“Can you get cursed from opening a letter?” I ask.
“I suppose,” Jacques says after a moment’s consideration. “Though it would require very strong magic and we’d already have felt the effects from holding it by now. Someone left this letter with the intention of you reading it. I say we open it.”
Nodding, I take the letter back and sit at the table across from Hasan. He’s watching curiously, almost as if he’s totally unaware of Gemma pulling glass from his wounds.
Heart beating fast, I carefully peel up part of the paper, breaking the wax seal. The lights don’t dim. No magic wind blows through the house. My throat isn’t closing up and foam isn’t choking me.
So far so good.
I open the envelope, peering inside for clues—or poison, Gemma could be right—and then pull out a plain piece of white paper. Like my name, the letter is also handwritten. It’s only a few sentences long, and the writing is neat and evenly spaced. If it wasn’t for a bit of smeared ink, I would have thought this was some fancy handwritten font meant to look like calligraphy.
“Acelina,” I read out loud. “I believe you have something I’ve been searching for and I’d like to offer you a trade. You’ve already received my first gift with nothing expected in return. However, if you’d like to continue with the case, I need something in exchange.”
“That’s it?” Thomas asks.
“Yeah.” I shake my head, reading the letter to myself again. “It doesn’t really make sense.”
“I think that’s the point,” Jacques suggests. “The case files you were sent…you’ve been obsessing. Whoever sent them knew what it would do to you. And the ambiguous letter is another catalyst to drive you crazy with trying to solve your parents’ murder.”
“Funny, too, how the letter came right after we left,” Gilbert muses. “You’re being set up, and I don’t like this at all. I’m gonna find the asshole doing this and beat some answers out of him.”
“Thanks.” I smile at Gil. “There’s nothing like a threat of violence to melt a girl’s heart.” I curl my lips over my teeth and shake my head. “What do I have that someone would want? I mean, they must want it really fucking bad.”
“Powers?” Gemma suggests, sticking the tweezers in a bowl of peroxide to disinfect them. “You have badass powers. I’d imagine a lot of people would want them.”
“Oh, for sure. But can you just take powers like that?”
“Not anyone could,” Jacques says, speaking slow. “But I’ve heard of rituals. Complicated, dangerous rituals where the spell caster doesn’t always make it out alive.”
“The golem knew my name,” I say, still staring at the letter.
“What?” everyone asks at once.
I look at Hasan. “Didn’t you hear it?”
He shakes his head. “It didn’t speak.”
“Yes, it did. Right before it charged at me and you pulled me out of the way.”
His brows furrow. “That’s why you froze?”
“I didn’t freeze,” I counter. “I was listening to it.”
“Golems can’t speak,” Jacques says softly.
“It wasn’t really the golem,” I start, feeling like this is going to be a hard one to explain. “Something was speaking through it. And it said my name.”
Gemma sets down the tweezers and wipes blood off her hands. “So let me get this straight.” She grabs a bandage. “Someone sends you mysterious case files about your parents’ deaths. Someone creates a golem to terrorize the city. And someone left this cryptic note on the porch.”
“The only way we knew to kill the golem was with fire,” Thomas says. “And you have fire power.”
“Someone knows me. Like really knows me.” I swallow hard. “Why not come to me, then?”
“Maybe they wanted to be sure?” Gilbert suggests. “Still…seems risky to make a golem. If we hadn’t been watching TV at that moment, we wouldn’t have known.”
“Usually I do know these things,” I say as something clicks together. “I’m a detective and am the first one called for weird cases like that. But I’m on vacation.” I look at Gemma. “Whoever dropped off the letter probably didn’t know Gemma was here. And they didn’t know I was on vacation. They assumed I’d get a call about it.”
“So whoever is behind this knows you, but not personally,” Thomas says.
