“I was charged by my queen and by her ambassador with a mission and I will fulfill it,” Arkan said. “You are not to interfere here.”
“Who said anything about interfering?” I said. “Maybe I’ve got my own reasons for being here.”
“Do you think I am a fool, or that my queen is? She knew that once you discovered her aim you would meddle,” Arkan said.
Interesting. Amarantha was up to no good and she didn’t want me to know about it. Which certainly raised the question of why she had decided to do her dirty deeds right under my nose. Beezle asked before I could.
“If Amarantha didn’t want Maddy around, then why is she doing her badness in Chicago?” Beezle asked.
“You know very well that there is a magical convergence of energy here,” Arkan said. “Do not play the fool.”
I did not know very well at all. In fact, I knew nothing about it. Beezle, however, looked thoughtful. My home guardian is like a little gargoyle-shaped encyclopedia of all things supernatural. I could tell that he was putting two and two together and getting four.
“That’s why she needed the witches,” Beezle murmured. “She doesn’t want her fingerprints on it if it works.”
“What are you muttering about?” I asked.
“It’s almost the solstice,” Beezle said.
“So?” I said. “Lots of witches do stuff around the solstice. It’s a thing.”
“Lots of good witches perform spells around the solstice, yes,” Beezle said. “And so do lots of bad ones. Because the solstice is a time of life and death and rebirth, and thus has a lot more magical oomph than a regular old day.”
“Did you just say the solstice has ‘oomph’?”
“Yeah, so?”
I decided not to pursue it. “What does that have to do with Chicago?”
“You truly do not know,” Arkan said, looking from Beezle’s face to mine. “I have been a fool. If I had only waited to discover your purpose here . . .”
“You mean, instead of taking off like a maniac the second you saw me? Yeah, you blew it. Now someone tell me what Amarantha’s up to, because at this point I’m going to have to stop her just on principle.”
“Chicago is a special place, magic-wise. You know how all of the old rail lines from the east converged on the city and then went out west, and all the shipping went through here to the canal?” Beezle said.
“Yeah,” I said, vaguely remembering some of this from elementary school history.
He squinted at me like he knew I didn’t really remember, but then continued. “There’s a reason for that besides Chicago’s strategic location. Magical energy converges on this city in a big way. It’s the reason why so many supernatural creatures live here, and why so many witches choose to practice here. That energy amplifies existing powers.”
“Okay, I’m following,” I said. “Chicago makes magic bigger and better, and so does the solstice. And the two combined mean that practitioners will get more out of whatever spells they cast. But this can’t be the only place in the world that does so. There has to be another city with special mojo where Amarantha could have gone, someplace where I wouldn’t get in her way.”
“There is, but the others are a lot farther away from Amarantha’s kingdom. Plus, her son is here, so she’s already got ties to the local supernatural community. The only fly in the ointment is you. Sammy Blue isn’t here just because he’s Amarantha’s ambassador. He’s here because he’s got the Red Shoes,” Beezle said, looking at Arkan for confirmation.
I had to give the faerie credit. I never would have seen the flicker in his eyes if I hadn’t been looking for it.
“The solstice is a time of life and death and rebirth, you said?” I asked Beezle, trying to pull all the threads together in my head. “And Amarantha needs witches and the Red Shoes . . .”
I stopped, because something horrible had just occurred to me. “Whatever spell she’s casting needs a sacrifice. And they’re going to use the shoes to do it.”
Beezle nodded. “It’s got to be something big, because the person wearing the shoes will generate a lot of agony for the spell. The suffering of the wearer will help to power the curse.”
“Extra solstice points, extra Chicago-magical-energy points, and hours-of-torturing-a-sacrifice points,” I said, ticking them off on my fingers. “And when the curse goes, Amarantha doesn’t want her own magic to be on it. So there’s only one person she could possibly be after. Lucifer.”
Beezle patted me on the shoulder. “See? If you exercise your brain enough, this kind of thinking gets easier.”