This year’s festival season will be perilous.
Zombie cactus season has officially begun in Axia, and Deandra is not having a good time. The town is preparing for a festival to honor the versatile plant, and it’s giving Dee—a recovering barista—Pumpkin Spice Latte–season flashbacks.
Most shop owners in Axia are taking part in the cactus-themed festivities, and Quinn and Rularo Greenwood are no exception. Their shop, InkCraft, is known for its alchemical inks that add magic-powered animation to business cards, signs, and even tattoos. Since the couple will be busy with the festival all weekend, they’ve opted to leave their salica at home, where the high-strung, magic-touched ferret will be more comfortable. They’ve hired a very reluctant Dee to aid in his care.
Though the ferret often uses the depths of Rularo’s beard as a security blanket, he accepts Dee’s calming presence as a passable, if weak, replacement. But, when a customer of Rularo’s becomes deathly ill at the festival because of a poison-laced tattoo, Peril is riddled with guilt, sure he could have saved his family’s business from being shut down had he been with Rularo at the time of the crime.
Peril won’t rest until he uncovers who actually tampered with the tattoo ink, so Dee, Wendy, Cruz, and Havoc team up to solve another mystery. They must ferret out the culprit before the town’s horde of cactus-crazed tourists leave Axia at the end of the festival, leaving InkCraft in shambles … and taking their secrets with them.
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