“I am Wanda, Gary the Gray’s wife.” The woman made a face, then jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “That’s Gary back there with the broken collarbone. He can’t speak without whining, so I’m here to do the job for him.”
Behind her, the three men who had been fighting were now separated and sitting on the ground with a few people around them, obviously tending to their wounds. The others were clustered around the woman named Wanda, who had a baby carrier strapped to her front, a little knit cap visible over the top of it indicating she had her child with her.
“Hello, Wanda. This is Ivo. He’s my boyfriend,” I said, gesturing toward Ivo.
“Fiancé,” he corrected.
“Mazel tov,” she said.
“Thank you. And this is Christian Dante, who owns the castle that you guys are trying to break into, and can I say that I’m sure he doesn’t appreciate anyone doing damage to the building or grounds, so the two of you who are rolling around in the flower bed, if you could go do that somewhere else, I have no doubt Christian would be grateful.”
The two men who were, in fact, locked in an amorous display, clambered out of the bed of late-blooming dahlias, and had the grace to look embarrassed. “Sorry,” one of them called up to Christian. “We’re celebrating our anniversary and got a bit carried away.”
Christian inclined his head, but I heard him sigh to himself.
“And this is Christian’s nephew Finch.”
A cheer went up.
Finch lifted his hand in acknowledgment.
Ivo and I stared at him.
Finch gave a half shrug. “I stood a few rounds at the local pub. It was excellent research for my book.”
“So now that we have all the introductions, what is it you guys want?” I called down.
“The spell that you intend to use on all of us!” One of the men in a wizard gown started forward, but two others pulled him back.
“We heard that you might have a spell of untold power,” Wanda said somewhat apologetically, rocking from side to side now and rubbing the back of the baby carrier. “And those never end up well, do they, ladies?”
Four other women had gathered behind her, and they all nodded.
“So we wanted to find out first whether or not you do have it.”
I looked at Christian.
He sighed again, but handed me the small wooden box. I held it up. “I do.”
Pandemonium broke out in the crowd until Wanda and her gang of four turned and yelled at everyone to stop the noise, or there would be hell to pay when they got back home. The assorted men and women settled down again.
“I should add that we only just discovered the spell hidden in one of my possessions. None of us knew it was there.”
“A likely story,” someone shouted from the back. It was one of the thief takers.
“And are you willing to hand it over to us?” Wanda asked.
“Are you kidding?” I asked.
Wanda smiled. “I thought it was worth asking. Very well, we agree that it would be as much a folly for one of us to have so much power on tap as you, so we’d like to request that you destroy the spell. We realize that you won’t wish to do so, but we’ve prepared a statement with several bullet points as to the wisdom of taking that course. Carolina, do you have the list?”
One of the women in the back pushed her way forward, waving a flyer from the battle of the bands. “Here it is.”
“Excellent.” Wanda consulted the list. “Point one: it is a dangerous spell, and might be subject to being stolen by an unscrupulous person. Point two—”
“You know, as much as I love a good bulleted list, we don’t need to hear more. None of us want the spell. We’re not demon-lord-spell sorts of people. We’re happy to destroy it,” I called down.
“Well ... ,” Christian started to say, but stopped when Ivo glared at him.
