Witchy Sour (The Magic & Mixology Mystery Series Book 2) (28 page)
Read Witchy Sour (The Magic & Mixology Mystery Series Book 2) Online
Authors: Gina LaManna
She trailed off, and then cleared her throat. “I’m sorry. Your mother is my daughter, and sometimes…” Hettie stopped to gather her breath. “She
was
my daughter, I should say. Almost a year after you were born, your mother slipped into the dark of night and brought you to the mainland. You see, The Faction realized you had been born. The next Mixologist had arrived, and for them, that was dangerous.”
I looked over at Gus, but he was too busy staring at his hands, listening, to look back.
“If your mother had stayed on The Isle with you, we would have trained you from birth. You would have worked hard, you would have been pushed to learn and understand and do great things, even as a child. And, most importantly, you would’ve had a target on your back.”
“Your mother came to me,” Gus interrupted. “The night she left for the mainland, she came to me with you as a babe, cradled in her arms. I’ll never forget it.” He shook his head. “Her eyes…they were on fire. I’ve never seen such a look before. She loved you, Lily, a lot.”
“Why did she take me away?” I asked. “I like it here. I would’ve liked it here, even if it was dangerous.”
“It was more than dangerous.” Gus folded his hands in his lap, continuing to stare at his fingernails. “You wouldn’t have survived. The Faction would’ve targeted you before you became an adult, before you realized your full powers, and they would have eliminated you. When your mother came to me asking for my opinion, I gave it to her. She asked if it would be selfish of her to steal you away, to curse you so that nobody could find you until you were old enough to understand the risks yourself, and I told her
no
. I didn’t think it was selfish then, and I don’t think so now.”
“My mother cursed me herself…” I still couldn’t
understand
it. Not completely.
“I advised her to do it,” Gus said. “And I stand by my words. I helped her escape that night, though we couldn’t tell anyone else. I’m still sorry that your mother couldn’t say goodbye, but it was just too risky. If someone suspected, if someone interfered with the curse, all would have been lost.”
“What happened to her?” I swallowed. “Is she…alive?”
Gus blinked, once and then twice, before continuing. “The Faction realized what was happening as soon as she reached the mainland. They got to her, but it was too late for them to find you—the curse had already been enabled. Your mother was not as fortunate.”
“And my dad?”
“Lily, the man you grew up with is not your father,” Hettie said. “He was a decoy.”
I shook my head. “Excuse me?”
“Ainsley.” Hettie stepped forward. “You know the name?”
“Are you talking about my assistant from Lions Marketing?”
Hettie laughed. An actual chuckle. “I suppose.”
“What about her?”
“She is so much more than a marketing assistant,” Hettie said. “She is a Guardian.”
“I don’t understand.”
“MAGIC, Inc. is the name of our central governing body on the mainland. It stands for Magic and Guardians Investigative Committee. Ainsley works as a Guardian, and that means it’s her job to watch high-risk targets.”
“That’s impossible,” I said. “She only worked with me for a short time.”
“She’s been around,” Hettie said. “We learned of her after your twenty-fifth birthday. The curse was also a protective charm, and it meant that Ainsley was bound to you for the length of the curse—twenty-five years—and it was her duty to protect you from any and all harm.”
“That’s impossible,” I said again. “She’s not old enough to have been around that long.”
“Aging as a witch is much slower than aging as a human.” Hettie’s face turned mildly amused. “In Ainsley’s world, she’s only been watching over you for two years. She got the job on her twenty-first birthday, a young little pipsqueak. She just turned twenty-three.”
I frowned. “But what about Poppy and Zin? Are they my age?”
Hettie nodded. “The slow aging only begins as an adult. Children grow at the same rate as human children. It’s only once witches hit adulthood and full power—sometime between the ages of twenty and thirty—that the aging process slows. You, Poppy, and Zin are all just beginning the process, but Ainsley started early. Probably on her twentieth birthday, if I had to guess.”
“Back to Ainsley…” I said. “So, she has been watching over me my entire life?”
Hettie nodded. “Did a good job of it, too.”
“She’s magic,” I said flatly. “She knew about magic this whole time.”
Hettie nodded again. “More than you, I’d say.”
I frowned, trying to process. “Does that mean I can see her again if she already knows about this world?”
My grandmother waved a hand. “Of course you can. But let’s focus for now. Time for parties later.”
“Let me get this straight. The man I always thought was my father was a decoy. Who was he?”
“A Companion.” Hettie winced. “A shifter from the mainland who was tasked to protect you.” She gave me an apologetic expression. “I hear he wasn’t the most friendly soul. Sorry about that. But he turns into a bear, and I hear he’s pretty ferocious. You couldn’t see that part, of course.”
At this point, my mouth just hung open, and I gave up trying to make sense of anything. “Then who is my real father?”
Hettie shook her head. “I can’t answer that for you. I don’t know. Your mother never told us.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“We don’t have time for that story today,” Hettie said. “I’m sorry, you can talk to your aunts about that some other time, though they don’t know anything either.”
I moved on, even though my head was spinning. “The curse broke when I turned twenty-five.”
“It broke just after your twenty-sixth birthday, and that’s when we came for you,” Hettie said. “Well, Mimsey and Trinket at least, since I was feeling lazy and didn’t want to make the trek to the mainland.”
“How thoughtful.”
Hettie ignored me. “In retrospect, the curse was the best gift your mother could have left you with, even if it was the most frustrating thing in the world for a quarter century. We looked for you, we searched and searched and searched but we couldn’t find you.”
“Neither could The Faction,” Gus said. “And now, we have you here. A powerful Mixologist. We need you now more than ever, and it’s thanks to your mother that we have you here today. The curse saved your life.”
Staring at the two of them through eyes as wide as dinner plates, I shook my head. “I thought I came here for answers. I have more questions than ever.”
“We need to talk about what happened with Thomas,” Gus said quietly. “I owe you some explanations.”
“You?” I turned to him. “What haven’t you told me?”
“I stole
The Magic of Mixology
,” Gus said, beginning with something I already knew. “I had to do it to prove my loyalty to The Core.”
“The Core,” I said quietly. “The group of five people formed to fight The Faction.”
Gus nodded. “The Core was made up of me, Harpin, Turin, Thomas…and the leader.”
“Do you know the leader?” I asked, looking between the two. “Do you?” I asked Hettie.
“Nobody does.” Gus shook his head. “I explained to Hettie about The Core only because she needed to know, and now you do, too. But it must be kept secret. Turin and Thomas are gone now, but The Core must remain.”
“Turin. I saw him,” I said quietly. “He came to me before Thomas…”
“I know,” Gus interrupted. “Turin could see what was happening. He suspected Thomas. When he sensed the end was near…”
The room fell silent.
“Turin took The Elixir to protect you,” Gus said. “Thomas was after him already. He may have already been poisoned by Thomas. Taking The Elixir gave him one last chance to help.”
“He was poisoned,” I whispered. “He saved my life.”
“It’s what he wanted, Lily.” Gus got to his feet and took a few steps over. He rested a hand on my shoulder. “All of us who joined The Core vowed to give our lives to serve.”
“Why is Harpin allowed into The Core?” I asked, pulling my head out of my hands. “He’s terrible.”
Gus’s breath caught. “I don’t disagree with you, but the leader chose Harpin.”
“The leader also chose Thomas.”
“No,” Gus said. “We thought the leader chose Thomas, but really, Thomas tricked his way into the group. We didn’t realize it until it was too late. By then, Thomas had already inflicted too much damage. He even took my cane, probably to frame me, and left it in The Forest.” Gus’s fists shook with rage. “If you hadn’t found him, he would’ve killed me and set me up to take the fall for the deadly potion. Thomas would’ve escaped.”
“And Zin, does she have a role in any of this?” I looked to my grandmother.
“Zin has her own path to follow,” she said. “And it is not the same as yours. In fact, it is of the utmost importance that you not tell her, nor Ranger X, about The Core.”
I frowned. “But you know about it, and I know too. Plus, there’s Gus, Harpin, and the leader. Don’t we want more people on our side?”
“Rangers are loyal first and foremost to other Rangers,” Hettie explained. “The Core is loyal to The Core. Do you see our issues? Should Zin become a Ranger, we may have our differences, however slight.”
“Aren’t we fighting for the same thing?”
Hettie conceded my point with a tilt of her head. “Still, there are instances where our tactics may differ. I need your word, Lily.”
I hesitated, and then blew out a breath of air. “Fine. I won’t say anything. Why are you allowed to know but not them?”
Hettie smiled, her eyes both sad and amused, all at once. “I am The Core.”
Gus’s mouth parted in surprise, but his eyes didn’t reflect the same emotion. His face had the content look of someone who’d known this ending was inevitable.
I didn’t feel the same way. “What are you talking about?”
“Your grandfather entrusted me with the care of you, with the care of The Isle, and with the care of our people,” she said. “It is from him—my husband—that you’ve inherited the genealogy that allows you to become the Mixologist.”
A thousand questions entered my mind, but I refrained from asking any of them.
“Before he died, he made me promise to carry on in his footsteps.” Hettie’s wild personality had softened into the frame of a tired, elderly woman. “I may appear old, I may look frail, and I may dress like a popstar because I’m glamorous. But glamorous old ladies can still be badass, Lily.”
“If this is all so secretive, then why are you telling me about it?” I wanted to hear more about my grandfather, but now was not the time. Those stories would have to come later.
“Because we need you to join The Core,” Hettie said. “Without you, we are nothing. Please consider it. The risks are high, and the cost severe. If I could give you a way out, I would. The truth is that we need you, and your grandfather would agree.”
I looked to Gus, but he raised his eyebrows in question, also waiting for my response.
“Whatever you need,” I said. “Of course.”
Hettie stood up, straightened the tiara that’d slipped off of her gray hair, and hiked up the rhinestone-studded sweater around her shoulders. “Good,” she said. “Then let’s get started. I have a target on my head, and I want it off.”
I blanched. “What sort of target?”
“A target to the tune of ten million coins,” Hettie said without flinching. “Someone from within The Faction is silencing the leading voices of the resistance one by one. Apparently, I’m up next on the black list. Let’s put an end to this, shall we?”
The End
Thank you, Islanders!
Dear Islanders,
Thank you for reading
Witchy Sour
! If you enjoyed it, please stay tuned for the story to continue in book three – title TBA.
In the meantime, if you have an extra second in your busy lives and enjoyed the book, please consider leaving a review on Amazon! They really do help us Indie authors gain visibility in the large retailers. In addition, they help other readers like yourself decide if they’d like to try the book!
Thank you again! Lily and Ranger X wouldn’t be here without you.
Sincerely,
Gina
Books By Gina LaManna
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