Darrell audibly gulped. ‘Not Majella.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Will, in a voice so cold it chilled me to the core. ‘Majella. But if you don’t want that to happen, then you know what you have to do.’

  ≈

  I was so deeply shocked that it took me a moment to realise that both Will and Darrell had stood up, and were leaving the booth. Once this was over, I was going to write up a spy-training manual. The first rule: if you’re going to spy, make sure you can handle what you might uncover.

  As they neared our booth, I heard Will say, ‘You did have the soundproof lever pulled, didn’t you?’

  Darrell nodded. But if I could see him nod, even through the haze of pipe smoke, what if he could see into our booth, too? I wasn’t worried about myself. I knew by now that Will wouldn’t be able to see me. And I wasn’t even sore about it – how could I feel sad that someone so evil didn’t consider me ‘the one’?

  Right now, Max was all that mattered – because I had the sinking feeling that he might just be the missing weredog Will was looking for.

  I leaned across the table, and pulled him towards me. ‘Kiss me,’ I whispered. ‘I’ll use my face to cover yours.’

  Max’s eyes widened, but he didn’t protest – obviously because this was our only way of avoiding being caught, and not because he fancied the pants off me, right? Oh, who was I trying to kid?

  As our lips met, and he enveloped me in a deep and delicious kiss, I heard Darrell laugh and say, ‘Even if I had forgotten to pull it, I don’t think those two are interested in anything except each other, do you?’

  Will mumbled something in reply, but I didn’t hear his words. I didn’t hear anything, or pay attention to anything, except the feeling of Max’s lips on mine.

  It was so new, and somehow so familiar. It heated me, all the way through, and I wished that it could last forever. As it deepened, though, something strange began to happen. Just like when the voice of Mizz Plimpton entered my mind, more and more voices began to enter. Conversations I’d forgotten. People I’d never met before, and yet knew oh so well.

  My entire relationship with Will – a relationship that was nothing like the way I’d remembered it just moments before. My first experience of magic. The day I met Dudley, the first familiar to call me the Wayfarer.

  The day I met Max, in our three-bed semi when I went to rent a room.

  More and more memories flooded in, full force, assaulting me, frightening me. My burgeoning feelings for Will. My heartbreak when he seemed to choose his family over me. My happiness, when I learned that he had been protecting me all along.

  And my heartbreak all over again, when I discovered that he’d been using dark magic. Magic so dark that he almost became the Whisperer, one of the worst evils the world had ever known.

  My determination, when I had to do the only thing I could do, and put an end to the Whisperer’s Return.

  Will, falling into a coma, a coma from which he was yet to awake.

  Max, declaring his love for me at what he thought was the moment of his death. Max being there, time and again. My shoulder, my friend, the person I cared about more than anything in the world.

  At the exact same time, Max and I pulled away from one another, staring in shock. One of the forget-me-nots had fallen from the wreath on the beam above, and soon more and more began to fall, tumbling all over Max and me as we gazed across the table.

  ‘Wanda?’ he said. ‘Are you … did you just …?’

  I nodded, tears spilling down my cheeks, and fear and excitement running through my body. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I’ve just remembered everything. Max, Nelson was right. What he said to Nag before he died. None of this is real.’

  He picked up one of the flowers, giving me a crooked, tear-strewn smile. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I’m beginning to realise that. And whatever has happened to us, whatever’s been fooling us into believing that all of this is the real world … well, it must have been a pretty strong spell. Because Wanda Wayfair … I have no idea how anyone managed to make me forget you.’

  22. Magical Kisses

  We stood outside the tavern, both of us pale, as my phone beeped over and over again with messages from Melissa and Gretel.

  Will is throwing you the most amazing engagement party in the world!

  Will’s such a great guy, Wanda – can I borrow him sometime? Ha ha only joking.

  Will’s had to pop out for a little while to pick up the cake. I say cake, but I’ve heard a rumour that it’s a giant, multi-tiered apple tart in honour of you.

  I turned my phone off and stuffed it into my pocket, feeling sick.

  ‘We have to tell them,’ said Max. ‘We have to get everyone to the Warlock Arms.’

  I looked up into his deep brown eyes. ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I know we do, Max. But …’

  He bit his lower lip, looking down at me. ‘But there’s a real world, where me and you are just friends, despite the fact that I’m head over heels in love with you. Yeah, I had that memory too. Don’t worry, Wanda. I know that the kiss was just so we could keep our cover.’

  My eyes widened, and I could feel a tingling heat all through me as I thought of that kiss. It was a lot of things, and none of them started with just.

  ‘Max, I …’ I what? I want to kiss you again? Because I did. I really, really did. In fact, I might just have done so, had the werewolf not pushed open the doors of the Rusty Warlock and come out to stand beside us.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘I’m guessing you guys just heard the same thing I did.’

  I looked more closely at the werewolf.

  ‘Oh!’ He widened his eyes, mumbled some words beneath his breath and, within a few seconds, was looking an awful lot like Captain Finn Plimpton, the guy who (now that I had my memories back) I realised was not a typical Plimpton at all. Since I’d last seen him, his right eye had been framed with one heck of a shiner.

  He poked at his black eye, wincing. ‘Apparently, my glamour spell made me look an awful lot like a werewolf who was well known to a warlock in there. You probably didn’t see how badly the fisticuffs progressed, seeing as you were otherwise engaged.’

  I shook my head in amazement, grabbing him tight and hugging him.

  ‘Get off,’ he said (while somehow managing to pull me even tighter). ‘My stars, I can’t believe I forgot you. And Lassie. And … everyone.’

  I pulled away. ‘So you remember everything too?’

  He gave Max and me a small smirk. ‘What, did you guys think it was the magic of that kiss that brought your memories back?’

  ‘No!’ we both said, a little too quickly.

  ‘But Finn, how do you recognise me?’ I asked.

  He scratched his chin. ‘You mean because you’re wearing a Forget My Face spell? Yeah, it’s not because I’m your soulmate. It’s more a process of deduction. I saw a girl whose face I couldn’t quite focus on, who was about to stick her tongue down the throat of a weredog who looked like a rockier version of Max. So two and two made a very icky four. And also …’ He looked a bit sheepish. ‘The second I saw the two of you kiss, my memories all flooded back.’ He held his hands up. ‘And no. It wasn’t because it was a magical kiss. It was because of the forget-me-nots I saw fall on you. My first memory was quite an interesting one though.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ I was interested to hear about it – but I was far more interested in making sure every moment of silence was filled to the brim, so that Max wouldn’t have time to ask Finn any more about his ‘soulmate’ comment.

  ‘Yeah. I remembered that I had a lot of money on you and Max finally getting together before the end of this month. So a whole lot of people are going to be paying up whenever we get back to the real world.’

  ‘You know what I remember?’ I said. ‘I remember that you’re just as irritating in the real world as you are in this one.’

  He rubbed his hands together, even though the afternoon sun was shining down upon us. ‘Oh, I know I am. And you love me for it. Come on. Let’s head to your house, Wanda. I need to put a potion together, and if anyone has the ingredients I need, it’s Beatrice Wayfair.’

  ≈

  The potion I drank to reverse the Forget My Face spell was much more pleasant than the one I’d had to drink in order to perform it. The Wally’s Water gave the orange juice quite a refreshing bite. But once I drank that, there was another, far more frightening potion to concoct.

  As Finn and I searched through my mother’s larder, Max was on the phone to as many of the Pre-Resistance as he could manage, letting them know that the missing weredogs were at the Warlock Arms.

  A quick call from Melissa confirmed that Will was back at his mansion, getting ready for tonight’s party. According to Melissa, he’d seemed his usual lovely self – almost as though he hadn’t just been plotting to kill Max and set Finn up to take the fall.

  We’d agreed that the best place for my coven, for now, was with Will. If they all rushed off right away he’d know something was up. As long as he thought his secret was safe, we might just have a chance to get those weredogs out.

  I had hoped that, with the memories of the real world, we could just … I don’t know … maybe tap our heels together and say we wanted to go home, and then Poof! We’d be home, far away from this not-so-perfect world.

  But even though we remembered the real world, we had no idea how to get back to it. Finn’s memories were slightly different than ours. He remembered what he had been doing before he arrived here. Well … vaguely.

  ‘I feel like I was supposed to remember everything the second I saw a forget-me-not,’ he said as we searched through the larder. ‘And now, I feel like I’m waiting for a few tonnes of important information to hit me on the head. But all I actually remember is the ingredients and instructions for the potion.’

  ‘But who gave you those instructions?’

  He shrugged. ‘Someone I trusted as much as I trust you. I know that much. The potion I was told to make is called Dreamwalker. You need to drink it in one go, then lie down and fall asleep.’ He threw some lavender and vervain into a cauldron that was bubbling away. ‘Now … do you happen to have something in here called Wayfair Secret Sprinkles?’

  I gave him a dubious stare. ‘We do. But we use those in coven initiation ceremonies. Ceremonies that cause a whole lot of hallucination. I met the original Wayfarer during mine.’

  He sighed. ‘Yeah. I can’t believe I forgot what that word meant. What we were. What you are.’

  Behind us, Russ said, ‘Well, it’s like I told you, Wanda. You and your coven were suffering from a blockage.’

  ‘Hmm. The problem is, who was blocking us and why?’ I pulled down the bottle marked Wayfair Secret Sprinkles. The truth was, there was a very short list of suspects. I just couldn’t bear to focus on that right now.

  ‘So you’re sure about this potion, Finn?’ I asked, changing the subject. ‘Nine teaspoons of Secret Sprinkles?’

  ‘I’m certain of the ingredients,’ he said. ‘That, and needing to contact you, and tell you that none of this is real …’ He sighed. ‘Wanda … I wish I could tell you more. I can remember my real life. And I can remember that you need to drink this potion, but that’s about it. Until the Rusty Warlock, I was as confused as anyone. I knew I was a pawn in some game of Darrell’s and Will’s, but I wasn’t sure what the game was. Will was the one who asked me to ask you about familiars, but I didn’t know why at the time.’

  I tossed in the sprinkles and gritted my teeth. ‘Yeah, I had a feeling he might have been the one behind your questions.’

  ‘I know how much this hurts,’ Finn said softly. ‘Believe me. Until my real life came back to me today, I had memories of Will being the most amazing leader in the world. That’s why I had such a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that he might not be so great. So when he told me to keep an eye on your movements, I convinced myself that maybe you were up to something.’

  I nodded, watching the potion change colour. It had been murky when we first started to make it. Now it was turning a creamy pink, with streaks of lavender and silver. ‘That’s why you were following me and Max. On the night we were … playing with Wolfie.’

  He raised a brow. ‘Playing with Wolfie? That’s a euphemism I’ve never heard before.’

  ‘If you were following us, though, why didn’t you use an invisibility spell?’

  ‘I did, to begin with,’ he admitted. ‘I was there for your whole Pre-Resistance meeting. I listened to it all, and made up my mind to tell you about the mission Will gave me. After what I’d heard in your meeting, it seemed like it might be important. But I didn’t want to freak the whole group out by just appearing, so I waited for you and Max to be alone, and took off my invisibility. And then … well … then I got really confused, because it looked like you and Max might be fooling around behind Will’s back, and I started to trust him all over again.’ He held his hands up. ‘Bear in mind, I still thought this was the real world.’

  I began to ladle the potion into a glass, carefully watching the amount. ‘So what was your mission from Will? Y’know, other than asking me about familiars? Was it him who asked you to put pressure on Old Ma, or Darrell? Because Will said that he had nothing to do with the cover-up.’

  ‘Well, he lied,’ Finn said with a sigh. ‘He was the one who told me to put pressure on Old Ma to keep things quiet. He didn’t want anyone to know Gareth was murdered. He said it was in the interest of the public to hide the facts. He also told me that it might look like Majella was behaving out of line, but it was all part of an important Peacemaker operation, and I just had to let her away with it.’

  He paused to perform a quick spell, quashing the fire beneath the cauldron. ‘I know now that he was setting me up. That he planned for you to suspect me, and Darrell, but not him. None of it felt right. Especially when I started getting messages from Darrell that made no sense. When I got the message about the rats being in the maze, I decided it was time to stop tailing you and tail him instead. Which was why I ended up in the Rusty Warlock today.’

  He looked at the potion in the glass. ‘I hope this works, Wanda. And I hope that whenever we do get back to the real world, Lassie somehow manages to forget that I pretty much let Majella away with electro-shocking Max.’

  Majella. Just the mention of the name made me feel sick. She was yet another aspect of this strange world that made no sense. In the real world, she was in prison. But here, she was a member of the Peacemakers, a force we’d said good riddance to a long time ago.

  She wasn’t the only one who shouldn’t be roaming free. Emily was in a mental hospital, and Will … well, Will was in a coma, surrounded by guards and healers in the most secure wing at Witchfield.

  ‘Lassie’ll be okay,’ I said, giving him a brief hug. ‘She’ll know that you were manipulated, just like the rest of us. Heck, I’m engaged to the guy that almost brought the ultimate evil back to the world.’ I pulled away. ‘So come on. Let’s go and make sure we get out of … wherever we are. Pronto.’

  ≈

  As I lay on my bed, I could hear the sound of raised voices. The Pre-Resistance group were gathered in our kitchen, and they were making their plans.

  I wished Max were in here with me, now, but if this potion didn’t work, then fighting Will and Darrell would be the only thing we could do. They had to make a plan for entering the Warlock Arms. And I … well, I had to swallow something that looked delicious, but smelled like crap.

  Russ gave my face a little lick. ‘Face your fears, Wanda. Chug!’

  I rubbed his fur and said, ‘Bottoms up.’ I tossed back my head, chugged back the drink, and closed my eyes.

  23. Dreamwalker

  ‘Hello, Wanda,’ said a gentle voice.

  My eyes flickered open. I was still lying on the bed, with Finn looking anxiously on, and Russ snuggled by my side. But there was someone else in the room. Someone that neither Finn nor Russ could see. A tall, beautiful woman with titian hair, dressed in white. The Queen of the Fae. It staggered me that in this false world, I’d forgotten that faeries existed.

  ‘Why can’t they see you?’

  ‘For the same reason that they can’t hear you speak right now. I’m not in this room, Wanda. I’m in your dream. Well, in a dream within a dream. It was the only way I could reach you.’

  She gave Finn a fond smile and ruffled his hair. He made no indication that he saw or felt her presence. ‘Finn entered this world after you, at my request. I gave him instructions, instructions that he was to remember as soon as he saw the forget-me-nots. It took him some time, but at least he remembered the important part.’ She grasped my hand. ‘Come on. Let’s do some dreamwalking together.’

  I let her pull me up. Even though I was most definitely standing next to her, I was also looking down at my sleeping body. ‘Funny thing is, this isn’t even the weirdest thing to happen to me today,’ I said.

  She laughed. ‘There’s still some time to go.’

  I felt a light movement all around me, like a gentle breeze. The room changed, and suddenly we were no longer in my bedroom. We were in a long, packed ward at Night and Gale Healing Hospital.

  I looked at the row of bodies. My mother was there, as well as my father, Christine, Melissa and Gretel. Max was in the bed next to mine, with Wolfie curled into the crook of his arm.

  I was at the end of the ward, near the window, while a small, brownish-black bat sat on my shoulder and placed kisses on my face. My heart went to my chest. Dizzy! My Dizzy.

  Outside the window, snow was falling. Of course it was. Because this was the real world, where we were deep into winter. The real world, where Dizzy was my familiar.

  Florence and her team of healers hovered around me, muttering various spells and pointing their wands.