Page 7 of Once Upon a Curse for True Love
“Detective Callidora has confirmed you were together this evening, yes.”
“There you go!Both our familiars can confirm it too.Ask Quill—he never shuts up, and they’ll tell you I’ve been home all day, too.”A note of desperation crept into her voice.“I couldn’t have killed anyone.”
Donatello scoffed.“Yeah, like I want to deal with those two nutjobs again.”The image of the pretentious hedgehog made his temples throb.
Andromeda hugged herself, which only accentuated the curves beneath her thin sweatshirt.Donatello forced his gaze to remain locked on her face.It took more willpower than he cared to admit.
Was she cold?Should he offer her a blanket?
He was about to ask her when she opened her pouty mouth and blabbered, “So what, I’m supposed to sit here while you accuse me of murder with zero evidence?”
He mentally slapped himself.Focus, Malatesta.She’s a suspect, not a date.
“I wouldn’t say zero evidence.”He tapped the folder in front of him.“Your magical signature was laced over the kill spell.”
“That’s impossible,” she gasped.
Donatello leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table.The movement brought him closer to her—close enough to catch the faint scent of her perfume underneath the more clinical smell of the interrogation room.Ever so distracting, that witch.
“Look, Miss Swan, I don’t particularly enjoy dragging witches out of their homes in the middle of the night.But when a high-profile magical hacker ends up dead and another hacker’s cursed email sits in his inbox, I have little choice.”
She stared at him, brow furrowing.“I still don’t understand how I could’ve offed someone when I never left my house.”
“Unfortunately for your alibi, given the way Arcanet was murdered, physical presence wasn’t required.”
A flash of confusion crossed her face.“Why?How was he killed?”
Instead of answering, Donatello flipped over the email printout, sliding it across the table to her.“Did you send Arcanet a cursed email earlier this evening?”
Andromeda glanced down at the sheet of paper, then back up at him.Her expression cycled rapidly through confusion, realization, and then, to his surprise, relief.Her lips twitched, and before he could process what was happening, she burst into laughter.
“Oh, thank the fairies!”She slumped back in her chair, tears stinging the corners of her eyes.“Is that what this is about?That email?”
A flare of indignation rose in Donatello at her reaction.A man was dead, and she was laughing like he’d told her the punchline to a knock-knock joke.
He gritted his teeth, voice dropping to a dangerous register.“Yes, Miss Swan, your signature code being found embedded in a cursed email sent to a wizard who ended up having his consciousness sucked up into his computer while his physical body remained lifeless slumped over his desk, is why you’re here.”He enunciated each word with precision.“I fail to see the humor in the situation.”
The laughter died on her lips as the full implication of his words sank in.Her face paled, cheeks draining of color fast enough that Donatello thought she might faint.
“Wait… what?”She shook her head.“That’s not how my curse works.It’s not possible.”
“So you admit to sending him a cursed email?”Donatello pressed, seizing on her inadvertent confession.
“I… yes, but… not a deadly curse.It was a prank.Totally harmless.”
“A cursed email, harmless?”
“Yes!It was a stupid joke after our argument on the forum.”Her hand drifted up to her bun and tugged it free, sending a tousled wave of blonde hair falling around her shoulders.The motion had her lift her arms and arch her back, the sweatshirt tightening over her chest.A chest that was now right in his face.Donatello clenched his jaw and fixated pointedly on the wall behind her.“The curse activated when he opened the email, but all it did was change ‘I’ to ‘I’m a dickhead’ whenever he typed.”
Donatello stared at her.Of the all defenses he’d imagined, this hadn’t made the list.
“You hexed Arcanet to call himself a dickhead.”
“Yes!That’s all it did!”Andromeda finger-combed her disheveled hair, leaving it even more wildly attractive in its disarray.Then her shoulders slumped with genuine relief.“It was petty, but he was being such an ass about open-source encryption.”
A flicker passed through her eyes, her mouth tensing a fraction too late to hide it.Donatello had interrogated enough suspects to recognize when someone was holding back information.
“Are you sure that’s all the curse did?”he asked quietly.
