Boundary Born (Boundary Magic Book 3) - Melissa F. Olson Page 0,40

point is that we can’t trust Ardie. From the way Simon and Lily tell it, she’s a sociopath who uses Lily.”

“You’re so protective of her.” He smiled, then glanced over at me. “It could also be that Ardie’s lonely, that she’s not happy with the deal she made, that she can’t stay away from Lily any more than Lily can say no.”

I thought it over for a few minutes before I grumbled, “Touché, I guess. But what do we do now?”

His eyes flicked down to the clock on the dash. It was almost two. “Would you recognize the belladonna if you saw it?”

“Not yet, but I could study.”

“Let’s take a drive up to the Atwood farm and take a look around.”

I was happy to have an excuse not to look at the road. While I scanned through images of belladonna on my phone, Quinn spent most of the ride on the phone with the human crew at Magic Beans, explaining that Maven had a family emergency and would be gone for a couple of days. He gave them an elaborate story about a sibling in a hospital with no cell service, and was so convincing that I almost bought it.

I told him that after he hung up the phone, but Quinn just gave me a wan smile in return. “The humans are easy,” he said. “Maven is a good manager, but she still looks nineteen, and at that age people expect you to disappear every now and then. The problem is going to be if anyone in the Old World comes looking for her.”

“Is that likely?” I was only called in for daytime errands or Old World emergencies; I had no idea what Maven’s day-to-day—well, make that night-to-night—schedule looked like. It was starting to hit me how much work she probably had to do to keep the trains running on time.

Quinn glanced over, looking troubled. “There’s really no way of knowing when she’ll get a call about Old World business. Most cities have their own leadership that’s fairly self-sufficient, but there’s squabbling. She might go a week without any disputes, or there might be three in one night. But this will help.” He reached into his pocket and held up a cell phone.

“Maven’s?”

“Yeah, this is the Batphone. If someone calls with a minor problem, I can text back as Maven. Hopefully it’ll buy us at least a couple of days.”

“Smart.”

He shrugged. “All it would take is one phone call from someone with a huge problem.”

“No pressure or anything.”

Chapter 16

The Atwood place was on the outskirts of Gainesville, a tiny town that existed mostly as a gas stop on the way to better things. At one time the Atwoods ran a working farm, but the land had been sold off in patches for decades now. The last time we’d been there, to save Charlie, all that had remained was a shitty house and an old barn. When we arrived, I saw that both structures had been razed to the ground. The rest of the property still looked neglected, so it all resembled the “before” photo in some HGTV show. My heart sank. What were the odds we would find anything useful here?

But we tried. Armed with my cell phone and a flashlight, Quinn and I spent the next hour tramping around the property, looking for anything resembling belladonna. I had to go slow, and a lot of my energy was devoted to hiding how weak I felt.

It was, unfortunately, a complete waste of time.

“It’s too overgrown here,” I said finally, panting a little. “There could be belladonna under or between any of these plants and we’d never know, especially in the dark.”

“You’re right.” He checked his watch, looking defeated. “It’s almost four. We might as well go back to your place. You look like you’re about to fall over.”

“I’ll have you know,” I said severely, “I’ve got another six or seven minutes of standing before I fall over.”

“Color me chastised, then.” He offered his arm so gallantly that I had to accept.

We called the Pellars on the Jeep’s bluetooth, but Simon was a little snappish at the request for an update. He suggested that I get some sleep and try him in the late morning. Well, he didn’t so much suggest it as bark it and hang up. We headed back to the cabin.

Walking through the front door felt wonderful. I’d locked the dogs in the back bedroom when we stopped to change clothes—animals don’t much care for vampires—so my bedroom