“I’m sorry,” I said, scuffing my sneaker on the edge of the paved driveway in front of the brown-sided garage.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” Eddie said gruffly.
The coyote shifter shut the back hatch of the navy-blue minivan, then reached out to shake Beau’s hand. Leanne and the twins were clambering into the vehicle from the other side. We’d already said a casual goodbye, not wanting to make too big of a deal of them heading up to Vernon for a ‘mini vacation’ before the opening of the bed and breakfast.
“Text me when it’s clear,” Eddie said quietly to Beau.
“Will do,” Beau said.
I glanced over at Henry and Ember. They were waiting further down the driveway by the witch’s Smart car. Henry was writing something in a Moleskine notebook on the roof while Ember stood with her arms crossed, scowling at the nearby nectarine and peach trees. They weren’t terribly pleased with practically being ordered to leave with the Thompson quartet.
Blackwell and Win were distributing some sort of magical trip wires around the property. Devices that the three sorcerers thought would be sensitive enough to detect the demon’s ability to phase through dimensions.
Henry was quiet about leaving, thankfully. He’d just helped Blackwell and Win for most of the day. Ember insisted that if she was to leave, I should be accompanying her. When that demand was met with a blank stare, she insisted on staying. I gathered she was feeling foolish for having me break the seal on the legacy package without fully understanding what that might mean. But I understood that there was no way for her to have gathered more information while everything was sealed. And despite my mother’s drawing, I wasn’t sure the demon was tied to the legacy package at all. The vision in which I’d seen it for the first time had happened before Ember even set foot on the property.
Of course, I was only ever working with fairly solid guesses when thinking about what triggered the visions. Not certainties.
Anyway, guilt was apparently a powerful motivator for her. Because if an oracle had just seen my grisly death, I’d run immediately.
Except … I wasn’t running. So maybe I didn’t know myself or other people particularly well at all.
Good thing now really wasn’t the time for personal introspection, though, because I wasn’t big on constantly headshrinking myself. Been there and done all that.
I waved to the twins as they buckled into the backseat of the minivan, then wandered over toward Ember and Henry.
“I repeat my objections,” Ember said when I was about a half dozen feet away.
“You could go back to Seattle,” I said, stepping past the Smart car and into the shade of the trees. “That would be even safer.”
The lawyer witch narrowed her eyes at me, but didn’t respond.
Henry laughed under his breath, then turned and handed me a sheaf of notes he’d torn out of his journal. “The sketches are on the kitchen table in the Brave.”
“Thank you,” I murmured.
“Henry can go with the Thompsons.” Ember waved her hand in the general direction of the minivan. “I’ll stay.”
“Or …” Blackwell spoke from somewhere in the trees behind me. “We could lock you up in one of the cottages and report you to the Convocation for mismanagement of Rochelle’s legacy, and therefore your entire branch of magic.”
The witch’s shoulders stiffened, but she didn’t turn to look at the sorcerer as he stepped up beside me.
“Not the sort of mark that a young lawyer wants on her record,” Blackwell said, continuing to threaten the witch completely dispassionately. “If she wants to make partner before thirty.”
Ember pivoted, opened the driver’s side door, and climbed into the Smart car without acknowledging Blackwell’s threat. I wasn’t completely sure she’d ever addressed Blackwell directly since meeting him. I would have wondered if that was a witch/sorcerer thing, except she seemed coolly chummy with Henry. Or maybe it was a contractual magic thing — as in, the witch wasn’t interested in being tied to Blackwell in any way, not even by casual conversation.
That was yet another thing that should have given me pause about Blackwell. Except it didn’t. My relationships didn’t need to reflect everyone else’s.
“That was a little harsh,” I muttered, side-eyeing the sorcerer standing next to me in the shade.
“I agree,” Henry said.
“She’s leaving, isn’t she?” Blackwell stepped back into the trees behind us.
The Thompsons drove down the driveway. Ember started the Smart car.
Henry stepped closer, watching Blackwell leave over my shoulder. “Read my notes,” he whispered. “Text me if you have any concerns or anything you want to talk through. And don’t trust Blackwell.”
I opened my mouth to protest.
Henry stalled me with a raised hand. “The geas makes him even more unpredictable than usual.”
“Then what you’re really saying is that I shouldn’t trust my grandmother.”
“Same difference.” Henry rested his hand on my shoulder lightly. Then he turned away without another word, waved to Beau across the driveway, and climbed into the car.
I watched the Smart car as it slowly rolled down the driveway, catching up to the Thompsons’ minivan at the base of the drive. I would have thought I’d be relieved to see them go. I wasn’t. In fact, I was seriously uneasy as I watched them turn on to Lakeview Drive and drive away.
“They’ll be safe now,” I muttered to myself, shaking off my doubts and jogging across the driveway to join Beau.
∞
I headed back to the Brave to grab a new sketchbook and gather my most recent sketches from where Henry said he’d left them, before meeting Beau, Blackwell, and Win back at the main house. They wanted us all behind the reactivated wards before nightfall. I didn’t really want to draw the demon to the house, but my elders overruled me.
My part of ‘operation demon vanquish’ was to study the sketches and wait. Brilliant. But then, my plan to run had been overruled by multiple parties.
My mother’s drawing was sitting on the lime-green dinette, though I could have sworn I’d tucked it into the pocket of my satchel. Apparently, the sorcerers had thought it germane to their discussion. Or at least Blackwell and Henry had. Though, I supposed I’d added it to the conversation by sharing it with Henry. Then they’d wanted to study the actual image rather than just a picture in a text message. Good to know that one of them could lift it off me so easily.
A handwritten note torn from a Moleskine notebook sat next to the black-inked drawing. I’d seen both Blackwell and Henry jotting notes in pocket-sized black leather journals, but only a single sentence was scrawled across this piece of paper.
How is the demon tied to you?
I pulled out the sheaf of notes that Henry had pressed into my hands before he left, comparing the chicken-scratch handwriting. The new note was a match.
Someone had also numbered the two sketchbooks sitting to the side of my mother’s drawing, one and two. Then they had lightly penciled in page numbers on the back of each page.
Henry’s notes were organized by topic and page number. I scanned through the ream of paper until I found a lengthy list underneath the demon heading.
1. Lesser demon in appearance. Therefore unable to exist on the earth plane for long periods of time, and certainly unable to manifest without being summoned.
2. Tied to a magical artifact? Usually the sacrificial knife with which it was summoned. No knife appears in the visions, nor in J’s sketch of R.
3. Pictured feasting on bodies (typical behavior) throughout R’s vision. Blood everywhere. Yet Beau and Ember appear to have been killed by other means.
4. Two different timelines? Same demon (note the four hooked claws, the elongated snout, and shape of the head). The first timeline appearing in J’s vision of R’s future? The second shown in R’s charcoals? If one future has been thwarted (perhaps by J’s actions or death), then how is the demon still tied to R?
5. If the demon is tied to R, how is it being summoned by another practitioner? Blackwell? Kai Win? Ember? To what end?
I looked up from Henry’s notes, my mind swimming with too many guesses and not enough solid evidence of … anything. Also, Henry’s implication of Blackwell, Win, or Ember being involved was disturbing, because how the hell was I supposed to refute that? But why would the demon kill Blackwell or Ember or Win if it was tied to them?
And if appearing dead in my vision didn’t absolve the others, then even Henry could be involved somehow. And he could be pointing the finger in everyone else’s direction in an attempt to fake me out. What if being bitten by Kandy had somehow changed him fundamentally, morally, not just physically? What if in seeking a way to tame the wolf within, he’d unleashed something else, something dark?
Was that even possible? And who could I trust to ask?
My phone buzzed in my back pocket. I was pacing the length of the Brave and hadn’t even noticed. That wasn’t great. I didn’t need to be checking out from reality any more than I already had a habit of doing.
I checked the text message. It was from Beau.
>Ok?
Yep. Just getting supplies. See you at the house in ten minutes?
Ember had floated the idea of drawing the demon to a central point on the property, then trapping it in a magical circle, then vanquishing it. Problem was, she would have to physically be on site to activate the circle and vanquish the demon. So, pretty much using herself as bait. The sorcerers believed that the random tripwires distributed around the property were a safer bet. Ember had sneered at their ‘low-powered toys.’ But three against one carried the argument.
Beau, however, had been intrigued enough by Ember’s idea that he wanted to scout the location she recommended. The witch had indicated that the area immediately surrounding an old but still solid-looking lean-to shed along the back of the property was rich with helpful energy. The fact that this location — which Beau thought might once have been used for goats — was just beyond the upper edge of the cherry grove didn’t appear to concern Ember in the least. She used the presence of the grove in the visions to support her argument. The fact that she used the phrase ‘helpful energy’ had just solidified the sorcerers’ sneers.
>I’ll be there in five.
I smirked at my phone, crossing to grab a new sketchbook from my supply shelf. Only to discover that I didn’t have any.
Crap. I futilely ran my hand back along the shelf, knocking charcoals and other pens aside, as if I might be able to find by touch what my eyes couldn’t see. I retrieved an unopened package of triple-sifted organic rajasthani henna instead of a sketchbook. I’d picked up two boxes and the cone applicators I’d used to apply Henry’s latest tattoo when we had driven through Vancouver on our way to the Okanagan.
My left hand started itching.
White mist edged my sight, then cleared as swiftly as it had appeared.
“Henry’s tattoos …”
There was something important about the marshal’s tattoos in my last vision. The demon had clawed across them in a way that appeared deliberate. Though that had to be my interpretation. Because logically, how could claw marks appear deliberate? Except by being the only marks on Henry’s body …
Did Henry’s tattoo work? Did it give him some sort of extra power that the demon — or whoever controlled the demon — needed to sever?
And what did that matter now that Henry had left the property?
Without really knowing why, I dug around for some cone applicators. Then I added them, the henna, some fresh charcoal, my mother’s drawing, and my last half-empty sketchbook to my satchel. Normally I tried to sketch chronologically, completely filling each book before starting another. But grabbing a new sketchbook at Beau’s behest before meeting Win had screwed up my system.
Carrying the numbered and completely filled sketchbooks separately, I headed up to the house. I’d read through the rest of Henry’s notes and attempt to discern more clues from the sketches before the demon made another appearance tonight.
If the demon was going to show up at all.
But first, Blackwell and I were way overdue for a chat.
∞
I cornered the sorcerer in the kitchen. That would teach him to try to stay hydrated. I shut the sliding glass door to the patio despite the heat, not wanting to risk anyone hearing us through the screen door, then placed my sketchbooks on the round table that sat off to the side of the kitchen. Tiny pots of aloe and basil dotted the low sills of the wood-framed corner windows. The house had been built in the sixties, so its midcentury design was completely legit.
The kitchen was horseshoe shaped, with a laminate counter standing between Blackwell at the stainless steel sink and me in the eating area. The counter was open space, unlike a similar setup in one of my early foster homes that had hanging cabinets over it, fronted on one side with regular cupboard doors and the other with wavy orange glass. The foster mom had stored her crystal wineglasses on the decorative side, though they weren’t utilized as much as the regular glasses shelved on the other side.
Still, when an older foster kid had taken a baseball bat to the lot of them, we’d all been relocated.
Later, I’d found out the kid in question had been abused under that roof, and so had guessed that the violent outburst was his way of protecting the rest of us. I could easily imagine how shrink after shrink would have tried to get him to discuss exactly why he’d targeted the wineglasses. But some things were so obvious that it didn’t do any good to talk about them ad nauseam. Some things just had to be acknowledged and moved through.
As I watched Blackwell drain a second tumbler of water, I had to struggle to remember the name of that particular foster brother … Brian. And there’d been four others at that home. Annie, Lynn, James, Terry. I had no idea where any of them were. Alive, I hoped.
“Why you?” I asked Blackwell, shoving the distant memories away. “Why was it you who found me?”
“When a stranger is selling sketches of you online, it’s pretty hard to miss.” He placed his used glass upside down in the top rack of the dishwasher.
“That’s not it.”
“No?”
“Nope.”
He straightened, raised one perfectly arched black eyebrow, then leaned back against the counter with his arms crossed.
Except Blackwell never crossed his arms. I would know that. I’d been seeing him in my head since I was thirteen.
“Chi Wen says magic sees magic,” I said. “Not the mundane.”
“Makes sense,” Blackwell said evenly.
“So I saw you because you were tied to me somehow.”
“Not tied. Not how you mean.”
“But it can’t be because we’re related by blood, because then why wouldn’t I see Win? Or if it has to do with destiny and Beau is my soul mate, then why not see him? So I reiterate, why you?”
Blackwell shook his head. “I’m not certain.”
“Guess.”
“Because I was looking for you.”
My belly curled. Not with fear, but with satisfaction. “You knew I existed.”
“I knew you possibly existed.”
“Because you knew Win?”
Blackwell didn’t answer.
I hazarded a guess based on the onset of my hallucinations. “You’d been looking for me for six years. Before we met, I mean.”
“Longer. I found you perhaps a month after you opened the Etsy shop. But by the time I was sure you were who I thought you were, I couldn’t just show up in Vancouver.”
“Because of Jade. And you didn’t tell Win?”
Blackwell shook his head.
“Doesn’t the geas obligate you to tell her everything?”
“Only if she asks. And we’d parted ways more than a dozen years before that.”
“Your apprenticeship ended while you were in your early twenties? Isn’t that young? I thought magic usually didn’t manifest until the midteen years.”
“I’d been with her since I was nine.”
I let that piece of information sink in. “Did you know my father?”
“I never met Kai Lei.”
“He died before you became Win’s apprentice?”
“No About four years after. But we never crossed paths before his death.”
“And my mother’s death?”
“Her disappearance, you mean?” Blackwell corrected me, trying to clue me into something underlying our conversation. “No one knew she was dead.”
“Why can you talk about this?” But before he could answer, I took another guess. “You can talk about anything that happened before you accepted the geas?”
“Yes.” The sorcerer offered me a brief smile.
“And after your apprenticeship? You can talk about your actions, your thoughts, but not anything you know about Win or anything connected back to her?”
Blackwell didn’t answer me.
I thought about rephrasing my last question, then decided to move on. “What can you tell me about my grandmother?”
“Kai Win is the most powerful sorcerer I know. More so even than my own grandfather. He had apprenticed with her, so I was apprenticed with her.”
That stopped me cold. “She was your grandfather’s mentor?”
“Yes.”
“How old is she?”
“I have no idea.”
“But easily over a hundred.”
“Sorcerers live long lives.”
The implications of Win’s possible age were so staggering that I lost focus for a moment, trying to work all the timelines out in my mind. I really needed to start taking notes.
Blackwell stepped forward, placing the palms of his hands on the counter that stood between us. “Kai Win has crossed lines I haven’t even had cause to draw.”
I steadfastly ignored the chill that flooded through my chest and limbs at that statement. It wasn’t as though it should have been news. Anyone who laid eyes on Win would probably jump to that conclusion. But the fact that someone like Blackwell — who Jade Godfrey loathed and Ember wouldn’t even speak directly to — was the one making the assessment was more than a little disconcerting.
I shook off the feeling, stepping forward and deliberately placing my hands down opposite Blackwell’s. “Are you calling the demon?”
Blackwell looked genuinely surprised. “To what end? My own death?”
“Henry suspects you, Ember, or Win.”
“He said that?”
“In his notes.”
Blackwell considered this for a moment. I always liked that about the sorcerer. Whatever else you could say about him, he didn’t immediately jump to the defensive.
“The witch wouldn’t be capable of calling a demon. Not alone,” he said. “And Kai Win … again, to what end? She wants you by her side, not in the ground. Killing your friends would be a clumsy, rash move.”
I eyed Blackwell for a moment, absorbing his words. “Do you think Win killed my father … or mother?”
“I do not.”
“That question you can answer?”
“Apparently. And again, why would she do so? Even for the darkest of sorcerers, or for Adepts in general, blood ties only strengthen magic. Kai Win is made weaker by having no family. And by all accounts, blood tied or not, your mother was a powerful oracle. Rational and articulate. Mind-magic wielders are often less in control of their power.”
“Crazy,” I muttered.
Blackwell nodded in silent agreement.
“So I strengthen Win?”
“You do. By existing, if nothing else. But you would strengthen her more so if you practiced together, or even cohabited closely.”
“So that’s what she wants?”
Blackwell shrugged. “Obviously, I can’t actually speak her mind for her, but what grandmother wouldn’t? Kai Lei was already a late-in-life child. Her only child. You are now her only family.”
I sighed. That wasn’t really a burden I wanted. “I’m going to look over the sketches. Again.”
Blackwell nodded. “Kai Win and I are trading off making circuits of the property, but after nightfall, we will both be on alert from here. The demon won’t slip by us.”
“I’m not sure slipping by you is the issue.”
Blackwell snorted. “What would you have us do, Rochelle? Make a call to the Godfrey coven? The pack?”
“No. Or not yet, anyway. And I wouldn’t call Jade … at least not for her help specifically.”
I locked my gaze to Blackwell’s as I stepped back toward the kitchen table. I wasn’t sure why I felt the need to allude to my ability to contact the guardian dragons — or at least Drake, the far seer’s apprentice — through Jade.
Blackwell nodded, stepping around the counter and crossing to the patio door through which I’d entered.
I flipped open my sketchbook and was settling down at the table when the oddity of my weird childhood flashback hit me again.
Those kitchen cupboards. Brian with his baseball bat. I’d come and gone from Leanne and Eddie’s kitchen dozens of times, and had never once been reminded of my former foster home, or the foster brother who’d reportedly been abused there.
I looked up at Blackwell as he slid open the patio door. “Wait.”
He paused, turning just his head back to look at me. The sun was bright and hot behind him, but his face was deeply shadowed under the wide eaves over the patio.
“Were you … did she …” I stumbled around the question, wondering what my subconscious was attempting to tell me about the weird dynamic between Win and Blackwell. “What did you mean when you said Win crossed lines?”
Blackwell smirked. “I meant a lot.”
I almost dropped it, but for some reason I had to know. “Did she abuse you?”
He didn’t answer. His silence stretched heavily between us.
“You can’t answer,” I said, not sure if I was relieved or not.
He nodded curtly, then stepped outside and slid the screen door shut between us. He turned back, facing but not looking directly at me. “But …” His voice was just above a whisper. “I was very young.”
“What does that mean?”
“Ask Henry sometime about the magic surrounding a geas. About how that might be cemented and enforced.” Then Blackwell walked away.
A dull ache formed in the pit of my stomach. I wasn’t sure how to take Blackwell’s answer. Not many men admitted to abuse. Not when a woman was the abuser. Not when the abuse was sexual in nature.
I reached for my phone, opening up my text messages with Henry. But then I hesitated, not sure what I wanted to ask him. Not sure whether I wanted to dissect Blackwell’s statement any further. Not right now, at least. Not with everything else going on.
Instead, I texted Beau.
I’m in the kitchen. Where are you?
Then I set my phone aside, forcing myself to focus on the notes Henry had made in response to my sketches. I had way too much to figure out about the immediate future, and no time to obsess about the past. Still, a lead-heavy mass of dread was doing its best to set up residence in my stomach.
We were all flawed, weren’t we?
I’d pretty much killed Cy eleven months ago. It was debatable, and I certainly wasn’t a doctor. But I don’t think he would have bled out quite so badly without the puncture wound in his throat. An injury inflicted by my hand. And I knew that if I had to, I’d do it again.
Attempted murder put me on pretty damn shaky moral ground. But child abuse …
I shook my head deliberately, as if doing so might force the disturbing thoughts out of my mind.
Unfortunately, my grandmother and I were way overdue for a heart-to-heart. I might not be a coward, but I had been hiding from some pretty harsh truths for a couple of days now.
My phone buzzed with a text from Beau.
>Just securing the tree house. Care to join me? ;)
Oh? Did you need help finding something?
>Like your underwear?
I snorted.
I’m working. Plus I know exactly where my underwear is.
>I’ll be there in five minutes and we can play hotter/colder.
LOL! I could never be cold around you.
∞
When I was sketching the moment of Ettie’s death, I couldn’t get her eyes. I couldn’t capture them properly. But now, eyes and blood splatter were apparently all I could see.
I flipped through the second sketchbook I’d filled after the most recent vision. After pretty much unloading the horror from my mind into the first book, I had filled the second with increasingly refined bloody details — and with pages and pages of dead, staring eyes.
Beau. Ember. Henry. Blackwell. Win.
Then there was the demon staring out from the page, Blackwell’s guts hanging from its sharp teeth. It was watching me from the pages of the sketchbook. Waiting. But for what?
“You capture the images well,” Win said.
I looked up, automatically flipping the sketchbook I’d been hunched over closed. It was purely instinctive. My grandmother had already seen both books, though she hadn’t left any notes like Henry had.
I leaned back from the kitchen table, noting that the light in the room had dimmed and that my fingers were coated in charcoal. I’d been working on the sketches without realizing it, drilling the images deeper and deeper into my unconscious mind. When they were fully alive there, maybe I’d be able to do more than sit and wait for all the stronger and wiser magic users to do their thing.
My grandmother had spoken from the pocket door that passed through from the dining room into the kitchen. Now she moved farther into the kitchen. She was still wearing her cloak, despite the heat.
I stifled my sudden need to cross my arms defensively.
Win retrieved a red kettle from the stovetop, crossing to the sink to fill it.
“I’ve had a few years of practice,” I said. It was a barbed response, even if it came way too late. But I was still struggling with being neutral around my grandmother.
“The humans are … interesting,” she said, placing the kettle back on the stove and switching on the gas burner.
She was referring to Gary and Tess, who she’d met for about two minutes before Beau had practically carried them and their car off the property.
“Friendly,” Win added.
She wasn’t asking questions, so I didn’t bother answering.
My grandmother opened the cupboard that contained the white ceramic teapot and various types of tea, selecting a box of Earl Grey over the jasmine green. Choosing the correct cupboard was either a lucky guess on her part or Leanne had made her tea. Though I wasn’t sure exactly when that would have happened.
“Tea?”
“No, thank you.”
After what seemed like forever, but was probably only a few minutes, the kettle whistled. Win dropped three teabags into the teapot, then added hot water. Waiting for it to steep, she leaned back against the far counter next to the stove and gazed at me.
“I understand you have questions,” she said. “I arrive out of the blue, why wouldn’t you have questions?”
“None relevant to our current situation.” I could demand to know everything my grandmother knew about demons in general, or my mother’s sketch, or why she’d allowed me to think I was an orphan for twenty-one years, but all of that would open up a dialogue of frustration and pain — if Win even answered my questions truthfully. And none of it would get Beau through the night alive.
Win looked surprised. “No?”
“No.”
A flicker of a smile crossed my grandmother’s face. Then she exited the kitchen without another word.
Okay.
That wasn’t weird at all.
And where was Beau?
I glanced down at my phone, thinking maybe I’d missed a text message. I hadn’t.
Win walked back into the kitchen. Her black cloak hung off her shoulders, fluttering in her wake. No, ‘fluttering’ wasn’t the right word. Boiled. Her cloak boiled around her feet as she walked. She was carrying a china teacup edged in yellow roses. She must have retrieved it from the teak hutch in the dining room.
She poured tea into the cup. It looked disgustingly strong. But then, I wasn’t a tea or a coffee drinker.
Holding the teacup delicately before her, she settled her gaze on me again. She didn’t appear to have any issue maintaining a neutral expression, unlike me. “I understand why you wouldn’t like me, with Mot being your mentor.”
It took me a second to remember she was referring to Blackwell. I was reminded suddenly of the evening he’d first introduced himself to me, and my thinking that ‘Mot Blackwell, sorcerer of Blackness Castle’ suited him perfectly. But then, I’d assumed he was a figment of my imagination at the time.
Too bad I couldn’t say the same about my grandmother.
She still wasn’t framing her comments as questions, but I answered this one anyway. “Blackwell’s not my mentor.”
“No?”
“No.”
The emotion that flickered across Win’s face wasn’t amusement. I was starting to annoy her. Thank God. It usually didn’t take me so long to wear someone down. And now, feeling a bit pissy, maybe she wouldn’t be so guarded.
“I’m surprised you didn’t know that,” I said. “What with the geas and all.”
“I didn’t think to ask.”
I smiled. “You assumed. And you know what assuming does, right?”
Win narrowed her gray eyes at me, then took a careful sip of her tea. She set the cup back on its saucer and abruptly changed the subject.
“Where did you get the chickens?” she asked. “It’s been a long time since I’ve met a witch capable of breeding magical fowl. I assume they’re yours. No one else here is powerful enough to raise them.”
She enunciated the word ‘assume’ bitingly.
For a brief moment, I wondered if I was outmatched. I’d bandied words and temperaments with countless foster parents. And while they all eventually kicked me out — or I requested to be transferred — I’d always had the upper hand. Well, since the point when I’d figured out what having the upper hand meant.
“They’re Leanne’s,” I said, blithely lying. “I wasn’t aware they were magical.”
“Weren’t you?” Win whispered the question.
I wrapped my hand around my raw diamond on its chain, seeking comfort and grounding. I dropped my gaze to Win’s hands. Her magic was an even darker blue than Blackwell’s, but she wielded her power like he did. It made sense that he must have learned how to cast from her. Except in the brief glimpse I’d had of her in the orchard after she’d hit Beau, her magic had been shaped like starbursts, rather than orbs.
“I was simply suggesting you bring the chickens with you,” my grandmother said evenly, filling the silence that had stretched between us. “Either of my estates could easily be made habitable. Did you receive them from a witch in exchange for a seeing? Magical husbandry is a rare gift.”
I didn’t know what the hell ‘husbandry’ was, and I didn’t like Win’s tone. Undeserved pride, and edged with greed.
“You expect me to move with you? To Hong Kong? To live with you?”
“That’s what family does.”
“To make you stronger,” I said pissily.
Win sipped her tea. “To make you stronger.”
I snorted. “And Beau? I’m to drag him halfway around the world? For you? Someone I don’t even know?”
Win waved her hand dismissively. “The shapeshifter may come if he wishes. Enforcers are always valuable.”
I bristled. But before I could formulate another retort, Beau stepped into the kitchen from the hall.
“You haven’t even seen what I’m capable of, Win,” he said, perfectly pleasant and perfectly threatening. “Oh, tea. Fantastic.”
A grin spread across my face at the sight of him.
He winked at me, crossing into the kitchen, then reached into an upper cupboard for one of the tall, thick plastic glasses Leanne packed for picnics.
Win didn’t react, though she tracked his movements.
Beau turned his back on my grandmother as he went to the fridge and the cupboard, adding ice, then copious amounts of sugar to the glass.
Win curled her lip at his concoction, but her face was neutral again as he turned and gestured toward the teapot.
“May I?”
“By all means.” Win deliberately and unnecessarily stepped to the side, allowing Beau access to the hot tea.
Yeah, my grandmother wasn’t Beau’s biggest fan.
And that fact didn’t appear to faze my boyfriend in the least.
Beau stirred his iced tea as he crossed into the eating area. He bent down to press a quick kiss to my lips.
“The offer is open,” Win said. “A change of scenery is often invigorating.”
“We know,” I said.
Beau flipped open one of the sketchbooks lying on the kitchen table, then started paging through it as if he was looking for something specific.
“No rush,” Win said. “We have years to get to know each other.” She offered me a smile. It was just a slight lift of her lips, but despite all the animosity that hung between the two of us, I felt pretty sure it was genuine. “And I have years to make up for.”
The dread that I’d been carrying with me since my first glimpse of the demon — along with varying levels of terror — eased slightly.
Beau glanced between Win and me. He raised his eyebrow as he started flipping through the second sketchbook.
“Have you seen my mother’s drawing?” I asked Win, all casual like I wasn’t asking my grandmother whether or not she’d seen a picture of me looking all badass and possibly evil. Plus, you know, cozy with a demon that was now apparently hunting us all.
“I have. When Blackwell and I reviewed your other sketches.” She lifted her chin, again with that weird undeserved pride thing going on. Like I was anything to be proud of for her. She didn’t even know me.
“Then you know that I … could be … that.”
Win tilted her head. Her smile widened. “ ‘That,’ as you call it, is a very powerful sorcerer. That vision is nothing to be scared of.”
“Who said I was scared?”
Win chuckled. “You did.”
“Win? Blackwell is trying to find you.” As Beau said it, he didn’t bother to look at her.
She nodded, carefully placing her teacup down on the laminate counter. Then she crossed out of the kitchen the way she’d entered, pausing in the dining room doorway and speaking over her shoulder. “Beau. When you refill the teapot, I prefer fresh tea bags.”
It was a command. Tension ran through Beau’s jaw.
“That is, after all, the polite thing to do,” Win said. “And you Southerners are so, so polite. It must be all the sugar.”
Beau’s shifter magic rolled across his eyes. “Yes, ma’am.” He spoke without looking up from the sketch he was studying, laying his accent on thickly. “We do know our place.”
Win drifted out of the kitchen.
I stared at Beau, utterly aghast.
He grimaced at me. Though he could have torn Win’s head off, he didn’t.
“How does she think her racism will endear me to her?” I asked, brushing the back of his hand lightly with my charcoal-covered fingertips.
“She doesn’t,” he said. “She just doesn’t expect me to be around for long.”
He tapped the sketch he had focused on from the sketchbook. It was one of the detailed shots of his face, after death.
The memory of the gray pallor of his beautiful mocha skin flashed through my mind, echoing across the sketch as if I’d seen it with my actual eyes, not via magic.
“Don’t look at it,” I whispered, pained.
“Sorry,” he muttered, flipping ahead a few pages. “It’s this I wanted to point out. I’ve been thinking about it.”
I glanced down to see a sketch of Ember. A detailed shot of the witch’s face, thankfully. Not a sketch of her missing her innards.
“What?”
“Here.” Beau hovered his fingers over Ember’s jaw, drawing my attention to the shading underneath on her neck. Then he flipped back to the sketch of himself. “Same marks.”
“Maybe.” I begrudgingly leaned in, looking closer and comparing the two images. Beau flipped back and forth between the sketches a second, then a third time, the pages almost brushing my nose.
“Could just be smudges on Ember’s neck,” I said. “Shading to make her jawline stand out.”
“It’s rope burns,” Beau said. “Harder to see on Ember because …”
“Because the demon has literally eviscerated her from neck to pelvis?”
“Yeah. It’s been bugging me since I saw it.”
“I can see why.” It was difficult to be flippant about Beau’s impending death, but I could still try.
He snorted, then lifted his head as if scanning for something. “She’s gone.”
“Win?”
“Yeah. She hung around for a bit, listening.”
“Of course she did. Could she mask her presence from you?”
“Sure. But probably not after I already knew where she was. I hope.”
He closed the sketchbook, which was good, because it was disconcerting to be sitting around chatting with him alive and vibrant while sketches of his death literally lay between us.
Beau kept his eyes on the sketchbook, though. “I’ve been thinking.”
And the roiling dread in my stomach returned with a vengeance. “Yeah?”
“Henry’s back. With Ember.”
“What the hell? And where?”
Beau shook his head. “They snuck onto the property. Ember persuaded Henry to let her set a trap.”
“A trap they don’t want Blackwell or Win knowing about? Hence the sneaking?”
“They were never going to cooperate. Also, I texted Kandy.”
“What? I thought we were waiting?”
“We are, but Henry was going to text her anyway.”
“He said so?”
“Not outright. I asked her for twenty-four hours. If she doesn’t hear from us by four p.m. tomorrow, the wrecking crew will descend on Summerland. Actually, they don’t even need to bring a crew. Jade will do.”
I sighed. The warrior’s daughter in Summerland was a daunting thought, especially if she was coming to clean up my mess.
Beau stood up, leaned over, and plucked a Gala apple out of the bowl of fruit on the counter. He made a show of buffing it on his shirt, then held it out to me.
“It’s nice that I’m such an easy read,” I said snarkily, taking the offering.
He settled back into the chair beside me, stretching his leg out so it pressed against mine. “It’s nice that I know one thing that makes you happy.”
I looked up at him, all my pissiness suddenly and cleanly washed away. “You make me happy.”
He smiled. “After Ember sets the trap, I want her off the property. She won’t go without you —”
“No.”
“Rochelle, Henry can trigger whatever spell Ember gets going. But with you and her off the property, the vision can’t be realized.”
“Henry and Ember were already off the property!” I shouted. Then I softened my tone. “Beau, no. Plus, you already said you think I’m changing the vision just by making the decision to change it. So this …” — I tapped the sketchbooks with my finger — “… isn’t going to happen.”
“It’s going to try to happen,” Beau said grimly. “It’s too big. It took you two sketchbooks, Rochelle.”
I looked him in the eye. Carefully, willfully, I forced myself to voice my next thoughts. “The demon isn’t going to hurt me. Even if I’m not the one calling it, it’s … somehow it’s … still mine.”
“It’s not. I’ve been thinking about it. At one time, maybe it was supposed to be. But right now, it’s tied to someone else. It’s a weapon. And the second it’s turned against you, you will die.”
“If whoever’s calling it even knows it’s here. Maybe it’s sneaking off, or maybe it’s some kind of rogue.”
“No,” Beau said grimly. “That’s why I led with the rope burns. Whatever confrontation leads to this …” — he waved his hand over the sketchbooks — “… someone else is involved. Someone hangs Ember and me. I wouldn’t have thought I could die that way, but I guess if I was dropped from high enough —”
“Dragged,” I blurted, desperate to stop Beau from going into more detail. I was already haunted by the visions. I didn’t need his remix crammed into my head as well. “Someone dragged you. Or the demon can do it … with its tail or something.”
Beau looked dubious. “Still, I want you and Ember gone before nightfall. And I want you to have Blackwell take you. He and I have discussed it. He believes that the fortifications of his castle —”
“No. And since when are you a fan of Blackwell’s?”
“I’m a fan of having you safely behind proven wards.”
“Again. No.”
“Jesus, Rochelle. You promised.”
“I did no such thing. I said I’d listen, and that I’d be reasonable —”
“Leaving is reasonable. And Ember won’t go if you don’t.”
“Don’t try to blackmail me. And what about your concerns about the demon following me?”
“You already said it wasn’t going to hurt you,” Beau said, belligerently throwing his argument from earlier out the window.
“We’re arguing in circles.”
“All right, then. Don’t be a liability.”
I clamped my mouth shut. Anger overtook the dread that had been dogging me for days. I opened my mouth to rip Beau’s head off, then I thought about it. “You’re just trying to piss me off, Beau.”
“You angry is better than you dead.”
“The demon couldn’t get through the ward I placed around the twins.”
“Did it try?”
“I …” I had to think about his question for a moment, trying to remember. “I think so …”
Beau shifted back in his chair, looking at me expectantly.
I leaned over, placing my hands high up on his thighs. “The thing is … I’m not going. If you’re going to die, or almost die, I’m not running. I’ll run with you, yes. Without you, no. You don’t know what it’s like, Beau. You don’t know what it was like with Cy and Ettie.”
“I was there.” His voice was gruff and heavy with emotion.
“Not the way I was,” I said, speaking slowly and carefully so I wouldn’t give in to the tears gathering at the back of my throat. “Kandy almost killed you and Henry. Blackwell was down. It was just me against Cy and Ettie. I wasn’t strong enough. If the drugs hadn’t melted Cy’s brain in that moment, I would have watched him kill you, Beau. And there would have been nothing I could do about it. But I would have been there.”
I climbed into his lap, pressing a kiss against his lips before he could interrupt me. “I will never leave you alone to face anything like that again. Just like you won’t leave me. We die together or not at all.”
When Beau sighed, a shudder ran through his entire body. “That’s insane.”
“Maybe. Stupid. Rash. Insane. Yeah, maybe. But you never know when I might have a vision at the perfect time and foil the bad guys with my knowledge of the future. My magic could be our deadly weapon.”
Beau laughed, but he sounded shaky and unsure.
“Stop trying to send me away,” I said. “I won’t go, and it’s a waste of time. Getting Ember to leave is a better bet. She’s less invested.”
“Fine.” Beau pressed his forehead against mine. “Just watch out for the truck with the rope attached to it.”
“What?”
“That’s the only way anyone could drag me away from you. And I’m not even sure that would work.”
I laughed. Darkness was descending to swallow all our lives, and Beau was turning his impending death into a cheesy come-on.
He chuckled, lifting me off his lap and depositing me back on my chair. “You keep refining the sketches. I’ll check on Ember and Henry.”
Ever obliging, I flipped open the sketchbook nearest to me. Completely by chance, the sketch it showed was a detailed close-up of the four claw marks gouged across Henry’s chest and the henna tattoo. It felt like centuries ago that I’d applied it for him.
Beau kissed my forehead when I didn’t lift my face to his, as I usually would have. There was something about this image. Some clue that I hadn’t figured out yet.
A black butterfly was dancing above and around the charcoaled claw marks.
“Wait …” I whispered.
The butterfly zoomed away as I tore my gaze from the sketch. Beau, holding the screen door open, stuck his head back into the kitchen. I hadn’t heard him step outside.
The butterfly was madly dancing around his shoulder.
“Rochelle?”
“Wait,” I said again, desperately trying to sort through my thoughts.
The butterfly tattoo showed me magic, didn’t it? I already knew that Beau was magic and that the sketches were some sort of magic, but …
The butterfly zoomed back, settling on the open sketchbook. It stilled there, perched on the deep gouges scored across Henry’s chest.
“What if the henna tattoo works?” I asked, more to myself than to Beau.
“Henry’s tattoo? Then you ink it in. That was the plan.”
“Yes, but what if it works so well — melding the power of sorcerer and werewolf — that the only way to take Henry down now is to destroy it.” I tapped the sketch for emphasis. The butterfly flitted up over my hand and along my right arm, dancing over my tattooed ivy vines.
My left palm started to tingle.
“That’s … good? You want me to mention it to Henry?”
“No … I …” I flexed my fingers open and shut. The tingling started to burn. “I need to sketch.”
“Now? Without another vision?”
“Apparently.”
Beau stepped back into the eating area, grabbing my satchel off the back of the chair even though I could have easily reached it. He held it waist high to my left, and I dug my hand into it without looking.
The crazy butterfly was dancing around Beau’s shoulder and chest again. Over the same spot I’d drawn Henry’s temporary tattoo.
My fingers brushed against, then rejected, the new package of charcoal. I closed my hand over the box of henna instead. The burning in my palm eased.
I locked my gaze to Beau’s.
He was confused, but just as stoically supportive as always.
“Maybe I’m not so useless in battle after all.”
“I didn’t mean —”
I shook my head, pulling the powdered henna out of my satchel. “Apparently, you need a tattoo as well.”
Beau frowned. “It won’t hold on me. Not even inked.”
“It will if you don’t transform. It’s okay. Go check on Ember and Henry while I mix the henna up. Then come back and indulge me.”
“I always do.”
“Yep.” I tugged the satchel away from him, noting that the butterfly tattoo had settled on my wrist again. So apparently, it showed me magic and where magic was supposed to be applied or used. Confusing, but good to know.
∞
While I was waiting for Beau to return, I idly tested the henna I’d mixed on my own right arm, sketching out a snake design I’d been thinking about twining alongside the twists and turns of the ivy vine. I positioned the snake so its tongue flickered through its half-inch fangs against the inside of my right wrist. Next time we went into Vancouver, I’d have Tyler at Get Inked make it permanent. But I hadn’t quite decided on the design of the snake’s body yet. I applied a simple crosshatch to the henna test model. I wasn’t skilled enough with the cone applicator to go for anything decorative, though I was thinking of something Asian inspired, similar to the gold embroidery on Chi Wen’s white robes.
By the time Beau returned with Henry in tow, I was applying the lemon, sugar, and clove wash to my arm over the kitchen sink. A glance at the clock at the stove told me it was almost dinner time. Not that any of us had planned any meals.
Henry pulled a bulbous glass jug of water out of the fridge and poured himself a drink. Leanne or Eddie had added slices of lemon to it. I hadn’t noticed it was there, simply drinking water from the tap like Blackwell had.
Beau leaned over the sink, examining the snake tattoo on my arm. “Vision?”
“No. Just a thought.” I dumped the remainder of the wash down my arm, letting it drip into the sink while I eyed Henry. “I thought you were leaving.”
“Yep,” Henry replied between gulps. “I’ve had this conversation three times already.”
I glared at him as he poured a second glass, then gave in. It was his funeral and he knew it. So repeating it over and over just made me the idiot. “Your notes were helpful.”
“Did you show them to Blackwell … or your grandmother?”
“No. Did you mention them to Ember?”
“No. But only because the demon isn’t tied to the witch.”
“How do you know?”
Henry shrugged, then placed his empty glass in the dishwasher. “Black magic has a feel to it.”
“And Ember doesn’t feel black?”
“I doubt Ember could practice the magic she does, easily and every day, and also practice black magic.”
“One negates the other?”
“They’re sourced from very different places, especially for a witch. I’m here for more candles.” Henry randomly started opening the drawers beside the stove.
“Dining room hutch,” Beau said, leaning back against the counter next to me while I waited for my arm to dry. It would be sticky as hell for a while, but it felt right. Solid. I couldn’t really explain it, not even to myself. And I’d drawn it.
Henry closed a drawer, then crossed toward the dining room door.
“What about Blackwell and Win?” I asked. “Do they feel like they could perform black magic?”
Henry snorted. “Do you doubt it?”
“But do you feel it?”
Henry paused, looking back at me. Then he dropped his gaze to my diamond necklace. “Blackwell has his amulet.”
“And it’s not dark.”
“No. And nothing he could do to it would make it so.”
“Because he’s not an alchemist? Or because it’s dragon-forged?”
Henry tilted his head back, surprised. “Both, really. But I didn’t know the dragon part. My point is, for me, the amulet’s power emanates more than Blackwell’s magic. But despite that, I can see the darkness that lies just underneath his surface. Some say that at a certain point, a sorcerer can gain more power only by crossing certain lines.”
“It’s not the same for all Adepts?” Beau asked.
“Witches would insist it’s different for them, because they call their power to them, rather than accumulating magical objects with which to express their magic. Then some Adepts, like the dragons who accompanied Jade, are …” Henry trailed off thoughtfully, perhaps thinking about the events that had brought a small army of powerful Adepts to the door of the Brave last January.
“Infinitely powerful,” Beau said.
Henry shrugged. “Perhaps.”
“And the vampire?” I asked, just out of curiosity. Though I’d really gotten nothing more than a glimpse of the pale blond stranger who’d arrived in Westport with Jade.
“They have their own sort of balance, I believe,” the marshal said. “But then, they have to. Otherwise, the other Adepts would wipe them from the face of the planet.”
“Geez,” Beau muttered.
“We all have our crosses to bear.” Henry grinned as if he’d just cracked some seriously funny joke. He looked put out when we didn’t laugh. “Vampires? Crosses? Get it?”
“And Win?” I asked, bringing us back to the present and most pressing concern. Which was to say, was my grandmother a black-hearted evil sorcerer?
Henry locked his cobalt gaze to mine. I couldn’t read his expression. Concerned … confused …
“Nothing,” he said quietly. “I get nothing from Win. Not a drop of power.”
“Is that bad?” I asked, not really sure if I wanted to know.
“It just is.” Henry exited the kitchen.
I looked over at Beau.
He opened his hands, holding his palms up in an exaggerated shrug. “I never really wanted to go to Hong Kong or China anyway. I like the food, but I’m not a fan of flying. Now, where do you want me? And should I get naked?”
I snorted. “Here, like this. And removing just your T-shirt will be fine.”
I reached past him for the second cone of henna.
Beau nuzzled his face in my neck. “Too bad,” he murmured. “But next time, let’s see what other stretch of canvas I can provide.”
I giggled like a lovelorn idiot. Sometimes I couldn’t help being girly around Beau. And honestly, I didn’t really try to stifle it anymore. It was obviously a war I was doomed to lose.
Beau tugged off his shirt.
I kept my gaze off his abs, focusing solely on the section of his shoulder and chest the butterfly had directed my attention to.
“What are the candles for?” I asked, squeezing the first line of henna out across Beau’s lovely skin. “The demon trap?”
Beau grunted in acknowledgement.
“And Blackwell and Win know Henry and Ember are back?”
“Kind of hard to miss, once they’d figured out someone got past their wards.”
I joined two curved lines to create a leaf. Energy rose up underneath my hand.
“Your eyes,” Beau whispered.
Then I allowed the power simmering underneath my hand to have its way, letting the oracle magic control my mind and body. I heard and saw nothing more while I gave Beau the only fortification I could offer.
We might both die tonight. I was following every clue I saw, every clue I unearthed, and every clue magic gifted to me.
I wasn’t a coward, but I wasn’t a hero either. And that meant I would exploit all the help I could unearth, and then some.
Hell, I’d cross my fingers, toss salt over my shoulder, and even swear my utter, unfettered belief in whatever providence governed the whole damn world if that was what it took to walk away with Beau.