Page 3

Chapter Three

‘Shit, shit, shit!’ I fell to my knees and pulled her into my arms. The glow in her fingers had gone, which I supposed was positive – except they shouldn’t have been glowing at all. It might have made sense if she’d been casting a spell or creating one of her tattoo inks with the Eternal Flame, but she’d just been standing there.

Panic rose through me. The nearest person who could help her would be in Witchlight Cove and that was a four-hour drive away. ‘Come on Maddie, wake up. Wake up! Please wake up.’

Tears welled in my eyes. I was freaking out and also filled with frustration. If I’d inherited even a fraction of my mother’s magic the way witches normally do, I could have done something but, as usual, I had nothing.

‘Maddie! Maddie!’ I carried her to my stained sofa and Eva immediately jumped up and licked her face. I was about to tell her to stop – it didn’t feel like the most hygienic thing to do to an unconscious woman – when my friend stirred. Great, just what we needed: dog slobber as a medical cure.

‘What…?’ she mumbled, her voice groggy and confused.

‘Maddie, can you hear me, love?’ The old endearment slipped out before I could stop it.

She sat up, touched a hand to her head but left her eyes scrunched closed. ‘Did I faint?’

‘Yeah, you fainted all right! Let me get you some water. Stay still.’ I ran into the kitchen, filled a glass of water then stood over her protectively and watched eagle-eyed as she took a few sips. She swallowed hard a few times then carefully set the glass down.

I folded my arms. ‘That wasn’t a normal faint, Maddie.’

‘Sure it was,’ she lied airily. ‘I didn’t eat on the way down here. It was probably low blood sugar, that’s all.’ She tried to look at me innocently as if I was actually going to believe her, which obviously I wasn’t.

My weak empathy skills don’t let me know if someone is dishonest but I didn’t need magic to tell me she was lying because I had a whole childhood of fibs to compare it to.

‘Your fingers were glowing , Maddie. Fingers don’t glow from low blood sugar!’

She sat up a little straighter and rubbed the back of her head. She hadn’t hit it when she fell but I guessed she was battling a serious headache. ‘I had to put a couple of new wards on the house before I came out,’ she said finally. She picked up the glass again. ‘Big wards.’

‘Why?’ I asked. The house was always heavily warded. My combat training was meant to be used as a last resort if someone breached the defences and came for the Flame, but we’d never truly expected anyone to get that far.

I narrowed my eyes at my best friend; I didn’t believe putting up those wards had made Maddie collapse. As an alchemist, she had some crazy skills and she’d been warding for years. Some of the witches before her – my great-great-grandmothers – had been guardians for decades and in all my training they’d never mentioned magically glowing fingers and fainting as something I should expect to face.

If Maddie had needed to increase the wards past their usual level, that sounded like a pressing issue. ‘What did you need new wards for?’

Her lips pursed and that flutter hit me again: nervousness, fear. Yes, fear was definitely the strongest. My stomach clenched.

‘There’s a guy – an entrepreneur who’s into real estate. He’s been poking around.’

‘Poking around? What does that mean?’

Maddie’s gaze shifted uneasily. ‘He’s put in an application to take over as patron of the Eternal Flame. ’

My jaw dropped. ‘ What ? He can’t do that! The protection of the Flame has been in my mother’s family for centuries.’

‘I know.’ Maddie’s voice had quietened. ‘But he found out that you’re not there. That’s one of the reasons I came – you have to show your face in Witchlight Cove, be around the house for a bit, so he knows that getting his hands on it won’t be as straightforward as he thinks.’

‘It’s my house!’ I protested. ‘My family has a tenancy that’s passed down the generations.’

She looked resigned. ‘Sure, but you haven’t been a tenant for ten years, Bea. It’s only because Nana’s the police chief that people haven’t been skulking around and trying to get the guardianship before now.’

I clenched my teeth with frustration – and shame.

Maddie continued, ‘This is really serious, Bea. You know I wouldn’t be here otherwise. If he gets the guardianship, he can do what he wants with the house. I figured that with your PI skills, maybe you could dig up some dirt on him, make sure that he can never take our home.’

I should have anticipated this day would come at some point but I’d avoided thinking about Witchlight, the Flame, everything. ‘Digging up dirt on someone magical might not be that easy. In the non-magical world I have sources, access to databases and information. I won’t have any of those in Witchlight. It’s going to take time, time I can’t afford.’

She leaned forward. ‘I didn’t come here cap in hand like an idiot. I knew you’d need an income if you came home, so I sorted you a job at the station with Nana. You’ll have access to the magical police files.’

I stared at her. ‘You got me a job?’ I wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or horrified. Next thing I knew, she’d be finding me a husband. Still, it was telling: if Maddie had set up some massive wards and arranged my future employment, she really was worried.

She tried to look casual. ‘I knew you were working as a PI and I thought you’d want something similar. Besides, Nana’s been struggling without someone to man the phones at the station since Victor retired. You working there would kill two birds, so to speak. And you never know, maybe you’ll like it and stick around for a bit.’

That was the job? Answering the phones at a police station? I had a ridiculous vision of myself plugging phone lines into a board like they’d used to do in the olden days. ‘What’s the other reason?’ I said, aware that I was ignoring her previous comment.

‘Other reason? ’

‘You said there were a couple of reasons you’d come. He’s one. What’s the other?’

‘Oh, yeah.’ Her emotions flickered again, changing as if she were deliberately trying to quash them so I couldn’t get a proper hold of them. ‘Tomorrow’s the village’s autumn fayre, and you know what that means.’

Her eyes twinkled and I couldn’t help grinning. ‘You’re serious? They still do it?’ I asked.

‘Of course. The fastest person to eat twenty-five Cornish pasties wins five hundred quid and a year’s supply from Chunkies!’ It had been one of our favourite things as kids, laughing as adults gorged themselves on a tonne of pasties.

Maddie went on, ‘We’ll need to leave first thing in the morning so we can get back in time. After the competition, I’m running a stall. A load of mermaids said they’d be coming by to get their tattoos renewed.’

‘You’re tattooing mermaids now?’ I asked with genuine interest. When I’d been living in Witchlight Cove, Maddie had been learning how her tattoos worked. There had been a couple of werewolves like Ezra that she’d practised on, giving them special tattoos to stop the transformation being forced on them at full moon, but mermaids? That sounded like serious business expansion. I wondered what the mermaids wanted? Stopping their fins from forming?

‘Yeah,’ she said proudly and beamed at me. ‘I tattoo anyone who needs it these days.’

‘Vampires?’ I asked. Tattoos to protect them against the sun was big business, but she’d always been too nervous to approach them.

‘Yep. I’ve got more than a dozen on the books – high-profile ones, too.’

‘Wow.’ I sat down next to her and realised how desperate I was to learn everything I had missed in our decade apart. Absurd as it sounds, I honestly couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a conversation that lit me up inside. Sure, I had conversations with my students or the people I was doing PI jobs for, but they weren’t like this. They weren’t with Maddie.

Having her with me again made me wonder how I’d ever found the strength to leave her, but I hadn’t seen it that way back then. I’d been hurting so badly; all I’d known was that I had to get away, away from everything including Mads.

‘Hot chocolate?’ I asked tentatively.

‘Sure.’

I busied myself in the kitchen before bustling out with two hot chocolates. I didn’t have squirty cream or marshmallows so it felt like a paltry offering but it would have to do. I handed her a mug and she wrapped both hands around it like she needed the warmth. Concern niggled at my insides. Something was wrong with Maddie; I was sure of it.

We sipped our drinks and made stilted small talk until Maddie decided to address the elephant in the room. ‘You never rang,’ she said finally. ‘You never came home. I knew you needed space, Bea, but I didn’t expect a whole decade of it.’ The hurt radiating out from her cut me to my core.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said weakly.

‘That all you got?’ she spat, her tone harsh.

I swallowed, hard. I’d been working through some of my issues with a psychologist – removing anything magical from the narrative, of course – and I had a better grip on some of my behaviour now than I’d had at the time.

I swilled the cold remains of my drink and stared into their murky depths – anything not to meet her accusing eyes. ‘I moved to London, I did my PI training, and if I didn’t talk to you, Yanni or Ezra, I could imagine that Mum and Dad were still living in Witchlight Cove. Dad puttering around in his library, Mum fussing over the garden.’

My voice broke. ‘If I spoke to any of you, I’d have had to face up to them being gone. It was denial at its best – or worst. For the longest time, I couldn’t deal with the fact that they were dead, that they were truly gone. And after I finally did, avoiding Witchlight and all of you, was ingrained in me too deeply. I thought you were better off without me.’

‘Better off without you?’ she shot back, straightening her spine in outrage. ‘I’m an outcast to the covens, Bea. I’m alone. I have Ezra and Nana and that’s it. You were my person, and then … you weren’t.’

‘I’m still your person,’ I whispered, my eyes filling with tears.

‘Are you? Because I need you to come to Witchlight. But if you’re going to cut me off again afterwards, I need to know now for my own self-preservation.’

‘I won’t,’ I promised fiercely, ‘I swear I won’t. When I return to London, I’ll keep in touch.’

She slumped. ‘But you will return to London?’

‘My life is here.’

She gestured at my shitty apartment. ‘There’s nothing of you here, Bea!’ she said fiercely. ‘Some books and some ferns. Where are the photos? Where are the friends? Where is the evidence you’ve lived this last decade?’

I wish she’d pull her punches, because I was battered and sore. ‘You’re right, but I…’ I shook my head. The thought of going back to Witchlight scared me, and that sense of fear pissed me right off .

I’d spent the last decade teaching women to face their fears, and now it was time for me to face mine. ‘I’ll come with you to Witchlight, okay? Baby steps. That has to be enough for now.’

‘All right,’ she said finally. ‘I’ll take that, for now. But I need to be clear, if you disappear after this and you don’t stay in touch, I’m done. History only gets you so far. I deserve more.’

I had a lump in my throat the size of Gibraltar as I nodded. A big part of me was so proud of her for setting out her needs like that. Toxic friendship was no friendship at all, and I was determined that things would change from here on out.

Maddie gave the biggest yawn ever. Dark circles shadowed her eyes, and her skin was paler than usual. ‘Sorry,’ she said quickly. ‘I think it’s the driving and the magic. It’s been a big day. Is it okay if I pass out?’

For a second I worried that she meant it literally. ‘Sure,’ I said quickly, ‘and like you said, we need to get up early. Do you want the sofa or my bed? I really don’t mind – but bear in mind that if you take my bed you’ll have to share it with Eva.’

Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. ‘The sofa’s fine for me,’ she said before taking my hand and squeezing it tightly. ‘It’s truly good to see you, Bumble Bea.’ There was the slightest hint of a waver in her voice and she looked at me like I was something precious that had an expiration date. It wasn’t a good feeling.

My throat was suddenly tight. ‘It’s good to see you, too. Really good.’

Maddie turned to Eva. ‘And it’s good to meet you.’ She ruffled my dog’s fur. ‘I’m guessing you need an early night as well – I assume you’re coming with us to Witchlight Cove tomorrow? Unless you want to stay here, that is?’

Eva gave a low rumbling growl. ‘I guess you’re coming then,’ Maddie laughed.

‘We couldn’t be apart,’ I confessed.

‘Like you and I once.’ Maddie’s voice was small. And yes, that stung too.

I pulled out a blanket and threw it onto the sofa. ‘We’d better get to bed. Goodnight, Maddie.’

‘Night, Beatrix. And Bea?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Thanks for agreeing to come.’ She laid down and pulled the blanket over herself then, from one breath to the next, she was asleep. I started to worry again because that wasn’t normal for Maddie; she was a sprawled octopus sleeper who tossed and turned for ages before sleep claimed her.

She was tired, that was all. That was what I tried to tell myself .

As I studied my friend, the weight of what she was asking pressed down on me. This wasn’t a friendly visit; this was a call to arms. Someone wanted to take the Flame; someone wanted to claim my family’s legacy.

I turned off the lights and stared out of the window. The wards had needed strengthening and Maddie had collapsed from the effort. And now some stranger was making a move for the house.

Something was coming. And I had a feeling it was already too late to stop it.

I grabbed a blanket and curled up in the chair opposite Maddie. She wasn’t well, and I didn’t want to leave her alone in case something happened again. ‘If her fingers glow,’ I murmured to Eva, ‘wake me.’

My dog laid down facing Maddie.

For a long time, the two of us watched her chest rise and fall.