Witch Undercover Read online

  “Blythe?” she said. “How would she know?”

  “I’m not a hundred percent certain,” I said, “but I think her mother told her.”

  “Mrs Dailey worked with the hunters.” She gave a nod of understanding, her expression concerned. “Buck isn’t working with her, is he?”

  “I doubt it, considering she’s in jail, and good riddance.” My hands clenched, and I accidentally grabbed a handful of Sky’s fur in the process, prompting an angry hiss. “But there’s a reason my paranormal-sensing powers bounced clean off him. I can’t identify other fairies. Not if they don’t want me to.”

  Silence spread between us as the implication sank in.

  “The Inquisitor,” she breathed.

  “I don’t know if he’s told anyone or not.” I stroked Sky, the repetitive motion soothing my nerves a little. “I don’t know how to deal with it, either. Nathan was shocked when I told him, and I’d be surprised if his dad knows. The other hunters—I assume some of them must know, but it’s all guesswork. I can’t imagine it’s a widely known fact that the guy in charge of the paranormal hunters is a fairy, but I’m at a loss as to what it all means.”

  “Your dad.” Her eyes widened. “Is it linked to why he was arrested?”

  “Maybe.” I looked down. “I didn’t realise how risky it was for him to send pixies to deliver messages, but it explains why he stopped. The Inquisitor can see through other fairies’ glamour.”

  “So that’s why your dad wants you to find the Pixie-Glass instead,” she said. “And Buck… do you reckon he and Erin will help you? At the market?”

  “I hope so.” I looked back at her. “But—the guy in the hospital saw through my glamour, too. Is there a spell that can do that?”

  “No.” Her mouth pinched with concern. “There isn’t, not a witch spell anyway.”

  Then only one explanation was left… the stranger who’d come to town was under a fairy spell.

  My focus at work the next day was scattered, to say the least. Erin and I had arranged to meet at the market after my shift finished, but I still had yet to call my foster parents and make definite plans for the weekend. On top of the human stranger’s arrival and my mission to find a way to contact my dad, it was a wonder I had any attention span left to deal with clients at all.

  As I left work, a message came through from Alissa telling me to meet her at the hospital. Did something else happen?

  I hurried up along the high street to the hospital and found Alissa hovering inside the waiting room. “Hey, Blair,” she said. “Are you still going to the market?”

  “That was the plan,” I said. “Why?”

  “We have a situation.” She turned aside as a door opened and an elf sidled into the waiting room. His arm was bound in a sling and a bandage was wrapped around his head, covering one pointed ear. “You’re not supposed to be wandering around, Thistle. Get back to your bed.”

  I recognised the patient as a notorious local elf with a drinking problem who was forever getting himself into scrapes. The elf looked blearily at Alissa and me. “Oh, it’s you.”

  “He’s drunk,” Alissa said in an undertone. “Idiot managed to fall off a cliff and break a few bones. Not the first time, but he’s yet to sober up and it’s been more than a day.”

  “Blame the goblins,” he said. “Goblins, nasty creatures, they are.”

  “Fine, then,” she said. “You can talk to Blair in here.”

  The sound of screaming rose from behind a nearby door. “Monsters, monsters!”

  I looked between Alissa and the elf, nonplussed. “What did you want him to talk to me about? Our new guest?”

  “Kind of.” Her expression darkened, and she beckoned the elf into view. “This absolute genius went on a bender last night and got so wasted that he ended up lost in Sloan. He was found wandering around the street in front of a bunch of normals, pointed ears and all.”

  “How dare you insult me!” he said, addressing a potted plant instead of Alissa.

  Alissa rolled her eyes. “Anyway, it sounds like our new arrival is from the same area. I wondered if you could ask Thistle here a couple of questions, Blair, if it’s not too much trouble. I have no idea if anything he says is the truth.”

  “Oh, sure.” I checked the time. I had a few minutes to spare before I had to meet Erin and Buck. “Thistle… that’s your name, right?”

  “Who, I?” He fell over, grabbing the plant for balance. “Nasty goblins did this, they did. Not I.”

  “Did what?” I asked. “Got you drunk?”

  Goblin market. Hang on…

  “Yes, I partook of their dreadful brew, and into dreams I dove.” He nearly did dive into the potted plant, but he caught himself at the last second.

  “Were you at the market?” I asked. “Is that where you got into trouble?”

  “Trouble?” said the elf. “Never.”

  “You were found wandering around a normal town in front of non-magical folk, singing at the top of your lungs,” said Alissa. “You didn’t put a spell on a normal while you were at it, did you?”

  “No!” he said. “Not at all.”

  True. When Alissa caught my eye, I shook my head a little, and Alissa pursed her lips. “You didn’t answer Blair’s question. Were you at the market?”

  He hiccoughed. “The goblins don’t like the elves, not at all, but I tipped handsomely. Now, I see rainbows.”

  “Does that drink cause hallucinations?” I asked suspiciously. “What did you drink?”

  “Goblin brew, of course of course.” He sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall. “I see what nobody else ever saw. Goblin brew bestows upon you the true sight, do you know what I mean?”

  “True sight?” I echoed, a sudden suspicion dawning on me. “Can goblin brew make anyone gain the ability to see through glamour? Even—even a normal?”

  The elf grinned. “I’ll tell you if you bring me a cocktail from the Laughing Pixie.”

  “Nice try,” Alissa said. “There’s a human next door in an intoxicated state—a normal. Did you give him goblin brew?”

  “I do not share my drinks, never,” he said solemnly. “I remember nothing more. Let me see my pretty rainbow lights in peace.”

  “Then go back to your ward.” Alissa beckoned to him, a stern undercurrent to her voice. “If you let me use a healing spell on you, I might discharge you early, but if I find out you committed any crimes while you were running amok through Sloan, you’ll find yourself up for a stint behind bars.”

  He rose to his feet shakily, tottering around. “Yes, cruel human, I will oblige.”

  It took him several attempts to get through the door to the ward, and a crash and a yelp followed as he tripped over the threshold and fell flat on his face.

  Alissa muttered a curse under her breath. “Personally, I think a night in a cell would stop his habit of causing havoc, but I’ll settle for locking him in the ward instead. Thanks for questioning him, Blair.”

  “No problem,” I said. “So… goblin brew. Should I look for that at the market?”

  “If you can. I’m stuck here all night.” She grimaced. “I’m sure you’ll be fine, Blair. You aren’t a normal, and you aren’t prone to getting into trouble either. I mean, not as much as certain people.”

  “I heard that!” bellowed the elf from the other side of the door.

  “Looks like you have your hands full,” I said. “Want me to come back to question him again while he’s sober? Just on the off-chance that he does know how our new guest ended up in that state?”

  “That’d be great,” she said. “I’ll have to wait for him to sober up to confirm if he does know anything about our poor lost human. We’re calling him Riff, because we don’t know his name.”

  I checked the time. “I need to meet Erin, but I’ll see you later.”

  “If you can find out what this goblin brew is, you’ll save me a lot of hassle,” she said. “I know goblins have a reputation for causing trickery, but se
lling drinks to humans is forbidden even in their markets.”

  “I’ll see if I can find out if anyone saw the human at the market, too,” I said.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I wish I could come with you, but I have to help old Ava with her pills. Wish me luck.”

  “Good luck.” I waved goodbye and left the hospital to meet Erin.

  Goblin brew. Might the human have wandered into the market by accident and been handed a beverage by someone who didn’t know any better? It was as good a guess as any, but if someone had lured him to the market on purpose, they could be arrested for it. Thistle claimed to be innocent, but the fact that he’d ran around drunk in front of a group of humans was downright alarming. It was lucky he hadn’t happened to be staggering around the streets of Sloan on the same day my foster parents and I planned to meet.

  Whatever the case, if normals were being drawn into this world, it might affect my foster parents next. For their sakes, I had to figure out the truth.

  4

  Nathan’s sister Erin waited for me outside the local coffee shop, Charms & Caffeine. She wore muddy boots and jeans with ragged edges, as though she’d trekked here through the muddiest route possible. At her side stood Buck, who wore similar attire. Nothing about his blue eyes, pale gold hair and fine-boned features hinted at his fairy nature. Like me, he wore a glamour that made him look entirely human.

  “Hey,” I said. “Nice to see you back in town, Erin. And you, Buck.”

  “Hey, Blair,” said Buck. “Ready to head to the market?”

  “You bet.” I fell into step alongside Erin, while Buck took the lead uphill through the town’s centre. “Is the market is going to stay in Fox Hollow before it moves to Fairy Falls this weekend?”

  “Technically, it’s in a field in the middle of nowhere,” said Erin. “Did you say there’s something you want to look for at the market?”

  “Yeah.” I was starting to wish I’d figured out a cover story. I’d been desperate to speak to Buck for ages about the hunters’ relationship with the fairies, but for all I knew, he and Erin hadn’t the faintest idea of the Inquisitor’s real nature. Erin and Buck weren’t that high up among the hunters, even before they’d left, but that didn’t mean the Inquisitor wouldn’t find out if I’d been asking questions about him. I couldn’t be a hundred percent sure Buck hadn’t cut ties with the hunters—and Erin definitely hadn’t, given how deep her family was involved with them.

  “What did you want to look for?” asked Buck.

  “There’s a guy we found wandering around town who’s under the influence of something he might have obtained from the market,” I said, deciding to save my questions on the Inquisitor and the paranormal hunters until later. “He’s a normal, without any ties to the magical world, so Madame Grey wants to keep it quiet.”

  “Someone at the market’s targeting normals?” Erin’s eyes widened. “First I’ve heard, but I can ask around.”

  “Same.” Buck glanced at me, his expression unreadable. He couldn’t sense I wasn’t being entirely truthful, could he? He didn’t have lie-sensing powers. My abilities came about due to the unique combination of my mum’s witch magic and my dad’s fairy magic. Buck was either all fairy or part ordinary human, from what I’d figured.

  “A local elf mentioned something called goblin brew,” I added. “Does that ring a bell?”

  “Sure, I’ve heard of it,” said Buck. “Strong stuff, that. You say an elf mentioned it?”

  “Yeah, a local,” I said. “He hinted that the human we found might have picked up some of the goblin brew from the market. He saw through my glamour, which can’t be the result of a regular spell. I’m inclined to think there’s some truth there.”

  Thistle wasn’t exactly the reliable sort, though. Maybe he was lying to cover up the fact that he’d given the poor guy the goblin brew. Still, it was worth asking around.

  At the word ‘glamour’, Buck’s jaw locked. “That’s impossible.”

  “I thought so,” I said. “But it’s true. Can this goblin brew stuff really have that effect on normals?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” said Buck. “If an elf told you, he might be lying in order to get the goblins into trouble. They have this weird rivalry, elves and goblins do.”

  “Really?” Now was my chance. “What about fairies, then? I mean, are they likely to be at the market, too?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never been before.”

  “You haven’t?” I scrambled for the right words. “Not that there’s anything wrong with it. I haven’t either. But I assumed, since you’re like me…”

  “I never met my dad, and he was my fairy parent,” he said. “My mum was a normal. I didn’t learn anything about them from her.”

  Wait. He’s never met the other fairies? “Then how did you end up working for the hunters?”

  “They recruited me from home,” he said. “They sent me an invitation to a job interview in the mail when I turned sixteen. I was already looking for a job, so I accepted.”

  “So is that how you found the paranormal world?” I hadn’t known it was possible to be recruited to the hunters if you weren’t related to one. Nathan’s whole family ran the local branch, so it was a given that he and his siblings would end up being involved in some capacity. But since when did the hunters send out personalised letters to people—specifically, fairies—to recruit them?

  “Yeah, turns out my dad put a glamour on me before he took off, so I always assumed I was human,” he said. “The truth came out when I got to the interview with the hunters. They gave me a crash course in the paranormal world.”

  “Wow.” I didn’t know what else to say. I had an inkling that an introduction to magic from the hunters would be very different than my own magical education from the witches. Then again, what would they have done if I’d been half fairy and half regular human, and not a witch at all?

  Erin pointed ahead of us. “Hey, we’re here.”

  We’d reached the goblin market. Brightly coloured tents and stalls filled the whole field, most of them staffed by goblins. Short and green-skinned with pointed ears, they were more rugged and less delicate-looking than elves, though they were of a similar height. Each stall sold a completely different array of goods, from strange spiky fruits to vivid-coloured beverages, glittering jewels and all manner of oddities.

  I looked around, taking it all in. On a stretch of hillside set apart from the main market, groups of paranormals danced in circles around a tree, while strange music drifted through the air. I spotted the source—a band consisting of several dazed-looking humans playing various instruments, flutes and fiddles and others I didn’t know the name of.

  So this was the fairy world in all its dizzying and magical glory. But where in the madness was it possible to find what I was looking for?

  Erin nudged me, drawing my attention to a stall with a roof shaped like a crown. Below, a sign said Goblin Brew, and a large number of mugs made out of what looked like tree bark covered the table.

  I drew in a deep breath. “I hope they aren’t as easily offended as the elves are.”

  I approached the stall, which was staffed by two green-skinned goblins. One peered up at me with pupil-less dark eyes, while the second goblin poured a thick greenish yellow liquid into a mug and offered it to me. “Want some of our special brew?”

  “Um.” I didn’t take the mug. The contents looked about as appetising as drinking raw sewage. “If you don’t mind, can you tell me what’s in that goblin brew?”

  “Why’s that?” said his companion.

  My mind went blank. The liquid might look foul, but it had a sweet scent that gathered in the back of my throat and made it hard to focus. “I’d rather know if there are going to be any side effects for humans before I drink it.”

  “Humans?” He let out a raucous laugh. “They’re delicate enough that a mere sip will turn them into those poor fools over there.”

  I followed his gaze to the gathering
of dancing figures on the grass in front of the band.

  “Are they human?” My heartbeat sped up. What if there were normals among the crowd, like Riff? Maybe I should have brought Nathan with me, but even he didn’t have the authority to wield the arm of the magical law outside of Fairy Falls. In fact, I wasn’t sure who held authority here. “I mean, normals. Not witches. They aren’t, are they?”

  “It’s illegal to sell magical products to normals,” said Buck from behind me.

  “Normals can’t see us,” growled the goblin on the left. “Shame, shame… but we’re not to sell to normals, they say, so we obey.”

  As far as my truth-sensing ability was concerned, he was telling the truth, but if they couldn’t know for sure if a human was normal or otherwise, perhaps it might have happened by accident. “Have you seen any normals here at the market? How many humans normally come here?”

  “Lots of humans here,” said the right-hand goblin. “And lots of folk who are other than human, too. You’re not one of the Court folk, are you?”

  “No,” I said, confused. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Fairies, of course,” said the goblin on the left.

  “I am,” I said. “Half fairy, anyway. But that’s not what I’m here to talk to you about. A normal human wandered into our town under the effects of some kind of intoxicating beverage. We think he might have been to the market, so we’d appreciate if you let us know if you saw a human acting strangely.”

  Both goblins broke into hysterical laughter.

  “Strangely?” one of them howled. “This must be your first time at the market.”

  My face flamed. “Can you just tell me how long the effects of goblin brew last, then?”

  “No need for that tone,” said the goblin. “For your information, if this human did partake of our beverages, then the effects would be long gone within twenty-four hours.”