“Those secrets might get us killed,” I added. “Rémy Ruisseau is the most powerful Magical I’ve ever met, and I don’t want to get iced by him again.”
“Amen to that.” Beryl shivered next to me. “I was not prepared for him to turn on us like that, and I’m sorry you had to deal with him on your own, Sissy.”
“I wasn’t totally alone, but the way he incapacitated Kostya in seconds was freaky.”
“Kostya feels awful. Better be prepared for him to be doubly protective tomorrow.”
“I’m regretting I didn’t think to at least pack my daggers,” Alderose said. “Meetings with lawyers don’t usually require knives, so—”
“That meeting required massive amounts of patience.” My sisters murmured their agreement, then fell silent. Exhaustion was settling into my muscles. I had one more thought to detangle before giving in to the lure of sleep. “Have either of you kept up with your knitting or crocheting?”
The heads to either side of mine shook in tandem.
“What about macramé?” I asked. “Tatting? Plaiting? Rug-hooking? Embroidery?” By the time I’d listed every type of needle- and fiber-work I could remember Mom trying to teach us, we were in stitches. And when I pointed out how ill-prepared we were to assume the mantle of her work, we laughed harder.
“Oh my Goddess, we’re hopeless. We’re going to have to rename the shop.”
“I like Bitches in Stitches,” Alderose said, ducking Beryl’s pillow assault.
Beryl tried again and succeeded in whacking Alderose on the forehead. “Be serious. We could be—”
“Smart Witches, Sassy Stitches.”
“Stitchy, Witchy, and Bitchy.”
“I give up. You two are acting like adolescents.” Beryl whipped off the covers on her way back to our bed. “Shush up. I need my beauty rest.”
Morning came altogether too early, especially considering I was still on west coast time and my sleep had been filled with strand after strand of hazy memory threads. I rolled over, careful not to hog the covers, and thumbed through my phone. The shifters caring for Sitka had sent a picture of my dog with her adorable black nose pressed to one of the windows in the front room of their compound.
Kostya had sent a group text fifteen minutes earlier, letting us know he was downstairs having breakfast.
We cycled through quick showers and a change of clothes. Alderose hung her leather pants in the closet and opted for a more practical pair of jeans. While waiting for Beryl to finish, I opened the curtains to see the sky was still gray. The rain had stopped, leaving yellow and red maple leaves plastered to the sidewalk. Breakfast was mostly silent. I was hungry, but all I could manage was two pieces of toast loaded with thick-cut orange marmalade.
Kostya offered to carry the satchel with the boxes. We paused on the sidewalk in front of the shop, as we had less than twenty-fours ago, and stared. The power of Rémy’s enhanced rain had washed away a layer of grime from the façade, but the brick building, with its peeling trim and unfolding history, still looked sad and empty.
“Everybody ready?” Alderose asked, pulling the ring of keys from her fanny pack as she looked to me and Beryl for affirmation.
“Go for it,” I said, juggling my purse and the cardboard tray loaded with take-out coffees.
“I’d like to reinforce the cloaking spells you laid out yesterday,” Kostya said. “You three don’t need any more of your mother’s clients showing up and demanding their love matches or their refunds.”
Someone’s phone buzzed. Once inside the shop, Kostya set the satchel on the nearest table and reached into his pocket. “It’s my mother,” he said, scanning the text. “She says she completely understands the unfolding situation.”
“How does she feel about her deposits? And did she explain why it is she wants to see you and Laszlo and Ivan married off?”
Kostya laughed. “You have her condolences, not her financial beneficence. And my mother rarely feels the need to explain herself.”
The demon’s joking lightened the mood for a moment, enough for me to feel the contrast when the reality of what needed to happen in the hours ahead began to close in. “How and where do we start?”
“I want to concentrate on Mom’s matchmaking business,” said Beryl. “Clementine, I think you should focus on the investigation with Kostya. Review the story threads in the workroom and see if you can tease out more clues about what happened. Kostya, would you be willing to stay with Clemmie while she’s doing that?”
“Of course.”
“I already started to go through the papers in Mom’s desk,” my sister continued. “We know she wasn’t one for using computers or cell phones, and even though we have a ledger and a bunch of files, there’s got to be more. She must have kept records beyond the initial meeting.”
“Mom loved to see things to completion,” I said. “You remember that, don’t you? How she’d finish our projects if we couldn’t or didn’t want to?”
Beryl nodded vigorously. “We drove her nuts.”
“And she never yelled at us. Not once.” Alderose wiped at her eyes. “Shit. I miss her.”
I knew that if I let myself cry even a little, especially after what I’d seen upstairs, I’d lose hours from the day ahead, and Rémy’s deadline offered no allowance for grieving. “Alderose, what’re you going to do?”
“I’ll stay down here,” she said, straightening up. “I’m fine working by myself and I know not to let anyone else in. I’ll start at the front of the shop and work my way back. Mom stashed a lot of odd crap behind the counter. Who knows where she kept the business records for Needles and Sins.”
“If neither of us finds anything, Rosey, you and I can switch, look with fresh eyes.”
I added, “At this point I say we open those old boxes of mac and cheese. Maybe she hid her records in the noodles.” That got a laugh out of my sisters. I wrestled the filled paper cups out of the tray and handed them around. “Before you start, go open the doors to the
