Page 3 of Secrets of the Forgotten Heir

‘You got a dog.’ She crouched down, made kissing noises at Eva and stroked her, then frowned at the ever-present, purple-black smudge on Eva’s bum. ‘Hey, beautiful girl,’ she said soothingly. ‘What’s your name?’

Finally I found my voice. ‘Her name is “What the hell are you doing here, Maddie”?’

Maddie looked up with the cheeky grin I knew so well. ‘Maddie for short? Aw, you named your dog after me. I knew you’d missed me.’ She winked.

‘Her name is Eva,’ I ground out. ‘What the hell are you doing so far from Witchlight Cove? The Flame—’ Yeah, that, the giant magical relic that neither of us was supposed to leave unguarded.

Guilt spiked from her, hot and heavy, and I felt ashamed. Here I was beratingherabout leaving the Flame unguarded when I’d done exactly the same.

‘Pot, kettle, black,’ she shot back, her open grin disappearing as if I’d wiped it off a whiteboard.

Regardless of the reason for her presence, you don’t break into someone’s house – especially not someone who lived with the sort of fear that I did. She knew that. She knew what I lived with every single day.

Maddie stood up and Eva looked at me pointedly, wanting praise for resisting the fuss and attention. She trotted to my sideand pushed herself into my leg, Team Beatrix all the way.

The silence was tense and uncomfortable, making it harder to breathe with each passing moment. And all the while, the hurt in Maddie’s eyes cut me to the depths of my cowardly soul. I’d run away and left her with so much to deal with and it showed. I looked at my best friend, trulylookedat her. Concern lanced through me. She was visibly tired; she had bags under her eyes big enough to pack for a trip around the world, and her shoulders were slumped and dejected. Alarm bells were ringing: something was up. She looked so different to the upbeat teenage girl I had left.

Now she was an adult and so was I. For all our shared history, we were virtually strangers – and it was my doing.

‘You got a haircut,’ I blurted. It was a ridiculous thing to say given how long we’d been apart because she’d probably had dozens, if not hundreds. But this one was extreme and a sharp contrast to the hair that used to flow down almost to her bum. Now her dark hair was cut into a bob that was short at the back and came down past her shoulders at the front. The ends were dipped pink.

That wasn’t the only change: she had at least five more tattoos that I could see, though I couldn’t tell if they were magical ones she’d given herself or traditional ink. And she had totally mastered the winged eyeliner look.

She obviously considered my comment as stupid as I did because she didn’t respond. The silence returned almost instantly, hanging thick and oppressive as we studied each other.

Finally she shook her head and the pink tips brushed her shoulders. ‘Something’s happened. I need you to come back.’

Had she really said that? She knew it was impossible. I licked my lips. ‘Come back? To Witchlight Cove, you mean?’ I stared at her like she’d suggested I fly to the moon. ‘Mads, you know I can’t do that.’

Her eyes hardened. ‘You’re confusing the wordscan’tandwon’t, Bea,’ she said firmly. ‘Look, I get that this is out of the blue, but the reason I need you to come back isn’t something I could discuss over the phone. I wouldn’t ask unless I needed you.’

That was a direct hit – and that was when I felt it: a flash of fear that radiated straight from her into me. My best friend was terrified. But why?

My heart stuttered. ‘It’s not Yanni, is it? She’s okay, isn’t she?’ Yanni meant almost as much to me as Maddie did. She’d practically raised us both because, as best friends, we’d pretty much split our time between each other’s houses. Maddie’s mum had died in childbirth and her deadbeat dad had left when she was three months old.Yanni had brought her up single-handedly, and taken me on too. If something had happened to her, if she was dying… I couldn’t even imagine it.

Yanni had been a force of nature; it was easier to imagine the sun dying than to imagine her succumbing to old age or illness. A fierce bear shifter and the chief of police in Witchlight Cove’s tiny, underfunded police station, she’d taken an active role in every community activity from the am-dram group to the constant fayres. I’d always thought of her as Superwoman, but she had to be in her mid-sixties by now.

Maddie’s fear was still gripping me and I was moments away from a full-blown panic.

A smile crept onto her face at my visible distress. ‘Nana’s fine,’ she reassured me. ‘Working too hard as always, but she’s not the reason I need you to come back.’ The smile dropped away. ‘Look, you must know that I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t serious.’

I nodded. ‘Okay, I’m listening. Why do you need me to go to Witchlight? What’s happened?’

‘A couple of reasons. It’s easier to show you. Come with me.’

‘I’m not coming anywhere without a proper answer,Maddie.Why?’

Her lips pressed together so tightly that they almost disappeared. The fear was still rolling off her, but if it wasn’t to do with Yanni then I had no idea what was causing it. As I stood there trying to think of a reason for her appearance, her fear intensified – and in the midst of it was guilt. Crippling, immobilising guilt.

‘Maddie,’ I started softly. ‘What did you do?’

A sob escaped her but then she braced herself; whatever came next from her lips would be the truth. I tensed, ready for I didn’t know what. Then her eyes shifted and rolled back into her head. A burst of white light glowed at the end of her fingertips and a second later, she dropped to the floor.

‘Maddie!’ I screamed.

Chapter Three

‘Shit, shit, shit!’ I fell to my knees and pulled her into my arms. The glow in her fingers had gone, which I supposed was positive – except they shouldn’t have been glowing at all. It might have made sense if she’d been casting a spell or creating one of her tattoo inks with the Eternal Flame, but she’d just beenstandingthere.

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