Aurelia’s gaze shifted to the door again, once more unwilling to look me in the eyes.
I turned the stovetop completely off and closed the distance. I made certain to keep to our unspoken bubble of personal space. “Aurelia, please look at me.” The uncertainty in her eyes didn’t ease my concerns. Aurelia was never uncertain. “What’s going on? Something’s wrong. I can see it in your eyes.”
Aurelia’s eyebrows shot heavenward. “You are clairvoyant? How did I not know this? Are you keeping secrets?” The last was spoken with a layer of betrayal.
“No. It was a figure of speech. I can’t really see what you’re thinking.”
Aurelia’s body relaxed. Fuzzy Britches still seemed content with her napping. I was beginning to become concerned. I onlyhad experience with one other scuttlebutt, but Trinket seemed a lot livelier than this one.
“I see. Franklin will be here soon. His instruction was clear. He did not desire I speak to you until he arrives.”
That statement did not do my sense of calm a damn bit of good. If Franklin wanted to be present when news was handed out…that couldn’t mean the news was anything good.
Reaching for the countertop, I gripped it tightly as a wave of nausea swept through me. My ears perked up when I heard car tires on my gravel drive. I didn’t think. I ran for the front door, slamming it open and barreling through the screen door so hard it smacked the house and bounced twice before settling into its resting position.
I’d expected Franklin’s SUV. Instead, a truck I didn’t recognized trundled up my drive, throwing a fine sheen of dust into the air. Even though I didn’t recognize the truck, I still expected Franklin to slide out of the driver’s side door. The tall, broad figure that landed in my drive wasn’t at all who I expected.
“Pops?” I questioned as I jogged down the steps. “Why are you here?” Did this have to do with whatever Franklin needed to tell me? Gaia, this was getting worse by the second. “What happened?” My voice held an edge of panic that immediately caught Pops’s attention.
“What do you mean? I decided to hand-deliver your wedding rings. They seemed too important to send through the post. And besides, I wanted to see you. Things were fine when I left.” He slammed the truck door. Two strides brought him to my quivering form. “You’re shaking.” Pops’s large hands found my shoulders, and he rubbed up and down my arms. “Erasmus, tell me what’s got you so spooked.”
I frantically shook my head. “I don’t know. Aurelia won’t tell me.”
“Aurelia won’t…?” Pops’s gaze tracked behind me, to the porch Aurelia was standing on. “What is that thing on her shoulder? Is that…?” Pops’s breath whistled through his pinched lips. “That pixie is a fool.”
“Or a genius.” I defended Peaches’s actions. “He’s still alive, so he must be doing something right.”
Pops grunted his reluctant agreement. He still didn’t like Aurelia. He never would. I didn’t need him to like her. I needed him to respect her power and not piss her off. “Pops, don’t pick a fight. Not now. Something’s going on. Aurelia’s acting shady and—”
“She’s a djinn. How can you tell?”
I smacked Pops on the arm. “I can tell,” I hissed. “And something is wrong. Aurelia said she won’t tell me until Franklin’s here. Do you know what this is about? Has Franklin called you?” Franklin and Pops had an odd relationship. I knew Franklin respected Pops, and in turn, Franklin had gained Pops’s reluctant admiration. It was no small feat for a human.
“No, I haven’t heard from… Wait.” Pops dug his phone out of his back pocket and cursed. “I forgot to take it out of airplane mode when I landed. I have a message, several in fact, but only one from Franklin.”
I waited, bouncing on my toes while Pops listened to the message. His blackened fingertips danced along the side of the phone, stilling not long into the message. Pops’s inhale was sharp, the grimace that accompanied it worse than worrisome.
“Pops, what—”
“Come in the house, Erasmus.” Pops didn’t wait for me to comply. His grip on my arm was firm but far from painful. “I need a map of the area.”
“I’ll get it.” I hustled to a nearby closet and rummaged through it until I found what Pops needed. Hastily unfolding it, I laid the map out on the kitchen table. I knew what Pops wouldpull out before it left his pocket. The only thing I didn’t know was who he was looking for.
“Who’s missing?” I asked. My brain was a jumbled mess, and I couldn’t think straight.
Pops’s dark eyes tracked over my head, briefly meeting Aurelia’s gaze before settling back on the map in front of him. “Your momma,” Pops said. His answer stole the breath from my lungs and from one second to the next, I found myself sitting in a chair.
“M-Momma?”
“We don’t know anything yet,” Pops tried to reassure. “Give me a minute, and I’ll know more.”
Pops was a master of his craft. I’d spent a lifetime watching and being in awe of his abilities. Now was no different. I understood the words he spoke, but I couldn’t magically twist them like he could. If I’d uttered those same words, absolutely nothing would have happened. In Pops’s case, the pure white crystal dangling from a leather cord pulsed with light, illuminating the map. I’d seen this before. Soon the crystal would sway from side to side, turning in a circle as it homed in on the individual Pops wanted to find, eventually settling on an exact point and landing on the map.
I sat there, anxiously waiting…and waiting…and…nothing. The crystal pulsed but didn’t so much as twitch.
Pops’s fingers gripped the leather strip harder, and he repeated the spell words—louder this time. Once again, the crystal flared, its light nearly blinding. And still, it did not move.
Before I could ask what this meant, Pops growled, “Aurelia.”
