A Kind of Magic (12 page)

Then there was the tea laid out on the table in the living room, with fine china and dainty sandwiches. He felt like the giant teddy bear included among the dolls at a little girl’s tea party. Sophie caught his eye and gave him a wry, somewhat resigned, smile, so he got the impression that this hadn’t been her idea.

Athena bustled around, putting on the finishing touches. “Detective, you sit there on the couch by Sophie. Make yourself at home. Amelia, would you do the honors?”

Amelia picked up a teacup. “Milk or lemon?”

“Um, lemon, I guess.” With a pair of silver tongs, she placed a wafer-thin sliver of lemon in the cup before pouring the tea and handing it to him. “Help yourself to a sandwich,” she offered.

Athena joined the others around the table. “I’ll take milk in mine, please.”

Michael waited patiently until the ceremony of pouring had been completed and they’d all loaded tiny plates with bite-sized sandwiches. “Now, Detective,” Amelia said. “What did you have to tell us about those missing children?”

“The kids Sophie and I found last night were the ones who’d been missing,” he confirmed. “They couldn’t tell us anything about where they’d been, and I don’t think it was just because they’re so young. They didn’t realize they’d been gone more than a day. They’d been well cared-for—aside from being taken out of their beds and then dumped in the park on a cold night. There were no signs of trauma or dehydration. They don’t yet have results back on tests for any drugs.”

“If it’s what we suspect, there won’t be any,” Amelia said.

“There’s no point at which magic isn’t just as effective at keeping someone calm, and it doesn’t show up in blood tests,” Athena explained. “There are tests for it, but no hospitals are likely to run them.”

“And the effect isn’t likely to linger long,” Amelia added.

“I didn’t notice anything magical when I got a look at them at the hospital last night,” Michael said. “By then, they were so excited about having ridden in a police car with the siren on that they’d practically forgotten anything scary had happened. We tried asking them about what people they’d seen, but all they wanted to talk about was Beau.”

“I suppose we can be grateful that they were returned safely and that Josephine can’t take any credit for saving them from the fae,” Sophie said. “I also managed to avoid anything that looked like me fighting off fairies, so it shouldn’t work as any proof of a fae threat. This should be a nonevent for the magical world, right? I’m more concerned about all the other fae activity that’s going on, and we weren’t able to get any kind of message into the Realm because we were busy with the children.”

“We don’t know for sure it was Josephine,” Athena said, clutching her lace-trimmed cloth napkin in one hand.

“Who else knew what we’d discussed about the kidnappings?” Amelia asked.

“Even if she was the one, that doesn’t mean she’s wrong about uniting the circles,” Athena said.

“Uniting them to do what?” her sister asked archly. “You aren’t suggesting we actually take on the fae, are you?”

“I wonder …” Sophie said, her eyes focused a million miles away, or perhaps on another world entirely. “If we could manage to arrange it with Nana, maybe we could set up some kind of ceremony that looks like a treaty with the fae, then it will look to the enchantresses like it’s all been sorted out.”

“The trick would be that it really does have to be sorted out,” Amelia said. “It would look like a violation of the treaty if anything happened afterward, and unless your grandmother plans to rule the entire Realm with an iron fist and truly close off the borders forever, something will happen.”

“No, she’d never do that,” Sophie said, shaking her head. “If only she could just temporarily calm them all down until we deal with Josephine.”

The intercom buzzed, and the sisters exchanged a glance. “Speak of the devil,” Amelia muttered. She put down her teacup and rose from her chair. “I’ll deal with this.”

Michael started to ask how they knew who it was, but decided that was a stupid question. Amelia spoke to the doorman over the intercom, then lingered in the foyer until they heard a knock on the door. She managed to sound somewhat pleased by the surprise visit, which Michael thought was probably a feat of acting skill that rivaled anything Emily could do on stage. “We were just having tea, so do please join us,” Amelia said, ushering the guest inside. “You remember Detective Murray, don’t you?”

Michael stood as Josephine entered the room, and she gave him an approving nod before she took the seat Amelia gestured her toward. Athena picked up a cup. “Milk or lemon?” she asked.

“Neither, but two sugars, please,” Josephine said, crossing her legs at the ankles and surveying the room. Michael couldn’t tell what she was looking for, but she was definitely looking, sizing things up.

A game of teatime chicken ensued, with all the women seemingly fighting over who wouldn’t be the first to speak. Amelia and Athena looked bound and determined that they weren’t going to imply in any way that they didn’t know exactly why Josephine was there, and Josephine was taking great pains to look as though she was merely stopping by on a social call. Sophie just watched all three of them, her eyes suggesting that they were lucky they weren’t bursting into flames.

Just when Michael was on the verge of blurting, “So, how about those Jets?” to break a silence that had grown so heavy it threatened the building’s structural integrity, Josephine finally cracked.

“I saw that the missing children were returned safely,” she said.

“Yes, that is a great relief,” Amelia said.

“Those poor families,” Athena said. “But it should be a happy holiday season for them now.”

More silence. The sisters calmly sipped their tea and took sandwiches. Michael ate several sandwiches and started on the tiny cakes. Sophie slipped her left foot in and out of its shoe. Color rose from Josephine’s collar up her neck toward her hairline. It reminded Michael of the whistle on a teakettle, forced by the pressure to make a sound, when she finally said, “And well done, Detective, Sophie.”

Since their names were in the official police report, Michael assumed that they’d ended up in some media outlet. Or Sophie was right and Josephine was the one who’d dumped the kids and had been there to see them being found. If Sophie was at all surprised that Josephine knew or was admitting that she knew, she didn’t show it. She merely said, “We were just in the right place at the right time, I guess. Really, Beauregard deserves all the credit. He’s the one who found them.”

Michael knew Sophie had scored a point when Josephine actually reacted to that and asked, “Beauregard?” before she could catch herself.

“My sister’s dog.” Sophie glanced up at Michael, and a delicate pink flush tinted her cheeks before she turned away from him. “We were out walking him.”

Michael was impressed with her ability to blush on cue. He figured she was giving Josephine the impression that the two of them had been out together on entirely non-magic-related business. Playing along, he moved his arm so that it was slightly behind Sophie on the couch, not quite touching her, but still suggesting that he was on the verge of putting his arm around her.

“I don’t know what whoever took them was thinking,” Sophie continued, her drawl thickening ever so slightly. “Leaving those poor babies out on a night like that. They could have died of exposure.”

“It does seem like it was someone who’d be sure the children would be found soon,” Josephine said, her voice dripping with sarcasm and her glare pointed firmly at Sophie. “It was almost as though they were set up to be found by the right people.”

Was she trying to say that
Sophie
took the kids so she could find them? He tensed, ready to defend her, but she brushed the side of his leg with her fingers as she leaned over to put a small piece of cake on her plate. He thought for a second he heard a faint “shush” from inside his head.

“Or someone was baiting a trap for the fae,” Sophie said before taking a dainty bite of cake. Michael thought that sounded like another point scored.

Again, Josephine lost enough control to blurt, “A trap?”

Sophie calmly finished chewing her cake and took a sip of tea. “Well, who else would you expect to find children left alone in a nearly empty park on a cold night with only a sliver of moonlight? Fairies may not have been able to take them out of their beds in a midtown high-rise, but they wouldn’t be able to resist them in the park. It was almost as though someone was
determined
to make it look like the fae were up to some mischief.”

And that was another point, by Michael’s calculation. Josephine’s grasp on her fork tightened until her knuckles went white. Athena said, “Anyone need a refill? And please, help yourself to cake. We should have made scones, I suppose, but we didn’t realize we’d have company when we made tea.”

Sophie continued as though Athena hadn’t spoken. “Of course, whoever did this was only revealing how little they knew about the fae in the first place. If you really wanted to make it look like children were taken by fairies, you’d steal those already in the park or at least take them from an adjacent building. Even I’d have suspected them in that case. This was just sloppy. I can’t believe they expected enchantresses to fall for it.” She added a soft “tsk” for good measure.

The tea in Josephine’s cup sloshed, not quite going over the rim. Athena audibly held her breath. Amelia uncrossed her ankles and leaned slightly forward, shifting her weight onto her feet in preparation for standing quickly. Michael was torn between putting a protective arm around Sophie and putting his hand on his sidearm. Sophie took another bite of cake, dabbed icing off her lips with her napkin and said, “Athena, this cake is so moist. You’ll have to give me your secret.”

“I substitute honey for some of the sugar,” Athena said, her voice a little higher than normal and taut with nerves. Her glance darted from Josephine to Sophie to Amelia and back again.

“Do you add it with the liquid or when you’re creaming together the butter and sugar?” Sophie asked, sounding for all the world like this was some kind of church social. If Michael didn’t know her, he’d have thought she alone was oblivious to the tension in the room, but he recognized the subtle signs that her apparent calm was actually yet another strike in this battle. Her posture was stiff, and her feet were square on the floor, still in their shoes. Her voice had a syrupy quality that was so sweet it came back around to being poisonous.

“It depends on when I remember to do it,” Athena said with a nervous little laugh and a sidelong glance at Josephine, who was starting to simmer down.

“The cake is good,” Josephine said stiffly. “I’d love to stay and have some more, but I really must run.”

“Oh, so soon?” Amelia said, not even trying to fake sincerity. “Let me show you out.”

As soon as Josephine was gone, Sophie let out a long, deep breath and sagged back against the sofa. She tensed slightly when she hit Michael’s arm instead, but she didn’t move away. He wasn’t sure if he should actually put his arm around her. She looked like she could use the comfort, but Sophie wasn’t the touchy type. “Okay, now we know she did it,” she said.

“That’s what it looked like to me,” he agreed. “I don’t think she’d have been so angry if she’d had nothing to do with it. If I’d had her in an interrogation room, that’s when I’d have known to really go after her.” He glanced around at the women. “You weren’t expecting me to go after her, were you?”

“You’d never find any actual evidence of her involvement,” Amelia said with a shake of her head. “Nothing that would stand up in your courts.”

“I’m afraid she is going to come after me,” Sophie said, sounding so dejected that Michael rested his hand lightly on her shoulder in a show of solidarity.

“How do you mean?” Athena asked.

“Think about it—this totally failed for her plan A of making it look like the fae were stealing children. Her plan B of saving the kids from the fae when they were dumped in the park also failed. I really messed things up by scaring off any fae in the park instead of fighting them when we found the children. But now she can say about me everything I’ve been saying about her and claim that I took the kids so I could look like a hero in finding them. I have no more evidence than she does, and now she can look like the white knight saving the enchantresses from a bad element.”

“Not if I have any say about it,” Amelia said, then turned and stalked from the room.

Sophie bounced to her feet. “I need to take a walk.”

“Do you want company?” Michael asked.

She turned to look at him with eyes that were suspiciously bright. “Sure,” she said with a one-shouldered shrug.

Even though the wind off the river was bitter, they walked through Riverside Park. Sophie was so angry that she practically radiated enough heat to keep both of them warm, though. “I fell right into it,” she fumed.

“You stopped her other plans. Maybe someone had to make the sacrifice,” Michael suggested tentatively. “You don’t think she’s learned who you really are, do you?”

She stopped and looked at him, her face lighting up. “You know, you’re right! For all she knows, I’m a very junior enchantress. I may be on her hit list for vengeance, but I’m not that important in the grand scheme of things. Taking me down does little good, other than making her feel better. You really are brilliant.” She surprised him by throwing her arms around him in a quick hug, but before he had a chance to hug her back, she’d already pulled away. “So I’ll keep playing the junior enchantress who’s having fun foiling her because I’m a terrible queen bee. Let her take it out on me, and that distracts her from Amelia and Athena.”

“Okay, that part is your plan. I just came up with the part about you not being all that important to her.”

She didn’t seem to have heard him because she was on a tear. “But that means I need to be extra careful about the fairy stuff, just at the time when I really could use the firepower. Are you up for heading over to Central Park? I need to talk to your Mrs. Smith.”

“Sure.”

A few flakes of snow began fluttering earthward as they walked. “Is this early for snow?” she asked. “I don’t remember it before Thanksgiving.”