Page 56 of Sugar, Spice, and Magical Midlife

The sorceress leered down at Ric from behind her stack of papers. “Do you have proof?”

He shook his head. “You and I both know she’ll never be found. She seduced me, then framed me and disappeared.”

I couldn’t imagine anyone sleeping with Ric and then framing him. Maybe he didn’t know how to do that thing with his tongue yet.

The sorceress leaned toward another witch beside her. “When did this murder take place?”

The witch, a much younger woman with pale skin and smooth hair the color of frosted starlight, turned on her wand light and shuffled her own set of papers. “1945.”

The sorceress nodded. “See if you can find Miss LeBreau.”

“Yes, madame.” The pale witch stood and quickly exited the room.

The sorceress glared down at Ric once more. “And the witness from last week’s murder was a husk by the name of Gertrude Ledbetter. The field agent got testimony from hersaying a winged lion broke into her home, ate her grandson, and smashed all her cuckoo clocks.”

Ric shrugged. “It wasn’t me.”

The sorceress pushed the rim of her glasses up her long, Roman nose. “Then who was it when you are the only living sphinx?”

He shrugged again. “I don’t know.”

“A succubus!” someone in the crowd called out. It took me a moment to realize that someone was me.

The striga nearby took big steps away from me while Des squeezed my hand harder.

“Luci?” Ric bucked against his bindings while struggling to turn around.

Oh, wow. He recognized my voice. I was suddenly flattered, overjoyed, and terrified all at once.

The sorceress banged her wand like a gavel. “How dare you interrupt this proceeding!”

I turned on my wand light while summoning a courage I didn’t feel, even as my stomach roiled with fear. “What else do you expect me to do when I’m a witness, and you refuse to take my testimony?”

The sorceress stood, leaning one hand on her pulpit while shining her wand at me. “Who are you, witch?”

I struck the blinding light with my wand, whispering a reduction spell. The crowd gasped as the light spilling out of the sorceress’s wand dimmed. The sorceress looked at her wand as if I’d given it the plague. Well, if they didn’t know I was an alpha witch before, they knew now. It was no small act of magic being able to dim another witch’s wand, especially one as powerful asMagaSagredo.

I turned up my chin, forcing myself to be brave while also praying I didn’t crap my pants. “Luciella Lovelle, and I was with Ricardo Romero the night Lenny Ledbetter was killed.”

The sorceress arched a brow. “Who refused to take your testimony?”

“The troll Gus. I was with Ricardo the morning he arrested him. I’d been with him all night. Gus refused to listen to me.” I paused, swallowing back bile as my stomach twisted and turned.Be brave, Luci. Be brave.“And he even threatened me.”

The sorceress let out a deep sigh and clapped her hands. In the next instant, the lights above turned back on, and I felt about as small as the pixie in my pocket while the entire congregation glared at me.

Ethyl made a terrified squeak and fell to the bottom of my pocket while my son muttered to himself and nervously shuffled back and forth.

The sorceress waved dismissively at me. “Come down here, witch.”

I clung to Des as striga in front of us parted. We walked down the bench seats until we were standing at the bottom, just a few feet away from Ric and only about twenty feet away from the sorceress, who was now directly across from me.

She banged her wand against the pulpit again. “Get her sworn in!”

An old, lanky wizard with a long, scraggly gray beard flew at me on his broom. He landed just a few feet away, holding out the most sacred book in a witch’s arsenal,The Eternal Light, a book cataloging centuries of spells and striga history.

“Place your hand uponThe Light,” the wizard said to me.

Ric banged the legs of his chair while struggling to turn around. “Don’t answer their questions, Luci!” he called to me.

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