Thankfully, Heidi leaned over and saved my scales once again. “Nope. They have ham in them. Try the cheese and crackers?” My friend magically rotated the tray so they’d be easier for her to reach.
The guest smiled her thanks, took her cracker, and rejoined her similarly decked out friends. Animal print was apparently the theme for the Night of the Phoenix fundraising event at the Magical Animal Sanctuary.
“Excuse me!” I jumped back as a woman shoved past.
“Oof!”
She stumbled into a heavy man who turned and scowled at her, but the lady, who looked to be about seventy, never paused—just pushed her way through the crowd. I followed her with my eyes for another minute. It wasn’t just her expression—she’d looked pale and distraught— that made me take note of her. I frowned a little as I realized she was maybe the only person at the party in head-to-toe black—well, besides us servers—no hint of animal print. What had her in such a hurry?
As she disappeared into the sea of party guests, someone else caught my attention. I nudged Heidi with my elbow and jerked my chin at a guy threading his way through the crowd.
“Would you ever date a guy who wore a tiger print tuxedo?” I had to lean close to her and raise my voice to be heard over the murmur of voices, click of heels, clink of glasses, and the magically amplified harp music coming from the stage in the corner of the big, glass-ceilinged room.
Heidi giggled, then her dark eyes grew wide and she pressed a fingertip with a shiny black nail to the communication device in her ear. “Oops! No, Peter, that was not a question for you.”
She flashed her eyes at me, and I grinned as I munched on the last of the dragon roll.
She swatted at me and mouthed, “Stop eating all the food.”
I popped a quiche into my mouth before she magically raised the trays higher than I could reach.
“It’s food. It’s here to be eaten.” I rose on my toes and swiped at the trays while she grinned.
Her gaze dropped, and she nodded. “Okay.” She looked at me. “Peter wants me to tell you that he’s cold and misses you and that you should stuff some crab puffs into your pockets for him for later.”
I grimaced. “If there are any left. They’ve been very popular tonight—”
Heidi shot me a flat look. “With you.”
I shrugged, then remembered something. “Ask Peter if he’s seen you-know-who.” I rose on my toes and glanced over the heads of the guests as Heidi relayed my message. Overhead, a glass greenhouse ceiling revealed the fast-moving clouds gliding past a bright half-moon.
The huge room echoed with the voices of the densely packed crowd, and a huge banner that read Night of the Phoenix—embellished with flames, of course—hung from the tall ceiling in front of a red velvet curtain. A stage, raised a few steps above the polished marble floor, stood empty in front of the red curtain, which apparently hid the phoenix’s enclosure from view.
I frowned as I looked toward it. I’d never seen a phoenix in person and wondered how the extremely rare creature was handling all the hubbub outside its cage. Hopefully the sanctuary had cast a dampening spell to at least keep the noise down for it.
Heidi nudged me to get my attention and shook her head. “No sign of him. But Peter says he’s also been working patrol along the perimeter, so he could have arrived when he wasn’t stationed at the gates.”
I nodded. “Thank him for me?” I winked. “And tell him I’ll warm him up later.”
Heidi shook her head, grinning, her braids coiled into two buns at her nape. “You’ll have to tell him that yourself, lovebird.”
I glanced around again, muttering to myself. “Where is he…?” Peter and Daisy weren’t suffering out in the cold and Heidi and I didn’t have aching feet just for kicks. We were here for the mob boss of shifters himself, Ludolf Caterwaul.
We’d decided we needed to learn more about Ludolf to take him down and prevent him from likely killing me by using me as a lab rat to test “cures” on—for the curse he’d put on me in the first place. So Peter and I had gone to the best (and only) reporter I knew, Madeline L’Orange and asked her to dig up some dirt on him.
She’d said she was still doing research but had gotten word that he’d be attending the Night of the Phoenix fundraising event at the Magical Animal Sanctuary. When a list went around the station, Peter signed himself and Daisy up to work the event as an off-duty officer helping with security. And Heidi had begged a favor from a friend so that we could go undercover for the catering company.
I frowned as I looked at all the glittering zebra and leopard prints. Seemed like both an oddly wholesome and tacky event for a man as devious and particular as Ludolf, but hey. Maybe even evil villains enjoyed a good crab puff sometimes.
Plus, the place was brimming with Bijou Mer’s elite, all gathered at this opulent mansion on one of the top tiers of our magical island. Maybe Ludolf was here to rub elbows with the rich and powerful. I sighed. If he was even attending. Maybe Madeline had gotten it wrong.
“Come on.” Heidi turned, the trays magically hovering beside us. “Let’s keep looking for him.” She glanced back over her shoulder and grinned. “It’s kind of exciting, isn’t it? Will’s going to be so mad he had to keep the clinic running tonight and couldn’t come.”
I grinned back. This part was kind of fun, though I doubted Will would be all that jealous. Before an angry outburst outed him as a bear shifter years ago, he’d been one of Bijou Mer’s top surgeons and had attended swanky parties like this one all the time. I doubted he’d want to show his face here as the help.
I thought over the
