Witch Hunt

Prologue

Rosamunde

The day after I burned down Mom’s garden was complicated.

I had to go to school like nothing had happened. Everyone was groggy the morning after Halloween, but there were still tons of rumors floating around the tiny school. Was my mom using an illegal spell to control my family? Did I break it myself? Was the Faerie Court going to arrest my mom?

Some questions I could have answered easily—yes, I broke the spell—but I didn’t know what was going to happen next. I was trying to talk Dad into filing for divorce, and we’d have to find someplace new to live. I didn’t know how Mom would react. And I was still waiting to hear what Count Duncan would decide to do about Mom breaking the law.

So I ignored the gossip, and my friends helped to deflect questions away from me, too. I sat next to Kai all day long and he held my hand, letting everyone know that we were officially a couple now. I tried to concentrate on getting back into the swing of school and the new normal for my life.

When school ended, Ashleigh and Glen were waiting for me when Heather and I came out of the photography lab. Their faces told me right away that something was wrong.

I felt the little bubble of calm that had been around me all day disappear. What happened?

Glen cleared his throat. I just got a call from one of my grandfather’s assistants. The Count reached a decision about your mother.

I didn’t think things would happen so fast. I took a deep breath to steady myself. He already reached a verdict?

Glen shook his head. Nothing that final. A task force was assigned to investigate the allegations against her and find out the truth before they take any permanent action. But right now, it looks serious enough that they decided to put a temporary restriction on her powers. There’s a ward over the house and her store so that she can’t perform any magic.

That’s good, though, I said, but their expressions were still too unhappy. That means that she can’t try to do something to me for breaking her spell. I’m safe.

Ashleigh put her hand on my shoulder. When your mom found out what the Count did, she took off. We don’t know where she is anymore.

I looked up at the sky. I couldn’t absorb this information right now. I always thought that I would have one more chance to talk to her, at least to find out why she’d done this. To tell her how I felt.

Next to me, Heather gasped. No! You mean that she’s running rogue out there somewhere?

Glen nodded. Our best hunters are already working on it—

Rosa!

We all turned to look and saw Kai running toward us from the main school building.

He raced up and threw his arms around me so tightly that I could barely breathe. Rosa, I had to make sure that you were still here. Your mom came before class was over—

My mom is here? I spun around and looked at the parking lot, at the road in front of the school, up at the sky—nothing. There was no sign of her car or her broom.

Kai shook his head. I’m sorry, but I don’t know which way she went. But she took your sister with her. I was afraid that she came to take you, too.

Glen had already taken out his phone and started dialing. I’ll tell the hunters that she was seen here. Maybe there’s still time and they can catch her.

Akasha wanted to get the rest of her books. She could have gone home. I turned to Glen. Can you give me a ride to my house?

Of course. He looked at the others. We’ll all go.

There was no sign of Mom’s car in the front driveway. I unlocked the front door and ran inside. Downstairs, everything looked the same as when I’d left it the day before. I ran upstairs to check the bedrooms.

Akasha’s room didn’t look like it had been touched since she packed yesterday morning. The boxes of books were still on the floor, and her closet was full of all the toys and other things that she didn’t take to the castle.

I ran across the hallway to my parents’ room. A few drawers in the dresser were sitting open and half-empty. Some of Mom’s clothes were lying in piles on the floor, as if she had packed in a hurry. The closet door stood open and I could see that her organized system had gotten messed up in there, too.

I had one place left to check. I went up the second flight of stairs into the attic.

The room had been stripped bare. All of Mom’s magical tools, all of her herbs and other ingredients that she stored up there, were totally gone. The furniture was pushed all over the room. Boards were missing from the walls and floor, leaving behind little dark holes, all empty now. I would never know what she had been hiding.

Then I saw something on the wall across from me. One of the shelves had been pushed away from it, and behind that I could see part of a drawing—something scratched into the wood.

I stepped over a fallen chair to get closer and pushed the shelf the rest of the way aside. What I saw made me stop short.

It was the image of a thorny vine curled into a counter-clockwise spiral, and above that was a rose. The symbol of the Unseelie Court.

1

Cave City

Rosamunde

Two months later, I stood shivering in the snow waiting for Sir Allen. It was New Year’s Day, and I was tired from staying up the night before, celebrating the holiday with my friends well past midnight. Tomorrow we’d all have to wake up early and go back to school. I should have been curled up in front of a roaring fireplace, sipping hot tea and cuddling with my amazing kitsune boyfriend, Kai.

But there I was standing on top of a frozen snowdrift, staring at the dark windows as if they could give me some answers. I’d lived my entire life in that house, until that fateful Halloween when Dad, my little sister Akasha, and I had packed up our things so we could escape before Mom came home from work. At the time, we hadn’t had a plan or another place to live—although the faeriekin had promised to let us stay at the castle until we got back on our feet. All we knew was that we were afraid and we had to get out.

Now I wanted nothing more than to find Mom again, and get my sister back. Sir Allen, one of the hunters who were investigating her disappearance, had agreed to meet me and give me an update on their progress.

A generic black sedan rolled up on the street, snow crunching under the tires. Sir Allen climbed out of the car alone. The faeriekin wore a black business suit instead of armor, but he still looked like a knight, with defined muscles and stiff posture. He tipped his head to me out of respect, but he didn’t smile.

Good morning, Miss Rosamunde. His eyes flicked past me to the empty house. Was there some reason why you wanted to meet here?

I shook my head. No, just here for the memories.

I’d spent weeks chasing down the source of Mom’s spell and traced it, finally, to the garden that surrounded this very house. I couldn’t see most of the signs of the fire I used to destroy it; snow covered the scorched earth, and the blackened plum trees in the front yard were starting to fall down under the weight of the winter storms. Yet when I stood there, I could smell the smoke and feel the heat of the flames on Halloween night, crackling as they consumed the source of my mother’s most powerful magic.

There were no clues left for me here anymore, no comfort in remembering a childhood built on lies. I looked up at the house one final time, first up at my old bedroom window on the second floor, then up to the attic, where Mom had kept her witchcraft tools and supplies. I still had a key for the door, and I could go inside if I wanted, but I knew what I would find. Dad and I didn’t feel comfortable living there, in case any magic remained.

I looked back at Sir Allen. How is your search going?

His face clouded. There are no new developments.

Really? I stared at him, but his face gave away nothing. I folded my arms. "You’ve been saying that for months. You’re telling me that with all of your magic powers and resources, you can’t find anything about Mom or Akasha?"

He tipped his head to me again. The Count apologizes for the lack of progress, and he understands your frustration—

I’m not looking for apologies, I snapped. What about the Unseelie? Did you track any of them down?

He blanched at my mention of the forbidden group. Centuries ago, Unseelie had fought Seelie, the two rival factions among the Fae and magikin: the Seelie wanted to live as equals to humans, but the Unseelie saw us as inferior creatures who could be used as disposable tools to further their plans. Locally, Count Duncan had driven the Unseelie away over a hundred and fifty years ago, and they were supposed to be totally gone. But I’d found evidence that Mom was working with them, and I would bet they were helping to hide her now. I didn’t know what her connection to the dangerous group was, but it suggested far more scary things than just one illegal spell on my family.

Sir Allen drew himself upright. We have not been able to corroborate your story of alleged insurgent activity.

I stared at him in disbelief. Their symbol was on her wall! I pointed to the attic.

He shook his head. When we looked, there were no symbols in your house or Rose’s Garden, he said, naming Mom’s magic store in town. Nor were there any traces of black market spell components in either location. A secret organization right under the Count’s nose—that could never happen. I assure you that so far as we can tell, Rosmerta was working alone.

I clenched my hands into fists. I know what I saw. They must have removed the symbols somehow. Don’t you have a test for that? Signs of magical tampering?

But the knight just shook his head and looked at me with pity. He must have thought I was crazy, paranoid, or both. We will continue to search. We sent descriptions of both your mother and sister to all other Courts and human authorities. My guess is that she has fled the state, if not the country. She’ll turn up sooner or later, though. No one can run forever.

I wouldn’t accept that. I had to find Mom before she could ruin Akasha’s life any more than she already had. I don’t think she would go far, I said with a shake of my head. Someone here is helping her. If you can’t find her, I’ll find them. I know better than anyone how Mom thinks.

I turned my back on the house and hopped back on my broom. Soon I was soaring up into the sky above the tops of the giant sequoias. I hadn’t learned anything new from my visit, but my resolve was strengthened. Things could never go back to the way they were before I knew the truth, but I would get my family back, and we would make a new life together. If I was the only one who could find my mom’s spell and break it the first time, then I had to be the one to beat her now.

All I needed was a clue to get me started.

I squinted at the drying photograph in the red light of the darkroom, searching desperately to pick out some detail that I had missed before. I breathed shallowly through my mouth to avoid smelling the harsh chemical developer. These rolls of film had sat in the bottom of my camera bag for months. Now I looked at pictures of Mom’s store, Rose’s Garden, taken during the late October night that I broke in with my friends.

Back then, I had been looking for the spell that Mom used to enchant our whole family, and I took pictures in case I missed something. When I found the spell at home the next day, I’d forgotten about the undeveloped rolls of film. But since Mom had covered all of her tracks since her disappearance—clearing out her witchcraft tools in both the attic at home and all of her supplies in the magic shop, these were the only record that I had of her things in the last days before I broke her spell and drove her away.

Before September, losing Mom would have felt like the end of the world; by October, when I knew the truth, I wanted nothing more than for her to just disappear and leave me to live my own life. I still couldn’t understand why she decided to control even my thoughts and memories. That kind of magic was illegal because it was the ultimate invasion. I wanted to see her one more time, just so I could tell her how angry I was and demand an explanation.

I was free, but I had to rescue Akasha. My twelve-year-old sister hadn’t believed me when I told her about the spell, so she might have gone with Mom willingly back then, but I doubted that she was happy now, unless Mom was using more spells to keep her under control. Either way, she didn’t belong on the run with Mom.

The pictures showed mainly the back room of the store, because I’d let my friends search the front for me. A dusty cabinet full of sales records, dark glass jars full of dried herbs, and the soot-smudged dish where I’d burned the poppet spell she’d used to bind my own powers after I triggered an alarm while searching at home. The flash from my camera had outlined everything in stark contrast. But the pictures told me nothing that I didn’t already know: Mom had crafted spells for her clients in the store, but she never wrote down the details of her magic, let alone her connections to anyone else who she knew. Even the clients were identified only by their initials. The writing in the books was blurry and hard to read.

At last I found the photograph of her suppliers list. Ashleigh said some of the ingredients in the store were illegal, and there was a chance she had written the sources down, but the photograph only showed part of the list. I reached into my pocket and touched the memory charm—a bundle of dried herbs tied together with a ribbon—that Ashleigh had helped me make. Using the picture as a focus, I cast my mind back to that night.

New images rose before me: Heather picking the lock on the door, Kai sitting next to me in the car, the poppet made with my own hair bound in a chain. I pushed these aside and focused again on the filing cabinet and the records I’d found. I saw the notebook full of sketches of her garden, with all of the herbs laid out in particular places—a secret pattern that turned out to be the spell itself. I saw the binders full of purchase orders and heard myself say again, You’d think it would be easier to keep all of this information on the computer or something.

And then, in Mom’s ornate handwriting, I saw a recent purchase order jump out at me. Fly Amanita Mushrooms from Angelica.

Ashleigh and Heather had found a strange kind of mushroom hidden in the safe under the front counter of the store. I dug through my memories again, found the list of suppliers, and saw that Angelica had a store: Black Forrest Dreams in Cave City.

Before I could forget, I pulled out a little notebook from my pocket and scribbled down the address. It wasn’t much to go on. I crossed my fingers and hoped that it could lead to more.

When I left the photography classroom, I found Kai leaning against the wall outside. He wrapped both arms around me and for a long moment my whole world shrank down to the feel of his warm, soft lips on mine.

The creak of the door jolted me back to the present. I pulled back and glanced around to see if anyone was staring at us. We’d gone public with our relationship, but I still wasn’t comfortable putting it so much on display.

Kai frowned and put one arm around my waist. What’s wrong? I missed you, Rosa.

It’s been less than two hours, I snapped, harsher than I meant to. In our small junior class of only thirteen students, we had only one class apart, our electives on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Heather and I shared photography, while Kai worked on the school paper.

He backed off and I saw the hurt in his eyes. Sorry that I like spending time with my girlfriend. Were you not able to find what you wanted?

I smiled apologetically and held out my hand for his. I’m sorry that I snapped. Yes, I found something, but let’s go somewhere else before I tell you, okay?

Kai looked past me to Heather, who was just coming out of the classroom. Hey, you going too?

I gave him a warning look and shook my head slightly, but it was too late.

Heather smiled. Going where?

Uh, no. I want some time with you alone, I said quickly, batting my eyelashes at Kai.

At least Heather could take a hint. Okay. I’ll go see if I can get a ride from Glen. See you later. She walked away.

When she was out of earshot, I elbowed Kai in the ribs. I want to keep this private for now. Hurry up and let’s go before the others start asking questions, too.

He frowned. Why not? They could help.

I shook my head. I haven’t told them yet that I’m taking over the search. Glen still wants me to let the hunters do their thing, but they aren’t getting anywhere. They think I made up stuff like the Unseelie symbol and the illegal spell ingredients, even though you guys all saw it, too.

Yeah, but going after the Unseelie on your own is dangerous. Kai wrapped his arm around my shoulders. This isn’t something you can do on your own.

I nestled closer. I’m the only one who’s gotten results so far. What if I can go places and get info that the official investigators can’t? I could see his face starting to soften, so I leaned closer and flashed my sweetest smile. Besides, I’ll have you there to watch out for me.

Hm. He kissed me on the tip of my nose. I still don’t like the idea of not telling our friends. If we run into a problem, we have to call them.

I nodded. Deal.

We headed for the parking lot. I unlocked my broom from the bike rack and Kai put it into the back of his pick-up truck. He opened the passenger door for me and we both got in.

According to Crowther Private Academy’s rules, as a shape-shifting kitsune Kai had to stay in human form, but he often changed the moment he got the chance. Although we weren’t off school property yet, Kai shifted his form in the truck. He stayed the same height and build as a human, but he added fox features to create a hybrid form: his ears grew red and pointed, his whole body was covered in a pale white fur, and his face elongated into a fox’s snout. His long, bushy white tail stretched across the bench and tickled my leg with its red tip.

Was the rule fair? I didn’t really know why it was even an issue. Our small town, Madrone, was known for having more than its usual share of magikin—the blanket term for non-human people, like kitsune, dwarves, faeriekin and pookhas. And while most local teens drove half an hour to the public high school in San Andreas, the little Crowther was an alternative school for magikin and humans with an interest in magic from grades seven to twelve, so most of the seventy-plus students and teachers weren’t human. I was the only witch, but some of the humans were in the sorcery class and others took magitek shop. Of the magikin, most of them had no shape-shifting abilities, so the pookhas had their horse ears all of the time, the nagas always had snake tails, and the dwarves were shorter than everyone else. Yet Kai had to look human—although I had to admit, I liked him better that way. It was just too awkward to kiss a fox mouth.

When we finally made it out of the crowded parking lot, I pulled out my notebook with the address I’d written down. This place sounds kind of shady.

Kai glanced away from the road with a frown. What do you mean?

Well, Heather and Ashleigh found these mushrooms in my mom’s store that they thought might have been illegal. I held up the address. I think I found the place that sold them to my mom. But since Ashleigh and Glen feel like they have to report everything so they don’t get in trouble— I trailed off, looking out the window.

Kai grunted. You’re afraid that if we do find an illegal mushroom trade, those goody two shoes will get them arrested, and then you won’t have a chance to get any information out of them. He took one hand off of the wheel and patted my knee. So we’ll go check it out on our own.

I smiled. Thanks for understanding.

Of course. Anything to help you track down your mom.

I read him the address.

Cave City, huh? I guess it figures that you’d buy mushrooms from a dwarf.

Kai reached for the radio dial. It’s going to be a bit of a drive, so how about some music?

I said nothing as he put his favorite station on. Electronic pop music came out of the speakers, a repetitive song I’d already heard over a dozen times that week. I tried to ignore it.

Kai tapped the beat on the steering wheel. So do you have any plans for this weekend?

Huh? I glanced up from the notebook and took a moment to register what he’d said. Oh, not really. I haven’t hung out with Heather for a while. Maybe I’ll see what she’s doing.

Oh, okay. Kai sighed.

I put away my notes and looked at him. Did you have something else in mind?

His ears perked up. Since you mentioned it, my moms haven’t met you yet. They asked me to invite you over for dinner this Saturday. You can invite your dad, too, if you want.

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. Since his split with Mom, Dad had put a lot of emphasis on giving me my freedom. He knew that I had a boyfriend, and he always said hello to Kai when he came to pick me up for dates, but otherwise the two of them had never had a real conversation. Getting over that hurdle while meeting Kai’s moms at the same time sounded like a long, awkward evening.

Um, I guess I could see if he’s available, I said noncommittally.

Great! We’d love to treat you guys to a home-cooked meal.

I looked out the window at the passing trees to hide my sadness. Back before the split, Mom cooked family dinners every night. But now that Dad and I were on our own, he worked later hours at the hospital, and we often ended up having take-out or frozen dinners without the time to cook. Even when we tried to make food ourselves, neither one of us was the experienced culinary genius that Mom had been. I guess I took for granted before just how much she did for the family.

As if he could sense how upset I was at the memory, Kai took his right hand off the wheel for a moment and reached over to squeeze my hand. I glanced at him and smiled back. I was lucky to have him and my friends supporting me through everything that I was going through because of Mom.

I didn’t want her back, not after what she’d done to us. But it was hard not to miss the way things had been before. I was a lot happier before I knew the truth about my family. Now