Page 77 of The Hearth Witch’s Guide to Spite & Spellwork

“He was the one who made the appointment, so how do we know it was even real? He had the opportunity, and if this gives him motive? We just need to figure out if he also had the means.”

“Perhaps,” said Avery. “Or perhaps there is a different link between John Hingley and Betsey Paris—or Luna Ravenwood, for that matter. Perhaps the link is their killer, and that is why they were murdered in similar fashions.”

“Why would they be twenty years apart?”

“A question worth answering. Any other leads?”

“That was the strongest one.” Saga held up her remaining stack of papers. “These are all possible Abigail Ryders. As you might imagine, it was a pretty common name, but none of them have any public records tying them to Luna Ravenwood, nor does Eugenia Scrimshaw. So on top of asking Blake Hingley about the eerie similarities of self-bludgeoning between his father and Luna, we’ll want to find out why he or either of these women may have had it in for Luna.”

Avery stood in the center of the papers and photographs, taking a sip of her tea while looking at each. “It is nice having it spread out like this—like a bird’s-eye view. I like it.” Her attention shifted to the wall opposite the small fireplace. “You talked about making some sort of display. Perhaps I can mount it against that wall somehow.”

“I think I have some tacks downstairs that should do the trick.”

35The recipe for Blackberry Balsamic Glaze can be found on page 423.

Chapter 19 Saga

Saga struggled with deciding what to wear. She wrestled with it nearly all day. In what had likely been incredible foresight, Avery had given her the day without adding to her mental load, but it hadn’t given her the ability to relax and focus so much as feel guilty that she was pacing around her apartment in front of her cat.

There were multiple factors that made this a difficult decision. The first was that the Time Machine, like most establishments within the Savoy, had a “smart casual” dress code. Despite having nearly married the sort of person who spent even their laundry days in “smart casual,” Saga had no idea what it meant.

She knew it supposedly combined business wear with casual elements, which always sounded to her like dressing as the CEO of a tech start-up—but apparently graphic T-shirts and denim were forbidden. Hugh had once described it as “more relaxed than business casual, but more formal than dressy casual,” which did the opposite of helping.

Under normal circumstances, when she’d gone with Hugh or even the girls, she’d overdressed. On a date or out with friends, a cocktail dress was never wrong.

This was not normal circumstances. She could not look like she thought this was a date, but she couldn’t look unattractive either. Running into an ex in the wild, you always hoped you looked your best. Meeting the man who left you at the altar for drinks so he could apologize and make amends… She needed to look irresistible but devastatingly unattainable.

She’d pulled every item from her closet and deemed them all unworthy. She’d taken a scalding hot shower and set her hair in a heatless curler set. And after a quick run to the store, she’d employed liquid courage. A hearth witch’s liquid courage, that is: a nonalcoholic cider that doubled as a simmer pot as you mulled it with spices. The spell infused her home with a glorious scent and herbs to help give her strength and comfort.

She leaned over the slow cooker, inhaling deeply to give the magic time to work its way to her extremities. Cinnamon for personal strength, cloves and nutmeg for protection, allspice for confidence, and orange slices for joy. The tension in her shoulders gradually released.

Brigid bless Saoirse’s spells. They’d never failed her.

Perhaps it was the uplifting properties of the orange slices or the creativity cinnamon inspired, but it had given Saga an idea to call Darcy—who had come straight from work with one of her boss’ signature pieces.

“I told Vivienne my best friend was meeting the man who left her at the altar for drinks and she practically threw this at me.”

It was a very nice suit made of a dark teal velvet. The trousers sat on her natural waist and accentuated her hourglass figure, while the rose-gold satin bralette peeking from beneath the open blazer gave a needed pop of shimmer.

“It’s sexy, but in a ‘power lesbian who can verbally castrate you at the gallery opening’ kind of way,” Darcy had claimed.

For her hair, Darcy had curled Saga’s long face-framing fringe as normal and then corralled the rest with pins in a half-up/half-down style. It felt classic with a slight edge as she’d intermixed a few braids among the loose wavy strands. She’d nodded to the hair of the statue on Saga’s bedroom altar. It wasn’t exact, but there were similarities in the braiding. “I thought you might appreciate bringing a little of her with you.” And for makeup, a cat eye sharp enough to kill a man and black liquid lipstick like patent leather. It would draw attention, it would accentuate the shape of her lips, but it would also give the impression they would leave a mark if you tried to touch them—this would communicate subconsciously that Saga had no inclination for kissing.

That was how she’d arrived at the Savoy at 8:05—a time, according to Darcy, that didn’t feel like you were late, but also that you had enough going on in your life that you weren’t hyperfocused on the appointment.

Shoulders back, Brigid’s bracelet around her left wrist, she scaled the stairs from the lobby into the Time Machine.

The hallway to the host stand of the bar began the transition through time, the lighting shifting to a warm amber glow that mimicked the bulbs of yesteryear. Gold danced in the light, inlaid in geometric patterns in the warm wood floor. The interior followed this motif, giving the illusion of being inside a giant clock, with each high-top table carved and painted to resemble gears.

The Time Machine did not do reservations; it was the sort of place where you either found room or waited, so as Saga approached the host, she let them know she was meeting someone. Not a friend. Not an ex. Someone.

A someone she could see sitting at a high-top with his back to the bar. A someone who looked like he had come from his parents’ country club, not a long shift at the hospital. A someone who looked up, saw her, and smiled.

“Goddess be with me,” she whispered under her breath and stepped into the room. As she crossed the floor, she caught sight of a familiar flash of silver hair sitting on one of stools just behind him. With Avery at the bar and Brigid around her wrist, she felt she had both the sun and moon watching over her.

Hugh stood as she approached. “Hey, Magpie.” He was not subtle in giving her an up and down. “You look amazing.”

“I met a friend for dinner.” That friend had been Darcy and they had ordered in Chinese food while getting Saga ready, but he didn’t need to know that. He also didn’t need to know she had dressed up for this. She looked good, she knew she looked good—but she was not going to let this man think she looked good for him. She raised the bar menu to look over the offered cocktails and hide the slight purse of her lips as she realized she should have said something that would imply she always looked this good.