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T ess

On Monday morning, I was happy to get back to the relatively safe and normal environment of my shop. Before I walked in, I listened for the disco ball, but all I heard was silence. Jack had promised to take the thing down when he got here, but he had errands to run all morning. He was still trying to learn more about NACOS and General Barstow, so we could figure out a plan there, even though we were now pretty sure we knew who’d killed poor Quark.

After I’d inadvertently dropped the bombshell about Kay, Reynolds told us the whole ugly story. She was a female wolf shifter he’d only dated twice several years ago, before he met Vicki, his actual wife. Kay had acted like a normal person, but a little needy, and hadn’t seemed to be very hurt when he broke things off.

Then, a couple of years ago, something in Kay’s life must have changed, because she came roaring out of the woodwork with a vengeance. She started calling him to tell him he “deserved” a shifter wife, and that nobody else could really love him.

She wrote him long, passionate letters about their glowing future together. After tearing up the first few, he put the new ones, unopened, in a file folder in his desk at work labeled “In case I disappear.”

Worse, though, was when she’d started going after Vicki.

Reynolds’ fists had been clenched tight when he told us this. “I had to get a restraining order. Let me tell you, that was fun. Big, strong shifter who’s also a sheriff getting a piece of paper telling a bitty woman she had to leave me alone. I took some teasing for it, but it was important to get on record.”

It hadn’t helped, though. She’d kept up the barrage of contact until Reynolds had driven to Alabama and confronted her at her job. This was maybe six months ago.

After that, he’d thought she’d finally gotten the message.

Apparently not.

He’d found a picture of her on social media and shown it to me, and I confirmed she was the person who’d threatened me. I’d also remembered that the words she’d used were the same as Jack’s caller used:

Don’t make me warn you again.

Sure, many people said things like that, but this seemed like too big a coincidence to ignore. Reynolds immediately called his wife and then his deputies to warn them.

Jack called Susan and told her.

Then Reynolds and his pack took off back into the woods to see if they could track Kay down. Literally track her—wolves’ senses of smell were very keen.

We hadn’t waited for the results, just headed home, dropping Carlos at his car first.

“Thanks for the help,” I’d told my vampire friend. “That woman left me feeling pretty shaky.”

“See? ‘Hey, Carlos’ was a perfectly good signal.” He’d grinned, his teeth gleaming in the moonlight, and then he’d climbed into his car and headed home, with us following.

After a night of restless sleep, we woke up to a bright, sunny Monday morning and a full week of work ahead, which made me happy.

My days off were rough .

T oday, I happily rang up customers, took a few non -magical items in pawn, cleaned counters and shelves, and lived the ordinary life I imagined a normal pawnshop owner who didn’t live in Dead End might live.

Bliss!

The tourists on the weekly Golden Years Swamp Tours bus bought a lot, too, which was good for the bottom line. Not that I might need to worry so much about the bottom line if what Jack said about the Fae gold was correct.

I added “get Fae gold value” to “find out about magic mirror” on my to-do list and then shot a text to Phin.

Any luck?

He didn’t answer right away, which I hoped meant he was hard at work figuring out how to help Horatio.

An unusually high number of Dead End residents stopped in, but they didn’t buy much, just gave me weird smiles and said odd things, like “Oh, you’re still here?”

They must have heard about the dead guy in my garage.

I kept smiling and saying yes, I was still here. As it got close to lunchtime, the traffic slowed. Just when I was thinking about what to eat, the chimes rang, and the doorway darkened with the unmistakable bulk of Rooster Jenkins.

I’d known Rooster since I was a little girl, when he’d seemed to be the size of an actual mountain to me. He was in his late sixties now and had to weigh over four hundred pounds, but he carried it well on his nearly seven-feet-tall frame.

“Rooster! No more goats to pawn, I hope?” He was the one and only customer from whom I’d ever agreed to take a live animal, and I didn’t plan to repeat the experience soon.

I never got the stains out of those shoes.

He held up a bag. “Nope. Brought you lunch, though. Meat loaf sandwiches from Lauren’s Deli. One for you, three for me, and another six in case that man of yours is around.”

Rooster had been fascinated to meet somebody who could eat more than he could at one sitting. After Jack and I had saved him from being falsely accused of murder, he dropped by occasionally to say hi and bring lunch.

“I’m always glad to see you, and you don’t need to bring food. Just your own lovely self,” I told him, as I always did.

He grinned at me. “Sure. But I’m even lovelier when I bring meat loaf sandwiches.”

“Isn’t everyone?”

I locked the door and put the AT LUNCH, BACK IN 30 MINUTES sign up, and then Rooster and I headed into my back room to eat and chat.

He told me about what was happening on his farm, and I tried to avoid shuddering at the memory of his flock of dangerous geese. I told him about life in the pawn business, focusing on the funny stuff.

“I haven’t danced the polka in thirty years!” He gave me a look filled with anticipation.

“Sorry, but not today. I’ve had too much weird this week. I’m looking forward to a nice, quiet afternoon.”

Rooster flinched. “Tess, you know better to say something like that in Dead End.”

I groaned.

He wasn’t wrong.

Not long after Rooster went home, Phin rushed into the shop carrying the mirror.

“We figured it out!”

“That’s wonderful! Tell me!”

I unwrapped the mirror and waved hello to the distant figure of Mr. Mercury, who was trudging toward the glass.

“It’s a spell of three, so we need all three of us to say the words to get him out of the mirror!”

I took a step back, frowning. “Okay, a few things. First, you found out for sure he’s a …” I switched to a whisper: “Person?”

When Phin nodded, I held up a second finger. “What happens when he comes out? Does the mirror explode? Will there be shrapnel? Should we do this outside or at a firing range or with the bomb squad from Orlando?”

“No, it’s perfectly safe,” Phin said, impatience snapping in his voice.

“Perfectly safe!” Mr. Mercury shouted.

Since he could hear me anyway, I moved back to the counter and looked down into the mirror. “You regained your memory?”

“I did! I was—I guess I am a wizard. A spell went wrong, and I got myself trapped in this mirror.”

Okay.

“Are you a good wizard? You won’t do something evil when we get you out of there, right?”

Horatio drew himself up and looked down his tiny mirror nose at me. “I am a very good wizard, in all meanings of the word. And I would never harm those who’ve helped me.”

I blew out a breath. “Okay, I guess that takes care of all my concerns, except the most important one.”

“What’s that?” Phin asked.

“I can’t help you perform a spell. I’m not a witch!”

T urned out, I didn’t need to be.

Phin had pages from a grimoire one of his friends sent him, and all we had to do was read our lines.

[I won’t include those here, because they’re secret.—Tess]

First, we put the mirror on the floor, standing up against the wall, to help Horatio climb out if it worked. Then we took turns reading from the pages. After Horatio said the last line, the mirror lit up, and Phin and I both backed away.

Just in case.

The glass surface shimmered and rippled, expanding, and then Horatio stepped out of the light and into my pawnshop!

Where he immediately collapsed.

When I rushed over to him, he looked up at me and smiled. “Gravity is tricky after all those years.”

“You really are real!” I was so happy for him. “We should call an ambulance, though. Who knows what kind of health issues you might have after such an ordeal?”

Phin called 911, and I sat on the floor with the wizard to wait.

“I think I’ll destroy that mirror, just in case,” I told him. “I don’t want anybody else getting trapped inside it.”

“It’s perfectly safe,” he said, looking around with wide eyes. “I was the problem, not the mirror.”

“Maybe,” I said doubtfully. I didn’t feel like taking any chances. “Can you tell me how you got stuck in there in the first place?”

He grimaced. “No. Better to not go into details. I’ll never do that again.”

I smiled at him. “I’m just glad you’re out now. I wish I could give you a hug, but?—”

“Phin told me about your condition. Believe me, I don’t want to know anything about how I might die after I just escaped that prison.” He looked wistful, though, about the hug.

“Hold out your arm,” I said impulsively.

When he did, I patted his sleeve. “Not quite a hug, but the best I can do.”

He smiled at me, and he had tears in his eyes that both of us ignored.

“All right, Tess Callahan. Thank you for being the first person to be kind to me in centuries, and I’d like to offer you a wish.”

“But you’re not a djinn, right?”

“Correct. Not a djinn, but still a wizard. What can I do for you?”

I smiled at him. “Not a single thing, Mr. Mercury. I have everything I ever wanted, and more than I deserve. My only wish?—”

He leaned forward, careful not to touch me. “Yes?”

“I only wish that you have a wonderful life, now that you’re free.”

He was still smiling when they took him off on the stretcher for tests and IV fluids and whatever other medical procedures somebody trapped inside a mirror for centuries might need.

Phin lingered to talk to me. “Thanks for calling me, Tess. That’s one of the most fascinating things I’ve ever been involved in. Horatio promised to stay in touch. I think I could learn a lot from him.”

“Just be careful around mirrors,” I said dryly. “Is he going to stay with you?”

“No, he has family coming to get him.”

“Ooh! Where’s he from? Please tell me it’s somewhere exotic like Madagascar? Where do wizards live?”

He grinned at me. “Boise.”

I hugged Phin—because I could; I had before, and he was safe—and thanked him again. And then he drove off to meet Horatio at the hospital, so the old wizard wouldn’t be alone.

For the rest of the afternoon, I kept catching myself grinning at the idea of Boise wizards. I couldn’t wait to tell Jack.

At just before four o’clock, the chimes over the door sounded, and I looked up and smiled, expecting him.

Kay the stalker walked into my shop and locked the door behind her.