but maybe he had pushed Lily to do it. I decided to just take it as a good sign that she wanted to talk to me at all. I took a seat on a nearby bench and told her about my conversation with Tallulah Finch.
“She sounds like a fraud,” Lily said when I was finished. My friend sounded almost dismissive now, and a little distracted. “Did she have spell stuff at the house?”
“I didn’t exactly get a tour,” I replied. “But what I did see was immaculate, like they moved in yesterday and the cleaners came this morning.”
“So pretty much the opposite of every witch’s house we’ve ever seen,” Lily said, amused.
My friend Sashi’s house was always neat, but I decided not to mention that. “Pretty much, yeah. Oh, there was one weird thing. She was wearing a paracord bracelet.”
Lily, who would probably figure out how to make an ordinary broomstick fly before she went camping or rock climbing, said, “A what now?”
I described the bracelet, made up of yards and yards of braided cord. “Rock climbers and campers have them in case they need a lot of rope quickly, but if Tallulah Finch is a rock climber, I’m a debutante.”
Lily let out a laugh. “Did you shake her hand? Did she have calluses?” Her voice was clear, and for the first time I thought I had her full attention.
“Well, yeah,” I said, surprised. “How did you know?”
“I could be wrong, but it sounds like she’s a cord witch. I’ve heard of it being used for healing or affecting the weather, but never for wards. Kind of a cool idea, really.” Her voice had the same dreamy, pensive quality that I was used to hearing from Simon when he talked about his experiments.
“Back up. What’s a cord witch?”
Lily sighed. “Sorry. I always forget you didn’t grow up with this stuff. Cord magic, or knot magic, is pretty much what it sounds like. The witch’s intention is sort of woven—no pun intended—into the rope, which is then knotted to seal the spell. To undo the spell, she has to undo the knot.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah. The more powerful cord witches tend to build up calluses from so much practice with various kinds of rope. It’s like a badge of honor for them.”
I thought about the paracord bracelet. It hadn’t looked like a bunch of homemade knots. It had looked like the kind of thing that was mass-manufactured. “So the bracelet is her actual spells?” I said dubiously.
“It could be, but I’ve never heard of a witch keeping them so public and obvious. My guess is that the bracelet is a sort of . . . mmm . . .” She trailed off for a moment, searching for the words. “Like an emergency backup supply. It’s like you carrying a gun when there’s nothing dangerous going on. Better to have it and not need it . . .”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. Should I be worried about Tallulah?”
Lily hesitated for a second, then said, “I’d just, you know, forget what I said before and take her seriously. Cord magic is fussy and delicate—kind of like really good wards, actually. I’m impressed that she came up with the combination.”
Another group was approaching to look at the lion statue. “Thanks, Lily. I should get going.”
“Yeah.” Lily sounded distracted again, but I had the feeling she was still thinking about Tallulah Finch. “Be careful, Lex, okay?”
“Always,” I said, and hung up the phone.
I did a quick walkthrough of the cemetery’s other major areas—Bell Tower Ridge, Potter’s Field, the African American Grounds, and two Jewish sections—and by the time I was finished, I’d begun to sweat through my clothes. It was only seventy degrees, but trekking through the cemetery in the humidity was tiring, especially since I’d already run on the treadmill that morning. I needed to get back to the hotel to shower and change before Beau’s driver picked me up.
As I walked back to my rental car, I was a little disappointed that I hadn’t found any signs of boundary magic—the remnants of a chalk line, maybe, or a plastic bag of herbs. Hell, I would have been happy with loose chicken feathers, which might have indicated a sacrifice. It would have been nice to have some sort of progress to show Beau.
As I passed the tiny guard shack, I waved at the elderly man inside and passed through the arch. Then I paused and turned around.