went to see Queen Jewelia.”
Not the answer he’d expected. He glanced at Lally. “Is that a joke or did you really?”
Lally nodded. “We did.”
He leaned back in his chair, trying to get a handle on what had happened. “So you drugged me, went to see the only voodoo practitioner who can rival Father Ogun and Harlow came back with a new attitude?”
Harlow wiped her finger through the condensation on the bottle. “I got the new attitude after I survived being possessed by my sister, but otherwise, that about sums it up.”
He stared at her. “Queen Jewelia perform some sort of sass spell on you, too?”
She looked at Lally. “Can I tell him or will that make it not work?”
“You can tell him. It’s the witches you need to hide it from.”
Harlow grinned at him. “Jewelia made me a gris gris. For added protection against the witches.”
He wasn’t quite sure what to do with that, but since Harlow seemed happy about it, he took that direction. “That’s great. Do anything else while you were there?”
Harlow nodded. “We had coffee cake. And talked to Jewelia about what the witches might be doing. She’s pretty sure it’s some kind of big spell that could potentially wipe out all magic from the city, except the witches, of course. She called it chaos magic.”
Fenton’s mouth fell open.
Augustine’s gaze narrowed. “Sturka. Are you sure?”
Lally joined them at the table. “Yes. You know what that means.”
“I’m not sure I do entirely.” He looked at Fenton. “You’re the historian.”
“Yeah,” Harlow said. “Queen Jewelia answered my questions as best she could, but even she wasn’t entirely sure that’s what the witches were up to. Do you know anything more, Fenton?”
“I do. At least, I can tell you what I know and what I think.” With a soft exhale, Fenton began. “According to myth, legend and rumor, none of which can be proved, Giselle and Zara’s mother died trying to cast a chaos spell. There were no witnesses and the ruling fae never did anything about it, because her husband, Giselle and Zara’s father, Evander, refused to say it was anything other than a suicide. He and Vivianna had been divorced for some time, but it was clear he had never fallen out of love with her. Her death nearly killed him.”
“What about the chaos spell?” Augustine needed to know what they were up against.
“It’s not really one spell, it’s a type of magic like white magic or green magic or whatever kind a witch might do, although it’s clearly on the dark side of the spectrum. Chaos magic is the most unpredictable by its very nature. Something obviously went wrong with the spell Vivianna was trying to cast, and it killed her.”
Augustine tried not to get frustrated with Fenton but the man kept skirting around what Augustine really wanted to know. “That’s not really what I’m asking. Can this magic really destroy other magic? Is that what Vivianna was trying to accomplish by casting the spell in the first place?”
Fenton shook his head. “We don’t know. Not exactly. After it happened, the Elektos ruled that any witch caught performing chaos magic would be banished from the city. Chaos magic was already forbidden. There wasn’t much more that could be done without proof. We consulted with some weaver fae and the best we could determine is that Vivianna was trying to alter the power system in the city. Possibly to make the witches invincible.”
“Or the fae vulnerable.” Augustine glanced at Lally. “If Branzino was working with Giselle, it’s possible she knew what he was after and is now after the same thing. With Zara’s help. Which would make sense considering Zara’s a green witch and the… thing they’re after used to be green.” He didn’t want to mention the lightning tree in front of Fenton, but he figured Lally and Harlow would know what he was referring to.
Lally jerked back like she’d been struck. “That can’t be…”
Fenton raised a hand. “Before you carry on with this vague, roundabout sort of conversation again, let me just say that I did some research and I’m pretty sure I know what you’re talking about. The same thing that caused all the trouble with Ava Mae.”
They all turned to look at him.
He stared right back. “I have access to every fae record ever written down. All the histories. All the transactions.” His expression turned smug. “You should be more astonished you kept the tree from me this long.”
Lally stood to take the whistling kettle