“She wanted to apologise to Ira. When I used my magic to block her from entering the house, she recognised my sparks as a skill that only the women in her family possess. She called it electrical fire. That’s how I ended up figuring out she was my grandmother.”
Noreen wore a thoughtful expression. “If she’s returning tomorrow, you need to be wary of her. She might claim to have turned over a new leaf, but you have to know that you’re dealing with a witch renowned throughout the city for her underhandedness and cruelty. There’s a rumour that she once had a servant killed simply for stealing a few pieces of jewellery.”
I rubbed at my forehead, feeling a headache coming on. “Seriously?” I didn’t know whether to be more disgusted by the fact that she killed a servant or that she actually kept servants to begin with. My granny was a cruel tyrant. As if I needed more trouble in my life.
“The magical families are very old fashioned,” Gabriel said. “Some of them like to think of themselves as superior beings, sort of like royalty.”
“And that’s why they go around acting like Henry VIII,” Rita said, biting at a nail. It was a bad habit of hers, something she tended to do when she was anxious. I made a mental note to ask her how she was feeling. If she sensed Theodore trying to make contact with her again.
“The main thing to do is watch her,” Gabriel went on. “If she really does just want to get to know her granddaughter, then that’s great. It could be useful to have her as an ally. However, if she’s not all that she seems, the consequences could be dire. You’ve seen how she cursed Ira with barely a second thought. People who don’t have a conscience like that are nasty work. They don’t care who they hurt.”
For the rest of the night, Gabriel’s warning rang in my ears. If it wasn’t one thing I was worried about, it was another. I was going to end up giving myself a nervous breakdown. Before getting into bed, I placed Edwards’s coin on my nightstand in the hopes that I’d wake up tomorrow morning and Dad would be here.
***
I opened my eyes to see light streaming through a gap in the curtains. Edwards’s coin remained on my nightstand, unmoved. Disappointment took hold, and I began to wonder if he really would return come hell or high water like he said he would. What if he lost track of time over there and ended up being gone for years and years?
Forcing myself to stop thinking such morose thoughts, I showered and got dressed, finding that Finn and Ira had already gone to the DOH compound for training. I went out to the RV and filled Rita in on the situation with Rebecca’s spell, knowing I could trust her with the secret. Rita agreed to sit with me during Emilia’s visit, since I didn’t want to face her alone.
Rita brought in a few basic spell ingredients for us to work with. “If we need anything else, I can go back out to the RV and get it,” she said. “After our trip to the magic market the other day our cupboards are stocked to the gills.”
At exactly one o’clock a knock sounded at the front door, setting my nerves on edge. I tried to calm down, telling myself that even though Emilia was powerful, Rita and I would be able to take her on if worse came to worse.
I hoped.
Rita motioned for me to let her in while she took a seat at the head of the kitchen table and clasped her hands together. She was wearing even more black eyeliner than usual, and her lacy black dress made her look like Morticia Addams reborn.
I wore my usual T-shirt, jeans, and boots, which might’ve been a subconscious effort to piss Emilia off. I sensed she was the type who thought women should dress all classy and sophisticated. If Dita Von Teese was a granny, she’d probably look exactly like Emilia Petrovsky.
I opened the door, and she came sauntering into the house in a fitted dark blue pencil skirt and a silky blazer with fur trim. Her half-black, half-grey hair was up in an immaculate French twist. Just as I’d expected, she immediately gave my outfit the once over, her lips tightening with disapproval. It brought me a little rush of victory.