“She was seeing somebody,” Melanie continued. “In secret.”
I sat forward on the edge of my chair. “Who?”
“I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me. But she talks about him a lot in there. She calls him by the initial F. I don’t know what it stands for.”
“But you two were best friends, right? So why wouldn’t she tell you who it was?” I said.
Melanie grimaced. “She couldn’t risk anybody finding out even by accident. Whoever this guy is, she would’ve gotten in a lot of trouble for dating him.”
A forbidden love affair? I suddenly felt like the guest star in a cheesy police procedural TV show. “Was it a teacher?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
I frowned. “Well, who else could it be?”
“A nonfairy,” said Selene.
“Huh?”
“That’s right,” said Melanie. “Her parents would’ve disowned her if they found out she got involved with a darkkind or witchkind.”
“But why? I mean, I know interkind dating is a bit of a no-no, but lots of people still do it.”
“The rules are more rigid when you’re the consul’s daughter,” said Melanie.
“When you’re any politician’s daughter,” Selene added with a note of bitterness in her voice. “Or son for that matter.”
Melanie sighed. “You would know.”
I looked between them, not understanding.
“Lance’s dad’s objection to his son dating a siren was just one of many reasons why we broke up,” Selene said. “The rest were all because he’s a jackass.”
I snorted.
“Anyway,” Melanie said. “Rosie was pretty serious about this F guy. You’ll see it for yourself in there.”
I opened the diary and scanned the first couple of pages. Thankfully, Rosemary’s writing was big and neat, easy to read. I looked up at Melanie. “So what makes you think this secret boyfriend is the one who killed her?”
“She had a habit of sneaking out of the dorm to see him. It was what she was doing that night, according to the last entry.”
Well, that put a different spin on things. It didn’t seem likely a secret boyfriend would be connected to a Keeper spell. Maybe it was a case of bad timing. She might have been on the way to meet the boyfriend when the killer attacked. If so, it was possible the guy had seen or heard something.
“Did you tell the police about the boyfriend?”
A guilty expression crossed Melanie’s face. “Only that she might have been meeting someone.”
I debated whether or not I should hand the diary over to Sheriff Brackenberry. In the ordinary world, this would be considered evidence and not handing it over could get me in big trouble. But this was the magical world. All the rules were different here.
“Please,” Melanie said, her voice trembling again. “You’ve got to help. The police are just going to screw up like they always do.”
“What makes you think I won’t screw up?”
“You’re Moira Nimue’s daughter. She can do things nobody can.”
Melanie’s attitude toward my mother was so different from the norm, I was taken aback, unable to respond.
She went on. “And you’re a dream-seer. That gives us a better chance than the police. I want to find the killer and make sure he gets what he deserves.”
I shivered at the menace in her tone. It reminded me why The Will restricted the use of combative magic. Melanie Remillard would kill the guy if she got a chance, no question.
“So will you look into it?” Melanie asked.
I considered the question. Since I was already looking for the killer, I didn’t see how taking a more hands-on, detective-like approach would hurt. Besides, the idea was sort of appealing. I might actually get somewhere. It would certainly be easier than trying to muddle my way through Eli’s dreams.
“I’ll try,” I said. “But I’ve got a couple of questions.”
Melanie sat up, looking eager. “Ask me anything.”
“Do you know if Rosemary was wearing a ring on her right hand that night?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Why are you so sure?” asked Selene.
“Because she only had one ring and she never took it off, not since her father gave it to her last summer for her eighteenth birthday. She loved that thing—don’t know why. It was pretty enough, but it was made of iron, of all things.”
Iron had lots of magical properties, including the ability to repel ghosts and other spirit-based creatures. “Hang on. I thought iron was poisonous to fairies.”
Melanie shook her head, a slight grin on her face. “Nope. That’s just a rumor fairykind started back in medieval times to trick ordinaries into believing we’re less dangerous than we really are.”
“Oh.” I should’ve guessed that. Magickind started rumors about themselves in the ordinary world all the time, the latest example being the ordinary pop culture obsession with vampires as misunderstood victims who’d rather kiss a human than kill one. So not true.
Melanie said, “But it’s not completely false. We’re not fond of iron, in general. Especially as jewelry. It has a way of messing with our magic. It doesn’t block it exactly, but it can sometimes make a spell go awry. Nobody wants to set the sofa on fire when you’re trying to light the lamp, you know?”