“It sounds the exact opposite of death.”
Moira and I stared at her dumbly before the vampire gathered herself. “What does death sound like exactly?”
Tess shrugged. “Kinda like that noise when you stub your toe really bad. Like a sharp intake of breath before the inevitable wail, followed by a lot of screaming.”
Poor Tess would have a tough time finding another job if she ever left the shop. Her personality was frightening on a good day.
“Well,” Moira said. “That’s good to know.”
Tess smiled and floated away. Moira and I exchanged a wide-eyed look.
“Wow,” she mouthed.
I loved the banshee, but she always strayed far too close to death for my comfort. Shaking my head, I grabbed my purse and the box. “Heading out. I’ll see you in a couple of days.”
The shop was closed for the next two days. One was our normal off day, and the other was a Joy Springs holiday celebrating the town’s founding, aptly named Day of Joy. Any day off was a day of joy, and no one kept their shop open that day.
The first year I’d arrived and had just opened the shop when I realized it was almost eleven in the morning, and the town was a ghost town. One of the other shop owners took pity on me when she spotted my “open” sign and stopped to inform me about the holiday.
The town put on a small celebration every year, complete with food and craft booths, a live band, and a magic show for the unsuspecting humans. I’d only gone a couple of times and found it a bit too peopley for my tastes, so tonight, I planned to drop off Caelan’s check, then go home and soak in my tub for an hour.
I was behind on my mental and physical exercises for the month and needed to catch up on those—otherwise Hazel would have my ass—ifshe found out. Having your mentor in another country wasn’t always ideal, but it did allow for more slacking than normal.
The witch had given me a rigid schedule but stressed the mental exercises were the most important to keep the Chimera magic at bay. A strong mind equaled a strong will, and only astrong will could control the magic that threatened to overtake me when my emotions got the best of me.
A quick stop at one of the local apothecaries netted me a bottle of my favorite lavender vanilla bubble bath and some of her new rose and neroli body oil. One last stop at the in-town winery to grab a bottle of their famous blueberry wine, and I was on my way home, with Seymour happily nestled in his box awaiting his new quarters.
Tonight promised to be epic.
Chapter
Twenty-Five
Wards are a powerful tool to keep people and creatures off one’s property, but they have one major failure.
They can’t be tuned to keep nature out, or they’d never work properly. This meant they can’t keep Floromancers out, and since our kind are normally peaceful and content to keep to ourselves, no one had yet discovered how someone could use magic like mine to not only trespass, but to wreak utter havoc.
I’d tested this a few times over the years and had discovered I could use my wren form to travel anywhere, no matter how powerful someone’s wards were. Most had successfully blocked me from entering in human form, but whatever magic I had in my wren form, the wards ignored. Whether it was my fae blood or something else, I’d rarely found a ward that could keep me out.
Such was the case this evening.
My wren form was too light to carry the box holding Seymour, and a courier might clue Caelan or his staff intosuspecting something was up, so I’d grown a few thick vines right at the edge of the keep. Carefully guiding them, I encouraged them to wrap around the tightly packed roots of the flytrap and sent them and Seymour sliding onto Caelan’s property, past the unsuspecting wolves on the second-floor balcony and gently set the plant right in front of the Shifter Lord’s door.
Then I guided the vine up and rang the doorbell, quickly sending the vines hissing back across the yard and back into the earth.
It only took a few moments for the door to open. A confused shifter looked around, stepped outside the house to scope the area, only looking down when he saw nothing concerning.
When he spotted Seymour, the look on the shifter’s face almost made me laugh. He let out a shout of alarm, then called for Caelan. When the Shifter Lord arrived at the door looking annoyed by the interruption, only to find a large Red Dragon flytrap at his door holding a sign that saidFor Caelan’s eyes only, his face went carefully blank, but his eyes showed his agitation. A golden glow shone over the porch.
I crouched even lower, right outside the boundaries of his property. The next phase of my plan relied on him taking the plant inside. If he decided not to and tried to destroy Seymour, I’d have to spring into action, both to save the plant and show him exactly how I felt about that.
“Take it,” Caelan barked.
The other shifter balked. “You want me to carry that thing inside?”
“It’s harmless.”
“It has teeth. Everywhere.”
