“That’s not mine.”
“It’s a backup for when you don’t have yours.”He unzipped the top and took out an identical octopus bottle, this one purple.He unscrewed the lid and poured seawater over my fingers.
I pointed to my wrist, and he splashed my hand up higher.I couldn’t get over the feeling that the black magic was crawling up my skin.Finally clean, I breathed a sigh of relief and leaned into him.
“Are you okay now?”he asked, crushing me to him.
I nodded against his chest.
“What was that about?”Osso asked.
I slipped on my glove, grabbed the backpack, and went to them.Pointing at the stairs, I asked Orla, “Is it okay if I sit here?”
“Of course.”She and Nick went to the bench by the front door.
Declan sat on the top step and spread his legs for me to sit on the second, as protected by his body as he could make me.
As I told them what I’d seen, I pulled a sketchbook and charcoals out of the backpack and started drawing the young man.When I finished, I looked up and found Osso standing at the rail beside Declan, watching me work as he scrolled on his phone.
He tapped the screen and turned it around for me.“Is this him?”
It looked like a graduation portrait.“That’s him.How did you find him so fast?”
“I was going through the missing persons database, trying to match what you were drawing with the images in here.Noah Erickson.He graduated from high school in June.He went missing on a hike at the beginning of July.”
I stared down at my drawing.“That was before Milo brought poison into the gallery.That might have been what they were brewing.”
“Overly complicated,” Orla murmured.
We all turned to her, me leaning on Declan’s leg so I could see around him.
“Why spell a human so you can attack him, drag him to a car, carry him into a basement, and cut off his arm to make poison, when you can go to a shop and buy rat poison.”She shrugged a shoulder.“I hate those kinds of books.The author’s so busy trying to come up with a convoluted plot no one will guess that they miss the most obvious way to kill someone and get away with it.Arrogance and stupidity are a dangerous combination.”
I thought about what the Swans had done so far because in my gut, I knew it was them.“You’re right.It’s all been some weird razzle-dazzle.What’s the point of any of it?”
Declan twirled one of my curls around his finger.“They seemed to be doing Calliope’s bidding, hoping for more power from her demon.”
“Yes, but to Orla’s point, if the goal had been to take me out of the equation so Cal didn’t have to worry about being caught, one of them should have brought a gun and shot me when I was standing on my deck.”
Declan tugged on the curl.“Don’t say that.”
I patted his knee in apology.“Orla’s right, though.They went through all of that with poor Noah to make the poison that Milo dusted my baked goods with.Stupid and sloppy.There were so many ways that plan could fail.”
“And it did,” Osso agreed.
“That type is more dangerous,” Orla said.“They’re unpredictable because they lack logic.”
“I checked my security feed,” Declan said.“Earlier today, I checked to see if we caught the granddaughter on camera trying to curse our home.”
I turned on the step to look up at him.
“She’s on it,” he continued.“So, too, is the wave that knocked her out, but that could be explained as a rogue wave.”
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and searched the camera feeds at the gallery.“There she is.It won’t mean anything to human authorities, but the Wicche Council will recognize what she’s doing right away.”
“What will they do about it?”Nick asked.
I shook my head.“No idea.Catherine Swan, the head of that family, accused my great-uncle of using black magic against her to the Council.We were planning to report them and now we’re going to be fielding accusations.”
