As I made my way back down Solly toward the Thompsons’ acreage, I forced myself to keep my mind blank. Not wanting to think about anything until I was back with Beau and could talk everything through with him. It didn’t work, though, and by the time I hit the driveway I was thinking about how bad I was going to feel when the news broke that the Tim Hortons in Summerland had exploded due to a leaky gas main or some other cover-up story.
But then I started wondering. If Blackwell couldn’t talk about my grandmother — couldn’t share anything about her, really — could he kill her? Or attempt to kill her?
Maybe I should have led with that question.
The vision welled up when I was a few steps off the driveway, just within the apple tree section of the orchard. I could actually feel the magic surge beneath my feet as I walked. Then it shot up my legs, torso, and neck to wipe out my eyesight.
If I hadn’t been stumbling around blind and worried about dropping two boxes of Tim Hortons takeout, I probably would have wondered at the timing and location.
Instead, I hunkered down right where I was standing, then slowly slid my ass backward until I came up against a tree.
Once I was positioned safely — as long as Eddie didn’t run me over with the lawn mower — I put the donuts down to one side and opened my sketchbook across my bent knees. Then I waited for the white mist occupying my mind to resolve into whatever the magic wanted me to see.
My vision cleared. It was night and possibly deep into it. Hushed, shadowed fruit trees spread out from me in all directions … so I was deeper into the orchard, or maybe in another orchard altogether. If pressed, I wasn’t sure I’d even be able to distinguish between apple, pear, and plum trees in the moonlight. But I was fairly certain I wasn’t standing among the cherry trees.
Speaking of the moon, I leaned forward in an attempt to peer up at the sky through the leafy branches, a piece of broken charcoal gripped tightly in my left hand. The moon hung off to one side, about half-full with wisps of sooty clouds clustered around it.
“Same night,” I muttered to myself.
Then someone was moving through the trees to my left. I tucked my knees tighter to my chest, barely giving myself enough room to draw if the compulsion hit me. It wasn’t as though I was actually in the vision, and I knew that nothing could trip over me, but —
Blackwell stepped into a patch of moonlight. He was armed with a dark pool of magic in one hand. He glanced around, slowly and carefully continuing to cross in front of me. His footfalls were silent in the trimmed orchard grass, but I picked up other faint sounds of his passing. Leaves brushing against his arm. The quiet huff of his breath. He’d been running.
What the hell would a sorcerer as powerful as Blackwell run from?
Win stepped into the pool of moonlight Blackwell had just been occupying, glancing around her as he had. If not for her pale skin, I’m not sure I would have spotted her standing among the trees in her dark cloak. If she’d pulled up the hood, I might not have seen her at all.
Except this was a vision, I reminded myself. I was supposed to see. I inhaled deeply, focusing on the feeling of the charcoal I held poised over the smooth paper of my new sketchbook. I was anchored to the real world. The world outside my head. “Observe and record,” I muttered to myself.
I thought for a moment that Win might be stalking Blackwell. Except her gray-eyed gaze was looking everywhere but at him.
A shadow split off from the trees to my right, then slammed against Blackwell’s chest without further warning. Teeth and claws flashed as the sorcerer stumbled backward.
He fell directly in front of me, no more than a foot away from my sneakered toes.
The charcoal crumbled in my hand. I stifled a scream.
The demon lifted its face, locking its crimson gaze to mine and opening its blood-smeared maw to reveal rows of sharklike teeth.
The scent of carrion mixed with fresh blood hit me, filling my nasal passages and triggering an adrenaline rush I couldn’t quell.
I screamed.
Something flashed across the demon’s neck, and the creature was yanked away from me by Win. She was wielding some sort of platinum-colored weapon. My grandmother shouted something, viciously cursing in Cantonese or Mandarin. I didn’t know the difference.
Blackwell was dead at my feet. His throat was … gone. His dark eyes were sightless.
I screamed again.
Then someone was touching my arms and attempting to press something into my hands. I slammed my head back against the tree behind me in an attempt to escape the new threat.
Endless white mist blanked out the vision, smoothing away the image of Blackwell’s murder. But I couldn’t forget the demon’s claws or the swift hopelessness of the sorcerer’s final moments. I was now condemned to capture it over and over again, pouring the oracle magic into the paper of my sketchbooks in the desperate hope of never having to see such a thing again.
“Rochelle?” a soft, tentative voice asked.
Krista. The young shapeshifter was in the orchard with me, trying to pass me something. I had to try to behave normally. She didn’t need to witness my terror any more than she already had.
“It was just a vision,” I said, reassuring myself.
“I know. Here.”
I opened my hand, and she placed a cool, smooth, round object into my waiting palm.
“I was careful. I watched,” she said. “Like Beau told me. But then … you screamed.”
“It’s okay.”
An apple. She’d given me an apple. I took a bite, allowing the crisp, sweet flesh to draw my senses back into the real world.
My vision cleared enough that I could see her hunkered down in front of me. Her head was tilted quizzically.
“It’s okay,” I said again.
“I know,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Where’s Calvin?” I took another bite of the apple, chewing slowly. I wasn’t completely sure that my stomach could handle any food.
“Looking for Beau,” she said. “But you have your sketchbook already.” She backed off a few steps, giving me space. “So I’ll stay until Beau comes.”
An emotion welled up in my chest. But I couldn’t place it, so I pushed it away and took another bite of the apple.
“Good thing I didn’t eat it. Conserving supplies is an important survival technique,” the towheaded girl said proudly. “It’s a Royal Gala. Last year’s crop, of course. But they have a great shelf life.”
I grinned. I felt like crap, but I couldn’t help but smile at my earnest savior.
Krista grinned back at me, brushing her hair behind her ear and drawing my gaze to the half-dozen plastic cause bracelets she always wore.
“What charity is it this weekend?” I asked, attempting to regain some sense of normalcy. “For the apple juice stand?”
Every weekend, Krista and Calvin set up a juice stand at the base of the driveway. Rain or shine. They hauled frozen, fresh-pressed apple juice — left over from when their uncle was alive — out of the massive freezer in the basement and sold it for three dollars a cup, knocking fifty cents off if customers brought cups of their own. They made a killing. Then they donated the proceeds.
“The school library needs new computers,” Krista said.
“According to them or you?”
She shrugged.
Pain seared up my left arm. I gasped.
“Rochelle?”
“It’s okay,” I said, digging around on the ground for a relatively unbroken piece of charcoal.
“Your eyes,” Krista murmured.
She could see the oracle magic seeping around the edges of my sunglasses, but she didn’t sound scared. Just tentative.
“I have to draw,” I said.
Krista nodded, then pulled her backpack off and retrieved a dog-eared paperback from its depths. From the layout and the blurry image, I thought I recognized a Harry Potter tome. My eyesight wasn’t sharp enough yet to read the title, though. “I’ll stay.”
I didn’t really have time to argue. My left arm, shoulder, and neck felt as though they were on fire. White mist rolled across my eyes. “Hey,” I said, right before I lost track of my surroundings a second time. “Where did the boxes of donuts go?”
“Oh,” Krista said. “Calvin and I figured you didn’t want them lying around in the sun.”
I laughed, not bothering to argue that we were currently sitting in the cool shade of the apple grove.
Time to draw.
“Why Blackwell?” Beau asked.
I looked up from my sketchbook, blinking away the white dots that still swam before my eyes. Beau was seated propped against the tree trunk across from me.
“Sorry?”
He nodded toward my sketchbook where it lay open across my crossed legs. I’d been refining a detailed sketch of Blackwell looking over his shoulder, defining the crisp edge of his shirt collar against the moonlit backdrop of a fruit tree branch.
I frowned. I didn’t remember the sorcerer glancing back. Was he looking at Win behind him? Distracted for a moment right before the demon pounced on him and —
“He’s going to die,” I whispered. Terror constricted my chest. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe.
Beau was next to me in an instant, rubbing my back soothingly. Then abruptly slamming the heel of his hand against my lower ribs.
I exhaled in a gasp. “Wow. Was that really necessary?”
“I thought so.”
I glowered at him, then turned my attention back to the sketch. I flipped the sketchbook closed and straightened my bent legs, feeling tingles of pain flooding through them. “How long have I been sitting here?”
“Couple of hours,” Beau said, rubbing my back again. “Win came by.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.” He snorted. “She wanted me to carry you back to the Brave.”
“And you refused.” I smirked at him. “You bad boy.”
He chuckled.
I sobered, leaning against Beau’s shoulder and peering up at the clear blue sky. “What time is it?”
“After five.”
“That’s more than a couple of hours.”
“Calvin didn’t find me right away.”
“The donuts probably distracted him.”
He laughed. “Actually, I don’t think he ate many.”
Silence fell between us. I smoothed my hands over the almost-silky cover of the sketchbook. Judging by the smudges along its edges, it was now almost half full. Apparently, Blackwell’s death was significant.
My throat was threatening to close up again. “Why Blackwell what?” I asked, following up on Beau’s first question. “Why is he going to die? I don’t know.”
“No,” Beau said. “And you know he’s not going to die. I meant why do you draw him in the first place?”
I twisted away from him sharply, lifting the sketchbook as if it were the bloody murder weapon. “I just saw it, Beau!”
“Yeah. And now Blackwell will study the sketches, and we’ll thwart the vision. That is why you get them, right? To try to thwart them.”
I looked away from him as I whispered, “We know how well that works.”
In the aftermath of the intense vision, with my fingers crusted in charcoal, I felt as if the death of Beau’s sister, Ettie — and my inability to figure out the visions of her death quickly enough — stood firmly between him and me.
Beau ran his fingers down my arm, tracing the curves of my ivy vine tattoo until he reached my wrist. Little electric kisses followed in the wake of his touch. He flipped my hand over and laced his fingers through mine.
I squeezed his hand as tightly as I could. He grunted in satisfaction.
“We both know that Ettie was a willing participant in her death,” he said quietly. “She not only ignored you, she deliberately put herself in harm’s way, wearing that dress …” He trailed off. We’d already had this conversation — probably more times than was ultimately healthy. Talking about it didn’t change the facts. “Blackwell will fight to the bitter end.”
“Fight?” I scoffed. “Wait until he sees the sketches. He’ll be gone two seconds later.”
“He’s seen them. He knows. He was with Win. He’s probably waiting for you at the Brave, ready for a second look.”
“He stayed?”
“Crazy, huh?”
I thought about Blackwell. About him sipping his coffee, then placing it carefully on the table at Tim Hortons. “He doesn’t like being out of control,” I said.
“None of us do.”
“No, I mean, he already feels out of control. Because of Win. She’s holding something over him.”
“Of course she is.”
“Do you think you and I are doomed to hate each other’s families?”
Beau laughed harshly, then rose fluidly to his feet and held out his hand for me. “I think it’s a good thing our families are small.”
I let him haul me upright, brushing off my jeans as best I could. My ass was covered in dirt from having scrambled around like an idiot when the vision hit.
“What is it?” Beau asked softly.
I shook my head. “Other than Blackwell dying?”
“Yeah.”
I wrapped my free hand around his, then we meandered back in the direction of the Brave. My eyes were glued to the ground.
“These visions are different,” I finally said, trying to articulate a feeling I hadn’t quite figured out myself. “I feel … vulnerable in them. Like the demon can see me. Talk directly to me.”
“But you’re not there. You’re not seeing yourself.”
“No. I don’t think so. But it is. It sees me. When I see it in the future, it can look back at me.”
Beau’s grip tightened on my hand, momentarily crushing my fingers. His magic rolled over him. Then with a quick exhalation of breath, the energy and his grip both eased. “We need to call Jade.”
“And have her come up here to hunt a demon? And possibly Blackwell? Or my grandmother, for that matter? Because if Jade thinks Blackwell is evil, what the hell is she going to think about Win? No. Or not yet, at least.”
“Not to fight, no. But Jade puts us in contact with Drake, and Drake puts us in contact with Chi Wen, who you can ask about the visions.”
“Not in two days.”
Beau looked at me, confused.
“You said the half-moon that I’ve seen in the visions is only two or three days away.”
“Maybe one day now,” he murmured.
We didn’t speak for the remainder of the walk to the Brave.
Blackwell was sitting out front at the patio table, reading a local newspaper and sipping an apple juice that he’d apparently bought from the twins’ juice stand. I handed him my sketchbook without speaking. I brushed my fingers against his shoulder and climbed into the Brave to shower and change.
I probably should have said something. I probably should have insisted on refining the sketches further. But one or two days wasn’t a lot of time. If we were even putting the clues together correctly in the first place.
And I really wasn’t going to face my grandmother over dinner, along with whatever her yet-to-be-revealed agenda was, with a dirt-crusted ass. Even I had more respect and dignity than that.
I was soaking wet, my hair dripping with soapsuds, when I realized I hadn’t answered Beau’s question. Why Blackwell?
Why had I experienced visions of Blackwell dating all the way back to when I was thirteen years old? He wasn’t my father. He hadn’t known my mother. He hadn’t even known I’d existed, because Win hadn’t known. Because no one had known.
Chi Wen once said he thought I was influenced by the most powerful people around me. So living in Vancouver, that should have been Jade and her family.
Blackwell was from Scotland.
He’d found me through my Etsy shop. Years later.
Hadn’t he?
So why Blackwell? Why not my grandmother?
Why was he the very first Adept I had ever seen?
“Goi cuon, half tofu, half prawn. Enough for the table. Pho dac biet, four large bowls. We’ll share. Two servings of com hien thap cam, and one com chay tham cam with tofu.” Blackwell looked up from the menu to address our waiter directly. “We’ll keep a menu.”
“That’s salad rolls, beef soup, and rice,” Beau whispered to Krista and Calvin, who were seated on his left. We were all occupying a round table in the very back corner of the spartanly decorated Vietnamese restaurant.
It was sweet of him to pretend to be filling in the kids, because I had no idea what Blackwell was ordering either.
“Bubble tea?” Win asked from across the table.
“Ah, yes.” Blackwell consulted the menu again. “Mango, strawberry, taro, peach, blueberry, or honeydew?”
“Taro,” Win said dismissively, unfolding her napkin and placing it in her lap.
Beau made a disgusted face for the kids’ benefit.
Krista giggled, then said, “Blueberry?” in a hopeful voice to her mother, who was seated beside her.
Leanne nodded. “One blueberry and one strawberry, please.”
“And tea for the table,” Blackwell added.
The waiter nodded, then made his getaway. He hadn’t said more than five words since the ten of us showed up and requested a table. With the restaurant only half full, I assumed he appreciated the business. But I suspected he could sense the uncomfortable tension that ten Adepts — all relative strangers to each other — brought with them, even as someone nonmagical.
Yes. Beau had invited everyone to dinner with my grandmother.
Win hadn’t been amused. She’d insisted on a table at the very back, though we’d been offered another just off the windows. All the other diners were seated at least two tables away from us.
Henry was having a blast, of course. He was grinning from ear to ear, as if he was cataloging every little awkward moment.
Ember was glued to her phone in an intense fashion, which made it clear she’d rather be anywhere else than eating pho with a bunch of strange Adepts.
Blackwell had attempted to settle beside me when we initially sat, but Win redirected him to sit next to her. He had obeyed without question.
That wasn’t weird at all.
Silence fell as we waited for the drinks to be delivered. I wondered if any of the other customers were staring at us, but my back was to the room so that I couldn’t see. Ironically, my grandmother couldn’t mask herself from nonmagicals and still get served dinner.
I found myself imagining what it might look like if a fight broke out at our table.
I wondered who would win and who would die.
Blackwell caught my gaze from across the table. He tried to smile. He didn’t pull it off.
Beau slipped his hand into mine underneath the table. “Krista and Calvin raised fifty-one dollars for the school library in two hours this afternoon. That has to be some sort of record.”
“Yeah,” Krista said. “Sorcerers and witches should come to stay all the time. Right, Calvin?”
Calvin looked utterly put on the spot by the question — and more than a little terrified at voicing an opinion that I assumed was contrary to his sister’s.
Henry threw his head back and laughed. Ember covered her smile with a sip of water.
“I thought we would talk,” Win said to me, as if no one else was sitting with us. Her expression was coolly blank.
I opened my mouth, but then found I had nothing to say.
“I thought a family dinner appropriate,” Beau said. “Don’t you, Win?”
Win’s lips twisted, but instead of replying to Beau, she glanced over at Blackwell. “You encouraged this?” she asked.
Though he responded to Win, Blackwell didn’t look at her. “You’d have Rochelle here without protection?”
“I’d have her home. With me.” She eyed me for a moment. “Well fed, and taken care of properly. Studying her craft in a focused and meaningful way. Needing no concern for her safety. And not mixing with lesser beings.”
I straightened my spine, exceedingly aware that their conversation wasn’t about our choice of restaurant or dining companions.
“Good luck with that,” Blackwell said.
Win smiled smugly. “I’ve never needed luck.”
Leanne and Eddie were leaning into each other and quietly discussing something about the B&B’s schedule for the next day. Calvin was playing with his tablet. But Krista, Ember, and Henry were all listening to Win and Blackwell intently.
“Was that some sort of racial slur?” I asked, locking eyes with my grandmother. There was no way I was going to let that comment slide.
Leanne and Eddie fell silent.
The waiter dropped off the bubble tea, then topped up our water. The tension pervading the family get-together grew smothering as cubes of ice plinked against our glasses and threatened to slosh water onto the table.
“Thank you,” Blackwell murmured.
The waiter crossed over to a party of four seated along the wall three tables away.
“Well?” I narrowed my eyes in Win’s direction. “I’m not big on games.”
“I have no issue with anyone’s race,” my grandmother said haughtily.
I opened my mouth, gearing up for a fight. A massive, all-out brawl in public would send Win scurrying away as quickly as she’d shown up at my door. No one wanted to deal with a pissy, mouthy orphan on any sort of permanent basis. It was a technique I was well versed in, and had successfully used to thwart numerous bonding attempts by foster parents and social workers. The trick was to not overdo it, though. Lay it on too thickly and people got angry, then somehow that anger transitioned into guilt, which made them even more clingy. No, making someone uncomfortable was a much better —
Beau squeezed my hand.
I shut my mouth.
“I’m interested in the activities of the sorcerers League in China,” Henry said, attempting to defuse some of the tension. “In North America, we’re looking to create a more responsive collective.”
Win didn’t respond.
“Oh?” Ember said, stiffly but politely filling the awkward silence. “Are you a member? I mean … it’s not like covens, is it? Where membership is a requirement?”
“I’m a newly elected director, actually.”
“It’s a good thing there aren’t any membership purity requirements, marshal,” Blackwell said drily. “Such as with the pack. Otherwise, after Southaven, they wouldn’t have accepted your application.”
The table fell silent again. Only this time, Leanne, Eddie, and Beau were sending death glares in Blackwell’s direction.
The sorcerer frowned, as if he was unaware of how his insulting Henry would also insult the shapeshifters at the table. But presumably, he had no way of knowing the pack’s position on Krista and Calvin being some sort of shifter hybrid, rather than either a true wolf or coyote like their parents. Therefore he had no way of knowing that the Thompsons had been encouraged to leave Portland for reasons of ‘purity.’
“I am the Chinese League,” Win said blithely.
“Sorry?” Henry said. “You’re the chair of the Chinese chapter?”
“No,” my grandmother said. “Any sorcerer who practices in China must swear allegiance to me.”
Henry looked dumbfounded. “That’s … unusual. And I’m sure I would have heard of such a …” He glanced over at Blackwell, who shook his head almost imperceptibly.
“What does ‘membership purity requirements’ mean?” Krista asked.
“We’ll talk about it later,” Leanne said, looking pointedly at Calvin.
The boy immediately cued in on his mother’s wishes and tried to draw his sister into a two-player game on his tablet.
The waiter hustled out of the kitchen with armfuls of salad rolls and peanut sauce. His timing was impeccable.
I leaned into Beau, pointedly whispering more than loudly enough for the shapeshifters at the table to hear me, “It means we’re sitting at a table with a bunch of bigots from the nineteenth century.”
“I wish that were true,” he whispered back. “Racism is alive and well in the twenty-first century, especially among the Adept. And it has nothing to do with skin color.”
He snagged a plate of tofu salad rolls, then offered it to me. After I’d taken a roll, he passed the plate to Krista, who instantly rejected the ‘fake meat.’
Everyone eagerly embraced the distraction the food provided, eating voraciously. After all, it wasn’t polite to talk with one’s mouth full.
We made it through dinner without further incident, but only because the shapeshifters first inhaled the food Blackwell had ordered, then used Krista’s and Calvin’s bedtime as an excuse to leave pretty much the second the serving dishes were empty. Before dessert, even. Though given that I’d seen no sign of my boxes of donuts from this afternoon, that part of the meal might already have been taken care of.
Blackwell insisted on picking up the bill. No one offered any protest over him paying or leaving early.
The sun hadn’t even fully set. But then, we had just passed the longest day of the year. The evening had cooled slightly, though, so I was happy I’d brought the lightweight, long-sleeved hoodie I’d purchased off Etsy earlier that spring. The top was reconstructed out of a series of garments, sporting gray sleeves and black cuffs that I folded back when I was sketching, and a patched-together deep-navy-and-charcoal torso.
Ember was the only one who had driven to the restaurant, and she had room for only one other person in her rental Smart car, so Henry went with her back to the B&B.
The rest of us walked home in small groups, marking the fourth time I’d taken that route since Blackwell and I had gone up the hill to Tim Hortons earlier that day. Though the few hours between then and now felt like days to me. The dinner had aged me easily two years.
I wasn’t cut out for stilted conversations and tension-filled family gatherings.
My grandmother strode ahead of me, moving nothing like I would have imagined a woman in her sixties could move. Though I was still just guessing at her age. Blackwell walked between us, maintaining a few steps of distance between Win in front and Beau and me behind.
Krista and Calvin darted back from beside their parents up ahead, clamoring around Beau.
“Piggyback, Beau,” Krista said.
“Both at the same time,” Calvin added, more demanding than asking.
Beau chuckled and leaned down without breaking stride, offering a bent arm to each twin. Krista and Calvin wrapped their hands around his flexed biceps, then Beau straightened, lifting them off their feet while Krista squealed gleefully and Calvin grinned like mad.
I laughed quietly. Though it had technically only been ten years ago, I couldn’t remember being eleven. Not in the way the twins were eleven. That mixture of child and adult, and the way they were able to enjoy both aspects of their lives.
“Faster,” Krista cried.
Beau flashed me a grin, then jogged off down the road with Krista and Calvin swinging off his arms. The feat of strength was effortless for him. The twins’ grip would give out way before his arms would.
Blackwell shortened his stride, allowing me to catch up with him.
“That’s quite a display,” he said quietly.
“Nothing anyone his size wouldn’t be able to do,” I said.
“For a few minutes, perhaps.”
“And as far as the neighbors know, that’s as long as the game lasts.”
Blackwell fell silent. The houses on either side of the road were quiet, but still well lit. The chickens wouldn’t have cooped themselves yet, but with the sun setting at our backs, the street was darkening before us.
“How long until we talk about everything we need to talk about?” I said.
“You are not prone to verbosity yourself,” Blackwell said.
“But some clarification is needed, yes? Like, why you?”
“Why me?”
“Why did I see you? When the visions manifested, I saw you first. Stealing your amulet from the dragons.”
Blackwell touched his chest protectively. I had never sketched my first vision of Blackwell, so that was something he hadn’t known. The sketching had come later, in the form of shrink-mandated therapy. Then it had stuck around as an outlet for what I’d thought was a psychotic disorder, but which had turned out to be oracle magic.
Some days, it would be easy to think that I’d simply traded one type of crazy for another. That I was actually hallucinating everything and everyone around me, while in real life I was probably a drooling, lobotomized mess in some psych ward. But not today.
Today, I had to believe.
“When?” Blackwell asked, pulling my attention back to the conversation. “When you were how old? Thirteen?”
“About that.”
“I didn’t steal the amulet. I simply reclaimed it.”
“Then you ran,” I said wryly.
Blackwell snorted, but he didn’t disagree.
Up ahead, Eddie and Leanne turned left into their driveway. Beau set the kids on their feet, glancing back to see how close I was.
“Rochelle,” Blackwell said urgently. “There is a larger scope here. Larger than you having visions of me when you were in your teens.”
I stopped along the edge of the road. “So tell me, then.”
Blackwell stopped next to me. I couldn’t really see his face in the evening light. He was simply a pale wash of skin above the dark lapels of his suit.
“I was hoping to have more time,” he whispered. “Before … this.” He looked over at my grandmother.
Win had stopped a few feet away from Beau at the base of the driveway. She was turned to look back at us.
Darkness continued to slowly erode my eyesight.
Nothing else happened.
Win lifted her hand, beckoning us toward her. The gesture parted her cloak momentarily, and a wash of sunset reflected off her ivy brooch. Then she lowered her arm and the cloak fell closed again, snuffing out the oranges and reds that had bloomed briefly on her chest.
Blackwell stepped forward without another word.
Blinking away reflected spots of sunset, I trailed behind him, knowing that I was missing something huge. Knowing that I would just have to wait for clarity. And hoping that insight didn’t arrive in a demonic form.
“Maybe we should sleep outside tonight,” Beau said, leaning back in a plastic patio chair against the Brave and lifting his face to the sky. The moon was hovering over the horizon, and we were parked in the perfect place to watch it clear the broad expanse of fruit trees between us and the lake. We’d spent the last couple of hours of the deepening evening chatting through all the revelations of the day while the others retreated to their various cottages for the night. Everyone was more than ready for some alone time. Thankfully I got to spend mine next to Beau. It was probably near midnight, but I didn’t bother pulling out my phone to check.
I grinned at him. “Bugs.”
Beau snorted. “I run hotter than you. I’ll draw them all. You’ll be unscathed.”
“I’ll accept that as fact just as soon as you show me —”
A woman shrieked sharply from somewhere along the upper left side of the property. Then her voice was muted out as suddenly as it had sounded.
I froze, listening intently.
Beau was out of his chair before I saw him move, crossing farther into the small clearing and slowly panning his head left, then right.
Nothing else happened.
“It’s okay,” Eddie called out from somewhere above and behind us, possibly near the main house. “Just the kids punking Leanne.”
Beau didn’t answer.
“Cool, Eddie,” I called back.
Beau continued scanning the trees. His shoulders were set in a block of tension.
“Beau?”
He shook his head, turning back to me. “It’s nothing … just …” He lifted his head, staring beyond the Brave toward where the main house sat. “There are no sounds.”
“What do you mean? It’s nighttime.”
“The second bat box Eddie set up along the edge of the new apples has occupants.” He pointed in the direction of the cottage we set aside for Gary and Tess, below us at the base of the property. “The bats are good for the orchard.”
“I know. They eat the bugs.”
“At night. Bugs I can’t currently hear.”
“You can normally hear bugs?”
Beau sighed. “You know what I mean.”
“You mean something wicked this way comes.”
Beau, still listening to the still night, didn’t answer.
“You said we had two days,” I whispered, fear blooming in my stomach. “If something had changed, wouldn’t the vision have changed?”
“Yeah, maybe.” Beau paced back to press a kiss against my forehead. “Go inside. I’ll just do a circuit.”
I frowned.
“Please?”
“Fine.”
Without bothering to see if I was going to keep my word, he stepped off into the deep shadows between the trees, heading toward the main house.
I couldn’t really complain about him being overprotective. And it wasn’t like I wanted to wander around in the dark anyway.
Something moved at the edge of my peripheral vision, from the opposite direction than the one Beau had taken. I spun toward it, immediately identifying Henry by his cowboy hat.
The marshal held up his hands and offered me a grin. “Beau with you?”
I shook my head.
Henry nodded, closing the space between us. He lifted his gaze to the moon. “Not the same as the visions you sketched.”
“No,” I said.
“There’s something in the air, though,” Henry muttered.
“No bugs, Beau said.”
“Yes. A stillness.”
“But no magic.”
“Not that I can feel. Though I’m not the most sensitive. Ask Blackwell.” Henry nodded toward the dark trees behind and to the left of us.
“Ask me what?” Blackwell stepped out of the darkness, but then paused, scanning the area rather than joining us by the Brave.
“Why you obey Kai Win without question,” Henry said.
Blackwell didn’t answer.
“Were you her apprentice?”
I touched Henry’s arm. “He can’t talk about it.”
Henry whistled. “A geas? That’s old magic. Outlawed.”
“Not everywhere. Not at the time,” Blackwell said crisply, wandering over to stand on the other side of me but facing out into the clearing.
“You’re not that old,” Henry said.
“Or I was younger than you’re assuming.”
Though they shared a similar lanky frame, Blackwell was a couple of inches taller than Henry. They stood there for a long moment, eyes locked in some sort of silent battle, with me sandwiched between them.
I scrubbed my hands in an attempt to brush away the sparks of energy coming off them. “Is this necessary?” I asked, grumbling.
“Yes,” they answered in unison.
I sighed. “Can you do it elsewhere, then? I’m seriously tired.”
“Why are you here, marshal?” Blackwell’s tone was deep and intense.
Henry tugged open the unbuttoned neck of his short-sleeved, collared shirt. Just enough for Blackwell to see the edge of my henna tattoo.
“You’re not planning on testing its effectiveness here, are you?”
“We’re still a month away from the next full moon.”
“And you have a job to do. Don’t you, marshal?” Blackwell stressed Henry’s title.
“Yesterday, Rochelle had a vision —”
“So I’ve seen.”
“So you think I should leave? Go back to transporting prisoners, protecting witnesses, and apprehending fugitives while a demon manifests in Summerland, British Columbia?”
“I think you have no authority here. Nor are you the most powerful sorcerer in the vicinity. And I believe you’d be very interested in testing the strength of your temporary tattoo, which is not solely constructed to keep the wolf at bay during a full moon. Is it? You’re hoping to channel the shifter magic, every day, and without the forced transformation. Rochelle doesn’t need you complicating the situation.”
“By that logic, we should give the Godfrey coven a call.” Henry practically spat the threat in Blackwell’s face. “Plus, the situation, as you call it, is the result of your own secrecy and the power you trade in.”
“That is absolute, ill-informed garbage.”
“Had you informed Rochelle of her grandmother’s existence and your connection —”
“That’s enough!” I shouted, shoving both of them away from me. I hated feeling crowded that way. Like I was trapped and unable to breathe.
I inhaled, then released a shuddering breath.
Blackwell was staring down at his chest, utterly amazed. I’d shoved him away, but not with my hand. Rather, my ivy tattoo was pressed against him, holding him at bay.
I cranked my neck to look left at Henry. My hand was flat against his chest. The marshal was watching Blackwell, not me, as if waiting for a reaction.
Blackwell’s surprise melted into a smug smile. Then he raised his eyes, meeting my gaze. “Care to tell me about this?”
I folded my arms, pulling the ivy tattoo away from Blackwell with the gesture.
“If you’d been around, Blackwell,” Henry said, “and not off sulking, you would have noticed that the oracle wasn’t only proficient at wielding mind magic.”
Blackwell sniffed. “I’m not her mentor.”
Branches snapped underneath someone’s feet, calling my attention away from the pissing match ramping up between the sorcerers. Again.
Ember stepped into the clearing. She looked as though she’d been getting ready for bed, perhaps showering or washing her face. Then, for some reason, she’d tugged on a pair of the gumboots that were stocked in all the cottages underneath her calf-length cotton nightgown and wandered over. She was also carrying her briefcase. “Something disturbed my wards.”
Henry stepped toward her, any and all hints of aggression smoothed away as he clicked into professional mode. “Around your cottage?”
“No,” she said as she crossed over to us. “Between there and the RV.”
“So you walked over here?” Blackwell asked incredulously.
Ember opened her palm to show him some sort of glowing stone. “It only lit up when I hit the edge of the orchard.”
“What does that cover, a five-yard radius?” Blackwell sneered. “The demon that’s coming could cross that distance before the stone even lit up.”
“I have other defenses, sorcerer,” Ember said darkly.
“No one knows what you’re all talking about,” I said, feeling edgy with their magic angrily sparking all around me.
They all turned to look at me questioningly.
“Okay, so I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m the only one who doesn’t get what’s going on.”
Henry nodded toward Ember. “She’s holding a magical detector. Still, it was stupidly brave to investigate on her own rather than to text me.”
“I tried to text,” she said. “You and Rochelle. The messages didn’t go through. I have full signal.”
Henry swore under his breath, glancing around the clearing again.
“What does that mean?” I whispered to Blackwell.
“Most likely magical interference, but only on your and Henry’s phones.”
“Stay with Rochelle,” Henry said to Ember.
The witch lifted her chin haughtily. “I intend to.”
Without another word, Henry and Blackwell stepped away in opposite directions.
“So …” Ember said. “Do you have any lemonade?”
“Um, no. Apple juice?”
“Almost as good. Especially if it’s the juice the twins were selling earlier.”
Obligingly, I turned toward the Brave.
Ember stiffened.
I twisted back to follow her gaze. My grandmother was standing where Blackwell had just been.
“Everyone’s out for an evening stroll,” I said. “Maybe you’re all tripping each other’s wards.”
Win sniffed derisively.
“I doubt your grandmother trips any wards,” Ember said quietly. Then she stepped in front of me, adopting a defensive posture.
“I mean my granddaughter no harm, witch,” Win said, slowly closing the space between us.
“You certainly were interested in her estate,” Ember said.
“Made some phone calls, did you?” Win’s question was delivered with a completely neutral tone that I found exceedingly intimidating.
Ember squared her shoulders but didn’t answer.
“Apparently, everyone here knows a lot of stuff that I don’t,” I said pointedly.
“It might behoove you to ask some questions.” Win stopped a few steps away.
“Maybe she doesn’t trust the answers she’ll get,” Ember said.
My grandmother looked up, gazing at the night sky. The moon stood out starkly, not a cloud in sight. Which was good, because I’d sketched wispy cloud cover in the vision of the demon attacking Blackwell. Her voice cut through the deepening darkness. “You think to stand between me and my kin, witch?”
“If necessary.”
“Why would it be?”
But before Ember could answer, sudden movement erupted in the darkness as Beau darted out from the trees. Krista and Calvin were hanging off his back. “I can’t find Leanne and Eddie.”
“What?” I cried.
Beau set the twins down. They were barefoot and wearing Star Wars pajamas. “Get into the Brave,” he said.
They obeyed him without question. As I opened the door, I could practically feel the twins’ fear as they scrambled up the stairs past me. Calvin pushed Krista ahead of him, then turned back to look at us from inside the RV. “I thought it was a game,” he whispered.
“It’s okay,” Beau said. “Rochelle and Ember will stay with you. Go.”
“Beau?” I asked as the twins disappeared inside the Brave.
He shook his head, indicating behind me. The children could still hear us.
“Have you seen Henry?” he asked. “He’s not at his cottage.”
“He was just here with Blackwell.”
Beau nodded, then turned to Win. “Will you stay or come with me?”
My grandmother tilted her head as if considering the question, but I honestly had no idea what she was thinking. Whether she was completely disinterested in the missing shifters, or amused by Beau’s protectiveness, or simply dismissive as always. “Any trail, shifter?”
“Two. Both ended without warning.”
“You tried the nearby trees?”
“Of course.”
“They were just taken?” I asked.
“You aren’t wolf,” Win said to Beau, ignoring me completely and insulting him at the same time. “Your nose isn’t trustworthy.”
“It’s better than yours,” Beau said stiffly.
“Not for magic,” she said snidely.
Beau gestured toward the line of trees between us and the main house. “Lead on. Might I suggest we find the sorcerers first?”
Win smirked. “And leave my granddaughter alone with two uninitiated fledglings? Backed only by a witch who deals in contracts, not defensive spells?”
“Your granddaughter is more capable than you know,” I said, not feeling terribly capable at all, but bluffing madly.
Win snorted. Then she stepped away, melting into the darkness surrounding us without another word.
Beau swept me forward into a crushing kiss. I forced myself to release his neck and not beg him to stay. Then he followed Win into the apple trees.
I looked up again at the night. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the moon was only a few feet above the horizon. “Maybe we were wrong,” I said.
“About what?” Ember asked.
I shook my head. Now wasn’t the time to fill the witch in on my last two visions. Not with the twins in the Brave. “You placed wards around here?” I asked instead.
“I always do.”
“Can you … I don’t know … seal them up? Create a magical boundary of some sort?”
“They’re not those kinds of wards. It takes days to lay enough spells to fortify something as large as a house, or even an RV … or someone with more powerful warding magic than me.”
I touched my necklace, inadvertently drawing Ember’s gaze to its raw diamond.
“Yeah,” she said. “Someone powerful enough to make something like that.”
There was a question in her comment, but I ignored it.
“Mom says there are wards around the house,” Krista said from behind us.
I looked up to see the eleven-year-old peering out the window just above my head.
“Inactive,” Ember said. “And old. But … maybe …”
I shook my head. “Beau expects us to stay here.”
Ember shrugged. “I suggest you get some mobile wards, then. They won’t be as powerful as they would be if they were tied to land, though. Property under your ownership, specifically. But you’ve got enough sorcerers hanging around, one of them could throw a few runes your way.”
“I’ll take it under advisement.” Yeah, I was being snarky, but the witch was developing a terrible habit of dispensing unsolicited advice.
I climbed into the Brave, leaving the lights off. The twins were huddled on the bench seat on the far side of the dinette.
My sketchbook was open on the table.
I put my hands on my hips, glowering at them.
Krista jutted out her chin defiantly as Calvin flipped the sketchbook closed, then placed it back underneath the window where they’d found it.
Great. Now I was going to be responsible for their nightmares over the next few weeks.
“I thought it was a game,” Calvin blurted, repeating himself. “You know, hide-and-seek, but like for training. But then, when we tried to … the trail was just … gone. I think … I think there might be something here … on the property.”
Calvin whispered that last part. All the hair stood up on the back of my neck, but I brushed away my rising fear. I didn’t want them to see me distressed. “It’s okay. Beau will be back soon.” I crossed toward the fridge, navigating easily in the moonlight coming in the windows. “The moon is pretty bright tonight,” I said, opening an upper cupboard. I had to lift up on my tiptoes to snag a box of Oreos. “Even for not being full, I mean.”
“The last full moon was a strawberry moon,” Krista said, falling into her know-it-all mode — a classic coping mechanism that I had no problem indulging. “It was a rare full moon on the summer solstice. The last time that happened was before my mom and dad were even born.”
I turned to the fridge for Ember’s apple juice. Then I noticed that she hadn’t followed us into the Brave.
Looking back at the open door, I held the box of Oreos out to Calvin. He didn’t take it from me.
“Where’s the witch?” he asked.
I didn’t answer.
I placed the cookies down on the table, dug my left hand into my satchel, and curled my fingers around the tactical pen I kept in the side pocket. The pen that Beau had showed me how to use in case I ever needed to gouge someone’s eyes out.
“Ember?” I called softly.
The witch didn’t answer.
I crossed toward the door. The twins slipped out from the bench seat to follow me. “Stay put,” I said.
They stopped where they were, holding each other’s hands. Their eyes were wide and apprehensive.
An unbidden and unwanted anger rose in me, momentarily choking me. I took a deep breath as I tore my gaze from the kids, then pushed the almost-debilitating emotion away.
Then I went to look for the witch.