Charm Offensive

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And as a witch who can travel ninety-one years into the past, when I say the wrong time, I mean the wrong century.

I had fallen asleep at Edward's apartment.

Again.

I had been floating in that place between awake and asleep for a while now, but nothing had felt seriously out of place. Sure, the smell was wrong. Back home smelled of lemony furniture polish and the distant aroma of Mr. Trevor's favorite dark roast coffee. Edward's apartment smelled of motor oil from the garage downstairs with an undertone of horse that had never left since the garage had been a carriage house. But I was used to that smell now. In that not-quite-awake space, it didn't feel wrong enough to cause any alarm.

Neither did the sound of early morning traffic on Summit Avenue, and the talking and laughing children walking in groups to school. Kids are kids no matter what the era, and from a block away the hum of so many cars was no more than white noise.

But then a single car turned down Maiden Lane and passed by Edward's window, and just like that, I was wide awake.

The puttering of that engine, the mechanical lurch of its parking brake when it stopped half a block down, had been nothing like even the most out-of-tune modern car engine.

I opened my eyes to find myself on Edward's couch. I had slipped my shoes off to curl my feet up on the cushion. Someone had taken the blanket from Edward's bed and thrown it over me.

Someone who really should have just woken me up and sent me home. How late had we been up, going over the same paltry information and multitudes of worrisome possibilities?

For that matter, how late was it now?

I tried to look back through the window behind me, but the moment I stirred, every muscle in my body shrieked in protest. It was not a comfortable couch, and my legs, in particular, were very angry about their lack of blood flow. My body wanted to contract like a pill bug not happy at being poked, but even that little bit of movement I had managed had been enough to dislodge the blanket from around my shoulders and the chill of the morning air was as sudden as a plunge into a lake fed by a cold spring.

But it cleared my mind of the last vestiges of sleep better than a double espresso.

Moving more slowly and deliberately this time, I twisted to look out through the window behind me. The window didn't open, and being over the garage door and not the staircase, there was no way to reach it to clean the accumulation of sooty streaks that darkened the panes. But I had woken up here often enough to be able to tell it was only just past dawn, the sun not yet high enough in the sky to clear the rooftops of the tall houses on Summit Avenue and reach the deeper shadows of Maiden Lane.

Early enough that Mr. Trevor wouldn't miss me unless he checked my room. And he would need some dire emergency to go looking for me there. He respected all of our privacy too much for that. None of us had ever seen him on the third floor at all after that first day at Miss Zenobia Weekes' Charm School for Exceptional Young Ladies when he had given us the house tour.

Still, it had gotten past the point where I could promise myself not to make falling asleep at Edward's place a habit. It was a habit.

But it was a habit I would have to break before Sophie and Brianna came back home.

I straightened my legs out, bracing for the pins and needles as the blood flow was restored to my icy feet, and became aware of two things at once.

The first was a weight on my shoulder.

The second was the taste in my mouth. In my effort not to make sleeping over a habit, I refused to bring a toothbrush with me when I went to 1928. I regretted it every time. My teeth were decidedly fuzzy, and the taste of the late-night coffee was lingering bitterly on my tongue.

Otto's coffee preferences were not as delightful as Mr. Trevor's. To him, it was a highly caffeinated fuel to be consumed, not something to linger over, savoring the complex aroma of the finest beans roasted to perfection.

A garbled sort of noise came from the weight on my shoulder, and I shifted to look down at the top of Edward's head just before he sat up with a start.

"Again?" he said, blinking as he looked around the apartment as if horrified to find himself there.

"Again," I said. "At least you grabbed a blanket this time."

He looked down at the blanket tucked around us in confusion. "I didn't. I'm pretty sure I fell asleep before you did."

"Did you?" I asked, trying to remember the night before. I sat forward and looked at the bits of paper scattered over the table.

"I did," he said, more confidently this time. "You did that spell thing on Otto's map, and then the two of you were discussing whether the fact that you didn't find any hidey holes meant there weren't any hidey holes, and after that, it's all a blur."

It took me a moment to place when that had happened. It had been relatively early in the evening, soon after we'd eaten the takeout Indian food I had brought with me from 2019. How long had it been just Otto and I talking?

What I was thinking must have been showing on my face because Edward gave me a sly smile. "You didn't even notice I was asleep, did you?" he teased.

I tried to stammer a response, but I had nothing.

"For hours and hours," he said.

"It wasn't that long," I said, but I was afraid it really had been hours. "You didn't miss much. You saw the spell didn't really help, and we just hashed over what we've hashed over a thousand times before."

"Sure," he said. "Coffee?"

"Please," I said, mostly because making coffee would mean stoking up the stove enough to push back some of the chill. Edward slipped out from under the blanket and crossed the room to the corner that was as close as he came to having a kitchen. "But I can't stay long. I have to get back before the morning call."

While Edward filled the kettle and set it to boil then spooned coffee into his coffee pot, I put on my shoes then gathered up the blanket. I was just spreading it back out over the bed when there was a sharp knock on the apartment door. I knew by the sound it had to be Otto, and indeed he didn't wait for an answer before letting himself inside.

"Ah, still here," he said, smirking at me.

"You could've woken me," I said as I smoothed the blanket flat.

"You weren't asleep when I left," he said. "Well, not quite. You were a bit mumbly, but you said you were fine where you were. Who am I to argue with a witch?"

"You're not afraid to argue with me," I said.

"Aren't I?" he asked.

"What time did you leave?" Edward asked.

"Three in the morning?" Otto said with a frown that said he wasn't exactly sure. "I had some business to tend to."

I looked at my watch. It was just past seven. "You slept fast."

Otto scoffed. "I haven't slept yet," he said. "Although it is almost my bedtime."

"So why are you here?" Edward asked as he poured steaming water over the coffee grounds.

"I brought you some breakfast," he said, setting a paper bag on the table on top of the map we had been poring over the night before. "Hard sausage and bread. That one is getting too thin."

I looked over at Edward, who was indeed looking thinner. I hadn't noticed until Otto pointed it out. He was paler too. And he had conked out awfully early the night before.

"He is," I said. "Edward, are you feeling all right?"

"I'm fine," Edward said. Then flushed dark pink as Otto and I kept looking him over. "A bit tired, maybe, but fine."

"He never was a night owl," Otto told me.

"I can't have an eight a.m. bedtime with a day job," Edward said, crossing his arms defensively.

"You'd make more working for me," Otto said. "And I wouldn't care when you work. It's not like you need to keep an honest job now that…" He broke off in a rare display of tact, but we all knew what he had been about to say.

Now that Edward no longer needed to impress some upper-class potential father-in-law.

"I happen to like honest work," Edward said, adding a third mug to the other two on the table before pouring out the coffee. I could tell by the way he wasn't quite looking at either of us that he was still feeling defensive and I shot Otto a pleading look.

"It suits you," he said. Grudgingly, but Edward's smile in return was genuine.

The fresh but bitter coffee did nothing for the unbrushed taste in my mouth, but at least the bread was good, eggy and dense and still warm from the oven.

"Did you have news?" I asked Otto. I doubted he had come out of his way just to bring us breakfast, although if he had come by just to be sure I woke up on time, he would never say so.

"We talked about casting a wider net," Otto said, holding his half-eaten roll in his teeth as he pulled another map out of the inside of his jacket and spread it out on the table.

"Outside of the Twin Cities," I said. Memory of the conversation was starting to emerge from a mishmash of dream images.

"Exactly," he said around the roll still in his teeth and pulled out another map. When he had laid it next to the first, I saw that one was of the entire state of Minnesota, the other of Wisconsin. Otto took the roll out of his mouth and started to point to various locations on the maps. "I have boys from different places, and they have connections back home. I haven't talked to everyone yet, but so far I've got Rochester, Chippewa Falls, Mankato, and Duluth for sure."

"Big net," Edward said.

"Maybe too big," I said.

"Agreed," Otto said to me. "But as I said, I've only talked to the few I've seen since I left here. I should have a good lock on the towns around here once I've checked in with my whole crew. If those witches are laying low anywhere within a hundred miles of here, someone will see something."

"I don't know," I said. "You saw their glamour magic for yourself. If they don't want to be seen, they won't be. Especially not by non-witches."

"We agreed to give this a try," Otto reminded me. I almost remembered agreeing to that.

Then I did remember. And I remembered the argument just before it. I remembered my own plan that he had argued me out of.

"No," Otto said. Apparently, my eyes had lit up with the realization.

"What's a no?" Edward asked.

"We agreed it was a no," Otto said, ignoring Edward, his eyes boring into mine.

“’Agreed’ might be too strong a word," I said.

"We agreed," Otto said. "I said no way unless Sophie and Brianna were here to give you back up. Then you said they don't even know you've been coming here, and you didn't want them to know."

"What?" Edward asked, alarmed.

"I don't need backup," I said. It was only when Otto took half a step back that I realized I had my wand in my hand. I put it away hastily.

"The others don't know you've been coming here?" Edward asked.

"I told you they were out of town," I said. "Brianna is still in Boston, and Sophie is in New Orleans." I glanced at my watch. "And I've got to get back or I'm going to miss our conference call."

"Amanda!" Edward objected as I snatched a sausage out of the bag and headed for the door.

"I'm really late," I said.

"We have to talk about this," he said, putting his hand on the door to hold it shut before I could even reach the handle.

"I know, and we will," I said. "Just not right now. I have to go, and you have to get to work."

"But isn't it dangerous for you to keep coming here?" he asked.

"I'm perfectly safe," I said.

Edward looked over to Otto as if for confirmation and I got more than a little annoyed. "Look, I know how to protect myself. I've bonded with my wand now. I know you don't know what that means, but believe me, I'm not in any danger."

"From here to the charm school, probably not," Otto said to Edward.

"And you can let it go at that," I said to Otto before he started rehashing the argument from the night before, all the reasons why I couldn't just walk around the alleys of St. Paul after dark, glowing with magic like a lure fish meant to attract witches.

It wasn't a great plan, but at least it wasn't just waiting.

"Amanda," Edward said, drawing my attention back to him. He really did look like he was missing a lot of sleep. I bit my lip.

"If anything, I'm putting you in danger," I said. "They already know you. They might suspect who you are to me."

"I'll be fine," he said.

I looked over at Otto.

"I have boys watching out for him," Otto said, and Edward turned to give him a startled look. "There's two outside now, one that keeps watch on the apartment when Edward is out, and the other to follow him to work where another boy keeps watch on that building. They might not be up to fighting witches, but they are all armed and prepared to make an uproar and draw lots of attention."

"Since when?" Edward asked. We both ignored him.

"Thank you," I said to Otto.

"Hold on," Edward said. "How long have the two of you been conspiring behind my back?"

"We're just looking out for you," Otto said.

"You're not my parents," Edward all but growled.

"We're not your parents," I agreed, and gave him a decidedly not maternal kiss. Then I winked at Otto. "Keep an eye on our boy while I'm away."

"You know I will," Otto winked back. Edward was still glowering, but another kiss was enough for us to part ways on a brighter note. I took my cloak off the hook by the door and headed out into the chilly morning.

But I made sure the folds covered me completely, hood up to leave my face deep in shadows before I went down the stairs to the cobblestone road. I was not interested in drawing magical attention, not now and especially not at Edward's front door.

It only took moments to get back to the charm school, to the backyard where the portal lurked, a mere pinpoint of magic I was sure was hidden from all but the most powerful of time witches. And I doubted there was a time witch still living as powerful as I was now.

It didn't feel like much, moving through time. I visualized it as pushing myself through molecule by molecule and reassembling myself on the other end, like using a science fiction teleporter.

I took a moment on the other end to expand my awareness, to check that no one else had tampered with the portal or any of the wards that protected the school and especially its backyard. Once in the solarium, I took off the cloak and hung it on a hook by the door.

I was always worried I'd need it in a hurry. I hadn't yet. I hadn't sensed anything magical besides myself in months. But the worry persisted.

That cloak hid me from magical sight, but it didn't do much against the wind and cold. The temperature was a touch under average in 2019, but downright frigid in 1928. I hurried to exchange my boots for warm slippers and to pull a duster-length sweater on over my 1920s clothes so I could escape the chill of the solarium for the relative warmth of the kitchen.

Mr. Trevor was accustomed to the three of us going out into the yard before dawn, and in coming back in chilled to the bone.

I felt the first stab of guilt at my subterfuge. These stabs never came in 1928 but were getting more frequent in 2019.

I wasn't exactly lying to Mr. Trevor. I didn't have to; he never asked what I was up to, especially not when it touched on anything magical.

Still, I felt a second, deeper stab when I came into the house and found him in the kitchen, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

"Good morning, Miss Amanda," he said as I emerged from the solarium. "Coffee?"

"That would be lovely," I said, perhaps laying it on a bit thick. Especially as my hands were already shaking from the caffeine-laden cup I had already had either ten minutes or ninety-one years ago. He took out another mug and set it on the counter between us before turning back to take the carafe out of the coffeemaker.

"I was just checking the portal," I said, completely unnecessarily.

"Indeed," he said, raising his brows ever so slightly.

"Yes," I said. "It's all good."

"I have no doubt," he said and turned again to put the carafe back.

"Yes," I said. The voice in the back of my head was begging me to stop talking. How could he not be suspicious when I was babbling like an i***t?

"Can I fix you anything for breakfast?" he asked.

"No. No, I'm good," I said. Then I glanced at my watch. "Actually, I have to get upstairs. Conference call."

"Please pass on my regards to Miss Brianna and Miss Sophie," he said, gathering up his coffee and the morning paper. "I do hope they'll be home soon."

"I will, and I hope so too," I said.

But about half of me was lying about that.