3

Slipping out of the shadows of the concrete stairs that led to both of our apartments, Kandy joined Warner and me as we hit the sidewalk on West Fourth Avenue. Though it was just after 3:00 a.m., I’d texted, expecting her to be sleeping. But if she had been in bed, she dressed a lot quicker than I did. Her attention was currently riveted to her phone. Texting. Again.

She was also wearing the purple dinosaur backpack cinched tightly over both shoulders.

Warner eyed the bag. “Interesting fashion statement, wolf.”

Kandy lifted her lip in a snarl but didn’t otherwise rise to the bait.

Compelled by the magic that was now heating the undersides of my feet — even through my shoes — I jogged across the empty but well-lit street, darted south along Vine Street, then turned left on West Fifth Avenue. Warner and Kandy followed at my heels without question.

Just a block to either side of West Fourth, the shopping district gave way to walk-up apartment buildings, converted triplexes, and the occasional stand-alone Craftsman. The narrow lots were teeming with rhododendrons, cherry trees, and laurel hedges. Both sides of the street were lined with vehicles of all shapes and sizes, mostly permit parking only.

“Jade,” Kandy said, clicking the remote locks on a hulking SUV I was about to pass on my left. The headlights flashed, momentarily destroying my night vision.

“It might not work like that,” I said over my shoulder, continuing to jog. “My feet might need to be in contact with the ground.”

Ignoring me, Kandy climbed into the SUV while Warner stayed at my shoulder. We could jog two abreast without issue. Dark homes blurred past us as we silently and swiftly crossed Yew Street, continuing east. Then the hulking SUV roared up beside us, Kandy at the wheel.

The werewolf matched our pace, hissing through the open passenger window. “Mountain View Cemetery, you twit.”

“What?”

“Itchy feet is just a weird side effect. Only affecting you, as far as we’ve figured. Pearl says the map is lit up at the cemetery.”

“Lovely,” I grumbled, darting between parked cars and hopping into the SUV before Kandy had pulled to a stop. “I love weird side effects and unknown magic lighting up cemeteries with equal fervor.”

Warner climbed into the back, stretching across the seats and closing his eyes.

Kandy glanced over her shoulder at him, then picked up speed along the dark, narrow street. “Nice to have you back, dragon.”

Warner responded with a grunt. “Wolf.”

Kandy grinned at me toothily. “Wore him out, did you?”

“I wish it was just me,” I murmured.

“Oh? Something up in guardian land?”

“You know I’m not interested enough to ask questions.”

Kandy snorted doubtfully.

“Oh, and they dropped the charges … or maybe voted in my favor. Anyway, the guardians exonerated me of Shailaja’s beheading. Though you know it was the magic absorption that really pissed off Pulou. Plus Haoxin wants a T-shirt. Something about espresso.”

“What?” Kandy cried, turning right onto Arbutus, then speeding through the blocks up to Broadway far too quickly. “A T-shirt?” Then she grinned at me happily, in a way that had nothing to do with the guardian of North America’s demand and everything to do with me being free and clear. According to the guardians, at least.

“Yeah,” I said softly. “I’m pretty pleased about not being locked away in that magic-dampening cube room again.”

Warner grumbled from the back seat as Kandy ignored the red light and veered left onto Broadway. “That was never going to happen, dowser.”

My itchy feet seriously disagreed with Kandy’s choice of route. “Wouldn’t Sixteenth Avenue be better?”

Kandy snarled pissily, executing a sharp U-turn in the middle of the four-lane street. My forehead glanced against the side window, but my feet were pleased when we turned back onto Arbutus, heading south again.

“So far, this grid thing is utterly delightful,” I said.

“It always is with you, Jade,” Kandy snarked. Then she tilted her head thoughtfully as she murmured, “Something with espresso …”

Warner chuckled to himself in the back seat.

I grinned, gazing out the window at the mixture of apartment buildings, businesses, and restaurants that populated this revitalized section of Kitsilano. Being compelled to speed off in the deep dark of the early morning to investigate unknown magic with my BFF and my fiance at my side?

Well, it didn’t get any better than that, did it?

Though I did miss Kett.

A zombie was blocking the almost-hidden side entrance to Mountain View Cemetery. No gate between it and me. Just a short set of concrete stairs and a path that cut through the unruly cedar hedges. Directly across from dozens of residential homes in the middle of the Riley Park neighborhood, about a fifteen-minute drive south of Kitsilano.

The memory of Hudson, the only other zombie I’d ever come face-to-face with — and the heartbreaking results of that confrontation — rushed back on me like a wave. Momentarily disconcerted, I paused to contemplate the rotting corpse, uncertain as to whether or not I should stab it in the head. It was wearing the remnants of a dark suit, a tie still tight at its neck, though the collar of its shirt had rotted away. I could see its teeth where its cheeks should have been, and it appeared to have lost its nose somewhere. Perhaps while crawling from the grave?

If you had asked me a moment earlier, I would have guessed that a grave-risen zombie would stink. But this one didn’t.

Mountain View Cemetery occupied a huge amount of property west of Fraser Street and north of West Forty-First Avenue — two exceedingly busy streets, even at this early hour. Stretching easily ten city blocks north to south and four residential blocks east to west, the vast graveyard was surrounded by tightly packed homes on all sides.

Homes currently filled with slumbering, vulnerable people.

The zombie’s jaw hinged open, and the taste of toasted-marshmallow magic rolled across my tongue. Then the voice of a sullen junior necromancer emanated from that rotting maw.

“I’ve got it under control, Jade.”

Mory.

Morana Novak, to be specific. Pain in my ass, to be explicit.

I saw the junior necromancer every Friday at the bakery during a scheduled meeting with Gran, who was mentoring Mory in some fashion. At a casual glance, that mentoring appeared to be more about knitting than magic. But I fed Mory as many cupcakes as she would tolerate, occasionally adding the antique coins I’d collected from Warner to the necklace she always wore — after carrying them in my own pocket for a while to imbue them with my magic.

“Well,” I said casually, “since I’m talking to a corpse, that appears to be in some doubt.”

The zombie huffed indignantly, lurched into motion, and began to shamble deeper into the graveyard.

“That’s all creepy as hell,” Kandy muttered to my right.

Coming from a werewolf who could transform into a seven-foot-tall, three-inch-clawed monster, that was saying something. But I didn’t disagree.

Warner appeared to be trying to choke back laughter that would normally be completely inappropriate. Except he was laughing at me rather than the zombie situation.

“Maybe you want to take another nap, sentinel,” I said pertly.

He stifled the smile, nodding seriously. “I’ll check the outer perimeter. To ascertain that the apocalypse isn’t upon us. Despite your necromancer’s insistence to the contrary.”

I shot him a look for the sarcasm and the ‘your necromancer’ comment. “You do that.”

He nodded curtly, dour faced now, then jogged off silently down the street. Almost instantly, he disappeared within the deep shadows next to the six-foot-tall cedar hedge that defined the edge of the property. Once there — and out of retaliation range — he started chuckling again.

I shook my head. “It’s a complicated relationship, all right?”

“With the dragon?” Kandy asked, frowning.

I sighed. “No. The necromancer.”

The green-haired werewolf snorted. “You don’t have to tell me.”

Glancing around for other walking dead, I entered the graveyard — completely begrudgingly. Mory shouldn’t have been playing with corpses, even beyond the fact that it was seriously creepy. Because middle of the night or not, we were surrounded by family homes.

The zombie had shambled off toward the eastern side of the cemetery. Not that I needed to follow it closely. The taste of Mory’s necromancy and the individual tenor of the magic embedded in her necklace intensified in that direction.

The fact that I had originally crafted Mory’s necklace as a way to bar the ghost of her brother, Rusty, from draining his sister of her life essence was where the ‘complicated’ part of our interactions began.

Or actually, no.

The wedge that would always be stuck firmly between us went further back than that, by about three months. Three long, annoyingly eye-opening months, during which I had figured out — far too slowly and exceedingly late — that my foster sister, Sienna, and Mory’s brother had teamed up to murder werewolves and drain them of their magic. They had used the trinkets I’d made as some sort of conduit.

Hudson had been one of those werewolves. And someone who I’d thought I might be able to truly care about.

Sienna had ultimately screwed over her partner in crime, sacrificing Rusty to fuel a blood-magic spell with the intent of foiling the investigation into the murders. Utilizing Rusty’s latent necromancy powers, she had also raised Hudson as a zombie, nearly killing Kett in the process. Because magic had a twisted sense of humor, and apparently zombies trumped vampires.

Rusty’s ghost had returned — or perhaps it had never left this plane of existence — in order to exact revenge. He’d tried to use Mory to get to Sienna. Nearly killing his own sister in the process.

And as if all that wasn’t messy or guilt-riddled enough, Sienna had then kidnapped Mory, holding her for three months and siphoning off enough of her necromancy magic to raise three demons in London.

No matter that Sienna had died for her crimes. No matter that Rusty had been complicit, or that Mory ultimately came through it all — I still harbored the idea that the original kidnapping had been aimed at me. Even in retreat, and despite how Sienna had ultimately used Mory, my sister had wanted to prove that I couldn’t protect anyone. Or at least not everyone. That I was never going to be quite strong enough. That I was always going to have to choose when it came down to it. Vanquish a demon but lose Mory … rescue Mory but almost lose Kett … and so forth.

Kandy, Drake, Kett, and I had saved Mory from being sacrificed that evening in London. But I couldn’t give her back her brother, or the three months my sister had stolen from her. And that wasn’t even getting into what she must have seen and experienced as she was dragged through Sienna’s ongoing murder spree across Europe.

So yeah, I still wore the guilt. And feeding Mory while I continually fortified her necklace were the only things that eased it. The necromancer was a symbol of the hole in my heart. Damage that could only be shored up, never fully mended.

Something grabbed my ankle. I went down, managing to fling my arms out to break my fall but ending up with my forehead barely an inch from slamming into a gravestone. Teeth scored my leg, trying to gnaw through my last pair of clean jeans.

Served me right for wallowing in the past instead of focusing on the present.

I glanced back to see that a second zombie had crawled through the dark night between the tightly spaced headstones. It was crawling because apparently — reduced to bones and hanging bits of leathery skin — it had left its bottom half behind somewhere.

“Jesus Christ …” I muttered.

Kandy started chortling. “All right there, dowser?”

I glared at her, snapping a kick with my free leg to the zombie’s head that easily decapitated it. Its white skull spun off into the night.

Kandy lost it. She was full-on laughing, with her hands on her knees and everything.

I scrambled to my feet, brushing off my jeans as best I could. The toasted-marshmallow magic animating the corpse intensified. Then the zombie skeleton started crawling away, patting the ground frantically as if it were looking for a lost contact lens. Except, of course, it was looking for its head.

“Jesus freaking Christ,” I muttered. “Now I’m going to have to find a freaking severed skull.”

Kandy gave up the pretense of standing, falling to the ground and gasping for air between guffaws.

I shook my head at the werewolf, attempting and mostly failing to maintain a stern, adult demeanor myself. I was in charge. Well, technically, Kandy was in charge. But I couldn’t let Mory walk all over me. No matter how much fun it would have been to kick the heads off more corpses, it was just wrong.

Scanning the graveyard for more grabby zombies and one decapitated head, I slowly moved toward the epicenter of Mory’s necromancy. The legless corpse slithered ahead out of my sight, suddenly and disconcertingly mobile.

Even in the filtered moonlight, the landscape of the cemetery was exceedingly inconsistent. Large, low buildings occupied an eastern section of the property near Fraser Street. Rows upon rows of eclectic headstones, including some sporadic statuary, were interspersed with wide sections of flush-mounted grave markers. Many huge trees were planted throughout — cherry, maple, and various cedars, some trimmed, some not.

I rounded a massive chestnut tree, spotting the petite necromancer perched on top of a light-gray gravestone, which appeared to be backed by a three-foot-tall white concrete statue depicting a woman holding an urn. Mory was wearing a deep-red poncho and — as near as I could determine in the low light — had dyed her hair since I’d seen her the previous afternoon, in shades of blue ranging from aquamarine to navy. She was also knitting.

The zombie that had greeted us at the gate appeared to be crawling its way back into the grave underneath her dangling feet. The second corpse was crawling toward a disturbed grave three headstones away. Its decapitated head was tucked underneath its arm.

Well, that was one blessing.

I paused, trying and failing to gather together words for the lecture that the situation obviously called for. Normally, I didn’t have to work at being pissy when opportunity knocked. But as with all my earlier soul-searching, the dynamic with Mory always felt … strained.

The necromancer looked up, tucking a lock of hair that had fallen across her dark-brown eyes behind her ear. She leveled a scowl my way, even as her hands steadily and efficiently churned through stitches on what appeared to be a knitted tube. A sock, probably. Her colorless magic — at least to my eyes — was coiled tightly around her, concentrated in her hands and at the center of her forehead. The last time I’d seen her casting full force had been in Tofino. She had tried and failed to kill Sienna with what felt like a death curse. The power she now appeared to be wielding effortlessly was much, much stronger.

But that was the way with magic. It grew with age. And with use.

“See? Taken care of,” Mory said snottily.

I bit back a retort about raising the corpses in the first place.

Kandy, who had apparently gotten the chuckles out of her system, appeared silently at my side. Thankfully, she had no apparent compunction when it came to chastising Mory. “Unacceptable, fledgling. Not only did you get us all out of bed, but that was probably someone’s uncle! And … well, I couldn’t really tell with the second one.”

Mory jutted her chin out. “It wasn’t intentional.”

“How many more are running around?” Kandy asked.

“None.”

Kandy looked pointedly at a grave with a flush-mounted dark-gray headstone just a few feet away. The sod and dirt to one side of it had been churned up.

Mory grimaced.

Kandy then jabbed a finger toward a fourth grave, this one topped with a concrete cross. Again, it appeared as though a corpse had crawled up from underneath it.

“I took care of them both,” Mory said. “That one didn’t even get fully out.”

“Ah, Mory.” I sighed, disappointed.

The necromancer dropped her gaze to her knitting.

Kandy glanced at me. “Do I need to be hunting zombies or not?”

I shook my head. I could taste how Mory’s magic was confined to our immediate vicinity. And even that was slowly fading as the final zombie disappeared from view. “We’ll need a witch, though. Unless we want the caretaker to find the graves messed up like this.”

“Burgundy is on her way back,” Mory said quietly. “She dropped me. We were at Tony’s playing board games.”

I didn’t know who Burgundy or Tony were. But I was much less interested in anybody playing board games than I was in the ‘wasn’t intentional’ aspect of Mory’s necromancy. “This isn’t on your way home,” I said. The Novaks lived in a Georgian Manor in Shaughnessy.

Mory shrugged. “My magic needed it.” But before I could interrogate her further, the necromancer eyed the werewolf through her blue bangs. Her gaze homed in on the purple dinosaur backpack. “So … you teaching kindergarten now?”

I snorted, then immediately quashed my involuntary amusement.

Kandy bared her teeth. Then, somewhat inexplicably, she said, “I shoulder my responsibilities while you sit here knitting and playing with magic beyond your abilities.”

Mory twisted her lips belligerently but didn’t answer, returning her gaze to her work.

Kandy sneered at the fledgling’s bowed head, then looked at me with a dismissive shake of her own head. “I’m going to do a circuit. You deal with the dysfunctional necromancer.”

Great. The green-haired werewolf took off before I could protest being left to deal with the nineteen-year-old.

Mory peeked at me through her long bangs. “I know, Jade. I know, okay? I didn’t do it intentionally.”

“But your magic … needed it?”

“Not like that. Not after I got here … I thought it had settled.”

I resisted the impulse to start pacing or to raise my voice. Such reactions would have been irrational. But when it came to Mory, my protective instincts were already heightened. Add the itchy feet, the race to get to the cemetery, and the zombies, and well …

I took a deep breath. “Can I look at your necklace?”

Mory huffed. But she untangled one hand from her knitting and tugged her necklace from the collar of her poncho without further protest.

I had stripped the artifact back over the previous two years, removing and replacing elements bit by bit. The only original piece was the thin gold chain, which was now woven through a thick-linked white gold chain. Silver didn’t take to my alchemy as well as gold did. I’d also repurposed the gold bangles and the single wedding ring that had once been part of it, so that the necklace was sleeker — just the chains and the coins. Something Mory could keep tucked away underneath the knit scarves she wore year round.

I took a moment to contemplate Mory’s current fashion choice — a chunky knit with a thickly striped fringe of orange, purple, and electric blue, which likely fell to the necromancer’s calves when she was standing. Various-sized beads were knotted within the fringe, which I expected meant that Mory clattered while she walked.

Apparently, necromancers had no need for stealth, or for blending into their surroundings. At least not this particular necromancer.

Still, the poncho looked gloriously comfy. Though I’d have had to drop twenty pounds and shrink five inches to pull it off.

I stepped forward. But even before I touched it, I could tell something was odd about the magic of Mory’s necklace. First of all, it was … churning.

“Did you recently access the power held in the necklace?” I asked.

“You know I can’t use it like that.” Mory enjoyed reminding me that she wasn’t a witch. Constantly.

“So, no?”

“No.” Then she added, “Not knowingly.”

“Did someone hit you with a spell? Something malicious?”

“I think I would have noticed.”

I brushed my fingers along the woven chain and the drilled coins, calming the magic within them. “The necklace might have simply deflected it without you noticing.”

Mory didn’t answer. I lifted my gaze to hers. Though she’d been watching me intently, she dropped her eyes back to her knitting.

“What are you making?” I asked. “Socks?”

“Arm warmers.” Then she hesitated. “I thought … you might like them.”

Surprised, I glanced down at the thin metal needles she was using. They were purple. Mory continued clicking away, working stitch after stitch. The magic that had accumulated around her hands had faded.

“Cashmere and a little bit of silk.” The fiber content was offered up with a kind of reverence, and an attempt at enticement. “I harvested the yarn myself. Reclaimed from two separate sweaters. Then I Kool-Aid-dyed it lime green. With blue and darker green speckles. Speckles are super hot right now.”

I grinned, only really understanding that Mory was voluntarily knitting me something green that I could wear on my arms. “Who’d say no to that?”

A smile flitted across the junior necromancer’s face. “Is my necklace okay, then?”

I returned my attention to the magical artifact in question. “What did it feel like? When your magic ‘needed’ you to come to the cemetery? Like a compulsion?”

Mory shrugged. “It’s like that sometimes. If I haven’t cast in a while. Usually carrying Ed helps.”

Oh, God. I really didn’t want to know. “Who is Ed?”

“My red-eared slider. My pet turtle.”

I really, really didn’t want to know. “And … you … carry him in your bag? Like … dead?”

Mory narrowed her eyes at me.

I raised my hands, palms out. “No judgement.”

“You are totally judging me, Jade.”

I really was. “I’m not. Carrying Ed is like … using your magic casually, passively?”

“Yeah, like almost subconsciously. So it doesn’t … leak.”

I waved my hand toward the grave Mory was still perched over. I’d been careful to step to one side of the churned earth when examining the necklace. “So things like this don’t happen.”

“Well … this is my first time with people, you know. Usually it’s birds, snakes, rats —”

“Jesus, Mory!”

“You asked.”

“So the corpses were just a … leak?”

Mory shook her head. “No. That was … an uncontrollable urge to raise the dead.”

“Like a compulsion?” I asked for the second time.

Mory locked her dark-eyed gaze to mine. “You know what it takes to get past the necklace,” she whispered. “I would have felt it if someone spelled me. I know what that feels like.”

I nodded. Mory didn’t need to remind me of the exact circumstances in which she’d been hit with so much magic that the protective barrier of her necklace had been breached. And I didn’t bring Sienna up either. Not out loud, at least.

“Plus,” the necromancer continued, “you’ve strengthened it. Many times. Since.”

I nodded thoughtfully.

“You want to meet him?”

“Who?”

“Ed.”

“Jesus, no!”

Mory cackled, delighted at her own joke.

Then the taste of peppermint drew my attention away from the necromancer. I stepped back from her and the magic of the necklace to reach out with my dowser senses, certain for the second time in just a few hours that Kett was nearby.

I could sense Kandy about a block away, and Warner closer to where we’d parked the SUV. But again, no white-blond vampires.

A shadow shifted in a deep crook between the branches of the chestnut tree beside and slightly behind Mory. I frowned, shaking my head at it.

Mory cranked her head, following my gaze. Then she stilled when she laid eyes on the shadow leech watching us from the thick branches of the tree.

“What is that?” she whispered.

“You can see it?”

“Why else would I be asking?”

I stifled a sigh. Heaven forbid that the necromancer could give me a freaking break for one freaking second. “I’m just surprised. Not everyone can.” I settled my fingers along Mory’s chain, focusing on adding another level of protection into the artifact. “It’s drawn to my magic. It won’t hurt you.”

Mory huffed.

Silence fell between us. I concentrated on interweaving her toasted-marshmallow magic with my own energy, then weaving both into the necklace. She watched the shadow leech over her shoulder.

“It’s a demon of some sort, right?”

“Of some sort.”

“You can’t just give me a plain answer?”

I dropped my hands from her necklace, shoving them in the back pockets of my jeans. Possibly so I couldn’t wring Mory’s neck. “It’s a shadow leech. A sorcerer obsessed with living forever who willingly sacrificed himself so that demonic energy could be drawn into this dimension. There were dozens of them originally. Warner, Kandy, Kett, Drake, and I killed them all except three. Then, when I murdered their master and absorbed her magic, the leeches were drawn to me. This one absorbed the other two, becoming more substantial, probably because I refused to let it consume the magic from every Adept it wanted to suck dry.”

Mory was staring at me, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. She had finally stopped knitting.

“Happy?” I asked pointedly.

She snapped her mouth closed, then started knitting again. “So it can’t be vanquished.”

“I can kill it. But …”

“It has a soul. Some of the life essence of the sorcerers.”

“So it appears,” I murmured. I watched as the shadow leech shifted closer along the branch.

“Well … that’s one way of living forever.”

I didn’t have an answer to that. Just an opinion. Immortality wasn’t something that appealed to me. In fact, it seemed as though living forever might well be more of a curse than a gift.

“I shall name it Freddie,” Mory declared.

“What? The leech?”

She nodded sagely. “Yes. You’ll feel better, having accidentally tamed it, if it has a name.”

“It isn’t tame. Don’t think it’s tame, Mory. Do not try to befriend it.”

Mory shrugged noncommittally.

Jesus. Like I didn’t have enough to worry about when it came to the junior necromancer. Zombies, leeches … what was next?

Perhaps sensing my mood, the leech retreated back into the shadow of the chestnut tree, taking its cinnamon-toast-scented magic with it.

“Who’s Burgundy?” I asked, seeking to change the subject. Mory had mentioned the name when we’d talked about needing a witch to clean up her mess in the graveyard.

“You know. Burgundy.”

“Nope.”

“My friend Burgundy. She’s been in the bakery like a dozen times.”

I shook my head.

“Amy,” Mory snarled, as though I had just asked her to skewer her friend through the eyes with hot pokers.

Which was a seriously creepy image. Where the hell had that come from? I blamed the current environment. What with the corpses set to rise out of the ground underneath my feet at the merest thought of a necromancer who delighted in needling me.

Mory was glowering. A huffy, pissy pixie swathed in knitwear and perched on a gravestone. “My friend, Amy,” she repeated, clicking her thin metal needles together viciously. “You bought us ice cream. She’s Burgundy now, training with Pearl.”

“Oh! She’s like, what? A quarter-witch?”

The further furrowing of Mory’s brow gave me a sense of what fragile ground I was on. Which was fine, really. I was way more comfortable being the instigator of mayhem rather than the person who cleaned it up. I only ‘adulted’ completely willingly around bakery business.

“She’s hoping to focus on medicine at UBC. And on training in healing spells and such.”

‘And such’ covered a hell of a lot of ground when it came to witch magic, but I let it go. “Huh. Okay. So she can …?” I waved my hand at the disturbed grave underneath Mory’s dangling feet.

“Yep. At least I think so.”

Catching another hint of magic, I asked, “Does her magic taste like … jelly beans?” I smacked my lips thoughtfully. “Sour grape, maybe?”

Mory gave me a withering look.

Right, not a witch. And as far as I knew, I was the only half-witch who could taste magic. So it was a stupid question, which I tried to cover by explaining. “It’s an odd taste for a witch …”

But then I caught a hint of a darkly tinted spice that I knew intimately. A flavoring that I still couldn’t identify …

It wasn’t cardamom or coriander or cumin … I’d come to believe that its root was so ancient that even though the magical blood that carried its taste continued on, the plant itself was extinct.

But in any case, that spice had no business being paired with the taste of sour-grape jelly beans.

I pivoted toward it, peering into the darkness toward Fraser Street. I could hear traffic from that direction and sense Kandy moving toward me. But I couldn’t see any intruders.

Mory laid her hand on my arm, her gaze riveted to something near my waist. “It’s okay, Jade.”

I glanced down. I had called my knife into my hand without even noticing. Not wanting to freak Mory out further, I loosened my hold on the hilt and the blade immediately settled back into its invisible sheath.

“He’s okay.”

Mory knew the source of the magic I had tasted. Damn it.

“He’s a vampire,” I spat. “Loitering outside a cemetery.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s the third evening. I think he’s trying to … you know, say hi.”

I looked at her incredulously. “A vampire is attempting to open up a dialogue. With a necromancer. In a graveyard.”

My tone was nearing ‘unbecomingly strident’ territory. But what the freaking hell? Vampires weren’t friendly with necromancers. The immortal undead didn’t take kindly to the fact that some necromancers could control them. Also, for some strange reason, zombies could hurt the fanged. I was fairly certain that few knew that last little tidbit, thanks to the vampires having obliterated many of the necromancer bloodlines. Though even that destruction was more rumor than concrete fact.

Mory herself had informed me of the animosity between the two Adept races. Plus, she had always maintained a careful distance between herself and Kett. And what the hell was a sour-grape-jelly-bean-tasting bloodsucker doing in Vancouver anyway?

“Jade,” Mory said soothingly. “His mother is a necromancer.”

That gave me pause. Because it forced me to remember that Vancouver now boasted two full-fledged necromancers. Danica Novak, Mory’s mother, and Teresa Garrick, who was pending trial with the Convocation. A trial that had something to do with why her son Benjamin was a fledgling vampire without a master.

“Benjamin Garrick?” I said. It wasn’t like I hoped he was chained up in a basement somewhere, but I hadn’t thought about Benjamin having free rein to wander around Vancouver stalking necromancers under my protection.

“Yeah. I think so, at least. I haven’t met him. But he feels like —”

“Be right back.”

I took off without another word, darting between gravestones and feeling Kandy immediately chase after me from the parallel edge of the property. Then Warner’s black-forest-cake magic was moving with me as well, from where he was likely still on the outer sidewalk.

“Jade!” Mory called after me. “Give him a chance!”

A dark-haired vampire lurked among the thick-leafed branches of a massive chestnut tree at the eastern corner of the expansive cemetery property just inside the gate off Fraser Street. He might have been able to see Mory from his perch, but he didn’t see or hear me coming. Though I couldn’t blame him. I moved quickly.

He also missed the werewolf and the dragon. But then, Kandy moved through the grass and around the gravestones without a sound, and Warner pretty much became one with the shadows when he wanted to, as a result of his chameleon abilities.

I waited a couple of seconds for the vampire to notice me standing in the dry grass underneath the tree, but he kept his dark-eyed gaze riveted to the pixie necromancer. So I jumped up, grabbed his ankle, and ripped him from the branches.

He spun in midair, losing hold of a worn black-leather satchel as he crashed onto his back. He didn’t make a sound, not even a peep of disconcertion.

Bonus points for him.

Of course, he hadn’t seen my knife yet.

The slightly built vampire yanked his leg from my grasp, scrambling back and slamming up against the base of the chestnut tree. It was thickly trunked, easily forty years old, but it still shuddered at this mistreatment. So he was strong. Nowhere near as strong as Kett, but way, way stronger physically than the petite necromancer he was apparently stalking.

His pale skin had an olive undertone. His eyes were dark brown, almost black in the filtered moonlight. Appearing to be around nineteen or twenty, he stared up at me, self-consciously tugging at the sleeve of a thin, dark-navy wool sweater that was slightly too large for him, hanging past his wrists. Dark-washed jeans and lace-up ankle boots of black leather completed his outfit. He was about my height, as long as I wasn’t wearing heels.

Warner and Kandy appeared at my back, standing to either side like silent, brooding sentries. Not bothering to pull my knife again, I leaned over the fledgling vampire, watching his eyes finally widen with fear. But interestingly, I didn’t see even a hint of the red of his magic.

“Hunting necromancers is frowned upon in Vancouver,” I said, pointedly but not nastily. I liked to be nice, after all.

His jaw dropped, revealing teeth that were so perfectly straight he must have worn braces at some point. Before he’d been remade into a vampire. As with the eyes, I didn’t see any hint of fangs. But as far as I could figure, a young vampire confronted by three unknown and greater predators should have been instinctively fighting back.

“I … I …” the dark-haired vampire stuttered. “I wasn’t … hunting.”

“Calm, controlled,” Warner said. “Interesting.”

Kandy huffed in disappointment. “Really, dowser? You got me going, what with the running. And this baby vamp was the threat?”

The vampire’s gaze snapped to me, his fear easing into curiosity. Apparently he knew my title when he heard it, even if he didn’t recognize me by sight.

Warner chuckled at the wolf’s dissatisfaction. Then he turned his head slightly. “Expecting a witch?”

“Mory’s friend,” I said, having caught the taste of green watermelon over top of the grassy base of witch magic a moment before he spoke. “Amy, now known as Burgundy.”

The vampire worried his bottom lip. “Is the necromancer okay, then? I, uh, noticed … the … you know …” He walked two fingers over the palm of his left hand, apparently concerned about naming the zombies out loud.

Warner melted into the shadows, heading off to make sure that the witch we’d both felt approaching was of the helpful, friendly variety.

The vampire muttered excitedly to himself, reaching for the leather satchel that had fallen out of the tree alongside him.

I darted forward, catching his wrist carefully so as to not hurt him. He flinched nonetheless. When he moved, I had tasted a secondary tenor of magic hidden beneath his primary jelly-bean taste. I didn’t know if he was reaching for a weapon or not. Though vampires didn’t usually carry objects of power, what with their ability to beguile prey, then tear its throat out.

Kandy had darted around behind me to snatch up the satchel, which she unclipped and upended beside the vampire.

Two black notebooks, a fancy pen, a leather-bound book that looked ancient, and a bag of blood tumbled out onto the grass.

Ben moaned quietly. But in embarrassment, not hunger.

Huffing, Kandy tossed the satchel over the bag of blood, stalking around the tree until she stood beside me again.

“You know who I am,” I said quietly. Ignoring — for the moment at least — that he carried blood with him.

The dark-haired vampire nodded.

“Do you know the proper way to introduce yourself?”

He nodded again, but this time as though he felt stupid for not having done so earlier. Even though I had just yanked him out of a tree instead of greeting him formally. So some of that was on me.

I blamed Mory. I was overly protective of her.

“Go ahead.” I let go of the vampire’s wrist, stepping back.

He gained his feet effortlessly, straightening his sweater and brushing off his jeans with hints of the fluid movement that came so naturally to Kett. Then he lifted his chin proudly. “Benjamin Garrick. Son of Teresa Garrick, necromancer. Child of Nigel Farris, vampire, deceased. Ward of Kettil, the executioner and elder of the Conclave.”

Kett’s ward? Well. Surprise, surprise. Was Benjamin the reason the executioner had been more circumspect than usual lately?

“Invoking the name of the executioner is not to be done lightly, baby vamp,” Kandy said with sudden viciousness.

Benjamin wasn’t fazed. “I speak it with permission.”

Kandy gave me a look, and I nodded. Though I wasn’t privy to the fledgling’s connection to Kett, it made sense. Gran had negotiated the Garricks’ entry into Vancouver, and she normally wouldn’t have been all that keen about having Benjamin in what was traditionally witch territory. Except I had some unusual friends.

Vampires were known to be … well, complicated to coexist with. And as such, it wouldn’t have surprised me to learn that the bag of blood Benjamin carried was one of the conditions of his admittance into Godfrey coven territory.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Benjamin,” I said.

He smiled. “I go by Garrick.”

“Nope,” Kandy said. “Too confusing. And contrived.”

Benjamin’s expression went forlorn at this pronouncement. “A real vampire wouldn’t go by Ben. Or Benjamin.”

“Not our problem, fledgling.” Kandy sniffed.

“Really?” I asked, trying to keep a straight face. “He can’t decide what he wants to be called?”

“He can put more thought into it, can’t he?”

I cleared my throat, tamping down on my amusement at Kandy exerting her dominance over a fledgling vampire so we could follow through with the formalities. “Kandy, werewolf, enforcer of the West Coast North American Pack.”

“The wielder’s wolf,” Kandy said darkly.

Well, that was new. And not at all intimidating. For me, at least, since I was the wielder in question and Kandy’s forthright claiming of the relationship sounded intentional and specific. Still, I had no idea what she meant by it.

Benjamin’s fingers flexed as if he was desperate to be holding something. But again, the tenor of his jelly-bean-infused magic remained controlled. Even sedate.

“Jade Godfrey,” I said. “Dowser, granddaughter of Pearl Godfrey, chair of the Convocation.”

Benjamin bobbed his head, confirming that he already understood full well who I was.

“Alchemist,” Kandy added pointedly. “Wielder of the instruments of assassination. Dragon slayer.”

I sighed inwardly.

Benjamin’s jaw dropped, then stayed down.

Kandy snorted smugly. Werewolves loved to play games, especially with vampires. Apparently, being young didn’t gain Benjamin any leeway.

Ignoring Kandy and all the posturing she apparently felt was necessary, I spoke to him. “May I see the magical artifact on your wrist?”

Surprised, the dark-haired vampire wrapped his left hand across the wrist of his right, mortification flushing his face. The sleeves of his sweater hung to the knuckles of his long, almost-delicate fingers.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured. “It’s rude to ask after another Adept’s magic, but it’s pretty much my job now.”

“How did you know I had … a magical artifact?”

“I’m a dowser. That means, for me at least, that I taste magic.”

His gaze fixed on me. A smile slowly spread across his face, becoming practically all encompassing. The expression of wonderment transformed the young vampire from completely average in the looks department into heartthrob territory. Like, instantly. “You … taste … magic.”

Kandy leaned in, eyeing Benjamin with renewed interest.

Oh, yes. It was a good thing I was seriously attached to my fiance. But I was going to have to keep an eye on Mory. I wasn’t at all certain that the necromancer could stand up to that smile or the irresistible magic that backed it.

“And me? Do I … taste like anything?” His question ended in a hushed whisper, filled with a tense neediness paired with gleeful anticipation.

For other young adults his age — if my loose understanding of Benjamin’s recent transformation was accurate — the world revolved around sex and food. But the fledgling vampire was obviously fueled by knowledge. Specifically, knowledge about the magical universe he’d just been reborn into, and the Adepts he shared that world with.

I laughed quietly. “You taste like a vampire, of course. Some kind of intense spice that I haven’t quite figured out yet. But mostly like jelly beans. Sour grape, I think.”

He frowned thoughtfully. “I taste like super sweet, sugary … sour … grapes?”

“Yes. Except the artifact on your wrist is necromancer magic, which I can feel more than taste. It’s not Mory’s, though, or her mother, Danica’s. Your mother’s?”

He nodded, then dropped his gaze. “To help keep me … in check.”

Ah. That was why he’d been upset in response to my mentioning it. And that also made a likely explanation for the sedate tenor of his magic. I’d heard that young vampires were driven by bloodlust, but Kett’s own control was rather epic in contrast. I’d seen him surrounded by bleeding, mortally wounded shapeshifters and witches — including myself — and he hadn’t shown a hint of fang. Magic was the one thing that seemed to put the executioner over the edge, but even then, I’d never seen him bite anyone simply because he was out of control.

Benjamin started to roll up the sleeve of his sweater.

“Never mind,” I said. “I get it.”

He shook his head. “No. I understand rules. You’ve got them, and I’ll follow. It took me almost a year to convince my mother I could leave the house. I like Vancouver. I’d like to stay.”

He uncovered what appeared to be a cross between a two-inch-thick cuff and a torture device. Constructed out of the woven bones of a small animal or bird, the bracelet was embedded into his flesh, just above his wrist. And because of his vampire magic, his skin had healed, half-absorbing the bone cuff. It seethed with necromancy, and not the tasty toasted-marshmallow kind that Mory wielded.

It looked, tasted, and felt as though the casting and the wearing of the device had to be painful. As in, continually. This wasn’t a magical artifact. It was a necromancy spell — a perpetual working, probably fueled by Benjamin’s own magic — designed specifically to keep his vampire nature from rising.

I grimaced, clamping down on my sudden need to tear the magic-laced bones from his flesh.

Beside me, Kandy folded her fingers into fists, clenching her teeth. Then she stalked away, pacing a few steps before coming back again.

Yeah, I wasn’t the only softhearted one.

“Um …” Benjamin said, watching the werewolf warily. “Do you mind if I make notes?”

“Excuse me?”

“Notes. You know? I’m starting a chronicle.”

“A chronicle?” Kandy asked mockingly. “ ‘Dear Diary, today I saw the necromancer again. I desperately want to bite her, but I just can’t bring myself to confess it to her.’ ”

Frustration-fueled emotion flitted across Benjamin’s face. The magic of the torture device he wore on his wrist flared, and he covered it with his hand. Attempting to hide it, and the pain it caused, from our sight.

“Take it off him, dowser,” Kandy snapped.

“What?” Benjamin cried. “No!” He tugged the sleeve of his sweater down so it covered the woven bone bracelet, blinking at me. “You could, though? Remove it?”

“She’s an alchemist, isn’t she?” Kandy snarled, starting to pace again.

“I thought … that’s not about turning lead into gold?”

“What?” Kandy cried. She indignantly threw her arms up in the air.

“That would be a pretty cool power,” Benjamin said enthusiastically. “Useful, you know?”

Kandy looked at me, shaking her head.

“What?” I asked. “How’s he supposed to know?”

“Kett’s supposedly mentoring him.”

“Well, that explains everything,” I said sarcastically. “The executioner is just so verbose.”

“He brings me books,” Benjamin said defensively, crouching down to grab the leather tome Kandy had tossed in the grass among his notebooks and the bag of blood. He waved the book as though it were supporting evidence. “Other chronicles. But they’re really old. So … I thought … you know.”

“That you’d write your own.”

Benjamin nodded, swiftly repacking his bag.

“Industrious,” Kandy said.

“Everyone needs a place,” I murmured.

“It’s dangerous,” Kandy countered. “Writing about magic, maybe about Adepts who don’t want to be chronicled.” She waved her hand at me, as though suggesting I was liable to murder anyone who jotted down facts about me.

Benjamin straightened, dropping his satchel over one shoulder but keeping a pen and a black Moleskine in hand.

Kandy rounded on him. Again. “Have you mentioned your little project to Kett?”

The dark-haired vampire became still, which made me realize he was breathing, slowly and surely. I wondered how long he’d keep that habit up, other than to speak.

He was also scared of his so-called mentor.

But then, who wasn’t, really? At least a little bit? The executioner carried a lot of magic — and carried it uneasily, according to him. Even Warner kept tabs on Kett. They were currently engaged in playing some remote chess game they had started months before.

Benjamin swallowed. “Are you going to tell him?”

“Are you going to ask permission?” Kandy asked pointedly.

The young vampire bobbed his head.

“Fine,” the werewolf huffed. “We won’t say anything. Yet.” She nodded toward the notebook in his hand. “A tablet would be smarter. More useful.”

“I’ve got one. And a laptop. But I prefer the feel of pen on paper. You know?”

“Paper,” Kandy sneered, crossing her arms. “Well, go ahead. We’ve got things to do.”

The dark-haired vampire flipped open the Moleskine, uncapping what appeared to be a snazzy fountain pen that carried a hint of residual magic. Vampire magic.

I watched as Benjamin flipped to a blank page and carefully wrote Kandy’s name and titles across the top of it.

“Did Kett give you the pen?” I asked.

Benjamin nodded, not looking up from his notes.

“And the notebook?”

“A box of them,” he said, almost absentmindedly.

I nodded at Kandy knowingly, and she tipped her head in acknowledgment. There was very little that the executioner missed, and very little that he did unintentionally. Apparently, Benjamin already had Kett’s permission to chronicle whatever he wanted. Which, of course, raised the question of why. Perhaps Kett simply wanted the young vampire to have some focus — something other than the bloodlust that I was guessing the bone bracelet on his wrist helped hold at bay.

“I ain’t standing around all day,” Kandy snapped. “You get two questions.”

“Each?” Ben asked hopefully.

I laughed quietly.

Kandy glowered at me. I wasn’t particularly helpful at keeping fledgling Adepts in line — or at least not keeping them toeing the line the exacting werewolf wanted them on. For their own protection, of course and always. But no matter how gruff and blunt Kandy preferred to appear, she had taken on the duty of enforcing the magical grid seriously. Embracing the opportunity almost gleefully, in fact.

“I really should check in on Mory,” I said. “And the witch.”

“Burgundy … UBC … healing spells …” Benjamin muttered under his breath, reminding himself — and at the same time, inadvertently letting me know how sharp his hearing was. “Formerly Amy.”

“Also off limits,” I said. “For biting.”

Benjamin looked affronted. “It would be difficult to make friends, and, you know, write a chronicle about the modern age of the Adept if I went around trying to bite everyone.”

“You’d be surprised,” Kandy muttered.

I shot her a look. She didn’t need to be giving the fledgling vampire any ideas about his potential ability to beguile anyone and everyone with a mere bite. I was already worried about the enthralling magic that backed his smile.

Kandy flashed me one of her patented nonsmiles in return, tugging her phone out of her pocket and scanning her messages. “Pearl texted earlier to say the bloom had faded from the grid. Nothing since.”

“The grid?” Benjamin asked hopefully.

“Is that your first question?” Kandy snapped back.

The dark-haired vampire tilted his head. Apparently, he needed to think it over.

I quashed another smile, leaving Benjamin to Kandy and swiftly crossing back into the graveyard.