Mr. Rossi set aside his tea to shake hands. Reuben took that as a signal all was well, clumped up to grab a brownie, and leaned against the porch rail in the background. Evie’s cousin and sister consulted on the sidewalk. Given the stranger’s good looks, Evie knew the outcome of that discussion. They all strolled up to join the party.
Leaving off their Malcolm names, Evie introduced her family.
Starting to look amused, Mr. Rossi acknowledged the intros. “I did not expect a royal welcome. And the queen of this court? I do not believe I caught your name, Your Highness.” He bowed in Evie’s direction.
She grinned. “Given names possess a dangerous power in the fairy court. You may simply call me Eve.”
“Ah, one of the ancient ones! My Scots relations will appreciate this knowledge. I thank you for the reception, Queen Eve.”
Jax placed a proprietary hand on her shoulder. Evie patted it. “You might want to take Mr. Rossi into the library before my family drools down his pretty jacket. I turned the fan on in there.”
“While you escape in that menace your cousin calls a vehicle? Not a chance.”
Pris didn’t argue the description of her mode of transportation but helped herself to a brownie and perched on the porch rail. Today, she’d added a blue streak to her raging red hair dye. She’d had her normally frizzy brown hair cut punk style short and glossed it with product that made her look like a nineties’ rock star. Even the newcomer was assessing her warily.
“You call City Hall yet?” Pris demanded.
“After the tea party. Go smash your mother’s phone until we can get organized.” Evie knew Pris was tuning into brain waves but hadn’t quite got a handle on what was happening. Good to know she wasn’t the only one.
Iddy, the veterinarian, poured tea and let her raven hop down on the back of Mr. Rossi’s chair. He didn’t flinch. Iddy was the embodiment of every modern witch Evie had ever seen portrayed—long black sleek hair, willowy tall, and self-possessed. Only she wasn’t pale like a good witch should be. She was a healthy ruddy color from her father’s Cherokee origins. She was pretty certain Iddy was ticking Mr. Rossi’s buttons. Both tall, dark, and lean, they’d make a handsome couple, if Iddy didn’t have her raven pluck the poor man’s eyes out.
“The bird can follow you when you leave, but it won’t hurt you while you’re here, unless Iddy orders it, of course.” Evie felt it was only fair to offer explanations. Strangers didn’t often understand, but he couldn’t say she hadn’t warned him.
“Ah, I have a cousin who talks to animals,” Mr. Rossi said, surprisingly. “And that’s one of the reasons I’m here. The Oswins tell me you know a family of Malcolms... Jax.”
Evie laughed. Jax squeezed her shoulder again.
“I wouldn’t want to reveal names of the fairy court,” Jax said dryly. “Why do you need to know?”
For the first time, Rossi looked a little flustered. “One of my... Malcolm... cousins had a premonition, and I’ve learned not to ignore her warnings.”
Nineteen
Jax triedto stay loose and unconcerned, but his gut instincts kicked into high alert at Rossi’s warning. “I thought you and Conan were talking artifact thieves, not weird cousins.”
He noted that Evie and her family were nibbling and drinking as if they hadn’t heard their guest’s warning, but he was fairly certain that Evie was checking auras, Pris reading minds, and Iddy probably had the dogs sniffing for danger. As far as he was aware, the best Gracie could do was mentally fling cookies at them. The aunts might show up any minute.
He was starting to appreciate this weird psychic shit fantasy.
Rossi rocked his glass back and forth on the arm of the wicker chair. “Iamtalking theft with Conan. I could use some... how do I say this? Because of my cousins, I know there are... energies... beyond current scientific comprehension. I have the cousins working through our family tree, looking for relations who might have the time and the right ability to help me in my research of a particularly peculiar cluster of pre-Roman-era artifacts.”
Anarcheologistbelieved in woo-woo energies? Jax bit his tongue and listened.
“Your cousins have psychic abilities?” Evie translated.
Rossi nodded in relief. “Yes. And because they were focusing on finding your branch of the tree, one of them picked up... I’m a scientist. I don’t know how to explain. Spiritual connections? Like a guardian angel watching over you? Does that make sense?”
“Nope,” Iddy said. “Guardian angels don’t watch over witches, or we would be living in an East Hampton mansion like our Puritan brethren instead of hiding in the cotton fields.”
“Iddy is an idiot.” Pris finished her tea and set the glass on a tray. “Our guardian angels don’t let people like us hang around stiff-necked, wealthy aristos. Except they’re called spirit energy, not angels. What does this one say?”
Jax didn’t think he’d heard Pris string this many words together since he’d met her. She was wound up about something—was she reading Rossi’s mind and not liking it?
“Not anything that makes a lot of sense,” their visitor admitted. “The message I’ve been told to pass on is that there is more than one way to kill, and the obvious isn’t always the answer.”
“Good reminder,” Evie said, helping herself to another brownie. “Even if we find the person who put antifreeze in Granny’s Gatorade, that person was probably prompted by larger powers who don’t care if people die from depression because of their thievery or of neglect from their carelessness. You came all this way to tell us there’s something rotten in Denmark?”
Jax hid his smile. Evangeline Malcolm Carstairs looked like an empty-headed Barbie doll. It was sometimes hard to remember that she had a mind that sucked up every bit of knowledge she encountered like a giant information vacuum. And then she processed that information through her extremely eccentric thought processes and came up with flashes of true brilliance. Or psychic idiocy. Hard to tell the difference some days.