Page 36 of Secrets of the Eternal Flame

‘It’s a bit slow today,’ she confessed.

Next to me Eva whined pointedly and looked at Fran. I leaned down and patted her. ‘We can’t have ice cream every day or we’ll get fat. Maybe tomorrow.’ Eva looked at me grumpily; I guessed she wanted ice cream today. ‘The wait will make it taste all the better,’ I wheedled. Her flat eyes called me on my bullshit.

‘See you, Fran,’ I said as we moved towards the shop.

She waved but her shoulders slumped as we walked away and I felt a prickle of guilt at not buying something from her. Tomorrow – I’d definitely grab something tomorrow.

As I opened the shop door I heard the now-familiar tinkle of the bell. Gwen was sitting behind a desk at theback of the shop surrounded by objects like the Queen of Trinkets.

‘Hey, Gwen,’ I called as I made my way through the towers of precariously stacked items. She grunted at me in lieu of a proper greeting; she really was a charmer. ‘No Scarlett today?’ I asked.

‘No, she’s visiting her mum in hospital.’

I bit my lip. ‘Her mother’s ill?’

‘Yeah, terminal.’ Gwen didn’t sound in the least bit sympathetic and I had to grind my teeth for a minute to stop myself from snapping at her.

The fact that Scarlett’s mum was sick changed everything: Scarlett had both the opportunityandthe motive to take the Cup – and I bet she wouldn’t feel bad about the theft given that Gwen treated her like shit. Maybe that was why I’d felt guilt when I’d checked Scarlett’s emotions.

I grimaced: perhaps I was becoming too reliant on my empathetic powers now I was in Witchlight. People could feel differently about different things.

I studied the goblin so I could see her reaction and then I lowered my barriers. Why would Inotuse a weapon in my arsenal? ‘Did you know that the mug was an important goblet? The Cup of Completion?’ I asked directly.

A wave of shock hit me. ‘How did you find out?’ she whispered.

‘I’m a private investigator – it’s my job to find things out. You didn’t think it was relevant, something you ought to have told me?’

She winced. ‘I’m sworn to keep it hidden, to keep it safe. I’m the guardian of the cup so I can’t go around telling every Tom, Dick and Harry what it truly is.’

Fantastic: that was just what we needed – more guardians. Maybe if I presented Gwen to the Flame, it would judgeherworthy to bond with. After all, she might be a crotchety curmudgeon but she’d never abandoned her post.

I pushed the thought aside. ‘I’m not Tom, DickorHarry,’ I pointed out. ‘I’m the PI in your employ, and this information was important. I needed to know it – and Yanni needs to know it because it changes everything. Does Scarlett know what it is?’ I asked.

Gwen snorted. ‘Absolutely not. No one else in the village knows.’

I fixed her with a stare. ‘And the grimoire? I know it’s not blank, and I know it’s a dark grimoire of significant power. That’s why the website isn’t working properly because even its picture has power.’

She paled then her tongue darted out to wet her lips. ‘It’s the Codex Tenebrae.’

My jaw dropped and it took me a while to find my next words because they needed to be diplomatic. Despite that ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ was what came out.

Gwen pushed a pen around her desk. ‘No, I’m not.’

The Codex Tenebrae was legendary: a dark tome full of the darkest, most evil magic that had ever existed, supposedly recorded on pages made of human skin. I went cold. That was the kind of thing my grandmother might be interested in. Could she be in the area? Could this beherdoing?

I shook myself. There were plenty of dark magic practitioners in the world and just because Granny Dearest had been in Witchlight before didn’t mean she’d come back. Except the binding on my magic was there to keep me hidden from her … and now it was broken. I could be acting like a fucking beacon and luring her here. And maybe she had already come – and found something even better than me.

It was supposition. Paranoia. It probably wasn’t her. Probably.

I pushed my fear aside and focused on the here and now. ‘You had the Codex Tenebrae,’ I said to Gwen, ‘and you had it in the bloody window display?’The words came out a shade hysterically.

‘No one would ever put the Codex Tenebrae there,’ she argued. ‘Only an idiot would do that. Hiding it in plain sight was a brilliant idea. The grimoire was far safer in the window than trying to hide it in a safe powered by wards that anyone could work around.’ She huffed. ‘Anyway, it’s all your fault. I asked your mother to ward the shop using the Eternal Flame’s power and she said it wasn’t used for commercial properties.’ She sniffed.

I gaped at her. ‘Did you tell her you had the Cup of Completion and the Codex Tenebrae?’

‘No! Of course not.’

I groaned. ‘She would have warded the shop if she'd known what you were trying to protect.’

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