“You’re not evil and unnatural, Lily. You’re... extraordinary.”
“Um, thank you.” I really didn’t know how to respond to that. “I thought you were angry with me.”
“You’re the one who stormed out of my office last time. I didn’t ask you to leave. Have you ever noticed that when you get angry with me, you assume I’m angry with you?”
“Okay... that’s a thought that’s going to fester.”
“It’s all right to be angry with someone,” Aidancontinued. “And with a friend, it’s a sign that we need to talk, obviously. Anyway, to get back to the pertinent question: How would you have eaten something from Renee’s shop?”
“It was purely by accident.”
“What happened?”
“Renee went by Lucille’s Loft with some goodies, and Maya brought me one of the meat pasties.”
“Was it good?”
“Very.”
The truth was, I wasn’t that careful about the food I consumed. I sort of assumed I’d feel anything that had been tampered with, and of course I avoided Renee’s cupcakes, but hadn’t I been thinking recently about all the enemies I’d made in town? Maybe I needed a taster. Like the European royals of old. I always wondered what that must have been like: to eat for a living, with the expectation that one might die at any meal.
“You know, you could simply have a regular cold. You’re not immortal, after all.”
“True. Could I borrow your phone?”
I called Calypso to ask her about the odd ingredients Jamie had mentioned Renee had used in the pastry batter.
“I don’t recognize the ingredients right offhand, Lily. I’m sorry.” I could hear her flipping through pages. “Of course, fingernails are never good.”
That was for dang sure.
“But, let’s see.... You say it’s associated with coldlike symptoms?”
“Yes. Sneezing, congestion, loss of smell and lack of energy mostly.”
“Okay, yes, here it is. It sounds like it might be a Tiberius Caesar befuddling spell. It says here, ‘Sneezing was considered losing part of one’s soul through thebreath, or having to do with evil spirits. That’s why we saybless you.’ A Tiberius Caesar spell is cast by having the mark ingest the brew, but the mark has to do so willingly.”
“Is there an antidote?”
“According to this, it should pass within a week or so. It’s not deadly, just a nuisance, really. Rather like having an actual cold.”
I thanked her and disconnected just as Aidan pulled into a valet parking spot in front of a fancy restaurant near the Ferry Building.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“You need dinner,” Aidan responded, “and so do I. Please, my treat.”
Coqueta was a Spanish restaurant, decorated in the relaxed yet upscale way of many of San Francisco’s bayside eateries. The valet and the hostess seemed to know Aidan, the latter fluttering her eyelashes and fawning all over him when he requested a patio table. Outside, overhead heaters kept us warm and snug despite the cool breeze off the water. The bay itself was dark and still at this hour, but the lights along the Bay Bridge twinkled, and the homes and businesses of Oakland and Emeryville and Berkeley on the other side of the bay led the eye up into the hills.
The usually incessant seagulls were quiet, and I imagined I could hear the water lapping gently at the piers.
I felt weary. If I really was suffering under a befuddling spell, I wondered whether I could will it away with the proper attitude, as Conrad had suggested. On top of everything else, I had missed the preview of the estate sale this afternoon. Then again, maybe I wasn’t going to need a wedding dress after all. Just the thought of Sailor sitting in jail, waiting for me to figure this thing out... Depression settled over me like a shroud.
“So, what did that little chat with Renee tell us?” I asked Aidan after the waiter took our orders and opened a bottle of wine.
“Not as much as I’d hoped.” Aidan waved off the waiter and poured the wine himself into two stemmed glasses. “She’s still trying to win you over, I’d say.”
“Renee said something about you once... ,” I began.
