Page 21 of Beyond the Cottage (After the Fairytale #1)

Chapter 21

C abin: Austere. Utilitarian furnishings, no personal effects. Small cache of magic contraband, large cache of unidentified gold currency. Possible international spell dealer?

Gretta nibbled her pencil and continued writing.

No body parts/corpses upon cursory survey, could be buried in yard. Bring Brand to smell for deceased.

Lacking anything else to report, Gretta closed her notepad. She’d searched every room and, except for the highly suspect gold, hadn’t found much.

A shelf in the bedroom held a few enchanted objects and potions—no doubt Isobel was Ansel’s contact in the black market. But otherwise, the cabin was completely ordinary. Conspicuously uninteresting. Like the overly-correct speech of someone pretending they weren’t sloshed.

She didn’t buy the kindly grandma act for a second. Isobel was hiding something.

Gretta made one positive discovery, at least. The stockpile of magic items included two beauty talismans. Inconclusive but promising. She just hoped she hadn’t finally tracked down an illusion witch only to find her magic was too weak to help Nat.

Isobel swept into the kitchen, and Gretta’s chair scraped back until it hit the wall. The inferno of panic had faded, but its embers still glowed.

The witch paused. Keeping all the space possible between herself and Gretta, she went to the cupboard and pulled out a tall green bottle. She collected two teacups and sat at the far side of the table.

“Thirsty yet?” Isobel asked, splashing honey-scented liquid into a cup.

“No.” Gretta opened her notepad.

Witch: Geriatric, spry. Accent indeterminate. Homespun gown unadorned, gold band on left middle finger. Hair red-gray, eyes green, height medium.

Blithe comportment. Overly familiar. Loss of mental faculties or ruse?

Isobel set the bottle between them without filling the second cup. “What would you like to ask me, Gretta? I might not be able to answer all your questions, but I’ll do my darnedest.”

Shaking off her unease, Gretta leaned in. She unsuccessfully tried to get a read on Isobel’s faint mystical energy. Her skin crawled from old-fashioned dislike, rather than any intensity of magic. “Why are your powers missing?”

“They’re not missing, just bound. Mostly.”

Gretta scribbled. “By who? Why? How?” She was especially interested in the last one. If there was some way to innately prevent witches from using their powers, it would be more revolutionary than Ansel’s repellent.

“Slow down, honey, one question at a time. I bound them myself.”

“How?”

Isobel sipped her drink, mulling the question. “I hate to be a wet rag so soon, but I can’t share that with you. Suffice to say, you wouldn’t be able to replicate the method.”

Faculties: Decidedly sharp.

“Why would you bind your own powers?”

Isobel sniffed. “Because my aunties are high-handed busybodies who utterly lack a modern sensibility.”

She had aunties ? Gretta never heard of a witch with a family unit before. No one even knew how they spawned, since they were all female and well-past childbearing age. If fertile ones existed, where were the witch men, the witch children?

Or maybe aunties was a euphemism? It was possible they didn’t traditionally bear offspring or have families. Magic itself was inexplicable, so it stood to reason witch biology might be just as strange. Gretta had once suggested Nat quietly set up a dissection project, but he’d shut her down. It wouldn’t do for an elected official to fund a program involving dead women and scalpels.

Whatever the explanation, Gretta didn’t believe witches dropped fully-formed from the sky.

“Where do you all come from?” she asked. “The whole goddamn world has been explored, yet no one’s found the cesspool you crawled out of.”

Isobel waved her hand. “It’s so far away, you don’t need to worry about it.”

“How do you get here, then? What’s your mode of transportation?”

“Doors, I suppose you could say.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“Alas, I’ve already said more than I ought to.”

“Yet you’ve told me virtually nothing.”

When Isobel merely shrugged, Gretta slapped her pencil on the pad. The witch’s vague and useless answers only inspired more questions. She obviously had no intention of fielding the existential ones, so maybe it was time to change course. Witch geography wasn’t currently the most pressing matter, anyway.

“What caste do you belong to?” Gretta asked. If she couldn’t get an answer to that one, she may as well pack it in.

“I’m an imagolus.”

Disappointment punched Gretta in the gut. Then it occurred to her witches might use different terminology. “What’s an imagolus? Specificity, if you please.”

“My power lies in changing things. Well, not changing them, but altering their appearance.”

Taking a breath, Gretta forced down a bubble of excitement. In the lab, she’d told Ansel what kind of witch she was looking for. He might have mentioned it to Isobel when they were outside, hoping Gretta would lose the incentive to kill his friend.

“Conveniently, you have no way of proving anything you say.”

Isobel tapped her yellowed nails on the table in time to the hammer pounding on the roof. After a moment, she dragged a fingertip along the empty teacup’s rim. The air hummed as the cup’s blue floral pattern turned acid green.

Gretta slammed back in her chair, oxygen whooshing from her lungs. She stared at the cup, dazed, as the air grew thick again but not from panic.

Exhilaration, relief, hope burst inside her. After years of hunting, years of watching Nat suffer, she’d found an illusion witch. It almost didn’t seem real.

With a trembling hand, Gretta picked up the cup and turned it over. It subtly thrummed with magic, and she set it away without taking her eyes off it.

Her excitement dimmed. She’d found an illusion witch—now what?

The original plan she and Nat had concocted was useless. Gretta owned a spun silver sack, but it was at the inn. Even if she had it on hand, Ansel would never let her stuff Isobel inside it. If Gretta could somehow hinder him, she didn’t have Brand to carry the load.

None of that mattered in the first place if Isobel’s powers were too weak to be useful.

She schooled her expression and kept her voice neutral. “Can you undo spells? Those of others, specifically?”

“Sadly, no. While I still have some ability, it mostly amounts to parlor tricks.” Isobel winked. “I’d offer you a beauty talisman, but you don’t need it.”

“Can you unbind yourself?”

“…No.”

Gretta narrowed her eyes. She couldn’t tell if Isobel was lying.

Nat would be able to find out. He hadn’t always been an upstanding senator, and he knew ways of getting people to talk. But that required Isobel’s presence in the capital. Since toting her there by force was presently off the table, Gretta’s best option was trying to talk her into it.

And if that didn’t work? She’d return with Brand and her silver sack.

“Okay, look,” Gretta said. “I’m here because someone I care about needs your help. I don’t expect you to give a shit, but he’s a highly influential figure who’d be happy to owe you a favor for services rendered.”

“Under a spell, is he? I can only assume one that made him rather…uncomely?”

“That’s one way of putting it. The bitch responsible died before she could undo it, and your caste is frustratingly hard to come by.” She grit her teeth. “We’d really appreciate your assistance in the matter.”

Isobel sighed and sipped her drink. “I sympathize, truly, but where your friend is concerned, I’d be as useful as a scrotum on a hen.” She brightened. “You’re welcome to bring him a talisman, though.”

“That’s not going to cut it. I don’t want to pussyfoot here—what would it take to get you to meet him? Name anything, and he’ll give it to you.”

“I have everything I need.”

“What do you want , though? I saw your gold stash, but some things can’t be bought. Security, protection, immunity under the law? He can offer that.” If Nat got elected chancellor, he’d make Isobel his goddamn vice if she restored him.

“While I don’t doubt your friend is powerful, I assure you his influence only extends so far. I’m afraid I can’t help him.” Isobel picked up a cookie and started munching. Her expression remained cheerful, but Gretta sensed the topic being shut down.

Well, fuck that. She still had a bullet left in the chamber.

Gretta closed her notepad and draped an arm on the back of her chair. “What if Ansel made you do it? I hold a degree of sway over him.” If he were presented with that choice, Gretta seriously doubted he’d side with her, but Isobel might not know that. The witch seemed familiar with his obsessive attachment to his former best friend.

What had he told her about them, anyway?

Isobel laughed. Even her cackle was melodious. “I like your spunk, honey, it’s what the boy needs. He takes everything way too seriously.”

“So glad I’ve amused you. He obviously didn’t tell you what he did to me, otherwise you’d know I don’t give a fuck what he needs.”

“He told me, and I’m disappointed by his recent shenanigans. Try to keep in mind, though, he’s not a bad person. Just a flawed one, like all of us.”

Gretta snorted. “Some shenanigans are worse than others. We’re not talking about fleecing me out of my lunch money.”

“Mm, kidnapping and imprisonment are quite the hurdles for a friendship to overcome.” Isobel grew sober for the first time. “But Gretta…try to understand him? As only you can?”

Gretta’s chair scraped as she stood. “This conversation is over. Honestly, I’m disgusted he sent you to grovel on his behalf.”

“He didn’t send me. I’m a nosy old biddy who’s out of touch with social graces.” She made the lock and key gesture at her mouth. “Subject dropped. Have a cookie?”

Gretta leaned over the table. “I’ve had about all I can take of the grandma act, witch. I don’t know what your angle is yet, but I’m on to you.”

She swore Isobel’s vapid smile faltered. Since there was no point in asking anything else until the witch was in Nat’s custody, Gretta spun and tromped out of the kitchen.