Page 101 of Sweetwater and the Witch

Ravenna smiled. “Harriet led you to me, didn’t she?”

“Nope. She didn’t really wake up until we were already in the sled and on our way.”

“Okay, I demand an explanation,” Ravenna said. “How did you manage to find me in the Underworld?”

Last night’s storm had passed, leaving a fresh buzz in the atmosphere. Night was falling fast, as it always did in the desert. Illusion Town was lighting up with a mix of paranormal and normal energy.

She and Ethan were reclining in lounge chairs on Ethan’s patio. They were drinking wine, munching pretzels, and savoring the radiant garden.

Harriet was scurrying around in the foliage, investigating the landscape.From time to time she appeared and disappeared in the eerie green shadows. Her latest acquisition, a pen bearing the logo of the Illusion Town Guild, was clutched triumphantly in one paw. Ravenna was not sure if she had thieved it when they were all gathered in Gabriel Jones’s office earlier that day or if Gabriel’s administrative assistant, Aiden Shore, had given the pen to her.

“You helped me locate you,” Ethan said. He crunched down on a pretzel. “I found your notes about the witch hunter case.”

“I remember writing down Louise Lace’s name. How did that help?”

“You also wrote the wordsdelusional,envy, andfear. I was pretty sure you were detailing motives. Your phone was gone but I grabbed a photo of Louise Lace off the rez-net, and then Aunt Zora and I had a chat with Garrett Willis. Zora uncovered his memories. When I showed him a picture of Louise Lace, he recognized her as the woman who had used the gas on him.”

“Okay, you had the probable identity of the kidnapper. I repeat, so?”

“So, I contacted Gabriel Jones, who contacted the FBPI. We found out Lace had been released on a technicality.”

Ravenna grimaced. “I’ll bet she hypnotized a few people.”

“Apparently. The FBPI was embarrassed about the failure to identify Lace as a strong hypno talent, but they do keep decent files. When Louise Lace was taken into custody, someone noted that she used signature amber and included the frequency along with fingerprints and a description. I figured there was a good chance that after she walked out of prison she had gone back to the habit of using tuned amber. You can’t change your signature frequency.”

Ravenna smiled. “You set your snazzy locator to her frequency and it led you straight to her.”

“Yes.”

“You are a very good engineer.”

“Thanks.”

“What do you think will happen to Lace?”

“She’ll probably spend the rest of her days in a high-security para-psych hospital for the criminally insane,” Ethan said. “She’s been diagnosed as a burnout for now, but the authorities aren’t going to take any chances.”

“What about Taggert Spooner?”

“The mirror amber did some damage to his aura but I don’t know how much. On top of that, there’s no way to know how the Vortex experiments affected his para-psych profile. For now he appears to be a total burnout. The FBPI is taking apart the Spooner Technology labs looking for evidence of illegal para-psych research, but if Spooner himself was the only human test subject, they won’t have much of a case. Regardless, he’ll be doing time. He confessed to killing the prospector and hiring the Concierge.”

They drank their wine in silence for a while. Eventually Ravenna stirred.

“About the rez-Valentine pen you gave Harriet,” she said.

“What about it?”

“I used it thinking it would act as a distress signal that might just possibly lead you to me.”

“I understand. It worked as you intended.”

There was no emotion in his voice. He was back in unreadable mode.

“I think you should know that when I rezzed the signal, I wanted to send two messages,” Ravenna said. “Yes, I was trying to let you know my location, but I was also sending the message that the Valentine was intended to send.”

Ethan went very still for what seemed like an eternity. Then he set his wineglass down with great precision and sat up on the edge of the lounger. He leaned forward and braced his forearms on his thighs, his fingers casually linked together. His eyes burned.

“A rez-Valentine is meant to tell the recipient,My heart resonates with yours. I love you,” he said.

---