‘Oh.’ I leaned over the sink to look out. She was right. There was a small crowd out there, kicking a cabbage between them, making their way across to the canal. It was the time of year for it, although I had no idea why the enclave had a penchant for kicking cabbages in late October. Most of the kicking occurred on Halloween itself, but there were always some practice runs in the weeks before.

  Another noise came, and it was definitely the breaking of glass. Cleo gave me a panicked stare. ‘That was down in the shop.’

  ‘It was,’ I agreed, reaching for my phone and dashing down the stairs. ‘Why won’t this work?’ I muttered angrily as I stared at the screen – it remained blank, as the phone refused to turn on. My phone didn’t often run out of power. My magical charge could last for weeks at a time, and I’d given it one such surge only the day before.

  I heard the sound of the door opening, and gasped as I saw Alison enter the shop.

  She tutted and shook her head. ‘I really would have expected you to have some better security for this place, Ned. But all I had to do was break the glass, reach through and flip the lock.’

  I pointed my finger and cried, ‘Conáil,’ but my freezing spell didn’t work, and she kept moving towards me. It was then I noticed half a dozen others, gathered around the door, holding Infernal Candles. I recognised a few of them – they were the staff members from the Foul Factory. Even now, the way they looked at me was disturbing. Two of them followed Alison in and stood at her either side.

  ‘I didn’t tell you to follow me, you idiots.’ Alison sighed at her minions. ‘Put the candles down and leave.’

  Sending baleful glares her way, they did as she asked and left the shop. Alison closed the door behind them.

  ‘You’ll be wondering a lot of things right now,’ she said, taking a seat in the bone chair. ‘Like where has your power gone? Why has your phone stopped working when you were so eager to call your friends, the Wayfarers? And why am I here, when you called them to tattle on me just a few hours ago?’

  I swallowed. ‘I didn’t tell them anything. The Wayfarers are not my friends.’

  ‘Oh yes they are.’ Alison gave me a weighted stare. ‘They most definitely are, Nedina, and you did call them to tell them you suspected I might be the big, bad murderer. I know this because, when you were in my factory and I caused you to drop your bag, my workers quickly made some changes to your phone.’

  She sat forward, steepling her fingers (I’d always believed people only did that in films).

  ‘I got the idea a while ago,’ she said. ‘Your Wayfarer friend Katy was here, yammering on about phones in the human world. Smart phones, she called them. Do you remember how shocked you were when she told you that these smart phones listened to their owners and spied on them? You were even more shocked when she told you that the phone owners knew, and didn’t seem to mind. So I decided to make your phone spy on you, which is why when the Wayfarers came looking for me, I was already in hiding. I’ve been listening to you and recording you ever since you left my factory. I heard every little thing you said. Then, I made sure it would do two very important things when you tried to turn it on to call your friends for help just now. The first thing it would do is shut down completely so you couldn’t make a call, and the second thing it would do is disempower you. You have no magic Ned, thanks to me. It’ll last for quite the wee while, too. Certainly long enough for me to do what I’ve come to do.’

  ‘That’s impossible. Only the Wayfarers can disempower people with a device.’

  ‘And yet …’ She parted her hands wide. ‘Here we are. Go on, if you don’t believe me. Try to hit me with a freezing spell again. Maybe I’m lying, and it was just a glitch that your first attempt didn’t work.’

  With a smug smirk upon her face, she watched as I tried, once more, to hit her with a spell. I did my best to keep my voice from shaking, crying, ‘Conáil!’ as loudly and forcefully as I could. Even though I could feel that my magic was stifled, I hoped that it would work.

  Alison smiled wider. ‘Aw, shame. I was rooting for you that second time, really I was. Not that it had any chance of working, seeing as I prepared so well.’

  ‘Why? Why are you doing this to me?’ I asked, in an effort to stall for time. What I was going to do with any extra time was anyone’s guess. I certainly wasn’t having any inspirational ideas, anyway. It wasn’t as though dangerous situations were uncommon for me – I’d lived through many – but I’d always had magic, or friends, to help me through. On my own, I felt completely useless. ‘I mean, even if you now think I called the law on you,’ I continued, ‘it still doesn’t explain why you messed with my phone in the first place.’

  ‘Doesn’t it? Well, perhaps I went to such an effort because I’ve suspected you of being a Wayfarer informant for a very long time. Perhaps I planned this very carefully, and delayed that second half of your zombie ash delivery so you’d be forced to come to my factory, where my staff were well prepared.’

  ‘But why kill Marlon?’ I pressed. ‘And how? Did you use a knife?’

  ‘Did I use a knife? Well, that depends. Do you mean just any old knife, or this one?’ She reached into an inner pocket and pulled out a simple, silver knife with a thin blade. I hadn’t seen it in my memories, but I knew without doubt that it was the Dagger of Desolation. Was it my dagger, though, or the one belonging to the Spellcaster?

  While I reached new heights of panic, Alison twirled the knife in her hands and said, ‘Right now, you’re wondering: which dagger is it? The one belonging to the Balance, or the one belonging to the Spellcaster? I can tell you with certainty that this is your father’s knife, Nedina. It’s been sitting in Marlon’s house for a very long time. But … that doesn’t answer your next question, does it? Am I the Spellcaster, or am I just some woman who found a way to use an ancient mystical knife to murder her boyfriend?’

  ‘Well?’ I glared at her. ‘Are you the Spellcaster?’

  She shrugged. ‘Let’s say that I am. What are you going to do about it? This knife is your father’s – or yours, I suppose, seeing as you’re clearly the Balance now. Either way, it’s not in your hands right now, is it? And if I were the Spellcaster, that necromancer desperately trying to become the One True Necromancer and take full command of life and death, well … it’s not like you can kill me while I have your knife.’

  ‘That’s true,’ I admitted. ‘But it still doesn’t explain why you’d kill Marlon. Or why, if you are the Spellcaster, you’d let the rest of that stuff find its way into my hands.’ My pulse began to race as my brain finally warmed up. ‘I mean, none of this makes sense to me, Alison. Marlon was killed in his house, a house where he was – for some reason – holding the Infernal Artefacts for many, many years. So you … what? Started a relationship with him so you could get into his house and get your hands on all of it? But then, when you killed him, you only took the knife?’ I shook my head. ‘Nope. Nope, I’m not buying it. All these years we’ve been doing business, you could have killed me a thousand times over. But you didn’t. Why make a move now? What’s really going on here, Alison?’

  She sawed her teeth with agitation for a moment. ‘Not that it’s any of your business, but it really is all very straightforward. It’s a tale as old as time, in fact. I did love Marlon, but then I found out he was hiding the second set of Infernal Artefacts in his house, so I killed him.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think that is a tale as old as time,’ I said. ‘But still, why didn’t you take anything other than the knife?’

  ‘Because it’s the only part of the set that can actually hurt me. I mean, duh, Nedina.’

  ‘Oh. I guess that does make sense,’ I conceded.

  ‘Again, duh. And if you’re about to ask me why I didn’t just kill you in my factory, well … why would I? I wanted to find out a little bit more about you first, make sure you were who I thought you were. Now let’s get this over with, shall we? Just toddle on over here and let me stab you, so I can go home and get some sleep.’

  ‘Whoa there.’ I held up my hands. ‘No need to be so hasty, is there? I mean, until recently you and I were friends, weren’t we?’

  ‘No we weren’t. You looked down your nose at me like you look down your nose at everything in this enclave. You think you’re above us, Nedina Marvin. Well, very soon you’ll be below us. Deep, deep down below. You know, in the ground.’

  Her words made me think of my little boat, far below the shop, and the Cacklers with their building adjoining mine. If only one of them were here right now, to sneak up behind Alison and save the day. Even Fiona would be appreciated. Sure, she’d brag about saving my life for … well, the rest of our lives. But at least I would be alive.

  ‘That’s not true,’ I told her. ‘I don’t like this enclave, that’s true. But I like the people. I like you – or I did, until just a few minutes ago. Can’t we just have a drink together and talk this over?’

  ‘Oh, please stop playing for time.’ Alison stood up. ‘No sudden epiphany is going to arrive, Ned. No one’s coming to save the day. I’m the Spellcaster, you’re the Balance, and I am about to kill you and become the One True Necromancer.’

  ‘Actually, you’re not,’ said a man’s voice behind me. ‘You’re going to do absolutely nothing, Alison Fouler, because right now, you’re under arrest.’

  18. That Unfathomable Something

  I staggered back as a team of Wayfarers rushed in behind me, headed up by Captain Finn Plimpton. At least a dozen of them marched in through the door which separated Katy and Hamish’s office from my shop. It was the captain who’d spoken just a moment ago, and he’d immediately extended a finger in Alison’s direction. As his spell hit her, she stood there, motionless and contained by the golden rope Wayfarers used to bind criminals, the knife falling from her hand and clanging to the floor.

  Two officers quickly took hold of her, then one of those officers clicked his fingers and all three vanished from my shop. A few more officers dashed out onto the street, presumably going after Alison’s assistants.

  While all of that was happening, a warm, furry ball of gorgeousness rubbed up against my legs. ‘Cleo.’ I looked down at my familiar. ‘Where have you been?’

  She jumped up into my arms, purring. ‘I did good, didn’t I?’

  ‘It was you?’ I kissed her head. ‘You sneaked out and got help?’

  She purred louder. ‘Yup. As soon as I saw Alison in our shop, I went out through Katy and Hamish’s office, then through the portal door that leads to the back of Jay’s place.’

  The portal door had been left there by my Púca ex-boyfriend, Guillermo. It was probably the only useful thing he’d ever done. My sister wasn’t right about many things, but she was right about my terrible taste in men.

  ‘Luckily,’ Cleo said, ‘Jay was awake and he called the Wayfarers and bam! Here we are to save your bacon.’ She smiled. ‘Which reminds me: can I have some bacon?’

  ‘The portal door was locked, though,’ I pointed out. ‘How did you get through?’

  ‘Pah. You’re asking a cat to reveal her secrets? Don’t you know by now that we’re like those human magicians? Once again, can I have some bacon? It’s almost breakfast time, and my stomach is growling.’

  I was about to tell her that yes, she could have all the bacon she wanted, when the Wayfarer captain approached with Shane Moore by his side.

  ‘I just came in case there were any injuries,’ said Shane, speaking quickly.

  The captain rolled his eyes. ‘Is there a reason why you felt the need to state the obvious, Shane?’ he asked, before turning to me. ‘So, Cleo managed to gather a little bit of info before she ran out to get help. We know there were others, and we’ve sent officers out after them.’

  ‘Yeah, I saw,’ I said. ‘And here.’ I pressed my phone into his hand. ‘She told me she used my own phone to disempower me. She planted something in it when I was at her factory, apparently. She’s been listening in on me through it, too.’

  ‘Well, that’s concerning.’ The captain pulled a bag from his pocket and put the phone inside. ‘I’ll have to hand this over to Paul, our tech wizard. Is that all right Ned? I heard Alison mention that the dagger is yours, too, but we’ll need to check it out as well.’

  Cleo tensed in my arms. ‘We’ll want it back as soon as possible,’ I said, scratching my cat behind the ears to calm her down. ‘It’s an inheritance from my dad, so …’

  Finn nodded. ‘Yeah, I’m aware of that. But it’s also a murder weapon, so I can’t promise you that you’ll get it back quickly.’ He moved to lean back against one of my shelves, but jolted away when he saw the skull beside him. ‘Good goddess, I hate this place,’ he said.

  ‘And it hates you,’ I assured him.

  Captain Finn Plimpton wasn’t the worst Wayfarer I’d ever met, but he was up there. He was reportedly good at his job, though I had my doubts about that. He was also so incredibly cocky that it completely outweighed how good-looking he might otherwise be.

  ‘There’s something else,’ I said. ‘Now that it’s all over and my mind isn’t too terrified to think clearly anymore, I can’t help but feel like something’s a little bit off about what just happened. Alison said all the right things to convince me otherwise, and on the surface, her story made perfect sense. She even pointed out that she knew I was playing for time. But it doesn’t change the fact that if she wanted to kill me, she should have just done it. Instead, she happily let me ask questions, and then gave me incredibly longwinded replies to each one.’

  Finn sighed. ‘Yeah, that’s criminals for you. Listen, I know how you’re feeling. There’s something about coming to the end of a scary time that can feel almost unreal. Maybe even anticlimactic.’ He patted my shoulder. ‘But it’s over, Ned, and you should be happy about that. I mean, come on. You contacted a ghost, found out who his killer was, and then almost got killed yourself. The way you’re feeling right now … it’s just the adrenaline leaving your system. By the way, what is the One True Necromancer?’

  Cleo turned in my arms to face him. ‘If Alison had killed my witch, then she would have had absolute power over life and death and all the realms and – if the last guy was anything to go by – plunged us into a time of darkness and despair.’ She smiled beatifically. ‘Now, I believe my witch and I were speaking of bacon, so if we’re done here …’

  The captain chuckled. ‘Just a few more questions and I’ll be out of your fur, Cleo. Although …’ He glanced at the broken glass on the ground. ‘I’m not sure if you should stay here tonight, Ned. Not until we’re sure we’ve got everyone she was working with.’

  I shifted uneasily. ‘I see what you’re saying, I do. But I can’t leave this place unattended. Some of the stuff in my shop could do a lot of damage in the wrong hands. I can put a lockdown spell on it for the night. No one in, no one out.’

  ‘No, you can’t, actually, because you don’t have magic right now,’ the captain reminded me. ‘But I can, and I will. And if you insist on staying, I’ll post an officer here for the night.’

  Shane held up a hand. ‘I’ll do it.’

  ‘Good. That’s that sorted, so.’ The captain pulled a notepad and a dicta-quill from his pocket. ‘Now we’ll just go through some quick questions, and then I’ll let Cleo go and eat some bacon.’

  ≈

  While Cleo tucked in to her promised meal, I headed back down to the shop with a broom and dustpan in hand, with Shane following behind.

  ‘I told you, I’ll do a cleaning spell to clear up the broken glass,’ he said. He had offered to do that, it was true. In fact, all we’d talked about since the rest of his team had left was how much of a mess Alison had made of my door, and how quickly it could be fixed. Well, it wasn’t all we talked about – we’d chatted about how lightly Cleo liked her bacon cooked; there had also been a brief moment when I’d him if he took milk and sugar in his tea.

  ‘That’s all right,’ I assured him, rushing towards the broken glass and beginning to sweep it up. ‘I know you don’t like using magic for anything but healing, so …’

  He pulled out his wand and, with a few twirls and a muttered incantation; the glass spiralled through the air and back into place. ‘And right after I told you that, I took off on you like a coward, using magic to do it.’ He looked me in the eye. ‘Sorry, Ned. I shouldn’t have acted like that.’

  I hoisted myself up onto my shop counter, uselessly clinging on to the dustpan and broom. ‘That’s all right. It’s kind of a lot to take in. I’m still confused about it all.’

  He took a seat beside me, his legs swinging. ‘Yeah. So what you told Finn and me just now … that’s true? Angelica really took away your memories of the artefacts just because she was jealous?’

  I realised I was swinging my legs in rhythm with his, and stopped. ‘That’s what she said, but I’m not sure I believe her. I mean, she said that she was upset that I was getting legacies from both of our parents, which is crazy. I don’t want either of those legacies. They’re encumbrances, and weird ones at that. I wish …’ I sighed and jumped back down from the counter. ‘Never mind what I wish. You want some more tea?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said, following me back upstairs. ‘The other legacy is running this shop, I’m guessing?’

  ‘Mm hm.’ And also whipping up the foul-smelling vapour to suppress thoughts of incredibly dangerous demons, but I wasn’t about to tell him about that. ‘She made it complicated, too, the memory spell on the Infernal Artefacts. I have to basically read every spell all over again just so I can remember the moments when my dad taught me about them. There’s no contents page or index in the book, either, so I just have to take it slow.’

  ‘Well, you certainly figured out enough to track Marlon down, so that’s something. More than something. It’s pretty impressive Ned.’

  ‘It didn’t feel impressive. Marlon was terrified. He wouldn’t let me free him. And there are so many other souls over there, all trapped. I have to go back and try and figure it out.’