I tossed my small backpack into the booth, then slid in across from Eli and sighed, happy to be sitting down in a cool place.
“You have a smudge on your cheek,” Eli said, so I scrubbed my hand over it before realizing my hands were so dirty that I’d probably made it worse.
“I probably have a lot of smudges. I’m pretty sure most of that furniture hadn’t been dusted since her husband keeled over last year.” The mansion had been grand at one time but sitting empty had taken its toll on the place.
“Yeah, let’s go wash up first,” he said, sliding back out of the booth. “There’s no telling what kind of diseases live in centuries-old dust.”
Five minutes later, we were back in position, and I was so hungry I was contemplating eating the tartar sauce right out of the bottle.
“What have you two been up to?” Maris asked as she slid a glass of tea in front of each of us along with a cardboard boat of hushpuppies. She knew us well. “You look like you’ve been cleaning an attic.”
“We picked up a bunch of furniture from Barrowman Mansion. She finally sold it and is going on a European tour,” Eli said, then took a long drink.
“Ooh,” Maris said, her eyes lighting up. “I’ve always wanted to see that place, but we never got invited to the fancy parties they used to throw. What was it like inside? I picture huge crystal chandeliers, and marble floors, and a grand double staircase.”
“You’re pretty close,” I said after draining half my glass in one go. “No marble floors though.”
“It’s nice, but the designs gave us motion sickness,” Eli said. “Whoever decorated that place should have been shot. We did get some sweet deals at the auction, though.”
“Then it was a good day,” she said, her blue eyes sparkling. “Now, you look like you’re about to pass out from hunger. What are you in the mood for? Larry brought in a load of huge shrimp this morning, so we have a shrimp trio special.”
That was all she had to say to me. “I’m in. Blackened, fried, and scampi, please.”
Eli ordered his po’ boy, and we dug into the basket of hushpuppies as soon as she walked away.
“Sooo ... back to James,” he said, dragging the hushpuppy through a puddle of ketchup.
“What about him?” I asked, wishing my hair would catch on fire or something so I wouldn’t have to have this conversation. Nobody knew me like Eli, and I suspected he already knew why I was hesitant and was just trying to get me to admit it.
“Why aren’t you returning his calls? The real reason. Not some trumped-up one about being busy or whatever.”
“I don’t want to talk about this?” I said, dropping a half-eaten hushpuppy back in the basket.
He lifted a shoulder. “Okay, if you won’t admit it, I’ll say it for you. You still have feelings for him, but he’s not exactly had the warm-and-fuzzies about the whole magic thing. You want to see how that plays out while we’re working with him to find the artifacts before you make a decision, and you don’t want to lead him on.”
I took a long pull from my tea, irritated that he’d seen even deeper into my feelings that I’d had the nerve to delve. “Stop. Seriously. I can’t do it. You’re right. I think he’s just remembering the good parts about our relationship, and he thinks my magic is just some quirk he can overlook if the rest of the relationship is solid. Like somebody squeezing the toothpaste from the wrong end or something, but it’s not like that at all. It’s who I am. If he’s that sensitive about it, then what happens when he finds out that our whole business is magical artifacts? And have you forgotten that I’m breaking rule numero uno with the council? What happens when they find out that not only have I made an utter mess of things, I also let a human in on the whole magical secret?”
“That last part’s a copout,” he said. “They’ll know you have to let him—or someone on the force—know about it because of what’s going on.”
I raised a brow at him. “And how much trouble am I going to cause for all of us when they find out what happened? So far, we haven’t reported it to them. It’s possible they’ll sanction me and yank all knowledge of magic from his brain, then we’ll be right back where we started, with me hiding a huge part of myself from him. I think it’s better if I keep our relationship strictly professional while we work as quickly as we can to clean up our mess before the council finds out.”
He shook his head. “That’s a bad idea. You’re not going to be able to keep it from them. It’s better to get ahead of it rather than let them find out on their own, which they will. The mayor loves us, and his word will have a lot of sway. We just need to go to him and tell him what happened. It was an honest mistake.”
“Was it, though? We knew that trunk was trouble. We knew they were cursed, and we didn’t secure them.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m sorry. Isn’t that the definition of an honest mistake?”
I sighed. “I know that’s right in my heart, but I’m afraid they won’t see it that way. I’ll talk to Dad about it. So far, I’ve hoped to cover our butts by finding them all before they cause any real trouble.”
“Oh, you mean like if a necklace gets out and possesses somebody?” He pressed his lips together. “This is bigger than just us, and I have a feeling we’re not going to be able to contain it. They’re gonna find out, and before it’s over,
