I’d been walking around the small flat while we spoke, but I couldn’t see a computer. ‘There’s no computers here,’ I pointed out. ‘No tablet or laptop, even.’

  ‘Oh, we used Gavin’s PC if we had to do anything online,’ Fifi said airily. ‘Or our phones, sometimes, but Hattie took her phone with her.’

  I glanced back at the tight costumes, trying to imagine where she could have hidden her mobile phone while on stage.

  Fifi must have sensed what I was thinking, because she said, ‘It’s weird, to be honest. We’re not really the kind of people who are attached to our phones. Hattie normally leaves hers up here when she’s performing, but I’ve looked all over and I can’t find it, so I guess she must have had it with her when she went in the box.’

  I caught Finn’s eye. ‘Well, we’ll need Hattie’s phone number, so we can try to trace her whereabouts from that. Shall we go on to Gavin’s flat? You said he lived with two other guys?’

  ‘Theo and Fran,’ said Laurence, as he led the way up to the next flat. This one had three bedrooms, and a great deal of space was taken up with props and costumes, just like below. Gavin’s bedroom was the only one with a computer desk, and there was an old PC on top of it, with an external modem. The room was a mess, with piles of magician-themed magazines and empty cream soda bottles. There were piles of printed manuscripts in the room, too.

  I picked one up and read the title page: The Magician’s Destiny, by Gavin Givens.

  ‘That was Gavin’s novel,’ Flopsy informed me. ‘It’s about a magician who has a knack for tricks, and one day this old wizard comes and tells him that he’s really a wizard. Gavin was adopted, so … I think it was sort of his fantasy, to find out that he really had magic, and that there was a whole hidden world, and a long-lost magical family that he’d be welcomed into.’

  ‘And Fran and Theo? Where are they?’ Finn asked, doing his best to act like he’d not been listening to the rabbit.

  ‘Well, Fran’s rehearsing over at Wayne’s,’ said Laurence with a grimace. ‘I suppose I shouldn’t be so annoyed about it. We’ve been shut down all week, and Wayne’s been begging Fran to move over there for a long time now. He offered him more money than I can, so …’

  ‘And Theo’s on the search for Hattie and Gavin,’ Fifi told us. ‘We take it in turns to visit all of the places they’d normally go, just …hoping they’ll show up.’

  ‘What about friends and family? Parents?’ I asked. ‘Gavin was adopted, is that right?’

  ‘How did you know that?’ Fifi questioned. ‘We never told Victoria. Mainly because she never bothered to ask.’

  ‘Records,’ Finn bluffed. ‘It’s on his records.’

  ‘Well then you probably already know that Hattie was adopted, too,’ said Laurence. ‘Gavin’s adoptive parents are living in New Zealand now. We’re in touch with them, and he’s definitely not there. They said they’ll call us straight away if he does show up. And Hattie’s adoptive parents live out in Rathmines, but she never got along well with them. They say they haven’t heard from her. I’ll give you all of the contact details, but we have no details for birth parents, unfortunately. You know how it is in this country. They seem to think adoptees have no right to know where they come from.’

  We’d made our way to the Laurence’s flat while he talked. It was at the top of the building, and it spanned two floors. There was a huge rabbit run up there, but we could see only one white rabbit running about inside.

  ‘That’s Houdini, Theo’s rabbit,’ said Laurence. ‘And his name is most definitely a misnomer. Houdini is, unfortunately, even worse at magic than Theo. Lady Fluff has probably buried herself in straw to get away from him. She seems to find him incredibly annoying. Huh. That’s odd.’

  He peered into the huge run, frowning. ‘I can’t see Lady Fluff. And I can’t see Flopsy’s hat, either.’ He gave us a sheepish smile. ‘There’s one of Gavin’s hats that Flopsy likes most of all. He’ll never settle unless he has it with him. So I put it in the run with him, and he was snoozing in it this morning.’

  He turned on his heels. ‘Come to think of it, I still can’t understand how he got all the way from up here, to where you say you found him on the street, Detective Wayfair.’

  On any other occasion, I would have tried my darndest to come up with an excuse, but I was far too concerned with the fact that the hat was gone. Flopsy was baffled, too. ‘You don’t think it could have disappeared when I did?’ he wondered. ‘But then surely I would have arrived in your park with it, instead of turning up in your orange hat.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I muttered, lifting up pieces of straw. It was piled high in places, so the hat – and Lady Fluff – could still be in there, buried beneath.

  I’d been searching for about two minutes, when my hand fell upon something that definitely wasn’t a hat. With a queasy lurch in my stomach, I brushed the pile of straw aside, and found myself looking at a dead rabbit.

  7. The Tortuous Life of a Tall Tale Princess

  A short while later (after I’d taken Dizzy home for a well-needed mango break) I was back where I belonged: at my desk at the Wayfarer station. Well, my desk was there, somewhere beneath piles and piles of unfiled paperwork. I began to frantically clear it – I needed to do something until we heard back from Shane and Healer Little.

  When it came to animals – particularly magical ones – there was no one more qualified than Healer Little. At the moment he was helping Shane do two things: perform an autopsy on poor little Lady Fluff, and find out whether Flopsy and his dead friend were, in fact, familiars.

  If they were, that could mean quite a few things. It could mean that Gavin and Hattie were magic themselves. It could also mean that, because Lady Fluff was dead, there was a chance that Hattie was, too. Familiars usually died along with their witch – even the ones who came my way, to help me discover their witch’s killer, would die as soon as the murderer was caught. It was the order of things. In exchange for the longer life they’d gain by bonding to a witch, familiars also had to die along with that witch.

  I could never decide whether I thought it was beautiful or tragic.

  There was another possibility, of course. If Lady Fluff was a familiar, then someone could have killed her on purpose, so that she couldn’t help me find Hattie’s killer.

  I heaved a huge pile of files into my arms – they all seemed to belong to Finn’s and Gretel’s closed cases – and headed towards the cabinets.

  ‘Whoa there.’ Finn stood in my way, and pulled the files from my arms. ‘We can’t have you doing that.’

  Gretel appeared beside him, shaking her head, her dark braids swinging. ‘No, we definitely can’t.’

  My expression warmed at the sight of Gretel, and I threw my now-empty arms around her. ‘I’ve missed you.’

  She laughed. ‘Me too. I mean, I’ve missed you, not that I’ve missed myself. That’d be so weird, right? Most of the time, I wish I could get away from me, so I certainly wouldn’t be missing me. Oh, guess what.’ She pulled away. ‘I’m on this case with you.’

  I stared at Finn. ‘She’s on this case with me? Does that mean I’m officially on this case? Back at work? Because if I am, then why are you trying to stop me clearing my desk?’

  He placed the files down. ‘You know perfectly well that you’ve got the best desk in Major Crimes. It’s the perfect distance from the vending machines and the toilets, but not in the path of either. You can get on with your work without being annoyed.’

  ‘I know. That’s why I picked it. And that’s why I’d like it to be clear so that I can work at it.’

  ‘Oh.’ His forehead wrinkled. ‘Yeah, that makes sense.’

  Gretel picked up the files again and headed to the cabinets. ‘A lot of people have been angling for your desk since you’ve been gone. Todge, especially. Except he doesn’t just want your desk. He wants your job. And because Finn’s too much of a chicken to tell Todge he’s never working a case again, he’s been telling Todge that he needs your desk for storing files, and that he can’t possibly buy another desk, so Todge’ll just have to wait. But now you’re back, so Finn can stop telling that lie and come up with another.’

  I glanced out into the reception area. Todge was at the front desk, answering the phone. ‘Why is he never working a case again?’

  Finn sighed. ‘Because he’s messed up one too many times. He’s just back from yet another round of retraining, but he’s no better than he was before. I don’t want to fire him, so I try to tell him nicely that he’s best on desk duty. He’s convinced he’s actually some kind of super sleuth, and that we’re just too dumb to see it.’

  I took a seat, searching for my pens and notebooks. I’d already grabbed a full kit for myself, in anticipation of Finn officially signing me onto the case. ‘How come you’re not working on Riddler’s Edge stuff, anyway?’ I asked Gretel. ‘Are they having one of their quiet times?’

  She’d been the official Riddler’s Edge liaison for some time now. It had begun when she headed up the task force to track down the members of the vampire elitists, Vlad’s Boys. After that, the semi-supernatural town had seen mystery after mystery. Every now and then, Riddler’s Edge would have a short break from the drama, and Gretel would get a chance to work on other cases.

  ‘Y’know, they’re pretty good at solving their own messes these days,’ she said. ‘But yeah, it’s been quiet over there for a while. Unless you count all the murders on the Riddler’s Express a little while ago. Todge was there for that, and he seriously cocked it up. But … I’ve actually been covering your work, while you’ve been gone.’

  She gave Finn a pointed look. ‘We need to hire more people, boss. You and Christine have been having all those meetings with Wanda’s mam about reopening all of the old stations that the Peacemakers shut down. You can’t do that on bare bones.’

  He rubbed his forehead. ‘I know, I know. And I’m on it. That’s why I’m about to head into yet another meeting right now. I just love talking about budgets, me.’

  ‘Are you being sarcastic, Finn?’ I asked. ‘Because if you are, you’re being way too subtle about it. You need to turn it up a notch.’

  ‘Ha ha. Okay, so here’s the plan for while I’m stuck in a boardroom talking about money. I’ve just sent Paul and a few others over to the Magic Hat. They’re taking aura photos of every single surface – every single molecule of air, too – to see if they can pick up on anything our scanners missed. They’ll check Gavin’s computer and try and track Hattie’s phone, too. Can you two wait for Shane and Healer Little? And then, based on what they say, well … you know what moves to make next yourselves.’

  After many assurances that we could handle things, he rushed off, looking exhausted.

  Some of my latest bouts of earwigging had revealed that, ever since the recent events at Witchfield Prison, some of the Wyrd Court politicians had been questioning my mother’s ability as Minister for Magical Law. While I was wrongly incarcerated, one of the most seemingly sweet prison guards had been running a number of rackets, the worst of which involved ‘killing’ certain prisoners, only to bring them back from the dead. The guard had been a member of our coven, and her sister was the warden of the prison.

  It had been shocking, and messy, and my coven were still reeling from the events. Support for my mother had been shaky ever since the news came out. Mam was certain that Warden Tracy Wayfair had known nothing of her younger sister’s actions, and she continually refused to fire the warden. Her stance made her incredibly unpopular, and she was having difficulty getting any of her proposals and budgets passed by the Wyrd Court.

  I had no idea what I would have done in my mother’s position. Standing by the warden seemed like the right thing to do, but I was afraid that if my mam didn’t fire Tracy, she’d lose the next election. If that happened, we could say goodbye to everything we’d built.

  ‘Hey.’ Gretel passed a hot chocolate my way. It came with two enormous marshmallows, vying for supremacy at the top of the cup. ‘I know what you’re thinking, and I wish I hadn’t said anything to Finn about needing new staff. Finn doesn’t want you stressing, Wanda.’

  There was something about the way she said it that made me curious. From the Year of the Lotus, all the way through the Year of the Rat, I’d been working almost non-stop. Now here we were, in the Year of the Boomerang, and everyone was ever so concerned about my wellbeing. I mean, it’s nice to have friends who care, and I had been taking rather a lot on, but … there was something about the way Gretel was looking at me, and the tone in her voice was a touch too casual.

  ‘So what’s the Queen said, then?’ I questioned.

  ‘Huh?’ Gretel jumped up from where she’d been seated atop my desk, and rushed over to her own chair, spinning in the seat so she was facing the other wall. ‘I dunno. Nothing. Why would you ask that?’

  I slurped some of my hot chocolate and left my seat, wandering into Finn’s messy office before Gretel could stop me. His desk was littered in scribbled notes, and photocopies from Tall Tales and Magical History books.

  On quite a lot of those pages, there was a symbol I recognised: a hooded figure, seated on a throne and holding a sword. The drawing was crude, just as it had been when I last saw it, on the floor of the Resurrection Room. Then, it had been painted into one of the eyes of a phoenix, as part of the Infinity Loop. The crazy prison guard and her minions had come back to life in that room. And there was a sickly possibility that Will Berry’s dead father might have used the magic of the Infinity Loop, too, to fake his death in the prison.

  I next looked through the recently dialled numbers on Finn’s desktop telephone. Despite the fact that she wasn’t a big technology fan, the Queen of the Faeries did have a telephone number, and Finn had been calling it a lot. But it didn’t look like she’d been picking up.

  I saw that he’d been on the phone to another number I recognised, too: Will’s. Unlike the Queen, Will had been answering Finn’s calls, and they’d talked for almost an hour each time.

  Gretel had followed me in, and she placed a hand on my lower back. ‘We’ve got it in hand, Wanda. Look, if Kilian Berry were alive, we’d know by now. Finn’s just being overly cautious.’

  ‘Sure.’ I pasted a smile on my face. ‘Cautious. Look, I’ve done what Finn said. I’ve taken a big, long rest. Now, it’s spring, and I’m coming back to work, because I can handle work and college. I’ve done it before, and Finn knows it. This is about more, Gretel. This is about something the Queen’s said to him. He was so insistent that I stay away from her. And I was kind of into the idea of a break from Her Majesty, too, because she can be very annoying. But … I get the feeling that she’s told Finn something really, really big, and it’s got to do with Kilian Berry. And with me. Am I right?’

  Gretel winced. ‘That’s the thing, Wanda. I don’t know. I just know Finn’s been getting us all to search for any reference to the Infinity Loop, and to that symbol you described in the phoenix’s eye. The bloke on the throne with the sword. And I’ve heard him leaving messages with Her Majesty’s minions, too. Saying that she’d better elaborate on what the heck she meant. Other than that, I really don’t know. Believe me, I’ve been trying. Finn’s made it so I can’t do earwigging spells in his office anymore, though, so …’

  She gave me a miserable shrug. ‘I do know that she called back a couple of weeks ago, when Finn wasn’t here. She asked if you were back at work yet, and I said no. I … I asked her if you were in trouble. If we should be doing anything to protect you.’

  My stomach churned. ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She said: “There’s really nothing any of us can do. But chin up, Gretel. It’s not going to happen for months”.’

  I sank into Finn’s chair. It was just because I was stunned by Gretel’s awesome impression of the Queen, that was all. I certainly didn’t need to sit down because I was scared. Why would I be frightened, or irritated, or tired of it all? Another mysterious trouble storm might be heading my way – but I’d been expecting it, hadn’t I? It was no big deal. It was just my life.

  ‘This … why … that’s …’ I took a deep breath, and stared at Gretel, trying to find some coherent words. ‘So … this … this is the whole reason I’ve been signed off work since before Winter Solstice? It had nothing to do with spending time with Max and focusing on my studies, did it? The Queen of Mischief said something typically vague, and Finn – and everyone else – they think I need to rest up for it. You know that’s dumb, right? Because there’s something a lot worse than a tired witch, and that’s an unprepared one.’

  Gretel winced again. ‘Well, first of all, I overheard Finn talking to Lassie last year, and they were worried you and Max would break up. And Finn was worried about you, and about all of the angst that was going on with Will, and he just … he wanted you to be happy. He really did. And secondly, well … you’re not unprepared, are you? You’ve been having some incredibly full-on lessons with Erik Shannon, haven’t you?’

  I thought back to my recent Defensive Magic lessons. Erik had been perfectly normal when he taught me along with the rest of the class, but during our private lessons he’d been even crazier than usual. Instead of chucking a couple of Knives of Intent at me when I entered the room, he was sending hundreds of the things my way.

  He was constantly trying to disempower me, too. He’d managed to borrow the same sort of technology they used on me when I was in Witchfield Prison. I’d been subjected to the Scary Chair and its Pseudo Gnats over and over again. I’d been shackled in witch irons. I’d been thrown behind magical bars just like the ones at Witchfield, to see if I could draw power from them, the way I’d done in prison. He used powerful wards, blocking me up in towers and cells, timing me to see how quickly I could break out.