MAKING MAGICKAL ALLIANCES: A Paranormal Women’s Fiction Novel by Leigh Raventhorne (best color ereader .txt) 📗

on the table, I thought about what she’d said. Then something occurred to me. “Are there any humans working at the firm? Humans that have a little working knowledge of all of this,” I made a circling motion around us, “but are smart enough not to talk about it?”

Her brow furrowed. “A few. Plus a couple of contract employees. They aren’t so much human, as they are paras so low on the magick scale that they don’t really register as anything else. They know they can’t talk about this world. Why?”

I smiled. “Are any of them PIs?”

Understanding dawned on her face. She shook her head, and looked up at the sky. “And here I thought I was the brains of this operation.”

Smiling at her, I conceded, “Usually you are, and you know it. But you have to admit that we’ve all been running on adrenaline for long enough now, it’s got to be affecting brain cells. Plus, you’re way older than me, so it could be Alzheimers or dementia setting in.”

She threw her napkin at me. “I’m only a year older than you, thank you very much.” She pushed her chair back and started to stand.

“Hey, where are you going? I thought you said there were two things. Was the thing with Leo the second?”

“No, it wasn’t. Have you noticed anything odd going on with Tess?”

She’d looked a little tired lately, but that was probably to be expected after what had happened only a few weeks ago. “Do you think she’s still shaken from the attack?”

Sam shook her head slowly. “I don’t know. She's mentioned several times that she keeps hearing things bumping around above her room at night, but I’ve stayed up and listened. I haven’t heard anything. She’s also fallen asleep in the media room and ended up sleeping there all night more than once.”

I remembered her mentioning the noises. We’d checked out the attic and hadn’t found anything but dust and a lot of old drop cloth protected furniture and other random stuff stored away. Gloria and Zara both assured us it wasn’t mice, but Zara had acted a bit terse about it. I’d chalked it up to her wanting to get back to the kits. “Maybe we should talk to Danai. She might be able to give Tess something to help her sleep.”

Sam snorted. “You know how she is about taking anything.” I did. The woman wouldn’t even take so much as an Advil for a hangover.

“Well, I’ll still mention it to her.”

She leaned over and gave me a quick, one-armed hug. “Okay. I’ve got to go make travel arrangements for a couple of the firm’s finest.” She turned to walk away, then stopped and looked back over her shoulder at me. “Thanks, Rox.”

I waved her away. “My door’s always open.” As she walked through the doors leading to the dining room, my sleeve rode up to expose the sapphire bracelet. It winked at me in the sun. “I don’t suppose you can bring someone good luck, can you?” It seemed to glow a little brighter, but that might have been a trick of the light or simply my imagination. I felt silly, talking to a piece of jewelry, but thinking back to what had been said down by the river, I continued anyway. “If you can, Sam could really use some magickal help right now.” It warmed against my wrist and then went back to normal. I would take that as a good sign.

After checking in on Zara and cuddling the kits for a bit while I updated her on the meeting with Olen—most of which she’d caught through Sebastian anyway—I went to the library to talk to Tess and Danai. They were animatedly debating points about something in one of the several books opened in front of them when I walked in. Sebastian lay in a patch of sunlight streaming through one of the windows, his eyes closed. They didn’t notice me right away, so I rested against the door frame, just watching for a moment. Tess sounded fine, even if she did still look a little tired. Maybe Sam and I were overreacting. Finally, I rapped lightly on the door frame, not wanting to startle them.

I heard you approaching, Witch. Sebastian’s eyes were still closed. His whiskers twitched and he yawned, showing off wickedly large canines for a housecat.

Tess and Danai both looked up and I realized there was something on their hands. I moved closer, not quite sure what I was seeing. “What are those?”

Danai held her hand up and I realized what it was. There was a snail the size of a kumquat sliding across the back of her hand, leaving a slime trail the width of its body. My stomach flipped, threatening to give up the soup and sandwich I’d just had for lunch. My hand went to my mouth, and I swallowed hard.

Tess must have seen me turn a little green. She grinned, her eyes mischievous, and raised her hand, showing off another huge snail leisurely making its way up her wrist. Sebastian finally opened one eye to watch—and probably shared the scene with Zara.

Not sure if I actually wanted to know the answer, I asked, “Why do you have those things on your hands?”

Danai, taking pity on me, lifted a small acrylic container from the floor and gently coaxed her snail into it. She motioned for Tess to do the same. When the snails were safely put away, Danai set the container out of sight.

“We often use snails for healing. Their mucin has regenerative properties and is very useful in potions. I brought this pair from my home for Tess. She doesn’t need two for breeding purposes, as they can reproduce by themselves, but they do like the company of another snail, I believe.”

“Oh. They’re . . . staying?” I asked weakly.

Tess smirked. “You’ve