Reg sat watching him as he walked over to the barista and started to chat with her. She smiled and fluttered her eyelashes at him, completely ignoring the fact that he was there with someone. It took a few minutes for her to ring up his order and then put together all of the ingredients, shots, and added flavors required to create the special. Corvin waited patiently, then smiled and thanked her and returned to Reg.

  “That’s some drink. I hope you enjoy it.”

  “I will.” Reg inhaled the scent of caramel, chocolate, and coffee. It was heavenly. She took a quick sip, even though she knew it was probably too hot. But it wasn’t, maybe because it had taken so long for the barista to put everything together, performing for Corvin. Reg took a longer sip and closed her eyes. “That’s good stuff.”

  “So, how have you been lately?” Corvin asked, taking a sip of his own coffee.

  “It isn’t like I didn’t just see you. You already know how I am. From yesterday.”

  He looked bemused by this, as if she might be remembering the wrong day. He shrugged. “We didn’t really talk about anything personal, though, did we? I don’t remember you saying how you are. What’s going on in your life.”

  “Well… no. I’m trying to find my mentor and bring him home safely. How do you think I feel about that?”

  “Frustrated that you might have to get a new mentor?” Corvin suggested lightly.

  “No! Corvin, I can’t believe you would say something like that! I’m not worried about replacing Davyn! I’m worried about him being okay. And it isn’t like firecasters are a dime a dozen. I don’t know where I would find another one to help train me.”

  “So you have thought about it,” he pointed out.

  “No, I’m just saying that now. No one could replace Davyn. Not as my mentor and not as my friend. I want to make sure that he gets back safely.”

  “But first, you have to find him. Figure out what happened to him. Whether someone is responsible for his disappearance.”

  Reg looked at Corvin over the rim of her coffee cup. He was clearly fishing for what she knew so far. But she wasn’t ready to give away to anyone what she knew about Davyn and where he was. Especially not Corvin. He might have an alibi, but Reg still couldn’t trust him to be concerned about anyone else but himself. He didn’t care about where Davyn was or what had happened to him. He just wanted to make sure that he could get elected. If Reg were going to get Davyn back, he would probably appreciate a heads-up so that he could call for the vote before Davyn’s return. Reg didn’t know if he had to wait any particular amount of time before the vote, or if the date had already been set. Maybe Corvin could just do it whenever he wanted to and wanted to know how much time he had before Davyn’s return, if he were going to return.

  “You want him to come back, right?” Reg said. “Because he’s your friend.”

  “Of course I want him to come back.”

  But that certainly wasn’t the vibe she was getting from him.

  “This is why you wanted to get together for coffee? Just so you could find out whether I know anything or not?”

  “Yesterday, you came to me wanting to know what I thought and what you should do next. Today… I’d like to get your thoughts. Not because I want to harm Davyn, or whatever you have in your pretty little head. I’m concerned about him, just like anyone else. As every day passes, it’s hard to remain optimistic that he will ever come back. If you know anything, it would be very reassuring.”

  “You’re so full of hot air, it’s a wonder you don’t blow away. Do you think I can’t tell when you’re lying?”

  “Yesterday, you brought a diviner, so I have to think that you don’t trust your ability to read me as much as you would like.”

  “Damon was just there to keep me company… to ensure I wasn’t alone with you. I can read you just as well as ever.”

  He smiled, looking at her. It was a delicate dance. If Reg entered his mind, then she put herself at risk. He had access to her thoughts just as much as she did his. She could read his face, his body language, his aura, and any thoughts that he projected outward. But if she went too far, it was just as dangerous as being alone with him. There was no telling how much he would read from her or how much control he might be able to get over her.

  His whole aspect was different today. As if something that had been pressing down on him was gone. The darkness she had associated with him lately was gone.

  “What happened yesterday after I left?” Reg shook her head.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re so different than yesterday. Did they… already elect you or something?”

  “No, of course not. I need time to convince everyone that I am the better choice.”

  Using his charms and influence, paying bribes, offering favors, Reg could imagine all of the ways he had of changing their minds and persuading them to vote for him. Six members. He only had to convince six people that he was the best candidate.

  “Then what is different? You weren’t like this yesterday.”

  “Things change.”

  Was he bipolar? On a new medication? Had he heard some good news? Found out the results of a medical test? It was hard to believe he was the same person.

  “What changed?”

  Corvin smiled. “Let’s just say it’s a good day today.”

  Reg supposed she didn’t tell him her secrets either. In fact, she was holding things back from him, not telling him what she knew about Davyn and his abduction.

  Reg’s mind jumped tracks, and she was suddenly thinking about the first missing person case she had worked on with Jessup. Jessup had brought her the case of Calliopia, an adolescent fairy who had disappeared. Of course, the first thing everyone thought was that she had run away. Kids did that. They rebelled and went out looking for excitement or a different life, or to join a new boyfriend their parents didn’t approve of. That’s what kids did. But Calliopia had, in fact, been abducted and was being held by the pixies, mortal enemies to the fairies. Reg had been able to see Calliopia in a vision and, with Jessup’s help, had been able to figure out where Calliopia was being held.

  If only the same thing would work for Davyn.

  Reg had learned on that case how the pixies lived on two different planes. They lived in the world of humans, where they were visible, or they could disappear into the world of shades. Most people could not see them in the world of shades, but Reg was sometimes able to make out their shadowy figures. Just like when Davyn was cloaked with his power of invisibility, she could still see a dark, shadowy form where he was.

  “What do you know” —a dangerous question to ask Corvin, who loved to lecture— “about other worlds?”

  “What other worlds? I’m afraid I don’t know much about worlds other than our own. There is speculation but, considering I can’t see or touch them, I would have to get information from whoever lives in these other worlds. They would either have to come here or I would have to go there.”

  “Like… the pixies’ world of shades. What do you know about it?”

  “I know the pixies exist on two planes. They can disappear into the world of shades, and then we cannot see them. Not much else, I’m afraid.”

  “Is it just like our world? Does it look the same? Do they eat and drink and sleep there? Or is it… like a place where they are suspended, and nothing changes or progresses?”

  “These are very deep questions to be addressing in a coffee shop.”

  “Do you know?” Reg persisted.

  “No. I assume they can move around and do whatever they like. It seemed natural for them to move in and out between the worlds. Despite the name, I don’t think it is actually a different world. I think that all pixies simply exist on two planes.”

  “And what about… the underworld? Or the afterlife? Are they the same thing? Does everyone go there?” She remembered Ruan speculating there might be different worlds of shades for different species.

  “Again… nobody is reporting back from the afterlife. We can only speculate.”

  “But there are people who have come back and described it. Or myths like Persephone or the guy that played the lute.”

  “Yes. And they have been described very differently by different people. A shining city. A light. Darkness. Fire and brimstone. Are they all the same place? Do different believers go to different places? I don’t know. There is not enough evidence.”

  Reg pondered this. Davyn had seemed to be alone in the place where he was trapped, but was he? Or had she only been looking for him and there had been others that she hadn’t been aware of? What if it was the underworld? Would it be possible to get Davyn back like those myths, or was he gone forever? Her eyes prickled, and Reg turned away from Corvin, taking another drink of her coffee, trying to hide her emotion. The idea that Davyn might be dead and never return cut her to the quick.

  “Regina,” Corvin said softly. He put his hand over her arm, not touching her, just pushing waves of heat in her direction, healing and comforting warmth. She wanted to let go and let the tears flow, but she couldn’t do that in front of Corvin. “Reg, there is no reason to believe that Davyn is dead. I know he has been missing for what seems like a long time, but that doesn’t mean he is gone. There is still hope.”

  “Really? What do you think happened to him?”

  “I don’t know. But you must not give up hope.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  There wasn’t anything for Reg to do but go about her day and hope that she would be able to figure something out that would help Davyn.

  As much as she would have liked to confide in Corvin what she knew about Davyn being held prisoner in the void, she didn’t trust him. Even though he had not had anything to do with Davyn’s disappearance, she couldn’t rely on his help in getting Davyn back. It would be against Corvin’s interest in taking over leadership of the coven. He could make some feeble attempt and tell her that he had done everything he could, and happily go on to assume Davyn’s role. He didn’t have any reason to bring Davyn back. Even if they were friends, and Reg went back and forth on whether Corvin and Davyn actually were friends, she still couldn’t assume that Corvin would put Davyn’s interests before his own. She didn’t believe he would. She couldn’t tell him anything about what she knew, and even thinking about it around him was dangerous.

  Back in her car, Reg rested her forehead on the top of the steering wheel and closed her eyes, finally letting the tears of frustration and grief flow.

  Her phone rang.

  Unbelievable.

  Reg lifted her head and wiped tears from her face and eyes. She pulled out her phone and looked at the call display.

  Francesca.

  Francesca, a white Haitian, the charmer who had bound the pieces of the Witch Doctor’s soul to each of the nine kattakyns and then sent them around the world to live with new owners, as far away from each other as possible. The owner of Nicole (NEE-cole, in Francesca’s lilting accent), a kitty friend of Starlight’s, who they sometimes set up playdates with. Reg really wasn’t in the mood for a kitty playdate. Until she found a way to get Davyn out of the place where he was being held, she didn’t want to deal with such trivial things.

  She took a couple of deep breaths and then answered the phone. “Francesca—”

  “I need you to come here right away, Reg. Can you please come?”

  “I’m kind of busy.”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “So, talk.”

  “I need you to come here. There is… someone here you need to see.”

  “What?”

  “Just come, please.”

  Reg couldn’t find a reason not to. If Francesca needed her that badly, then she should go.

  She worried about who it was Francesca wanted her to see. Kareem, the warlock who had initially owned Horace, before taking the Witch Doctor’s spark from him? Someone who knew something about one of the other kattakyns? Maybe another of the owners had unbound their kattakyn. Reg needed to know what was going on with them. The one thousand years that Francesca’s binding spell was supposed to last for was shrinking far more rapidly than Reg was comfortable with. If more of the practitioners they had sent the kattakyns to interfered with Francesca’s spell, they would be in trouble.

  She drove over to Francesca’s house. There were no cars parked on the street in front of it. But that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Not everybody traveled by car.

  Francesca must have been watching for her because she opened the door when Reg was only partway up the sidewalk. She waited on the threshold impatiently.

  “Hi. What’s up?”

  “You need to come in here. Talk to him.”

  Reg shook her head and entered the house.

  She should have guessed. Harrison sat on the couch, his long legs looking even longer in vertically striped pants. He wore a puffy pink shirt and held a black cat in his arms, stroking it. Reg took a closer look to ensure that it was Nicole and not one of the kattakyns.

  “What’s going on? What are you doing here?”

  Harrison had been to Francesca’s house before, when they had discovered that Weston, Reg’s immortal father, was secreted in the basement under the stairs. When she had released him. Which had probably been a huge mistake. So far, Weston hadn’t caused a lot of trouble, as far as Reg knew, but he and Harrison were like a couple of little boys encouraging each other to get into mischief. It was only a matter of time.

  “Reg,” Harrison’s expression was serious. Usually, petting a cat and talking with Reg was when he was the happiest. But their relationship had experienced some strain since Kareem had unbound Horace.

  “Hi. What’s up?”

  His eyes lifted toward the ceiling, then he shook his head. “It is not what is up that is important.”

  “Well, no… I guess not.”

  Reg sighed and sat down on the couch, studying Harrison. Francesca stood with her arms folded across her chest, looking stubborn and angry.

  “Is he bothering you?” Reg asked. “You need to fill me in on what’s going on here.”

  “It did not start with him. He apparently just decided to join the party and make everything twice as interesting. It started with Marian.”

  Marian. A competitor to Reg’s psychic services business. But they had mostly put their differences aside and tolerated each other, helping each other from time to time or making referrals when a client needed something specific. They wouldn’t likely ever be fast friends, but they had come a long way from the animosity that had existed between them when they first met.

  “With Marian. What happened?”

  “She came here… looking for a cat.”

  “Oh. Yes, her cat recently died, so she is looking for a new one.”

  Reg had tried to rehome Horace with Marian, but that hadn’t worked. Horace just kept transporting himself back to Reg. Until she had found a better home with him in Egypt with Merneith. Marian still needed a replacement for the familiar she had recently lost.

  “Why would she come here?” Francesca asked pointedly.

  “I don’t know. I guess maybe she heard that you had kittens you were looking for homes for.”

  Francesca shook her head. “How would she know that?”

  “I guess someone talked to her.” Reg shrugged. “What’s wrong? I don’t understand what you’re upset about.”

  “You told her about the kattakyns?”

  Reg’s stomach knotted. “What? No!”

  “She knew about the kattakyns. There are only a few of us who know about them, and you are the only one who has anything to do with her.”

  “I didn’t tell her. Why would I? I tried to give Horace to her, but you know how that worked out.”

  “And you told her what he was.”

  “No. I didn’t. I never said he was anything other than just a regular cat. I couldn’t explain why he suddenly got so much bigger, but I can’t understand why that happened even with him being a kattakyn. Dwarf magic, maybe? Or just the draugrs being able to appear in different sizes?”

  “She knew, Reg.”

  Reg rubbed her forehead. “What did she say, exactly?”

  “She said that Horace hadn’t worked out, but she wanted to buy one of the other kattakyns. She was very insistent. She said she would pay any price. It did not matter who the cat had gone to; she wanted to get it back and adopt it herself.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “No. Where did she find out about the kattakyns? If not from you, then who? Out of the few of us who know, who would have told her?”

  It didn’t make any sense. They all knew that it had to stay a secret. To save the world from the Witch Doctor, they had to keep him bound. To keep him bound, they had to keep anyone who would wish to free him from finding out where each part of him was, keeping the circle of people who knew about it very small.

  Francesca was the only person who knew where each of the kattakyns had gone. Reg had been involved in the process, but had only looked at pictures and discussed the practitioners that the cats were going to. She hadn’t known their addresses. In some cases, she knew what country each kattakyn was going to. But a lot of that had become lost or scrambled in her memory, as she had dealt with certain challenges of her own. Corvin had tried to get that information from her, but she couldn’t give it to him, even if she had wanted to. He had gone to Francesca and she had refused him. Harrison, too, had tried to get information from Francesca. He said it was because he wanted to make sure that all of the other kattakyns were okay and had not been interfered with like Horace. But Reg couldn’t help but be suspicious that he wanted to free all of them so that the Witch Doctor could be re-formed once more. He objected to another immortal being bound.

  “Samyr Destine,” Harrison said abruptly.

  Reg and Francesca looked at him.

  “His name is Samyr Destine. Not the Witch Doctor.”

  “I know,” Reg agreed, shrugging. “But I knew him as the Witch Doctor first.”

  Harrison snorted. “Witch Doctor. A Witch Doctor is human. Destine is not.”

 

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