Page 17 of Hexes and Hiccups
“Is that the most important, though?”
Daisy eyed her. “What do you mean?”
“I haven’t forgotten the point the Witch Council made. Have you?”
Pushing her food away, Daisy tried to get rid of the growing pit in her stomach by taking large gulps of her tea. The Witch Council had assumed Tessa was at the center of their mystery, since Riven had been found with the slip of paper in his hands with Tessa’s name very pointedly written upon it. It was an easy guess to make, of course, though Daisy wasn’t as quick to jump on it. She had known Tessa since they were children, and there was no occasion when she had ever been accused of cheating.Daisy had never believed it from the very first moment she saw it. She had only wished that Tessa could see herself in the same light.
“This is all going to go away,” Daisy finally said. “Either when we find the Book of Gossip, or when the Council manages to revive Riven. Your name will be cleared, and we can go back to normal.”
Tessa rested her chin against her hand. “Don’t you find it odd that it hasn’t been done yet?”
“What?”
“Riven’s still a statue,” she murmured. “They didn’t seem in any hurry to bring him back, even if he could point out his attacker the moment he came back to reality.”
Daisy tilted her head at her. “The potion to break that sort of spell is rather tricky, Tess. It would take more than you’d think to heal him.”
Before Tessa could reply, the front door to the shop swung open, the bell sounding through the air. Iskra slipped through the aisles before appearing behind them, a kind smile on her face, despite the stress lines beginning to crease around the corner of her eyes.
“Iskra,” Daisy greeted, standing up from her seat. “How are you?”
She sighed, her voice heavy with exhaustion. “Perhaps you can ask me that again, at a later time.”
“That bad?”
Iskra shrugged. “Things have been a bit uneasy with this rumor business going around,” she replied. “Townspeople come flocking to Gray Manor, demanding to know the meaning behind it and wanting to know what will be done. There isn’t much I can say, except to ask for as much patience they can give. I was hoping to see if you two had managed any better than us.”
Daisy stepped aside to show the Elder the strips of torn pages they had collected so far. “All we have managed so far is to track down more pages,” she explained. “The tracking potion I made was meant to uncover the book, but it only leads to the next rumor.”
Iskra leaned over the counter and read the pages, her lips moving as she did so. When she finished, she straightened back up with a tense expression. “Troubling,” she murmured. Her eyes grew foggy for a moment, but she quickly returned to reality. “Anything else?”
The Elder was a master at divination, allowing her to get small glimpses of the near future, or a possible one. Daisy wondered if Iskra received some sort of vision in that moment, one that drove her further into the ball of worry she already found herself in. For a second, Daisy almost blurted out a demand, wanting to hear what it is she saw, but she held herself back. Daisy was far too greedy for an answer to their case, determined to figure out who would spread such careless rumors about the people she held incredibly dear to her chest. Her gaze snapped over to Tessa for a second, but her expression was unreadable.
“Well, from all four rumors we have uncovered,” Daisy explained, “we can say that two of them are false, while the other two are true.”
Iskra raised her brow. “What makes you say that?”
“Either common knowledge, or the people themselves.”
Iskra looked away from her, once again staring down at the papers. There was something trapped behind her lips, something she wished to say but kept locked behind closed lips. She fidgeted uncomfortably, as if she wanted to leave.
“What is it?” Daisy asked. “What is it that you want to say?”
Iskra hesitated, but her shoulders eventually sagged, as if she didn’t have all that much of a fight left in her. “While your heartis incredibly true, Daisy,” she began in a quiet voice, her eyes not looking at Tessa in particular, “I can’t help but wonder if all these rumorsaretrue, but your judgment is clouded by your…” her eyes snapped towards Tessa, “friendships.”
“I wouldn’t say that at all,” Daisy countered, an edge of anger in her voice.
“Well, I –”
“No, Iskra,” Daisy interjected, confident in her words. “If we were all to succumb to the single rumor, how would there be any friendships in the first place? All relationships are built on trust, and if I trust someone to know their character, why can’t I assume it to be a false rumor? I’ve spent all my life knowing these people. Iknowthem. These,” she pointed to two slips of paper, “are wrong. Iknowit.”
Iskra looked as if she wanted to argue, but she held herself back, only leaning against the front counter. The Elder witch grew quiet as she looked over the rumors, her eyes growing cloudy the longer the silence continued on.
Daisy, pushing away the irritation that arose from Iskra’s words, crossed her arms over her chest, determined to regain control over the conversation. She could feel Tessa’s embarrassment and shame from even where she stood, and there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do to make sure her friend no longer felt that way.
“How goes the potion brewing?”
Iskra blinked a few times, her expression puzzled. “What?”
