Free A Hiss-tory of Magic: A Wonder Cats Mystery Book 1 by Harper Lin

his breast pocket.
    He extended his arm gracefully. “Shall we?”
    I mustered up some courtesy and took his arm. “So we shall! Why do you have a four-sided-die necklace and keep it in your breast pocket?”
    “Oh, I joined a club—kind of,” Min told me. “It was boring. I don’t miss anyone, and they didn’t deliver on anything that they promised. But they gave that away as part of their new membership packet, and I think it looks kind of cool, so I kept it. It never matches with anything I usually wear now, though.”
    I still had a bit of magic burnout, but if Min had had a memory spell cast on him, or if what happened was magical in any way, I’d still feel it.

Hide and Seek
    M eanwhile , Treacle and Peanut Butter had found their way to the crime scene. Treacle hadn’t been to the Brew-Ha-Ha since he was a kitten. Ted hadn’t allowed it after that first time, which Treacle remembered well.
    Ted had claimed banning Treacle was for hygiene reasons. I’d argued that Marshmallow came into the café and even the kitchen all the time, but Ted had argued that Marshmallow would stay put, whereas street cats went all over the place and you couldn’t stop them.
    I’d almost argued that Marshmallow’s hair got all over the place and nobody minded, or that maybe Ted had allowed Marshmallow because he thought Aunt Astrid had more clout than I did.
    Really, Ted was afraid of black cats and particularly afraid of crossing their paths. I’d noticed he wasn’t interested at all in Aunt Astrid’s fortunetelling, either. Maybe a black cat with a star on his forehead was too ominously witchy.
    Treacle had kept out of the way since telling me Ted’s fear, or else he waited out front. The town had more interesting places for a cat to explore, anyway.
    Aunt Astrid had been right. Ted wasn’t interested because of a belief in magic. If he had been outright opposed to it, then he first would have stolen and destroyed Aunt Astrid’s completely nonmagical tarot cards and slightly magical crystal balls. If he’d found the secret trapdoor into Aunt Astrid’s nuclear war bunker, Ted would probably have ignored the book and used the space to store wines or something.
    But that was all over, and the cats were at the Brew-Ha-Ha. Treacle hadn’t been there in a long while, as I mentioned, and Peanut Butter had never been.
    The place was also crowded with investigators.
    Jake had dropped in to check on what his colleagues had turned up so far. The kitchen still had the yellow crime-scene tape cordoning off the area, and it was more crowded than it should have been because all the bagging of possible evidence and photographing of the scene should have been done the day before.
    “I’d hate to say it,” began Jason Boone, who was in charge of cataloguing, “but we’re in over our heads with this. We could use someone more practiced, you know, dealing with cases like this.”
    Jake knew what he was talking about. “Blake Samberg’s made up his own mind about what happened, and I’m letting him investigate that. Let’s just do our best to get the evidence in.”
    Boone sighed. “Those damn strays.” He waved a rubber-gloved hand toward Treacle and Peanut Butter, who were slinking in from what used to be the restaurant area.
    Jake turned to look. “Those aren’t strays!” He was surprised to see Peanut Butter out. He jogged toward them, as if skittish cats would keep still in a strange place—even being approached by somebody they knew. “Get back here, Peanut Butter! And you!”
    “Leave it to Williams!” Boone called out to one of the investigators, who still wore their protective overalls, paper shoes, face masks, and white rubber gloves. “Don’t contaminate the evidence!”
    Peanut Butter hid in a corner. Treacle ran behind the bar, where the trapdoor was. Jake stopped at the door, realizing the cats would run if he kept going after them.
    He crouched down in front of Treacle. “All right, come on… come on,