Page 54 of Bright Dark Curses

Dru sent them an accusatory glare. Rufus thumped his tail once, and Fluffy licked his nose. Adorable.

“You were there yesterday too,” Garlic Knots Guy, aka Ethan, said belligerently, glaring at Key and Shane, the other two occupants of the table, with deep mistrust. He looked ready to bolt. I didn’t take it too seriously; he’d been looking ready to bolt since I’d dragged him here, but so far, had made no movement to leave after the first attempt.

I understood his internal conflict. It wasn’t as if he had many options left. If he contacted another witch, they might not be as nice as I was and sell him directly to the bounty hunters.

Better if he didn’t know we were all bounty-hunter-adjacent.

“Key and Shane work for Fairy Circles Cakes,” I explained.

“Then why are they here?” Ethan muttered.

“Brett, the person you put in the hospital, asked them to help when he noticed the sabotage.”

Ethan grew panicked again. “It wasn’t me, I swear!”

There it was again. “You told me you needed help to uncurse something.”

“Yes, but I didn’t hurt the shifter.”

“You better explain from the beginning.”

He took a big sip of his iced tea, making Dru shudder, then took a few moments to compose himself and get his story in order. From the unimpressed look in Shane’s one eye, his very fake story.

But I had a feeling we were about to hear the truth. Call it witch’s intuition.

Admittedly, not my best barometer, but this time I had a good feeling about it.

“So there’s this guy in production,” Ethan began. “He’s an ass and treats everyone like crap.” He waited, clearly expecting a show of sympathy.

I nodded and smiled encouragingly. Dru sipped some coffee. Key was trying hard to keep an open but blank expression and mostly succeeding. Shane was giving Rufus some of his chicken salad.

“Go on,” I said.

“Okay, so this guy, he’s the son of someone important, right?”

“Right,” I agreed.

“And he keeps getting the good jobs. When he landed second director’s assistant, I was so fed up with it, you know?”

“So you decided to take him out?”

Ethan squirmed. “Maybe?”

“That’s not very nice,” I pointed out.

He scowled. “He’s not very nice.”

Key leaned forward, no trace of judgment in her face. “If you wanted to harm this person, why did you sabotage all this other stuff?”

Ethan rubbed his forehead. “He was told to check electrical are doing their jobs. I thought if they started to get messed up, he’d get demoted.”

“And you’d get his job?” It wasn’t much of a guess.

“Well, yeah.”

“What kind of spells did you do? Are you a witch?”

“No, I’m a water mage.”

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