violet’s, but there were times when my heart would start racing and my skin would turn clammy for absolutely no reason at all.
And that was happening now.
“Zinnia?” Zane asked, brushing his fingers over my forearm. “What’s the matter? Why are you so warm all of a sudden?”
I shook my head, not taking my eyes off the figure standing in my doorway. It was Sage.
She was dressed in a white off-the-shoulder day dress with ruffles. Her fiery red hair cascaded around her trim body like a flame, and her vivid violet eyes scanned the interior of the diner. She was pale. More pale than usual, and I noted a slight quiver in her jaw,
as though she might have been crying earlier. Her nose looked a little bright too. She kept flexing her hands, curling and unfurling them.
Then her gaze zoomed to where Meri sat, and she clamped down on her bottom lip hard with her straight white teeth.
Malachite looked up, meowing loudly once.
It was odd how time seemed to stand so still for me. All around me, everyone moved, laughed, joked, smiled, talked, and walked. No one was aware of the shift in the planes.
I could suddenly feel the room turn with a whoosh of air from the outdoor unit coming to life, and I could sense the individual curls of smoke wafting off the insanely hot griddle full of eggs, breakfast meats, flapjacks, and burgers.
I heard the tinkle of Sunshine’s golden wrist bangles as she brushed a bright-blond curl of hair off her cheek, and I heard the rustle of Zane’s clothes as he shifted in his seat, drawing closer to me.
I blinked. This was not precognition. Was it?
Feeling as though I were trapped in quicksand, I turned my head, and there I saw a figure standing sentinel in the corner. He was dressed all in black, which made his dark skin gleam like molten ebony and his golden eyes practically burn with fire. In his hands, he held an hourglass full of sand, and I could see as each grain slip through the tiny opening.
“Time?” I asked, my voice sounding stunned even to my own ears. Why was he there?
He looked somewhere between fifteen and thirty today. He never looked the same, but today he appeared even less defined than usual.
Time and I weren’t exactly chums, but we weren’t strangers. Except he didn’t acknowledge me. Instead, he stared behind my shoulder as the grains continued to slide down the chute.
I glanced behind me and noticed that Sage was almost past me now. She was headed unerringly in Meri’s direction.
She passed me in a flower-scented breeze, and I reached for her. Or at least I tried to. But my hand felt weighted down. In fact, my entire body did. It was as if I were being held fast in concrete and couldn’t move. All I could do was sit and watch as the scene unfolded.
I watched as a rambunctious child slid out of her booth. Her father chastised her for not finishing her pancakes and told her to come sit back down. The little girl twirled on her silver ballet flats, and the toe of her left shoe caught on the dragging bit of ribbon that had come undone from around her princess dress. The little girl’s mouth opened into a giant O as she fell, fell, fell, her arms windmilling and flailing to stop herself.
Her dad’s eyes widened, and her mother’s hand shot out, catching only air as the child slipped through her fingers.
Malachite, who’d been sitting just beside Meri, eating his bits of fermented shrimp, drew up in the reflexive posture of a cat caught unawares. His hackles were raised, and his muzzle curled back to expose sharp fangs. Meri, moving as fast as only a preternatural could, shot out from her seat and snatched up not only Malachite but bits of shrimp shells with him.
The girl fell.
But somehow Sage was there, kneeling and grabbing hold of the child’s elbow.
Then everything moved in swift motion.
The parents were out of the booth and beside their daughter, snatching their child from Sage, frowning and shaking their heads even as they said thank you.
Sage, still looking worse for wear, took Malachite from Meri’s arms. Then there were harsh, heated words exchanged between the two women.
The entire diner was openly staring at them.
“Excuse me. Please, excuse me,” Sage whispered, hugging Malachite close as she worked to push past a group that had gathered around the crying little girl.
The small group parted, and Sage left with her cat, once my own. She looked terrified and even a little bit confused. A terrible shiver of foreboding traveled down my spine, making me feel cold inside.
I turned toward where I’d seen Time, but he was gone too.
Meri was sitting again, scowling down at her half-eaten bowl of kelp stew. Her skin was shimmering, a sure sign of high emotions. I needed to get her out of there and away from the prying eyes of humans.
“Zinnia, what just happened?” Zane asked.
Then there was a popping sound in my ear, as if someone had taken a needle to an inflated balloon. I was released from whatever spell had been holding me fast to my seat.
Something inside of my body screamed at me in panic, terror, I didn’t know what. But my heart was frantically racing, and I knew I had to stop it.
I just didn’t know what it was.
“Stay here,” I mumbled to Zane and quickly got to my feet, not sure where I was even going until suddenly I was standing beside Meri’s booth and staring down at her sea-foam-green braid.
She peered up at me with bloodshot eyes. There were purple bags beneath them as though she’d not slept in days. Her hand was shaking a little, and without even thinking about it, she popped some of the half-eaten pieces of fermented shrimp that Malachite had been chewing on into her mouth. I couldn’t keep from wrinkling my nose in disgust, not just for the simple fact that the shrimp was fermented but because the gods only knew what Malachite had gotten into.
But Meri didn’t even seem to be aware she’d done it. She was staring straight ahead with a preoccupied frown even as she continued to chew then swallow.
“Mer?” I said her name softly, placing my hand on her shoulder and squeezing gently. She startled, jerking so hard, she sloshed the contents of her soup onto the table.
“Oh gods, Zin,” she gasped, clutching at her chest. “I’m glad you’re here. I’m so glad. There’s something I think you should know. I didn’t want to do it. But I had to know for sure, and this was the only way. Zin, Zinny... I think it’s—”
She stopped talking all of a sudden as a confused look suddenly pinched her brows and her hands drew up to her throat. Her nostrils flared, and the confusion in me was starting to give way to panic.
“Meri? You think what? What did Sage say to you?”
But then she started coughing and wheezing. Her coughing became harder and harder and harder. Her hands slammed onto the table, and she squeezed the edges so tight, her knuckles blanched bone white. She was suffocating, gasping for air, and looking at me with tears squeezing from the corners of her eyes with a silent plea to help her.
I hit her hard between her shoulder blades, scared that she might be choking on the shrimp shells. But she was shaking her head and slapping my hand off her.
“Are you choking, Mer?” I asked.
She coughed and shook her head hard. “No. It’s just... just... I can’t,” she gasped.
“Come with me. Let’s get out of here.” I reached for her again, desperate to get her back to her waters.
But she gave me a firm little shove. “No. Give me a second,” she said in a reedy whisper.
“Oh Gods,” I whispered beneath my breath as I felt the gazes of everyone turn our way. I felt frozen by fear, reliving what’d I’d just witnessed not a few days past, shocked to see it happening yet again and this time right in front of my eyes, right in front of all our eyes. A sick feeling crept through my extremities, and in a second, I understood everything.
Not caring about humans witnessing what I was about to do or what it would mean for our little town, I yanked my wand from my pocket. The tip of it began humming with power as my magick swirled through my bones. I would be darned if I stood there and watched my friend die right in front of me.
Just as I was about to mutter the incantation that would take us to my aunties’ house, Time suddenly returned, and with a snap of his fingers, the excited chatter of confused patrons was instantly hushed. He’d paused time, literally.
Everyone around us was frozen, even Zane. The moment was suspended and only he and I knew it.
His voice was deep, and his hair was snow white as he turned to me and said, “Take her to Hyacinth and tell your aunt there’s been another and that now it’s time to remember what she did, what they all did.”
&nbs
p; Not sure what that meant, but terrified I would be too late to help Mer if I lingered for even another second, I whisked us quickly to my aunts’ cottage.
Meri wasn’t even breathing anymore. Her skin was as cold as ice and as pale as the arctic tundra. I knew that she’d been cursed, and now I knew who’d done it.
Which also meant I was pretty sure who the dark witch was.
Chapter 6
Zinnia Rose
I SIGHED DEEPLY AS I gazed down at my friend. Meri slept the same as the other three, floating peacefully within a hammered bronze pedestal foot tub. Her sea-foam-green hair fanned out around her lovely face like silky strands of sea kelp undulating in a wave. Mother-of-pearl scales glimmered in the low lighting from several hovering beeswax candles above her.
Aunt Prim had stripped the dress off her before placing her in the water so as not to ruin her gown when her legs transformed back into a tail. I held her hand in mine, running my thumb over her webbed fingers, and shook my head.
Unlike the other three, Meri was breathing. Every so often, her gills on the sides of her neck would open and shut, pushing out the water and forming a crown of bubbles around her head.
She looked just like the Lady of the Lake of legend, which she’d once been. Mer’s history was long, far longer than most of ours. She’d seen things. She’d known people of legend and had called them friends. There was none in Blue Moon Bay quite as fascinating to me as Mer. And the thought of her not coming back from this wasn’t fair. Nothing about this was fair. She was too good. She’d fought her instincts, her nature. Of all the residents of Blue Moon, I felt that it was Meri alone who’d changed the most. She’d fought to become not just a better version of herself, but the very best. Her gills expanded, and the sound reminded me of air being forcefully pushed through a small straw.
I wasn’t quite sure what my aunts had done to her, but they’d been able to bring her back more than they’d been able to bring back the others, who remained still as statues in Aunty Vi’s back bedroom. I hoped it meant that my aunts’ studies had been fruitful somehow and that maybe they would soon be able to reverse what had been done.