I grimaced. “Okay, Agnes. Whatever you say.”

  “Emma? What are you doing here?” Sheriff Astrid appeared in the corridor with her equally blond sister, Deputy Britta.

  “She found him,” Agnes replied, jabbing her thumb in my direction. “She sniffs out trouble like nobody’s business. Must be her sorceress gene.”

  I glared at the old witch. “You said yourself that Titus lived a full life. There’s no trouble.”

  “Then how do you explain the presence of the Valkyrie sisters?” Agnes asked.

  “When a body is found in an unusual place, we need to check things out,” Astrid said. “It’s standard protocol.”

  “So if he’d been discovered dead in his bed, you wouldn’t be here?” I asked.

  “Not unless there were suspicious circumstances,” Astrid replied.

  “Cool,” Britta said, peering at the floor. “Green stuff.”

  At the sight of the droplets, Astrid went into full sheriff mode. “Everybody step away from Titus.”

  The medical team stopped what they were doing.

  “Are you sure?” a fairy asked.

  “Unless you’re about to tell me that he’s still alive, then yes, I’m sure,” Astrid replied.

  “Yes, Sheriff,” the fairy replied and fluttered out of the way, followed by the rest of the medical team.

  “Britta, section off this area,” Astrid ordered.

  “Ooh, I can help with that,” Agnes said. “I can do a protection spell.”

  I elbowed Agnes in the ribs. She wasn’t supposed to be doing any magic in the care home. Our skills practice in the activities room was completely confidential.

  “She means I can do one,” I said.

  “No, you can’t,” Agnes shot back, rubbing her stomach. “Not unless I help you.”

  Astrid smiled. “Thanks, but we can use good, old-fashioned tape. No magic required.”

  Agnes blew a raspberry. “Bo-ring.”

  “But effective,” Britta said, and unrolled the tape around the area. She made sure that the onlookers were on the other side of the tape.

  “Did anyone see him crawl out here?” Astrid asked.

  “No. This is where I found him when I left the activities room,” I said.

  “You didn’t hear anything?” Astrid queried,

  I shook my head.

  “Britta, poke your head in the rooms between Titus’s and here,” Astrid instructed. “See if anyone saw or heard anything.”

  “This is getting procedural,” Agnes complained. “I’m heading to tiddlywinks.”

  “See you next time,” I said. “Thanks for the help.”

  She waved without looking back and disappeared down the stretch of corridor.

  “You two have the strangest relationship,” Astrid remarked, while studying the satyr’s body.

  “It’s not that strange,” I said. “I think she’s lonely.”

  “But Lady Weatherby’s been visiting her more often, hasn’t she?” Astrid asked.

  “Off and on,” I said. I didn’t want to mention our private magic lessons in the care home. No one would support the idea of Agnes being around magic, not with her insane reputation.

  A familiar figure floated down the hall. “Hey, Silas,” I greeted the elderly genie.

  “If it isn’t the most beautiful sorceress this side of Curse Cliff,” he said. His brow wrinkled as he noticed the heap on the floor. “Is that Titus?”

  “I’m afraid so,” I said.

  Silas snorted with displeasure. “I mean, he wasn’t anyone’s shot of Goddess Bounty, but still. Tough to see him like this.”

  “Titus was difficult?” I queried.

  “He made Agnes look like a Southern belle.”

  Astrid’s ears perked up. “In what way?”

  Silas drifted closer to the body but stopped short of the tape. “He was an ornery satyr. Bossed around the staff. Kept to himself, except when he felt like ruining game night. No visitors to speak of.”

  “None at all?” I asked.

  Silas shook his head. “Even the healers’ team argued over which one was assigned to him. Just last week, I overheard them arguing in the staffroom.”

  I squinted. “And what were you doing in the staffroom, Silas?”

  He cleared his throat. “I wasn’t in the staffroom. I was on the other side of the door.”

  “Doing what?” I could tell by his expression that he’d been up to no good. Typical Silas.

  “That’s irrelevant,” he said.

  “Why didn’t they want to be assigned to him?” Astrid asked, as she combed the area for evidence. I watched as she opened a kit to swipe samples of the green droplets.

  “Because he was a pain,” Silas said. He glanced down at the satyr. “Sorry, friend, but you were. He barked orders at everyone and made the job intolerable for many here.”

  “Couldn’t they boot him out of the care home?” I asked. “Agnes said there’s a wait list to get in. You’d think the care home would just refuse to put up with his nonsense.”

  “There’s all sorts of bureaucratic red tape that prevents eviction,” Silas said. “Usually it’s a good thing to protect the rights of the elderly.”

  “But not in this case,” I said.

  “No, certainly not. Yet I still feel the desire to mourn him. Must be the sense of my own mortality.” Silas gazed at the dead satyr, empathy stirring in his dark eyes. “Rest easy, old friend.”

  Chapter 4

  I opened the front door and trudged inside, my mood dampened by the death of the old satyr. It didn’t matter that he was a stranger. Because I was the one who discovered him, I felt a sense of responsibility.

  The moment I entered the kitchen, I found myself awash in a wave of hostility.

  “Daniel, what are you doing here?”

  He turned to me and grinned. I immediately noticed the white apron tied around his waist that read Guardian Angels Do It in the Kitchen.

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” he asked. “I’m making you dinner.”

  “He’s making a mess in my kitchen is what he’s doing,” Gareth grumbled. “You should see the way he splashes grease everywhere. It’s a culinary crime.”

  I ignored Gareth and focused on my angel’s wings. The large white wings were splattered with some kind of sauce.

  “What are you cooking?” I asked, sniffing the air for clues.

  “One of my own creations,” he said proudly. “Ale-battered meatloaf.”

  Gareth made a gagging noise.

  “That sounds…interesting,” I said.

  Daniel squinted at me. “Interesting is bad. You’ll love it. I promise.” He planted a kiss on my forehead. “Now you go in the other room and sit down and relax. I know you’ve been working really hard.”

  I shot a quizzical look at Gareth, who only shrugged.

  “Okay, I’ll do that.”

  “Wait,” he said quickly. “I have wine.” He plucked a piece of stemware from the adjacent counter and handed it me. “From the local winery, of course.”

  “Naturally.” I smiled and sailed out of the kitchen with my glass of wine and Gareth hot on my heels. As soon as we were out of earshot, I looked at my vampire ghost roommate. “What’s going on?”

  “He hasn’t said,” Gareth replied. “But you should see the dining room.”

  I stepped through the doorway and sucked in a breath. The dining room table was adorned with a row of vases, each one exploding with a riot of colorful flowers. The scent was overpowering and I began to cough.

  “It’s moments like these I’m glad I’ve lost the power of smell,” Gareth said.

  Magpie ran between us and jumped onto the table to investigate the interlopers. He stopped and sniffed each bouquet until he reached the end of the table.

  “It’s not your birthday, is it?” Gareth asked.

  “No, not that I have any real sense of time here,” I said. Not the way I did in the human world. I knew the days of the week, of course, but had lost all sense of months and seasons. Spellbound had its own magical weather system.

  Daniel came up behind me and kissed my shoulder before setting a platter on the table. “First course is up.”

  “First course?” I queried. “How many are there?”

  “Three,” he replied. “But the third one is dessert.”

  “Um, I don’t mean to sound ungrateful,” I said, “but what’s the point of all this?”

  He spun around and regarded me. “The point? The point is that I love you and want to do something nice for you.” He flapped his wings, punctuating his response, and hurried back to the kitchen.

  “By the devil,” Gareth complained. “What if he wants to move in? I told you he’d want to.”

  “He doesn’t want to move in,” I insisted. “He has a lovely house of his own.”

  Gareth folded his arms. “And what are you saying? That my house isn’t lovely enough for an angel? A fallen angel, might I remind you.”

  “Gareth, you know I love this house,” I said. With its beautiful stained glass windows and wraparound front porch, the rambling Victorian was my idea of a perfect home.

  “What’s Gareth moaning about now?” Daniel asked. “Is he jealous because he can’t eat any of my delicious meatloaf?”

  “Meatloaf is for dilettantes.” Gareth’s fangs popped out and I moved to stand between them. Even though Gareth was a ghost, I had no doubt he could do damage to Daniel if he really put his mind to it.

  “Gareth, if you give Daniel and me some privacy, I’m happy to share this wonderful dinner with Magpie.”

  “Fine,” Gareth huffed and disappeared. I knew he’d behave for the sake of his cat.

  Magpie leapt onto a chair and looked at me expectantly.

  “Not at the table,” I said. “I’ll put yours in the kitchen.”

  Magpie hissed before scampering off to the kitchen to await his prize.

  Daniel and I sat at the table to enjoy our first course in peace and quiet. I smiled when I realized what the first course was.

  “Roasted beets and goat cheese salad,” I said. “I was expecting something more Spellbound.”

  He grinned. “You told me it was something you missed from the human world, so I thought you might like it.”

  I speared a few pieces into my mouth. “Like it? I love it. Thank you.”

  He took a long drink from his wine glass. “You seem a little down. Is everything okay?”

  I told him about Titus, but not about the page with runes from the old grimoire. I wanted to wait until I had more information before I shared that with him.

  “There’s nothing you could’ve done to save Titus,” Daniel said. “It sounds like he was already dead by the time you found him.”

  “He was, but I still feel bad. I wish I’d let Agnes go to tiddlywinks sooner. Then maybe we would’ve been in the hallway at the right time.”

  “You and I both know there are no time machines,” he said.

  “No, just dreams that allow us to time travel.” I sipped the wine. It tasted delicious with the salad.

  “But no do-overs,” Daniel said.

  “Sadly not.”

  “If you could go back in time and change one thing, what would it be?” he asked.

  “Taking into account the butterfly effect or no?”

  “No. Too complicated.” He wiped his mouth with a napkin. “You think about it while I get the main course.” He took away the salad plates and promptly returned with the meatloaf and a side of asparagus.

  “This looks amazing,” I said. I was hungrier than I realized. The salad had been enough to take the edge off, but now that I had a meatloaf in front of me, I wanted to devour it whole.

  “So what’s the verdict?” he prompted.

  “Mine is easy,” I said. “I would go back to the day my mother died and prevent her from drowning.” That, in turn, would likely prevent my father’s death. He’d been a changed man after she died. A shadow of his former self. Saving her would save him as well.

  He placed a slice of meatloaf on my plate. “You wouldn’t go back further and prevent your biological mother from giving you up?”

  “No,” I said. “I’d need to know more about her reasons before I made that decision.”

  “That’s reasonable.”

  “What about you?” I asked. The meatloaf practically melted in my mouth. It was insanely good and I wasn’t even a fan of meatloaf.

  “I would go back to the point in time where I still had my halo and tell that angel not to be a fool.”

  I reached over and covered his hand with mine. “Look at it this way. If you still had your halo, we may never have met.”

  “Same goes for your mother,” he said. “Although I have a feeling we would’ve met some other way. Sometimes it feels like we’ve always known each other.”

  “It does, doesn’t it?” I chewed my food thoughtfully. “I think that’s why I fell in love with you so quickly. It was like I recognized you on a deeper level.”

  He squeezed my hand and released it. “Same here.”

  “If you start kissing at the table, I’m moving out,” Gareth complained.

  I whipped around to see him hovering in the doorway. “What about our deal?”

  “I was only coming through to check on Magpie. He’s hungry, too, you know.”

  “Fine.” I cut a few pieces of meatloaf into smaller chunks. “I’ll be right back, Daniel. Do you want me to bring in the dessert?”

  “No, I’ll do it,” he replied. “I want to wait on you tonight.”

  “I feel like he broke your favorite vase or something,” Gareth said.

  I walked past him with Magpie’s dinner. “He’s being a thoughtful boyfriend. I think it’s nice.”

  Gareth followed me to the kitchen. “Use the other bowl. The ale in the meatloaf will stain that one.”

  I rolled my eyes as I swapped out Magpie’s bowls. The cat lunged for the food with a ferocity normally reserved for lions attacking gazelles. I averted my gaze and hurried back to the dining room. Thankfully, Gareth stayed behind in the kitchen.

  “So is there another reason you’re being so thoughtful tonight?” I asked. “Other than your usual good nature?”

  Daniel hesitated. “There is something I’d like to talk to you about, but it can wait until dessert.”

  “Nothing bad, I hope.”

  “No, of course not. Don’t worry.”

  I scarfed down the rest of the meatloaf and asparagus with superhuman speed and waited for the delivery of dessert.

  “Burstberry pie,” I said, delighted.

  “For this one I cheated,” Daniel said. “I bought it at the bakery, but only because I ran out of time.”

  “It’s the thought that counts,” I said, shoveling an oversized bite into my mouth. My grandmother would be appalled by my manners right now.

  “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about our relationship,” Daniel said.

  “Didn’t we just do that?” I asked. “And we both agreed it’s great?”

  He chuckled. “Yes, but I’d like to say more, if that’s okay. I feel like it’s something we’ve been dancing around for a while. We have the emotional connection that was missing from all my other relationships.”

  Heat burned the back of my neck and my cheeks. “And you’re wondering why we don’t have the physical connection…”

  “No, not at all.” He frowned. “In fact, I think the physical connection is every bit as strong as the emotional one.”

  “But we haven’t fully connected,” I said. “Physically, I mean.”

  He gave me a mischievous grin. “Not yet, but there’s plenty of time for that.”

  “You don’t mind waiting, do you?” Egads, I hated to even ask.

  “For you? I’d wait an eternity.”

  Relief swept over me. “That’s sweet,” I said. “But an eternity is probably overkill.”

  He leaned back against the chair. “I’m not saying it’s my preference. I’m just letting you know that I’m all in, no matter what the pace is.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” I said. I truly was. Not that I doubted Daniel’s devotion for a second, but it was always nice to have reassurance.

  “You are, without a doubt, the love of my extended life, Emma Hart. There’s no one in the world I’d rather wait for than you.”

  It took every ounce of self-restraint not to jump him right then and there. Patience was a virtue, but even I had my limits.

  The bone cottage looked the same as the last time I’d visited Raisa. I wasn’t sure how I expected it to be any different since the owner was dead. Raisa wasn’t going to be heading down to the garden center for perennials anytime soon.

  A gust of cold air blew through me and I shivered. Despite my good relationship with the departed witch, her house never ceased to scare the daylights out of me. To be fair, skulls and bones as decoration was likely to make anyone ill at ease.

  Do we have to come here again? Sedgwick complained, flying overheard and slightly to the left, as requested.

  “You don’t, but I do,” I called. “Go home if you’re a scaredy cat.”

  How dare you insult me, he replied. The proper term is scaredy owl.

  “Don’t worry. Raisa won’t bite you,” I said. If she did, those iron teeth would cut through an owl’s feathers like a chef’s knife. I shuddered.

  Why did you shudder? Sedgwick asked.

  “Because the air is cold,” I lied.

  You do remember I can read your thoughts.

  Minotaur shit.

  Standards, Your Highness.

  I strode to the front door and knocked politely, ignoring the empty eye sockets of the skull above my head. The door creaked open and I stepped inside.

  “Are you coming in?” I called to Sedgwick.

  I’ll wait out here, he replied, sounding displeased.

  “I’m sure you can find a few mice in the forest,” I said, and closed the door behind me.

  “He surely can,” Raisa said. “Welcome back, my pet.”

  “Good to see you, Raisa.” I faced the ghostly witch. Well, she wasn’t ghostly like Gareth. Her form was solid, whereas my vampire roommate had a more ethereal quality.

  “Can I offer you a spot of tea?” she asked. “Two fingers of whiskey, perhaps?”

 

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