Reg nodded. “Is that possible? I mean… I’m not saying they were pixies, but maybe the same principles can apply to other species or practitioners.”

  “It seems possible,” Marta agreed. “And where one of them dropped something at the scene… it’s possible he had meant to put the cat’s paw into the woman’s bag, so he could retrieve it from her later.”

  Reg closed her eyes and thought about the cloaked warlocks and their intentions. “I don’t think so… I think the cat’s paw is valuable to them. I don’t think it’s just a throw-away possession that they would take the chance of being unable to retrieve later.”

  “Maybe not, then.” Marta turned her wrist to look at her watch. “I’d better get back to my other duties. Especially if I need to go to the victims’ houses to follow up with them.” She rolled her eyes. “It would be nice if people would just answer calls from the police and cooperate with questioning… Do they really think that I’ll be well-disposed if I have to chase them down? Or that I’ll just let it go and not bother?”

  “They’re just scared.”

  “They have nothing to be afraid of if they just answer my questions.”

  Marta had no idea what secrets people might be hiding from her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Reg finished drinking her tea after Marta left and sat staring at the water for a long time before returning to her car and then driving home. She spent the rest of the morning helping Sarah strengthen the wards, without igniting a single one of them. Progress!

  She walked around the garden, pondering and reaching out her senses to try to determine if someone else had been there. Someone who shouldn’t have been, but who was powerful enough to get past the wards or had used some trick or loophole to get in. Reg thought she knew all of the exceptions by now, but she was constantly learning new things about magical systems that surprised her. Had Corvin been there? John? Had they been trying to get close to her at night when no one else was around? Or had it been Harrison, someone who was not bound by the magical laws that mortals were forced to adhere to? Or Weston? Were there other species who could come and go as they pleased, even if they had evil intentions?

  Reg Rawlins is not happy, a voice observed.

  Reg turned around and had to search the greenery for a moment before she saw Forst, Sarah’s garden gnome, standing in the midst of the garden, lighting up his curvy pipe. He puffed out a few smoke rings. He had spoken inside her head. He was using his “inside words,” as gnomes preferred to do. They were low and awkward using “outside words” to communicate with humans, who normally couldn’t hear their psychic transmissions.

  I’m not unhappy, she told him. Just trying to think things out.

  He sat on the bench beside the bubbling pond and motioned for her to join him.

  What things be such a powerful sorcerer pondering?

  Reg sat down with him. The red peak of his cap fell below the level of her shoulder, and his feet did not reach the ground, but he seemed unconcerned by this. He felt completely comfortable sitting there with her.

  I’m just trying to figure out whether someone else might have been in the garden. Someone who wasn’t supposed to be here.

  Thy wards are strong, Forst told her.

  But some people are stronger. Or there may be other ways to get around them.

  He puffed on his pipe thoughtfully. The spirit eater?

  Corvin? Yes. Or his son. Have they been here lately when I didn’t know about it? What would you do if you found him here?

  I would not challenge him. I would hide.

  Forst said it frankly, as if there were no shame in hiding. And for a gnome, perhaps there wasn’t. He often hid from sight in the garden, even when the only person around was Reg.

  Forst sucked on his pipe. I have not seen him here.

  Reg felt the emphasis on the word him. Have you seen someone else? Anyone? Maybe… the long-legged immortal? Harrison?

  Forst shook his head. Your dragon visits.

  More than once? I saw him the other night and took him home. Has he been here every much?

  Only at night, and Forst is not always here in the night.

  Reg didn’t know where he lived. He did have a wife she assumed he went home to at night. And grown children—a boy and a girl—and six grandchildren, who he was very proud of. Very fertile for gnomes, who normally only birthed one set of twins.

  But you were here at night recently? Reg tried to think of what he had been working on in the garden over the past week or two. Did Sarah make you stay late to finish something? Or to check on the lights?

  Tiny white fairy lights twinkled in the garden after dark, and Reg honestly didn’t know how many were man-made lights and how many were fireflies, elves, or other magical creatures.

  Forst chuckled and shook his head. Here to tend the night-bloomers. Moonlight trumpets this week. Very beautiful.

  Oh. Cool. I should come out and see them sometime.

  He smiled, cheeks rosy, and nodded his agreement. To see, you must open your eyes.

  She cocked her head at him, struck by his words. Does that mean… I came out while you were here? But I was sleepwalking?

  He inclined his head slightly in agreement.

  What did I do? Reg asked curiously. She had not expected to find anyone who had witnessed her sleepwalking. She had only been working on Marta’s speculation that she had been sleepwalking until then.

  Forst raised a brow while he smoked. Walked around the garden. Checked the protective wards. A long time stood at the gate.

  He tilted his head to indicate the gate between the front yard and the back, which marked the border that an intruder should not be able to cross.

  So I was making sure that no one could come in.

  He gave a brief bob of the head.

  And there wasn’t anyone else around? Reg asked. Corvin or anyone else in a cloak? No one who did not belong here?

  Just Reg Rawlins and Forst. And Ember. The elves and the living things.

  Reg breathed a few times, trying to let her anxiety over the possibility of someone else having been in her yard to dissipate. No one else. Just she and Forst. And Reg had been checking, even in her sleep, to make sure that no one could get in where they were not wanted. That helped to calm her down a little. At least she hadn’t been wandering around letting anyone who wanted to come into the house willy-nilly.

  You fear men in cloaks? Forst inquired.

  Well… I don’t know. Maybe. If they have a cat’s paw and are attacking people in the harbor.

  Forst puffed on his pipe, nodding sagely.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Although Reg had sworn more than once that she would not call Corvin Hunter for any reason, she had known each time that it was not true and that she would, sooner or later. Probably sooner. Maybe within days or hours of having sworn that she would not.

  She couldn’t help her attraction to him. That wasn’t her fault. His charms made him attractive to women, just as the nectar inside a Venus flytrap attracted bugs. She couldn’t change her nature any more than she could change his. And it wasn’t her fault they could sense each other’s thoughts and feelings. They had been connected ever since he had stolen her powers and then returned them to her. That door would remain forever open to him, at least partway.

  Maybe it was her own fault that she wanted to talk to him and that she thought he was the best one to ask for information about the magical culture and history around Black Sands. He was a professor and had done a lot of research into those things and lived through a lot of history himself. Maybe there were other candidates who would be able to help her just as much as Corvin, and it was her own fault that she hadn’t sought them out, researching to find someone—anyone—who could answer her questions instead of going back to Corvin.

  It was just too easy for her to call Corvin.

  He was one of the contacts on her “favorites” screen.

  She’d deleted him from it more than once, but somehow he always ended up on it again.

  Reg tapped the icon and waited to see if he would pick up or if it would go to voicemail.

  After a couple of rings, Corvin picked up. “Regina! It is wonderful to hear from you. I have been thinking of you.”

  His voice reached right down into her insides. Reg wrapped her arms around herself tightly while she spoke to him on speaker. She was the only one in the cottage, so she didn’t have to worry about anyone overhearing them. Except, of course, Starlight. And he hated Corvin. He would probably pout all night after hearing Corvin’s voice on the phone.

  “Do you have some time?”

  “I always have time for you,” Corvin purred. Reg couldn’t help the flush of warmth that washed over her at hearing his voice.

  “Well… great. I wasn’t sure whether it would be a good time. You might be… out with your coven. Or trying to find your cloak.”

  “As you know, most of them work during the day, and our activities tend to be around midnight.” He paused. “Why would I be looking for my cloak?”

  “Oh. I just heard that you had lost it. I guess you found it again?”

  He breathed into the phone receiver, saying nothing. Reg cleared her throat and squirmed uncomfortably. She tried to set up a psychic shield to block him from accessing anything she didn’t want to reveal to him. Like that it had been Harrison who had hidden the cloak or that she had seen the red-edged cloak that she thought must belong to him.

  “You heard that I lost my cloak?”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “Well, not my cloak exactly, but the ceremonial cloak that the coven leader uses for certain rituals.”

  “Oh. Right. That was it.”

  “Who told you that I had lost it?” Corvin paused and, as Reg was about to answer, he spoke again. “Because I don’t think I told anyone that.”

  “You must have told someone,” Reg bluffed. “I can’t even remember who it was I was talking to. Sorry.”

  “What is this about, Reg?”

  “I wondered what it looks like. This special cloak. How is it different from your regular one?”

  “It isn’t very different. Maybe slightly older. It has been imbued with the magic from the coven leaders who have worn it over the centuries.”

  “Oh, I’ll bet you love that.” the words escaped Reg’s mouth before she’d had a chance to think about them. Corvin could suck the magic out of artifacts as well as living people, so a magical object that had been worn by so many practitioners over the years, each leaving behind part of their magic in its fibers, was a windfall. If Harrison hadn’t stolen it away from him, he would probably be wrapped up in it now, basking in the warmth of the magic stored in it.

  She coughed and tried to cover what she had said. “What does it look like? I mean… is it fancy? Just plain black? I thought maybe it would have epaulets or something on it.”

  “As the leader of the coven is simply a servant to it, we do not bestow badges, epaulets, or other markers of authority or rank. The cloak is simply a well-crafted black robe with a hood. That’s all. You would not think it was anything special to look at.”

  “No colors or edging?”

  “That is a very strange question to ask when I just told you that it was plain black with no markings.”

  “It’s just… I saw a picture of a cloak for a coven leader, but it doesn’t look like what you had. It was black, but it had this red edging. Like… I don’t know. A priest’s cassock or something like that.”

  “Where did you see this?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Was this a picture in a book or in your head?”

  “Uh… it was from Ember, actually. A dragon memory.”

  Corvin grunted. Reg waited to see if he would offer any thoughts. Even if his cloak was not like the one she had seen in Ember’s thoughts, maybe he knew something about it. If it had been around for centuries, then he might know what it was for.

  “And you thought it might be my missing cloak?”

  “No. I just didn’t know if that was what your missing robe looked like. I guess not. Have you ever seen one like that?” she pressed.

  “I have heard rumor of such a thing.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  You have?” Reg leaned closer to her phone, then picked it up and held it closer to her face. “What did you hear about it? Whose was it?”

  Maybe he could help her to find the attacker. Whoever was attacking people at the harbor had dropped the cat’s paw, and the cat’s paw was owned by someone who might have had something to do with a coven run by a man with red edging on his cloak. Okay, maybe it was a bit thin, when she tried to follow it through to its conclusion.

  “This is… not quite in the realm of history,” Corvin warned.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It is… myth as far as I know. I have no way of knowing how much is true and how much is simply rumor and speculation. People have been known to let their imaginations run wild.”

  “Like they did about dragons?” Reg teased.

  “I don’t think I ever told you that there was no proof dragons existed. I think we have enough stories about them across various cultures to adequately establish that there are, in fact, dragons in this world.”

  “Aside from the fact that you’ve seen one with your own eyes.”

  “The stories about the cloak you speak of… the cloak that you may be speaking of or that may exist in dragon memory… is far more esoteric than that.”

  “Esoteric?”

  “Rare… arcane…”

  “What is it, then? What do the stories say?”

  “You understand that these are not… verified as being historically true.”

  “You’ve told me about fairy tales or myths before,” Reg reminded him. “Why is this any different?”

  “Because those are at least widely known. Like dragon stories. If they exist across multiple cultures and time periods, then you at least have some indication of a real history behind them. That it isn’t something that… someone on Twitter just made up last week.”

  Reg could see the distinction. “But the story you’re going to tell me isn’t widely known like that.”

  “Exactly. It may be one person’s made-up story. Like Middle Earth or Narnia. It may just have come from someone’s imagination and been passed around to entertain people. A lot of people like to deliberately scare themselves. They read horror stories, watch scary movies, sit alone in the dark listening for ghosts. It’s thrilling.”

  “Sure,” Reg agreed. “I do run seances, you know. I’ve met plenty of people just looking for a thrill.”

  “I guess you have,” Corvin admitted. “The cloak is what the leader of The Cabal of the Withered Paw is described as wearing.”

  Reg’s mouth went dry. She looked around for something to drink, but hadn’t brought a glass or cup of tea to the couch. She swallowed, a lump in her throat. “Well, that’s dramatic. The Cabal of the…”

  “Withered Paw.”

  “And what is this cabal supposed to be involved in? Taxidermy?”

  Corvin chuckled. “I would not mock if I were you. As I say, there is no evidence to support their existence, but there is also nothing to prove that it does not exist. If it does, I would not want anyone to overhear me mocking them.”

  Reg’s stomach gurgled. Not like she was hungry. She put her hand over her cramping intestines and tried to keep her tone light, not buying into Corvin’s warnings and her association of the words “withered paw” with the relic that still lay in its plastic bag on the coffee table in front of her. She was glad it was enclosed but wasn’t sure how much the plastic would dampen the evil magic around the artifact.

  “Okay, then, what do you know about these guys? What is it they’re supposed to do that’s so awful? Why wouldn’t people want to be overheard talking about them?”

  “They were a secret society some centuries ago, who were said to prey on magical practitioners.”

  “For what? Do you mean like cannibals?”

  “No. Not cannibals. At least not in any of the versions that I heard. There was talk of torture, possibly through the use of poppets, of abductions and disappearances… generally, anything that would start a panic at the mention of their name.”

  “Puppets?”

  “Not quite. Poppets.”

  “What is a poppet?”

  “It is a doll or effigy used to represent the person you want to control or harm.”

  Reg processed this, frowning. “A voodoo doll?”

  “That would be one form of poppet, yes.”

  “This cult uses voodoo dolls to torture people and… what? Make them disappear?”

  “I don’t know if you can use a poppet to make people disappear. Maybe you can if you hide it or bury it, with the right spell.”

  “And what’s with the whole ‘withered paw’ thing?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose it sounded ominous. I don’t know the significance.”

  But Ember apparently had. He had immediately associated the sight of the cat’s paw with people in cloaks, the leader’s edged in red.

  “And you don’t think these guys really exist? You think it is just a story? To scare people?”

  “The best I can tell, yes. Just the kind of thing to repeat around a campfire and creep people out. And maybe you leave a crudely made poppet on the pillow in their tent if you really want to scare them.”

  “Corvin! You wouldn’t do that, would you?”

  “This doesn’t have anything to do with me. You’re just asking me what I know about it. And what I know is that it is similar to the stories about the man with the hook, Bloody Mary, or other tales people—especially kids—tell each other.”

  Of course Reg had heard such stories. She had lived in a lot of different households where she had been the new girl, and there were always tales to tell about strange happenings or tragic endings to previous family members.

  “And you don’t think this Cult of the Withered Paw exists in real life? Or ever did.”

 

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