Page 68 of Wickedly Ever After (A Fairy Tale Romp, #1)

The amount of money a magical life is assigned is based on the relative importance of the target and the amount of danger involved in apprehending them.

It’s paid out by the Council of Witches upon delivery of the rogue witch or, in my case, their wand or staff.

Quite frankly, taking a witch who doesn’t want to come quietly—and none of them do once they see me—is a colossal pain in the ass.

Edrick Harper

When this job is over, it’s really over. I’m retiring.

Edrick had said that to himself so many times over the last ten years, it had all but ceased to have any meaning.

Like the late spring rain pelting down, that thought was a constant drizzle, making his drought of a life a little less endlessly dry, but making him miserable at the same time.

He shifted in the saddle as he approached the castle, gaze drifting from the front, to one side, then the other, then to the back, and front again.

Twenty plus years of being a witchfinder had taught him to always watch his back.

And there were way too many witches here.

Playing fast and loose with his safety could get him turned into a toad or worse—and toads were bad enough.

Given his special talents, he could undo the enchantment without much fuss, but getting turned into an amphibian, even for a few seconds, always gave him hives afterwards.

The rain fell steadily as he rode through the castle gate under the watchful eye of Queen Annabeth’s guards.

He ignored the cobblestone road that led to the Council Hall of Cardinal Witches.

He’d heard that once the two buildings housed separate governing bodies, but he’d never known the world to be any different than now—the queen’s castle towering like a throne, and the Witches’ Hall on bended knee before it.

Ostensibly they served the queen like he did, but unlike the queen, they didn’t like him. He killed them, after all.

“If the queen pays you today, can I have some new shoes? These damned things are killing my feet.” Moiry stumbled over a cobblestone, hooves clattering.

“Quiet, Moiry. This isn’t the place to be complaining.”

“Where is the place for complaining, then? My feet are rotting off.”

“The blacksmith said you have a mild case of hoof fungus. Your feet aren’t rotting off. In fact, they’re in better shape than mine. I’m not sure I have soles left on the bottom of my boots.”

“No comparison. You aren’t walking on them and carrying my ass like I’m carrying yours.”

“If I promise to get you shoes, will you shut up? It’s one thing to tell the yokels a witch enchanted you before I killed them; it’s quite another for the guards to tell it to the Witches’ Council, who could tell them that’s not possible given how I actually operate.

” He cut his eyes at a guard who gave him a sideways glance, the kind generally reserved for people ranting in the streets.

Moiry took a perverse pleasure in shutting up just in time for him to look like an idiot.

But it was true—it absolutely wasn’t the way he was supposed to work, and he didn’t like conjecture. That was every bit as bad as toads.

Moiry snorted. “If it pisses you off that much, then take the enchantment off me. We both know you could do it as easily as breathing. But if you’re making deals, I promise I won’t utter so much as a dirty limerick if you make sure I get a full meal with my new shoes—and I don’t want moldy hay, even if it’s been raining.

And I want them to take this saddle off and let me catch my breath.

I’m twenty-five; I don’t deserve to be standing around all tacked up in the stable while you sip red wine and eat petit fours with the queen. ”

“It’s hardly like that,” he said. “I don’t intend to stay long. I only want to pick up my pay for that last job and see if she has any more assignments for me.”

“Oh, Gods,” Moiry groaned. “You said this was the last one.”

He clenched his teeth. “It was, but that was before that giant broke me, and then you had colic and I had to get your stomach pumped—”

“That was your fault. That grain was atrocious—”

“But of course, you ate it—”

“What else was there to eat? And the whole giant thing was your fault too—he didn’t throw you clear across a field into the barn. That was all you and your magical gas attack—”

“Shut it, alright?” Edrick spat back. “We can argue about this until we both go hoarse and not agree.”

“That’s supposed to be funny? One more bad pun out of you and I’ll beg whoever you’re supposed to kill to kill me before they do you in.

” She snorted, tripped over another cobblestone, and went on muttering to herself about workaholic witchfinders who couldn’t solve their own magical snafus, let alone anyone else’s.

Edrick didn’t try for the last word. For one thing, the Council Hall was close.

For the second, Moiry was right. Bespelling her to talk had been more of a magical gas attack than intention.

He didn’t know why magic sometimes exploded out of him without warning.

Like with that giant. One minute he was standing in the field, feathers fanned, eyes on fire, siphoning the very life out of the giant.

The next minute, he was regaining consciousness in the middle of a barn that he’d blown out a half-mile away, his arm was broken, and Moiry was looking down at him with a decidedly worried look on her horsey face.

Months of bedrest and healing spells later—none of which were effective, and he wasn’t about to tell the healers why—he was whole again.

Well, as whole as a man like him ever could be.

But he was also bankrupt and out of the precious artifacts which had sustained him during the long convalescence.

It had taken him a lifetime to collect that many.

He needed another assignment that paid well, and soon.

As Moiry said, she wasn’t getting any younger, and whether he wanted to admit it or not, he didn’t want another horse.

He was getting sentimental, that was the problem.

But it would be nice to spend those last few years with a companion, even if it was a horse who stepped on his toes every time she got the chance just to hear him yell.

She was the closest thing he had to a friend.

“I’ll make sure you get new shoes,” he said. “And we’ll take it easy until I’ve got my full strength back. No giants. No dragons. Nothing stronger than a couple of hedge witches with a vanishing cat. Okay?”

Moiry harrumphed. She wasn’t what he’d call an intelligent animal, but she was smart enough to know when he was bullshitting her. He’d never once taken it easy—on himself, or anyone else.

He left her at the stable doors and went to see the queen.

***

Edrick had been to this room in the castle before—many times, in fact.

The first time, he’d been entirely overwhelmed by the opulence.

He’d never seen red velvet upholstery on places where a person was supposed to put their feet or known that there were curtains that rivalled ladies’ dresses for embroidery, or that a fire could actually contain enough wood to warm a room.

He’d stood there in all his nineteen-year-old naivety, back to the fire, rubbing the chill out of his fingers, his hawkish shadow falling long on the floor in front of him, darker than every mysteriously inviting nook between the bed, the couches, the breakfast table, and the open wardrobes.

He’d wondered why, of all places, the queen would choose her bedchamber in which to meet with him.

He’d been so green it still embarrassed him.

That was long ago. This time, Edrick sat down on the nearest couch without bothering to brush the thick layer of mud drying sluggishly on the back of his knee-high boots.

His duster hung in tattered ribbons almost down to his toes, and he was sweating beneath it in the heat of the chamber, but he didn’t remove it.

He wasn’t in the mood for the queen’s games today.

He’d never figured out why she played them with him, of all people.

If there was one thing Edrick couldn’t stand—besides witches—it was games he couldn’t hope to understand.

He turned his hands over and studied his gaunt arms, the way the thin greenish blood vessels twisted under the skin of his wrists.

They pulsed like worms, a sure sign that he would be needing fresh magic soon.

He could only live on magical artifacts for so long.

Moiry had it right—he’d never retire at this rate.

He’d always need magic, and there was no artifact left in the world that could keep him going for more than a few months.

Fresh blood was what he most needed. He wished Annabeth would hurry up and get it over with.

The sooner he left, the sooner he could feed his hunger, the sooner his pulse would stop throbbing like a hammer’s fall, the sooner his hands would stop shaking.

But Annabeth had never been known for her promptness, at least not with him.

She was probably still deciding what to wear.

Edrick estimated that he’d seen her in a hundred outfits by now, and none of them had ever been repeated.

Meanwhile, he’d had this same tattered coat for the last twenty years, patching it by hand whenever he’d torn it, cleaning it in the rain, drying it in the sun.

It was as steeped in death as he was, and almost as threadbare as he felt most days.

A soft click behind him let him know that the queen had entered through the hidden door.

“My lady,” he said, rising, one hand straying to the pommel of his nearest knife. Habit. But with Annabeth, he often felt it necessary. He lived by her mercy, and she wasn’t exactly known for that any more than she was for showing up on time.