Page 83 of Sigils & Spells

“Marin Girard?” the pirate asked.

“Yes?”

“I’m Aidan Kelley with Kingston’s Paranormal Enforcement Division, and this is my partner, Detective Court Harding.”

The frisson of attraction evaporated, replaced by a spike of anxiety. Had yoga mom called the police?

“I understand you makehide-itcharms,” Aidan continued.

She had! Seriously? I bit back my irritation and said, “I do.”

A witch came out from between the shelves. Her dark eyes raked over the two men, and she walked over to the fresh herbs display, conveniently close to the counter.

Aidan slid a nickel-sized silver disc out of a plastic sleeve and handed it to me. “This was found covering up a bike.”

A bike? Had someone jinxed a bike for the sake of the assassin’s game? “What I sell in the shop can’t hide anything that big.” I accepted the charm. The brush of his fingers against mine sent a shiver through me. It took a moment to regain my composure and focus on the thin, circular object. The spell on it had been expended. Beneath the cool signature of my magic a second, unfamiliar magic was imprinted on the metal. “This is one of mine, but there’s another spell overlaid on it.”

Scarlett leaned in to take a peek; the stiff tulle of her tutu rustled. “A charm that size will hide a coffee-table picture book. You found more, right?”

The detectives looked at each other.

A natural drifted closer, feigning interest in a glass display case of ceremonial knives. Caspian, a divination witch who couldn’t keep a secret if his life depended on it, stood with his arms crossed over his chest, not making any bones about his interest in our conversation.

“No,” Aidan said. “This is the only one.”

“It would probably take seven or eight of those to hide a bike.”

“What’s so important about the bike?” Scarlet asked. “Who’s bike is it?”

Ignoring her question, Detective Harding focused on me. “Do you keep records of who buys your spells? Sales receipts?”

Scarlett gaped at him. “Do you know how many of these we sell in a week? They’re really popular.”

“The customer gets an itemized receipt for returns,” I said. “The only thing I have is credit card information and the total sales amount. I don’t have a way to track that for you.”

“You mentioned there’s another spell on the charm,” Harding said. “Can you tell us anything about that magic?”

“No.” My father was a magic sensate. If not for the sliver of magic I’d inherited from him I wouldn’t have been able to detect anything beyond my spell on the charm. “You should take it to my father. Gabriel Girard—”

Detective Harding cut me off. “Head of the Magical Antiquities Department at the University. We’ve worked with him before.”

“Dad should be able to pinpoint the exact magic for you.”

“What’s so important about the bike?” Scarlett asked again.

I held the charm up. “Are you sure there weren’t more of these on the bike?”

The men shared another look. After a rapid exchange of eyebrow communication, Harding shrugged.

“Possibly.” Aidan pursed his lips, blowing out a breath. “I … stumbled over the bike. When it rematerialized, Detective Harding found that charm laying in the grass between the spokes.”

The witch and the natural hovering nearby gave up all pretext of shopping and drew closer.

“If therearemore of these.” Harding nodded at the charm. “Do you think you could find them? Track your own magic?”

It was a fair question. Some witches couldn’t sense magic at all, and those who could usually couldn’t distinguish their magic from any other. I’d been called a few times by customers who had forgotten where they’d hidden an item and needed me to locate the activated spell. Priya thought I should charge for my time. It happened so seldom, I considered it good customer service.

“It depends. How big of an area are we talking about?”

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