Page 14 of The Witches Catalogue of Wanderlust Essentials (Natural Magic #2)

Chapter 7

A Missive from The Director

“W here is she? I thought Zani wasn’t coming till later this afternoon!”

Will recognized the squeaky voice of Minerva Lathrop in the hallway. And he heard footsteps. Not just hers. A moment later, there were several more people gathered in the room.

Rosie had returned with two of the town elders: Minerva Lathrop, who was Maida’s great-aunt and the former proprietress of the Mudpuddle Bookstore & Cafe, and Zephyr Nightshade, a wizard who was a retired agent from the Society for the Protection of Natural Magic. They were joined by a rotund man wearing a white lab coat and a stethoscope around his neck. This was Primrose Court’s own Dr. Dvita.

“I’m sorry.” Rosie shrugged apologetically to the group while glancing at Will. “Will looked so pale. I was worried. I thought it couldn’t hurt to call in reinforcements.”

“I was already planning to bring a welcome basket, just not for another hour or two.” Minerva set the loaded basket she was carrying on the chaise beside Will. She plucked an official-looking letter out of her apron pocket. “I also have some mail to deliver. This is for you, my dear.” She handed the letter to Zani, smiling warmly.

“There he is!” Dr. Dvita clapped Will on the back. “I told you all he’d be fine. Remember the first time you ported, Maida?” The jolly doctor, who was also a tortoise shifter, slid his glasses up his beaklike nose and nodded at Maida. Will thought Dr. Dvita most resembled his tortoise form when he was smiling like this. “She was unconscious for several hours!”

Will didn’t think that was entirely fair of the doctor. Maida’s first time porting hadn’t exactly been voluntary. She’d been completely unaware of the world of magic, and her safety was at stake. He’d literally dragged her through the port kicking and screaming. All things considered, he thought she’d handled it well.

“Maida was a champ. And this was hardly my first time porting,” Will mumbled. He peeked into the basket. Something somehow smelled both stinky and delicious, and he was still famished. Minerva and Zephyr had brought a spread of artisanal cheeses, some dried fruit, and an assortment of flatbreads and crackers. He wasn’t sure what to eat first. He reached out tentatively.

“Help yourself, Will. And be sure to take some cheese, too. I know you porters burn a lot of carbs, but you also need a little fat and protein to stabilize your system.” Minerva tutted, fussing with the cheeseboard and placing it on the table beside him.

Will did not need to be asked twice. He helped himself to a cracker and a hunk of cheese, which he washed down with a cup of sweet milky tea from Minerva’s thermos. The brew was still warm, but not too hot.

“So, tell me. How long has it been since they arrived?” Dr. Dvita blinked slowly. From his side chair, he quietly watched Will and Zani, glancing periodically at his pocket watch.

“Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes?” Maida answered.

Will turned to check on Zani. She was doing remarkably well for having ported for the first time. No physical symptoms whatsoever. Even the idea of time travel didn’t seem to trouble her as much as it did everyone else in the room. Something else had her full attention. He was surprised to see the Society’s seal on the letter she was turning over nervously in her hands.

In the corner, Will could see Rosie pacing, her finger on her watch. She kept darting glances in their direction. Looking up briefly, she addressed Zani directly. “Was Will holding a sign in the airport when he met you?”

“No.” Zani looked up, pulling her focus from the letter somewhat reluctantly. She tucked it into a pocket. “No sign. But he was pretty hard to miss. Why are you asking?”

“No reason.” Rosie smirked.

“Rosie.” Will’s eyes grew wide. “Who are you messaging on your T-watch right now?”

“You, Will. I’m talking to the other you at the airport.” Rosie winked. Her eyes sparkled at the extreme novelty of this situation.

His head swam a little.

Rosie came back to sit beside Zani, staring at her admiringly. “I already thought you were cool. But time travel? How did you guys do it?”

“It wasn’t me!” Zani held her hands up. “I’ve never time traveled, unless you count crossing the international date line. I’ve never even ported before today! To be honest, it’s freaking me out a bit that there’s two of me existing right now. It doesn’t seem right.”

“You wouldn’t want to meet yourself, then, Zani?” Zephyr Nightshade’s starry blue eyes twinkled with mischief. “I should like to meet myself. I could use a decent Dragon chess opponent.”

“Banish the thought, Zephyr! I can barely keep up with one of you. Not to mention we’d have no cheese left to sell to the customers.” Minerva gazed at the old wizard lovingly and swatted his hand away as he reached out for a hunk of cheese on the board next to Will. “Leave that for Will and Zani, Zippy. They need their strength!”

Will fidgeted excitedly with his teaspoon, stirring the tea into a vortex as he tried to put the events of this confusing afternoon back into order. Had he actually time traveled with Zani? All evidence suggested that was the case. According to his watch, he was currently tripping over the man who was trying to propose in the airport while simultaneously sitting here. And he couldn’t be more pleased about it.

He had time traveled. He, Will Porter, an ordinary porter, no more accomplished than any other of his kind, had experienced an anomaly. And he had to admit, it made him feel rather special. He sat up straighter and smeared some jam on a cracker.

Will had heard tales of time slips before. He’d even attended a few of Burnside Porter’s lectures before the Porting Academy had kicked the professor out. But as much as he’d wanted to believe time porting was within the realm of magical possibility, he had always chalked the idea up as a sort of speculative fiction. Stories for porter children, designed to scare them and keep them on the straight and narrow path. Right up there with wormholes and port loops. Temporal anomalies hadn’t actually happened to anyone he knew. They were folklore.

And yet, here he was at 3:30 pm. Again. It was only an hour’s difference, and certainly not intentional. But it was undeniable.

“I don’t think it was time travel so much as a time slip ,” Will said, fashioning a sandwich for himself with the jammy cracker and a bit more brie. “Not that I have any idea how or why it happened.” He bit down, savoring the sweetness of the raspberry jam with the creamy, indulgent brie. Minerva was right. This was just the thing.

“Isn’t that just a precursor of time travel?” Dr. Dvita lit his corncob pipe as he pondered. “I’m not sure I see the difference.” He took a long pull from the pipe, removed it, and exhaled, blowing smoke rings. They gathered in a small, mesmerizing orbit around his head before vanishing.

“Good question. Time travel seems more intentional to me. Time slips, I imagine, are more likely due to a glitch in the porting system,” Will posited. No matter if it was an accident. It still felt special. “From what I’ve read, they are brief, accidental, and inconsequential.”

“So, to be clear, you didn’t intend to time travel here?” Maida’s wild platinum hair shone in a crown around her head. “It was just a glitch?”

“Exactly.” Will took another bite of his jam cracker sandwich, and a thought suddenly occurred to him. “Although … Zani said she wished she was already here, and I wanted her to have a chance to rest up before being inundated.” Will glanced at the letter peeking out of Zani’s pocket. She was pinching the corner, folding and unfolding it and picking at it like an uncomfortable itch. Whatever was inside, she didn’t seem particularly eager to find out. More like she needed to get it over with.

“She wished she was already here, you say?” Dr. Dvita blew more smoke rings that drifted toward Will.

“I suppose,” Will said. He didn’t like the way the smoke rings hung in the air. He waved them away.

“Don’t you think you should open the letter, Zani?” Minerva nodded toward the missive with a knowing look. She barely suppressed her grin.

“You know what it’s about, then?” Zani looked worried. She glanced toward the case on the floor.

“Of course I know, dear.” Minerva smirked. “Amrita Berman wrote to me personally to ask me what I thought should be done.”

“There’s no question,” Zani rose and paced. “I need to head right back out into the field and find that stone, wherever it is. I promise, nobody wants it recovered more than me.”

“Wait, you don’t have the bloodstone?” Maida asked, gaping. “I thought you said you were successful on that mission.”

“I was.” Zani nodded. “I got it. I had it. And then…”

“And then?” Minerva raised an eyebrow. Now she, too, was staring at the case.

Zani retrieved her chest and hauled it onto the coffee table at the center of the room. She produced her wand from her pocket and used it to undo the wards and locks. Then she opened it.

Will swung his feet to the floor and leaned forward, along with everyone else, craning his neck to get a look inside the travel case. This had to be the setback that Zani spoke of at the airport. The locked case appeared to be empty.

“One minute I had it. And then it vanished. It just disappeared from within this locked case.”

“Oh charmfizzle!” Minerva gasped, hand over mouth. “I can just imagine how you must have felt.”

“It’s actually empty, right? There’s not an invisible artifact in there?” Rosie asked tentatively.

Dr. Dvita stopped blowing smoke rings and set his pipe down in a pipe holder. Zephyr stepped forward to examine the case, poking it with his wand. Next, he waved it over the case, lighting up the interior with a silvery green mist. Above the indentation at the center, presumably where the bloodstone amulet had rested, the mist glowed a brilliant blue.

“It’s empty for sure. There’s nothing in here save a smidge of magical residue,” Zephyr confirmed. He shook his head, baffled. “The locks and wards are all intact.” He lifted the case to feel its heft. “And it’s a lead case, if I’m not mistaken?”

“It is,” Zani confirmed.

“Do you have any idea who it was? Or how they did it?” Minerva frowned. “Have you told anyone? Does Minodaura know?”

“I hadn’t even told her yet that I was going after it,” Zani confessed. “Thank goodness. I don’t think she would have approved of the mission if she knew. Nobody knew I had it. Nobody except Maida and you, Minerva.” Zani hesitated. She bit her lip.

“And someone else.” Minerva’s tone was unusually sharp. “Presumably you worked with someone to locate the stone? Someone on the inside?” The elderly lady had been collecting arcane items for almost a century. She was the original relic hunter. Minerva, Will realized, missed nothing.

“Yes,” Zani admitted with a frustrated sigh. “There was someone. I just don’t think he’d betray me like that.” Her mouth formed a tight line. “Even if I believed he was capable of that, I don’t know how he could have pulled it off. Particularly at that time of day, on a train, in broad daylight…” her voice trailed off.

There was someone.

Will felt his heart being squeezed as Zani spoke those words. Someone she didn’t think would betray her. He didn’t care for the way she’d said that. Even her word choice revealed her emotions. Whatever this relationship was, she believed it to be meaningful enough to extract loyalty. It was something more than casual. And then there was that last part. It didn’t sit right with him. He had to ask.

“What did the time of day have to do with it?”

Zani closed her eyes. “My partner isn’t usually out and about at that hour. He wasn’t on the train with me.”

“Your partner?” She had a partner? Will set down the rest of the jam sandwich, no longer wanting to eat it. “Why wouldn’t your partner have been out and about at that time of day?” Will spoke quietly, pretending he didn’t already know the answer. Hoping that he was mistaken. Knowing that this was unlikely.

Say it, he thought.

“Because he’s a vampire.” Zani sighed briefly before more words tumbled out of her pretty mouth. Disappointing words. “But he’s not like all the other vampires. I swear. Cosimo is different.”

“Oh, Zani. What were you thinking?” Minerva looked terribly disappointed, but Zani wouldn’t have seen that because her eyes were still closed. There was no mistaking the disapproval in the older witch’s tone of voice, however.

Will watched as Maida stepped closer to her friend and placed a protective arm around her. Maida tipped her chin up at her elderly aunt Minerva, prepared to challenge her. Will could understand why Maida was being so defensive. As someone of mixed magical descent, who’d only recently been accepted into the magical community, Maida was naturally prickly about any group being singled out. Even vampires.

“Don’t you think you’re all being a little unfair, Minerva? Have we learned nothing from recent events? Don’t you believe that all natural creatures deserve equal respect and consideration?”

“Vampires are not natural creatures,” Zephyr rumbled. “I don’t think you understand what we’re dealing with when it comes to vampires, Maida.” Although Zephyr appeared to be a harmless, kindly old wizard, with a liberal bent, he was no stranger to dark magic. As an agent of the Society for the Protection of Natural Magic, he had spent decades protecting the natural world from dark threats, vampiric and otherwise.

“Vampires are created from darkness and blood magic. A primal place of scarceness, fear, and craving. Not unlike synthetic magic.” Zephyr mentioned the scourge that Primrose Court had battled most recently. “As such, vampires are perverse creatures who are innately depraved. They cannot help what they are. Which is predatory. Incapable of noble emotions like compassion.”

“You’re wrong!” Zani snapped. “That’s not true! At least not for Cosimo. He didn’t choose to be what he is, and he doesn’t prey on other magical creatures. He helped me infiltrate the castle so I could take the stone and get rid of the nest of vampires plaguing that village.”

“And why do you think that is?” Zephyr asked.

“Like I said. He’s not like them.” Zani placed a defiant hand on her hip, but Will saw the shadow of a doubt that flickered across her face. “This is not a productive conversation. Clearly, I’ve got to head back to Europe and resume my search.”

“The Society will probably want to look into this before you do.” Zephyr motioned at the case.

“I suspect that’s what the letter’s about.” Zani sighed. “I don’t know how they knew.”

“They didn’t,” Minerva said. “That’s not what this is about.”

“Then what is it about?” Zani looked confused.

“The Society is recruiting you,” Minerva said. “Congratulations. You’re the new managing director and chief archivist of the Arcane Archives.”

“Excuse me?” Zani’s face was a map of incredulity.

“Effective immediately.” Minerva used her wand to coax the letter out of Zani’s pocket, plucked it from the air and handed it to her again. Zani didn’t reach out to take it. Minerva frowned. “I was actually hoping you would receive this letter as good news.”

“It must be a joke.” Zani finally took the envelope, holding it pinched between two fingers at a distance, as if it contained a dead bug. “You expect me to stay here ?”

“Who better to curate the collection in the Arcane Archives? Are you not an expert collector and cataloguer of obscure items and magical relics? Who out there is more knowledgeable… aside from me?” Minerva smiled, apparently trying to make the best of the situation by pandering to Zani’s ego.

“What if I don’t want to?” Zani tore open the letter and read it with a scowl on her face.

“It’s not so bad here, really!” Rosie commented. “Many people would kill to get to live in Primrose Court.”

“If it means I get to see more of you, I don’t think it’s a terrible idea. In fact, I kind of think it’s a great one.” Maida stared at her feet, hands clasped. Will could see she was feeling a bit hurt by Zani’s reaction. “There’s plenty of room in the Mudpuddle for you to stay.”

“Oh, Maida.” Zani turned to give Maida a quick hug. “It’s not you. I just don’t think I’m ready to settle down. I have so much more work to do in the field. This really couldn’t have come at a more inconvenient time.”

“Take it up with Amrita.” Minerva shrugged. “But I doubt she’ll change her mind. She’s already sent out a statement in the Society’s newsletter.”

“You’re welcome to join the town council,” Zephyr enthused. “We meet bi-monthly! We could use some more worldly perspectives.”

Will thought he saw Zani shudder slightly.

“I’m sorry.” Will reached out and squeezed her hand. Selfishly, he was glad she’d be sticking around a little longer. But not if she was carrying a torch for a vampire.

“Not as sorry as me.” Zani pulled her hand away and sank dejectedly into a chair.