Friday. 5:00 PM

I didn’t need to tell Ben which building to park in front of. The large, stainless steel basins and oak barrels from the distillery were visible through tall exterior windows, marking the location better than any sign.

The Reading Room was an institution. It’d been around since the twenties, and if the legends were true, Tom Pendergast had used the place to launder money in the days after prohibition.

It’d gone through some changes since those days. A century of different owners, cultures, and changes in laws had gone by, and the speakeasy had kept souvenirs from every era, accrued like scars to show its tenacity. The distillery on the ground floor was a relatively new addition, another change to mark the passage of trends and time.

One thing that hadn’t changed, though, was the stairs.

It was a short walk through the distillery floor, separated from the steel basins and pipes by a glass wall, to get to the proper entrance. The original staircase down into the speakeasy was twenty feet down, steep, and the hand rail that brought it ‘up to code’ was barely sufficient for my tired body. A natural precaution when the place was founded—a speakeasy that was visible from the street wouldn’t stay open for long, after all—but now it was just an inconvenience. When I went down, I was worried as much about bumping my head on the low ceiling as tripping, and I couldn’t imagine trying to stagger up the stairs to leave while drunk.

The design also meant if the counsellors found me here, I wouldn’t have any way out.

It’s fine. They won’t find you.

The lighting was dim, a bit moody, with a lot of fake candles. The few electrical lights aside from the candles were halogen signs and a couple beer lights, advertising home-brewed potions that could be ordered off a list or brewed specially to order. In a different atmosphere, it would have been pleasant and cozy, but I was too nervous to enjoy all the shadowy corners in the room.

Pulling a seat up at the bar, I waited for Ben to sit next to me before getting the bartender’s attention.

She gave me a nod to indicate, ‘just a second’, finishing up a cocktail for the person next to me. Once it was mixed, she poured it, slid it across the counter on a paper napkin, and finally turned to us.

“Are you two regulars?”

I had never been there before, but I knew that she wasn’t asking about our patronage at the bar. She wanted to make sure we were in the community. “We’re not licensed, but we know what’s up,” I replied, simply.

Her demeanor brightened, just barely. “Okay then, dears. What can I get for you? Are you looking for a potion, or just something to drink?”

I hadn’t really looked at the menu. “Just a water, I guess. It’s too early for me to be drinking. You’re Mariah, right?”

“Uh-huh.” She glanced at Ben. “And you?”

“Something light, I guess. Do you have something that’s sweet and not very strong?”

She reached over the counter, pointing at the menu. “Try a ‘River Curse’, I think it’ll suit you.”

He read the listing and nodded. “Sounds good.”

She started mixing a drink from bottles with labels too dim for me to read, estimating the volume of each pour with a trained eye. “I don’t think I’ve seen you two in here before. Did you come by to ride out the storm?”

I looked around uncertainly. “The storm?”

“Everyone’s talking about it,” Mariah explained. “Counsellors in town, that troll went on a rampage, they’re even going after fae. Someone’s stirring up trouble in the city. Folks are worried about it.” Adding a few chunks of ice, she shook it all up.

I noted the item on her list that was absent. “I guess you know a lot of what’s going on,” I said, hedging my words cautiously.

She looked up at me, the glance barely visible in the dim light. “I suppose you could say that.”

I tried to watch her expression, choosing my words carefully. “Did you hear about Andrea?”

Something flickered over her face. I couldn’t recognize what. Shame, maybe, or anger. Either way, it did nothing to make me think she was less likely as a suspect. Straining Ben’s drink into a glass, she asked, “We haven’t kept in touch. What’s she up to?”

I had to play this carefully. “I heard she did the contracting for your renovations, before it flooded. The distillery, the brewing, all that.”

Mariah looked at me for a long pause, before adding a slice of lemon and sliding the drink across the countertop on a napkin. “I’m going to need to see some ID.”

Ben and I reached for our respective wallets, pulling out driver’s licenses for her to inspect. Mariah only glanced at Ben’s, but she inspected mine carefully, holding up a candle to look between the photo and me. “Levi Lawson. I know that name.”

I needed a lie, something believable. “I’m thinking about hiring Andrea, to do some work for me, but I heard you didn’t go back to her after the flood. Why is that?”

“What’s this about?” Mariah demanded. “Did Andrea put you up to this?”

I opened my mouth, but Ben cut in before I could. “Look, ma’am, we just want to know if Andrea screwed you on the work she did. Is she a con?”

She looked at my ID one last time, brow furrowing. After a second, it came to her. “You’re that reporter.”

Shrugging, I said, “That’s not why I’m—”

“Get out of my bar.”

I hadn’t noticed up until then, but the rest of the bar had fallen silent, save for the quiet jazz piped through old, tinny speakers. People were staring. “We haven’t paid.”

She pointed to the stairs. “I don’t care. Piss off.”

“Just answer the question,” I said, stubbornly refusing to get up. “Did the flood happen because of Andrea’s shoddy work?”

“Andrea’s work was impeccable. Perfect. The best you could imagine. Now, get out before I—”

I cut her off. I was getting answers, and I wasn’t going to let go while I had her talking. “Then why didn’t you hire her for the repairs?”

That was too far. She shut up, reaching for a corded phone. Punching in a couple numbers, she held up the receiver. “I’m calling the cops.”

There was just one card left to play. “Andrea’s dead.”

I was wrong, before. Now the bar was deathly silent. The phone slipped out of Mariah’s hands, clattering on the countertop.

Her voice was quiet, small. “What?”

I’d caught her completely off guard. She didn’t know, or she was a fantastic actress.

Shit. She’s innocent.

“I-” I started, mouth opening and closing while I tried to search for words. I’d backed myself into a corner on the assumption I could get confirmation she was the killer, and crammed my foot down my throat in the process. “I thought—I’m sorry. I found her body this morning. I’m trying to figure out who killed her.”

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

Mariah stared me in the face, confusion fighting with sorrow for the most dominant expression. “And you… You came here? You thought I did it?”

“Em…” I looked around the bar, for any source of support. People were glaring, faces I couldn’t recognize in the dim light even if I knew them. Nobody had my back. “Well, I don’t think that now.”

“Get out.”

Ben leaned in. “If she was your friend, why—”

“Get out!” She demanded. Seizing the phone, she punched the ‘call’ button, waiting for the dial tone to ring, her demand echoing in my ears. “Hello? I have two unruly men who refuse to leave my bar.”

I put up my hands, got off the stool, and stepped back. “I’m leaving. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

I shut my mouth. There wasn’t anything I could say that would improve the situation. Backing towards the stairs, I turned, hurrying out of the bar. At least I had my answer, but it didn’t leave me any closer to figuring out who was really responsible.

Catching my wind at the top of the stairs, I waited for Ben to catch up, leaning against the glass wall that separated us from the distillery portion of the building.

Ben spoke first. “She’s hiding something.”

“Maybe,” I conceded, “But she’s not the killer.”

“Or she’s just coy enough to fool you.” Ben shrugged. “We still don’t know why she and Andrea fell out. That could be important, and we just don’t know why yet.”

“Well, I’m not going to go down there and ask,” I said. “I’m not that desperate to get arrested.”

Straightening, Ben looked over his shoulder. “Who says we need to ask?”

I followed his gaze. He was staring at the distilling equipment, and the enclosed office visible on the far side. “No way.”

“The door isn’t locked. I checked when we walked in.” He flashed me a lopsided grin. “It’d only take a few minutes.”

“You—why did you check?” I asked.

Ignoring me, he stepped up to the door, pulling firmly on the handle. It was a tight fit in the frame, but it opened without creaking. “You’re welcome to wait in the truck.”

Looking over my shoulder, I checked that nobody was coming up the stairs. We were in the clear. Ducking into the space, I let Ben close the door.

“Just a couple minutes,” I whispered. “And then we’re out of here.”

“Of course,” he replied, walking right in like he owned the place.

There wasn’t much I could see that was interesting with the distillery proper. A peek behind the stack of keg barrels showed a staircase to the second floor, but checking that out wasn’t the top of my priority list. so we crossed quickly to the office space. Like the entrance, the office door was unlocked, and we got in without trouble.

“Check her computer, I’ll look for paper receipts,” Ben suggested, checking the filing cabinets.

Sitting down at the desk, I kept an eye on the distillery floor while I booted up the monitor. A login screen popped up, and I frowned. “It needs a password.”

“Is there a hint?” Ben asked, flitting through files.

I clicked on the icon. “‘Usual login’, with an exclamation point at the end.”

“Try, ‘Password’ with an exclamation point.”

I punched it in, with and without capitalization. “Nothing.”

“What’s the name of the bar?”

I tried ‘The Reading Room!’, with a few different capitalization patterns, and without a ‘The’ at the start. “No luck.”

Ben paused, thinking. “Wait, how’s the password hint written?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Like, spaces, and stuff,” Ben said.

“Oh. No spaces, both words are capitalized,” I said.

He nodded. “Try that.”

I did, typing, ‘UsualLogin!’ into the password bar.

The computer chirped agreeably and unlocked. “Good idea.”

Tabbing over to emails, I searched ‘Andrea’, pulling up all the relevant results. A long string of emails from the original consulting, with schematics and diagrams of the second floor’s brewing rig. As far as I could tell, the tone was friendly. Andrea was happy to be doing the work, and Mariah was happy with the work being done.

So, I scrolled to newer emails. There were a few personal ones—an invitation from Mariah to the grand opening of the Reading Room’s distillery, which Andrea apparently attended, and a correspondence from Andrea asking if Mariah wanted to come to a girl’s wine night.

The last email chain was from a couple months ago, presumably just after the flooding. There were six emails in the thread, all from Andrea.

Mariah,

I heard about the cauldron rupture. I’m so sorry. I went over the schematics three times and can’t figure out what could have happened. I’m happy to come by and inspect it in person, to figure out what went wrong and how we can prevent it from happening again.

Best and brightest,

-Andrea

A week later, she’d sent another email.

Mary,

Not sure if you saw my last email. Just to be clear, I’ll take full responsibility if the damage was due to something I overlooked. Let me know when I can come over.

Thanks,

-Andrea

Two weeks after that,

Mary,

I heard you went with another contractor for the repairs. I can’t blame you, if the mistake was my fault, but I wish you’d at least tell me what went wrong so I can make sure it doesn’t happen again.

-Andrea

Only two days later,

Mariah,

Are you upset with me? I tried calling, but you didn’t pick up.

Please respond.

-Andrea

And, finally,

Mary, I don’t know what I did to make you angry at me, but I honestly want to apologize. If you want space, I’ll respect that. I’ll stop emailing you after this. Please reach out when you’re willing to talk to me.

Your friend, always,

-Andrea

I sat back, staring at the screen. “Mariah just ghosted Andrea after the flooding, and I can’t figure out why. What did you find?”

Ben looked up from the filing cabinet. “Just a bunch of packing slips, I don’t know what’s on them though, everything’s abbreviated. It’s from a company called ‘UPM Worldwide’.”

“United Potion Makers,” I said. “Or… Manufacturing. Manufacturers? I can’t remember what the M stands for. Probably where she gets her brewing ingredients from. Most magic business isn’t conducted digitally, since—”

“Yeah, they don’t want it leaking to the public. You explained on our date,” Ben pointed out. “So, square one.”

“Let’s go look upstairs,” I said. “Maybe we can see what happened.”

“You think Mariah didn’t clear out the broken stuff?”

“If she has the storage space, there’s no reason to,” I pointed out. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

He shrugged, and we stepped out of the office, rounding the stack of barrels to get upstairs. They were a little creakier than the ones going down into the speakeasy, but they weren’t half so steep, which was a relief.

We were lucky. The old brewing rig was immediately visible as soon as we got to the top of the stairs. Three black, hundred-gallon cauldrons were set over brass runes on the floor, with further glass piping, plastic tubes, and complicated mobile sets of crystals hanging above them. Tuning forks were set in a wide circle around them, each of a slightly different size, and I could subtly hear them humming just from the vibration of our footsteps.

One of the cauldrons was cracked down the middle, and though its contents had been cleaned up, the damage was obvious. Everywhere the half-finished potion fluid had leaked, the runes on the floor were corroded and eaten through, and there was black soot clinging to the crystalline mobiles.

“This looks fixable,” Ben said, scratching his head as he stared at it.

“The magical energy that got poured into those symbols is the expensive part,” I explained. “Even if you fixed the damage to the metal, you’d need to redo all the magical workings, too. It’s probably easier to replace it, than to try and salvage and rework everything.”

Ben’s frown deepened. “Where is the replacement?”

“Huh?” I looked around. My attention had been drawn by the old one, but he was right. There weren’t any other brewing rigs visible. Just some cardboard boxes, stacked with a shipping label that had ‘UPM WW’ clearly written in block letters. “Maybe she put it somewhere else?”

“And rent out another floor in this building?” Ben asked.

I walked over to the boxes, looking at one of the shipping labels. Like I’d guessed, it was from United Potion Manufacturing. Raising an eyebrow, I checked the top, found it unsealed, and opened it.

Ben walked up, peering over my shoulder. “What’s in there?”

I picked up one of the glistening glass bottles. It was rectangular, the size and shape of a whiskey pint, but the fluid inside was a creamy, pale red. “It’s… a potion.”

“Why’s she—”

The stairs creaked loudly as someone started coming up, announcing their presence better than a gong. I slipped the potion into a jacket pocket, stood, and spun to face the intruder.

Oh, wait. We’re the intruders. She’s—

Mariah reached the top of the stairs, and her glare fell on me immediately.

“I… hey,” I said.

“Hey,” she shot back. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t call back the cops and tell them you broke into my office.”

I tilted my head, more curious than concerned. “Why are you ordering in potions from out of state?”