Witch to the End: A Blair Wilkes Mystery Book 15 (Paperback)

My last day at my dream job didn’t exactly get off to a flying start.

Well, technically, I was flying—or rather, floating–my feet dangling above my desk as an unseen force levitated me into the air. My coworkers were in a similar state, and Bethan hastily snatched my coffee mug out of the air before it upended itself over my computer. Stacks of paper floated past as Lizzie fiddled with the printer in the corner of our small office. 

“Sorry!” she said. “I turned it onto the wrong setting.”

She hit a switch, and everyone fell back into their seats. My chair rocked beneath me as I caught my balance against the desk while coffee splashed onto the floor.

“Ack.” Bethan, whose pale face was also splattered with coffee, held out the mug to me. “Oops. Sorry, Blair.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I took the now considerably emptier mug from her while she pulled out her wand to clean up the mess. “Lizzie, what was that thing supposed to do?”

“Create a forcefield to keep any hostile forces out of the office.” She lifted her head and gave us a sheepish look, accentuated by the ink splattering her dark skin. “I don’t think the printer was a fan of the upgrade.”

I raised a brow. “Would it work on fairies?”

“I’m not sure,” Lizzie said. “Possibly. It’s meant to repel anyone who means harm.”

“It worked on us,” said Rob, who’d somehow managed to keep hold of his coffee mug without spilling any while he’d levitated. The cheerful blond werewolf had been the only person in the office who’d kept doing his job while the rest of us shifted our priorities to survival mode, and I was grateful to him for that. 

After all, if the weekend went as I’d planned, I might not be back in my desk on Monday. 

At the thought, a ball of anxiety rose inside me. I squished it down with difficulty. I hadn’t known what to expect when my coworkers at Dritch & Co had offered to help me in my fight against the Inquisitor, especially when we were supposed to be a paranormal recruitment firm and not an organisation that fought evil. Granted, Dritch & Co was a name that sounded like it ought to apply to both, but our immortal enemy was armed with the most powerful magical item I knew of, and on top of that, he had the help of the entirety of the paranormal hunters. Our small group of three witches and a werewolf seemed a little inadequate in comparison, to say the least. 

And the boss, I reminded myself as, in the background, a loud noise arose that sounded like someone trying to coax an ancient car engine to life. Veronica, the boss, had yet to emerge from her office today, but the slightly alarming sounds coming from inside it indicated that she was making preparations of her own. 

As if on cue, there came a series of crashes like someone destroying a pile of bricks with a hammer. Or like the local werewolves’ band, which played at the New Moon pub every night of the week. 

I winced and covered my ears. “If she’s planning to destroy the Inquisitor’s eardrums, she’s on the right track.”

“If he’s camped outside the town boundaries, it might work,” Bethan commented, “but not if he’s on the other side of the country.”

“I wish,” said Lizzie. “Better than thinking about him camping outside town.”

“I can’t picture him in a tent, can you?” I replied, suppressing a shudder at the reminder of our enemy’s close proximity.

“Nah,” said Rob. “He’s more of the five-star-hotel sort.”

“Ha.” The amusing image of the fearsome, immortal fairy squatting in a tent didn’t quite erase the fact that he was undoubtedly watching like a hawk for any potential chance to slip through our defences and get into Fairy Falls. “I think human accommodation might be a bit plain for him.”

As his prime target, I’d asked Veronica if she’d prefer that I keep my distance from the office, but she had replied cheerfully that we were already trapped in the same town together and that it would hardly make a difference if I stayed at home. My coworkers hadn’t asked to be dragged into this mess, either, but they’d taken on the role of helping me prepare for the upcoming fight despite my attempts to convince them otherwise. 

“Wherever he is, he can’t get in, even with that sceptre of his,” Bethan said firmly. “That’s the important part.”

The sceptre’s not really his. Clearwater had stolen the artefact from a Head Witch, and I didn’t know how he was even able to use it in the first place. 

“Speaking of which.” Lizzie rose to her feet from next to the printer. “I wish I could have a look at how he got that thing working.”

“What? The sceptre?” I asked. “I wish I knew. Aren’t they designed for witches only?”

“You’d think,” Bethan said from next to me, her hands racing across the keyboard at her usual top speed, “but it’s the same for wands, and they can sometimes work when someone who isn’t a witch or wizard picks one up. Not very well, mind.”

“Then how?” I didn’t get it, but the sceptre lent an extra advantage to an enemy who already held all the winning cards. Yes, he was trapped outside of Fairy Falls thanks to a defensive spell Rebecca had cast using her own sceptre, but that didn’t mean he’d taken his eyes off of us—or, more specifically, me.

“My mother said that it might be a matter of tradition,” she said. “That sceptres choose a witch, I mean. She’s been researching.”

Another crash from the boss’s office accentuated her words. 

“When she isn’t destroying the property.”

“I thought sceptres always chose their wielders,” Rob said. “Like Rebecca.”

That was true. Rebecca had been picked at the age of eleven, which was much too young to have a major heap of responsibilities piled upon her head, but the sceptre’s decision couldn’t be challenged. As a result, she’d spent the past few months being dragged from one crisis to another and had inherited a series of enemies who’d have been happy to pry the sceptre from her hands.

It was a bitter irony that just as we had been nearing the point at which we might be able to search for a way to free her of the burden, the enemy had got hold of a sceptre of his own, leaving her as our only real defence against him.

“What does Madame Grey think?” asked Lizzie. “I haven’t heard from her in a while.”

“She’s rushed off her feet, as you might expect,” I said. “She thinks Clearwater must have overridden whatever magic makes the sceptre work for only one Head Witch at a time, but even she doesn’t know if it’s reversible.” 

“I think our best bet is to get the sceptre away from him,” Bethan ventured. “Steal it back and we’ve taken away his advantage.”

“Not counting his own magic.” 

Fairy magic was powerful in its own right, and Rowe Clearwater’s ability to use glamour was unmatched. He’d pretended to be human for years—decades even—and had fooled everyone he met. 

Until I’d ripped off his mask for the world to see.

“And his army of fairies,” added Rob. “And the hunters too. Do you know if he’s taken over just the local branch or the whole country?”

“I wouldn’t have thought he’d need to expand outside the region,” I replied. “He only took over the hunters so that he had the power to arrest anyone who opposes him. He doesn’t want to rule a bunch of humans. I wouldn’t have thought he’d have the patience.”

It was hard to know with the former Inquisitor, given how far his ruse had gone. Generations of hunters had joined up, not knowing their boss was a fairy—including Nathan, my boyfriend, and his entire family—and a depressing number had remained in their ranks despite the truth coming out.

“He wants power, I thought,” said Lizzie. “But I guess it’s hard for even him to be in two places at once.”

“Exactly.” 

Didn’t stop him from trying, though. Several of Nathan’s family members worked for the hunters, and we’d discussed the possibility that the former Inquisitor might make use of their connections to lay a trap for me or both of us. I hated the idea that I might bring his family to harm, but Nathan’s brothers had refused all his invitations to come to Fairy Falls instead. Besides, everyone who came into town from the outside had to be vetted in case they had ties to the enemy. It was a necessary rule, but I hated imposing restrictions on the community that had welcomed me into the paranormal world when I hadn’t known I was magical at all.

I’d always known, on some level, that it would come to this, not just because the former Inquisitor wanted revenge on me for exposing his identity but because he’d never suffered any real consequences for the crimes he’d committed. He’d been involved in my mother’s death. He’d locked up my father and split up my family. He’d even been distantly linked to driving the fairies out of Fairy Falls in the first place.

This was the ideal place to bring an end to him.

Maybe not in the office, though. No matter how many ingenious contraptions Lizzie came up with, I didn’t want to put my coworkers in harm’s way. Bethan, too, was using her hyper-fast research skills to build lists of potential allies and contact them. As was her mother when she wasn’t doing… whatever was responsible for the crashing noises erupting from her office. 

I covered my ears again. “What is she doing in there? Do you know?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Bethan answered.

A hissing sound cut through the clamour, drawing my attention to the coffee machine. “Is it supposed to be doing that?”

“Oh, yes, don’t worry,” Lizzie told me. “It’s brewing something special for you.”

“It’s not a lucky latte, is it?” I asked warily as she began filling a flask. “Not that I don’t appreciate it, but I could do without the backlash.” 

“I thought of that, but no,” replied Lizzie. “It’s a new concoction I’ve been working on.”

It’d take more than a lucky latte to get us out of this one. The magical beverage tended to backfire once the recipient’s luck ran out, and I hoped Lizzie’s new creation didn’t come with similar side effects.

My gaze then went to the printer, which had gone ominously quiet, which might mean it was plotting revenge for the latest update. We never really knew with that printer. It wasn’t sentient in a literal sense, but Lizzie’s magic had imbued it with enough of a personality that I was pretty sure it knew we were facing a battle. When I’d come into the office the day after the Inquisitor had delivered his ultimatum, it had spat out a sheet of paper that said, LET’S FIGHT.

I didn’t think even the Inquisitor would be deterred if the printer decided to spit brightly coloured ink all over his face, but we needed all the advantages we could get.

When Lizzie finished filling the flask, I realised the noise from the boss’s office had stopped. I turned as the door swung inward, and a rather dishevelled Callie came into the office.

“Did you mean to levitate everything in the reception?” asked the werewolf receptionist, who also happened to be Rob’s cousin. “Including me?”

“Oops,” said Lizzie. “My mistake.”

“Please tell me it didn’t hit the boss as well.” 

Uh-oh. That might have explained the volume of the noise.

“I don’t know,” said Callie, pushing a handful of tangled blond hair from her face, “but she wants to speak to you, Blair.”

My heart gave a familiar lurch, though it was a bit ridiculous to worry about being in trouble with the boss when Veronica had volunteered to help me defend the town against evil. She wasn’t going to kick me out at this point, was she? Besides, I’d told her myself that I might not come back to work on Monday, no matter how this weekend went.

Callie led the way out of the small office and through the reception area and knocked on the door at the back. 

“Come in, Blair,” said Veronica.

Through the boss’s open door, I glimpsed… “Is that a cannon?”

“Isn’t it great?” 

She beckoned me inside, and I dubiously stepped into a room that looked like it was set up for a siege. The walls appeared to be reinforced with metal and covered in spikes. I stepped forward tentatively, wary of the cannon that sat beside the desk, pointing directly at the door.

Seeing my hesitation, my boss beckoned to me again. “Relax, Blair. It won’t harm you. It’s set to react only to threats.”

Knowing my boss, that wasn’t entirely reassuring. Keeping half my attention on the cannon, I found a chair amid the chaos and sat down. “Erm, Lizzie’s spell didn’t levitate everything in here, too, did it?”

“Yes, but it was a good chance for me to test the defences.” She indicated a cannonball-shaped dent in the back of the door.

I surreptitiously inched my seat away from the mouth of the cannon. “Good. I think.”

Honestly, it probably said something about the general atmosphere at Dritch & Co that a cannon firing at the door wasn’t the weirdest thing I’d encountered here. When I’d first moved to Fairy Falls and had shown up at work with no clue that I’d walked into the magical world, Dritch & Co had set the tone for my experience in the magical world at large. At this point, nothing surprised me.

“How are the preparations going?” asked Veronica. “Well?”

“I think so.” I moved the chair again when the cannon swerved to follow my motion. “Were you planning to use that on the Inquisitor?”

“If he comes in here,” she answered. 

“That’s not likely, is it?” I asked warily. “I mean, he can’t get into Fairy Falls.”

Thanks to Rebecca. A sealing spell cast by a sceptre was the only thing that could keep him out, but it was unfortunate that the sceptre in question was in the hands of an eleven-year-old girl.

“No, but I think we should be prepared for any scenario,” she said. “That’s what Madame Grey told me, and she does tend to have a knack for understanding these situations, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah, she does.” 

I wouldn’t have put it past the former Inquisitor to try to trick his way into the town, though we’d taken steps to make sure he wouldn’t find it as easy as putting on a glamour. There was only so much we could do, though, and Clearwater’s skills were stronger than those of anyone else I’d known. Not that I knew that many fairies, but he must have been unique among them to have fooled everyone into thinking he was human for so long. Despite Fairy Falls’s name, the fairies had only recently begun to make their return after being driven out, and as a result, I’d had entirely too little experience with fairy magic myself despite my dad’s best efforts to teach me.

“In any case,” Veronica went on, “I wanted to ask how you were doing, Blair.”

“Erm. Fine.” There was no adequate way to describe the mixture of terror and determination that drove me onward as more time passed without Clearwater making a direct attack. “I’m not yet sure if we’ll be going away this weekend, but my dad will let me know tonight.”

By “away,” I meant “to the realm of the fairies,” not the same realm which Rowe Clearwater had once ruled over but a different one. The place where my dad had once lived before he’d moved to the human realm and fallen in love with my mother.

“I see,” she said. “You don’t think you’ll be back for work on Monday?”

“I hope I will, but my dad told me that time in the fairy realm tends to get a little… weird.” According to him, whole days could pass in the space of an hour, and there was no telling how long it might take to find my fairy relatives and attempt to convince them to help us. For the same reason, he didn’t know how long had passed in fairy years since his last visit. It might have been days. Or decades.

“I see,” she said. “In that case, I wish you the best of luck. I’ll ask the others to continue their preparations.”

“Thanks.” I gave the cannon a wary look. “Have you had much luck finding other allies? Or is that what Madame Grey’s doing?”

“I believe Madame Grey has been warning the covens of the former Inquisitor’s threat to their safety,” she said, her tone uncharacteristically grave. “There’s no telling if he’ll strike against them out of anger at not having access to Fairy Falls, but they’ve come up with some quite ingenious ways of protecting themselves.”

“Good.” Guilt writhed inside me. If Clearwater attacked another paranormal community in a fit of rage at not being able to access this one, it would be hard not to feel partly responsible. “I hope I can find allies in the fairies’ realm, but…” 

But realistically, I’d be lucky to get out without being bespelled or worse. The fairies weren’t known for their fondness for humans, and in some of their eyes, my dad had betrayed them to be with my mother, not just because she was human but because the original Wildflower Coven had helped the Inquisitor drive the fairies out of the area in the first place. My mother hadn’t shared the opinions of her ancestors, and neither did I, but that didn’t mean the fairies would be inclined to hear me out.

“I’m sure you will,” said Veronica. “In the meantime, I’ll continue my search for the coven that created the sceptres.” 

I looked up in surprise, almost falling out of my seat when the cannon reacted to the movement by pointing itself directly at my head. “Ah! You’re looking for…”

“The sceptres’ creators, yes,” she said. “I believe that turning that instrument against the former Inquisitor will take away some of his advantage.”

“Do you think they can be found?” Not even Madame Grey knew how the sceptres had been created originally, or so I thought. “Are they like the wand-makers? A coven with a gift nobody else has that created the sceptres?”

“Yes, but no new sceptres have been created for many centuries, to my knowledge,” she said. “They’re likely to be long dead.”

My heart sank. “But you’re looking for them anyway?”

“That’s right.” She gave me a smile. “I’m good at finding people. I found you, didn’t I?”

I didn’t even know what to say to that, but as her smile implied dismissal, I rose to my feet. As I did so, the cannon levelled itself at my face. 

“Ah, nice cannon. Very nice.” Please don’t fire at me.

“Isn’t it?” She gave me a little wave as I backed towards the door. At least I could count on one thing amid all the chaos: my boss’s ability to be utterly unpredictable. 

And she was right. She had found me back when I’d been living in the normal world with no idea that I was anything more. If anyone could find a long-dead coven, too, it was Veronica Eldritch.