Free Witching The Night Away: A Cozy Mystery (The Witchy Women of Coven Grove Book 3) by Constance Barker Page B

handiwork?”
    Aiden only grunted, and watched Gloria harass another deputy. She was waving the little badge that hung on a strap around her neck and it looked like she was shouting. She’d been going down hill, that one, ever since Martha died.
    “Besides,” Avery said, “I don’t see the reason to keep it from her. She’s my best friend. She’s like a sister. It’s not right for us to keep things from one another.”
    “Magic will demand that you keep a great many secrets, Avery,” Aiden said quietly. “You have to be able to keep them.”
    “It’s not like I wrote her a dissertation on wizardly arts,” Avery said, rolling his eyes as he did. He considered Aiden for a moment. “And besides, you’re terrible at keeping your own secrets.”
    Aiden eyed him, concerned about something. So, he was keeping a great many secrets, was he? Avery tucked that away. “It’s obvious you’re interested in Bailey. And I can assure you, she’s interested in you.”
    His teacher relaxed visibly, and shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Witches and wizards… we just can’t.”
    “Why not?” Avery asked. Gloria was fuming as the deputy she’d been yelling at turned away from her and left her in abject fury, alone.
    “It’s a long and complicated story,” Aiden said. “Not something I can explain right now while we have a job to do.”
    That was fair enough—on the timing issue, anyway; it seemed to Avery there wasn’t any aspect out of all of this that wasn’t ‘long and complicated’. He dropped it for now, but earmarked it for discussion later. What two people could be more right for one another than a witch and a wizard? What were the other options?
    “I think that’s our chance,” Aiden said, pointing.
    Gloria was on her phone and wandering to the far end of the hotel parking lot. She was doing a lot of hand waving at whomever she was speaking with. Maybe her boss, Trevor, if that’s the arrangement they had. Now that was complicated—everyone knew they were more than just professional associates.
    Aiden produced his wand from nowhere—a trick he hadn’t yet taught Avery but presumably would when Avery had a wand of his own—and muttered a spell while he twitched the wand this way and that in an intricate pattern that left a faint glow in the air.
    The spell finished, and the sigil before him flashed softly and then vanished.
    A moment later, the two deputies on duty shifted uncomfortably. Then they began to squirm. Finally, they exchanged glances and then marched stiffly but quickly away from their posts.
    “What did you do?” Avery asked. Whatever the spell had been meant to do, he hadn’t recognized the elements involved.
    “Better not to speak of such things in polite company,” Aiden muttered. “We have perhaps ten minutes.”
    “What about Gloria?” Avery asked.
    They watched her hold her phone out and shout at it. She looked like she might throw it, but instead she stuffed it into her pocket and stormed to her car. Her tires squealed and spun out, raising a cloud of smoke, as she pulled away and then rocketed away from the hotel.
    “There’s your answer,” Avery said. “Let’s move.”
    Once upstairs, Avery was posted on guard duty and told to stand perfectly still. Aiden muttered over him, made a complicated hand sign, and Avery felt a subtle weight of enchantment settle over him. “They won’t notice you unless you move,” Aiden said. “So if you see someone coming, just whistle and I’ll get us out of it.”
    Then he went inside. At the very least, Avery was able to look over his shoulder and watch. When he did, he almost wished he hadn’t. It was very clear that someone had died in that room. The mess would take a long time to clean up.
    Aiden began his work. It was quick, and efficient, all his movements precise. He worked his hands into complicated signs, doing things with his fingers that Avery knew would be months or even years before he could do so easily. Wizard