Page 38 of Bright Dark Curses

“How bad was he?”

Key worried her lip. “Pretty bad. Awful stomach cramps.”

“You suspect something in the coffee?”

“Yes.” She lifted a freezer bag with a coffee cup inside. “I kept the cup.”

“Smart.”

I took the bag from her and opened it. Gingerly, I snuck a hand inside and touched the rim of the cup, calling on a sliver of my magic.

Detect.

Magic bounced back, a lot weaker than I’d have thought. Interesting. I closed the bag and shoved it in my jacket pocket. Later, I’d run the same tests I’d done on the napkin yesterday, but I’d probably get no closer to figuring out the kind of spell used than I had with the napkin. “There are some traces of magic, but a lot weaker than on the trunk. I think whoever hurt Brett used mostly normal poison rather than magical. Was the coffee from Fairy Circle?”

Key shook her head. “Someone brought a bunch of coffee from a nearby shop.”

“Who?” I asked sharply.

“Ashley and Rey. They’re production assistants.”

“Not on our suspects list?”

“Nope.”

“Did the coffee sit unattended for any length of time?”

“I don’t know. Shane and I were setting up the snack station when Brett came over already holding the cup.” Her mouth formed a firm line. “Do you think someone targeted Brett specifically? Because he asked us to look into the sabotage?”

“It’s the most obvious possibility, especially if they noticed us sniffing around yesterday.”

“But how would they know he’d pick that cup? Nobody else had an issue.”

“Maybe someone handed it over?”

“Wouldn’t that be too obvious? They’d be the first suspect.”

I thought about it for a second. “It could be the spell on the cup was meant to dissuade others from picking it up and lure him into getting that one specifically.”

Her eyes grew large. “You can do that?”

“It’s possible. Doing wards to keep humans away isn’t that difficult, and there are scents that can attract shifters without them realizing it. If our UNSUB got a hold of something like a hair from Brett, it would be easy to tune something up for him specifically. Especially if they use dark magic.”

“But won’t the poison show up in human tests? Why risk it?”

“If their end is to get the shooting in trouble, why not? Maybe they thought they were being too subtle with their magic, especially since Brett found the trunk before whatever spell was on it could be activated.”

“Makes sense.”

“Can I go inside? There might be more magic on the coffee trays.”

“We thought you’d want to. Here.” She passed me a Fairy Circle jacket.

I slipped it over my own jacket and faced the park.

This saboteur was going down.

TWELVE

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