Chapter 3

An incessantly buzzing alarm dragged me awake and I spent a moment trying to work up enough spit to release my tongue from where it was stuck to the roof of my mouth. One eye slitted, I gazed up at the ceiling and tried to remember if I’d downed my weight in scotch or been hit by a truck the night before.

A stretch of sore muscles indicated it might have been both. Tossing back the duvet and hoping a shower might wash away the fatigue, I headed for the bathroom.

Mornings are my favorite time of day, if only because Lexi sleeps late and I can enjoy an hour or two without having to listen to her constant commentary on everything I do. This weird duality and the feeling of sharing a body wasn’t my idea. In fact, I’d been happier when I was nothing more than an ethereal construct that could shoot the bow unseen in public.

Call me the Pinocchio of Fate Weavers—you’d be close.

Lifting a leg to step over the side of the claw-foot tub pinged at both calf and thigh muscles. Stupid archaic tub, anyway. Whoever thought it was a good idea to stew in their own filth? Give me a nice shower stall any day of the week. One with a lovely rain head and a few side jets would be my preference. All sleek and modern with some tile and a big, open entrance instead of a lousy shower curtain that always wanted to plaster itself against my backside.

The stinging burn when warm water hit my left shoulder interrupted my internal rant. What on earth had happened last night? And why couldn’t I remember?

Quit thinking so hard! You woke me up. The witch was not a morning person. Not until I sated her with that first cup of coffee, anyway.

I twisted off the taps, whipped the shower curtain aside, and cheated my shoulder toward the mirror hanging on the back of the bathroom door. Centered on my shoulder blade was a dark blemish that, at this distance, looked like a small tattoo.

Giving in, I thought toward the witch. Did we get hammered last night? I certainly wouldn’t be the first person in the world to make a drunken decision that would mark my flesh for the rest of my life.

You’re an idiot, she fired back, and her tone pissed me off. One of those riders did that to you. Us. Whatever. That was no ordinary nightmare.

Nightmare?

Lexi sighed, and the dream came back to me in a rush.

By this time, I was standing next to the full-length and angling a hand mirror to get a better look. Not the easiest thing to do while also clutching a damp towel, but my innate desire for order wouldn’t let me drop the bath sheet on the floor.

The mark, best as I could tell, was circular—maybe half again the diameter of a quarter. A ring with an intricate design inside. Looking at it backwards and sideways, I couldn’t make out anything specific in the pattern.

Lexi’s voice clanged inside my head. You could ask Salem to take a picture of it with the cell phone, you know.

That would not be happening. It wasn’t my fault she’d let her familiar become way too familiar. In both his forms, the cat-man refused to respect boundaries, so I’d been forced to toss him and that fuzzy childhood relic of a beanbag chair out of the bedroom. Permanently.

Since then, I’d maintained a chilly silence and Salem kept his distance, and that was just the way I liked it.

Still, the witch had a point about using the camera, so I put away the mirror and the towel and stalked back into the bedroom to retrieve the phone from the nightstand. Two tries at getting a good shot yielded blurry results and I snorted out my frustration when the words stubborn fool drifted through my head. I slapped up the walls to shut her out.

Back in the bathroom, a combo of two mirrors and the phone finally netted me a decent shot, but by then, I was running late for work and needed to get dressed. A black cashmere sweater seemed the best option against sore skin, and I allowed myself the shortcut of a glamour instead of messing with hair and makeup.

Put together and satisfied my face revealed nothing of my sleep-disturbed night, I weighed the certainty of encountering the faerie godmothers in the kitchen against not giving my other half the coffee she needed, and decided to chance the former. Though I preferred to avoid stimulants, after the night I’d had, I needed the caffeine as much as she did.

“Blueberry pancakes?” Fire faerie, Soleil, eyed me over one shoulder. Different as the four elements they represented, the godmothers would be shocked to know how similar their over-eager expressions they’d adopted since I’d taken over running the Lexi/Alexis show were.

I’d overheard more than one whispered conversation between the four of them about letting me/us work through whatever it was they perceived Lexi was going through, but so far, they’d broken type and stayed out of my business. I could see the effort was costing them, though.

Under flaming hair, frown lines traced the space between Soleil’s ember eyes. “They’re your favorite.” Her tone wasn’t quite a wheedle, but it was close. She, like the other two original godmothers, had taken to treating me like I was the victim of some strange illness. Only Vaeta, the most recent addition to the household, seemed unaffected by the new dynamic. But then, she spent half of her time flitting off on adventures with her demon boyfriend, Rhys, and the other half complaining about him.

Half of me—and I’m sure you can guess which half—longed to send them back where they belonged so I could be alone with my misery. Neither part of me had the stones to do it.

Normally, faerie godmothers stick to the shadows and only lend a hand to their witches when there’s no other option. In this house, there was no baseline for normal, and all pretenses that the godmother-goddaughter relationship followed the usual rules had gone out the window long ago. Somewhere deep down, I could feel a numb sort of pain threatening to make itself known, but I didn’t dare open that door for fear I’d wind up right back where I started before I allowed my goddess half to take over. Mired in pity, fear, and heartbreak. Had I been more self-aware, I’d have realized how true was the statement that wherever you go, there you are.

I hadn’t eliminated the hurt. I had just taken to ignoring it, and with it, the people who cared for me the most. What they didn’t realize was that as much as I appreciated their love, it was like a knife right through the heart. Every gentle hug, every comforting word shined a bright light on just how terrible I was feeling, and instead of sticking around and coping with it like an adult, I’d chosen to reject them all in the name of self-preservation.

Besides, women get dumped every day, and some of them go out and get a makeover to try and feel better. That wasn’t so much different from what I had done, right?

“Is there blueberry syrup too?” I caved a little because, well, blueberry pancakes really are my favorite.

Terra, the only faerie who technically rated the godmother title, kept her face carefully blank. “Of course, and by the way, could you pick up a gallon of milk on your way home tonight?” She wasn’t fooling me with that nonsense. Terra could magic up a cow—or a herd of them—from thin air without breaking a sweat. Asking me to play errand girl was a ploy to stay apprised of my projected whereabouts after the end of my work day.

Which she confirmed by adding, “And if you’re going to be late, you could call or text. It’s the polite thing to do.”

“If there’s time, I’ll try to remember.” That qualified as nice, right? My business might require me to keep regular hours, but my life’s work couldn’t be done according to a time clock. Piercing hearts and weaving fates with the Bow of Destiny was a calling. It was my destiny, and I had to go where and when the people needed me. Mostly, that meant hitting the night shift and not spending a lot of time at the house.

The childish life of fantasy board games, hot tubbing, and refereeing faerie fights was a thing of the past. I was trying my best to be over it, and wished the faeries would realize that what I needed most was for them to move on from it too.

Besides, if they had any idea what went on at FootSwept these days, they’d stage another intervention.