Page 42 of An Amateur Witch's Guide to Murder
“Maybe,” Topher surprises them all by saying quietly.
“But Christopher was with Topher while we were getting a tour from Ethan,” Ophelia reminds the room. “Christopher couldn’t have put the wards in his office.”
Another thought occurs to Mateo. It doesn’t really make sense but also almost does. “The Evil Wizard was tall, could get into Christopher’s office, and did magic on Linnéa’s house, where we found blood but no body. Is it possible the Evil WizardisLinnéa?”
The silence following his question is Topher trying to grapple with the possibility that the person who just tried to murder him was not only a parent, but the one he’d thought loved him.
Dead or trying to kill him. Both are shit options.
“No,” Topher says quietly, and then with more certainty. “No. She wouldn’t hurt me. Something’s happened to her. I think … I think it’s time I go to the police.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The next few hours are spent floating in and out of consciousness, his body desperate to sleep off breaking his neck. One of the times he drifts closer to awake, whispered, heated words fill his awareness.
Naturally, he doesn’t give any indication he’s listening.
“This is stupid,” Ophelia says vehemently, and Mateo inwardly flinches for whoever she’s talking to.
“Maybe,” Topher’s surprisingly not-on-the-verge-of-crying voice responds. “But it’smystupid to deal with.”
“If that wizard comes back, you won’t be able to stop them. He survived that fall. You won’t,” Ophelia says evenly.
A long silence in which Mateo imagines Topher disintegrating under Ophelia’s blistering scrutiny, but when Topher speaks, he’s quiet and firm. “That’s exactly why you need to leave. I’m not going to let him get hurt again. Not either of you. I’m going to file a missing person report in the morning. I already got you tickets. A car’s coming to take you to the airport tomorrow afternoon. I’ll keep you in the loop, but I don’t want to worry about something happening to you while I’m trying to find my mom.”
Mateo braces for some sort of Ophelia-based verbal execution. Not that the ask is unreasonable, but Ophelia’s not the sort of person you say no to—ever, but most especially not once she’s decided on something. Never mind that getting the police involved isn’t great for a lot of reasons. Most obviously that the police can’t do anything about evil wizards throwing people out windows with magic.
“Please get him away from here,” Topher adds into the ensuing silence.
It’s a sniper shot sort of plea. Possibly the only thing Topher could say that Ophelia can’t counter. It’s not shocking that Topher realized he could use them against each other in that way, but it is shocking that he’d actually do it.
Also, Mateo’s starting to feel sort of bad that he’s eavesdropping on this. He considers protesting, backing up Ophelia so Topher doesn’t try to handle this extremely unhandle-able situation alone, but Topher’s concern can be flipped. The Evil Wizard could just as easily have shoved Ophelia out that window. Mateo doesn’t want her anywhere near this, and there’s no world where she leaves without him.
“Fine,” Ophelia says, the word more forceful than it needs to be. That’s the end of that conversation—also the end of anyone else saying anything. The apartment grows quiet, and Mateo dozes again.
It’s nearly two in the morning when he chances movement. First an arm, a leg, and eventually a head turn. Everything is stiff, like what he imagines doing a five-hour CrossFit class featuring a lot of jarring, neck-based movements would make him feel like. It’s wretched, but nothing like the pain of a few hours ago.
Sitting up leaves him panting and shaking, but he manages, and takes in Quincy’s living room. Large flatscreen. Fauxfireplace. Respectable bookshelf that’s half Xbox games. Ophelia’s asleep on a recliner to his left, curled up tight in a blanket, like a caterpillar that gave up halfway through its transformation. The long fabric of her dress escapes the confines of the blue fleece and spills onto the floor like unused wings.
Beyond the living room is a kitchen … and also Topher staring.
He’d seemingly gone still when Mateo had started to move around—why Mateo hadn’t spotted him—but he continues to be still even after Mateo looks right at him.
“Bathroom?” Mateo asks in a whisper even though Ophelia can sleep through a shout. Topher points to a dark hall off the room, so Mateo gets to his feet, teetering slightly, his right leg protesting bending. When he looks up again, the hall is lit and Topher’s standing to one side of the opening, awash with sunny bathroom light. Mateo hobbles past, avoiding eye contact because Topher’s looking at him with a new intensity. Fear or more anxiety would make sense, but if anything, Topher seems calmer than ever before, an expectant gopher out of its little hole.
There’s no room in Mateo for whatever this is, so instead of thanking him for turning on the light, he wordlessly shuffles into the bathroom and locks the door after him.
It’s not like he thinks Topher will come in, but some alone time would be great.
Until he sees himself in the mirror.
Holy shit.
If he ever wants to up his goth game, the way to do it is to fall out a window. What’s normally sun-starved light brown skin is ashen with sickly purple undertones in the harsh light, like he stopped breathing an hour ago and hasn’t worked up the will to give it a try again. His lipstick is mostly off—Opheliamust have cleaned him up some—and his naked lips are bloodless. A bruised and weary darkness sits deep enough around his eyes to suggest empty sockets. Puts his normal eyeshadow to shame. A dark welling of black blood sits on the inside edge of his right eye. Strong strung-out Jack Skellington vibes, especially because the black Dolce & Gabbana dress shirt he’d been wearing is scuffed and tattered from the fall and his subsequent dragging.
Tearing his gaze away, he peels off his ruined shirt, fingers finding the back of his neck, sides, and front, carefully touching the tender but unbroken skin. It’s especially bad down the right side, along the arm he’d seen in loose pieces, and the front of his neck. Bruised all to hell, but whole. The blood dried hours ago and crusted into various places, mostly his hair and below the neckline of the shirt. There’s a dried clump on his forehead, probably where he hit the pavers.
The trembling starts without warning, and he has to grip the sink, and then sit on the edge of the tub so his legs don’t go out from under him.
