Edwina put her arm around her sister’s shoulder. “Mary, we need you to help us.”
“You took my baubles from me? Without asking my permission?”
“It’s very important we return the correct memory to Ian so he can remember how he found Sir Elvanfoot’s missing son.” Edwina smoothed a loose strand of Mary’s hair behind her ear, but her sister shrugged her off. “We’re going to use a spell—”
“Why are you all conspiring against me?” The distress in Mary’s eyes turned to fury. “Get away from me!”
A plate that had hung on the wall for six months shattered and fell to the floor. A mirror cracked.
“Mary, stop it! This is unseemly. Please, we need you to cooperate.” Edwina tried to maintain her composure, but her ire was building as well. “A man’s life may be at stake. Surely that’s more important than a few shiny baubles collecting dust in an old jewelry box.”
Mary’s fury combusted into fire. “You’re no better than all the others. You betrayed my trust again. And for what? Him?” She pointed at Ian in disgust. “He doesn’t even notice you, you dried-up old spinster.”
Elvanfoot attempted a gentlemanly intercession. “Miss, if you’ll allow—”
But she cut him off, charging forward and swiping her arm across the counter, scattering the ring, hair, and leaves of lemon balm before grabbing the jewelry box. Observing the outburst in his distracted, studious way, Sir Elvanfoot backed away and raised his hands, apparently not intent on interfering with her rampage.
Ian caught the toppled candle in its brass holder by reflex before it fell on the wicker basket where Hob crouched. Enough was enough. Mary’s reaction was too reckless, too vicious. She wasn’t in her right mind. Still gripping the candlestick, he slipped his spell inside a poem, the words falsely gentle. “O rose, thou art sick. The invisible worm, that flies in the night, in the howling storm . . .”
“No, Ian, wait.” Edwina gripped the arm bearing the candlestick, begging him to hold his tongue before casting a spell against her sister. “She’s overwrought. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”
With his incantation incognito left hanging in the air, Mary bolted up the stairs with the jewelry box under her arm. Ian set the candlestick aside and followed, taking the stairs two at a time, but still she eluded him as though she’d turned to vapor as she fled to her room. The door shut in his face and the lock bolted before he could catch her. Edwina joined him at the top of the stairs and pounded on the door, demanding to be let in as the sound of something heavy crashed against the hardwood floor.
“I don’t know what’s got into her,” she said to Ian. “Mary, open this door at once!”
Ian put his ear to the door and shook his head, unable to hear even the sound of heavy breathing after running up the stairs. He made a silent motion with his hand to indicate a key.
Edwina stood back, the urgency gone from her. “It’s too late. She’s gone.”
“Gone? How?” Ian didn’t wait for an explanation. “Hob! Undo this lock.”
They heard the scatter of small feet inside the room and then the door opened. The imp swung from the doorknob, then jumped aside. “She isn’t here,” he said, shrugging his tiny shoulders. Behind him, the curtain flapped in the breeze of the open window. On the floor were a dozen scattered baubles and the overturned jewelry box. Ian went to the window and looked down, expecting to find a tragic scene of death or injury, but there was no body. And no sign of Mary high or low.
She’d simply disappeared.
Chapter Twenty-One
Edwina bent to pick up the scattered orbs and return them to the box, avoiding Ian’s gaze.
“How?” Ian was incredulous as he inspected the window frame, the eave above, and the ground below. “How does a woman, even if she is a witch, vanish into thin air?” He turned from the window, posturing in predictable male aggression when the answer evaded him.
Hob helped Edwina scoop up the baubles, collecting those that had rolled under the bed. The little fellow emerged covered in dust, blowing on the orbs to clean them. “I did not pass her,” he said to Ian, referring to his uniquely elvish means of transporting himself from one location to another unseen.
“Of course not,” Ian said. The man was completely confounded. He bent down to search under the bed, apparently unaware of the invasion of privacy of having entered a woman’s bedroom without leave. The thought made Edwina flush even in the midst of all the confusion. “But then how the devil did she get away?”