The argument that followed that statement was brief but interesting. It consisted of Jacky trying to use all the reasoning at his disposal to point out that Olivia’s request made no sense, and Olivia repeating, in one form or another, that if she was going to talk to her mother, then Jack Noctis was not going to be in the room.

I stayed off to the side, happy to maintain my role as the impartial listener.

That lasted right up until Jacky realized that pointing out a lack of logic to an illogical person wasn’t going to accomplish anything. That’s when he decided to drag me into the matter.

“Then you’ll take Emerra.”

“Hey! Whoa!” I stumbled forward.

Jacky didn’t even pause. “She has the advantage of not being me and not being you. The first you require, the second I recommend.”

“Um,” I said, “I’m not—”

But, apparently, I was only a topic in the discussion, not actually a part of it.

Olivia said over me, “I can talk to my mother on my own.”

“Then why haven’t you done it before?” Jacky said.

Boom! The cannon ball hit. Shrapnel scattered, various bits of ruined masonry dribbled to the ground, and slowly the smoke cleared. I was amazed to see that Olivia was still standing after a blow like that.

She did sway on her feet a little.

Jacky went on, “You claim you have the capacity, but I’ve seen no evidence. You’ve had any number of times you could’ve approached her, yet you haven’t, despite the fact she would be the best source of information. I will not pretend to understand your reluctance—you’ve barred me from that understanding—but neither will I allow you to pretend competence where there is none.”

I grabbed onto his sleeve. “Geez, Jacky. She’s dead. You can stop now.”

Jacky turned his skull to me, then looked back at Olivia. The tears she refused to shed made her eyes shine. She stood there, shaking, her fists clenched. It was hard to watch her.

When Big Jacky spoke again, his voice was soft. “I’m sorry. I seem to have hurt you. I didn’t mean to.”

She shook her head. There was no way to tell if she was rejecting his apology or denying that she needed it.

Jacky reached out and took his apprentice gently by the arm.

“Olivia, I am your master, for whatever that relationship is worth. I recognize my incompetence in general, but on this matter, you will be advised by me. Take Emerra. There’s a reason you brought her.” He let go of her arm, stepped back, and nodded to coven headquarters like Nylah had. “Go on. I’ll make sure my phone is turned on in case you need me.”

Jack Noctis walked out between the booths and disappeared into the crowd.

Olivia gulped and wiped furiously at her eyes. Then she took a deep breath, shook her shoulders, and stood up straight.

“Come on,” she growled at me.

I sauntered along beside her with my hands in my pockets and my mouth firmly shut. I wanted her to know that I had every intention of respecting her efforts to hide her emotions. It was hard work, and she was doing an admirable job.

When we were halfway to the building, Olivia snapped, “Are you going to say anything?”

“Like, do you mean, right now?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you want me to?”

She clutched the edge of her cape. Three steps later, she said, “No.”

“Then I won’t.” A few steps after that, I made myself a liar. “Can I ask a question?”

“What is it?”

“Why didn’t you want Jacky to come? Were you afraid he was going to say something?”

Olivia gave me one of her patented sardonic glares. It was so powerful that, without words, it was capable of communicating the eternal question: “Are you stupid?”

“He’s my master,” she said.

“I know. I thought that’s why you avoided arguing with him.”

“Would you want your master to see you being humiliated by your own mother?”

Oof. The moment Olivia said it, I understood. The sudden insight felt like a boulder landing on my brain.

“I don’t have to come if you don’t want me to,” I said quietly. When Olivia turned to look at me, I went on, “I can dodge out here. I don’t have to go in.”

Olivia faced forward again. I had enough time to wonder if she was going to ignore my question before she decided to answer.

She let out a quiet tsk noise. “Jacky really is a lousy master. He doesn’t understand anything. I’ve worked for him for a whole year, and all he’s ever done is make requests.”

We reached the front doors of coven headquarters. Olivia jerked one of them open.

She said, “Do you think I’m going to disobey the first order he’s ever given me?”

We walked into the foyer and went over to the stairs without stopping by the front desk. No one stopped us. We climbed to the top floor. One or two people called out to Olivia, and she politely greeted them in return, but she never paused in her relentless march toward her mother’s office.

When we arrived, she immediately knocked on the door.

I think that's the primary difference between my courage (or what passes for my courage) and Olivia's confidence. Whenever I have to force myself to do something scary, I have to work myself up to it, gathering courage as I go. Whenever Olivia has to do something she finds intimidating, she acts fast, never giving herself a second to question whether or not she can handle it.

We heard Mrs. Oliversen’s voice from behind the door. “Come in.”

Olivia opened the door. We went inside.

Ellis was sitting behind her desk with a pile of papers beside her elbow and a laptop in front of her, but she wasn’t looking at either of them. She was focused on something hidden behind her open laptop.

As she raised her head, she removed her pair of tortoiseshell…reading glasses? Computer glasses?

Whatever they were, they looked great on her, and when she took them off, she shook her head to settle her hair, and she was so gorgeous I could’ve eaten myself with envy.

“Olivia. Miss Cole. This is a surprise.” She laid her glasses aside, shut the laptop, and started twisting her hands around the object she’d been so focused on. “Did Ansel need something else?” she asked.

That twisting motion—if I hadn’t seen it recently, I never would’ve guessed what was in her hands, but it was the same motion that Big Jacky had used to gather in the scroll after he’d so dramatically sent it flying.

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Olivia realized it at the same time I did.

She nodded to her mother’s hands. “You’re reading my scrolls?”

Ellis paused. She resumed rolling up the scroll at the same time she said, “One of them.”

Olivia walked toward her mother’s desk. I followed a few steps behind.

“Why?” Olivia asked.

“They’re a part of the coven records. I’m the head of the coven. Is there a reason I shouldn’t?”

Even standing a few feet to her side, I could see Olivia’s slight frown and the way her shoulders tensed.

“I thought—” she started to say.

Ellis spoke over her: “Did you need anything from me?” She laid the scroll on her desk beside her laptop.

Olivia stared at the scroll for a second, then took a breath and looked up. “I have a question for you.”

“Olivia, it’s been a long morning, and I have a lot to do. Is this important?”

I winced when I heard her say "important." Even as a near stranger, I knew that word had been weaponized by the two of them long ago. They lobbed it between each other like some long-fused grenade.

Olivia frowned. “It is to me.”

Ellis gestured with an open hand to her daughter. “Ask.”

“Did you ever find out if something was stolen from ARC Hall?”

Ellis Oliversen paled, and her eyes widened. She stood up from her chair, shifted her laptop, and moved the scroll to the side. I couldn’t tell if there was any purpose behind this sudden urge to rearrange her desk. When she spoke, her voice sounded stiff.

“I’m not going to answer that question, Olivia. I’m afraid I’m busy, so I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Were her hands shaking? What could possibly frighten Ellis Oliversen?

“Why won’t you answer me?” Olivia demanded.

Ellis slammed the stack of papers she’d picked up back onto the desk. The dull clap of the paper hitting the wood faded into a short silence.

She kept her head bowed. “How did you break in here without leaving a trace?”

“We didn’t break in,” Olivia said. “We already told you that—”

Ellis glared at her daughter. “If you won’t answer my question, then I see no reason I should answer yours.”

When she raised her head, I saw her face and, behind it, I saw what she’d been hiding.

I saw the terrible suspicion. The confusion. Dark and nebulous. They’d been building up like storm clouds until the porcelain mask that Ellis wore like a second skin creaked from the strain of holding them back.

And it all made sense!—why all the questions about how we’d broken in to coven headquarters; why Ellis had demanded to know where Olivia had been when the blessed silver had been stolen; why she’d poured her magic over her daughter, searching for something; why she’d been reading Olivia’s scroll.

Something was happening in town, and Ellis Oliversen was scared that Olivia had something to do with it.

Olivia’s cheeks flushed. She took a step toward her mother.

“Olivia,” I said.

She stopped and scowled at me.

“You have to tell her what’s going on,” I said.

“Why?”

I looked in her eyes. My voice was low and serious. “Olivia Oliversen, tell her.”

A moment later, Olivia turned back to her mother. The red had faded from her cheeks, but she kept her gaze fixed on the edge of the desk as she talked.

Ellis had straightened up when my voice had been hijacked by whatever wandering ghost had decided they could give me exactly the right timbre of authority to get Olivia to listen. She crossed her arms when Olivia started into her story. At first her eyes were narrow, but they relaxed the more she heard.

Barring Big Jacky’s involvement in getting us into coven headquarters, Olivia told her mother everything. What had happened, the few facts we had, all our suppositions. Ellis never interrupted—not even to ask a question—and to her credit, she barely blinked when Olivia mentioned the possibility of an invisible naked guy running around her town.

Olivia ended with, “that’s why I asked about ARC Hall.”

There was a brief silence.

Ellis said, “You think the people who kidnapped Kirby are the ones who broke into the Barlowes’, and the hardware store—”

“And everywhere else,” Olivia said. “We think it’s possible.

“We think they’re gathering materials to build something,” I said.

“To do what?” Ellis asked.

“We don’t know,” Olivia said. “That’s what we’re trying to figure out.” The patience in her voice was waning. “Mother, we know that they probably got into ARC Hall, but we don’t know how far they got. If you know something’s missing, then we can add it to our list and try to figure out what they’re up to.”

Ellis was staring at her desk, but I don’t think she was seeing anything. There was something in her expression. I could almost see it…

“Mother!”

Ellis raised her eyes. “Nothing is missing from ARC Hall.”

Olivia blinked. “Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

She was telling the truth. There was no doubt in my mind.

There was, however, plenty of doubt in Olivia’s.

“Are you sure?” she said. “It could be really small and unimportant. Betty Hamlin—”

“I’m sure, Olivia. Nothing is missing from ARC Hall.”

“But they were inside, right?”

“This discussion is over.” Ellis picked up her messenger bag from beside her desk and started packing away the papers and the laptop.

“Over? Why? What did I—why?” Olivia raised her voice. “You can’t even tell me if they made it inside?”

“This isn’t your concern.”

Olivia’s voice went up another notch. “You know it’s my concern! I’ve told you what’s going on!”

Ellis closed her messenger bag. “Yelling at me won’t help.”

“Nothing helps! Nothing ever helps! All you ever do is stand in my way and try to shut me down!”

I didn’t bother trying to intervene. This wasn’t about Kirby anymore. This was years of resentment being hauled out for an airing, and the two of them were so intent on each other I was pretty sure I could’ve started tap dancing and neither of them would’ve noticed.

Ellis’s body went rigid. “That’s not true!”

“Name it! Name one time you haven’t tried to stand in my way or make my life a living hell! School! Mr. Noctis—”

“I let you stay in the dorms! Do you have any idea how humiliating that was? The way people looked at me. The rumors I had to deal with—”

“Oh! I’m so sorry it humiliated you, Mother! I thought for sure you’d be happy to get rid of me!”

The blood drained from Ellis’s face, and her hands tightened over her messenger bag. Olivia was too enraged to see she’d struck a nerve.

She went on, “So stupid of me to forget that your reputation is the only thing you care about.”

If the last comment had struck a nerve, this one stripped it down and plunged it into arctic waters. Ellis’s hands were shaking again—much harder.

Her jaw clenched. She picked up her messenger bag, grabbed the scroll, and walked over to the coat rack by the door. She put the bag down long enough to put on her coat and jam the scroll in her pocket. She tried to tie the belt, but she was trembling too much to manage it. She threw the belt ends back with an impatient gesture and put her messenger bag over her shoulder.

When she spoke, her voice was hard, but she wasn’t shouting. “I’m leaving. You’re welcome to finish your tantrum in here, but I expect you to compose yourself before you come out. Please remember to lock the door when you’re done.”

With that, she was gone.

As the door clicked shut behind her, I wondered where queens went when they needed to cry.

Olivia rounded on me. “What did you see?”

Being the brave soul that I am, I backed up two paces. “What are you talking about?”

“I saw the look on your face. I know you saw something. What did you see?”

Well, crap. I’d have to start practicing my stoic expression in the mirror each morning. Thirty reps of deadpan mode.

“Emerra!” Olivia cried.

I sighed. Yes, I had seen something. I’d seen a lot of somethings. Sucks for Olivia, she couldn’t specify which something.

I took a breath before I began.

“I saw your mother lie to a policeman when you were in trouble. I saw her worrying about your future, and I saw her heart break when you told her that you were sure she’d be happy to get rid of you.”

Olivia’s eyes instantly narrowed into slits. “What?”

Okay. Let’s try again.

I spoke slower: “I saw your mother lie to a policeman—”

Olivia’s voice rose. “What are you trying to say?”

I pressed my lips together as my heart sank with disappointment. If she couldn’t figure it out, then she was being willfully stupid, and me saying it to her face wouldn’t convince her of anything.

My lack of response didn't stop Olivia from finding a way to argue. “You also saw her cut off the conversation and refuse to tell me anything!”

“She told you nothing was missing from ARC Hall.”

“And you believed her?”

“Yes.”

That wandering ghost must have been doing its thing again; Olivia had been leaning forward, eager for a fight, but when she heard my answer, she dropped back to her heels.

I knew her well enough to know she was down, but not out. I waited.

Sure enough, less than a second later, she was up and at me again.

“I did what you told me to! She knows why I asked, and she still refused to tell me any more than that—”

I had a feeling that, given the chance, Olivia could probably go on for a while, so I interrupted her.

“Olivia.”

Her mouth clamped shut.

I crossed my arms. “Even during your tell-all confession, you never told her about Jacky helping us get into this building.”

“Of course not!”

“Why not?”

“It’s a secret!”

“Even to rescue Kirby, you refused to tell her that secret?”

Olivia sputtered, “Not—no. That’s not—Look, her knowing probably wouldn’t make a difference. And…I can’t. I can’t give up that secret. It’s too important.”

“If you, a seventeen-year-old apprentice, can have a secret that important, isn’t it reasonable for someone like Ellis Oliversen to have a few? Remember what Nylah said? Remember how she behaved? ARC Hall has more secrets than the CIA.”

“Hers aren’t important!”

I raised my hands in a (hopefully) placating manner. “All right. Sure. Maybe that’s true. When you have too many secrets, it’s easy to lose sight of which ones really matter. But whether we think they’re important or not—your mother does.”

Olivia’s temper seemed to be burning itself out. Her body unclenched, and her scowl turned into a frown. “Then what are we supposed to do?”

“Let’s take the information she gave us—”

“You mean the nothing she gave us?”

Oh! I was wrong. There was at least one last good flare in those coals.

How long had I had a headache? It must have snuck in. Odd that I only noticed it at that moment.

“Yes,” I said. “The fact that nothing is missing from ARC Hall. Either the burglars failed, or what they stole was so small and unimportant, we don’t know what it was. We’ll take that information, along with the rest of our list, and go find someone who can help us figure out what the thieves might be building.”