Elwood stood at the front of the room beside the table we used whenever the group met. George the mouse peeked from the pocket of his linen shirt like a tiny gray spectator. And Declan. He stood next to Perry, opening a container that held whatever snack he’d baked for us tonight.
My wolf’s attention sharpened. He smelled sugar and citrus and warm butter. Declan’s baking, no matter what, was becoming one of my favorite smells in the world.
He glanced up when he noticed me and smiled. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
Elwood clapped his hands together lightly. “Excellent. Now that everyone’s here, we can begin.”
Declan slid into the chair beside me, his knee bumping mine under the table, and I smiled at him before I pressed my leg against his. My wolf was pleased at the contact.
Before Elwood could start, Hazel glanced up from her knitting. “Oh, good,” she said. “We can finally find out what happened with the hex.”
Tulip straightened. “Hex?”
Elwood cleared his throat. “Yes, we’ll get to that. But first, does anyone have anything they want to talk about? We do have another of Leon’s festivals going on, which means lots of humans here in our little town.”
Everyone looked around, waiting for someone to go first. Finally, Az rolled his eyes and cleared his throat. “Fine, I guess I can start. It’s bad enough that I have to deal with all the humans who normally frequent my shop, but during festival week, we get so many people who’re just window shopping. They come in and touch everything. Why? Why do humans need to touch things they aren’t going to buy? Now all the books smell…”—he pauseddramatically, and wrinkled up his very proper nose like he’d smelled something rancid—“common.”
“Well,” Tulip said. “I stay in my pond far away from them. I stay alert, though, in case any humans get close enough for me to…”
“To do nothing,” Elwood said firmly. “Because we don’t bother the humans. Do we, Tulip?”
She crossed her arms and pouted but mumbled, “No, we don’t bother the humans.”
To my surprise, Perry spoke next. “I had a few of what Az calledKarens, but other than that, my weekend has gone pretty good. I like it in my food truck. I have the small windows to take orders and pass out the food, but other than that, I feel pretty hidden inside there.”
Sandy beamed at him. “If you decide to have a food truck of your own, I could work the front for you. You know, like I could be your truck's hype man. I could take orders and hand out the food, and you could just cook. That would be super fun!”
I swear I thought I saw Perry blush at the idea, but he just nodded at Sandy and said, “Maybe someday.”
“Well, I haven’t attended the festival,” Hazel said, primly. “Beer guzzling isn’t my thing, nor is it my Mister’s.”
“And yet you signed us up for Sip and Stretch,” Declan grumbled.
“That’s different, dear. That’s to support my friend Kim’s yoga studio. She’s hoping that maybe if she serves the beer, people will stop complaining about the awful smell of the brewery next door.”
Elwood glanced around the room and waited for a minute to see if anyone else was going to talk, and when no one did, he nodded. “Okay, if no one else has anything they want to share, we can move on to the hex mentioned earlier. Declan, do you want to start?”
The whole group leaned forward in their chairs, eager to hear the gossip. Hazel even stopped knitting.
Declan glanced at me, and I gave him a small nod. From what Elwood told me when they returned, he’d handled himself well earlier at Ivan’s. Better than he realized.
He cleared his throat. “Well… Ivan’s beer was definitely tampered with.”
Declan explained what they’d discovered. The sour lager. The strange magic woven through the beer. The hex bag the raven had found outside Ivan’s house. I noticed he didn’t mention Elwood telling him the raven was his familiar, but it didn’t surprise me. I’d figured out that Declan needed time to process things before he was comfortable with them, but eventually, he’d get there. By the time he finished, every person in the room looked concerned.
Every person except Eugene. The shadow imp clung to the corner of the ceiling near the bookshelf. Normally, he lurked there like living darkness, but tonight, he looked… energized. His shadow flickered with restless movement.
Hazel followed my gaze.
“Oh yes,” she said knowingly. “He’s been like that all evening.”
“Why?” Declan asked.
“Because Elwood said the meeting involved a mystery.”
Declan blinked. “Oh.”
