WOODS OF THE RAVEN

MARY CALMES

CONTENTS

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

A Note From the Author

Also by Mary Calmes

About the Author

Woods of the Raven

Copyright ©2023 Mary Calmes

http://marycalmes.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the products of author imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover content is for illustrative purposes only. Any person depicted on the cover is a model.

Cover art Copyright © 2023 Reese Dante

http://reesedante.com

Edit by Keren Reed Editing

Copy Edit by Brian Holliday

Beta Read by Will Parkinson

Proof Edit by Judy’s Proofreading

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DEDICATION

As usual, I have to thank my wonderful team, Keren, who edits and asks questions, Brian, who wonders if I know what the word means that I used, Will, who is certain that there is one, or maybe seven words missing, and Judy who checks to make sure my plot math is accurate.

A special thank you as well to my cover artist, Reese Dante, for making sense of what I wanted when I sent her music and pictures. I told her, it’s a whole vibe. Her patience is clearly infinite.

WOODS OF THE RAVEN

Something wicked this way comes…and it might be too late to stop it.

Xander Corey lives simply, sustainably, on the outskirts of Osprey, a small, quaint town in Upstate New York. He’s a librarian when the town’s budget can afford him, a good friend, kind neighbor, and also, a witch. And while that’s of no concern to anyone around him, there are others, non-humans, who have a vested interest in Xander’s family land. Xander knows something dark and dangerous is brewing. He’s just not quite sure what.

And that’s not the only mystery he’s dealing with. The new chief of police is, by turns, giving him heart palpitations and homicidal thoughts. Xander can’t decide if the gorgeous yet infuriating Lorne MacBain is on his side, or trying to drive him insane. Added to that, the man doesn’t believe in magic, and since that’s who Xander is, their future looks anything but bright.

But Lorne is not the unimaginative, stick-in-the-mud Xander thinks he is. And a rock to anchor him as his life is turning upside down is just the thing Xander needs. Now if only the two of them can stay alive…

ONE

It was early for whoever needed me, but I was up watering the garden, checking on the damage the deer and rabbits had wrought—which wasn’t bad. Unfortunately, I’d been unable to sleep and so had done my morning rounds early. From the time I was old enough to understand, my grandfather had drilled into my head that one must always check the land first before anything else. At the time, it meant sitting quietly, seeing through his eyes. Now, at the grand old age of thirty-two, it was a quick fly over twenty-two acres before breakfast. As usual, there wasn’t much to see, simply the normal ebb and flow of a forest. Since I didn’t allow hunting on my land, and neither did my neighbors on either side, all of us content to let predator and prey find balance without interference—cue “Circle of Life” from The Lion King—we never had to worry about accidents with guns. More importantly, no animals were murdered for sport. I did note that there were a couple of cars out by the road, but I didn’t check on them, as the only people who ventured this far down Cider Lane were probably lost and would be making a U-turn at the Wingate Farm a half mile from my mailbox.

Normally, I wouldn’t be home at this time on a weekday, I’d be at work instead, but Mr. Samuels, the head librarian in our small town of Osprey, New York, had to put me on leave, as the town budget didn’t have enough for both me, Xander Corey, and Joanna Milton in the reference section of the library. I knew he would have preferred I stay. He told me so. But she had seniority, though as far as I could tell, she hated it when anyone bothered her. That included questions, special requests, and having to search the archives for books no one had seen in over a hundred years. People always thought I was kidding when I said things like that, but the town of Osprey, sitting between Westfield and Mayville in Upper New York, had been established in 1825, three years before Westfield, and the new library—if 1920 could be considered new—was built over the basement of the old one.

There were treasures in the dark, musty rooms, but unless you were like me—unafraid of shadows and venturing down narrow staircases complete with spiderwebs, descending into an abyss—you weren’t going to find the good stuff. Joanna certainly didn’t enjoy the cold or what she thought was the faulty wiring on the lower levels. I would’ve told her to simply speak nicely to the ghosts, but since she wasn’t a believer, I couldn’t very well explain that if you asked kindly, Mrs. Radcliffe, the first librarian, who still watched over the reference stacks in the solarium, could be persuaded to descend the stairs to the basement to help you find whatever you needed. She was lovely, and I made certain to always put flowers on her grave on her birthday. I knew she appreciated it; hyacinths had been her favorites.

Now, as I saw a police car coming down my cobblestone drive, I stepped out onto the porch, pulling my cardigan tighter around me, the T-shirt underneath not offering much warmth, and waited.

Like many in Osprey, I was surprised when our little town got its own police department five years back. Before that, we were dependent on Westfield for anything law-enforcement related. But as Westfield grew, they could not oversee the needs of another town, even a small one just thirty minutes away. They were still there to offer backup, and beyond that, the New York State Police and the Chautauqua County Sheriff’s Department also provided police protection. But for the goings-on in Osprey, now we had a chief, two deputies, and a receptionist. When our first chief left—apparently it was a snooze fest of a job and he had wanted out from the moment he was appointed—the mayor had looked at candidates and decided to hire someone from out of state. Someone who was looking for a new start and a slower pace. Six months ago, she settled on Lorne MacBain, who’d moved from Boston. When he was hired, I, like everyone else, had seen him onstage the day Madeline Kong, our mayor, presented him to the town, but beyond that, I didn’t think our paths would cross again. Why would they? If you weren’t in trouble, how often did you see law enforcement?

That was before I understood things about our new chief. Namely, that his idea of protect and serve had more to do with catching small things before they turned into big ones. And when I said small to the people I complained to, I meant tiny, teeny, slight indiscretions he caught you doing that seemed beneath the chief of police.

“You’re being dramatic,” my friend Natalie Bauer, the local florist, assured me. “He’s a beautiful, enchanting man.”

He was absolutely not that.

The first time I met him in person, I was crossing our two-lane road and heard the brrp-brrp of the siren behind me, which, because I was focused on not dropping anything from the farmers’ market, had nearly scared me to death.

“You need to use the crosswalk,” he informed me as his SUV glided next to me. The car had the words Osprey Police on the side in the most garish shade of blue I’d ever seen. The last chief had a cruiser, but the vehicles had been upgraded for Chief MacBain. “You could get hit if you’re jaywalking. Next time you’re getting a ticket.”

What?

We had one traffic light in our entire town. Everybody jaywalked. No one used the crosswalk. Ever. Why was I being singled out?

The next time we met, I was walking along the shoulder of the road, and he stopped his SUV right in front of me, got out, and told me, “You should be walking on the other side of the road, against traffic, not with it. That’s how people get kidnapped and murdered.”

What?

“Use your head.”

Use my head?

Another time I was closing the library, having stayed to make sure everything got put back in its rightful place, and I was coming down the steps when there he was, lights flashing, illuminating the dark parking lot. There were lights on the street but nothing in the lot. But this was Osprey, not Manhattan.

“It’s dark out here,” he said like this was news. “You should have a flashlight and a taser in case there’s trouble.”

Trouble? At the library?

“You don’t know who could be lurking.”

Lurking? In Osprey?

Did I think it was right for young men or women to be out alone at night in the dark? No, of course not. But there were things he didn’t know about me. I was hardly helpless.

Next, he stopped me at the grocery store as I was getting a new grease pencil. I smiled at him before he said, “You know you need to pay for that.”

I looked at him, confused.

He reached out and gently pulled the writing instrument from behind my ear where I’d tucked it. “This is called shoplifting.”

What?

He could not be serious, and I was about to say something horrible, really give him a piece of my mind.

“Oh no,” Benny Haskins, the store owner, told the chief from where he was behind the front counter. “Xan brought a basket of strawberries for my wife in exchange. He’s fine.”

I smiled up at the chief. “You see, I’m not a criminal.”

He just scowled at me and left.

“What did you do to Chief MacBain?” Benny asked me.

I had no idea.

Whenever I saw him, he was frowning, never smiled, and I was always doing something wrong he needed to point out.

The last time I parked my bike downtown, I got in trouble for no lock and no bicycle license. I had to go to the city hall to get one, and Avril Thompson had me behind the counter helping her look for the form, since she could not remember the last time someone got one.

The man was ridiculous, and why I was his special project, I had no idea.

“I would love to be his special anything,” Jennifer Dougherty was saying as we walked together to the piano store she owned and where she gave lessons. She was fabulous. She looked and dressed like a 1940s movie star, all glamour and big hats, cat-eye sunglasses, A-line dresses, and very high heels. “You’re lucky.”

“I don’t want to be lucky,” I told her just as we were about to cross the street and the chief pulled up in front of the crosswalk, leaned out his window, and warned me not to jaywalk. “I’m not going to!” I snarled at him.

“See that you don’t.” Then he was on his way, not even noticing when he ran a red light.

“He could have caused an accident,” I groused to my friend.

“His eyes are so dark,” she said with a really annoying sigh. “And the arms on that man,” she nearly purred. “Really, I could do with him watching over me.”

I didn’t need watching over, and I definitely didn’t need a snarly shadow stopping to remind me that while riding a bike, hand signals were required in traffic. What traffic?

It was maddening.

That morning, when he got out of the passenger seat of the SUV, I noted he had the same expression as always when he saw me—a grimace. Now I was certain he was unhappy to be at my home, and likely also not thrilled to be out in the cold, damp early morning November air.

“Morning, Xan,” Deputy Peter Rooney called over with a wave.

“Pete,” I returned the greeting, smiling. Pete had been my friend since third grade, when he and his family had moved here. “Would you like some tea?”

He glanced sideways at the chief, who only glowered back. “Do you have a travel mug I can borrow?”

“Of course,” I assured him, lowering my voice as both men reached the first step to my porch. “Good morning, Chief MacBain.”

He was scowling as though somehow, already, I’d offended him. “Morning, Mr. Corey,” he rumbled.

Why he had to call me Mr. Corey, every single time, was beyond me. What was wrong with just using my name? I’d asked him to please use it every time we bumped into one another.

“We have some questions.”

Of course he did. Why else would he be here? I glanced at Pete, who rolled his eyes, and then I met MacBain’s gaze. “Certainly.”

“Do you live here alone?”

I was guessing that spectral dogs and a daemon masquerading as a black cat didn’t count. And technically, the ghosts only dropped by; they didn’t live with me. Yes, sometimes the stays were extended, but they had other places to be. “I do. May I ask what this is about?”

He cleared his throat. “I was trying to determine if you were the only one on the property.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to question everyone who was here last night.”

I took a breath. I didn’t like it when others did this to me, talked in circles, not getting to the point, and it wasn’t any better coming from a human. “Well, I would be everyone, so please, ask away.”

He was glaring now, and between the furrowed brows, thick dark lashes, and midnight-blue eyes, he appeared forbidding. Or, I was guessing, did to most people. But as I’d done nothing wrong for him to be trying to intimidate me, I found myself more than slightly annoyed. I had things to do this morning, and wasting my time on my porch with a man who didn’t seem at all ready to get to the point of his inquiry was not putting me in the best mood.

“A girl was murdered last night, Mr. Corey, and dumped in the bushes between your home and the Johnsons’. Have you seen or heard anything?”

I was stunned. Poor girl. I grieved for the loss of life and the fear she went through. “You have to find out who did it so she can be at rest,” I told him.

“We have to find out who did it because she was murdered,” he corrected me, sounding as irritable as usual.

She hadn’t been left on my property. I would have felt it. Or if I hadn’t, the dogs—Osko, Gwyn, and Dar—would have alerted me when they did their evening rounds. As fearsome and terrifying as they were, they would have been aggrieved over finding someone dead on my land, but they would not have seen anything beyond the boundary. Until their owner collected them for his hunt, the dogs were bound to the property, unable to step foot beyond the ley lines that framed the Corey land—or Corvus, as it had been called in my family for hundreds of years.

“Mr. Corey?”

“Sorry.” I sighed deeply. “I feel terrible for the girl, but I didn’t hear or see anything. There was a pretty serious thunderstorm last night.”

“Yes,” MacBain agreed, and I realized suddenly that I wasn’t looking at irritation from him, but instead pain. He had left the big city to move here with his brother and niece, to a town with forest on three sides and a beach on the other, where a herd of deer could stop traffic, and where everyone knew your name. To have a murder six months in had to be horrifying for him on every level. It had to make him feel as though he’d made a terrible mistake.

“Please, won’t you come in and have some tea,” I entreated, needing to comfort him.

“No,” he said softly, gently, trying for a trace of a smile. “We have to go to Westfield to meet with the medical examiner and—”

“They just took the body,” Pete reminded him. “It’s going to be thirty minutes just in transport, and we don’t know how long on the autopsy. We could have tea.”

The chief clearly didn’t want to come in, but if he let me, I could help. Not with his investigation, but certainly with the weight of whatever he was carrying.

“Come on,” I coaxed, tipping my head.

He gave me a scowl, which sealed the deal. I knew begrudging acceptance when I saw it.

Opening the front door, I stepped aside so they could go in before me, and then I followed them in, closing the door and shutting out the cold.

“Leave your shoes there,” I told them. “And then come have a seat.”

Pete, who’d been in my home many times, bent to unlace his hiking boots, but the chief just stood there looking uncomfortable.

I was nothing if not prepared. “I have felt boot socks you can put your whole foot in if you don’t want to take them off.”

“No.” He appeared uncertain. “I just… Nothing was clean this morning, so I’m not wearing socks and—”

“Got it,” I said, smiling and taking a moment to wonder if he was wearing briefs. I shouldn’t have even entertained such a thought. The man hated me, after all. I darted to a wicker basket near the hearth, pulled out a pair of socks, and returned to him, holding them out. “Here you go. Put these on. They’re even warm.”

He reached for them immediately, then stopped himself. “Oh no, I don’t want to—”

“That’s what they’re for, Chief,” Pete explained. “That’s why he knits them.”

“You knit?” MacBain sounded quite surprised and a bit judgmental, but he took the socks.

“I do.” I crossed my arms, slightly regretting my decision to ask him in.

“No, I didn’t mean it like—I’ve just never met a man who knits.”

“I knit,” Pete announced flatly.

MacBain turned to him. “You knit?”

“Yeah. My father too, and most of the guys I know. It helps keep your hands limber, especially in the winter. I even knit with the fingerless mitts on that Xan made me.”

We both stood there, squinting at the chief.

Boots off, my socks on his feet, MacBain glanced back and forth between us. “I didn’t mean to imply anything bad about knitting,” he growled at us defensively. He was decidedly prickly.

Pete huffed out a frustrated breath and made a beeline for my kitchen table.

“Won’t you come have a seat, Chief?”

He was glowering, but I let that go and went to the kitchen. He was either sitting or not. I was done fussing over him. My earlier concern had evaporated.

Glancing over at him just to check, I saw him take a seat across the table from Pete. They had room to sit, and the chairs that had been made by some ancient relative were solid mahogany and exceedingly comfortable. Their end of the cherrywood table was clear, while the other was covered in dried herbs and flowers I was fashioning into garlands.

“You getting ready for the harvest festival?” Pete asked.

“I am.” I walked over to the chief, moving almost not of my own accord. My grandfather would have been horrified over how I was acting toward a guest, annoyed or not. He’d always stressed that once people crossed the threshold, everything needed to be done to make them comfortable. “Would you like black tea or the chai Pete likes?”

“Oh, whatever’s easiest for—”

“They’re both made.” I put a hand on his shoulder, as if compelled to, and I didn’t normally feel that way. “I’m a black tea guy myself, and this one I made with a pinch of sea salt and some crystalized honey. It’s good.”

“I—sure,” he rasped, looking around what he could see of my house. “Black tea is fine.”

Fine? Tea was never fine. It was always amazing. From his lackluster response to my question, I was betting he’d never had great tea. I would fix that.

“Your house looks so small on the outside,” he commented. “It’s bigger in here than I thought it would be.”

It was the way the house was angled. You thought you were seeing the whole thing from how it faced the road, but there was a second bedroom and a sunroom that were easy to miss. Two steps led down from the kitchen that ran along one wall to a room with glass walls on three sides. In the winter, I closed the shutters, but all spring, summer, and fall, they were open. There were drying herbs, shelves of lidded pots, jars, and bottles, and of course, oil lanterns. There was no electricity in my house. I had gas for the stove, washer, dryer, and water heater. The hearth supplied heat to the kitchen and the sunroom, while the fireplace in the living room heated the rest of what was the open floor plan of my home. Small wood stoves in each of the two bedrooms and my grandfather’s den kept those spaces cozy on the dark, cold nights.

The floors were hardwood, the ceilings high with exposed beams, and the rest was ancient stone. I had painted the kitchen a lovely clover green, and all the cabinets were fitted with crown glass, as was the sunroom and all the windows in the house. It was difficult to see out of, everything was distorted, but when the house was built, that was the process. Over the years, I’d considered changing it, but it had all been made so well, fitting perfectly, the house remaining cool in the summer, while in the winter no heat escaped. I was afraid if I messed with it, somehow it would never be the same. Best to err on the side of caution.

“Mr. Corey?”

“Sorry,” I rushed out. “And please, call me Xan. I mean, given how often you talk to me, you should use my first name.”

Nothing. He simply stared at me.

“Don’t you agree?”

“I—”

“Old houses can be deceiving,” I said, steamrolling ahead, not waiting for him to add to the conversation, needing to steer us out of the mire we seemed to be in. “Isn’t yours?”

“It is,” he agreed. “Especially mine.”

“Oh?” I got down two heavy mugs and began to pour tea for my visitors. I had both teapots on the stove, each covered with a cozy my grandmother had made. “What house did you move into, if I may ask?”

“My brother, my niece, and I live over on Maple.”

I looked at Pete.

“They’re in the Braverman house,” he told me, reaching for the cup I held out for him.

“How do you take your tea, Chief?”

“Um, I don’t know. With lemon, I guess?”

I nodded. “Let me put honey and cream in it, all right?”

“That’s fine. Whatever you think.”

When I set the mug down in front of him, he didn’t look at all interested in trying it, but then took a sip.

“Chief MacBain, might I—”

“Huh,” he said, peering into the cup. “What kind of tea is this again?”

“It’s Earl Grey with lavender, peppermint, cloves, and the other things I mentioned.”

“And you just whip this up yourself?”

I smiled at him. “I do, yes.”

He looked at Pete. “Is the chai good?”

“It’s the best.” Pete passed him his mug. “Try it.”

Chief MacBain took a sip of Pete’s favorite, and his eyes fluttered closed for a moment. “That’s amazing.”

“Thank you.” I sighed, pleased I could ease his mind, if only for a moment.

He took another sip of his own mug. “You should sell this in town. People would love it.”

“He does, once a year at the harvest festival,” Pete told him. “He also sells his Yule garlands, and I need three this year, by the way. I need one for me, one for my mother, of course, and my mother-in-law wants one too, so you can just leave all three here, and I’ll come get them before the festival.”

“I can bring them so you don’t have to drive all the way out—”

“I’d rather come get them myself than run the risk of them getting mixed up with the others’ and not getting one.”

“They’re special, then?” MacBain asked Pete.

“Yeah,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s a witch’s ladder, and you need it in your house all winter, through solstice and Yule, and then in the spring you break it up, bury it in your yard, and return the jute to Xan for next year.”

“What’s it made of?” MacBain asked me.

“Horse chestnuts, cinnamon sticks, dried oranges, and other things. All sustainable, goes right back to the earth.”

He nodded and refocused on Pete. “And if you don’t have one?”

“Oh, I have no idea. My mother bought the first one from Xan’s grandfather years ago. Waiting in line at the festival gives Marina—that’s my wife, Chief—it gives her anxiety, so I promised her this year I’d get them beforehand.”

“Don’t tell a soul I’m setting anything aside for you. If people hear I’m taking orders… Seriously, Pete. I don’t need the headache.”

“I would never do that to you. And I’ll pay for them, you know that.”

“All the money goes to the shelter,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. If you’re paid for your gifts, they’re not gifts. I get it.”

I nodded.

“Shelter?” MacBain inquired.

“Our local animal shelter,” I explained. “The dogs and cats need extra things in the winter—blankets, heaters—so I donate what I get at the festival. We have a no-kill shelter, but still, the animals need forever homes.”

“Do you have animals?”

“I have a cat.” That wasn’t technically a lie since he was a cat sometimes. And the dogs…well, I couldn’t bring that up. Too much to explain there. “But beyond my garden is the forest, then the preserve, which is no place for any domesticated animal.”

“Agreed,” he said, then to Pete, “What is a harvest festival?”

“A fall festival. Ours is two weeks before Thanksgiving.”

“Why don’t you just call it the autumn festival?”

“Because it’s always been harvest,” Pete told him. “And you’d have to screw around with the town charter to change it.”

“Heaven forbid,” MacBain said snidely.

I chuckled, taking his finished cup. “Another?”

“Yes, please,” he murmured, his voice thick and low.

“Would you rather have chai this time?”

“No. This one was perfect.”

I was glad to hear it, and when I went to the sink to rinse his cup, I heard him get up and walk toward me. The floor, like the house, was ancient, so it creaked. Turning, I found the chief of police looming over me. At over six feet tall, with broad shoulders and a presence that charged the air around him, he gave off the feeling of a lightning storm. It was like he was blotting out the sun with his deep, dark eyes and solid frame.

“Would it be all right if I looked around?”

“For clues?” I asked nervously. Something about him was drawing me in, and while yes, he was a gorgeous specimen of manhood—anyone with eyes could see that—there was something else I couldn’t put my finger on.

“No,” he said, moving around me toward the sunroom. “I’ve just never been in such an old house that didn’t feel cold or smell musty. Yours is really warm and cozy.”

Oh, he loved my house. Perhaps he wasn’t the annoying creature I thought he was. And I might even want him to visit again.

“Is it all right if I take a tour?”

I nodded, and he took the two steps down to the sunroom. I heard his breath catch as he walked to the right, toward the end that faced my garden.

“This is beautiful,” he remarked wistfully, and I had to wonder how much he would enjoy living in my little house. Funny how quickly my earlier irritation had dissipated. The man was actually much different, and perhaps I’d misjudged him. My grandfather was right: I needed to give people the same courtesy I gave new books—at least fifty pages before I made a decision. Best not to be hasty.

“I’m sorry you lost your job,” Pete offered, making himself comfortable at the table and leaning back in his chair. “Are there any muffins?”

“Nice segue.” I squinted at him. “And of course there are muffins. Would you like blueberry or corn?”

He squinted back. “When have you known me to want anything but blueberry?”

True. I shrugged and moved to the covered stoneware cake plate, grabbed him a muffin, and put it on a dessert dish. Then I got the refrigerated honey butter and brought everything over.

“Pete told me you’re not on the county grid,” MacBain said, rejoining us in the kitchen. “How do you have a refrig—are you eating?”

Pete, mouth full, quickly chewed and swallowed. “Yes, I’m eating. Xan’s muffins are amazing.”

As I handed the chief his mug, he groused, “We didn’t come here to have tea and baked goods. We’re on official business.”

“I understand,” I soothed. “But it was kind of you both to accept my invitation and come in.”

He grunted but sipped the tea. “You have a lovely home.”

“Thank you.”

The aroma of lavender and lemon verbena drifted from his tea, and I knew he was responding not just to me, but to my grandmother as well. I would scold her later for butting in. Apparently, she liked the look of our new chief of police. I needed to tell her how much he didn’t like how I rode my bike.

Taking a seat at the table, the chief eyed Pete’s muffin. Or what was left of it.

“Blueberry, corn?” I offered. “There’s also pumpkin spice and apple.”

He glanced at Pete. “Aren’t you sorry now you didn’t wait for more options?”

Pete scoffed loudly. “Xan knows I don’t eat no apple or that pumpkin crap.” He shuddered for his boss’s benefit. “I like corn or blueberry. That’s it. Blueberry’s the best.”

MacBain shook his head and turned to me. “I would love an apple one, please.”

When I returned with his muffin, Pete explained the amazing honey butter, and once I sat down with a cup of chai, the chief inquired about my loss of job, his brows furrowing as he learned about the town’s budget issues.

“So how are you supporting yourself?” He sounded quite concerned, which warmed me from the inside out.

“Oh, between the garden and the forest, I’m completely self-sufficient out here, save for the gas that runs the stove, the fridge, the—”

A knock on the front door interrupted me.

Getting up, crossing the small room quickly, when I opened the door I came face-to-face with Amanda Sterling, née Astor, one of my oldest friends and the woman whose family had established Osprey. She now owned most of the land in town and everything on it. Not anything out this far—not the Wingate Farm, or the Johnson Apiary, or the Corey land. The town was her domain, not anything near the preserve.

I looked at my friend, clad in her high-end clothes with designer labels, and guessed that to anyone who didn’t know our history, she would have looked completely out of place in my home. The Louis Vuitton tote certainly cost more than I made in a year as a small-town librarian.

“Somebody killed a girl right outside your door,” she informed me.

“Right outside my door?” I said, sounding pained. “You don’t think that’s a bit overly dramatic?”

“Fine,” she replied irritably. “On the road near your home. Is that better?”

“It’s doubtful she was killed there,” I said as she brushed by me and into the house. “I’m certain she was dumped and—”

“Oh, Chief MacBain,” she greeted him curtly and then looked over at Pete as if he was gum on the bottom of her shoe. “Are you here because of the dead woman?”

Both men were suddenly standing, looking at her like she was some grim apparition they were horrified to be confronted with.

“You don’t think Xander had anything to do with it, do you?” She bristled, hackles raised, ready to tangle with them on my behalf.

“No,” I soothed her, reaching out to take her hand and give it a gentle squeeze before letting it go. “The chief and Pete wanted to know if I heard anything.”

“Over all the thunder and rain last night?” She made a face. “Really?”

“Don’t be you right now,” I cautioned her.

“What is that supposed to mean?” she snapped, rounding on me.

I groaned and headed to the stove. “Do you want some tea?”

She opened her mouth to give me hell, because really, when had she ever visited and not wanted tea?

“How did you know a body was dumped out here, Mrs. Sterling?” Chief MacBain asked her.

Scowling, she said, “I know everything that happens in this town, Chief MacBain, and would most certainly be informed if someone was killed. Do you have an ID on the victim yet? Is she from Osprey?”

“We—”

“I understand the poor lamb had her throat cut from ear to ear. Do you have any suspects who go about killing in a similar manner?” Her tone was sharp, not quite attacking him but close. I shot her a look.

“What now?” she groused at me.

“You’re using the same voice Ms. Coleman would use on us in homeroom when she knew good and well we were both hungover.”

She gasped. “I am?”

“You are.”

She looked at Pete, who nodded in confirmation. We’d all been in the same class, so he knew I was right.

Taking a breath to calm herself, she said, “I’m just frightened, Chief MacBain. Do we have a murderer on the loose? Was the girl, and whoever killed her, traveling through, or is there something even darker out there we need to concern ourselves with?”

“Darker?”

“Yes. Like a cult or something. Satanists, that sort of thing.”

He glanced at me, and I nodded. Then he looked at Pete, who mirrored my movement.

“You all think there could be a cult of Satanists running around?”

“Technically,” Pete said, “weirder shit has happened in this town.”

“Really?”

“Well…” I chimed in, “the killings in 1701 had more to do with hysteria about would-be vampires than anything else.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Vampire witches,” Amanda corrected me.

“No, no. There were no witches involved, just that cannibalistic family that lived down near Parker’s Ferry.”

“I think you’re getting your stories mixed up,” Pete apprised me. “The vampires and the cannibals are two separate things.”

“What?” Chief MacBain asked, clearly lost.

“They were cannibals?” she asked me. “Not witches?”

I glared at her.

Amanda rephrased, “Well, I didn’t mean a witch like you. I meant scary ones.”

“I’m sorry,” MacBain interrupted, “who’s a witch?”

“You know,” she went on, “the kind who eat kids and grind up their bones.”

“Amanda,” I began, affronted, “there have never been witches who—”

“Those are fairy tales,” Pete said dismissively. “Real witches don’t—”

“Who’s a witch?” Chief MacBain repeated.

“Xander is,” Amanda replied flatly.

“You’re a witch?” Chief MacBain asked me.

“Yes, but he’s a good one,” Pete said, vouching for me. “He’s a kitchen witch and a green witch, but also a hearth witch, and that makes sense because this place is awesome, but he’s a solitary practitioner as well, so he doesn’t have a coven.”

“Why do we care about this?” Amanda sounded excited. “The important part is, they were cannibals? That’s awesome.”

“Why is that awesome?” I asked, though I really didn’t want to know.

“Is there a book or something?” she pressed me. “Like anything in journal format? Any firsthand accounting of the affair?”

“I believe so. Would you like me to look in the library for you?”

“I would love for you to get me whatever there is,” she gushed. “I’m dying to read it and get it to my friend who works at Netflix.”

“Why?” I groaned.

“Because people love this kind of shit.”

“I thought only women could be witches,” Chief MacBain said, putting his mug of tea down like it was poison.

“That’s ridiculous,” Pete told him. “Men can be witches too. Everybody knows that.”

“So what,” Amanda snapped at him, crossing her arms for good measure, “now the tea’s no good because Xander’s a witch? Really? Are we living in 1692?”

“I—what?”

“This isn’t Salem, Chief,” Amanda told him, her tone sharp and cutting. “Passing judgment about the way someone believes or practices their craft is honestly not the best look for a law-enforcement officer.”

“No, I—”

“Perhaps you should get on the horn to the Westfield Police Department, like I did, and figure out who the dead girl is. She had no ID, no purse, and no phone.”

He wanted to slug her; I could tell. Most people did after a couple of minutes in her company. But he breathed in through his nose, thanked me for the tea, took the muffin with him—I’d wrapped it in a cloth napkin—and he and Pete were out the door, with Pete reminding me he needed three Yule garlands. The fact that the chief took the muffin meant he didn’t think my being a witch equaled trying to poison him. At least, that was my best guess.

Once the door closed, I gave Amanda a stern look.

“What?”

“You had to tell him I was a witch?”

“Why wouldn’t I tell—oh!” Her eyes got big. “You like him.”

“I don’t like him,” I grumbled. “And from all our interactions before this, he’s not all that crazy about me either. But today, for whatever reason, I found him…interesting.”

“Well, I hope you being a witch put him off, because as far as I can tell, the man’s an ass,” she said in a tone that made it clear she was over discussing the chief. “Now. I came here to get my fall wreaths for the front door, back door, and the large one for the living room, because there will be God knows how many people coming in and out of my house—I’m hosting Thanksgiving this year, and I do not want any negative energy or anything anyone drags in staying longer than it’s supposed to.”

I smiled at her. They might look like wreaths, and we both called them that, but they were actually very powerful wards that wouldn’t let anything hurt her or her family. At least nothing of the spectral or demonic variety. I couldn’t speak for her mother-in-law.

She said, “You and I both know that Eddie’s family—”

“Your family,” I corrected her.

“They always visit their family cemetery on Thanksgiving before they come up here, and I do not want spirits, or whatever else, being tracked into my home.”

“Do you still have the candles I gave you for All Saints’ Day?”

“I have a few left, yes.”

“Well, burn those, put salt across the thresholds of the front and back doors, and the day after Thanksgiving, I’ll come by and clear the house.”

“You will?” She half whimpered, half sighed.

“Of course.”

She took hold of my hands. “I know you only do this for me because I pay your gas bill.”

I grinned at her. “That’s right. You pay, I send the spirits packing.”

Her smile was huge, since we both knew it was a lie. She paid for the gas in my cabin, or her estate did, because she loved me, and before she’d met and married her husband, Eddie Sterling, and got his family, she only had my grandfather and me.

We had started as enemies—she was horrible to me up until our sophomore year in high school—until the night she was assaulted by her boyfriend. The thing was, the guy who did it, Kip Lanyon, was one of the favorite sons of Osprey—captain of the lacrosse team, rich, handsome. And since he was her boyfriend, everyone thought she was just confused, or worse, crying wolf after willingly giving up her virginity. When she wouldn’t back down, insisted she’d been violated, and went to the police in Westfield, they had been ready to arrest him. But then her parents lied, saying it never happened. She was sixteen, they were the people who were supposed to love her most in the world, and they betrayed her trust in the worst way, taking a payment from the Lanyons to make it all go away. Once the charges were dropped, every friend she had turned their back on her. Kip spread horrible lies; said she was a whore anyone could screw if they had the money to pay. When she began taking her mother’s prescription painkillers, instead of getting her help, her parents threw her out.

That was where I came in.

I invited her home with me—the former cheerleader captain, homecoming queen, and 4.0 student who’d been nothing but mean to me. There she met my grandfather and fell in love with him, as everyone did. She sat at our table and ate a full meal for the first time in weeks, enjoyed his homemade pumpkin soup with thick, crusty, right-out-of-the-oven sourdough bread.

“I was so horrible to you,” she’d said later that evening as she sat on my bed, crying.

“Yes, well.” I hugged her. “Maybe you were just hungry that whole time.”

She nodded quickly. “Yes. That was absolutely it.”

My grandfather drove her twice a week to a psychiatrist in Westfield who traded therapy for baked goods, homemade preserves, tinctures for her sciatica, and enough vegetables that she never had to go to the market for them. She also very much enjoyed what she called art and what I knew to be protection wards my grandfather gave her to adorn her walls.

Amanda and I became inseparable, and I taught her about putting rice in a small bottle by the front door every month to collect negative energy, as well as blowing cinnamon into your home to invite in prosperity. She learned to bake and brew tea, how to knit and make beeswax spell candles people bought every year at the harvest festival.

From her therapist she learned to have a plan for bad days, to breathe even during scary times, and to believe in her own power. She learned tactics to help her anxiety, cope with her fear, and find her way from victim to survivor.

From my grandfather she learned to trust that people could love you and want nothing in return. All the lessons took root, and I watched her bloom. When we graduated from high school, both of us newly eighteen, a lawyer visited us one evening. Lo and behold, her grandmother, who passed right after she was born, had set up a trust fund for Amanda no one knew about.

Grandparents. You had to love them.

She continued to live with us for that summer, though she was now rich, and when she said she wanted to repay our kindness, my grandfather replied that she already had by showing us her great heart.

“I love him so much,” she’d told me through her tears later that night.

When she left for college, she paid for mine as well. She got a degree in business, I got mine in folklore, and she made certain the gas for the house would always be paid, come rain or shine, year after year, forever, as long as there was someone living on the land. I appreciated that very much, especially since I had no income at the moment.

“Oh,” she exclaimed out of the blue, bringing me back from my stroll down memory lane, “you’re never going to guess whom I got an email from.”

“Who?”

“My mother,” she announced with a cackle.

I winced.

“She wants to borrow money so they can keep their yacht, since Daddy made some bad business dealings.”

“And you said?”

“I said,” she began with a snicker, “that perhaps she should not be asking the person who bought her home just so I could bulldoze it to the ground.”

“I think you have an overdeveloped sense of revenge.”

“Who? Me?”

She had bought the country club just so she could kick the Lanyons out. She also bought the majority of stock in their company and then sold it out from under them. Their house was also razed, and she built a counseling center where it had been. She named it after my grandfather: the Arthur Corey House. I got to cut the ribbon at the opening celebration.

She had taken the two million her grandmother left her and grown it into forty times that amount. I was very proud of her. Once her business took off—a clean makeup line that was now a household name—she created a charity foundation that gave loans to women wanting to start a business. I’d been thrilled when she returned to Osprey, having married a guy from Buffalo, New York, who was an actuary, which meant he could work from anywhere. He fell in love with our hometown and its charm on sight.

She was the pinnacle of power and success, and people who’d once snubbed her were now snubbed in return. Her memory was long, and she was vengeful. I cautioned her often to be forgiving. She said that certainly, in her next life, she would be a saint. But not this one. Kip Lanyon smartly moved out of town the moment he heard she was back.

“And don’t be mad I told the chief you’re a witch because come on, he was going to find out eventually anyway. Everyone knows who you are, and everybody loves you.”

I scoffed.

“Who doesn’t love you?”

I grinned slyly before taking a sip of my tea.

“Well?” she demanded.

“Elsie Abernathy.”

She gasped. “Elsie moved home? How could I not know that?”

“You were in Paris last week,” I reminded her. “You just got back the other day from your business trip.”

She grunted. “I would take you, but I know it’s hard for you to travel.”

“Only until early spring. Once I know that all the souls got through the winter all right and don’t need any help, I could go.” Certain flora and fauna needed looking after until then, and as steward of the land, it was my duty to make sure everyone and everything was well.

“Then you tell me when, and we’ll do late spring or early summer in the City of Light.”

“Sounds wonderful.” I sighed, still grinning at her.

“Now,” she said, going to the kitchen to pour herself a cup of tea. “Tell me all about Elsie. I’m dying to know.”

I tried really hard to stop smiling.

“Oh my God, tell me!”

We had a lovely, gossipy, slightly evil morning.

TWO

Three days later, I was at our local youth center, helping Millie Cho and her team lead the yearly craft class on wreath making. Many classes were taught there throughout the year, but this was the only one I participated in, even though Millie had asked me a hundred times to do more.

“You could teach knitting and crochet, or about runes, or crystals, or natural remedies, or how to dry herbs.”

That all sounded horribly boring. Or, more to the point, I was certain, I’d have people passing out or slipping into comas. I had no idea how to make something I did constantly—like create home remedies or knit—sound fun in any way. At least the wreath making was enjoyable and interactive, and everyone had that feeling of success at the end of having something tangible to take away with them. I could not be responsible for people nodding off while I was teaching something less exciting. That was all I needed. Chief MacBain would write me a ticket for causing narcolepsy.

Funny that I hadn’t been able to get the chief out of my head since I’d seen him last. It was the shoulders, I decided, and all that hard muscle on his solid frame. I understood why people stopped and stared at the man; I might have as well if he wasn’t always growling at me.

Someone asked a question, jogging me out of my thoughts, and that was a good thing.

“Okay, everyone,” I began, “in front of you at your tables are eighteen-inch grapevine wreaths that myself, Millie, and others made yesterday and let dry overnight. If you want to do this yourself in the future, grapevines are the best, and we get ours donated by the wonderful Blue Water winery in Seneca Lake—that’s Millie’s hookup.”

Everyone hooted and whistled, and Millie blushed.

“Not that kind of hookup,” she chided before turning to me. “Xander Corey!”

I just laughed, and then there were questions about the process of making the wreaths, and I explained about soaking the vines in water for thirty minutes, making circles, using side branches to wrap around bigger ones and make it as uniform as possible.

“You can use other vines as well, and I have a list if anyone wants them after class.”

On each table were things that I had foraged for a month in advance. I explained that before they started, everyone had to close their eyes and imagine the wreath they wanted in their home.

“Once you see it,” I told them, “then you can begin.”

As they all got to work, every table of six with three hot-glue guns—an item I had never used in my life—the conversations began.

I had been taught to use melted beeswax if an adhesive was needed—nothing unnatural was used on any wreath I’d ever made. My magic, the earth magic I used, relied on the natural world.

Millie took me aside and said, “This is supposed to be an excursion for those who came here instead of going to class this afternoon.” She tipped her head toward the patio overlooking the river, where two girls were deep in conversation. “I think we have some class-cutting happening out there. Can you check what’s going on?”

I looked at her. “Why do I have to go?”

“You teach this class too,” she snapped at me.

“Yes, but you’re the actual art teacher.”

Her look told me to get my ass out there.

“It’s because you don’t have a jacket,” I groused as I started toward the glass doors. “Just that stupid sweater.”

She gasped. “I’ll have you know this cardigan is silk, and it’s Prada.”

I shook my head at her.

“Amanda gave it to me.”

“Of course she did.”

Stepping out onto the patio, I smiled at the girls. “It’s wreath-time, people. You wanna come inside?”

They both only stared at me like I’d said something they didn’t understand.

One of them was Delia Evans, whom I’d met a couple of months ago when her aunt visited me and brought her along, and the other was Cassidy MacBain, Chief MacBain’s niece, whom I knew only because she and her father had stood next to the chief when he was introduced to the town. Delia was now leaning against the wall, crying, and Cassidy was patting her back and handing her tissues.

“What’s wrong?” I asked gently.

Delia blew her nose while Cassidy studied me.

“Did you not want to be here?” I offered. I knew Delia wouldn’t be crying over having to make a wreath, but I was hoping to get her talking. She had the loveliest big brown eyes framed with thick dark lashes now wet with tears. Her hair, which had been up in a bun a moment before, had fallen out and now hung down her back in beautiful box braids.

“It’s not that,” she answered, taking more tissues from Cassidy to wipe her eyes and blow her nose.

“Could you tell me what it is? Maybe I can help.”

“You can’t.”

“But you can’t really know that,” I pointed out, “unless you tell me.”

We were back to the staring.

“I don’t know if you heard when I was introduced, but I’m Xander Corey.”

Cassidy offered me her hand. “I’m Cassidy MacBain, but you can call me Cass.”

“Cass,” I repeated, shaking her hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”

With a hint of a smile, Cass let go, and then Delia and I shook hands as well. “I’m Delia Evans,” she said, sniffling. “But you know that from when my aunt brought me over to your house.”

“I remember.”

“And that’s one of the reasons I don’t want to get into it—because you’ll tell my aunt.”

“Okay,” I agreed, nodding, taking a step back. “But it is cold out here, so you should both come inside and—”

“You have twigs stuck in your hair,” Delia observed.

“I do?”

She nodded, and I could see her grin.

Bending over, taking my hair out of the bun it was up in, I shook it out and saw pieces of straw raining down onto the wooden planks of the patio. “For crying out loud,” I grumbled, realizing that Millie had let me look like a porcupine for my entire presentation. Not that you could tell straw from my hair—it was nearly the same color.

“What’s with that?” Cass wanted to know, standing beside Delia, watching me put my hair back up. “Why is there straw in your hair?”

“I was overseeing the cornfield maze for the harvest festival. I do it every year because it used to have one way in and one way out, and you had to complete the maze to extricate yourself from the damn thing.”

Cass squinted at me. “Why is that a problem? Isn’t that the point of a maze?”

“For the minotaur, certainly, though I think with some better parenting he would have been all right.”

“I agree,” Cass said, smiling for the first time. “He got the short end of the stick.”

“So did Ariadne,” Delia chimed in. “I mean, come on. Theseus was a jerk.”

“One hundred percent agree. But as to our maze and not the one in Crete, I was concerned about the parents. You have to think, what if a kid vomits on the way in or has to pee? You wouldn’t want to have to do the whole maze to find a bathroom.”

“That makes sense,” Delia agreed. “Well, you look a bit better now.”

“A bit?” I said, trying for disgruntled.

I got a smile from both of them then, which was good.

“When we move the bales around, pieces fly off, and all of us end up looking like we fell into haystacks. Thanks for telling me I looked ridiculous.”

“Not ridiculous,” Delia said thoughtfully. “Just…unexpected. So kids needing to use the bathroom or throwing up were the only reasons you’re in charge of the maze?”

“There are others. Like what if someone had an anxiety attack halfway in and had to get out but there was no way until they reached the end? That could be very upsetting and even triggering.”

“You’re right,” Cass said. “That one I get.”

“But the town council did not. It took several people going to individual members and everyone agreeing on the person to oversee it.”

“And you got nominated?” Cass asked.

“I did.”

“How long have you been the man in charge?” Delia wanted to know.

“Three years. And I will tell you that, while it now has more exits, it’s a lot harder as well.”

“I bet kids with drones could cheat,” Cass offered.

“They could, but they don’t. The fun is figuring it out.”

Cass nodded. “Are there people who jump out at you and try and scare you?” She made a face. “I hate that.”

“No, for Sam—Halloween, we have a haunted carriage house and a scare walk that’s fun. You have to make your way down a path at night between themed buildings. There’s a zombie one, and a New Orleans vampire one and so on, but that’s only up to Halloween. The hay maze is jump scare-free,” I assured them, and then turned to Delia. “Now, will you tell me why you were upset, because I’m onto you asking me about other stuff to try and change the subject.”

She bit her bottom lip. “You got that, huh?”

I waggled my eyebrows for her. “Yeah, I’m not stupid.”

She glanced at Cass and then back at me. “It’s a long story. You probably don’t have time to—”

“I have time,” I promised her. “And I love long stories.”

Delia nodded.

“So,” I asked, “do you want to come inside or stand out here?”

“Out here, if that’s okay.”

“It’s fine for me. I like the chilly air, and it smells like fire out here with everyone running their chimneys this time of year.”

“Is that what that is?” Cass asked. “I was wondering.”

“Yep,” I said, walking to the railing and leaning on it, taking in the view. “The river is rising with all the rain. It looks cool, right?”

They both agreed that the rapids made it look both scary and amazing.

“Okay, so hit me,” I prodded Delia.

“And you’ll keep it between us?”

“If I can,” I replied honestly. “As long as it’s not something I think could hurt you. Then I’d have to tell your aunt because for one, it’s the right thing to do, and for two, I respect her too much to keep secrets from her.”

“That’s fair,” she agreed but didn’t say anything more.

“D,” Cass implored.

“I feel dumb,” she told her friend.

“It’s not dumb. Just tell him.”

Delia took a breath. “Okay, so a year ago,” she began softly, “my parents died in a car accident. They were hit by a drunk driver on their way to pick me up from the airport.”

I was quiet, just listening.

“I was supposed to be gone a whole other week on this trip to Paris, but I got super homesick and wanted to come home early, so I did, but if I hadn’t, they wouldn’t have been on the road and—”

“May I interrupt?”

She nodded.

“When you told them you wanted to come home early, were they happy or sad?”

“That has nothing to do with—”

“Please,” I insisted. “Humor me.”

“They were happy, but—”

“Is it possible that you’re blaming yourself for circumstances outside your control? Don’t you think the person you should blame for the death of your parents is the person who chose to drink before getting behind the wheel of a car?”

Delia shivered. “That’s what Uncle Troy says.”

“I’ve always found Troy to be a very smart man.”

She nodded and then tipped her head, looking at me. “Yeah, agreed, but can I change the subject for a second and ask you what was up with that hat?”

“Hat?”

“Yeah. That day Aunt Rita took me to your house to bring you honey and we took home all those herbs and vegetables, you were outside in that weird hat.” When I gasped, Delia chuckled, and so did Cass, which was a really good sound from both of them. “C’mon,” she teased me, “you know it’s insane.”

“I’ll have you know that’s my gardening hat,” I said, trying for affronted.

“It’s huge.” Delia was still laughing. “You could block out the sun with that thing.”

Which was very much the point. “When you came over that day, you really liked my cat, Argos,” I reminded her.

“Oh yeah. He’s a sweetie. Since he’s a black cat, I hope you kept him in before Halloween and after.”

Anyone stupid enough to try and hurt him would be treated to him turning into his true form and devouring them. That was one black cat she didn’t have to worry about. “I assure you he’s quite safe.”

“Good. I’m glad.”

“Your aunt and uncle are lovely people, but I’m sure you know that.”

“They are,” she replied with a nod.

I had known the Johnsons for many years. Their apiary supplied the honey for the entire town and beyond, as they sold it online as well. Their booth at the harvest festival was always busy.

“It’s just…” Delia seemed to hesitate. “They’re different from my parents, and they don’t talk much.”

“Really?”

“You think they talk a lot?”

“Not a lot, more like the perfect amount. I love spending time with both of them.”

She nodded like she agreed, but perhaps she hadn’t yet taken the time to really get to know them. It had to be hard for them as well as her.

“You know, if you want to get Troy talking, he likes anything sci-fi, and he’s a metallurgist and makes swords. He ships them all over the world.”

“He does?” Cass was surprised, and she looked at her friend. “Did you know that?”

Delia looked stunned. “No. I get home and go to my room. I know about the honey, but I had no idea what he does in his workshop.”

“You should ask him if you can check it out, because his stuff is awesome.”

She nodded. “Yeah, I will.”

“And Rita likes cooking and manga and, of course, bees. But she makes jewelry as well, and she sells it online. She’s shown me some of the pieces and—wait, look,” I said, reaching under the collar of my crew-neck sweater and fishing out the silver cimaruta, the amulet I wore on a braided silver chain.

“She made that?”

“She did,” I replied with a smile, pleased to be giving her more insight into the people who loved her and had taken her in.

“That’s really pretty,” Cass commented, looking at Delia.

“I didn’t know,” she said, her voice sounding hollow.

“Yeah, but you’ve been grieving,” I said gently. “You probably don’t talk to them much, and like you said, you’re in your room a lot.”

“It’s true. I haven’t been talking to anyone but Cass.”

“And it’s great you have her, but Troy and Rita are pretty great too. I think you’d enjoy getting to know them better. The stuff they do in addition to the apiary is very cool. You only have to talk to people to find out something interesting.”

“It’s not always interesting,” Cass assured me.

“No?”

She made a face. “Have you met my uncle?”

“I have, yes.”

“Yeah. Did you find him interesting or, I dunno, pleasant even?”

“Cass,” Delia scolded her.

“Oh, come on. Do you like him?”

Delia bit her bottom lip. “I think maybe he’s got a lot on his mind.”

“Which is her saying he’s a grouch,” Cass translated.

“I think he does have a lot on his mind,” I defended the chief, agreeing with Delia. “But I also agree he’s a buzzkill.”

“Oh, thank God someone gets it,” Cass grumbled.

“But,” I began, grinning at her, and she groaned, “I’m sure he likes you—you’re related to him, after all—but he most certainly doesn’t like me.”

Her breath caught. “He doesn’t like you either?”

“Again,” I said with a smile, “I’m sure he adores you.”

The headshake was adamant. “No. He’s mean all the time. I don’t think he knows how to smile or be in a good mood, and sometimes you just need a hug, you know?”

I needed to point out the obvious. “Don’t you have your father for that?”

She glanced away, and Delia grimaced.

“Cass?” I prodded, because I always pushed. It’s what I did.

“My dad, he’s…sort of checked out since my mom died.”

“I see.”

“It was really bad before Uncle Lorne came over to our house. Everyone was worried—family on my mom’s side, my grandparents, my other uncle and aunts—but Uncle Lorne, he was the only one who came in and got my dad out of bed and put him in the shower.”

I had a visual in my mind of her poor father drowning in grief and regret, slowly fading, until the chief showed up at his door, charged into his room, and made him face the world again.

“At least my dad gets up now, and he got a job as a property manager with Sterling.”

Amanda again. She probably met the man, saw him struggling, saw his pain, and put him to work. It was very much like her. “That’s good.”

“He has to drive around and talk to other people. He’s still mostly a zombie when he’s at home with me and Uncle Lorne, but it’s better than it was.”

“He’ll come around.”

“I hope so.”

“In the meantime, how about asking your Uncle Lorne for that hug you needed?” I suggested cheerfully.

“Nooo,” she breathed out like that was the worst thing she could think of.

“Yes,” I said, nodding. “He’s the one who got your dad out of his funk, right?”

“Yeah. I mean, kind of.”

“He got him in the shower that first day and brought you both here with him, yes?”

“Yes,” she agreed.

“So I’m thinking he’s more of a caretaker than you’re giving him credit for.”

“Maybe,” she said, looking at me skeptically.

“And if not, if you’re not ready for that, Delia’s aunt Rita is a world-class hugger. And I know what I’m talking about because after my grandfather died, she was the second one at the door, squeezing the stuffing out of me.”

Quick nod as the tears came fast, both of them crying now.

Delia needed to open up to her aunt and uncle, Cass needed to talk to her uncle. They could both do with a lot more communication in their lives. Epiphanies were painful but necessary.

When I felt the soft wind on my face, I took a deep breath. “Okay, you two, listen up. I want you to lean into the breeze and stretch out your arms wide like this,” I said, modeling it for them, “then lift your face, close your eyes, and let the wind wash everything away.”

They looked uncertain.

“I bet you both did this when you were little, and that was a bit of whimsy, thinking maybe that with that much wind around you, you could fly,” I murmured. “And some of that was your ancestors speaking to you.”

“I don’t think—” Cass began.

“No, I can see that,” Delia assured her friend. “My mother was always saying to listen to the universe, that it would never steer me wrong.”

“It won’t,” I agreed. “Your mother sounds like a very wise woman.”

She nodded quickly, looking ready to cry again.

“I promise. You’ll feel better.”

Cass gave me a shrug like she wasn’t sure.

We stood there together on the patio, arms out, letting the wind do its job. After several moments, Cass smiled at me.

“That’s crazy, but I do feel better.”

Delia sighed. “Me too.”

“Wind chimes are good for this as well,” I told them. “I stand on my back porch and listen to the wind and my chimes, and it’s healing, I promise you.”

“Oh, I believe you,” Delia said.

“Okay, now tell me what happened after you lost your folks.”

She explained how at first she went to live with her aunt Chantal, her father’s sister, but she had younger kids and her husband was super strict, and very quickly the situation became untenable. She started ditching school and staying out all night, acting out, and no one knew how to deal with that. They took her to the emergency room when she had alcohol poisoning and had the medical staff place her on a seventy-two-hour psych hold to determine if she was suicidal.

“I was not suicidal,” she assured me.

“I didn’t think you were.”

“I just didn’t know what to do with missing my folks, and Chantal and Brent wanted me to be all happy all the time around their kids.”

“I understand.”

“After they put me in the hospital, I couldn’t go back and live with them. No way. Screw that. I mean, I didn’t trust them, and they didn’t want me anyway. They thought I was a bad influence on their kids.” She looked at her feet. “So they called Troy and Rita because I wasn’t going back home with them.”

“Rita was your mom’s sister, right?”

She nodded.

“Does she look like your mom?”

“Yeah.”

“How come you went with Chantal and Brent first?”

“They lived close to us, in San Diego, where I’m from, and everyone thought it would be better not to move me.”

“And your friends?”

She shrugged. “People get really sick of being around someone who’s sad all the time. My friends bailed.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

“It was hard there,” I summed up, “and it’s hard here too because Troy and Rita are different from your folks.”

“Yes.” She nodded quickly and took hold of Cass’s arm. “Cass has had it rough too. She just lost her mom, and her dad’s not doing well…”

Cass looked at Delia, opened her mouth, then shut it, unable, it seemed, to say anything.

“So, after your Uncle Lorne came over, you and your father moved in with him?”

“Yeah. My dad needed help.”

“Right. I got that. But why move here?”

“Oh, Uncle Lorne, well, his job in Boston was like a twenty-four-seven one, and he wanted to make sure he had time for my dad and me since…”

“Since?” I prodded.

“There was some drinking and stuff with me, just like D, so now he makes sure I’m not running with the wrong crowd or…”

“Or?” I wasn’t going to let it go.

She exhaled sharply. “Yeah, so I was doing oxy and smoking pot, and my dad missed it, but Uncle Lorne saw it right away.”

“And just in case your dad misses anything again, your Uncle Lorne wants to be able to stop it before it ever gets started.”

“Yeah,” she said, exhaling deeply. “He wants to watch out for me, keep me safe. He’s got me seeing a really nice therapist in Westfield. He drives me there twice a week.”

The man worried about his niece and was taking excellent care of her. I would need to reassess what I thought of him. “You realize he’s coming off kind of awesome here.”

“He is.” She sounded pained. “I know. And I know I scared him, but I’m over that now—I’m not going back to the drugs. It’s not part of who I am anymore, but I have no idea how to convince him.”

“Only time can do that.”

Her face scrunched up. “I get that. I do. But he’s overbearing and suffocating, and my dad…he doesn’t stick up for me because he’s got just enough energy to make it through his day. When he gets home, he eats, showers, and goes to bed. The one checking in with me, the one following up on me, at school, with my friends, is Uncle Lorne.”

She sounded pitiful, and all I could do was grin.

“This is serious,” she insisted.

“Oh, I know,” I said with a chuckle.

“It’s not funny.”

“No, it’s not,” I agreed, nodding.

She tried really hard not to smile.

“It’s got to be a major buzzkill trying to make new friends, and then the chief of police rolls up to the school and says, Hey, kids, how ya doin’?” I baited her.

“Oh my God,” she groaned. “He’s so embarrassing. He was dropping me off in the morning in that SUV with the heinous blue lettering. It was horrifying.”

“I know, right? What’s with that blue?”

“It’s hideous. It really is,” she said flatly.

Delia snorted out a laugh.

“Thank God Delia told him that since she had a bike, I should get one too.”

“What happens when it snows?”

She whimpered.

“I’m getting a car,” Delia announced. “I’ll pick her up. Honestly, even if we weren’t friends, I’d still offer. No one should have to be dropped off in a police SUV.”

Clearly, it was a fate worse than death.

“It doesn’t help that he’s a grouch,” Cass continued. “I mean, he’s not like the beloved small-town police chief from all the Hallmark movies. He’s new here, and people have no idea what to make of him.”

That part was probably true.

“And you’ve met him. You know he’s not great with people. His voice gets sharp sometimes, and because he’s big and he’s got all those muscles, I think he scares them.”

“Does he scare you?”

“What? No.”

I nodded. “And your mother? Did he scare her?”

“Are you kidding? Oh my God, no. She was crazy about him. She used to tell my dad that if she’d met Uncle Lorne first, she would have married him instead.”

I smiled.

“She was kidding, of course, because if you could have seen them, my folks, together, you’d get it. They were relationship goals all the way.”

“Same with mine,” Delia said with a sigh. “They were really in love. It was so embarrassing, but I’m so glad I have lots of videos of them being all lovey-dovey.”

“I’m glad you do,” I told her.

“But yeah, my mom loved Uncle Lorne.”

“So there must be something to the man.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, giving me a faint smile.

“And you already said he takes good care of you and made sure you got the help you needed as soon as you moved here.”

“True.”

“Perhaps,” I said, grinning at her, “what with your mother loving him and him being a good guy, maybe you can try and see beyond the grouchy, growly surface to the man underneath and realize that all that surface stuff is just bluster.”

“Bluster?”

“Yeah. His outer shell is prickly, but inside he’s gooey and soft.”

“There is nothing soft and gooey about Uncle Lorne,” she said firmly.

“And yet.” I gave her a pointed look, and added, “Yes?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Think about your mom the next time you see him.”

She nodded.

“All right,” I said, my focus back on Delia. “So your aunt and uncle got you out of the hospital?”

“Oh yeah,” she said, smiling. “Uncle Troy was breathing fire that day. He got me out and drove to the house of the aunt and uncle I’d been staying with, and Aunt Rita met us there. They got all my stuff, and that was it. We were gone.”

“For good reason.”

“Yeah,” she whispered, and I could tell she was remembering the day and how amazing Rita and Troy had been.

“And then?”

“Then I came here, and I’ve been a mess, but then Cass came and it got better,” she said, smiling at her friend, “because we’re going through the same thing.”

I nodded.

“We go to grief counseling together at school.”

“That’s great.”

“But one of the things that keeps happening—”

“To me too,” Cass rushed.

Delia gasped. “I thought you didn’t want anyone to know.”

“Yeah, but you’re telling him and…it’s fine, just do it.”

“You sure?”

Cass nodded quickly.

Delia took a breath like she was getting ready to dive into the deep end of a pool. “Okay, so when my parents died, I started seeing things that weren’t there, and now, suddenly, it’s happening again.”

“Same,” Cass whispered. “Not things happening again, but since we moved here, I’m seeing things that aren’t there.”

“I had a doctor who gave me pills,” Delia went on, “and I took them for, like, two weeks, but they made me feel like I was in a bubble all day. I stopped seeing things, but all I wanted to do was sleep. I didn’t have the energy to do anything. I nearly flunked tenth grade.”

“I did that too,” Cass confessed. “But I didn’t have a doctor giving me drugs. I got them myself, and I almost flunked as well.”

“I’m sorry for both of you.”

“But when I moved here,” Cass explained, “with Uncle Lorne, there were no more drugs, and I started therapy, and things have been good. Everyone’s been super nice, and my English teacher even wants me to apply for writing scholarships, but…now I’m seeing things…”

“And I’m seeing things again,” Delia chimed in.

“Yeah, so it’s happening to both of us, and we’re both really scared.”

I felt terrible for them.

“I can’t tell Rita or Troy,” Delia said, her voice cracking. “It would make them so sad.”

We were quiet then, just the three of us outside in the chilly breeze coming off the river.

“Okay,” I began softly, “did you know that just because you see things that aren’t there when other people look, or disappear and reappear, doesn’t make you crazy?”

They both stared warily at me, like I’d just confessed to being an alien.

“Hear me out. Some people are highly empathic, attuned to the feelings of others, and so others can make them happy or sad.”

They both gave me slow, hesitant nods like perhaps that was possible.

“But, and this is a known fact, you can also be sensitive to other things, like changes in weather, not enough sunlight, or even…ghosts.”

Delia gasped. “Ghosts?”

“Yes.”

“No,” Cass assured me with a shake of her head. “There’s no such thing.”

“Says you, who are all of what? Sixteen?” I squinted at her.

She crossed her arms. “It’s crap.”

“And yet,” I said, smiling at her, “you’ve seen odd things since you came to town.”

She bit her bottom lip but didn’t deny it.

“And you?” I looked to Delia. “You think you need to be medicated again because you’re seeing things no one else does?”

The look I was getting was somewhere between me being nuts and hope.

“Tell me truly,” I began, one eyebrow lifted, “have either of you seen a woman on the bridge by the school, in a—”

“Long white dress,” Delia blurted.

“With a high lacy collar?” Cass finished.

I grinned at them. “Yes.”

Delia bent over, hands on her knees, trying to breathe, and Cass took deep breaths in and exhaled just as carefully, tipping her head back.

Then suddenly, they faced each other.

“You saw that lady too?” Cass squeaked.

“What the hell,” Delia snapped at her friend. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought you’d think I was crazy,” Cass confessed.

“No. I would never.”

They grabbed each other’s hands then and turned to me, clearly expecting answers.

“The lady on the bridge is Miss Hillary Newcastle, and she leaped from that bridge about a hundred and fifty years ago.”

They were both quiet, but finally Cass said, “Are you screwing with us?”

“Why would I do that?”

“I dunno,” Cass said, and I heard her voice crack and saw her chin wobble. “Maybe you get off on screwing with non-locals.”

“No,” I replied gently, “I don’t.”

“So she’s a ghost?” Delia asked.

“She is.”

“None of my friends can see her,” she assured me. “Or I thought none of my friends could,” she said, looking at Cass.

“That’s because not everyone is as sensitive as you and Cass.”

“But you see her?” Cass was back to questioning me.

“I do.”

“Have you always been able to see her?” Delia wanted to know.

“I have.”

“So you’re sensitive too?”

I nodded.

“What should I—I mean, what should we,” Delia said, indicating her and Cass, “do? Like, should we talk to her?”

“I normally just wave.”

“Yeah, okay. Sure.” Cass exhaled sharply. “We’ll wave at the ghost.”

“Does she know who can see her and who can’t?” Delia asked.

“I don’t think so, but I’ve never asked, so I can’t say for certain.”

“Is it like in The Sixth Sense?” Delia asked. “Do you think we’re seeing her because she has a favor we need to do for her?”

I chuckled. “No. I’ve been seeing her since I was five or six, and she’s never called me over to chat. Like I said, I usually just wave, and she waves back, lifts her parasol, and continues her stroll.”

“I’ve never seen the parasol,” Cass informed me.

“I think maybe until she lifts it, you don’t.”

“That’s so wild,” Delia whispered.

“It’s sad she’s still here, though.” Cass’s sigh was long.

“Well, I think when she’s ready, she’ll go.”

“Why did she leap from the bridge?” Delia inquired.

“Her parents wouldn’t let her marry the man she loved, so that was her response.”

“Like Ophelia.”

I made a noise. “Ophelia was more upset because Hamlet didn’t love her, right? Wasn’t that more it?”

“Maybe. I haven’t read it in a while. I’ll check.”

“Good.”

Delia took a breath. “So next time, before I assume I’m crazy and need to be medicated, I should check and see if I’m seeing a ghost.”

“I would, yes.”

After a moment, her face scrunched up. “Does that apply to hearing things too?”

“Of course,” I answered, not hesitating for even a second with my answer.

“So there are some ghosts that can only be heard?”

“Certainly.”

“Like a horse? Can ghosts be animals?”

“Jesus Christ, D, you hear the fuckin’ horse too?” Cass yelled.

Delia caught her breath.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Are you shitting me right now?” Delia shouted, recovering from her shock.

Cass shook her head.

Delia grabbed and hugged her friend. “I’m so sorry. From now on, let’s promise to always talk about everything.”

Cass was crying and hugging her back.

I gave them their space, went inside, grabbed a box of tissues, and returned, offering them first to Cass. She pulled four, Delia five, and I stayed quiet until they got themselves under control, blowing their noses and wiping their eyes.

“Everybody good?”

Lots of deep breaths before they both nodded.

“Okay, so you hear a horse?” It was always best, in my opinion, to get to the heart of the matter.

Delia put up her hand. “May I just say that the way you ask questions and don’t freak out is crazy awesome?”

“Yeah. It’s epic,” Cass seconded.

“Thank you, but really, I’ve seen too many things not to ask questions first.”

Delia nodded. “Well, it’s great.”

“Thank you. Now about the horse.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Well, I think you might be hearing Skokse. He’s probably following you because…well, because you’re still very much grieving your parents, and Cass her mom.”

“But why?”

“It’s what he does,” I stated simply. “Will you guys walk around the front of the building with me to the street?”

They both nodded.

Inside, where everyone else was making their wreaths, several people held them up for me to look at. I admired them all, and then went to my backpack, which was in a cubby near the back. Rummaging inside, I finally found my drawstring bag that held snacks I’d packed in the morning. Grabbing two carrot sticks, I then had the girls follow me out the front door to the street. It was quiet out there—this was Osprey, after all—and when there was a car, people smiled and waved.

“All right. So would you both put your hands out flat for me?”

They did as directed.

“Now, you have to keep your hands like that, rigid, so he doesn’t get your fingers, and when you—oh, I hear him coming now,” I announced, and we all heard hoofbeats on the asphalt, clear as day, from right down the road.

Both girls started to tremble.

“No, no, no,” I soothed them. “He’s just a horse”—which was a whopper of a lie, but to them, he would be—“who thinks he’s supposed to take you somewhere else because you’re grieving. He wants to help,” I finished, not adding in his way, which would’ve only confused things.

“He doesn’t want to hurt us?” Delia asked.

“Oh, heavens no,” I promised, which was true. He wanted to soothe their grieving—the issue being, they might die in the process. He wouldn’t do it deliberately, but that didn’t make it any easier to explain. Kelpies had always been misunderstood. “Okay, both of you lift your arms, hold still, and keep your hands open.”

They looked ridiculous standing there, frozen, with pieces of carrot in their hands.

“Steady now,” I whispered.

The hoofbeats slowed, and then I heard the soft whinny. There was a brush of warm air over their palms, a tickle of softness, I knew from memory, and then the carrots were gone.

They gasped, and we all heard the hoofbeats trotting away as Skokse left. He would be running through town, checking for others.

They both turned to me.

“Holy shit, what just happened,” Cass gasped.

“That was both awesome and terrifying,” Delia added.

“Yes,” I agreed.

“What will happen now?”

“Well, now he knows you’re both anchored to this world and you don’t want to go,” I answered, turning to go back inside. “Food is important that way. It keeps you where you are.”

“Like Persephone,” Delia offered.

“Yes, exactly. And kudos to your teachers for making you do all this myth reading. It will help in so many ways,” I said, holding open the door for them.

Once inside, we headed back to the wreath-making lesson.

“How do you know all this stuff?” Cass inquired.

“Oh, well, I’ve done a lot of reading too.”

“No, not about Persephone, but about the horse—what’s his name again?” Delia asked.

“Skokse.”

“Yeah. How do you know?”

“My grandfather taught me.”

“Okay, but how did he—”

“Holy shit!” Cass gasped. “I know how you know. You’re the witch everyone talks about.”

“No one talks about me,” I said flatly because I knew better. My family had been here since before Osprey became a town, when it was just forest and sea and the only people walking the land were Native Americans and perhaps the occasional Viking.

“They do,” Cass insisted. “I’ve heard teachers at school talk about you making wreaths and garlands and candles. Do you do that?”

“Yeah, but a lot of people in town do.”

Cass seemed to be mulling that over.

“So it’s not a big deal that you’re a witch?” Delia asked.

I shrugged. “Not so much.”

“That’s amazing, isn’t it?” Delia said, glancing at Cass.

“I think so,” Cass said. “The town gets an A plus for tolerance.”

“It does,” I agreed.

“So your grandfather taught you stuff?”

“He did. After my parents died, I came to live here with my grandparents, and the two of them taught me a lot of things. After my grandmother passed, it was just him and me for a long time, and then he passed about ten years ago now.”

“I’m sorry,” Cass said, reaching for my hand.

“It’s okay.” I squeezed her hand gently before releasing it. “He had a long, happy life, and now he’s back with my grandmother and he’s at peace.”

Delia’s eyes filled fast. “I hope my parents are at peace.”

“I’m sure they are,” I soothed her.

“Did you hear Skokse after your grandmother died?” Cass asked.

“Yes I did. He checked on me too, and my grandfather had me feed him to let him know I was okay and I wanted to stay.”

“And he knew because someone told him.”

“Yep. Long time in these parts. But what helped me was that I was raised to ask if I didn’t understand something. Most people, as you know, don’t go looking for answers but instead default to thinking that whatever happened couldn’t have been what they thought.”

“That’s what happened to me before I came to live here,” Delia said. “I was sure I saw my parents watching me, and they were always smiling.”

“I’m sure they were there,” I told her.

Cass sighed deeply. “I’m so glad you were here today. Would it be okay if we stopped by for a visit sometime?” She bit her bottom lip.

Delia looked worried and hopeful at the same time. As though I would say no.

“Actually,” I said with a grin, “maybe you guys would like to help me assemble my witch’s ladders for the fall festival this coming weekend. I’m so behind. I can feed you, and we can talk, but I can’t pay you. All the money goes to the animal shelter, and the dogs and cats need every—”

“Oh, I’ll help,” Delia rushed out.

“Me too,” Cass said excitedly.

“Check with your folks first and let me know. You’ll have to come by to tell me since I don’t have a phone, but Rita’s great about popping in on her way anywhere.”

“We could come after this,” Cass suggested.

I squinted at them. “Aren’t you supposed to go back to school after this for pickup?”

Cass shook her head. “No, we’re being dismissed from here. Mrs. Cho told us.”

“Fine, but you both need to call the appropriate people, because I don’t have a phone at my place, and your uncle will arrest me for kidnapping,” I assured Cass.

“No doubt,” she agreed. “I’ll call my dad.”

“We both have cell phones, you know,” Delia told me.

“You still have to call them before,” I made clear.

“When you say you don’t have a phone, you mean a land line, right? You have a cell.”

“I don’t, no.”

They both looked at me like I’d crawled out from under a rock.

“I don’t have electricity, so no internet either.”

They continued to stare.

“Just call the appropriate people,” I groused at them. “Way to make me feel old.”

“Not old,” Cass said as we all started walking again. “Just…how do you live without internet? That’s crazy. Seriously, how?”

I rolled my eyes and told them to sit down and get their wreaths made. They were both laughing at me.

THREE

The two of them were very helpful. I had a system, and they perfected it. Delia was quick to point out that if I had the same setup on both sides of the table, it would get done that much quicker.

“And you don’t actually have to be the one to put them together, do you?” she asked. “As long as we hang them up after and you speak the words over them, won’t it be all right?”

“I’m not sure. Normally, as I string the different pieces, I set the spell for each item. That’s how I was taught.”

“Is there someone you can ask?”

“There is, but it’s more of a she’ll-tell-us-if-it’s-wrong thing.”

Delia nodded.

Since the ladders I made were for luck and prosperity, for happiness and warmth, and weren’t actual wards, it was possible that Delia and Cass infusing their own joy at being in my house with me would do amazing things to the ladders. As we sat together and started assembling them, I caught the distinct smell of lavender.

Cass inhaled deeply. “I love lavender. It reminds me of my mom.”

“Okay, good,” I told the girls. “My grandmother says we’re on the right track.”

When Argos came in, he jumped up on one of the chairs and watched us for a bit.

“Oh, he’s so pretty.” Cass leaned over to scratch under his chin and pet him. “Black cats are my favorite.”

“Mine too.” Delia petted him as well. “I fell in love with him the first time I was here.”

He was preening under their ministrations and flattery, and I was shaking my head. “You need to go away,” I told him. “We’re working.”

The look I got through slitted eyes told me I was nuts.

When I went to the cupboard for tea, hot chocolate with chilis was scooted into my hand, and though I was sure my grandmother was wrong, I called over to the girls and asked if they’d like some.

“Oh yes, please,” Delia replied. “I love spicy cocoa.”

“I’ve never had that, but it sounds yummy,” Cass agreed.

I could have sworn I heard my grandmother’s tut of pride. She did always know best.

It was fun to have company. I got to hear about all the boys in their classes, and somehow it got turned around to when I was in high school.

“Well, way back in the day,” I began, and they both laughed, “the people I went to school with were not happy with the fact that I liked boys instead of girls.”

“That’s so dumb,” Delia assured me. “Who even cares?”

“I don’t think anyone should, but they did.”

It got dark early in November, so Troy came by to pick up Delia and bring me lavender- and rose-infused honey because he was one of the nicest men on the planet. He wanted me to have them before they sold out at the festival.

“And are those two beautiful ladders Delia’s working on for me?”

“Don’t sound so surprised,” I groused at him.

“I need you to do your part, though,” he told me, smiling.

Picking them both up, I whispered the words of enchantment that had been in my family for centuries, and the two ladders shimmered for a moment.

“Did you see that? They sparkled,” Cass said, utterly stunned, as I passed them to Troy.

“I mean, I thought…” Delia trailed off.

“That Xan wasn’t really a witch?” Troy teased her.

She looked at him with wide eyes.

“You thought he was just an amazing baker, made beautiful things, had an encyclopedic knowledge of all things weird and had a green thumb?” He chuckled.

“Well…yes.”

“There’s still magic in the world,” he told her. “You just have to look and see.”

Quick nod from her.

“There’s magic in things you love, like lavender, honey, or sweet black cats,” he mused, stroking Argos, who began purring. “Or in friendship and windy days.”

I smiled at him because he and Rita and I had stood outside in the wind on many occasions together.

“But that doesn’t mean that some folks, like Xan, can’t get up to some mind-blowing magic now and then.” He winked at me.

“Stop. People think I’m nice. You’ll scare them.”

He scoffed. “Not these two.”

Delia sighed. “I heard the horse, but…”

“What?” Troy’s breath caught, and he turned to me. “What did she say?”

“It’s fine,” I soothed him. “Both girls have been hearing him, but we fed him today, so everything’s good.”

His exhale was deep.

“You know about Skokse?” Delia asked her uncle.

“Oh yeah. After my father died, I heard him a lot at night, running past my window. My mother thought I was nuts,” he said, smiling at his niece. “But Xan’s grandfather told me what to do, and the next night, I stuck my hand out the window with a piece of apple, and he took it. Never been so scared in my life.”

Delia was beaming at him. “Do you see the lady on the bridge too?”

“No. I’ve never seen her, but I do hear the dogs baying.”

“The dogs?”

“You don’t hear any dogs,” I insisted with a scowl. “You hear the geese as they fly north. That’s what that is.”

He grunted. “I know the difference between the sounds of baying, and the sounds of geese,” he countered. “I don’t care what dogs you keep here because I know they can’t pass the property line between mine and yours. And also, just having them around keeps my hens safe all fall and winter, and I don’t have to worry until spring, and by then Rufus can take care of them.”

I laughed, thinking of his golden retriever, who was more goofball than watchdog, except when it came to the chickens he loved. On the long, cold, dark winter nights, he had to stay in, and coyotes and other wildlife would have gone into the henhouse if not for Gwyn, Osko, and Dar. As animals sensed things humans did not, just having the dogs prowling near Troy and Rita’s property line was enough to keep everything away.

“Have you ever seen these supposed dogs, sir?” I baited him.

“No, sir, I have not,” he bantered back. “But maybe one day. I’m very hopeful.”

I shook my head, and he chuckled. Delia got up and hugged him.

He looked at me with both shock and wonder on his face. They were having a breakthrough, and I was thrilled to have helped in any small way.

Once they left with their two witch’s ladders, Cass said she was going to head home as well because her uncle had made it a rule that everyone be there for dinner.

“Okay,” I told her. “We’ll ride together.”

“Oh no, I don’t want you to—”

“Cass, I would never let you ride home in the dark alone,” I said flatly. “That could never happen.”

“Because of the dead girl?”

“No. Because it’s not safe wherever you are, and how would you even tell me that you got home safe?”

“That’s true,” she agreed.

I glanced at Argos lying in front of the fire, doing a really good impression of being a rug. I could have sent him with her—if he would have gotten up—and she would have been safe, but no one would understand that. Plus, Cass didn’t need the trauma of seeing him transform into the daemon he was. It could be alarming.

“Watch the house,” I told him as I bundled up, putting on layers, my heavy wool knit jacket, scarf, and hat.

He yawned and narrowed his eyes at me as though I was too tedious for words. Of course he’d watch the house; it belonged to him, didn’t it? But really, I knew what he was thinking, couldn’t the house watch itself?

I shook my head, and followed Cass out the front door.

“You didn’t lock it,” she told me.

“It locks automatically,” I assured her which, technically, was true. No one who wasn’t known to the house would ever be allowed to enter.

We walked our bikes to the end of my drive and then we were off.

It was a nice night. The wind wasn’t gusting, but instead at our backs, pushing us along. The moon was bright, in its Waning Gibbous stage, and while it was cold for me—once it dipped below fifty I was always in layers—Cass looked like she was enjoying the low-forties temperature.

We were talking as we rode, already halfway to her house, when her phone rang.

“Hi, Uncle Lorne,” she said, putting him on speaker before he got a word out. “I’m on my way home, so don’t have an aneurysm.”

“I’m not—what do you mean you’re on your way?”

“Me and Xander are on our bikes, and we’re almost there.”

“Xander Corey?”

“Yes,” she answered, and I bit my tongue so I wouldn’t say anything, because really? How many Xanders did he know in this town? “I told Dad when I called that I was going to his house, and Xander insisted on riding home with me.”

“Why?” he asked, sounding both irritated and pained.

“Why did I go over to his house, or why am I riding home with him?”

“Either. Both.”

“Do you not like Xander for some reason?”

“I don’t know him well enough to have an opinion, but clearly, he’s a bit of a kook.”

Cass snorted and slapped her hand over her mouth.

“I’m on speaker, aren’t I.”

“Yes,” I replied flatly. “The kook can hear you.”

“It’s too late to bike. Just drive,” he very nearly yelled at me.

“On what? His broom?” Cass teased him. “Witches don’t actually ride brooms, Uncle Lorne. That’s a ridiculous myth that dates back to the fifteenth century.”

“Did Mr. Corey tell you that?”

Mr. Corey. For heaven’s sake. “It’s just Xander,” I corrected him.

“I—”

“No,” she replied. “We had a whole unit on the Salem Witch Trials, and the other lesser-known ones, in social studies.”

“Oh,” he said with an aggrieved sigh. “Well, I’ll come get you, then. Just wait and—”

“Did you miss the part where I said I’m on my way? We’re close now, so don’t worry about it.”

“Fine,” he grumbled. “Your father ate already, so he’s reading in bed, but I’m waiting to have dinner with you. I want to know if you got your Beowulf paper back yet.”

“I did. Thank you for reading it and helping me. I…”

I lost track of their conversation because something moved on my left. And normally, that wouldn’t be a big deal because on my bike, I would have seen it in passing. The problem was that something, not on the road but farther back, near the trees, was keeping pace with us.

Since I didn’t want to scare Cass, unsure of what I was seeing, I remained calm, and once we crossed the bridge over the river and there were houses, and then minutes later, downtown Osprey, I lost sight of whatever it was. I was still uneasy because I had to go back, but without Cass, I’d be free to investigate whatever it was.

Because Cass’s house was on Maple Street, it had a name, as most of them did that had belonged to the people who created the town. The home, the Braverman, had been renovated inside. It had high ceilings and an open floor plan on the first floor, with all new stainless-steel appliances, and the original hardwood floors had been stripped, sanded, and finished. It was beautiful. I saw it when it was done, Amanda taking me on a tour.

The outside was still the same—big chimney, gambrel roof, casement windows, and a lovely wide covered porch which was where the chief was standing when we got there. It was sad that there was no porch swing or anything else out there. With some decorations, it had the potential to be a warm, inviting space.

He probably wasn’t trying to look like the grim reaper as he waited for us, but since he was lurking in the shadows, his dark hair and eyes weren’t doing him any favors. And he was wearing a black long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans, so when he stepped out to look down at us as we rolled up to the foot of the steps leading up to the porch, his whole vibe was a bit spooky.

“You look like a vampire up there,” Cass scolded him. “You can’t smile and wave?”

Instantly, he was glaring at her. Not a surprise. From what I could tell, the man had one expression, and it was a scowl. Not that it detracted from his looks in any way. I was a fan of square jaws, full lips, and thick, dark brows. “Why would I smile when you’re riding around at night?”

“That’s why I have Xander with me.” She presented me with a wave of her hand. “It was really nice of him to ride home with me to protect me.”

He scoffed. And he probably did it before his brain even registered that he was doing it, but still, it was rude.

Cass gasped.

I growled.

“Okay, wait. That’s not what I—”

“I’ll see you later, Cass,” I muttered, and turned my bike to head out.

“Mr. Corey,” he called over to me, coming down the stairs quickly. “I have your napkin and socks in the house to return to you.”

He wasn’t even thinking about apologizing, just needed to return things he’d borrowed. “Give them to Cass, Chief MacBain,” I said irritably. If he was going to insist on Mr. Corey, I would make sure I used his full title. “She’ll bring them to me on Saturday at the festival.”

He was faster than I thought he’d be for such a big man, and he took firm but gentle hold of my arm to stop me from moving.

I groaned, loudly, before turning to look at him.

“Listen, I didn’t mean you couldn’t be protection, but what do you weigh, like a hundred twenty pounds soaking wet?”

I weighed a hundred and thirty-one pounds, but that wasn’t the issue. In his mind, since I was smaller than him, and he had easily eighty pounds of muscle on me, clearly I could not defend his niece if she were to be attacked. If only he knew.

“May I go?” I asked, adding a smile just to be a dick.

“Yeah,” he said curtly, releasing my arm. “Thank you for riding home with her.”

“Oh, you’re so welcome,” I said sarcastically before leaning sideways so I could see Cass. “I’ll see you on Saturday. It starts at eight in the morning.”

“I’ll be there,” she promised, then mouthed the word sorry and pointed to her uncle. She made a face, all teeth, like ugh.

I shook my head, and not even glancing at the chief, got on my bike and rolled back down to the street. I realized as I was leaving that I was interested to meet Cass’s father to see how similar, or different, he was from the chief. I’d seen him that day on the stage, but I would have liked to speak to him to see if he was a normal person or a giant jackass like his brother.

Once I crossed the bridge, I put thoughts of the chief out of my mind. I needed to focus on whatever was in the woods. But now I didn’t see anything. I even stopped in the middle of the road and looked around. I stood still, listened, and there was nothing but the leaves dancing in the breeze.

This was stupid. I was probably seeing things and had been extra vigilant because of Cass. Since there was no one around, I could have cast an illumination spell to see, but that seemed excessive, considering I didn’t hear anything at all out of the ordinary. Putting it out of my mind, nearly home, I concentrated instead on how many ladders I could get made that evening. There were also bottles to make, for prosperity and protection, and I had crystals I needed to sort to get ready for the festival as well. I didn’t normally like to part with any crystal or stone, but I had more than I needed at the moment, and they deserved good homes.

The brrp-brrp of the SUV nearly scared me to death, and if my balance wasn’t as good as it was, I would have fallen off my bike.

“Shit, sorry,” Chief MacBain said, rolling the SUV up beside me, on my right, since I was riding against traffic on the two-lane road. There were no sidewalks in this part of the town, so he was close to me. The driver’s window was down, and he was leaning on his elbow, but even though I was annoyed, I couldn’t stop staring at the way the material of his T-shirt strained around his bicep. There was no denying the man was built nicely. “You all right?”

“What?” I was momentarily lost because those deep, dark eyes of his were really something. Framed with the inky lashes, I was a fan. It hit me suddenly that it had been ages since I’d gotten laid.

“I didn’t mean to scare you.”

I felt so much better realizing there was a reason for my overwhelming reaction to his big, hard body and beautiful eyes. It was merely a physical response to—

“Are you listening to me?”

“Yes, I—sorry. It’s fine,” I assured him, even as I heard it then, something close, a scrape on the asphalt, like leather-bottom shoes on gravel or maybe the nails of an animal. “Thank you for checking on me, Chief. Good night.”

Getting on my bike, I rode fast to put some distance between us, crossing the street, but in seconds he was back beside me. He was in his SUV after all.

“Don’t dismiss me,” he barked out of the open passenger side window, on my left now. When I glanced over at him, he groaned. “Shit.”

I slowed, then stopped, in front of my house now, at the end of the drive. “Chief MacBain, I assure you, I wasn’t—”

“I haven’t said the right thing to you yet,” he grumbled, parking the vehicle and getting out. “I’m sorry, I—”

“Shit,” I gasped, seeing it then, a vargr, as my grandfather had called them, an older word he preferred. In books, they were listed as faewolves. That was the proper name. My grandfather always told me it didn’t sound nearly as scary as it was when you were faced with one, so he went with the Old Norse he thought gave them the fear factor they deserved.

The chief spun around and saw the animal standing there under a tree, like a man, on two legs, only to lower itself to four and sprint forward. “The fuck is that?” he yelled, but moved at the same time, scrambling back to his SUV, likely for his rifle.

There was no time, and he’d be dead before he could get the gun, which was useless anyway. Man-made weapons were seldom effective against supernatural creatures.

“No!” I screamed, and he turned to check on me, powerless not to—he was a protector, after all—just as the vargr hit him as it ran by, knocking him out.

I’d never been so thankful in my life. The vargr wasn’t after him, paid him no mind, and didn’t slow and rip him in half. Instead, it came at me, leaping at the last moment, mouth open. All I saw was teeth, and I was terrified because I wasn’t on my land, I was on the road, so a barrier was out of the question. I couldn’t fly either, since I didn’t have time to shift. I was going to die, and I had no idea why.

But then the vargr was struck hard by something, thrown away from me, and I turned and ran down the drive a short way, and then off the path, into the grass and dirt, and dropped to my knees.

Looking up, I saw the vargr and Argos circling one another. The wolf was snarling and growling, and Argos, now in his true form, a cat the size of a grizzly bear, with blazing red eyes, was hissing and spitting back. When they both went silent, looking into the dark, I took a breath.

Argos shrank back to an eleven-pound ball of fluff, sprinted to a nearby oak, and went right up. The vargr, no longer interested in me, darted for the road, only to be caught by an enormous white dog with red ears.

Gwyn, the leader, the largest of them, the stealthy hunter no one ever heard, had it by the throat, but instead of killing it outright, tossed it high in the air. Osko, the mean one, who came from the shadows, leaped up and plucked it out of the sky, slamming it to the ground, breaking its back, killing it instantly. Dar, the smallest but fastest, darted in, biting and shaking the carcass, his teeth like razors, his jaw viselike, slicing through fur and muscle and bone. With the two others quickly joining him, they had the wolf torn to pieces in seconds. When they stopped suddenly, turning their enormous heads, I saw what they did—a man…but not exactly, since he had elk antlers. And he was walking toward me.

I trembled because the vargr had scared the hell out of me—I hadn’t seen one in years—but this fae, which the antlered man had to be, was on my land. That shouldn’t have been possible unless, like the vargrs, he wasn’t evil. The wards, the ley lines, all of it was there to keep the land, and the guardian, safe from that which was innately malevolent. But vargrs were not, they were merely animals that did the bidding of their master. And this creature, whoever he was, probably wanted to kill me, but the land couldn’t pick up on intent. It knew neutral from villainous, that was all.

“Stop,” I ordered, and he did. “Why did you bring a wolf to kill me?” Maybe he didn’t know the word vargr or faewolf, so I used wolf instead so there would be no confusion.

He smiled as he started moving again, coming closer. When he stepped into the moonlight, I saw he was dressed in a suit. It seemed odd, out of place, until I realized that to anyone but me, he would look like a regular man in Armani, standing there on the other side of the cobblestone drive that led to my front door. I could see him clearly, but anyone else would only perceive the glamour.

“I brought it to test you, not kill you,” he answered smoothly. “I was certain you could raise a barrier or do something to protect yourself. I had no idea you were so weak when not on your land. That’s terribly disappointing.”

“Sorry,” was all I said.

“We were told you’re a powerful mage.”

I shook my head. “No. That was my grandfather. He was the mage. I’m a witch.”

He tsked. “This will be so much easier, then, once we’ve dispatched your familiars.”

“They’re not mine,” I said, dropping to my knees and leaning forward, pushing my hands down in the dirt, grounding myself, exhaling, letting my power rise. “The dogs don’t belong to me, and the cat comes and goes as he pleases.”

“No matter,” he replied, watching, walking toward me, noticing just as I did that the dogs didn’t make a move on him. He was magic, after all, like me, and they weren’t sure what he was, but thus far, he didn’t strike them as something to kill. “I’m sure they won’t care if I kill a…what did I hear the man call you the other day? A kitchen witch? A hearth witch? What even is that? Something to say so humans won’t be afraid? How quaint.”

“You’ve been here? Listening at my door?” That was terrifying because it meant I’d missed his presence completely. I’d been lulled into a false sense of security because it had been years since I or the land had been attacked by anything. But this was a good reminder that vigilance, for a witch, was mandatory. Being caught off guard meant death.

“At the window, yes,” he told me, getting closer. “I couldn’t get inside, of course, but your land is needed, so my master bid me to come and procure it for him.”

“Who is your master?” I asked casually, hoping he’d say.

“You may be weak, but his name is not to be given without sacrifice.”

Which meant that for his master to cross from his realm to mine, there had to be blood offerings on both sides. “So you’re not gonna tell me?” I teased him, trying for innocent.

“No,” he said, tipping his head, regarding me. “You know, for a human, you’re not crudely made. You might do well as a thrall in my master’s bedchamber.”

“Tempting,” I said sardonically. “But tell me, what does your master need my land for?” Though I already knew. But best to keep the creature talking.

“My master needs to enter this realm, and your door is unguarded.”

All over the world there were entryways from one dimension to another. Some of them were guarded by whole covens of witches, some were too small to allow anything bigger than a mouse through, while still others were at the bottom of the sea, which was why I suspected that every now and then a new species of fish was discovered. Others were at the tops of mountains, where the air was rarified, and some were small, not much more than a tear, a sliver, only visible in the fog or in the moonlight, taken as a trick of the light and nothing more.

The one on Corvus, the one my grandfather had protected, and my father would have if he and my mother hadn’t been killed in a car accident years ago, was bigger than that. It was near the bend in the stream, and it could be drawn back like a curtain. It was large enough that several beings could come through at once. Not an army, but still. Over the centuries it had been used by many to cross into our world from places most people thought were myth. Everything from gods to sprites had left one land for another. Most went back and forth, some stayed, but nothing evil could cross as long as the guardian kept watch. That was me. That was what I was for.

“I assure you, friend, mage or not, the door is not unguarded.”

He grunted as though I was adorable. “Even if you show us some kind of feeble resistance, keep in mind that there is land on both sides of you, and I know you care about the farmers and the beekeepers, so lying is futile. I will run the land red with their blood and see how well you do then.”

He knew my weakness. Or thought he did.

I reached deeper into the earth, calling on the wards that had been crafted scores of generations before I was born.

The thing was, what creatures like this fae always missed was that witches and warlocks and mages were still, in essence, humans. Because of that, because most of us lived in a community with other people and had always liked our neighbors, we’d taken precautions to keep them safe.

There were journals in my little house that went back hundreds of years, talking about this neighbor or that and how friendly they were, and how much they all depended on one another. It was a symbiotic relationship, and then in more recent memory, my grandfather had been close friends with both families on either side of us, just as I was now. In that vein, someone somewhere in the Corey line had decided that our land, being the only survivor of some supernatural catastrophe brought to bear because of our guardianship of the doorway, wasn’t enough. We needed our friends to come through unscathed as well, not just our family. Since I was wildly fond of Charles and Allie on my left, as well as Troy and Rita, and now Delia, on my right, I was glad I could tell this creature to go right to hell. Or would have if I wasn’t smarter than that. It was always best not to tip your hand too soon.

“I do care,” I said, instead of provoking him, and exhaled deeply as I felt my power wash over me.

Safe, I said.

Safe, the land answered.

My magic rose steadily, and the way it worked resembled quicksand: one second whoever I was fighting was unaffected, nothing seemed to be happening, like they were standing on solid land, and the next they noticed they were deep in something. It wasn’t enough to frighten at first, but enough to make them uncomfortable. But then, suddenly, they realized they were trapped—up to their ankles, then quickly thighs, and finally, before they had time to be scared down deep to their core, they were drowning.

When my grandmother had first felt my power rise, she had stared at me afterward like I was a ghost.

“Gran?” I asked gently.

“Oh, love,” she whispered, finally reaching for me. “This is what comes of being seen by a god.”

I had no idea what she was talking about. Not then. It took me years to understand I was a very different kind of witch. To other magical folk, just by looking at me, I appeared quite benign, not at all frightening, and entirely forgettable. No one really saw me until my power ran over or through them.

The creature felt it then, and clawed at the air around him. It had to feel like he was suffocating, and his scream split the night, loud and filled with terror, echoing through the woods. He stumbled back, and I could see the white all the way around his eyes. “You’re not a common witch,” he rasped, and I heard him inhale sharply.

As if any witches were common. I scowled at him for that.

“You’re a branded witch.”

“I am,” I agreed, smiling as I felt my power radiate out from me, then tumble and roll, across the Wingate Farm, over acres and acres, sweep the Johnson land, to their apiary, all the way to the preserve, and then finally return to the font where it began, with me, with my land, with Corvus, that flowed from the edge of my drive to a cliff overlooking the sea. “My line, we were blessed by a goddess, but me in particular, I was marked by a god.”

It wasn’t important which goddess had granted us our gifts because that wasn’t the part that made me formidable. What made me different, especially for the creature standing close, was that a god had seen me and branded me as his own, only the second ever in my line to be marked by a deity.

The fae retreated, panting, horrified, and because of that, because he was scared, no longer confident, no longer certain of his own power, the dogs instantly perceived him as prey.

I turned away when he screamed, and heard them attack. When I looked back, they were gone, off to run across my land, racing each other, enjoying themselves. The only one there now was Argos, utterly immense, having become the size of a bear again, cleaning himself, getting the blood off his face.

I thanked the land for lending me its power, thanked the wards for holding, feeling them, like locks, all clicking into place. They needed to be shored up, and I promised I would.

Safe, the land said.

Safe, I answered.

Leaning back, lifting my hands from the dirt, I stood up, unsteady for a moment, before I found my balance. Once I was ready, I staggered by the pool of blood next to the enormous cat grooming himself, and made it back to the police car, slipping around the side to the still passed-out chief of police.

Wiping dirt into the back of his head, into his scalp, on his face, and over his neck, I whispered words of healing, breathing into his throat. In the process, I inhaled his scent. He smelled like leather and green tea and citrus, and I took that moment to press my nose into the side of his throat.

“What’re you doing?”

I jolted away from him, sitting up and staring into those midnight-blue eyes of his. “Oh, well, I was checking to make sure that stag didn’t hurt you.”

“The what?” he growled, trying to sit up.

I helped him, and between the two of us, we got him leaning against the SUV’s driver’s door. “A deer came out of the woods on that side,” I said, pointing to where the vargr had been, “and ran right into you and knocked you into your car.”

He was squinting at me. “That didn’t look like any deer I’ve ever seen.”

I widened my eyes, trying to look both amazed and surprised, hoping he’d let it go and take what I was saying at face value. Most people did. It normally worked. “Really?” I added, like I was stunned.

“Knock it off,” he ordered, surprising me by slipping his hand around the side of my neck and really looking at me, studying my face. “Are you hurt?”

“Why would I be hurt?”

“I dunno,” he said softly, and I’d never heard his voice sound like it did now, low and sultry, with concern thrown in as well. “Seems like you had a fright.”

He was far more perceptive than I’d given him credit for, but really, he was a policeman, so being observant and sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of others came with the territory.

“And we both know that wasn’t a deer,” he insisted.

“Fine.” I sighed as his hand moved. I immediately missed the warmth. I realized I needed a hug badly. I’d had more than a fright, I’d been terrified. I hadn’t let the creature see that, but now, running it back in my head, I started to shake. The fact that the temperature was dropping and the wind had picked up was not helping in the least. I felt like I was freezing. “I just didn’t want you to go running off into the woods, chasing a bear or a wolf. We need our predators around here.”

“The only bears in New York State are black bears, and they’re omnivorous,” he explained like I was five. “I know that wasn’t a bear, and so do you. What are you playing at? That couldn’t have been anything but some kind of wolf and—what’re you doing?”

I was on my knees, slowly scooching closer. I couldn’t help it—heat was rolling off him, and I wanted that. And I knew, of course, it wasn’t just the heat. There was something else, something beyond him being a carved specimen of male beauty. He smelled amazing, and I wanted to kiss him, badly, but there was a deeper need, nearly an ache, to simply—

“Oh, hey, where did you come from?”

Argos walked over and gracefully stepped onto the chief’s leg. The chief started petting him, which Argos clearly enjoyed. He particularly liked the scratching behind his ears, if the motorboat purring was any indication.

The bad part was, I wanted the affection he was getting. I would willingly take the petting. The good part was, the chief’s focus moving from me to the cat gave me the moment I needed to wake up from my own delusion.

He had no interest in me. If he had, my obvious need for comfort would have been his opening to offer me some. I needed to accept the fact that he was very straight. I remembered hearing the buzz go through the crowd the day he was introduced by the mayor, and the consensus was that he was very handsome and definitely marriage material.

Rolling to my feet, I told the chief he should go home.

“What? No. I need to talk to you about that wolf. It might have been rabid.”

“I can assure you, it wasn’t a wolf,” I said flatly. “And you’re in far more danger from that cat than from whatever that thing was.”

He looked at me like I was nuts as Argos made himself comfortable in his lap.

“Good night, Chief MacBain,” I said, and started walking toward my drive.

“We’re not done talking about this.”

But we most certainly were.

FOUR

Amanda came by the following afternoon to pick up her witch’s ladders and was horrified over the small amount I had completed.

“This is it?” She gestured at everything I had lying on the kitchen table. “This is everything? Are you kidding?”

I might have whimpered.

“You’re never going to make it. Today is already Thursday, you know.”

“I’m aware,” I grumbled as she put a steaming mug of Earl Grey in front of me. “And thank you.”

She knew her way around the kitchen as well as I did, and I appreciated it always, but more so at the moment. It was only a little after one, and I was already exhausted. I’d been out before dawn, visiting our family cemetery—which was beautiful and peaceful, bordering the preserve—communing with my ancestors before strengthening the wards. I connected with the land, the trees, and the wind, meditating with each. If anyone had seen me, it would have looked and sounded like I was talking to myself, but I’d never minded people thinking I was crazy. It kept the faint of heart from my doorstep.

“Oh my God, you’re never going to guess what our chief of police has been going on about this morning in town,” Amanda said, bringing me out of my thoughts.

She’d been at Eleanor’s diner, Bread & Butter, when he walked in and asked if anyone had seen a rabid wolf.

“First off,” she said, shooting me a look, “wolves? In New York? If we were lucky enough to have any, they’re protected by the Endangered Species Act, so he’s not allowed to just go out and kill it.”

“I doubt he wants to—”

“And if we do have a rabid one, I mean”—she threw up her hands—“we would need to trap it, but honestly, does the man even know what rabies looks like on a wolf, or is he basing everything he knows on watching Old Yeller as a child?”

“No child should watch Old Yeller,” I commented.

“I agree. If the pet dies in the movie, it needs to be banned.”

I couldn’t argue with that.

“Anyway,” she said, taking a seat beside me, her perfume wafting over. “He obviously had a mishap with a deer and doesn’t want to admit to it. Simply from the size he’s talking about, it had to be a deer. And if he says elk or moose, those were all killed off in the 1800s. You would think a man who—”

“I don’t want to talk about him,” I grumbled. “I need to focus on this.”

She was quiet, and I looked up from what I was doing.

“What happened?” she asked flatly.

Amanda knew a lot about me and my family. But she wasn’t aware of my true powers or what I could do—what I’d done the night before—so she couldn’t know which part of what happened was still worrying me.

“You’re right,” I told her. “A deer ran out of the woods and straight into him, and he was knocked out cold, so it’s a wonder he’s not saying he was attacked by Bigfoot.”

“And?” she prodded.

I groaned and gave her the tidbit I thought she was after. “When I checked on him, we were talking and…if not for Argos, I would have made a complete fool of myself instead of the half one I was, and I’d feel even more stupid than I do now.”

“Ah,” she said, smiling at me. “So you’re saying you let the chief see that you’re crushing on him just a bit.”

“I never said—”

“And Argos saved you from ruin.”

“I think ruin is—”

“Well, clearly, Argos deserves treats for his timely intervention, which I brought for him from the butcher,” she announced, and the cat, who was lounging on the table beside her, sat up and stared at her with adoring eyes. She, more than me, more than anyone, was his favorite. My grandfather had commented on that years ago.

Pulling a brown paper package out of the Birkin bag she was now carrying, she untied it to reveal chicken hearts.

“That’s disgusting. And you’re carrying that around in your purse?”

“Of course I am,” she said to the cat, using the ridiculous voice saved solely for him, beaming at the cat as he, indelicately, ate. “I would do anything for my angel.”

I was going to tell her that he probably wasn’t that hungry, having eaten a vargr and some kind of fae the night before, but those were secrets, after all.

“And I told you before,” she said, glancing at me, “Chief MacBain is not for you.”

I nodded because she was right but asked anyway. “And why not?”

She cleared her throat. “I have observed him for months and can say, unequivocally, that there is not an ounce of imagination in that man. He can’t conceive of anything that isn’t decidedly logical and could never, in a thousand years, appreciate your magical gifts. He’s duller than dirt, Xan, and you need someone with an overdeveloped sense of wonder and whimsy.”

She had a point about him not being able to grasp my magical abilities, but she did have something wrong. “He’s not dull. He may be a lot of things, but he’s definitely not that.”

“If you say so,” she placated me.

I sighed deeply.

“Do I think you need to get laid?”

I nodded again, more vigorously that time.

“Yes, you do,” she answered herself. “And in that vein—”

“No,” I whined, and I wasn’t proud. The night before, in all that time, there had been no whimpering, but today, now, faced with my friend, there was.

“Yes,” she said loudly. “There’s a charming man, new in town, and he’s opening an adorable bakery and sandwich shop over in the Ulster building, the one right next to the bridge overlooking the river. You should see the outdoor seating area he’s got. It’s lovely, just like him,” she stressed.

“It won’t be lovely under four feet of snow,” I said snidely for no good reason other than being in a rancid mood.

She glared at me. “He added a delightful canopy for the winter, along with a fireplace and heaters. We should have lunch there.”

“Why?” I sounded petulant, but I was tired.

“Because it’s nice to have lunch out, you cretin.”

I grunted.

“Tomorrow?”

I lifted up the witch’s ladder in my hand.

“Fine, next week. We’ll—oh!”

“Don’t do that,” I snapped at her. “You always gasp in the middle of a sentence when you have an idea, and it’s terrifying for the rest of us because it sounds like you’re dying.”

“What?”

“Your six-year-old yelled at you when we were picking pumpkins at Reed’s Orchard because you did that.”

“Tobias is a very sensitive child.”

“He is not,” I groused at her. “Or yes, he is, but not how you’re implying he is. He’s empathetic to others, but you drive him nuts, especially when you call him Tobias.”

She hmphed.

“And gasp.”

“I have no earthly idea what you’re talking about.”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about because you’ve done it all your life. You like us all to worry about you just for a moment. It’s really childish.”

“I’ve never done that in my life.”

I shook my head at her.

“What?”

“And your four-year-old glares at you. Did you know that? Have you noticed?”

“I think you’re confusing me with someone else.”

“And I know why you want me to come to Paris with you.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“I’ve worked that out.”

“Oh?” she asked haughtily.

“You need a babysitter you trust.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Where is JJ right now, by the way?”

“That very short person is at preschool, of course. Do you think I want my child going to kindergarten not knowing their colors or letters or how to spell simple words? Dear God in heaven.”

I smiled. I couldn’t help it. I loved seeing Amanda mother her kids. Not only was she loving and doting, but she was also insistent on manners, as well as modeling kindness for them. More than anything, she was extremely protective, which made sense. As a rule, she had to know you, and well, before she trusted you with her children, and even then, she was watchful. Only me and Eddie, her husband, were trusted implicitly. His mother would have been on the list, but the last time Amanda let her youngest, Julia—who wanted to be called JJ—go with Eddie’s mother, the toddler had been returned with a dress on and bows in their hair. And sobbing. The sobbing was not to be missed or forgotten.

Amanda had a seizure. Immediately, she took JJ upstairs, got them changed into the shirt and pants they preferred, and took her child to the barber shop and got the haircut JJ wanted. To look like Toby was JJ’s chief desire, and Amanda made that happen.

“You know, JJ asked me for more Barbies yesterday, and they’re carrying a mini-Birkin at the moment, just like mine.”

I nodded.

“Perhaps JJ will be fluid,” she said.

“Whatever they are, you’re awesome. Eddie too.”

She smiled at the compliment and then leaned forward, elbow on the table, chin on her hand. “Declan—that’s the man’s name—has a booth at the festival to introduce the town to his food.”

I squinted at her.

“You can meet him then.”

“I really don’t—”

“I asked him what such a handsome man was doing moving to a small town when we had no clubs or bars to go out and get lucky at.”

I groaned loudly. “You did not.”

She scoffed. “Have you met me?”

“He’s probably horrified.”

“He finds me charming. I can tell. And he said he’s not much for the club scene, unlike his last boyfriend,” she enunciated for my benefit. “Just meet him. What can it hurt?”

I stared at her.

“He’s very pretty, tall, with all those sleek gym muscles, blue eyes, brown hair with highlights that are better than mine, and I think you’d make a beautiful couple.”

“Why? Because we’re both gay?”

“Just, could you be less you on Saturday when I bring him over to meet you?”

“I—”

“And maybe do something with your hair before then?”

“My hair?”

She made a face. “It’s a bit long right now, and with all the waves and curls, it’s a riot instead of a mane. Even pulled up, it’s unruly.”

I didn’t say a word.

“Would it kill you to brush it and get it out of your eyes? You have these beautiful hazel eyes no one can ever see.”

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

“No, darling.” She sighed. “I’m here to help you make the banana bread for the festival on Saturday. Try and be a bit more on the ball.”

She wasn’t wrong. I had no idea what I was doing.

“Do you have the tea packed in the jars?”

I whimpered again. I kept doing that since she arrived. She brought it out in me.

“I’m thinking we’re going to need some help.”

All I could say was thank you.

By the time Saturday morning rolled around, I was a bit ragged around the edges, looking like something Argos dragged in. I was not up for meeting anyone new. I was hoping Amanda would be too busy to remember to bring around the man she wanted to marry me off to.

I really appreciated Delia and Cass showing up to help me, especially Delia, who by rights should have been working at her uncle’s stall instead of mine. But Troy was smart; he just closed his store in town for the day, and everyone who worked there was manning his booth. Since I didn’t have an online anything, I was dependent on friends helping or I wouldn’t even get a moment to go to the bathroom. Pete had been by earlier to pick up his ladders and, thankfully, drive the van Amanda had loaned me. I didn’t have a driver’s license, so I appreciated him pitching in.

As usual, I was far from the grandstand where the music was, where all the food vendors were, which worked out great. I preferred being toward the back with the soap makers, the jewelry folks, painters, sculptors, woodworkers, and the couple who made beautiful wind chimes from foraged materials and sea glass. Troy liked it back there as well, and as it turned out, we were right across from each other.

Both of us were slammed as soon as the event began at eight, and I was out of ladders quickly, the five hundred I’d made gone before lunch. Jesus Hernandez, one of our five city councilmen, came by to visit and was very concerned that his wife could not find the plans for the Essex House in the reference section of our library.

“She’s writing her dissertation on the architecture in this town and how it’s reflected in the town’s myths and literature.”

“Yes, I know.” I knew Taylor Hernandez well. She was valedictorian the year Amanda and I graduated from high school. I used to read her tarot cards for her every Friday night when she came to my house without her mother knowing. I still read them on occasion.

He cleared his throat. “We’re going to find some money in the town’s budget to put into the Parks Department, and for the library as well.”

“Really?” This was exciting news. I missed working.

“Oh yes. My wife isn’t the only one not getting helped at the library.”

I had no doubt.

“By any chance, did you put any ladders away for—”

“Of course I did.” I smiled at him as I passed over two packages wrapped in tissue and tied with jute.

“I need forty bucks from you, sir,” Eddie, Amanda’s husband, said from where he was sitting on a folding chair over my cash box. “And remember, it’s for the animals.”

Jesus Hernandez rolled his eyes, forked over the money, and said I should be hearing from Mr. Samuels sometime next week.

“That’s good news,” Eddie said, looking up from his tablet and smiling at me. “I know you like to work.”

“I do,” I agreed, moving over beside him. “And thank you for giving me a break so I can get something to eat.”

“No worries, take your time. I’d rather sit back here and sell your stones and bottles to people than walk around with Her Majesty.”

I grinned at him.

“Don’t tell her I said that, or I’ll sign you up to tutor people on how to read tarot cards or have fun with séances.”

“You’re a bad person,” I informed him.

Eddie laughed at me, which was just mean.

It was my time to get all kinds of horrible things I never normally ate, plus feed Eddie things Amanda had banned from her house. I got us deep-fried bean and cheese burritos on sticks, cheese fries with jalapeños, two enormous Pepsis the vendors didn’t even have lids for, and an entire trough of onion rings with ketchup and ranch and tartar sauce, which I knew was gross but loved anyway. I had a drink in each hand and bags hanging off both arms by the time I got back. Eddie’s face went from bored to ecstatic as soon as I reached him.

“I take back all my threats to your peace of mind,” he assured me.

Blythe Babcock—I’d always loved her name—came by to pick up my donation for the animal shelter and asked what she could do for me.

“Your plaque in our lobby is already the biggest,” she said, smiling at me, taking the zippered bank bag she’d given me that morning. “My goodness, Xan, every year you give so much of yourself to the shelter.”

“One of these days, they’ll all find homes, and then you and I can go on vacation in the fall,” I teased her.

She took my hands in hers. “That’s exactly what we’ll do.”

Amanda had no idea where my booth was and was horrified when she finally found us, me and Eddie eating more crap that he’d gone to get, plus a second helping of chili fries. She had people I didn’t know with her, probably some of her friends from out of town. Lots of folks visited on the weekend of the festival. I was looking forward to not being there the following day. One day, Saturday, was more than enough.

I noticed that Toby was hanging back, looking at the stones, crystals, bottles, and candles I had left. He was smelling the tea as well.

“C’mere,” I said, calling him over to where I was sitting.

He left his mother instantly, running to reach me.

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked him. “Did you eat too much junk?”

He shook his head, watching JJ compete with their father for the chili fries everyone was stunned the toddler was eating.

“Then what?”

He pressed his lips together.

“You know you can tell me.”

Leaning in close to my ear, Toby took a breath and said, “I want a bottle for my teacher, Mrs. Latham.”

“How come?” I asked, easing back to see his face.

“She’s really sad.”

“Do you know why?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Okay, pick one you think she’d like.”

I loved seeing his eyes light up as he darted around the table to look. I knew it would take him a while; he wasn’t the kind of kid who ever made instant decisions. He always took his time, even when picking toys or deciding between the park and the beach. He was a muller.

“What did I say about this hair?” Amanda whined, walking over to me and tucking behind my ears the many pieces that were no longer in the very messy bun at the back of my head. “It needs to all be up.”

I scoffed.

Walking around behind me, she let it all down and then did what she could with her fingers and redid the bun.

“Come here,” I said, taking hold of her wrist and easing her around so I could really look at her.

She was beautiful. I’d always thought so. Her once all-blonde hair was now layered with different colors that perfectly complemented her golden coloring. Her high cheekbones, bright blue-green eyes, and easy smile made her the kind of woman strangers stopped and looked at. The fact that she was adorned in high fashion and stunning jewelry only added to her allure, but easily the best thing about her was her deep, throaty laugh. It had been what entranced Eddie the first time he heard it.

“You still look good.”

Instant glower. “Still? I’m thirty-two, just like you. What’re we, dead?”

I sighed dramatically.

“You just need to get some you-know-what, but I need you to make a good impression.”

I made a noise of disgust.

She waved a hand at her oldest. “What’s with him?”

“Mrs. Latham is sad. Why is his teacher sad?”

“I’m not certain, but my understanding is that she’s been trying to have a baby, unsuccessfully so far.”

“Ah,” I said, leaning around her so I could see Toby. “Hey, buddy, look in the basket under the table for the one with the red ribbon.”

Instantly, he knelt down and started looking through the wicker baskets, moving things gently, much nicer than anyone else helping me that day.

“Now listen,” Amanda began. “When Declan gets here, I need you to be—”

“Uncle Xan,” Toby called, holding it up. “Is this the one?”

I nodded, pleased I hadn’t sold the last fertility-and-growth bottle I’d made. The potency of the spell could be directed to having children, but also in the pursuit of a creative endeavor. That was where the spell part of spell bottle came in, the intention of the one who made it after finding out the need of the person it was for. Sometimes, like for abundance and prosperity, those didn’t need a specific path. Whoever wanted a bottle or a ball or a candle for that was looking to have an influx of money with either a business doing well or in some kind of undertaking. But with others, the invocation was necessary.

“Perfect,” I told him. “Now, do you want to wrap it, or do you want me to?”

“You. Because then you can clean it and say the words so it’s good when she gets it.”

He knew. He’d watched me enough. When I prepared things for people, first I spoke over them, waking the dormant items placed inside whatever vessel I’d chosen—that put the spell into motion—and then I cleansed it and didn’t touch it again with my hands. At home, I used my kitchen mitts; when I was at the fall festival, I used one of my grandfather’s handkerchiefs.

“Okay,” I agreed, smiling at him.

I told Amanda she could have my seat, which she wanted from how quickly she sat down, but then she popped right back up to talk to some customers looking at a large piece of labradorite.

Taking the bottle from Toby, I moved away from the others and whispered words of hope and growth over the vessel I held cradled in my hands. Once done, I returned to Toby, put it down, and he handed me the piece of palo santo I’d brought with me, and my matches. When the wood was lit, I cleansed the bottle and packed the box for Toby’s teacher, placing a small sage-and-lavender smoke bundle in as well.

“Here you go, buddy,” I announced when I was done tying it up with jute.

“Thank you,” he said softly, then leaned against me and wrapped his arms around my waist. “Can we go give it to her?”

“Where is she?”

“Eating by the hill with the trees.”

I told Amanda, “Your son and I will be right back. I’m counting on you.”

She gave me the thumbs-up, and I was going to tell her where the master price list was, but I realized I didn’t need to. She knew what things were worth and took into consideration the age of the stone, not just how big or small it was, just as I did when I was pricing items. And with my bottles, she knew some were harder to make and took more time. She wasn’t about to not take the work I had put into something into consideration in the selling price. At times, I devalued things I did or made because they were simple or easy for me. I was fairly sure that was true for a lot of people. They undervalued their own gifts. But Amanda had always made me see what my creations were truly worth. Just another of the many reasons I adored her.

Toby and I took the long way around, circling the entire park and not directly through the crowd, because sometimes that was too much for him. He was an introvert and had a certain amount of time he could be expected to be social. Once the meter was full, he was done. I could tell when that happened, just as his mother could. He had probably asked her to come to my stall because even though it was busy in the morning, and then all day in waves, he didn’t have to interact with anyone. He could sit and read or tidy up without having to chat.

Now, walking through an area where lots of eating tables were set up, he kept his head down, not making eye contact. I, on the other hand, waved to those who lifted their hands to get my attention. It was a quieter area of the fair, where people were sitting to listen to the folk bands and the trios and quartets playing classical selections.

From there, we walked down the grass hill to a grove of maple trees, all in a glorious fall array, where a man, a woman, and their beagle were having a picnic.

“That’s her, come on,” Toby said, yanking on my hand.

As we approached, the beagle got up to see us, and we both knelt and petted him.

“Sig,” Mr. Latham, I was assuming, called out to him, chuckling. “Stop hogging the students.”

“He comes to school with her sometimes,” Toby told me. “And that’s her husband, Mr. Latham.”

My deduction skills were fantastic.

“Man, if dogs got to come to school when I was going, I might have done better.”

“Me too,” Mrs. Latham called over, her voice kind. “And how are you today, Mr. Sterling?”

“Fine,” Toby replied. “This is my Uncle Xan.”

“I know your Uncle Xan,” she told him. “Or of him.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” I said as we stopped next to the spread blanket she and her husband were sharing.

“Oh no, it’s good,” she assured me, smiling.

“I got you something,” Toby chimed in, holding out the box.

“Oh, Toby, you shouldn’t have spent—”

“It’s for you so you won’t be sad anymore.”

She grimaced. “You noticed I’ve been sad?”

He nodded.

“Well, that’s not good.” She sighed, glancing up at me. “I’ll have to change that.”

“I wouldn’t worry,” I soothed her. “As you probably know, Toby’s a bit more observant than a lot of other kids.”

“I definitely agree.” She smiled at him before turning her attention to the box, opening it quickly.

“It goes on your nightstand at home,” Toby told her once she’d removed the brown craft paper and found the bottle nestled there in sweetgrass from the edge of my garden.

“This is beautiful,” she murmured, and her face lit up as she held the bottle. “And so very thoughtful of you, Mr. Sterling.”

“Make sure you put it by your bed,” Toby reiterated. “That’s where my mom has hers that my Uncle Xan made her.”

She returned her focus to me as she carefully rewrapped the bottle. “I was actually coming to your stall. I wanted to talk to you about the possibility of speaking to my class about Yule before winter break.”

“I would be happy to. And like Toby said, the bottle goes by the bed.”

She nodded quickly.

“And if possible, you should be the only one who handles it.”

“Absolutely,” she agreed, before glancing at her husband. “No touching.”

He put up his hands. “Why would I touch a bottle?”

“I’m watching you,” she said pointedly.

Rolling his eyes, he said, “Okay, then,” in an exaggerated voice I loved.

They were charming, and both shook my hand, then Toby’s, and we were off, back to my stall. On the way, I couldn’t help stopping at Witch and Wild, the stall run by Cordelia Wormwood, who owned a magic emporium in town. Toby and I looked around, and I noted the overpriced and mislabeled stones, the vials of moon water in bedazzled bottles, and the heavily scented mojo bags that had instruction cards attached to them. The soaps bothered me the most, crafted with subpar ingredients, which I could tell just from the scents of the essential oils. I was going to get a headache if we stayed much longer.

“Come to see how real root work is done?” Cordelia asked me haughtily. Like her name was actually Cordelia. When we went to school together, it was Kathy Hayes.

“I see you’re still trying to pass off howlite for turquoise,” I shot back, smirking.

She crossed her arms, and Toby and I left.

“You shouldn’t talk to people if you’re not going to say nice things,” he cautioned me. “Mom says it’s not good for your spirit.”

“That’s because your mother is perfect,” I replied snidely.

“Was that nice?”

“Fine,” I agreed. “Let’s get sugar.”

“What kind?” he asked excitedly.

We got cotton candy, which he’d never had. I made sure to get him a pile of it that was bigger than his head. We got his sibling one as well, because I thought both kids should be sugared up equally.

“That’s just mean,” Eddie scolded me, then glanced at his wife. “He’s your friend.”

“Not anymore,” she assured him, shaking her head at me. “Naughty.”

Just then, two women and a man walked up to the stall.

“Oh, I love stuff like this,” one of the women said, picking up and touching the bottles and stones on my table. Whatever came back home with me would need to be cleansed within an inch of its life before I could take it back into my house. Other people’s energy all over everything was not something I could have.

“You must be Xander,” the man said, leaning forward, hand out to me. “I’m Declan, Declan Grant.”

Amanda was right. He was stunning. He looked like he should be a model or a movie star, that perfect, and I took a step toward him to shake hands.

A wave of warning hit me like I was on the beach and had stupidly turned my back on the ocean. It was visceral, rolling over me for a moment before it receded, back to the sea, leaving wet sand in its wake.

I exhaled sharply.

“Are you all right?” He sounded concerned.

The feeling of alarm, fear, caution had settled in my belly, coiled there like a snake.

What the hell?

Lots of people had moments where something in them said don’t walk that way, don’t cross that street, don’t get in that car, don’t leave with that person. Sometimes, to our detriment, we ignored our inner voice. As a witch, I’d been taught to never ever ignore my intuition. It was at the heart of our survival, the instinct to be guided by our genetic, generational knowledge and simply, our gut.

I opened my mouth to say something, to make an excuse.

“Hey.”

Turning, I saw Chief MacBain standing near the end of the table, glowering at me. “Chief,” I said, then glanced back at the beautiful, jaw-dropping Declan. “Please excuse me. I’ll be right back.”

Moving quickly, the moment I was close enough to the chief, he took hold of my shoulder and walked me a few feet away from my stall.

I should have been annoyed with the manhandling, but his presence filled me with a calming normal and grounding I desperately needed in that moment. Warning bells had been going off all around me, but now, that quickly, I was safe.

“I need to talk to you,” he said with almost a growl as he leaned sideways, looking behind me, and scowled. “I’ve been keeping an eye on you, watching and waiting, but your stall is always busy, so there was never a good time to come over.”

But I wasn’t continually busy; it happened in waves. Still, it was nice of him to say, even though he seemed a bit annoyed while he was explaining.

“Chief, I—”

“Just Lorne or Lor or something like that will do,” he snapped, sounding decidedly irritated now. “All that Chief and Mr. Corey polite crap, just forget it.”

“Oh?” This was a surprise.

“Don’t say oh like it’s a big deal. We were both attacked by a wolf, no matter what the people around here think, and your cat likes me, so whatever.”

I couldn’t lie and peddle my deer story even one more time. “Okay,” I whispered. “How have you been?”

He shook his head, and I was suddenly worried. He seemed rattled, so I did a weird thing and put my hand flat on his chest. His exhale, and the immediate drop of his shoulders, made me feel good, like comfort had been needed and necessary. “Now, what did you want to talk—”

“Do you know that guy?”

“What guy?” I asked, a bit lost because for one, I could feel the heat from his body even through two layers of clothes, his uniform and the T-shirt underneath, and second, his eyes were locked on my face. How was I supposed to know what we were talking about?

“The guy at your stall, waiting for you.”

I checked to see if there was more than one guy. There wasn’t. Declan smiled at me when I glanced over, and when I looked at Amanda, she mouthed the words Come here.

Back facing Lorne, I said, “No.”

“No?”

“Well, I know he’s Declan Grant and that he opened a bakery and sandwich shop in town, but I haven’t actually met him. You interrupted that.”

“But beyond that, you don’t know him?”

“Weren’t you lis—” I groaned. “Never mind. The important part is that Amanda is trying to set me up with him,” I explained, about to move my hand, but the chief covered it with his, holding it where it was.

“Why?”

“Why what?” He was touching me, and the warmth of his skin made me want his hands all over me.

“Why is she trying to set you up?” It was funny how he went from normal to annoyed with me so very quickly. “You’re a grown man. You can find your own dates.”

“It’s a nice thing friends do. They set their friends up with people they know. Surely, you’ve had this experience at one point in your life.”

“Why do you always have to sound so sarcastic?”

He was back to scowling, and I had no idea why, but on him, it was sexy. And the fact that he was still holding on to my hand… What was happening right now?

I cleared my throat softly to buy myself a moment because everything I was going to say to him in response went hop, skip, and jump right out of my brain like a rabbit running out of my garden.

My reaction to him made zero sense. And yes, again, there was the sex factor—as in, I had not been in bed with anyone in nearly a year—but really, that couldn’t be all it was. Because I walked around town, I saw other men, and when I went to Westfield or farther, to Buffalo, there were many handsome, beautiful men out there. And now, with Declan Grant in town, another stunning creature in closer proximity, but still…still…not one of the others made me catch my breath like Chief MacBain. I seemed starstruck by him alone.

The why of it was odd. When I first saw him, at the event to welcome him to our town, I had thought yes, handsome man, but he didn’t light me up the way he did now. The times we’d spoken after that, he was questioning me, scolding me, and giving me unsolicited advice, which was maddening. But while he was driving me crazy, I also noticed something more about him each time. The way his brows furrowed when he was talking to me and he got a little crinkle above his nose, the deep laugh lines at the edges of his eyes, and how his shoulders always relaxed after a few moments in my company. All of these things made my little crush a bit bigger. And I knew better, I did. But ever since the day he was in my house, I couldn’t get him out of my mind. The only thing that made sense beyond my libido waking up and thinking the man looked yummy was that there was something more at work. Like my magic recognized something in him I needed beyond getting laid.

“I have to talk to you about something else,” he said, letting go of my hand and taking hold of my bicep. He walked me farther away, near the trees, at the edge of the preserve. Stopping, he released my arm and crossed both of his as he stared down his nose.

I waited.

He continued to stare.

“Chief?” I said, and then quickly corrected. “Lorne?”

“What?”

He sounded as lost as I’d been, and I had a moment to think that maybe, possibly, I was having some kind of effect on him as well.

“I don’t know. You said there was something else you wanted to discuss with me.”

“Yeah, I…”

Was he…flustered?

He took a breath. “Listen, I was wondering if you’ve considered that if you sell a customer something that gives them a rash or doesn’t work, they could possibly sue you.”

Wait. What was he saying to me?

“And if you sell something that gives hope where there shouldn’t be any, that’s a terrible thing to do, don’t you think?”

Did he have conversations with everyone he thought was a charlatan at the festival or just me? Was I the lucky one because he knew me?

“I know you purport to be a witch,” he pressed on, “but we both know you’re peddling that load of crap so you can sell your bottles and tinctures and whatever else, like the rest of the people here who claim to be magic.”

It took a second for his words to sink in.

Purport to be? Purport? Was he kidding?

“I gave the same warning to the other witches,” he said, stressing the word. “Cordelia Wormwood for one, who is at least dressed up, looking the part of something supernatural.”

The part?

Well, that definitely answered my question about me being special—he’d given the same talking-to to everybody else.

“Are you listening to me?” he asked irritably.

Why was I worried the other night about the vargr? Because it really should have eaten the man. He would’ve certainly understood what the supernatural was then.

“Xander?”

For a frightening moment I thought I was going to hyperventilate. I was utterly blindsided by his casual belittling of all that I was. I took a step back, feeling the flush of heat on my neck and face.

“Oh, c’mon, drop the act. You can level with me. There’s no one else here.”

If I remained there, staring at him in absolute astonishment, I would say something I’d regret. So I whirled around and charged away, stalking through the thick carpet of leaves, furious with myself for letting my guard down. He thought I was a grifter. I couldn’t remember ever being so horrified.

In my haste, in my anger, I turned right instead of left, and after a few moments, looked around to find myself not at all where I was supposed to be. I seemed to be in a grove of birch trees near the outskirts of the preserve, but I was on the wrong side of the park for that, and I wasn’t stupid enough to think any different. When I tripped over something, I bent and found a hag stone.

“Are you kidding me?” I grumbled, walking back a few feet, crouching down, and brushing a pile of leaves aside to reveal several fly agaric mushrooms.

I’d been so angry with Chief MacBain—Lorne, my ass!—that I’d walked right into someone’s trap. It wasn’t a fairy ring. That I would have sensed and not crossed because, really, I wasn’t raised in a barn. It was terribly rude to go about mucking up fairy rings when it took them ages to build them.

But normally, rings were made in the spring and summer, when the world was waking up from its long winter nap and everything was alive and fecund again. What I’d more than likely walked into was a pocket dimension—a slip, as my grandfather called them, because they were so small, you didn’t even notice you were in one until, like now, you missed your step, slipped, and found yourself quite lost.

I felt really stupid. I could see the tree line that bordered the park, but I wasn’t actually there anymore. My grandparents would have been horrified.

All portals, rifts, tears, and passages allowed individuals to move through from one realm to another, but based on how big or small they were, some only allowed a single person, creature, or whatever, to pass through.

The rift on my land, though considered small, was still large enough to bring through entire hunting parties, a group of soldiers, or a goddess and her attendants in one go. It also remained open at all times, like all portals, never closing, never sealing. This was why it needed to be guarded. If something tried to cross, the land would warn me, and I could either allow entry or repel the assault.

Not all doorways were mapped out and known, especially the small ones, which was how things could come and go without anyone knowing. So many doorways had been lost or forgotten, left all over the world like discarded trash. Just like there were overlooked and unaccounted-for standing pools of magic—from when the old gods walked the earth—now causing terrible, irreparable damage.

Most people didn’t believe in minute dimensional tears. Why would they? It was crazy. But the fact was, there were stories from all over where, for example, two people were walking down a city block or out in the woods, it didn’t matter, and when the first person turned a corner—and mere moments went by—when the second person followed, taking the same exact route, the same steps, the first was gone. Poof. Into the ether.

It was traumatizing and without rational context. There were podcasts about those kinds of disappearances, books, movies, and still people looked for logical, reasonable explanations. The thing was, for us magical folk, the cause was simple—it was a tear. Or worse, a slip.

A slip functioned much like a tear: you moved out of your dimension and into another, but the difference was, it was a trap. There was only one way in and one way out. If you wanted to leave, you had to know precisely where you’d entered. If you couldn’t find your way out, this space between realms became a cage. At the moment, I was stuck. I had no idea where my exit was because I had no idea when, precisely, I’d crossed through. I hadn’t walked that far, but it was hard to say from what direction. I was standing someplace that was and yet was not Osprey, but if I could go back the way I came, retrace my exact steps, I could walk right back out near my stall at the fair. The issue was not to lose my bearings, which I already had, and now it was vital not to venture any deeper into the slip. So I stood there, frozen, trying to remember which way I’d come from.

The sound of leaves crunching behind me was not welcome. Adding to my growing trepidation, clouds had rolled in, the sky getting darker by the second.

Things that shouldn’t have been frightening, suddenly were. Long shadows, the seemingly changeable patterns of the birch trees, and the way the wind had died, rooted me to the spot. Strangely, I knew that if I turned, whatever was there, near me, lurking just out of sight, would appear out of thin air. Any way I chose to step, it would be on me. So instead, I remained still and waited, closing my eyes, listening.

Words were being spoken in a whisper, on the breeze, and when I opened my eyes, I saw something moving through the birch trees, like looking through a slatted fence as you were walking, seeing pieces of something but not the whole.

The hair on my nape stood up as I realized that being far away from my land, and without the ability to call on my ancestors, I was screwed. I didn’t make a sound, though, didn’t give voice to my dread, instead swallowing down my fear. Acknowledging something gave it power. A witch knew better.

To fight, I had to see, so holding out my right hand, palm up, I called on the elements to light my way. Instantly, flames engulfed my hand, making my fingertips tingle. In every dimension, big or small, and even in a slip, one thing remained universal, and that was the elements. There was always water and fire, earth and air, and when a witch called, they answered.

“Thank you,” I whispered, and felt a gentle breeze on my face before flames leaped from my palm and flew through the air, illuminating all the dark spots, showing me the creature leaning away from one of the birch trees, slowly emerging from it like a nice piece of CGI in a horror movie. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I groaned, more angry than scared now. It was another vargr.

In moments, there was a second, rising from the ground, leaves sliding off its back as the aberration took shape.

A third came from deeper in the woods, stalking nearer. Clearly, whoever had sent them wasn’t taking any chances. They had tried sending one the first time, along with the creature who’d threatened me. This time, there were three, and no one was going to give me a monologue about death, mainly mine. Instead, they’d sent what they thought would be enough vargrs to get to the heart of the matter. I was going to die.

“The hell are you doing?” Chief—Lorne—shit—roared, charging toward me.

“Stop,” I screamed, and he froze where he was. “Don’t come any closer.”

“Holy shit,” he gasped, pulling his gun. “The fuck is happening?”

I didn’t give him any more direction, just ran toward him, knowing he was firmly grounded where I wanted to be.

The slip, the trap that had been set, was not made for him. Someone not magical could not be caught in one anyway. Could he walk through a dimensional tear? Absolutely. Millions of people did with dire results. But a slip, he couldn’t enter, and so all I needed was to reach him. Where he was standing, looking both terrified and angry, represented safety, and I sprinted to reach him like my life depended on it, which it absolutely did.

He didn’t shoot, he couldn’t or he’d hit me, and though I could hear the vargrs snarling behind me, they weren’t close enough for me to feel their breath on my skin.

Diving at the last moment, I tackled Lorne hard, and the two of us tumbled down together into the leaves and grass.

I was winded, so it took me a moment to sit up, look around, and figure out where I was and what was happening. Once I looked over at Lorne, who was no more than a foot away from me, I saw him down on one knee, staring wild-eyed at the enormous misshapen, hairless wolves pacing on the opposite side of the invisible barrier.

Scrambling over to him, I tugged on his arm. “We have to go,” I nearly shouted, but my voice fractured at the end.

His eyes stayed riveted on the wolves.

“Lor,” I husked, trying it out, and it felt more natural than anything else I’d called him. “Come with me. We have to get out of here.”

When his head moved slightly, I saw what he did: a figure in the distance, behind the wolves, in what looked like woods, but strange and dark. As the figure, who was easily seven or eight feet tall, began to run toward us, Lor got quickly to his feet, grabbed my hand, and the two of us bolted toward the tree line I could now thankfully see.

The second we hit the short grass of the park, the wind whipped around us, bringing the aromas of popcorn, hot dogs, and chili. The relief was overwhelming.

Tugging my hand free of his, I dropped down, crossed my legs, and closed my eyes. I concentrated on breathing, moving the air in and out of my lungs.

“What the hell is going on?” Lor rasped from beside me, bumping my shoulder with his, then a second time. I couldn’t see him, but I was guessing he was having a bit of an issue calming down from the adrenaline high of running from supernatural creatures.

As for me, between the grass and the wind, I was feeling much more like myself.

“What the hell, Xander?”

I opened my eyes and looked at him. “You might need to expand your mind where witches are concerned.”

FIVE

He probably would have yelled himself hoarse—and maybe I deserved it with how high and mighty my last words to him were—if at that exact moment JJ had not come running over and crashed into me. I hugged them tight, squeezing them longer than usual because I needed the comfort. When I let them go, I noticed the worry on their cute little face.

“What’s wrong?”

“You hafta tell her,” they growled, jaw clenching, glaring at me.

“Yes,” I agreed as JJ took hold of a piece of my hair that had come loose from the tie, wrapped it in their little fist, and plopped down into my lap. I noticed they had a stone clutched in their right hand. “What’s happening here?”

“I want it, but the lady wants it too.”

“What lady?” They pointed, and I saw one of the women who’d come with Declan. “Well, your mom is there, so tell her I said it’s yours.”

They opened their hand, and I saw a lovely piece of purple labradorite. It was rare, or rarish, certainly nothing to fight over. “Will you make it clean?”

“You’ve been carrying it around, honey, so it’s pretty good now. It’s got all your excellent mojo on it.”

They laughed as I bent and blew on the stone, feeling how happy it was to be with the child in my lap. Many people thought stones, crystals, and rocks were simply that and nothing more. But science, not witchcraft, told us they vibrated. They had energy, stored it, and therefore could say, so to speak, where they wanted to be. I couldn’t count the times I’d seen people pick up crystals, only to have them somehow slip through their fingers, be retrieved, and then drop again. That was always a sign. And if, conversely, the stone stayed in your hand and there was immediate warmth, then it was supposed to belong to you. This one, in particular, liked JJ.

“Hey,” Cass greeted her uncle, taking a seat beside him, and from the look on his face, he was surprised. “I was thinking we should make dinner tonight.”

It took him a second to respond. I understood. Having made the transition from insane to normal several times in the past myself, I knew it could take a bit to readjust.

“Uncle Lorne?”

“Sorry, I—okay.”

She was looking at him like she was worried. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah. Fine.”

“Okay,” she said after a moment. “So then, we’ll cook?”

“You mean you,” he replied, squinting at her. “We both know I suck at cooking.”

“Yes, I mean me.” She was chuckling, and it was a good sound. I saw the beginnings of a smile curl his lips.

“Well,” he said, “we can stop on the way home and get stuff, but first I have to talk to Xander about a few—”

“Why doesn’t Xander have dinner with us?”

“No, no, no,” I rushed out. “I wouldn’t want to impose on family time or—”

“I think that’s a great idea,” Lorne said, grinning. “That would be perfect. Shall we say seven?”

“It’s supposed to rain tonight, and since I have to ride my bike—”

“Why don’t we pack up your stuff now,” Cass began, standing up and smiling at me. “There’s not much left, and then you can just come home with us.”

“Are you in trouble if you go to a policeman’s house?” JJ asked me.

“No, buddy, not at all.”

But the way Lorne was looking at me, I wasn’t sure I was telling them the truth.

It was very gracious of Lorne to take the bullet for me with Amanda. He explained he had questions for me about an ongoing case.

“You’re lucky Declan thought you were sweet and that the chief was the one who was rude by pulling you away from your stall.”

“Sweet?” That wasn’t me at all.

“We’re going to have a do-over when you and I have lunch at his place next week.”

But there was still the issue of the bad feeling I’d gotten. I would have to see if I felt the same when I saw him again.

It was fun to go to the store with Lorne and his niece and shop for groceries. He was different with her—gentle, kind, keeping his voice low. It was both good and bad. I found it considerate of him to be concerned with her, but also, I suspected he was holding back. I assumed that the way he treated me, somewhere between playful and irritated, was how he really was. I also found the amount of frozen food he bought quite concerning.

Once we reached the house, I followed them up the stairs to the front door, and only then noticed things I’d missed the other night when I was on the street with Cass. The mat they had out front would not do. It was horrifying, as was the giant vertical sign propped up near the front window with the same invitation.

“What’s wrong?” Cass asked me.

“Do me a favor,” I said as I followed her inside, taking off my shoes just as Lorne and Cass had and leaving them on the short rack by the front door. I felt the weight of the air in the house the second I walked into the foyer. “Take down the giant welcome sign out front and get a new mat for the front door immediately. Like tomorrow.”

“Okay, but why?”

“When you put out a giant sign that says welcome, anything—and I mean anything—can come in. It’s an open invitation.”

She appeared confused.

“For example, you read vampire books, right?”

She snorted. “Yes, but, Xan, there’s no such thing as—”

“Are you certain?”

She stared at me.

“I’ve never met one, but my grandfather did. I’ve never met a shapeshifter of any kind either, but there are stories in the journals of my ancestors about them. And you’re not even taking into consideration things like pixies or brownies,” I said, walking into the living room, shedding my barn coat and then lying down on the rug next to the coffee table.

“What are you, uh…doing?”

“I was checking to see if there’s clean air down here, and there is.” I stood up. “I need to return to the car. I’ll be right back.”

“Sure.” She looked at me like I was nuts, then went to help her uncle with the groceries.

Back at the front door, I pulled my duck boots on, didn’t bother retying the laces, and went outside. I picked up the stupid welcome atrocity and flipped the doormat to its black-rubber side. I walked to the police SUV, pleased that Lorne had left it unlocked, and put the five-foot wooden sign in the trunk, then went to the back seat and grabbed two empty glass bottles with cork stoppers, incense sticks, rosemary-and-sage bundles, and the last home-blessing wand, I’d made for the fair. I was so thankful I had one left.

“Xan,” Cass said as soon as I stepped inside with my bundle of things, “I want you to meet my father, James MacBain. Dad, this is—”

“Hi,” I said quickly, toeing off my boots before rushing over to the man, who looked like a smaller, paler, far less virile and vital version of his older brother. “Pleasure to meet you,” I got out quickly. “Do you have a lighter?”

“I—we have those ones for candles,” he answered, glancing at his daughter and then returning his focus to me. “Will that work?”

“Yes, that would be great,” I said, then to Cass, “I know it’s cold outside, but I really need the back door opened,” I directed as I stepped into the long hall and saw that it was perfectly aligned with the front door.

“Why?” James inquired as his daughter immediately went to do as I’d asked.

“Because there’s so much residual ick in this house, it’s amazing any of you are even breathing in here.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Could you go get the lighter?”

“I—sure,” he agreed, walking away from me.

I darted to the front door, got it open, and immediately felt the push of air go by me on its way through the house as Cass got the back one open. Already, just with that movement, things were better. When she rejoined me, I asked her for rice.

“Like, cooked rice?”

“No. Uncooked, please.”

“Sure.” She bolted into the kitchen, passing her father on his way to me with the lighter.

“Thank you,” I said to him, using the lighter to get the wand lit, the sage, juniper, and red cedar immediately smoking. There were other things in there as well, like rose, pine, and—always—lavender, but the important part at the moment was the cleanse, not the blessing. “Okay,” I said once I liked the thickness of the smoke and Cass returned with rice in a glass measuring cup. “I’ll trade you.”

She got the smoke wand, I got the rice, and I directed her to start in the attic and make her way down to the basement, making sure she cleansed every room, getting smoke in every corner, missing nothing.

“As you do that, I need you to say some words for me.”

“I will, but so you know, there’s no attic. It was gone when we moved in, just open beam ceilings up there.”

“That’s very helpful. Now I need you to say a little chant for me.”

She nodded, and I gave her the simple words of the house-clearing spell.

“I’m saying so mote it be at the end?”

“Yes.”

“Got it.”

“You have it memorized?”

“I do,” she assured me. “But should I be worried about the smoke alarms?”

“I’ve found over the years having done this in many houses that it has to be a lot of smoke to set them off. You waving the wand around shouldn’t be an issue.”

“Great,” she said, seemingly relieved.

“Remember, make sure you go into every room.”

“Not mine,” her father said, but he smiled at her. “I don’t want the smell in—”

“Open the windows in his room, but do the room,” I insisted. “Plus”—I inhaled deeply—“the smell is divine.”

He looked like he wanted to argue, and I reached out and put my hand on his shoulder. The pain was jolting, and I felt it run straight up my arm to my shoulder.

“O…kay,” I gasped, glancing at Cass and tipping my head at her to get her moving before turning to her father. “That is a whole lot of guilt, sorrow, and heartache you’re carrying around, Mr. MacBain.”

His daughter was gone, so he unleashed on me, drilling a finger into my collarbone. “I don’t know who the hell you think you are, bringing all this crap into my house, but—”

I blew into his face, and he took several steps back as Lorne walked into the room. “What the hell is going on in here?”

“Where’ve you been?” James yelled at him and gestured at me. “You bring a crazy person into our home and…and…” He stared at me, weaving a bit, suddenly unsteady on his feet. “What’d you do to me?”

“I blew just a tiny bit of stagnant energy off you.”

“Stagnant what?”

“Energy,” I repeated. “You and this house are covered in so much…gunk,” was all I could think of to say. “I’m amazed you’re moving around in here at all.”

“Hey,” Lorne said, the gentle sound of his voice running right through me, all husky and low. He was staring at me with his warm eyes—and I had to focus for a moment on breathing. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying it must be quite difficult for you to walk in here at the end of the day. I have no idea how you and Cass are doing it.”

“But you’re not surprised my brother’s doing it?”

I put the measuring cup full of rice down on the coffee table, along with one of the glass bottles with a cork stopper.

“No. Your brother is so weighted down, he can’t tell the difference.”

“Lor, this man is insane.”

“Is he?” Lorne asked, and I heard it in his voice, that he didn’t think so at all.

“Are you listening to yourself?”

“You’re not you, Jim,” he husked, his eyes narrowing. “You’re like a ghost haunting this house.”

“That’s not true,” James argued. “I’m getting better and—”

“You’re not,” I interrupted, and lifted my hand. There was fire in my palm, just as there had been earlier in the day. “But you will be.”

James scrambled backward, tripping over the edge of the rug, falling back onto the couch, but Lorne… Lorne stood his ground, and watching him made me go weak in the knees. No doubt about it, his heart and internal fortitude were quite impressive. It would take a lot to rock him.

“So when you said you were a witch, you weren’t fucking around,” Lorne said, and amazingly, smiled at me.

I was overwhelmed with him, with his capacity for acceptance and ability to see the humor in something that should have sent him off screaming into the night. All I could do was smile back.

“But I kinda figured that out from earlier today,” he said wryly, and the wink nearly undid me.

“I knew you did,” I said with a sigh.

“Okay, so what’s going on in my house?”

“Lor, your home is utterly brimming with regret and pain and sick, sticky dark energy that needs to go.”

“Yes,” he agreed without hesitation.

“We need to fill it with light and positive energy, and it needs to be protected and blessed so that you, Cass, and James can thrive here.”

“And how do we do that?”

“First, I’m going to need you to take this,” I said, passing him one of the rosemary cleansing bundles I’d brought in from his car, “and second, you’ll need to light that, get some thick smoke going, then start in the basement and go up to the top floor and repeat the phrase love and light, light and love over and over as you go. Eventually, you’ll pass by Cass, who is doing the cleansing part to the blessing piece you’ll be doing. Each of you will go over where the other has just been. The house needs to get done, and this is the best way.”

“And what you mean by that is it’s best for us to do it instead of you.”

“Yes, that’s right,” I replied, so pleased with him for intuitively knowing that.

“It’s because we live here, not you.”

I was probably beaming at him like a simpleton, but I didn’t care. He really was quite extraordinary, and I needed to stop moving him back and forth in my mind from good guy to irritating guy. He needed to stay where he was, squarely in the amazing category. All things considered, it was time to trust him. “We’re also going to thank the house for sheltering all of you, but it’s got to be clean first before you can make friends. Do you understand?”

“No,” he replied honestly, giving me a lazy grin that made my stomach flip over. “But I don’t think I need to.”

Oh, how I appreciated his willingness to trust me as he used the lighter on the wand. It was smoking in seconds. “I need you to get every corner of every room, high and low.”

He nodded, then left me and his brother alone.

Closing my fist, extinguishing the fire, I took a seat on the coffee table and faced James.

“How come you need a lighter if you have fire in your hand?” he asked logically.

“That’s sacred fire, illuminating fire,” I explained. “I can use it to light my way, draw things from the darkness, but I can’t incinerate something with it. It’s not a fireball out of the movies to be hurled at my enemies, nor is it a Zippo lighter.”

He chuckled. “I’m losing my mind, right?” he asked sincerely, smiling and shaking his head. “I figured I’ve been going crazy for a while, and I finally—”

“No. What you’ve been doing is grieving, which I one hundred percent understand. You love and miss your wife. My grandfather was the same.”

He nodded.

“But do you know where you and my grandfather diverge in your grieving?”

“I can guess,” he whispered.

“When my grandmother passed, there was no one for me to lean on. We had kind neighbors, but no one at home, in our house, with me and him. He was all I had.”

“Sure.”

“I was nearly the same age as Cass,” I murmured, lighting the palo santo incense stick with the lighter he’d given me earlier. Once it had curls of smoke lifting into the air, I plunged it into the glass bottle and swirled it around. “So if he’d broken down, I would have been lost. He was my anchor.”

“Of course.”

“Even though he was grieving, he had to stay present for me.”

He nodded again as I lifted the stick out and held it between my fingers like a cigarette as I poured the rice into the bottle.

“I can hold that for you,” he offered.

“Thank you.” I passed him the stick, noting the shiver that ran through him the moment he took it from me. “Now, you know as well as I do that it’s been Lor who’s been caring for Cass, and while that’s been done out of kindness on his part, it’s also allowed you to retreat from the world.”

“It has,” he agreed, sitting up a bit straighter.

“You’re haunting this house, and you left him to do the heavy lifting with her, and I need to ask…would your wife want that?”

He exhaled deeply. “You have no idea what it’s like to lose the love of your life.”

“No, I don’t. But not living for your child seems selfish to me. It seems like she should be your first priority, not your own grief.”

He closed his eyes hard, and I let him sit there, inside himself, thinking, feeling, ruminating on all he was. I got up and carried the bottle full of rice to the front door, went outside, and set it to the side of the doorway, in the frame of one of the windows that were like decorative bookends.

“Allow no negativity to enter, collect it all, keep it all,” I said, then tapped the cork three times to wake it up.

Back inside, I rejoined James, taking a seat back on the table in front of him. He was watching me now, and his coloring, which had been ashen when I arrived, a sickly pale gray, was now improving. He didn’t have the lovely, warm tan his brother had, nor the burnished ivory of his daughter, but he no longer resembled a plague victim from the fourteenth century either. It was progress.

“Do me a favor, would you?”

James shrugged.

“Could you stand and use the smoke from the incense stick on the bottom of your feet and the palm of each hand?”

He did as I asked, and then I had him make circles in the air over his head, behind him, and finally in front.

“The past is behind you, the present is in your head. It’s where you stand and what you see, and the future is in front of you. We’re going to cleanse it all,” I said, and took first the incense stick and set it down in the other uncorked glass bottle, and then his hand, and walked him into the hall, where the wind tunnel was blowing chilled night air straight through the house from one end to the other. “Go now,” I said to the energy, to the weight of his grief and pain. “The memories remain, as does the love, but you are not welcome.”

He stood there, eyes closed, and I watched him breathe. I was very pleased with him.

When I glanced toward the door, there was a man there—a ghost—looking at me. He didn’t appear angry, just a bit confused.

“I’m so sorry,” I told him. “Normally, when people move into a house, they have a blessing, and you would have known then that it was time to go. I apologize, sir.”

He nodded.

I put my right hand over my heart. “We will take good care of your lovely home and treasure it and thank it for protecting and sheltering us.”

Another nod before he smiled, put on the fedora he was holding, and walked out into the night, disappearing in the moonlight. When I turned back to check on James, he and Lorne and Cass were all standing there, staring at me.

“This is why it’s so important to cleanse your space before you move in. You don’t want to miss letting others know that they don’t have to stay and watch over you, that you’re perfectly capable of taking care of yourselves.”

No one said a word.

I waved a dismissive hand at Lorne and Cass to continue with their cleansing, but instead, they both remained where they were. I was thinking they had questions.

“Who are you?” James asked.

“Oh, that’s true, we weren’t introduced,” I said cheerfully, walking over to him and holding out my hand. “I’m Xander Corey. It’s a pleasure.”

James took my hand. “The pleasure’s all mine.”

That was always good to hear, true or not.

Cass took a breath. “Who was that man?”

“A previous tenant of the house,” James replied, like it was all completely normal. “He’s left now because he knows we’ll care for his home.”

“I see.” Cass smiled at her father before turning to me. “But who precisely was he?”

“If you need to know that, you’ll have to go to the library or the country clerk. They can get you the records of all the past owners.”

“Maybe it was Mr. Braverman, who the house is named after.”

“No. Both Mr. and Mrs. Braverman were Black, and that gentleman was not.”

Cass’s mouth dropped open, as did her father’s.

“How do you know?” Lorne asked me.

“That the Bravermans were Black?”

“Yeah.”

“Because we studied them in school. Mr. Braverman was the first postmaster here, and Mrs. Braverman was the schoolteacher.”

Cass said, “Okay, then could we go find out? I’d really like to know.”

“That sounds like a mission for you and your father.”

She turned to him. “Could we do that next week?”

He nodded, smiling at his daughter. “That would be fun.”

“I would start not too far back,” I suggested. “He probably lived here not terribly long ago. His clothes definitely looked more 1940s than 1840s. But again, as a reminder, this is precisely why old houses need to be cleansed. You never know who’s still in your home, waiting to be told they can leave.”

“And how do you know that?” James asked me.

I waved my hand dismissively. “Everyone knows that.”

“No,” Lorne corrected me, “they really don’t.”

“Well, I’m very good friends with Father Dennis over at Saint Therese’s, and he’s called in to bless people’s homes when they move in all the time. Same with Rabbi Katz.”

“I’ll make sure I always do it forever from now on,” Cass assured me.

“It really is the best practice.”

After a moment, I realized no one was moving. All three of them were standing there just staring at me.

“Have you two finished what you’re supposed to be doing?” I asked Lorne and Cass. They bolted away, and I smiled at James. “It’s so hard to find good help these days.”

“It really is,” he agreed.

Once the cleansing and blessing were done, the doors were closed, and the heater started pumping, the house quickly became cozy. When Lorne flipped the switch and the gas fireplace turned on, I was jealous.

“You’re scowling,” he teased me.

“I’m wildly jealous of central heat and air,” I grumbled before sighing deeply. “Wood stoves take forever to get going and warm up. My house will be an icebox when I return home this evening.”

“Maybe don’t worry about that right now,” he said softly.

When Cass and her father joined us, I sent Cass to the car to get two sets of witch bells from yet another box in the back seat, sent James to the bathroom to splash cold water on his face, and then I stood there gazing at Lorne, taking a moment to appreciate him in old, threadbare jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt stretched across his broad shoulders and wide chest, and heavy wool socks. They were actually my socks he’d yet to return. I found that I didn’t care in the least. I liked them on his feet.

“I bet you’re tired,” Lorne said, moving close and taking my hand, then leading me to the couch. He sat me down and asked what I wanted to drink. It was funny that this—him being nice to me—was what threw me.

When he returned, he looked at me, studying my face before passing me the glass of red wine I’d chosen from the list of alcoholic beverages he’d recounted. He took a seat where I’d been earlier, on the coffee table in front of the couch. It was a large, sturdy carved chest doubling as a place to set drinks and, from the look of items there, school textbooks, magazines, and assorted paperbacks.

After taking several sips of wine, I noticed him still staring. “What?”

“The things you do and see…I’d be scared to death.”

I shook my head.

“No. I would. I was terrified today. I don’t know how you do it.”

I shrugged. “I think if you grow up a certain way––”

“With magic you mean.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “If that’s how it’s always been, you get used to things that are different.”

He seemed to be considering that, then took a pull from his beer and set the bottle down on one of the many coasters. “My brother is making spaghetti.”

I was confused. “Yes. That’s what he said he was going to do.” I had no idea why he was bringing this up. “Do you not like spaghetti?”

“No, I do. Especially his.”

“Okay.”

“Do you have any idea how long it’s been since he’s made spaghetti?”

“So it’s a good thing?” I asked hopefully.

“It’s amazing. He hasn’t cooked at all since we moved here, and that was one of the things he always did when Cass’s mother was alive. He was the cook in their family. Ellen could burn water.”

There was a chuckle as Cass walked into the room with the two sets of bells I’d asked her to get. Both were on heavy jute, one with antique green bells with rabbits on them, the other with acorn-shaped bells I liked when I found them in the basement. There were treasures down there, and it helped that it went down farther than most people could have imagined or was possible from a reality standpoint. But that was how magic worked, all on its own, not bound by the rules of physics.

“Excellent choices,” I praised her. “Now, I need you to put one on the front door, one on the back, and I’ll speak to them in a moment.”

“These don’t look like the ones on your doors.”

“Well, mine are ancient and haven’t moved in…I don’t know, hundreds of years.”

Her eyes got wide. “Seriously?”

I nodded.

People didn’t understand that the house had been there for centuries, the contents not quite as long—the water heater was only five years old—but the witch bells hanging on the doorknobs of my home had been crocheted by hand by my great-great-great-grandmother, the bells by now so powerful that anything inhuman could be kept out simply by their presence. The ones Cass was picking from, I’d made for the festival. Lots of people bought them to hang around their home, which was fine, but really, they had a job to do.

“That’s amazing.”

“Well, yours will be good too. I made them myself and spoke to each bell as I knotted the jute, just like I do with the ladders.”

“Oh, I have my ladder hanging in my room.”

“Actually, could you bring it down and hang it by the front door? We need some extra protections until the house locks itself.”

“What does locking itself mean?” Lorne asked, leaning forward to brush a stray piece of hair out of my eyes and then tuck it behind my ear.

Did I think it was odd that he was touching me? Not at all. We’d stood earlier by my stall at the festival in full view of anyone who bothered to look, with my hand on his chest and his over mine.

At the moment, he was being so gentle with me, his voice sultry and sexy, his eyes heated pools of cobalt, that I was losing track of our conversation. “What?” I whispered.

He chuckled, and his smug laughter was all male because he knew—no way to miss it—that he was having a brain-numbing effect on me. He got up and sat down beside me, took my wineglass, and set it down next to his beer. He then looked at his niece. “Go hang the bells, please, then move the witch’s ladder and check on your father.”

“I—yes. Okay.” She darted from the room.

I could barely breathe as he took my chin in his hand, lifting it so I had to look up into his eyes from a very short distance.

“This might come as a surprise to you, but the day I was introduced to the town, I noticed you in the crowd and decided right then and there that I was going to talk to you.”

His words made no sense, so it took me a moment. “You did?”

“But while I was looking at you and thinking how you stuck out from the crowd with how luminous you were—”

“You thought I was luminous?”

“—all you did was scowl at me.”

I couldn’t have heard him right. “I’m sorry?”

“Are you apologizing for the glaring you were doing that day, or do you have no idea what I’m talking about?”

“I certainly did not scowl at you,” I assured him, wanting to be closer, pressing, trying to move my leg without him noticing, thinking maybe I could get into his lap. “You’re the scowler, not me.”

His lazy, sexy grin brought a sound out of me, from deep in my chest, that I wasn’t proud of—a whine and squeak simultaneously.

“Well, from that first day on, I have stopped to talk to you a million times, and not once have you ever seemed happy about it. And I wave whenever I see you, and get nothing back.”

I squinted at him. “Why would I wave at you when you might give me a ticket for endangering your life by distracting you while you’re driving?”

“What?”

“You say you stop to talk to me, but you’re always scolding me or warning me or threatening me.”

“No.”

“Yes,” I insisted.

“I just worry about you, is all.”

He worried? All that grouchiness was concern? I was supposed to be perceptive, but somehow, I’d missed that. “You do?”

“Of course. You think you can carry six-foot pieces of plywood on the front of your bike, but you can’t. Why don’t you ever ask for help?”

“From you?”

“Yes, from me. I tell you that all the time.”

He told me all the time? He’d offered his help? “Are you sure you were conveying that, or was this happening in your head?”

The chuckle was filthy, and his warm hand moved from my chin to around the back of my neck.

“I…if I would have gotten any of that, the concern, the offers of help, I certainly would have been different with you.” I could barely form words, as breathless as I was. “I will wave from now on, because really, I’m a nice person, and I want you…want to be nice to you.”

“Yeah, I know,” he agreed, his thumb sliding over my jaw. “You’re a very nice person, a sweet person.”

I groaned softly. “Maybe not sweet.”

“Oh no? I bet you are. Let’s see.”

Terrible line. Really atrocious. But I could not find it in myself to care when he leaned forward and kissed me.

I wasn’t some inexperienced ingenue—or whatever the male equivalent was—who didn’t know anything about kissing. I knew all about that. And sex and everything else in between. Or I thought so. Certainly. But the thing was, Lor knew more than I did. I could tell. He definitely must have kissed a lot of people to be so amazing, making my heart stop and start with such ease.

Being pressed to his chest, held in his arms, I never wanted that to end. He wanted me, and I felt it in each ravenous, drugging kiss that was grinding and gentle, but more than anything, utterly, completely devouring. His tongue rubbed over mine, slowly, decadently, and my skin got hot, my bones went liquid, and all I could think was how ready and willing I was.

There was food being made, and a teenager somewhere, but there was so much heat and ache, and I knew my clothes were the only things keeping me from flying apart. When he broke the kiss and licked his lips, my moan was nearly a sob.

“As expected,” he whispered in my ear. “You’re very sweet.”

“I thought…”

“You thought I liked women.”

I nodded.

“I do. I do like women,” he assured me even as he bent and planted a kiss on my throat that sent a shiver down my spine. “But I like men too, and since I first arrived in this weird-ass town, the only person I’ve had any interest in at all is the one who’s been ignoring me like crazy.”

“Haven’t been ignoring you,” I murmured.

“It’s killing me because—”

“I’m luminous.” I was making sure.

“Yes. And because the only thing people say about you is how kind you are. How you give so much every year to the animal shelter, how you go out of your way to help everyone at the library, and of course, I know firsthand you’re amazing, with how you’ve treated my niece and saved my life.”

“I didn’t save your life. The vargr had no interest in you.”

“That’s what that thing was the other night?”

“Yes.”

“Same as the things from today?”

“You couldn’t tell?”

“I didn’t get a good look the other night, and when I came to, it was gone.”

“Well, they’re vargrs, and the ones today would have killed you if they’d been able to reach you, but the one the other night, as I said, barely noticed you.”

“Which is great for me, but not so much for you.”

“True.”

He slid his hand to the side of my throat, staring at me. “Did you kill the vargr the other night?”

“No, I had help.”

“From?”

I took a breath. “The next time you’re at my house, I’ll show you.”

“How ’bout when I drive you home tonight, you let me stay there and meet your helpers?”

My mouth went dry. “I’m that easy, am I?”

Instant scoff. “Easy? Did you miss the part where I confessed I’ve been making a fool of myself for months?”

Something occurred to me. “Is that why you were a jackass when you came over with Pete?”

“I was not a jackass, but if I was short with you, then yes, that could have accounted for my tone.” And then he added, “Possibly.”

“Well,” I said shakily, biting my lip, “I would very much like to take you home with me.”

“That’s good,” he rumbled, then drew me close and kissed me again.

I was going to say something, try for some more clever banter and flirting, but the kiss eclipsed all else. He moved me easily, like I didn’t weigh a thing, and his hands were strong as they gripped my thighs, his body powerful, and when he yanked me forward, I wanted all of him all over me.

“We could go now,” I whispered when he broke the kiss, needing air. My arms had somehow wrapped around his neck, and I was holding on, probably a bit too tight. I needed to get off him, to move or—

“Don’t do that, don’t get up,” he husked, lifting his hands from my thighs to my face, framing it, staring at me. “Stay here,” he barely got out.

He wanted me there, and I was happy to oblige him.

“God that’s crazy,” he whispered.

“What is?”

“It was the weirdest thing that day, when I was introduced to the town. I saw you, and I felt this amazing need to—wait,” he said, brows furrowing. “Did you put a spell on me or something? Is that what this is?”

“Pardon me?” I scrambled off his lap, standing up, scowling down at him.

It was hard to be away from him, because even though he was being an idiot, his lips were swollen and reddened from being kissed, his eyes dark and warm, and he had a gorgeous flush on his throat. Every instinct in me said I needed to claim him, but the words coming out of his mouth were ridiculous.

“Never mind, who cares.” He reached for my hand. “I’ll happily be under your spell because it means you wanted me enough to cast it to begin with.”

I slipped around the coffee table, putting it between us as he stood up. “I’ll have you know I’ve never cast a love spell in my life. First, I don’t think it’s fair, and second, they require the death of a living creature and—oh. Wait now,” I said, my brain kicking in. “Tell me, when you got the autopsy results for the girl who died, did she have her heart?”

He squinted at me. “She did not, no. How did you know that?”

“I think we need to call on Declan Grant,” I told him, crossing my arms. “Because I think I know why I wasn’t supposed to touch him earlier today.”

“You think he tried to cast a spell on you and killed the girl for her heart?”

“No. I don’t think it’s a love spell. I think there’s dark magic being cast, though, and that would’ve required a sacrifice.”

“You lost me,” he said, moving around the table.

“I know, but could we go talk to him?”

“You think he knows something about Megan Gallagher?”

“Is that the girl’s name?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, so yes, I think he might know something about her, but I could be very wrong. It might be a coincidence that he’s new in town and a girl is dead. Either way, whether he’s involved or not, we’ll know more once we see him.”

Lorne nodded. “Lemme change so I can go in my official capacity.”

“You don’t need to. You’re still the chief, with or without your uniform.”

“I’m aware.”

“But you might scare him in your uniform, when all we’re doing is making a neighborly house call.”

“Fine, but I’m taking my gun,” he snapped. “Whether you think it’ll do anything or not.”

“Whatever you want,” I huffed out, and moved toward the fire.

I was surprised when he grabbed my arm and whirled me around to face him. “Listen,” he said tersely, “I’m sorry I accused you of using magic on me. I’ve had, like, half a day to wrap my brain around all this, and I made a mistake.”

“Sure,” I said under my breath.

“No,” he clipped the word, “don’t get all defensive now and give up and say sure, all flippant and hostile. And don’t start thinking you were right all along about me not being good for you.”

“I didn’t do—”

“Yes. Yes, you did,” he stated, letting my arm go and taking my face in his hands so I couldn’t move away again. “The last few times I’ve seen you, you’ve been moving me back and forth in your head, thinking I was an asshole one minute and okay the next.”

“No,” I lied.

“Yes,” he countered. “It was just weird that day when I was introduced to the town, that’s all. It was like you were all I could see, like I was hit with lightning or something, and that’s never happened before.”

I searched his eyes for the truth.

“I’ve never had that reaction to anyone,” he confessed, taking a breath, “and finding out you’re capable of magic—actual magic—of course my brain went straight to you bespelling me, because what else could it be?”

I could see, from his point of view, where that conclusion could be a logical one. It would all make sense, how he was feeling, if I’d cast a spell on him. “I would never cast a spell on you that wasn’t for your highest good,” I promised him. “If you belonged to me, I would cast a protection circle around you before you left my side every day.”

“Oh yeah?”

I nodded.

“Every day?”

“Yes.”

“To keep me safe?”

I scowled at him.

“I’m sorry I accused you,” he muttered, and it was abrupt and short and he sounded a bit grouchy, so it was certainly sincere.

“Thank you.”

“I should have known better anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you were going to cast a love spell on someone, why the hell would it be me?”

He was fishing.

“Why’re you squinting at me like that?”

“Are you being serious?”

“Of course I’m being serious,” he nearly yelled. “I’m way older than you. I’m—”

“I’m thirty-two, and what’re you, thirty-five?”

“I’m thirty-nine!”

“Oooh, seven years, how terrible.”

“It’s a valid question. You could have anyone with how smart and beautiful you are, so why in the world—”

“You’re brave and gorgeous and perceptive,” I blurted out. “Anyone with a brain would want you, Chief MacBain.”

He only stared at me.

“What?”

“You mean that, don’t you?”

“Of course.” I had to wonder when and how he’d imagined he wasn’t the kind of man anyone would want.

“Swear you forgive me,” he grumbled under his breath and took a step closer so he was staring down into my eyes. “I wanna go back to how it was before I thought something stupid.”

“That was stupid,” I agreed, putting my hands on his hips. “And for whatever reason, I didn’t really see you until you were in my house that day, and I’m sorry. I missed that there was interest in you stopping me all those times and acting like an idiot.”

“I didn’t say I was an idiot,” he apprised me as I reached up and wrapped my arms around his neck. “I…I just wanted you to see me, is all,” he finished, his voice going out on him.

“Well, I see you very clearly,” I assured him before taking his mouth.

It was a very good kiss.

SIX

After Lorne promised we’d be back in time for the spaghetti that took over an hour to make, we got into his SUV, which was cold as ice but warmed up fast even in the small amount of time it took us to travel such a short distance.

As expected, Declan’s shop was open, even though it was close to eight thirty at night and almost everything else downtown was closed, the sidewalks usually rolling up around seven. Normally, only Bread & Butter, the diner, stayed open until ten, as well as Cinerama, the movie theater that only had one area and was honestly more of a large living room with chairs, recliners, love seats, and couches. But from what I heard during the day at the festival, Declan’s stall had been a success, so it appeared he was trying to capitalize on that and would stay open to the later hour as well.

When Lorne and I walked into the bakery and sandwich shop, it was like one of those horrible moments in movies where the whole place got quiet and everyone turned to look. Lorne was about to greet the silent crowd—I could tell from the way he squared his shoulders—so I took hold of his arm, walked us around to the end of the counter where the orders were picked up, and asked the young woman there if I could please speak to her boss.

It was like the dam broke, and suddenly there was noise again from every part of the restaurant as the young woman replied that yes, he was in his office, and pointed.

“Now you’ve done it,” Lorne said, chuckling as he followed me to the door and then through. “People are gonna talk.”

“Oh, they were going to do that anyway,” I assured him, “hence the looks of stunned awe accompanied by quiet. Now they have a better idea of what’s going on.”

“And what’s going on?” he wanted to know.

“I would hope that after you come home with me tonight—”

“Am I still doing that?” he teased me, but when I checked, his eyes betrayed him. He’d been worried I’d changed my mind.

“Yes,” I said firmly, hoping to kill his uncertainty as I shot him a look that conveyed how not funny he was. “Aren’t you?”

“That was my plan, yes, but I wasn’t sure if you still—”

“Yes, I very much still want that,” I told him.

He slipped his hand around the side of my neck, and the warmth was instantly comforting.

I said, “And then after that, if all goes well…”

“All will go very well,” he assured me.

“You’re very confident.”

“I’m cautiously optimistic.” He eased me toward him. “And hopeful.”

“Well, good,” was all I could think of to say with his dark eyes on me. “And after tonight, hopefully you’ll want to see me tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, and—”

“Yeah, got it. Dating.” He bent and gave me a quick kiss I was hungry enough for that I leaned into it. “I would like that. I want to spend lots of time with you.”

I licked my lips because he tasted really good. “You’re very honest, not making me guess how you feel. I appreciate that.”

“Excellent.” He grabbed my hand and tugged me down the hall toward the office. “Now let’s get this over with so the next part of our evening can commence.”

The faster we walked, the farther away the door got. Lorne stopped, seeming more irritated than scared, and looked down at the hallway from The Shining.

“I love that you’re not frightened,” I praised him.

“This shit is keeping me from spaghetti and getting laid. Yeah, I’m fuckin’ annoyed.”

“Getting laid?”

“Isn’t that happening? You said that was happening,” he stated crossly.

“Well, yes, but—”

“Then?”

“Oh, I like you so much,” I murmured, putting my foot down and then pulling back as though straightening one of my area rugs at home.

Immediately, we were at the door. “You’re handy to have around,” Lorne teased me.

I utterly adored playful, warm Lorne MacBain and really wanted to take him home with me. When he reached for the doorknob, I shook my head and opened it myself to reveal a large office that looked like it had been decorated by Dracula. Red walls, black velvet furniture, and a desk Louis XIV could have comfortably used. To say it was over-the-top scary was an understatement.

“What the hell?” Lorne grumbled as we walked into the room, closing the door, utterly horrified if the look on his face was any indication. “Way to announce you’re the bad guy.”

I nodded. “It happens quite a bit with the fae. What makes perfect sense in their realm is a Gothic nightmare in ours.”

“This is just––” He turned to me. “––his employees don’t see this room this way, do they? That’s why the spell on the hallway, and why you wanted to open the door instead of me. If I’d opened it, we wouldn’t see what it really looks like.”

He had worked it all out in his head, and it was quite impressive. I couldn’t hold in my smile. “You are a very clever man.”

He grunted.

The door opened behind us, and three very large men with no perceivable necks walked in and fanned out, the biggest one barring our exit.

“This is why I brought my gun,” Lorne told me.

“Well, unless the bullets for that Glock are made of iron, it’s not going to help—these men are fae, not human.”

“You know guns?” he asked, like that was the interesting part.

I rolled my eyes. “I know a Glock when I see one. I watch TV at Amanda’s house and go to the movies.”

“Yeah, I’ll bring my laptop with me when I come over,” he apprised me as another door opened near the far wall, close to the desk, and Declan came through.

“Xander, how lovely to see you again.”

“Yes,” I said, tugging on Lorne’s hand to get him to walk forward with me toward the desk. “I don’t suppose we could dispense with all the back-and-forth and ridiculous posturing and instead you just tell me what you’re doing here in Osprey.”

He squinted at me. “I opened this place. That should be perfectly obvious.”

“Well, yes, Declan Grant did, but who are you, and is the real Declan still alive?”

“I think perhaps you’re having some kind of—”

I waved my hand in a wax on, wax off motion à la The Karate Kid, and Lorne yelled, “Holy fuck!”

“Well said,” I agreed as we both looked at the faun standing behind the desk.

The men behind us moved then, and I bolted forward as Lorne crouched and caught the first one who lunged at him, flipping him up and over his back. It was impressive, but the next guy was on him in seconds, while the third came for me. I slipped around the desk, the faun screamed as I pushed by him, and my attacker would have gotten me if a crossbow bolt hadn’t hit him in the shoulder. Howling in pain, clutching his bicep, he dropped to the floor.

“No,” the faun gasped, and the guy who was attacking Lorne, and the other who was struggling to get up, both turned as a hooded figure stepped from the shadows.

Lorne rushed across the room to me, shielding me, and I peeked around him to see the figure throw the hood off to reveal a woman with short black hair, alabaster skin, and bright-green eyes. She was a vision, but the important part was the crossbow she had reloaded.

“Shut. Up,” she ordered the screaming man, who went instantly mute. To me, she said, “You the mage who guards the rift?”

“I am,” I answered, lying about what I was but not who, thinking that was best. She didn’t strike me as the kind of person who went in for long explanations.

She tipped her head at Lorne. “He yours?”

“He is,” I told her. “So he can’t be taken.”

“I mean…he could,” she said, drawing out the words. “But if I’m right, your god takes shits bigger than mine, so enough said.”

I nodded. “And you are?”

“Nott.” She leaned forward, offering me her arm.

Moving around Lorne, I clasped her forearm and she mine. Her power was considerable, and I felt it try and push through me, reaching my bicep and then my shoulder before it was quashed and retreated, dissipating quickly. Having to return the favor—it was the way of these things—I drove my own through her, and in seconds, she was shivering as my power hit her like a body blow, making her unsteady on her feet for a moment before releasing from her body like steam from a locomotive, out the top of her head, fluttering her hair before it dissipated.

“You lied,” she whispered as our arms separated. “You’re a witch.”

I smiled at her.

Her head tipped sideways. “I thought you’d be older.”

“I know,” I agreed. “It’s because my grandfather was a mage, and most people from other realms expect him to still be here.”

“Yes, but a mage couldn’t hold the land, not against all this,” she said, indicating the men with her crossbow. “I keep watch on fae soldiers crossing realms for my lord, and noticed them trickling into your town.”

“I appreciate your vigilance.”

She shrugged.

“You don’t know where they’re coming through from?”

She shook her head.

“Well, again, thank you.”

“You know it’s lucky for Corvus, and the rift there, that in you, they have a witch for a guardian.”

“Thank you.”

“Was your power granted by the Morrighan?”

“You would think so, but no. My line was originally blessed through Nemain, though it’s changed somewhat,” I told her.

Her face lit up as the floor near her began to fall away, forming a wide hole in the middle of the office that sucked a really nice rug—I was guessing a vintage Moroccan one from how old it looked—into the now swirling funnel. “My family is pledged to Neit, her husband, the battle god. I will give her your regards when next I see her.”

“Thank you,” I said, smiling at her.

“Now,” she snapped, and the guy with the bolt in his shoulder walked forward. She yanked the thick arrow from his flesh with no care for the pain she inflicted. But even with the force she used, and even though there was blood with the release, he still sighed in relief before he dropped into the hole. The other two fae were next, moving forward quickly, not fighting their fate.

“I can’t go,” the faun cried as she motioned for him to do the same. “If I go back, I’ll be sent to slaughter like the rest of my family.”

She lifted her crossbow, which was truly a beautiful weapon made of mahogany, inlaid with gold and rubies.

“Let him stay,” I told her. “We have questions for him.”

“You’ll be responsible, then.”

“Yes,” I agreed.

“So be it. The others are the bounty anyway. What’s a faun worth?”

I smiled instead of arguing.

She glanced at Lorne, gave him an appraising look, missing nothing, and was about to take a step forward into the abyss when instead, she looked back at me. “Quick question: I’ve been looking for someone, and the usual scrying isn’t working, so I suspect he’s used glyphs or something else to shield himself. Any thoughts on what my potion is missing for divination?” When I didn’t reply right away, she added, “He’s a warlock accused of killing children. He does not deserve your pity or concern.”

No, he did not. “Have you added mugwort and goldenrod to your cauldron?”

She snapped her fingers and pointed at me. “Goldenrod. I knew something was missing.”

“Also, if you want to catch a psychopomp to aid you, add comfrey leaves and sugar to your perfume and they’ll be drawn to you.”

Her smile was like the sun. “Thank you, witch,” she murmured before jumping in after the men, the floor closing instantly.

The poor faun fainted, just done, out cold, dropping to the floor like a rock as Lorne slowly turned me around to face him.

“Hi,” I teased him, smiling.

“She liked me,” he said, waggling his eyebrows.

I was stunned. Not at all what I thought he was going to say. “You really are amazing.”

He nodded in agreement. “Yes, I know. But you do realize I’m just baiting you so I don’t completely lose my mind and pass out like your goat friend over there.”

“Faun,” I corrected. “Most people don’t know the difference between fauns and satyrs, but fauns are always prettier, like he is.”

“Okay,” he said, sighing deeply, and then pointed at the space where the lovely rug used to be. “The hell was all that?”

“Oh, she was a nymph and—”

“What? No. Nymphs hang around with satyrs and wear white togas and—why’re you looking at me like that?”

“You’ve been reading too many pastorals.”

“I assure you I’ve never read a pastoral anything in my entire life.”

I smiled at him.

“What you’re telling me is that nymphs are actually badass and hunt things?”

“Some of them. The ones like Nott, who cross over from their realm to ours, are hunters. I’m sure there are those who hang out all day beside rivers, dancing with satyrs, but I’ve never met any of them.”

“How many different supernatural creatures have you met?”

“You want a list?”

“Yes, I want a list,” he snapped. He walked around the table and knelt down beside the faun. “You know, if you can get past the ears and the horns, he’s cute in a Narnia way.”

I couldn’t stifle my laughter and went to my knees next to Lorne, putting my head on his shoulder, enjoying not being alone for once when weirdness happened. He was a big, strong, powerful man, and it felt nice to lean on him.

“What was with none of those guys attacking Nott? You’d think they would have rushed her instead of just freezing once she shot the first guy.”

“But she was shooting iron bolts, and if she decided to hit them in anything vital, they’d be dead in seconds. As it was, that one guy was in agony.”

“Why?”

“They were all from the fae realm, just like our friend here is,” I said, touching one of the faun’s small horns. “And iron is bad for them.”

“Isn’t Nott from the fae realm?”

“No. She’s from Arcadia or Delphi or Nemea—”

“You’re talking about places that exist in mythology.”

“No, they exist in different realms.”

He was going to ask more questions, I knew interest when I saw it, but the faun took that moment to shriek, sit up fast, and scramble back against the wall, wrapping his arms around his legs. It looked odd since he was wearing human clothes that fit his upper body well, but shoes on hooves weren’t really working.

“You’re all right,” I soothed him.

He only stared at me.

“Is there a Declan Grant at all, or was that always just you?”

Quick breath through his nose. “Always me. I’ve always wanted to be human.”

I nodded and sat back, crossing my legs. “Go ahead and redo the glamour. I won’t remove it again.”

Blink-of-an-eye fast, I was looking at the beautiful man who’d been at my stall earlier in the day.

“I know you didn’t kill the girl Chief MacBain here found,” I told him. Fauns were not killers. They couldn’t. It went against their natures. “But did you assist in her kidnapping?”

“Oh no,” he replied quickly. “No, no. I was sent to watch you, report on you, get you interested in me if possible, and then have you take me into your home.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” he stressed, glancing at Lorne and then back at me. “Truly.”

“There was a member of the fae on my property the other night.”

He nodded. “I know. That was Sola, and Rulaine, my mistress, was certain he was powerful enough to defeat either a mage, or if the reports were wrong, a bruane.”

“What’s a bruane?” Lorne asked me.

“It means like a…” I looked at the faun for help, gesturing at him to jump in. “A witch with no hereditary line, right?”

“Yes,” he said, smiling at me before looking at Lorne. “A witch whose practice leads to them finding and growing their own power is a bruane, a fire-seed or birthed-from-within witch. It takes much scholarship and practice.”

“Okay,” Lorne said, shifting around so he was sitting with his long muscular legs stretched out, leaning back, palms flat on the floor.

The faun, or technically, now Declan, leaned off the wall and crossed his legs just as I was as he continued to address Lorne. “A born witch, from a line of witches, is a rodin witch, or what’s referred to as bloodstained.”

“Got it. Bruane and rodin, one made through hard work and perseverance and the other born with power.”

“Yes. Excellent,” Declan complimented him.

“Thanks.”

Declan turned to me. “You were thought to be a very formidable mage, but apparently Rulaine got that wrong as you’re not one of those at all.”

“How do you know that?” Lorne asked him.

“He removed my glamour…that’s not possible for a mage. It’s not doable for a bruane or a rodin either,” he answered Lorne but then turned to me, “so…what are you?”

I smiled at him.

“Was there ever a mage?”

“Yes. My grandfather.”

“And was he powerful?”

“He was,” I assured him.

“Well, when Sola didn’t return, we were certain that you, the mage Rulaine thinks you are, had dispatched him.”

“And so then this Rulaine, she decided to get to me another way.”

“Yes.”

“And what happens to you when she finds out you failed?”

“I’m certain she’ll kill me,” he said sadly, looking down at his lovely polished loafers.

“Does she know what you look like?”

His head snapped up. “No. I was supposed to report tonight and show her my newly chosen form. She left me here a fortnight ago.”

“Do you know who killed the girl?”

“Yes. Rulaine did. She meant to kill four, to place a dead girl, with her heart torn out, in all the corners so that when you called to them, there would be only death to answer.”

I nodded.

He leaned forward. “Even a rodin couldn’t have defeated Sola. A hereditary witch is not that much stronger than a made witch. All you have is your bloodline aiding your magic.”

“You’re right,” I concurred. “You’re very knowledgeable. What’s your true name?”

He shook his head. “It’s the name of the barn I was born in; it was never mine alone. I prefer Declan.”

“All right. Then Declan it is,” I said and stood up. “Come stand here by me.”

He moved immediately, bouncing up off the floor and to my side.

“From now on, you’ll be Declan Grant, and your glamour will be permanent.”

He gasped. “You can do that?”

I grunted.

His mouth dropped open as he stared at me, and his words came out in the barest whisper. “You’re a branded witch.”

“I am.”

I stepped back and knelt, starting at his feet, tracing around him, then standing on my toes so I could reach up—I was only five eight, after all—and outline him in light that flowed around him like I was drawing with glow-in-the-dark paint. “I say unto you, what was false is now truth. So mote it be.”

He jolted, and then his body went rigid and he cried out sharply. The light glowed and got bright before falling away like fireflies landing in the grass. He touched his face, his chest, everywhere at once, then looked at me before closing his eyes and furrowing his brows.

“Yep,” I told him.

He opened one eye and looked at Lorne.

“What is happening right now?” Lorne asked me.

“He wants to know if he still looks like Declan Grant.”

“Yeah, man,” Lorne said, “you look just like the douche I thought you were this afternoon.”

Declan glanced at me. “What is a douche?”

“He didn’t like you,” I translated.

“Whyever not?” He sounded affronted as he surveyed Lorne.

“Because you were hitting on Xander, and I… I don’t want people hitting on Xander.”

“Oh, well, how charming,” he said, smiling at Lorne. “I find that terribly romantic.”

Lorne asked me, “If he has sex with a woman and has a kid, will that kid…”

“Be human? Yes.”

“Really?” Declan was breathless. “Oh…that’s amazing.”

“So if you like women and want to have children, you can, and if you like men and want to have children and want a surrogate, you can do that too with the same outcome. Human babies every time.”

He grabbed my hand and held it in both of his. “I am forever in your debt, Xander Corey, and if there’s anything I can do for you, you must tell me.”

I held his hand back. “Tell me where this Rulaine is?”

“She’s hiding in a cloche that—”

“A what?” Lorne chimed in.

“A pocket dimension,” Declan replied.

“That’s what you call them?” I asked him.

“Yes. What do you call them?”

“My grandfather called them slips.”

Declan thought a moment. “Because one slip and you’re in.” He smiled. “That’s very clever.”

“Thanks. He was.”

“So a place like the one you were in today?” Lorne asked me.

“Yes, though I doubt it’s the same one.”

“One of her many forms is a half-beast, half-human creature that’s far taller than she is, with antlers and—”

“I stand corrected,” I told Lorne. “I was in her dimension earlier today. She’s brought a lot of vargrs with her,” I said to Declan.

“What?”

“That’s another of my grandfather’s words, but faewolves. She brought a ton of them.”

He nodded emphatically. “Yes, yes. Without question. So many.”

“Okay, so she’s hiding in this pocket dimension, trying to kill me, yeah?”

“Yes,” Declan confirmed.

Lorne summed up, “And she’s going to kill more girls and put one on every side of his land so that when Xander calls to the corners of whatever, he basically won’t be able to.”

“That was the plan, yes.”

“Was the plan?” Lorne sighed deeply. “It’s not the plan anymore?”

“No,” Declan told him. “It can’t be.”

He explained that because one side of the land ended at the ocean, it wasn’t possible to place a body there. It would move with the tide, might be pushed too close onto the land or be pulled too far out to sea for the exact boundary of the land.

“So then, there won’t be more dead girls?” Lorne asked him.

“Not for that reason,” Declan affirmed. “But it doesn’t mean the people in your town are safe while she’s here.”

“I understand,” Lorne said sadly.

“You know,” Declan began, his gaze on me, “whoever put the wording in the deed to your land, about the boundaries, was very smart.”

“Witches are cagey that way.” I winked at him.

“And even if they hadn’t, your land is, as Rulaine said, locked with those on both sides of you. Your neighbors were included with the secondary warding. Why is that?”

“Neighbors are important to protect, don’t you think?”

He threw up his hands in defeat. “You don’t have to answer, of course you don’t, but I’m compelled to ask—how far down are those wards buried, and what were they wrought with?”

He’d never believe me if I told him about the chthonia, the rare, primordial, bled for, birthed for, earth magic that once was known to many but over the centuries changed first into superstition, then eventually became forgotten lore.

“It’s ancient, isn’t it, whatever you tap into?”

“Yes,” I conceded. “In my family, the old ways were passed down.”

“You’re fortunate. Because it’s all well and good to know the wards are there, but another thing altogether to be powerful enough to reach them.”

He wasn’t wrong.

“That’s protection, banishment, and clearing magic all tied to what? Blood? Bone?”

“Sacred midnight things,” I answered, smiling at him.

“I understand. You won’t tell me, and let’s face it, I had a bit of magic as a faun, but it never served me in the least. I’m thrilled to be done with all of it.”

“Well, I’m glad, because the change is irreversible.”

“Not to worry. I’m overjoyed to never lay eyes on Rulaine again. Her true form is terrifying.”

“She won’t be able to detect you,” I promised him. “That’s elemental magic she doesn’t have.”

“I know, and thank you again.”

“Last thing,” I said, crossing my arms. “Can you tell me who Rulaine is trying to bring through the rift on my land?”

He sighed deeply. “I wish I knew, but I honestly don’t know. Rulaine didn’t trust me enough to say. I know she told Sola. If you know a necromancer, Sola could be resurrected and made to answer your questions.”

“You can do that?” Lorne asked him.

“Well, not me, of course. I don’t know any necromancers, and I certainly didn’t possess that power. But I would think a branded witch would.”

Both Lorne and Declan were waiting on me.

I grimaced. “Sola was consumed and, I’m betting, excreted by now, so…resurrection is not possible.”

It took them a moment to process that.

“Wait, what?” Lorne looked flummoxed.

“Eaten?” Declan shouted, going pale. “Sola was eaten?”

“By what?” Lorne sounded disgusted. “One of those wolves?”

“Why would Sola have been devoured by something he brought with him?” Declan seemed bothered by even the suggestion.

“I don’t know,” Lorne said. “I just learned about magic today, all right? Gimme a break.”

“Eaten?” Declan shouted again, clearly having trouble wrapping his brain around the information. “Are you certain?”

“What ate him, then?” Lorne seemed terribly concerned.

I chuckled. “Remember when I told you the cat was dangerous?”

“Your cat ate him? How small was this Sola?”

“That’s not the right question.” Declan was incredulous. “How big is your cat?”

“You know how it is with daemons,” I told him.

Declan clutched his chest, looking utterly terrified. “On your land?”

“In my house.” I clarified for him.

“I think I’m going to throw up,” Declan announced, and bolted from the room.

I cackled under my breath.

Lorne tapped me on the shoulder.

“Yes?”

“You have so much explaining to do.”

“Yes, but we have to go and eat at your house and then go back to mine for dessert.” His scowl took all the wind out of my sails. “No?”

“First, that was terrible and lame, but really, I can’t imagine a point in the evening where you won’t be talking,” he informed me.

The only good part was that when I leaned against Declan’s desk, Lorne put his arm around me and made sure I was tucked in close. I had really missed being hugged, and I hadn’t realized how much.

SEVEN

Dinner was amazing, and yes, the food was fantastic, but the company was even better. I missed having a family. The spaghetti was made without meat, which was lucky because I was starving and had forgotten to mention to James that I was a vegetarian. As I ate like it was going to be my last meal, James explained that he’d been taught to cook this by his college roommate’s grandmother, and she, herself, preferred it meatless.

“She said the flavors come out better this way, and I’m so glad I didn’t add sausage or meatballs. It wouldn’t be the same with you just having salad.”

“Thank you.” I mopped up sauce with the bread that was thankfully not garlic. I didn’t want Lorne to have any reason not to kiss me.

“It does feel so much better in here,” Cass said, smiling at me. “And thank you for blessing the bells when you came back.”

“Of course.”

“And is the rice only placed at the front door?”

I nodded. “That needs to be changed monthly. Dig a hole in the back yard and return it to the earth.”

“Got it,” she stated firmly. “Now, is the mat at the front door going to need to stay flipped over like that forever, or does it eventually get to be right side up again?”

“Remember what I told you?”

“Oh yes, right. We’ll need to get a new one. Nothing with the word welcome.”

“Or any other invitation. A picture would be best. My friend Amanda, for example, has the sign from The Hobbit about party business. That’s fine.”

“Didn’t we have a sign outside as well?” Lorne asked.

“It’s in the trunk of your car,” I told him. “You could put it up at the jail; it would be ironic that way.”

He scowled at me.

We did the dishes since James cooked, and afterward, we all sat down in the living room, around the fireplace, to talk. I was surprised Lorne wasn’t suggesting we leave, when I noted his drooping eyes.

“You know,” I offered, “I should go home and—”

“No,” he husked, even as his eyes drifted closed. “Stay with me.”

When I glanced over at Cass, she was lying on the opposite end of the couch from her father, passed out, and James himself had his head back, mouth open, and he was snoring away.

I attributed this lethargy to the food coma, along with having all that negative energy blasted out of the house, which in itself took an emotional toll. It didn’t occur to me until I saw a face for a moment at the window, a misshapen head, a grotesque fusion of wolf and man, that vargrs were skulking outside Lorne’s home. I recognized then that a spell had been cast as well, one that was working on the others, lulling them to sleep, making them easy prey for when the wolves breached the door. They couldn’t come right in, not anymore, since the house was, to an extent, now warded. As I’d told Lorne, it wasn’t locked nor sealed, which would take more time. So eventually, with repeated tries at rushing the door, the vargrs could break it down and enter. I needed to lead them away. I could only keep everyone safe if I ran.

I had to get out.

Running to the kitchen, I stripped fast and darted naked to the back door. Opening and closing it, making sure it locked behind me, I thought fly, as I always did before taking a running leap into the air. This time I dived off the back patio, and suddenly the wind caught me and I was soaring over the ground.

A vargr tried to reach me, the vault from the roof of the house an excellent try, but I was fast and nimble in flight. I saw them below me, five of them running now to catch up, and saw something else, perhaps the creature from earlier in the day, following the wolves.

As high as I was, I didn’t worry about what was happening below me, only that they had gone to the house to find me and were now tracking me home. I didn’t want them near Lorne and his family. I would have to put greater protections in place for his home, as well as Amanda’s. Hers because I loved her, she was practically family; his because I could see myself falling for him, was already starting to. I cared about many others in town, but their homes did not pulse with my energy and couldn’t be sensed by those from other realms. Whoever or whatever was after me wanted to threaten me with maximum pain, so they would threaten only those I loved, not merely liked.

As I flew, I thought about this ability I had to burst from my skin into a flock of ravens, it was the reason others always assumed our family line was blessed by the Morrighan. It was and wasn’t true, and was often easier to say it wasn’t than to try and explain.

It all hinged not on us, but on the incarnation of the goddess others interacted with. Because sometimes the goddess, the Morrighan, appeared as a singular deity, and at other times, much like Hekate, she was three. Unlike the maiden, mother, and crone, which were steps in an aging process and represented growth or the changing of the seasons, the Morrighan that appeared in our family history had distinctive names. One of her manifestations, recorded by Sadira—one of my ancestors—was when her great-grandmother, Branwenn, met Nemain, the wife of Neit.

No one could say for certain what was real or not—this was mythology to most people, not history, after all. But as our personal interaction with the goddess went, it was written that once, ages ago, a ban-nighe, or washerwoman, was cleaning clothes by the river, and warriors from a rival clan came upon her. They meant her harm, to assault her, then kill her, but Branwenn, who so happened to be a healer, was traveling through in her wagon and rushed to the washerwoman’s side to help defend her.

As with most myths and legends, the story had a horrible ending. The washerwoman, Nemain in disguise, unleashed her fury on the men, but in her haste, the healer who’d come to her aid, Branwenn, was killed as well, burned to a crisp in a wave of frenzied wrath. The only part of her that didn’t burn was the child in her womb. The baby was then taken by Nemain and returned to Branwenn’s people with the greatest blessing the goddess could conjure: that of flight. That way, in theory, those in her line could offer aid to others while still remaining safe from danger themselves. It didn’t make a lot of sense, but I’d found that few myths actually did.

After reading the account, I was fairly certain Sadira was probably trying to make sense of the fact that her magic allowed her to shift into a raven and fly.

“Why not just accept it’s magic from us, from the Corey line, instead of all this mythology stuff?” I asked my grandmother while we were making protection witch balls at the kitchen table.

“Because the magic had to start somewhere, don’t you think?” She raised one eyebrow, looking like she always did when she wanted me to use my brain.

“And we care, why?”

“Because to know who you are, you have to first know where you come from.”

“You were adopted,” I pointed out. “You don’t know anything about your real family.”

Her eyes narrowed. “My adoptive family are the people who wanted me and raised and loved me. Wouldn’t you say I know everything about them?”

I grunted. “You’re missing the point.”

“No, you are. It’s history, whatever that is.”

“Yeah, but that’s not history,” I insisted, smacking the journals on the table beside me. “That’s mythology.”

“In every story, there’s a grain of truth.”

“Myths are stories to try and make sense of something. Like Persephone being taken from Demeter, which explained the seasons to the Greeks.”

“Certainly, but isn’t it possible that there’s something that makes a good story last for thousands of years?”

I folded my arms on the table and put my head down. “You really think someone back in the day met a goddess and got turned into a bird?”

“I do. Yes.”

“Because Grandpa told you that story about his family.”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t it far more likely we’re mutants?”

“You’re trying to use science to explain what those in your hereditary line can do. Doesn’t that seem like a cop-out to you?”

I groaned. Loudly.

“Isn’t it far more likely that it’s a blessing of magic?”

“From a goddess?” I said, huffing out a frustrated sigh. “Really?”

“It makes far more sense than your mutant theory.”

At the time, all of ten, I wasn’t convinced she knew what she was talking about. Even when I was branded by a god, magic still wasn’t accessible to me as a belief.

Five years later, when my grandfather and I lost her to cancer, I understood that magic was stupid and useless if it couldn’t save the ones you loved. Blessings from a goddess were of no consequence when weighed against cells inside your body that wanted to kill you. I lost my love and interest in my craft and abandoned it that long, hard summer after we buried her.

Then high school started and I was thrown into a blender of emotions, being the weird kid without friends that everyone made fun of. I was sad and broken, an outcast with nothing. But then the following year, at sixteen, I got a reality check when my grandfather and I took in Amanda. Suddenly there was magic in making tea and having long talks on dark nights, and in knitting things that kept you warm when the wind came rolling off the ocean through the forest to our back door.

I rediscovered my power, and in so doing, found my grandmother again, and eventually my whole line of people that ran all the way back to Branwenn on the bank of the river, trying to offer aid to a stranger. Our line had been blessed, and now I was in possession of thousands of years of that gift, strengthened and honed to the power of flight that took me home to my land.

The iron ball hitting me in the chest was not a surprise. Of course Rulaine would try and shoot down the ravens. Witches, unlike the fae, were as susceptible to being killed as any other human being. Every raven was me, so harming them would hurt me. The thing was, though, much like the time a peregrine falcon came out of nowhere and caused me a moment of excruciating pain, it took me a moment to refocus, and then I was back, the magic regenerating another raven in flight.

My grandfather believed that every bird would have to be killed at the exact same time for me to die. He was certain of that because many in our line could turn, as he could, into a huge bird, something the size of an Andean condor. He was always careful when flying because many a witch was lost from being shot out of the sky with an arrow or killed by an owl or set upon by trained falcons. It was when we were most vulnerable. Except for me. I was different. I was many, never just one. The first time I shifted, at nine, my grandfather was overwhelmed, and when my grandmother went to our library, hunting for answers, she came back empty-handed, with only a supposition: “I don’t think he’s a mage like you,” she’d told my grandfather. “I think he’s something different.”

When they eventually discovered I was a witch instead, he’d been so happy. “What an amazing adventure you’re going to have.”

I wasn’t sure about that, but now, in the present, as I flew at a blurring speed, I was thankful that the forecasted rain had yet to materialize, and though I could hear more shots, nothing hit me.

Landing on my cobblestone path, I shifted back to human, then ran up to the front door, touched the knob so the house knew it was me, and went inside quickly. I asked for light as I ran to my bedroom, and the house illuminated, oil lanterns sparking to life as I made my way through. Once I had on sweats, a T-shirt, and an oversize sweater, I felt better. It had been freezing outside. Heavy wool socks completed the outfit, and I got a fire going, catching glimpses in the windows of things circling my home, the ancient glass making everything look scarier than in daylight. I threw a few pine wood logs in the hearth, stoking the fire, before finally taking a breath, opening the front door, and stepping onto the porch.

Thunder boomed, and the lightning gave me a view of the vargrs in my drive. I could hear one close, to my left, breathing in the darkness. But I was in my doorway, so I leaned against the frame and waited.

“So certain of your power, are you?” a woman’s voice came from my right. She wanted me to step out and look for her. I wasn’t the brightest bulb, but I wasn’t stupid enough to do that.

“To whom am I speaking?”

“Did you kill the faun yourself, or give him to the nymph?”

I remained quiet.

“I had plans to watch him being taken and bled before I skinned him alive and had him roasted for my master. You’ll need to find me another.”

“I’m sorry, faun, you say? When was this?”

She purred, “I could find him, you know. I could slaughter every man, woman, and child in this town, and one of them, somewhere, while they begged for death, would confess that they were he.”

I highly doubted she had either the manpower or the time to carry out that threat. I suspected her master had tasked her with enabling him to come through the rift on Corvus sooner rather than later. Her time was running out. But either way, I had never been the type to frighten over hollow threats. “That would take a minute, wouldn’t it?” I grimaced for her benefit. “Don’t you have to move your master successfully through the rift at some point?”

She snarled softly.

“Speaking of, you wouldn’t want to give me his name now, would you? The faun I had the nymph torture and kill didn’t know, and Sola refused to say.”

Her scoff was loud—we both knew full well I was not in the torturing and killing business.

The vargr on my left stepped out of the darkness, no more than a couple of feet from me. I noted that he didn’t put a paw on my doormat—too much black salt and hyssop spread there over the years made that impossible. My wind chimes, which I blessed daily, were whipping around in the rising wind, and all that ringing was making the vargrs shake their heads in annoyance and, I suspected, pain. In the breeze, the chiming was continual, and they began to pace in frustration.

“Is this what you do,” Rulaine asked, “this small, tedious magic?” She was angry. I could hear it in her voice. She wanted me dead, and it had to be maddening to keep failing at that. “I could snap your neck like a twig.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “But you’d have to get your hands around my throat first.”

“You don’t think I can?” She stepped into the light, so I could now see her. My surprise must’ve shown on my face, and her glower was instant. “Speak,” she demanded.

“I just, well, I thought you’d look like something out of a graphic novel, but you look like my fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Sherman. I’m getting more of a cottagecore vibe from you than ‘dark mistress of the night.’”

“Looks can be deceiving. I could—”

“No, yeah, you’re right,” I agreed quickly. “I’m not what people expect either, so I get it.”

“I could show you my true form if you—”

“I already saw it, didn’t I? You look like a wendigo.”

She appeared perplexed, which was interesting on her features. “I know not what that is.”

“I have a book inside I could show you.”

Quiet grunt from her. “You think me stupid enough to willingly cross the threshold into your sanctuary. How foolish would I be?”

“Scared I might peel away all the evil and make you good?”

“Hardly,” she scoffed.

“Come on,” I said, reaching out for her. “Give it a try.”

She stepped back, lost in the darkness once more. “As though I would ever allow myself such familiarity with a mage.”

Interestingly, none of them had any idea who or what I was. Sola was dead and so had not been able to report back to her. Declan, the ex-faun, now human, had not spoken to her after he learned the truth either. She was basically going on bad information collected from heaven knew where. What was quite evident, however, was that everything the fae knew about me was gathered years ago when my grandfather was still alive. Most interesting of all was that they clearly had no idea what the lifespan of a human being was. And while witches lived a bit longer than normal folks, we certainly didn’t live as long as any fae. If she left my land and returned in two hundred years, she would absolutely expect to see me. That was nuts. They really needed to read some books on humans, like we read about them.

“You’re right,” I agreed, “what was I thinking?”

“You must—”

“The faun did say your name is Rulaine, but he didn’t know who your master is. Surely, with my weak, pathetic magic, you can tell me.”

She sneered. “My master is Threun the bloody, Threun the destroyer, Threun the orphan maker, and he means to come from our world into yours.”

The way she said it, with such flourish, like I should have wet myself right there, told me that whoever he was, he was a big deal in the fae realm. Unfortunately, the name didn’t ring any bells, so I couldn’t give her the dramatic reaction she was expecting.

“And how are you spelling that?” I asked her.

“You are tiresome.”

I’d been called worse. “But who is he, precisely?”

“His name means death.”

It always did. All of them peddled the same line of terror and annihilation. And she’d already killed an innocent young woman, so it wasn’t that I was doubting her resolve or her belief in her master, but still. The whole his-name-means-death bit had been wildly overdone.

“Your mistress, the Morrighan, fears him.”

I scoffed. I couldn’t help it, and it popped out before I could stop. Not that I was on a first-name basis with the Morrighan—had in fact never met her or any of her incarnations—but I knew she would never cower before any god. It was not who she was.

“You would wager my gift from my lord, with yours?” she screeched at me.

The sound, like the howling, shrieking wind, was designed to hurt me, perhaps rupture my eardrums. So I stepped back inside momentarily to let the sound dissipate before leaning back out. “I don’t want to wager anything. Maybe we could simply—”

Lights had appeared at the end of my driveway, and I groaned as Lorne, in a bright-yellow rain slicker and galoshes, came running up the cobblestone path. The man looked like he was prepared for a monsoon. It was adorable, but really, I was going to give him an award for having the worst timing ever.

He stopped moving when he saw me—and probably, more importantly, the wolves—and the moment he did, he was tackled down hard into the mud, grass, and leaves to the right of the path.

“I’ll trade you for your man, mage,” she said, moving close again. “What do you—”

The vargr was grabbed and flung away from Lorne, hitting the ground in a bloody heap, his head having been separated from his body so cleanly, it looked like it had been done with a blade. It took a moment for the dog to drop out of the sky from how high he’d apparently leaped, and he landed softly beside the man I wanted to take to bed.

“You have a familiar,” she said, just like Sola did the other night, sounding unafraid when really, seeing Osko should have scared the crap out of her. I had no idea how anyone saw these dogs that were bigger than Great Danes and more muscular than mastiffs and thought, Oh no, those aren’t frightening in the least. And yes, the vargrs were definitely scarier-looking—their hairlessness was what had always freaked me out the most—but still, that dog should have given anyone pause. This went back to reading being fundamental. Research was imperative if you were going to cross from one realm to another.

Lorne sat up, and Osko tipped his head, staring. That, more than anything, scared me. The issue being, one of the Cŵn Annwn was watching him, making a conscious determination whether he was prey, and therefore something to be hunted, or could instead be, like me, someone to protect.

“Thank you, buddy,” Lorne said to the dog, lifting his hand and reaching for Osko’s muzzle in a perfectly normal motion between man and his best friend.

I was holding my breath—Lorne could be eviscerated in moments if the dog decided they weren’t comrades—and my not making a sound, combined with the terror and hope that must’ve shown clear as day on my face, made Rulaine regard the animal.

“You have no dominion over this creature?”

“No,” I answered honestly, taking a breath as Osko moved forward so Lorne could give him scratches under his chin, and then Lorne got his second hand in there to get behind his head and his ears.

“You have…no control?”

Gwyn leaped off the top of my house then, down in front of the porch, and dropped her head and growled low, baring her teeth at the vargr close to me. She was the biggest, the size of a small horse, and though she looked more like a fuzzy greyhound than a Great Dane or mastiff, when she snarled again, I felt the wave of fear wash over me.

Rulaine gasped and spun, trying to disappear in a swirl of black smoke that many magic users could manage. But then Dar was suddenly there, out of thin air, plucking her from the maelstrom and flipping her over his back.

It was impressive how Rulaine didn’t fall from the sky, but instead landed gently, facing Dar, and slashed the air with her hand.

I could feel the energy, hot and full of wrath, so I rushed forward, in front of the dog, and lifted my arm to shield both of us.

It hit like a wave breaking on rocks, splashing over me, the runoff hissing as it hit the dirt, sinking into the ground.

“Come on, boy,” Lorne called to Osko, who, amazingly, followed him in his dead run toward the house.

Another vargr came for Lorne, but Dar must have moved, even though I couldn’t track it with my eyes, and in the next instant the vargr was beheaded as quickly and expertly as Osko had the first.

Lorne and Osko ran by me, not stopping, and I was so relieved that Lorne didn’t check on me, instead assuming I knew what I was doing. I couldn’t worry about the vargr facing off with Gwyn, or that she’d turn on Lorne. I had to have faith that the man’s inner strength would allow the dog to see him as he really was: my protector.

“To whom do the dogs belong?” Rulaine screamed at me.

“To the god who branded me,” I answered. “As such, I cannot let you harm them.”

She lifted her hand like she was holding a whip, striking at me, and I felt it hit the sides of my shield, dig into my power, and strip some away. I understood, almost too late, that she was powerful. I needed to be smarter, more prepared. Witches did that by separating themselves from others and being solitary. The thing was, I’d never had any intention of making guardianship and battle my life. I wanted to be part of the world, part of my community, have friends, and now, suddenly, I wanted Lorne. I wanted him bad.

I turned to check on him.

“Kick her ass,” he yelled, which was horrendously inappropriate.

“Go inside!” I shouted, noting he was petting Gwyn by the door but doing it carefully, as she was covered in blood, bits of skin, and pieces of organs and bone. She must have eviscerated the wolf that she’d been squaring off with.

“What are you?” Rulaine roared at me.

“What are you?” I shouted back.

“I am the Sorceress Rulaine of Dragon Marsh,” she crowed.

I had no idea where that was or what that was. It sounded cool and scary, but sadly, that turned out to be the last of our conversation, as a loud, ground-shaking clap of thunder finally brought the rain. It came down in sheets.

I heard her howl something, and then she came flying out of the darkness, straight for me, and I had no doubt I would have been cleaved in two had she hit me.

Dropping to the ground, I shoved my hands into the dirt that was quickly becoming mud and, as steward of Corvus, called for aid. I needed to keep the land safe, keep the dogs safe, and guard the rift.

And the man, it said.

And the man, I answered, and smiled.

It knew me well.

Roots erupted from the ground like ravenous pythons, gripping, grabbing, catching the sorceress by her wrists and ankles.

“Look away!” I shrieked back to Lorne in warning.

I didn’t hear the sound of tearing and her howl of terror and pain, nor feel her hot, thick blood splash over me. Everything was swallowed by the rain, washed away, drowned out.

A sinkhole appeared, not deep but enough to take her, suck her down into the mud before it refilled, leaving nothing but the pounding, driving storm. In moments, the vargrs were swallowed as well, gone from sight.

I knew better than to allow evil to poison our sacred ground, so I called on the wards to purify what was unclean, to let nothing pass through into the land, the water, the trees or grass, nothing that was not for our highest and best, both for myself and, more importantly, for Corvus. Many minions and servants had died over the years, sacrificed themselves for the gain of their gods, thinking if their blood tainted our land, it could be called upon later, like a curse, to allow access to all those who would do harm to others.

My people, though, they were planners. Just as we thought to protect our neighbors, we thought to protect our land. I could reach the wards I was tied to body and soul, through blood and tears, flesh and bone. All was well, and all was safe.

My thanks, I said to the land.

Our thanks, it answered.

And I fell sideways into the mud.

EIGHT

My eyes fluttered open, and the first thing I saw was Lorne standing by the hearth, towel-drying Gwyn, who seemed to be enjoying his ministrations quite a bit if her lifted head and closed eyes were any indication. I loved how he was talking to her, telling her what a good girl she was, and I enjoyed seeing the spectral hound’s tail wag lazily. It was amazing.

“What’re you doing?” I asked him, enjoying watching the muscles bunch and cord under his T-shirt. His bulging biceps and powerful forearms were gorgeous as well.

He looked up at me, grinned, told Gwyn to stay, and then bolted over to the couch I was lying on, several towels between me and the soft burlap since I was covered in mud.

“Are you going to wash me next?” I teased him.

“Yes,” he replied, smiling warmly. “We’re getting in together, and I’m gonna scrub you clean, and then we’re going to get into bed and sleep.”

“Sleep,” I whined.

He bent and kissed me, and I opened for him, my tongue wanting to taste him, draw him down inside me as deep as he could go. Never ever had I wanted anyone more. He’d seen me at my darkest and scariest and didn’t fear me in the least. My skin felt electric with how much I needed him.

Lifting up, breaking the kiss, he stared down into my eyes. “You were amazing. You saved me and the dogs from…what was she, some kind of demon?”

“No. A sorceress.”

“And what is a sorceress?” He straightened up, returned to Gwyn, and continued the process of drying her.

“Basically a bruane. A made witch. They normally study and apprentice under another sorceress and learn spells, potions, and everything else.”

“Why not call herself a witch?”

“Because sorceress sounds better? Scarier, anyway. Plus, sorceresses—that’s hard to say—they’re usually from somewhere specific, and they put that with their title.”

“You were stronger than her.”

“Yes, but I’m only strong here, at home. If she’d caught me in the slip today…”

“Right,” he said solemnly. “Is there a way for your power to travel with you?”

“Not that I know of.”

“What about when you make that flame in your hand that scared the crap out of my brother? That seems to stay with you.”

“That’s elemental magic.”

“And what does that mean?” he asked as he used a brush I’d never seen before in my life, like one for a horse, to untangle the dog’s hair.

I had to think a moment. “Helping magic, I guess is the way to phrase it. The elements are always with you in whatever realm. Earth and water, fire and air are universal. Whatever power can be drawn from them aids the witch, so that I can use.”

“So you’re saying that only the ground around here, on Corvus, is useful to you to protect yourself,” he asked, straightening, ceasing with his brushing of the dog to meet my gaze.

“Or kill with,” I said flatly. “You can say ‘kill with’ because the land will only grant the power if it’s just and righteous. If I invited over some hot guy who was hitting on you and tried to feed him to the trees, that wouldn’t be allowed.”

“Noted,” he replied, smiling for a moment before he got serious again. “That’s why you left my house, isn’t it? Because you couldn’t protect me there.”

“Yes.”

“You led the sorceress and her wolves here to fight them because you had no chance of defeating them at mine.”

“Well, yes, but mostly, I had to draw them away from you and your family.”

“I know.” He crossed the room to me again, and kissed me longer this time, leaving me warm and muzzy when he pulled away. “I can tell you care.”

I took a breath. “Lorne, I’m so sorry you got caught up in this, and I’m even more sorry that the rift on my land is—”

“Stop,” he said firmly, his gaze heavy as he met mine. He then went back to the waiting Gwyn, resuming his brushing. “I know without you here, we’d all be vulnerable, like lambs to the slaughter.”

“Yes, but you—”

“It’s true. We would have no warning, no protection, and one moment we’d be here and the next we’d be gone like Roanoke or some—wait. Is that what happened?”

“I don’t know. I would have to go and see if there’s a rift there. It would explain so much, though.”

“But…it could be like that?”

“It could.”

Returning his attention to the dog, he smiled at her, noting, I was sure, just as I did, that her coat glowed like it was touched by moonlight.

“Your dogs are so pretty. What kind are they?”

“Cŵn Annwn,” I answered truthfully.

“I don’t know what kind that is.”

“Special,” I assured him.

“Oh, I get it. They’re magic too, are they?”

“Don’t say it like that,” I warned him. “Because they are magic.”

He grunted, hung the towel on the back of the chair, put the brush on the table, washed his hands, dried them, and then walked over to me, taking a seat on the ancient chest that, much like the one in his house, doubled as a coffee table.

“You’re amazing,” he murmured, slipping his hand around the side of my neck.

“Am I?” I said, fishing like I only did with him, unable, it seemed, not to fall easily under his spell. I wanted him closer.

“Yeah. Now let’s get you in the shower.” He prodded me, helping me stand. “I already got the fire going in there.”

The way he was looking at me, like I was so very special, was overwhelming, but something else had me unbalanced as well. What could it be…

I gasped and jolted, startling him, and his hands clenched on my biceps.

“What’s wrong?” he asked sharply, glancing around the room. He didn’t know that nothing in my house could hurt him. Ever.

It had taken me a moment, but I’d finally zeroed in on the extraordinary happening. “How did you get the hearth going?”

“Sorry?”

“The hearth,” I repeated. “How did you get the fire started?”

He made a face. “I stacked up wood and lit a match.”

But the hearth was enchanted, it was why after centuries of use, the stones weren’t blackened, and why only someone from the Corey line could ever hope to feed it logs and make it blaze as it was now. Same for the one in my room, the largest of the bedrooms, which used to belong to my grandparents. But somehow, someway, it was downright toasty in the living room and kitchen, and normally, at this time of night, I would get the fireplace in my room going but leave everything else cold. It took too much time. The house hadn’t been this warm since…

Since the day he came here with Pete.

That morning, the house had been cozy and inviting. He even remarked on it when he walked through. What was going on?

“Xan? Are you all right?”

I nodded, and he started walking me toward my bedroom.

“You look a little out of it,” he rumbled, putting his arm around me, supporting most of my weight. “But that’s to be expected. You were really something out there. You were so strong and powerful and kept us all safe… I mean, I know this makes no sense, but I really hope I can return the favor someday.”

He didn’t understand. He was already doing something amazing. Usually, after calling on the land and its power, I was wiped out, drained. And I had been because I’d passed out, but typically, there was more. When I woke up, everything hurt. Tonight, if I’d been alone, after crawling to consciousness in the rain and mud, I would have been freezing, and would have had to fight that, as well as the nearly paralyzing feelings of emptiness and loneliness. It would have been a battle to rise, to even lift my head so I wouldn’t drown. And it sounded overly dramatic, but once every drop of power was drained from your body at once, doing anything more took a herculean effort I couldn’t always summon.

But this time…this time it was different.

He was here, and I felt hopeful, and the house was warm like it had been when my grandparents were alive, but even more than that, I felt like me. I felt grounded and settled, like everything was balanced and…

I gasped again, the sound startling him anew.

“Will you stop doing that?” he snapped, shooting me a scowl as he steered me down the short hall.

“You should go home and—”

“What? I’m not going home.” He walked me into my bedroom, and amazingly, the room was as warm as the rest of the house.

“But…” I had to think. I had to give him a good reason to go because getting used to this kind of care and then him leaving…would end me. And he would leave; of course he would. Who in their right mind wanted a witch who guarded a rift to be their mate? That was madness. So he had to go. Now. “You’re not safe here.”

“Oh, the hell I’m not,” he groused, not buying it for a second, leading me to the bathroom, where the only shower in the house was. Amanda had put it in for me two years ago, and it had truly been a welcome addition.

I bit my lip. Think, think, think… “Your brother and your niece need you to watch over them.”

“Why?” he asked skeptically, opening the glass door, leaning in, and turning on the water. “The house is in good shape after your cleansing, and who’s going to attack them? The things—the vargrs—am I saying that right?”

“Yes, but—”

“They weren’t there for me. They were there for you. My family isn’t in danger. Would I put them in danger if I went back? I dunno. Maybe. But what I do know is that I’m safe here with you, and they’re safe there without me or you.”

I huffed out a breath. “You’re very logical.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“And smart.”

He waggled his eyebrows at me.

“I just…”

“Don’t get weird. You always get weird and worry about things you need to let go.”

“What? I do not.”

“Yes you do,” he insisted. “And I know it’s well-meaning, but it’s annoying, yeah?”

Annoying? “You have no idea how I am and certainly don’t know me well enough to use the word always in any kind of sentence that describes me!” I finished, sounding damn high-handed and loud.

He waited.

I deflated, standing there feeling, I was certain, as bad as I looked.

“Do you have a—oh, I see,” he said, and there, to the right of my sink, an enormous willow basket held my clothes. This morning when I left the house, they were in a much smaller handheld rattan bag someone had given me. Where that was, I had no idea. Apparently my house wanted everything to be as Lorne expected it to be, so it was moving things from the cavernous basement that held a treasure trove of items to where they would most logically be for him.

It never tried this hard for me. I lost things all the time that never turned up. But for him, there it was.

“This is disconcerting,” I said out loud.

“What is?” he asked, peeling my cardigan off me, lifting it free, and dropping it into the lovely undyed, natural basket that, interestingly, was large enough for two people to put clothes in.

“Nothing, I—what did you mean when you said I get weird?”

“Ever since we met,” he said, slipping the T-shirt up over my head and off, “you’ve been running hot and cold crazy-fast.”

“I have not.”

“Yes, you have.” He leaned in and planted a kiss on me that I didn’t want to ever end. When he leaned back, or tried to, I realized I had my arms wrapped around his neck. “Stop it. You like me a lot, Xander, so quit with being guarded.”

What was I supposed to say to him?

Lorne motioned toward the living room. “I’m gonna put down the rugs for the dogs, and in the meantime, you get in the shower. I’ll get my bag from the living room.”

“You packed a bag?”

“I always have a go bag in the car. I’m a cop. We have to be prepared.”

“Okay, but…what rugs?”

“The rugs for the dogs to lie down on.”

As a rule, the spectral hounds did not sleep in my house with the cat. “But—”

“They sleep by the fire, right? That’s why the rugs are in that basket.”

Oh, for heaven’s sake. “What basket?”

“The one by the—did you hit your head on something when you fell?”

“No, I—”

“Then take off your socks and pants and underwear and get in the shower, because I’m coming in as soon as I get back.”

And I wanted that desperately, so why would I argue? “Okay.”

“Okay.” He smiled, kissed my cheek, and left the room.

Stripping down, I realized he’d taken off my shoes and put them somewhere I was sure the house had created for him. Perhaps there was a lovely new rack.

“You better stop it,” I said, stepping under the water that was also far warmer than usual. “He doesn’t belong to me, and he shouldn’t. I’m no good for him.”

Ice-cold water followed that statement, and I shrieked. It warmed up instantly.

Apparently, the house wanted him there and didn’t like my defeatist attitude.

But the thing was, if I let down all my walls and opened for him only to find out that my life was too much for him…I might not recover. And really, how else could that go?

I was the steward of Corvus, and that was a lifetime commitment. I couldn’t move with him if he wanted to go. I couldn’t even be away from the land for more than a week at a time. It simply wasn’t possible. No one wanted to be tied to such an unexciting place, and this was what I was offering. Guardianship of a doorway to other realms, cue the fanfare. Who didn’t want to simply live in my little house with me for the rest of their life? It sounded fantastic.

And yet…when I’d woken up, he was drying one of the Cŵn Annwn, which should not have been possible. The dogs were not, as a rule, corporeal. Could they hunt? Yes. Fight? Of course. Be hurt? No. Not in their spectral form. The fact that they’d made themselves flesh and blood, merely, as far as I could tell, for Lorne’s benefit, was mind-boggling. Of course when they did it, I had to protect them from Rulaine, but the question was, why did they put themselves in harm’s way to begin with? Was it just so Lorne could interact with them? I could always see them, it was one of my gifts, but why him?

“Not to mention,” I said to the ether, “why the hell was Gwyn wet?” In her spectral form, she couldn’t be wet, but she had decided to let the rain soak her so the man had to dry her off and then brush her. It was like the dogs and the house both wanted his attention. Not that I could blame them. I wanted his attention too.

“Okay,” he announced, and suddenly there he was, naked. “I’m coming in.”

I was certain I whimpered.

“No?”

“Yes, please,” I barely got out with my tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth.

I had thought him beautiful with his clothes on. I’d had no idea. The sleek, tawny skin stretched for miles over carved, thick muscles, broad shoulders, and a wide chest. His dark eyes were locked on me, and seeing the desire there, the hunger, made me catch my breath.

He opened the shower door, and then he was crowded up against me in seconds, his arms wrapped around me before he bent and his hot mouth was on mine, demanding submission, staking his claim. If he’d spoken the words, I would have answered yes, screamed the word Yes! I was his. Scared or not, uncertain or not, I had to keep him for as long as I could. And if he woke in the morning and ran, I would have this to remember. The one and only man I’d trusted with my life, my home, my body.

When he stepped back, I swayed on my feet, and then I heard the low, filthy chuckle. My eyes snapped open. He was pouring soap into his hands.

“What’re you doing?” I moaned. “Have me.”

“We’re going to wash all the dirt and mud off you.”

Reaching out, I took hold of his cock, which was long and thick and gorgeous, and it hardened in my hand as I stroked him.

“Knock it off,” he husked, taking a deep breath, those bottomless deep-blue eyes of his all I could see as he slid free of my grip. “You will allow me to care for you so that together we can get into that big bed of yours.”

“Yes, but—”

“I want you so bad,” he said, hands in my hair, massaging my scalp, pushing the homemade shampoo through the tangled mane that fell to the middle of my back. “But I want the closeness first. I want the trust I deserve, the faith I need, and for you to let me in.”

“Oh, you can be in now,” I growled at him.

He ignored my offer. “I’m crazy about you. Do you understand? You drive me insane, and do you have any idea how long I’ve waited for that? To care enough to want to strangle someone?”

“You have murder on your mind?” I asked, closing my eyes and letting my head tip back, surrendering myself to him.

“You talk a lot. Do you know that?”

“The other night, before Argos found us, I wanted to be closer, but that wasn’t what you wanted. You didn’t want me.”

“For a smart man, you can be really stupid,” he murmured. “I always want you, but that was crazy. And then the cat was there, which was almost surreal, and…nothing made sense. It felt like my world flipped upside down.”

I opened my eyes and searched his face. “Really?”

“Yes, really. I just needed to get my bearings, but, Xan, I swear, I want us to be a thing. Don’t doubt that.”

I sighed deep and long. “I want that too.”

“Then let me take care of you.”

So I did.

He was so gentle as he used my wooden comb and my conditioner, then scrubbed me from head to toe, missing nothing. When I was done, he had me get out as he washed himself. I stood there watching him, saw how rough he was with himself in contrast to how tender he’d been with me.

Once he was out, he dried us both, but before he could move away, I put my hands on him, stilling his motion. His eyes were soft as he watched me grab oil from my sink, pour some into my hands, and run them all over him. He didn’t ask what I was doing, just trusted, and once I had it everywhere, on his face, his neck, back, chest, arms, legs, I pointed to the bed. By the time he lifted the covers, the oil had absorbed into his skin, and I liked seeing his surprise at that. His slow, lazy smile made me shiver.

“How? What is this? More magic?”

“Just good ingredients,” I teased him, thinking of all the things that went into my grandmother’s oil. “And I’m going to start taking care of you from right now. Every part.”

“Okay,” he said, grinning at me. “I accept.”

He watched as I stood by the fire and coated myself in the same oil, as I always did. “It’s very sexy when it’s going on you.”

I grunted. “Well, you’re beautiful, and all I want to do is touch you,” I confessed.

“And you’re gold all over,” he husked, his voice rough and ragged. “And all I want is you under me.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “Good. Let’s do that now. I have a different kind of oil for—”

“Get in bed,” he directed me.

As I hung things up and turned off the lights, he crawled naked into my bed. I followed quickly, the only light in the room coming from the fire.

“Do we have to put out the fire in the hearth?”

“No, the house will watch the hearth.”

“Is the house watching us?” he whispered playfully.

“Yes,” I replied honestly.

“Hopefully it doesn’t shock easily,” he murmured, reaching for me. “I mean, you know, for when we get it on.”

“And when will that be?”

“When you’re not going to pass out on me,” he whispered playfully.

I was chuckling as I snuggled in tightly against his chest, loving the feel of his warm skin on mine.

“I dreamed about this,” he whispered.

I wanted to say, Don’t ever leave me, but I swallowed down the words. “Please stay.”

“Not going anywhere,” he rumbled, and breathed in and then out, deeply, settling, and I could hear how bone-weary he was. It was a lot, what he’d been through today, even for a seasoned cop from the big city.

Draped across his chest, I heard the beat of his heart, and I couldn’t remember ever feeling so content or safe.

NINE

Most people believed that dreams were just that, offering a glimpse into your psyche as you slept. I’d read somewhere that no one new ever appeared in your dreams that you hadn’t actually met in real life. But I’d dreamed about Jennifer Aniston on more than one occasion and never crossed paths with the actress ever. That part, I suspected, was crap.

For witches, and I was betting for many others, dreams were places where the dead could visit, crossing the veil easily during that time to answer questions, offer guidance, or point out something obvious that had been missed. I liked to dream and always hoped that my grandparents, or my parents, whom I knew only vaguely, as they’d both passed in a car accident when I was barely two, would visit.

I always knew I was dreaming because there were odd things that made little sense. Right now, I was riding across Corvus on a tandem bicycle with my grandmother, Enedina Corey, in front of me. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, and she looked amazing, laughing, with her long brown hair flowing behind her and tickling my face. She kept looking over her shoulder and smiling at me, and I was yelling at her to watch where she was going. What was weird, other than us riding so easily across the countryside, was that she had never ridden a bike in her life as far as I knew, and her clothes were like something from the 1880s, petticoats and all. In fact, she looked like she should be on a penny-farthing and have a weird hat. When we stopped, having nearly plowed into a huge angel oak I knew was near the rift site, we were both laughing.

“Why are we out here?” I asked her.

“I don’t know.” She spun in the wind with her arms out. “I just love it here so much. Don’t you?”

I did. In the spring I sat in the meadow close by and watched the does bring their fawns, the mother quails walking with their chicks, and all the rabbits. It was like a scene out of Bambi, and it never ceased to make me smile. Where we were, though, was toward the deeper forest, nearly where the preserve began, but you could still smell the salty ocean air on the breeze because that too was close.

“Why are we here?” I asked her again, staring at her, marveling at how beautiful she was, her long lashes brushing the tops of her cheeks when she closed her eyes.

I was missing something; that had to be it. We were riding along, she was as distracted by me as I was by her, and everything else had been moving in a blur. Something occurred to me.

“Why are you so happy?”

She smiled and bit her bottom lip. “I met someone. He’s in the Peace Corps, and he loves my village, but he’s worried, I think, that I would never leave it. But I would, you know. For him I would, and his home sounds lovely.”

My grandparents, Enedina Bautista and Arthur Corey, had met when my grandfather was sent to El Salvador. She was a nurse at a local hospital but also a healer, taught by her grandmother. He was there to build homes, wells, all the things needed. They were smitten with each other from the moment they met, and then came love. But what did any of that have to do with me? With now?

“You’re distracted, you said?” I asked her as she spun some more, faster, until she lost her footing and fell down into the grass.

I moved—floated, really; it was a dream, after all—over to her and stood still, staring down at her, seeing she was older now, the woman I’d known.

“Sometimes when we’re not looking, we find our future.”

Oh, dear Lord. I groaned loudly, stepping back.

She sat up and grinned at me.

“You’re pushing,” I told her. “Lorne might not want to be tied to the land, or to me.”

She made that humming sound that meant she was considering something, and I noticed she wasn’t looking at me anymore but over near the oak. When I turned, I saw blood there, and then more, rising through the rift.

But that wasn’t possible. No matter what they did on the other side, the number of souls murdered, it would never be enough blood to wash into our dimension and create a path. That simply couldn’t happen.

And I’d cleansed the body that had once been Rulaine before the land consumed her. So there was no tainted blood on my side of the rift to call on.

“You’re saying I’m missing something,” I said to my grandmother, who was now my grandfather, getting up and dusting himself off.

“Like logs on the fire,” he told me, which didn’t help at all.

“Is there any way you could be more clear?”

He shrugged and turned away but then looked over his shoulder at me. “He seems like mortar to me.”

“Listen,” I began, ready to give him a piece of my mind because he was slipping around from subject to subject without any context. He’d gone from giving me a warning to talking about Lorne. I knew that because he’d always said I was foundational, like the bricks of the hearth the house was built around, and suddenly Lorne was the mortar?

He was gone, though, on the breeze, and I was left in the dream alone. It was dark suddenly, the blood was rising, and I was starting to get scared.

Being a dream, I was swimming in blood in seconds, and I saw a doe standing on a small hill, screaming, which I’d never heard a deer do in my life, and I just knew her fawn was lost. I had to find her baby, so I dived under the blood now moving river-fast, but there was nothing underneath except bodies, so many, moving with me in the current.

Coming up for air, flailing, my hand was grabbed, and it was Lorne. He was on a paddleboard, and once I was on, I realized there was a fawn with him and knew where he belonged and to whom. When I lifted my head to tell him, he tipped his chin at me.

“Like logs on a fire,” he said, and sighed.

“What?” I asked sharply.

“They stack up.”

My eyes snapped open, and I was in my bed. When I turned to my right, Rulaine was there in my grandmother’s rocking chair, reading Candide, of all things.

“You’re ridiculous,” she said, and went back to her book.

Jolting, I woke up, and the room that had been dark was lighter, letting me know it was early, before dawn. Checking the room, I saw no ghosts, noted that Argos was curled up on the rocking chair and that everything else appeared normal. The best part, without question, was Lorne, beside me, passed out, tucked under the covers like someone had made sure he would be warm. I was guessing my grandmother.

Leaning sideways, I kissed his forehead, and he grunted in his sleep.

Getting up, grabbing my robe, I went through the house, not surprised to find the dogs gone or the hearth still blazing. It made the dash to the back door so much nicer than the normal arctic temperature of a November morning. Of course this was nothing compared to January, but I hated the cold and was always in layers.

Stepping outside, I dropped the robe, dashed forward, thought fly, and took to the air, needing to check the rift for myself.

When I arrived, landing in a maple tree, not about to shift and freeze to death, I saw nothing out of the ordinary before getting closer and landing on a fallen log. I saw it then, a mangled body thrown from the rift, landing hard, in a splatter of blood and tissue.

In seconds it was smoking, and then there was a whoosh as flames consumed the corpse and blew hard back into the rift, as though sucked by a vacuum.

Two more came in quick succession, and the answer from the land, from my land, was repeated. Cleansing fire, instantaneous combustion, and ashes blown into the rift. Five came next, and I understood then as I took to the air to return home. They were going to throw out bodies to make a path, like a raft on the ground. What was perplexing was that for them to even throw anything through, there had to be bodies or blood already on my side.

Arriving at the back door, I shifted, or tried to and realized I wasn’t a flock of birds but just one like my grandfather had been. And instead of being where I thought I was, I found myself standing over the house, staring at everything at once, and had to blow the clouds away so I could see the land. When I saw the flock of ravens, it hit me.

“Shit,” I said.

“Wake up!” all the birds yelled at me.

Sitting up in bed, I looked around carefully and found I was alone. The room was well lit, which told me it was later in the morning, and I smelled coffee of all things.

Getting out of bed, I went to the antique armoire in the corner of the room and pulled on briefs, sweats, socks, and a long-sleeved T-shirt before going into the living room.

“Good morning,” I greeted Lorne, who was sipping a mug of coffee.

“Good morning to you,” he said, smiling at me.

“I need to tell you something.”

He looked worried suddenly. “What?”

“Did you wonder last night why you found my clothes at your place?”

“I did. And so you know, I brought those with me, plus everything that was in my car that belongs to you.”

I nodded.

“But yes, if you don’t mind telling me, I’d love to know why you left my house naked.”

I took a breath. “My line, the Corey line, was blessed by a goddess, and that blessing, in me specifically, allows me to turn into a flock of ravens.”

He just stared at me.

I stared back.

“I’m sorry?”

Exhaling deeply, I said, “I turn into a flock of ravens.”

“You turn into a flock of ravens?”

Clearly, he was having trouble with this. “Yes.”

“Okay.”

We stood there, me feeling awkward and unsure, and him… I couldn’t tell what he was feeling at all.

After several moments he cleared his throat. “May I see?”

“Certainly,” I replied, walking toward the sunroom.

Once I was at the back door, realizing he was right behind me, I stripped fast, opened the door, and rushed outside. Thinking the word fly, I took a running leap.

Instantly, I was soaring over the house, circling it once, and again, and since I was already shifted, I flew to check on the rift. It took only moments. I flew low, landed on the ground, which I never did—I was far too vulnerable that way—and then hopped closer, inspecting the land, the trees, the very air.

Wanting to make sure everything was solid and safe, I called out to the land and was answered that all was well. Rushing away, I was airborne in seconds, flying home.

Lorne must have moved because he was holding my clothes, but he was still staring up at the sky when I returned. I dropped down and landed, as myself, and he was there to wrap an arm around me and rush me inside.

Pulling on my clothes and shivering, the second I was dressed, he swept me off my feet, literally, and rushed me over to the hearth, where he gently put me down but didn’t leave me. It was really amazing to have him there, worried, caring for me, and I was both thrilled and terrified at the same time. Already, that fast, he would leave a hole in my heart when he left. And he would leave, because who in their right mind wanted to be wrapped up in my world?

But then my brain kicked in that perhaps I did not have my priorities straight. I needed answers, and I didn’t have time to find them alone.

He was still holding me, standing with his chest pressed against my back, his heavy arms draped around my neck, and though I was loath to move, I had to. “Hey,” I murmured, “I need to lean out the front door and yell for a moment, all right?”

“What?”

“One second,” I said, then dashed to the front door and stepped out onto my porch, into the chilled morning air. “I need help,” I pleaded to the wind. “Things are happening, and I have no idea how to seal our side. I could use some guidance.”

Closing the door, I faced Lorne again.

“You’re a real witch,” he told me.

“Didn’t… I’m confused. Weren’t you convinced of this yesterday?”

He opened his mouth to say something, stopped, and then abruptly went to the kitchen. I followed, watching as he picked up his coffee mug, took a sip, inhaled deeply, closed his eyes for a second, and then opened them and exhaled. Only then did he look at me. “Okay, so…I’m gonna need time to wrap my brain around all this.”

My heart sank. “Yes. Of course,” I said sadly. “You go, and when you’re—”

“No.” He moved closer, sliding his big, hard hand around the side of my neck and drawing me close. “Sorry. That wasn’t clear. What I mean is, we need to concentrate on taking care of whatever you’re needing help with right now, which will allow me not to freak out.”

I was stunned.

“What?” He was rubbing over my jaw with his thumb, and then he leaned in and kissed me. It was soft and tender, and I whimpered in the back of my throat in relief and happiness. “It’s gonna be okay,” he assured me, smiling. “So tell me what’s going on.”

Really, I couldn’t be more pleased with him. “You’re amazing.”

“Yes, I know,” he said like that was not up for debate. “But really, you need to tell me what’s happening so we can deal with it. One crisis at a time. That’s what my training officer always told me.”

“Okay.” I took a breath, already feeling so much better just being able to share. I explained about the bodies and what I thought the minions of Threun were trying to do.

“A pile of bodies this Threun can step on like planks on a bridge. This is what you’re saying.”

Planks on a bridge was a much better simile than a raft. “Yes.”

“Okay.” He took my hand and squeezed, then let go and went to the counter, where the French press Amanda had bought me ages ago sat next to a bag of whole beans she’d brought back from a trip to Brazil, and a hand-crank grinder. All these things had been put away somewhere in the house, certainly not in the kitchen, as I didn’t drink coffee, but were now, somehow, easily accessible for Lorne.

Incredible.

I lived with magic constantly, but every now and then, still, it had the power to completely surprise me. The house, imbued with centuries of energy, was now—and I suspected had been for ages—sentient. Not in the way where we could have a conversation, but it would provide because I loved it and it loved me back.

“Thank you for sheltering and taking care of me,” I whispered to the house as I did every morning, normally before I got out of bed.

“And thank you for the coffee,” Lorne chimed in.

“Maybe I left that for you.”

He grunted. “Like you knew I only drink coffee in the morning. It took me a minute, but I get how things work now.”

“Oh? How do things work?”

“Well, I think you were explaining your need outside, hoping someone would come help you, yes?”

“Yes.”

“And I’m guessing you’re calling for an ancestor of yours?”

He was right and, as I’d noted before, quite intuitive.

“But maybe, instead, you could ask the house or cabin or… I think you need to ask what it likes to be called.”

“What it likes to be—”

“It was rude of me not to ask,” he said, talking to my home, not to me, “but in my defense, this is my first time speaking to a house.”

“Why are you?”

“Because I should know what it prefers to be called. You should tell me,” he said, directing that to me.

“Why would that matter?”

“What do you mean, why would that matter?” He was squinting at me. “If you address it correctly, I’m sure you’ll get better results when you ask for guidance. That’s just logical.”

“Logical?” Was he kidding?

“Yeah.” He took another sip from his mug.

“Okay, well, honestly, I have no idea what my house prefers to be called.”

“Then you should ask,” he reiterated, then drained his mug and poured himself more. “Seems like the polite thing.”

“I have milk and cream in the—”

“No, thank you. I drink this black.”

“Oh, that’s disgusting,” I assured him.

“Says you,” he muttered. “But about the house, I’m getting a very motherly vibe.”

“You are not. You don’t strike me as the vibe type.”

“You prefer feeling? I’m getting a very warm, nurturing feeling. It was the same the first time I was here. And how do you get it to smell like this?”

“Like what?”

“I dunno. Maybe it’s all the tea. But let’s talk to your dwelling.” When I raised an eyebrow, he said, “I’m being generic until we have the proper noun.” Then, “House? How do you feel about house?” He went quiet, waiting and listening. “Cabin?” Another pause. “Cottage?” he offered, going still again, but then suddenly grinning widely. “That’s it. That’s the one. Definitely cottage. Did you feel all the warm air and smell the lemon cake?”

I had not. “You smelled lemon cake?” That was what my grandfather said the house used to smell like all the time when his grandmother was alive. Apparently her signature dessert was lemon cake with lavender frosting.

“Yeah. Cottage it is,” he told me. “And so now you can ask the cottage if it would please point us in the direction of what we need.”

“No. It doesn’t work like—”

A loud bang had us both looking around before Lorne put his mug down on the kitchen table and jogged toward the living room. There was a trapdoor next to the couch, and interestingly, the rug that covered it had been thrown sideways, and the door itself was open.

I didn’t understand what was going on, because the dark, dank little room could be of no help to us. It was filled with boxes of Yule ornaments on one side, and on the other, where the stone shelves were, jars of tomatoes, corn, and pickles. After my grandmother died, my grandfather and I had shrunk the vegetable garden, even though there was still quite a bit of canning to do before every winter. We’d let half the garden go wild, and while the animals appreciated it, I knew from the judgmental dreams I’d had over the years that my grandmother was not happy about that. The hidden room was also supposed to be for firewood, but the up and down on the ladder was a pain for me, and dangerous for my grandfather as he got older. We’d moved the wood pile to the sunporch.

“There’s nothing in there that would be even remotely helpful,” I told Lorne as he reached the door and crouched down.

“How do you know?” He stuck his head into the room. “Is there a light down here or—oh, never mind, I see it, and the ladder is awesome.”

“What do you mean you see it?”

“This is so cool, how you turn this old knob and the light comes on,” he said cheerfully, holding on to the floor to find his footing and then starting his descent.

I threw up my hands, looking around the room. “I’m the one who takes care of you,” I said, reminding the house—crap, cottage—of where its loyalties should lie.

“What?” Lorne said, the top of his head having disappeared.

“Nothing,” I grumbled. “But really, be careful. That ladder is old, so test your weight on each rung.”

“It feels pretty solid to me,” he called up.

Of course it was sturdy and could support his weight when it was him on the damn ladder.

“You’re wasting your time.” I walked over to the trapdoor, where now, suddenly, light was emanating from the depths of the room. Normally, I had to take a lantern down there and hang it up while I grabbed whatever I needed. “There’s nothing down there but—”

“Oh, it’s awesome. It’s like a little library.”

What? Going to my knees, leaning down, head in the hole, I saw Lorne walking around the small room I thought I was familiar with, but instead of wooden walls, it now had brick ones painted white. Wooden shelves, I was guessing oak, were built into the walls, heavy woven rugs covered the floor, and there was a lovely desk with an antique hurricane lamp and a chair that looked like it was upholstered in leather. On the opposite side sat a wingback chair with what appeared to be one of my grandmother’s quilts draped over it, and an ottoman. It was decidedly cozy.

“Are you kidding me?” I was incredulous.

Lorne looked up. “Sorry?”

“Nothing. I guess you can check and see if—”

“Was this your grandfather’s desk?”

“No, it was not,” I assured him, leaning up before I got a headache. “His desk is in his den, that’s now my den but whatever. I’m gonna make us some breakfast while you look around down there.”

“Excellent plan,” he called up, sounding distracted.

I had to get back to the issue at hand, which was the imminent threat of bodies thrown out of the rift with increasing frequency, but I also knew that the land would have warned me if anything had actually breached the gateway. It meant I had time to get food in us before everything went to hell. And even faced with everything going on, it was nice to have Lorne there to spend my Sunday morning with.

The knock on the door was a surprise.

Declan Grant, now my friend, stood there with a large bag.

“Good morning, Declan. It’s nice to see you, but it’s kind of early.”

“I know,” he said with a sigh, “but I couldn’t sleep, and I just… I had to do something for you—and strangely, for Chief MacBain, who’s also on my mind—to show my appreciation for—oh, what a beautiful cat!” He pointed behind me.

And indeed there was Argos, looking down into the hole, probably wondering where it came from and what Lorne was doing down there.

“That’s the daemon I told you about.”

“Really? He doesn’t look like any I’ve ever seen.”

“When he gets big, believe me, you’ll be reminded,” I said, inhaling whatever was in the bag he had with him. “Do you have cinnamon rolls in there?”

“I do,” he replied, smiling wide. He really was beautiful, but fauns were as a rule, and he’d lost none of that changing into his permanent human form. “And crispy bacon for the chief, as I’m sure you don’t eat meat.”

“You would be correct.”

“I also brought him eggs and biscuits, and I made avocado toast for you.”

“Thank you,” I said, opening the door for him.

He tipped his head as though listening, and just stood there and waited. “My intentions are pure toward all inhabitants of this charming…” It took a moment. “Oh, cottage. How lovely.”

I groaned.

He took a breath and began again. “My intentions are pure, and actually quite warm, toward all inhabitants of this charming cottage, as well as toward the domicile itself.”

“Just come in already,” I groused at him.

“Were you raised in a barn, because I was, and my manners are still better than yours.”

I sighed. Loudly. “The food’s getting cold.”

“What’s wrong with you?” He stepped inside, passing me the bag as he took off his polished ankle boots, and placed them on the same shoe rack Lorne had used the day before. Where these things kept appearing from, I had no idea but I was guessing that that cavernous storage room on the other side of the cottage held treasures I’d never be able to count. Once done, he reclaimed the bag from me and proceeded toward the kitchen. “Are you sick?”

“I’m not sick,” I muttered.

“You’re certain? Because you’re in a terrible mood.” He started unpacking the goodies he’d brought.

Lorne came far enough up the ladder to hold a book out for me. I darted over and took it from him.

“Hey,” he greeted Declan.

“Good morning, Chief,” he said happily. “I brought you breakfast. Do you like hash browns or grits?”

“Both,” Lorne assured him, grinning. “That was damn nice of you.”

“Well, you and Xander were both very kind to me. Come here. I have cinnamon rolls too. Are there more coffee beans to grind or—oh, I see them.”

“Where do you see them?” I asked, rushing back over to where he was.

He looked concerned as he opened the cupboard, where bags of coffee beans were neatly arranged. “I love this hand-crank grinder, those work so well, and it’s so hard to find good ones anywhere.”

At the table, Lorne was taking the remaining boxes out of the bag while Declan poured beans into the grinder, and as soon as the cinnamon rolls were out, I grabbed one and sat down to leaf through the book Lorne had found.

“Um, we use forks and knives at this level,” Lorne said, clearly repulsed by my caveman manners. He put a plate and utensils near me, then laid a napkin in my lap.

“Cloth napkins, Xander, how charming,” Declan mused.

I grunted and opened the book Lorne had found, which turned out to be a diary. “Why did you bring this?” I asked Lorne, seeing the old-fashioned penmanship on the pages.

“Because it fell off the shelf.”

That seemed reasonable.

“Do you have a kettle for the stove or—”

“It’s hanging over there by the fire,” Lorne directed Declan. “Use the mitt when you grab it so you don’t burn yourself.”

I wasn’t even going to ask what mitt, because I’d used a dish towel for as long as I could remember. The fact that there was suddenly a mitt, with a hook for it to go back on, was pissing me off. It was like the house was on its best behavior, first for Lorne, and now for Declan, whom it also seemed to want to impress. It was similar with Amanda, and I remembered how my grandfather had been when she came to live with us.

“Oh, look,” he’d say sarcastically. “The broom is suddenly in the closet with everything else.”

“Where else would it be?” Amanda had asked innocently.

It was the same for Lorne and Declan. Everything they needed—a butter knife for Declan, a platter for Lorne to put the biscuits on—suddenly, inexplicably, was accessible in places one would expect them to be. It was annoying and also sort of sweet.

“Do you want milk with that cinnamon roll?” Declan asked me.

“I do, yes, and this is amazing, by the way.”

“I’m sorry. Your mouth is full, so it’s hard to understand you.”

I glanced at Lorne, who made a face.

Asking him what his problem was proved as useless as speaking to Declan—he couldn’t understand me either.

“Chew your food,” Lorne directed, shaking his head, then told Declan, “You know, for a guy who used to be a faun, you seem very comfortable being human.”

“That’s because I’ve lived as a human all over your world in many different places and times. I loved being one of you before I got to be one now, forever. So yes, I’m better at being human than fae.”

“What do you mean, different times?”

“Well, as you know, fauns live for centuries.”

“I didn’t know that at all.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I—all this, the magic, it’s all brand new. I mean, just hours before we barged into your office, I was completely unaware any of this existed.”

“Well, I must say, you’re handling it all very well.”

“Thank you. I’m trying. The shape-changing threw me this morning.”

“Are you talking about the cat?”

“No, I haven’t seen—I meant Xander.”

Declan leaned sideways to smile at me. “It’s a raven your line changes into, yes?”

“It is. I change into a whole flock.”

“Really,” he breathed out. “How remarkable. To be many at once… My word, Xander, but you are a very powerful witch.”

“You wouldn’t know that from how my cottage is treating me,” I groused.

“I’m sorry?”

“Nothing.”

“Wait,” Lorne interrupted, “so…you had a long life as a faun. Does that translate to a long human life as well?”

“I certainly hope not,” Declan answered, chuckling.

I felt terrible. “Shit, Declan, I should have asked that before I—”

“Oh, good heavens, no. Xander, you have absolutely nothing to be sorry for. You’ve given me everything I’ve always wanted, a chance to have a real life away from every part of being a member of the fae. I couldn’t be happier. I’m forever in your debt.”

I was relieved but had to make something clear. “You don’t owe me a thing,” I assured him. “And that was”—I licked my fingers, making both him and Lorne wince—“the most amazing cinnamon roll I’ve ever had in my life.”

“Well, good, and while I’m pleased, might you use the napkin Lorne provided you?”

I wanted to tell him that I was normally the epitome of good manners, it was only that I was a bit hungry this morning. I always was the night after using my power. “It was just so good; I might have gotten a bit carried away.”

“What a lovely compliment,” he said with a sigh.

All his food was amazing, and I told Declan that again, later, as I cleared the table.

“So you think my bistro will be a success?”

“That’s what you call it? Not a bakery and sandwich shop?”

His face showed his disdain for my words. “No. It’s a bistro, an upscale eatery. A sandwich shop? That’s so…plebian. Here, let me help you clean up,” he offered.

“No, you brought everything. I’ll take care of it.”

He smiled as he sipped his coffee that he too, horribly, drank black as well. I didn’t understand that at all.

Lorne was looking through the diary, convinced that the book slipping off the shelf in what we were now calling the library had not been an accident but the cottage speaking to us.

“Now please trust me enough to tell me what you think you’re up against,” Declan pleaded with me. “I would love to help.”

“Well, your friend Rulaine came to visit us last night,” Lorne explained, and Declan gasped, I was guessing, horrified for us.

“Were you scared but at the same time in total awe of how beautiful she was?” Declan asked. “It’s crazy, isn’t it? I mean, she’s evil incarnate but looks like one of the consorts of my first mistress, the Lady Islyn.”

“She was beautiful to you?”

“Yes. Very much so.”

I turned to Lorne. “And you?”

“To me, she looked like that actress Cassandra Peterson, when she was playing Elvira, Mistress of the Dark,” he explained. “So yeah, very pretty.”

“Huh.”

“I hesitate to ask what she looked like to you,” Declan said, “but I must know.”

“Honestly, she looked like one of the teachers I had in elementary school that I didn’t necessarily like.”

Lorne asked, “Is that something a sorceress does? Changing like that depending on whom she’s facing?”

“Sorceress?” Declan seemed confused. “Is that what she said?”

“Yeah,” I told him. “She said she was Sorceress Rulaine of Dragon Marsh.”

His brows furrowed.

“No? That’s not what she told you?”

“Well,” Declan said, “keep in mind that she was threatening me at the time. She was in a hurry and snatched me from the winery in Tuscany—which I adored, by the way—and—”

“You could go back, couldn’t you?” Lorne asked him.

“No, this was before the Second World War.”

Lorne took a moment. “Okay, so then she took you from that time, and how long were you in her home before she brought you here?”

“I don’t know, perhaps a week.”

“Wow,” Lorne sounded both impressed and sad. “So time moves real slow in the fae realm.”

“That’s true, it does.”

I said, “Which is probably why everyone thinks I’m my grandfather. Sola thought I was him when he met me. Rulaine thought the same… This is good information to have. I should write this down.”

“Aha!” Lorne announced, and closed the diary. “This is what this is about: the cottage wants you to start keeping a journal.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You,” he said, motioning at me, “have a lot of knowledge you’re keeping in your brain, but you’re not putting it down on paper. I have a feeling this is what the cottage wants from you, hence the diary flying at me.”

“Which means what?”

“What do you mean, what? It’s a lesson.”

“I don’t have time for lessons.” I got up and began to pace.

“Yeah, but the cottage doesn’t know that. Time is relative to a building. It doesn’t know you won’t always be here.”

“How do you know that? Did it tell you?”

“No, it didn’t tell—how would it even do that? Are you listening to yourself?”

I threw up my hands in defeat. “But if you think about it logically, the cottage must experience time, since it sees people age within the walls.”

Lorne glanced around. “I don’t think it works like that. I think the cottage is aware of you like you’re aware of a picture on the wall. If it’s crooked, if it gets knocked down, sure, you notice. But otherwise, years go by without you even looking at it.”

“Fine,” I said to the cottage. “I will begin journaling right away.”

“Oh, you made it so happy,” Declan stated, smiling at me. “And is there lemon cake in here somewhere? I’d love to get the recipe.”

A drawer rattled at the opposite end of the kitchen, and Declan got up to look.

“Can you finish telling us about who Rulaine was?”

“Was?” he asked absently, opening a drawer to reveal a long, narrow box that looked like it belonged in a card catalog at the library. “Is it all right to go through these?” Even as he made the inquiry, he was picking it up and walking it back to the table.

“Of course.” Because that was clearly what the cottage wanted. “And Rulaine is dead.”

His head snapped up, and he was staring at me with wide eyes. “What? How?”

I met his gaze, not knowing what on earth to say.

“Xander is a very powerful witch, that’s how,” Lorne told him. “He’s the…raven of the woods.”

I did a slow pan to him. “I’m the what now?”

“You’re not the witch of the woods, you’re the raven. That makes sense, don’t you think?” He smiled at me. “That’s more you. Kinda quirky, a bit aloof until somebody really knows you, but strong when you need to be and a very pretty bird.”

I shook my head at him. “You can be so cheesy.”

He shrugged. “So what. You like it. You like me.”

Oh, I really did, and the thought of him not being in my home the next morning was going to make me hyperventilate.

I had a very strong feeling I was supposed to keep him. And from the gust of warm breeze through the house, with a trace of verbena and vanilla, I was guessing the cottage agreed.

“Rulaine was an enchantress.” Declan broke into my thoughts, and when I was able to peel my gaze from Lorne’s and look at him, I saw how stunned he appeared. “And you dispatched her? That’s amazing, Xander.”

“It’s the land, not just me. Corvus makes me strong.”

“I think you’re selling yourself short,” Declan said.

“What’s the difference between an enchantress and a sorceress?” Lorne asked him. “I mean, how many words are there for a magic user?”

“Many,” Declan assured him. “So very many. But I think it has a lot to do with how they present themselves. Take for instance warlock and wizard. Those are very hoity-toity-sounding. Mage, on the whole, seems far more modest. The same is true of enchantress, sorceress, and witch. The first two are imperious, while a witch can be the charming person who makes you a great cup of tea.”

Lorne said, “I wonder if Rulaine maybe got lost in the language and thought she was more powerful than she was.”

“I can promise you, she was quite powerful,” Declan said, going through the recipe box. “She moved easily between realms.”

“Her master was Threun,” I told him. “He’s the god she was trying to get control of the rift for and bring him through.”

Declan looked up. “Threun…he’s not from the fae realm, right? He’s Celtic, one of those mountain gods?”

“I have no idea.”

“Let’s start there, do some research on that,” Lorne suggested. “Half the battle in my job is finding out who’s responsible for whatever it is.”

“I would help,” Declan said cheerfully, “but I have to go open my bistro for the church crowd to have a little nosh after service.”

I grinned at him. “Of course.”

“I’m going to take the entire dessert section, but I’ll bring them all back,” he promised, grabbing the cards and putting them into the recyclable bag he’d brought the food over in.

“Enjoy,” I said, getting up from the table. “And thank you for the grub.”

He chuckled, hugged me, then Lorne, petted Argos—and promised to bring him his own bacon next time since Lorne had fed the cat most of his—and then was at the door, putting his boots back on. I was going to open the door for him, but Lorne beat me to it, saying again how much we appreciated him. When our new friend was gone, Lorne tried to lock the door behind him.

“There’s no deadbolt on this door.”

“No, of course not.”

“What do you mean, of course not?” he snapped. “I don’t want just anybody walking in on you when—oh. The cottage only lets in people who are safe.”

“That’s right.”

“So it must like me.” He darted across the room, crowding in close, hands on my hips as he walked me back into the cabinets next to the sink.

“Yes,” I husked, the words suddenly hard to get out. “I think we can conclude that my home adores you.”

“Adores?” His breath was warm down the side of my neck before he planted a kiss there. “It adores me?”

He was teasing, and his laugh was flirty and thick with promise. “I adore you,” I confessed in a hoarse whisper. “I should be so scared and worried, and I am, but not like I would be if…”

“If?” He pulled my shirt up over my head and tossed it onto the kitchen table before taking hold of my ass and lifting me into his arms. I wrapped my legs tight around his waist as he began to walk me from the room. “Finish your thought. Why aren’t you scared?”

Coiling my arms around his neck, I kissed him hard, making him open for me so I could taste him. Just the feel of him, even through the cotton T-shirt he had on, was a heady rush. He was so strong and powerful, all those bunching muscles, his shoulders I couldn’t keep my hands off of, and the heat there between us, I could only imagine that his skin on mine would feel like being branded.

“Xander,” he ground out as he dropped down on top of me in my bed.

He’d moved us there so fast, and now I had his big, hard body covering mine. All I wanted was him, all of him, everything with nothing left over for anyone else.

I felt it then, the tremor, roaring through me, this quickening of blood and something feral and primal thrumming beneath my skin.

“Xan?” he said my name oddly, and I came back to myself, panting, trying to catch my breath. “Honey? Why aren’t you talking to me?”

I had no idea what to say.

“You would be scared if…” he prompted. “Go from there.”

I took a breath. “If it was anyone but you.”

“I like that, I do, but I can also tell that you’re still worried about something,” he murmured, moving off me.

I scrambled to the other side of the bed, scared that he’d felt it, the rise of my power.

“Are you all right?”

“I can’t just—we should go to your house.”

“My house?”

I nodded.

“Why’s that?” He rolled off the bed, stood up, and pulled his shirt off like it was a striptease, slowly, revealing his smooth, sleek, tawny skin I ached to touch. “We have a bed, so why not use it?”

“See, I— Lor,” I rasped as he slid the sweats over his hips and down, catching on his long, now hard cock before he pushed them to his thighs and then farther to his knees.

“Yes, Xander?”

“My home is not the place for something not serious or…” There were words I needed to say. “Covenant,” I blurted. “This could— See, if we—if I…here, it could… Lor.”

“Yes?” he asked, gloriously naked, all of him mouthwatering, all cut and defined, and his low laughter wasn’t helping at all. “It could what?”

I could not take my eyes off his erection, or the pearly drops glistening at the tip as he climbed onto the bed and lay down, stretching out, arms behind his head.

My brain really needed to work so I could make words.

“Something about having sex with me here, in your home, yes?”

“Yes,” I nearly sobbed in relief of him understanding.

“Take off the sweats right now.”

“Wait, I need to—”

“Now,” he demanded, and the combination of how dark his eyes were and how low his voice got made me scramble to do as he asked. And then, before I could stop and think, he said, “I want your mouth on me.”

The noise I made was not sexy, more like a croaking moan, before I was on him, my lips parting, opening wide, sliding over the head of his cock, feasting on him, sucking hard before swallowing down his length.

“Oh yes,” he husked, hand fisting in my hair, making sure I couldn’t move.

The way he held me, the dominance, the arch of his back as he pushed in deeper, wanting more of what I was giving him, sent a thrill rolling down my spine. I loved the taste of him, his scent, and found myself making the suction strong, showing him how much I wanted him. From the grunts and groans of approval, I was certain that Lorne was enjoying the worship as well.

“Take it all,” he ground out, his voice guttural and low.

I loved having him on my tongue, having him press against the back of my throat, and I sucked and laved, licking him from base to head, over and over. I could do it endlessly, but he eased me off, watching as his cock slipped from between my wet lips, staring up at me with dark eyes, his pupils blown with lust.

“Come here and kiss me.”

Following orders, I crawled up his body, hands on both sides of his head as I gazed down into his eyes.

“Kiss me,” he repeated, his voice a gruff whisper.

I bent and took his mouth in a mauling, claiming kiss and one of his hands slipped up around the side of my neck, keeping me there, the other sliding over my ass, squeezing hard.

My moan had him smiling against my mouth. “I want you so bad, and I want to come inside you, not in your mouth.”

“Yes. Yes, do that. Please.”

His husky laughter, not at me, but with me, just as eager as I was, made me smile. Never had I been in bed with anyone and known this kind of ease and trust and hope.

I heard a cap open. “You brought lube with you.”

“I’m always prepared,” he said, trying for serious, but grinning instead before he bit his bottom lip and stroked two fingers into my body. “And I want you ready for me.”

I was going to tell him I was more than ready, and willing, but he yanked me back down, wanting my mouth, kissing me breathless, letting me feel his desire.

It felt so good, the slow build, his tongue rubbing over mine as he pressed deep with his fingers, then retreated, adding a third, the endless push and pull making me writhe over him,

“Xander,” he murmured, turning his head a fraction to break the kiss and suck air into his lungs before easing his fingers from my channel, the muscles clenching around him, trying to keep him inside. “Don’t be afraid. I’m going to keep you.”

I met his gaze just as I felt the press of his wide head at my entrance.

“Actually,” he whispered, taking hold of my hips, keeping me in place, “what I meant to say was please.”

I wanted more and so slowly sank over him, taking him inside my body in trembling increments, the stretch painful as he filled me but succumbing fast to ache and then yearning.

“Please, Xan, let me have you, let me keep you. I’ll take good care of your heart, your body, and your home.”

That fast, again, I could feel my power rise, blood, flesh, bone, all of it in alignment, all of me wanting, needing to have the same thing—the man beneath me.

“I’m not afraid,” he promised as my muscles stopped resisting and he slid home.

I wasn’t breathing, but that didn’t matter. I was impaled on his cock, all of him buried to his balls as I sat there with my ass plastered to his groin, straddling his hips. He grabbed hold of my thighs, yanking me forward, plunging that much deeper, and I cried out his name.

“Don’t be scared that I’ll leave you,” he said thickly, his voice full of gravel. “I can’t. You put a spell on me, whether you meant to or not.”

I couldn’t argue, couldn’t speak. There was only him easing me, in fractions of languid movement, off his cock and then rolling me to my stomach, facedown in the blankets, before he lifted me to my hands and knees, kissing over my spine.

“Lorne,” I growled the demand and he was there, pushing back inside and I was chanting his name.

“So tight, so hot,” he said under his breath, pressing in deep and then sliding back, not out, never out, enough to open me up, making me shiver with all the sensations, that line all blurred between pleasure and pain. “You feel so good.”

I wanted to return the sentiment, but there was only his thrust then, the quick buck against me that made me gasp. When my arms gave out, he gripped my hips like a vise, holding me up as the pounding began. He took complete possession, driving to my core, and I was shivering as I felt the connection open between us, could feel his heart like it was in my own chest.

“I want you,” he said, taking hold of my hair and pulling. It wasn’t hard, and it didn’t hurt; instead, with how insistent he was that he wanted me on my hands and knees, it made me beg for more of him, needing him deeper, wanting him to move faster, make me his.

“Already done,” he promised, turned my head, and ground his mouth over mine, sucking on my tongue as he moved inside me, finally letting me breathe as his hand wrapped in my hair, using it like a leash he pulled taut, curving my spine, lifting my ass, hammering inside. “You’re mine now.”

The rutting undid me, made me shameless, and I howled his name, as he heaved over me, feeling the strain of having my orgasm just there, out of reach.

“You need to come!” he roared, and being so completely under his control, him showing me his strength and caring, his heart there for the taking, and giving me what I needed and craved, sent me hurtling over the edge.

For a moment, I felt like something was severed in me, something broke and I was floating free, cut off from who I was. It was terrifying because it seemed like everything was out of my control. What could I be expected to fix or keep safe? How could that ever work?

But then…but then…he was there. All around me. There was the beating of his heart, his woodsy, musky, earthy scent, the warmth of his silky skin, and then his mouth open on my back, kissing and licking, and it was as though everything I was, everything I was connected to that was chaotic and crazy, my land, the battle being waged, me being a guardian, all folded down from being enormous and out of control and insane…to simply us. Him and me. The two of us being all that mattered.

He came hard, his orgasm seconds behind mine, and there was warmth inside me, and I was held tight as his body shuddered.

I was going to say something glib, give him his out, let him go even though I’d felt everything lock into place for me. But it wasn’t fair that just because all that I was had chosen him, that he had to live with the consequences of what I was sure he thought was simply taking me to bed.

The aftershocks were rippling through me, his cum was seeping from my body, and I didn’t want him out of me or off me, but still, finding my voice, I said, “You should—”

“Stop. There’s nothing I should be doing but lying here with you,” he rumbled, easing gently from my body only to roll me into his arms and hold me to his wildly beating heart. “Don’t think for me, Xan. It’s not necessary. I have my own mind just for that reason.”

My face was pressed to his throat, and I opened my mouth against the flushed, sweaty skin that tasted even better than it smelled. “Don’t ever leave me,” I said, the words tumbling free before I could stop them, knowing he would run and never come back. I was offering him a life filled with terrors and uncertainty and continual watchfulness that would never ever give him rest or—

“No,” he whispered, kissed my forehead, and squeezed me tighter, as though trying to fuse us together, make us one. “I’m not going anywhere. Don’t even think about that.”

“But—”

“C’mon, Xan, I felt that too. That crazy, scary…bonding, merging? Is there a magic word for that?”

“Great sex?” I teased him, because I was overwhelmed and undone, stripped bare, nothing to me but my heart, which belonged to him.

And it would never change.

If he left me, it would go with him, and I would still be me but not. There was no recovery from this. All that I was, was his.

The hard pinch to my ass startled me, bringing me back from terrifying, life-changing thoughts and down again to him and me, wrecking the bed together.

“It’s us now, Xan. You and me. Say that’s what you want.”

I was so far down the rabbit hole in my head, I’d forgotten I needed to share more words with him. “Lor, I want you to stay here and live with me and—”

“Marry you someday.”

“Marry…me and…” Big word, huge word, and he just put it right out there, center stage, not afraid to name the eventuality, where we were headed. “Yeah.”

“Because?”

Gods, I was terrible at this. “I can’t live without you.”

“Because?” he repeated, leading me.

“You’re mine, aren’t you?”

“Yes, idiot,” he said, laughing at me, but then he sobered. “I feel this too, Xan, like we’re two parts of one thing, and I know it’s too fast to say bigger words, to put a name on this, on us, and I know there’s magic in here too.”

“There is,” I agreed, “but mostly it’s just us.”

“I know, so yeah, when this threat is over, I’m gonna come live in this amazing, scary place with you because I’ve never felt more comfortable anywhere in my life.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

He wanted to be with me in my home that I was finally going to share. “I was afraid if we…here, that you’d be caught in a spiderweb, and I wanted you to make your own decisions and not be stuck or—”

“I’m choosing you, Xan.” His hand slid to my lower back and then to my ass, settling there protectively, possessively. “All mine.”

I closed my eyes and let the words sink in.

He chuckled softly. “You have no idea what you’re in for.”

But he was mine too, and that was all that mattered.

TEN

We slept, got up, showered, changed, ate sandwiches, and began our hunt for Threun. The books I normally used, that were in my bedroom, basically echoed what Declan said which was “possible mountain god.” Lorne checked the internet on his phone and there were strange results, none of which were at all helpful. He brought up more books from the new library and I showed him where my grandfather’s books were in his den. We went through those, without success and then he announced he was going home to get his laptop.

“You realize there’s no electricity in my house,” I told him. “That light in the library you turned on, those are still gas lines powering gas lamps.”

“With pilot lights which are handy,” he teased me.

“I––”

“But I understand about the lack of electricity,” he replied with a smirk. “Which is why, since I knew I wanted to spend time with you here, I bought a solar-powered laptop charger and one for the phone.”

I was stunned. “You planned to stay.”

“Well, no. I planned to visit. I’ll need to get one for my shaver as well, but for now, however you’re keeping the scruff on your face tamed, you’ll have to do mine as well.”

“It’s called a straight razor,” I teased him.

“Fine. Just keep in mind I go to work during the week at six in the morning, so you might need to wake up early.”

It was a small price to pay to keep him sleeping in my bed.

“So?” he prompted.

“Oh yes. Shaving. I’m on it. I will be your personal barber, no problem.”

“Excellent.” He kissed me goodbye and left but was back moments later.

“Forget something?”

He cleared his throat and took out his phone. “Earlier, there was no condom, so I wanted to show you my last medical screening.”

“I trust you,” I said flatly. “I don’t need to see that. I know you’d never put me in danger, and as for me, my magic would let me know if I was unwell in any way.”

“Okay, then. Good. Just wanted to make sure that was understood.”

“That we’re free and clear to have sex again?” I goaded him.

“Yeah. That,” he said with a rakish grin that turned me inside out.

“I’ve got it bad for you, Chief MacBain.”

“That’s good, since I feel the same.” He darted over, laid a kiss on me that curled my toes, and was out the door before I could say another word.

Minutes later, the front door opened, and even expecting Lorne, I was not disappointed to see Amanda breezing into the cottage, putting several heavy bags down on the kitchen table.

“Good morning,” I greeted her.

“No,” she said quickly. “All I want to hear is why Chief MacBain and not Declan Grant.”

“Declan and I are going to be excellent friends. You’re right, he’s amazing. But one of these days, I’m going to marry Chief MacBain.”

“What?” She seemed horrified. “Nooo…” She drew out the no with a whimper at the end. “He’s no fun. He’s going to stifle you completely.”

“He’s actually a rock, and let’s face it, I need and want one of those in my life.”

She tipped her head back and forth, considering that. “It’s true; you’re more bird than solid, immovable rock.”

I had to smile over her phrasing.

“But really, darling, I just don’t want anyone to come between us.”

Which was why she’d decided on Declan. After meeting him, she knew she could roll right over him. She didn’t like people who could stand up to her.

“No one will ever come between us. I promise.”

She exhaled sharply. “Well, then fine, bring him to dinner. I’ll make the eggplant parmesan you love.”

I grabbed her and hugged her tight.

“Okay, okay, get off me.” She walked over to the still open trapdoor. I was strangely concerned that if I closed it and extinguished the light, it might disappear, though that seemed a bit insane. “Why is this open? I thought you said you liked the man. What if he falls down and breaks a leg?”

“Look in there. There’s been some renovations.”

She knelt and poked her head in. “Oh, Xan, this is lovely and—why is there a book perched on the ladder?”

“A book?”

She reached down and then held out the small red-leather-bound book, making a sound of disdain at the same time.

“What’s with you?”

“I hated this book in high school,” she groused. “Even with your grandfather trying to make it interesting,” she said, leaning back down and turning the knob to extinguish the light and then gently closing the trapdoor. “I still hated it.”

“What?”

“Oh, don’t give me the face.” She replaced the rug over the trapdoor. “You hated it too.”

Turning the book so I could see the spine, I read The History of Osprey.

“I mean, yes, we get the Iroquois and the settlers, and that was fun to read, but other than that, it’s a snore fest.”

It was. I remembered now. The history class in junior year. My grandfather explaining how the Native Americans and the settlers had to band together during the harsh winters, and how everyone had bonded, intermarried, and the community had flourished.

“You know,” she mused, “if that business about the cannibalistic family had been in there, I probably would have liked it much more.”

“The cannibalistic family?”

“Well, yes. You’re the one who told me all about it last week. You’re supposed to be finding me that book at the library. My God, man, your memory.”

Something about her saying the word jogged mine. I needed to ward her home, and Lorne’s, and I needed to do that now before they were attacked but then…why…

...why had I forgotten about that? And yes, things had happened, good and bad, but—that made no sense unless…for some reason, it wasn’t necessary.

The fact of the matter was, I wasn’t worried about Lorne’s family, or Amanda and hers because the reality was, no one was coming for them. The focus of the preternatural attacks was me. I was the guardian of the rift, no one else who wasn’t here with me on Corvus, was in danger. And while that was comforting to know others were safe, Lorne was with me now, which meant I had more than myself to consider.

“Are you listening to me?”

“What?”

She grunted.

“You brought me produce,” I said warmly. “Aren’t you an angel.”

She growled in response.

I watched her start to unload the things she’d brought from the bags she’d bumped down on the table. Clearly, she’d been to the farmers’ market very early in the morning. You had to arrive right at opening to score all the lovely fruit she had. The vegetables tended not to move, but the fruit went fast.

“I heard through the grapevine you’re getting your job back at the library, so you have no excuse not to find me that book about the crazy people.”

“They weren’t crazy, just cannibals.”

“There’s a difference?”

“Yes…?” I said, slightly distracted by the glimmer of an idea.

“I mean, I guess they did make a choice to eat other people, but we’re not talking about something horrific like the Donner Party or those poor soccer players in the Andes. It was the Andes, wasn’t it? You know I’m terrible with geography.”

“Yeah, I know you are, but I need you to drive me to the library.”

“Really?” she whined, just as something fell onto the table from the bottom of the bag.

“What is that?”

She made a face. “Oh, Xan, it’s time. You need a phone.”

I said what I always did. “There’s never been a phone at Corvus.”

“Which is great, and I’m not telling you to run fiber-optic cables out here, but a cell phone is a necessity. I need to be able to call you if there’s an emergency.”

“I—”

“What if, heaven forbid, I’m in an accident and die and you have to take care of my kids? People will need to be able to—ow!”

I’d smacked her arm because how dare she say something so awful.

“Fine, not dead,” she grumbled, slipping around the end of the table. “But what if Chief MacBain gets shot or something in the line of duty? Don’t you want to be the first to know?”

“Yes,” I rasped because I was feeling a bit vulnerable since Lorne left, and now she was bringing up horrors befalling both her and him.

“And what about Toby?” she pressed on. “What if he needs you and wants to call? And how in the world are they going to get you the information that you got your job back? People can’t keep driving over to see you to bring you news from town. This isn’t the Old West with the Pony Express and the stagecoaches.”

“As if either of those things was ever in Osprey.”

“Nothing exciting has ever been in Osprey but the cannibals.”

“That’s true,” I agreed, picking up the iPhone box. “Lorne has a solar charger for his. Did you happen to—”

She pulled out another box. “This is me you’re talking about. Have you ever known me not to be prepared?”

No, I had not.

It was a quick drive to the library—Osprey was only so big, after all—and when we got there, Amanda walked beside me, fiddling with my new phone, not paying a bit of attention to where she was going, trusting me to steer her through doors, up and down stairs, and around tables. She called her husband as I reached Nico Aoki’s desk. She checked books in and out on the weekends and every other Tuesday. I really liked her and her pixie-cut purple hair.

“Oh, thank God,” she said when she saw me. “I almost cried when Mr. Samuels said you were coming back. If I have to listen even one more time to Joanna talk about how little kids shouldn’t be allowed in the library, I’m gonna shank her.”

I smiled. “If you shank her, you’ll go to prison, and we both know you wouldn’t enjoy the daily structure of that. I mean, when would you have time to paint?”

“That’s a valid argument.”

“So, I have a phone now. You can call me, and you can tell Mr. Samuels to call me once I’m officially back.”

“You’re not back now?” Nico whined.

“I don’t think so, not quite yet.”

She whimpered a bit and then greeted Amanda, who smiled sweetly and gave her my number. I then explained I was going to the basement to look for some information on the cannibals.

“The ones that lived down near Parker’s Ferry?”

“Yes,” I said, surprised she knew that.

“You know, Dom wrote a song about them called ‘Around the Bend.’ That’s the only reason I know anything about them.”

“Oh, I like the title and the double meaning. Clever.”

Nico nodded. “He’s hanging out in Art History if you want to talk to him before you go searching the basement. He did a lot of research on the family before he wrote the song.”

“I think I will,” I said, taking Amanda’s arm.

“No, just leave me here,” Amanda said. “I’m calling Chief MacBain now.”

“Don’t do that,” I scolded her.

“Why? This way he can come get you so I don’t have to drive you home, and I want to have a little chitchat with him anyway.”

I groaned and walked away, hearing Nico ask Amanda why on earth Chief MacBain would be driving me anywhere.

Dominic, Nico’s brother, was a funny, sarcastic guy who owned the local record store dealing primarily in vinyl and eight-track tapes. I found him, in all his hipster glory—man bun, goatee, piercings—sitting on the thick rug between the two couches in the art room. Kids were only allowed in with a parent, as there was a large fireplace that was not safe in the least. It needed to be replaced with a gas version, but there wasn’t money for that in the local budget.

I flopped down on the couch near him, and when he looked up and saw it was me, he smiled wide. Sliding his headphones down around his neck, he reached out and patted my knee.

“What’s goin’ on, brother? I saw you leave the festival with the chief of police yesterday. You in trouble, or did he finally get your attention in a non-antagonistic capacity?”

“What?”

“The man has stopped you for the most bogus crap ever. The jaywalking was my favorite, and I only know about that one because I too was jaywalking at the time.”

“You were?”

“Yeah. The man has blinders on where you’re concerned.”

“He does?”

“When I saw you balancing the basket on your head and riding your bike a couple of days ago—I’m guessing it was last-minute stuff for the witch’s ladders—I knew he was going to pull you over. And of course, when he did, you dropped everything.” He chuckled. “Our chief doesn’t get that while in motion, you’re golden. It’s when you’re forced to stop that there are issues.”

“True,” I agreed.

“But maybe instead of letting him look like a big doofus when he’s waving at you all the time and trying to get your attention, perhaps if you stopped ignoring him and gave him the time of day, he wouldn’t be so hostile. Have you considered that at all?”

Dominic had noticed Lorne and I hadn’t? Dominic, who also ran the marijuana dispensary and was, as far as I knew, always stoned, had noticed Lorne trying to get my attention, and yet it had gone right over my head. How was that possible?

“I get it,” he went on. “He’s a cop. But still, he seems like a good guy, and he made Rick Lawrence pay me what he owed, which was epic.”

Rick Lawrence was as close to a thug as we had in our town. Most people steered clear of him. He’d been a bully in high school and still was. “I would have taken care of that for you as well,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, but I didn’t want you doing something you might regret, like turning him into a gerbil.”

I shook my head at him. “My magic doesn’t work like that, as you very well know.” In Dominic’s case, I used my magic to keep his migraines at bay with a tea I brewed, as he refused to take pills. If it wasn’t natural, it wasn’t going in his body.

“So tell me what’s up.”

I cleared my throat. “Nico said you did a lot of research on the family of cannibals that lived down by Parker’s Ferry.”

He shook his head. “They weren’t cannibals,” he sounded disgusted. “I love how shit gets twisted in this town.”

“No? You’re sure?”

“So sure.”

“Then who were they?”

“They were a cult.”

“What kind of cult?”

“The kind that was trying to open a door to another world. Did you not listen to the song?”

“I haven’t, but I will,” I promised him. “I don’t know why but I was sure I read a journal or something in here about them.”

“Yeah. You read that account by the journalist who investigated them, right?”

“I think so. It was a long time ago.”

“Yeah, well, the journalist, CB Wright, he talks about Hillary Newcastle, the one who jumped, remember?”

“Of course I remember.” I saw her every time I passed by the bridge.

“Well, she was in love with the blacksmith in town, Spencer Phelps, and her parents said they couldn’t be married, so he left and she jumped.”

“I know. It’s a horrible story.”

“But that’s not what happened.”

“No?”

“No. She was going to run away with Spencer, no matter what, but he was killed by the cultists.”

“Why?”

“Because they pledged their lives to a god they had to bring through the doorway, as they called it.”

A rift.

Dominic said, “I thought it was a veil, like the one you say lifts at Halloween, but it’s not. That veil is between the living and the dead, right?”

I nodded.

“Yeah. That’s not the doorway the cultists were trying to open.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s all in Wright’s account that he was putting together for some paper.”

“Why would anyone care?”

“You have to remember that back then the Spiritualism movement was new and gaining momentum. Think about people like the Fox sisters from Rochester. They did a big business.”

“But that was a hoax.”

“Sure, but that doesn’t mean Spiritualism as a whole was, and people devoured stories about it. I’m betting that CB Wright and his cult of people trying to open a doorway to another world would have been huge.”

“Was the account ever published?”

“No, but for whatever reason, he kept the journal he wrote it in, and put it in the town archives when he left Osprey.”

“I wonder why.”

Dominic shrugged. “I don’t know, but—hey, did you know that one of Spencer’s best friends was your ancestor, Mattie Corey?”

“No, I didn’t. Do tell.”

“Yeah, so apparently, Spencer helped her put iron in the bricks of your home or in the doors or, I dunno, something like that. In Wright’s journal, it says it was foundational, but it’s like a side note he doesn’t explain. Anyway, the important part is how he says that when Spencer was going to pick up Hillary, he was kidnapped and murdered.”

My heart had always hurt for Hillary, and now it was hurting for Spencer as well. “How did Wright know?”

“He saw it happen. He saw Spencer get hit over the head and thrown into the back of a wagon, but when the police followed up on his report and searched the farm near Parker’s Ferry, they couldn’t find any trace of Spencer, so there was nothing they could do.”

I stayed quiet so he’d keep talking.

“But Wright wasn’t giving up, so he went to interview the cultists, and they talked to him for whatever reason, probably because they weren’t afraid of anything he’d say.”

“And?” I couldn’t stop myself from prodding.

“They told him they needed to kill a lot of people and Spencer was just the first.”

“Of how many?”

“They didn’t say, probably didn’t want him alerting the authorities which—c’mon—no one was listening to him anyway, so what did it matter?”

“Sure,” I agreed sadly. “I wonder why they didn’t kill him?”

“He was a journalist, right? He wasn’t from here. He would’ve been missed.”

It made sense. “What else did they tell Wright?”

“They told him that they were supposed to use corpses to bridge the doorway.”

“That’s horrible.”

“Oh, I agree. They went on to say that the bodies were supposed to be laid half on our side, the human side, and half into another realm.”

“And then the god could walk over them all, like a bridge, and be here in Osprey,” I said, thinking of my dream.

“That was their belief, yes.”

“So this account by Wright, he says this could bring the god into our world?”

“They certainly believed so.”

“But just him, singular?”

Dominic squinted at me. “Who else would be coming?”

“His soldiers, his retinue. His minions.”

“Yeah, but to do that, in theory, they’d need to kill a lot of people.”

Yes, exactly. Which, again, went back to my dream. “That would be tragic.”

“It would be, yes,” he agreed. “Can I ask you something?”

I nodded.

“Do you have journals from your family at your cabin?”

“It’s a cottage, actually,” I clarified.

“Oh yeah, sure. But do you have stuff like that there?”

“Yes.”

“Well, if you come across anything by Mattie Corey, I’d love to read it.”

“Of course.”

“Because Wright didn’t know where the cultists were thinking to open the doorway, but maybe Mattie did. I like to think of her as an avenging angel, after they killed her friend, making it her mission to foil the plot to bring the god over.”

“I like that,” I said, my mind running. “Do we know precisely where near Parker’s Ferry the cultists lived?”

“No, but I’ll bet you I know who would.”

I looked at him and he grinned slowly, waiting for me to get it. “Taylor.”

“Yeah, man,” he said, pleased with me. “All that research she’s been doing, she knows where all the bodies are buried.”

I nodded.

“Metaphorically speaking.”

“Sure.”

“And you didn’t hear it from me, but maybe she’s got some plans at her house that should be here in the library.”

“Thanks, Dom.”

“No worries, witch of the woods.”

I stood up. “Actually, it’s raven of the woods now.”

“Oh, raven. That’s way better. Much more badass.”

I thought so too.

Amanda had to leave—she had people coming for brunch since it was her Sunday to host, and she had to meet the caterers.

“You didn’t think I was going to cook myself,” she scoffed, passing me my phone. “Now, I put three numbers in there—mine, Chief MacBain’s, and Declan’s. Nico put in hers as well. Anything else you’re going to have to do yourself. You’ve fiddled with mine for years, so you’ll have no trouble. You’re on my family plan, but if you and Chief MacBain become…more, maybe I’ll let you change to his.”

“Big of you. Did you call him like you threatened?”

“Threatened? Really? I just wanted to talk to the man.”

Of course she did. “Be nice to him when he gets here.”

“I was lovely to him on the phone,” she assured me, waving for good measure when Lorne pulled up in front of the library. He got out of his Jeep, jogged over to the foot of the stairs, and we walked down to him.

He held out his hand to Amanda, and she descended quickly to take it. They stood there, eyeing one another, until she finally huffed out a breath.

“Fine,” she relented, “Xan knows best about his own heart.”

“Yes,” Lorne agreed, smiling at her.

“God help you if you don’t take good care of it,” she said, the warning there in her voice.

“Don’t you worry,” he assured her. “I have forever plans for it.”

She nodded. “You’ll come for dinner?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

Releasing his hand, she smiled at me, then slipped around him on the way to her car.

“She’s a force of nature, yeah?” Lorne asked as I walked into his waiting arms.

“Yeah,” I said with a sigh, waving after she honked the horn.

“So why did you come here?”

“Look, she got me a phone, and there’s a new solar charger at home.”

“Well, I ordered several, so we’ll see whose is better.”

I chuckled. “It’s not a competition between you and Amanda.”

“Oh no?” He did not sound convinced.

The man was adorable, and I kissed him deeply so he knew I was crazy about him.

At his Jeep, which he led me to after taking my hand, I told him how much I appreciated him putting the soft top on his vehicle so I didn’t freeze to death.

“This isn’t about you,” he said, holding open my door. “If we go into mud or water, I don’t wanna get dirty.”

“You don’t want to get dirty?” I teased him.

“Absolutely not.”

Once he was behind the wheel, he said, “Now, as I asked earlier before you distracted me with your shiny new iPhone, please tell me why you came here.”

“I wanted to do some research on the cultists.”

“And?”

“And I think I have a lead.”

“Okay, so where are we going?”

“To visit my friend Taylor Hernandez.”

“Why do I know that name?”

“She’s Jesus Fernandez’s wife. He’s one of our councilmen.”

“That’s right. Why are we going to see her?”

“Because I need more information, and I think she can give it to me.”

“Gotcha,” he said, sounding almost sad.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I was just looking forward to going home.”

My stomach fluttered, and my breath caught.

He chuckled. “Something you wanna say?”

“You said home,” I barely got out.

“Yeah. I called Jim and told him he had to feed his own kid tonight, and he said that was not a problem.”

“Called?”

“That’s right,” he said happily, proudly. “When I got there to pack a bag, the house was empty, which was a shock, so I called to see where Jim was. Turns out he took his daughter and drove to Westfield to see a movie.”

“Really?”

He nodded, reaching over to put his hand on my cheek and drawing me close for a kiss. “My baby is a miracle worker.”

Oh yes, I would most certainly be his baby.

When he kissed me, I wanted to climb into his lap. I wanted, needed, to connect with him on a very primal level, and even though Declan’s visit this morning had been thoughtful and kind, it had also cut into my alone time with Lorne.

“You really are amazing,” Lorne was saying, “and I want this to—”

“Pack a bag,” I blurted out, leaning away from him. “Is that what you said?”

His face scrunched up. “Yeah, that’s what I said. Why? Do you not want me to—”

“No! I want you to stay with me all the time. I want you to move in and be with—”

“Okay, good,” he grumbled, pulling on his seat belt. “I was very confused there for a second. You need to work on the clarity of your words.”

“Oh?”

He snorted out a laugh. “You get so puffed up and ruffled really fast. It’s so fun to mess with you.” His laughter, the pure happiness in it, mollified me quite a bit.

Never had I been in a relationship. Sex, yes, but not a man in my home. No one had ever woken up in my bed before Lorne MacBain.

“I’m not trying to rush you into anything,” Lorne said gently. “I just… It’s been this weird roller coaster for me.”

“How so?” I put on my seat belt.

“How so?” he repeated, incredulous. “First you don’t see me, then you don’t like me, then you do, then you want me but you’re worried I’ll leave you.”

“I…”

“And then you decide you want me forever.”

“Did I say forever?”

He looked at me, shaking his head.

“What?”

“Don’t tease me, Xan. My heart can’t take it.” He extended his hand to me, palm up.

I took it fast, realizing in that moment that this man had a much softer gooey center than I could’ve predicted. He was as unsure and off-balance as I was.

“We’re in this together, Lor. We’ll figure it all out.”

“Well, us, you and me, we can take our time. The rest of this, we need to get a handle on it now.”

“Absolutely. So, in that vein, do you know where Kettleman Lane is?”

“I’m the chief of police,” he groused at me. “I know where—”

I chuckled. “Okay, then, Chief MacBain. Let’s go.”

I got a glare, but since he only let my hand go to shift gears, I wasn’t all that worried.

By the time we reached the Hernandezes’ house, I had explained about cultists, not cannibals—

“Oh, Amanda’s gonna be bummed,” he commented.

—and the fact that finding where the cultists had lived would probably give us more information.

“That’s really sad about Hillary and Spencer. It’s too bad her folks didn’t see his potential to make their daughter happy and love her. That should have been their only stipulation for her to marry anyone.”

“You’re a romantic, Lorne. Did you know that?”

He grunted. “Don’t get me wrong, I know back in the day things were different and a woman couldn’t just provide for herself and her children if things went south, but you always have to gamble on love, don’t you think?”

“I do,” I agreed, smiling at him.

“It sounds like Hillary was ready.”

“It was her parents who disappointed her,” I said, thinking how sad it was that she’d thought something that wasn’t true about the man she loved. He hadn’t left her, and I would need to find a way to tell her that.

Once we parked in the circular driveway of the enormous three-story Georgian colonial the Hernandezes had built when Jesus became a councilman, and were about to get out—both of our doors open—Taylor came charging down the front steps of her home, yelling at me that she wasn’t giving them back yet.

Lorne seemed about to say something to her, when I roared back, “I’m not even out of the car yet, you crazy person!”

She closed her mouth and stood up straight.

“You can’t keep maps from the reference section of the library, no matter how big of an ass Joanna Milton is to you.”

She deflated.

“But,” I went on, “you can hand them over to the chief now, and no one has to be the wiser.”

Her head snapped up at that, and she looked at Lorne all hopeful.

“Absolutely,” he said gruffly, following my lead, “if you help us with something.”

“Yes, yes of course,” she assured him.

“Go get the map, and then come back out and talk to us.”

“Why don’t you come inside and warm up,” she offered. “I have some of that amazing tea of yours and—”

“We need to do this quickly,” Lorne interrupted. “This isn’t a social call. We’re coming to you for help.”

“Oh, okay, sure. I’ll be right back.”

“How did you know she was guilty of something?” Lorne asked me the second she was gone.

“It’s because our reference librarian is a real piece of work.”

“What?”

As we got out of the Jeep, I explained all about Joanna Milton and how much she hated helping people, even though that was basically her entire job.

“Seriously?”

“Yes,” Taylor huffed out as she crossed over to the Jeep with a leather map case slung over her shoulder. When she reached us, she took the strap off her shoulder and handed it to Lorne. “She’s a terrible person, and if Xander doesn’t get back soon, I will take these permanently because someone who cares should watch over them.”

“I agree,” I told her, patting her arm. “Hopefully they’ll call me soon.”

“Call you?” she asked, perking up.

I pulled my new phone out of the back pocket of my jeans. “Yeah, see?”

“Oh, that’s amazing. Now I can just call you when I have questions about something. Gimme that.” She motioned to my phone.

Passing it over so we could swap numbers, I asked her if she had ever heard of Parker’s Ferry.

“What are you talking about? Of course I know Parker’s Ferry. You do too. We used to swim down there in the summers before—” She looked up at me. “I’m sorry my mother was so stupid back then, Xan.”

I shrugged.

“Stupid?” Lorne asked Taylor.

“Because Xan’s gay, she didn’t want me around him.”

“Ah.”

“But she’s changed since my sister’s oldest came out.”

“What is that saying about whoever it is you hate will wind up in your family?” he commented, shooting Taylor a look.

I waggled my eyebrows at him.

“She never hated you,” Taylor clarified. “She just didn’t understand and didn’t want me to become a lesbian.”

“Because it rubs off.”

“She’s very different now,” she defended her mother, “but again, I’m sorry.”

“I know you are,” I said, giving her a gentle pat on the arm.

Inhaling quickly, she blew out the breath just as fast before passing me back my phone. “Now, what’s your question?”

“Where we swam is Parker’s Ferry?”

“Yeah.”

“Interesting, I never knew that.”

“That’s because there were never any signs out there,” she reminded me. “How would you know? I didn’t until I started doing my research.”

“Yeah, but tell me, do you remember the story about the cannibals?”

She shook her head. “Turns out they were cultists. Some Celtic god who wanted to wash the world in blood or some such.”

I knew all that, but her correcting me let me know we were on the same page. “And do you know where they lived? The cultists?”

“Oh yeah. Lemme show you on my phone. I took vast amounts of pictures of the maps in case Joanna locked them away again.”

“That woman sounds really mean,” Lorne stated.

“You have no idea,” Taylor huffed out before turning her phone sideways and enlarging the piece she wanted to show us. “And you’d think with me being married to a councilman, she’d be less of a bitch. I mean, he can help the library with funding.”

“Like she cares,” I scoffed.

Taylor sighed. “Okay, so look, in relation to the river where we used to swim, this is where the Phoenix Farm was.”

“Phoenix?” Lorne asked.

“Yes. They were like a lot of cults—certain they would die but be reborn in their heavenly reward with their god.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“I don’t know. The farm itself was built over ley lines, much like Corvus, but the ones on your land have never been mapped. The ones out there by the Phoenix Farm were, and they’re a bit strange.”

“Strange how?” Lorne asked.

Taylor lifted her phone, and after some button pushing and swiping, pulled up more pictures to show us. “See? It looks like it’s supposed to be an octothorpe, but the lines don’t form a fully connected grid.”

“Looks like a hashtag or a tic-tac-toe sign,” Lorne said.

“That’s what an octothorpe is,” Taylor told him with a bit of attitude.

“Remember when you didn’t know what that was?” I reminded her, my tone sharp. She could get snippy with me, but not Lorne.

“Yes,” she said quickly, glancing at him. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine,” he assured her, taking hold of my hand and giving it a squeeze. “But I see what you mean about the lines, they look off, like they’re not quite touching.”

“Exactly,” she agreed, then turned back to me. “And this sign here was supposed to represent a door or a cell—which you know because you’re the one who taught me all the Viking runes. I mean, the interpretations are ancient, so we could be reading way more into this than there really is. Plus, ley lines aren’t exactly something we can say are scientifically absolute.”

“True,” I agreed, though I knew better. The reason the ley lines on Corvus were never mapped was because it was earth magic at work. My ancestors had forged protective symbols deep in the ground, and if there was a map, anyone would surely see the Seal of Solomon clear as day. Our lines were not there to lead off our property like others. There were no fairy paths to follow, instead warding for once the rift appeared, as it was of vital importance to protect our world from whatever tried to come through.

Looking at the symbol Taylor pointed out, I was reminded of my dream that morning. The planks, the bridge, all of it. Perhaps my entire dream sequence had nothing to do with Corvus but instead another rift.

I had no doubt that the place where Rulaine and everything else had come through was on that farm. There was probably a small tear there the cultists had tried to make bigger at one time, hence the killing of the blacksmith and heaven knew how many others.

“You’ve been a huge help, Taylor. We really appreciate your time.”

“What are you looking for?” she asked me, glanced at Lorne, then returned her attention to me. “Do you think the girl who was killed has something to do with the Phoenix Farm and what went on there? Do we have a new doomsday cult on our hands?”

“No,” I said honestly. The events were connected, but not how she thought. Rulaine, whom we couldn’t tell her about, was the common denominator. She had done something, long ago, at the farm, and was the one who also, just recently, killed Megan Gallagher. She had committed the crimes for very different reasons, but her agenda had not changed. She needed to get her master from wherever he was to Osprey. That was her endgame.

“There’s no new cult here in Osprey,” Lorne assured her. “The girl’s death was an isolated incident.”

She nodded and then took hold of my hand. “I would love to come to your house at some point and go through your family’s journals.”

She was just like Dominic. “Of course.”

Taylor said, “Corvus is absent from all the maps of Osprey. Do you know why that is?”

“No,” I lied. “How funny.”

“I mean to say, of course it’s marked, but only as farmland. And the designation to the west, especially, shows so strangely. As though your property extends to the ocean shoreline. But that’s not possible, is it?”

“You’re asking how it can be a public beach when it belongs to my family?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m asking.”

“I don’t know,” I said, though I did. “But that’s certainly strange.”

She nodded. “There’s also an odd notation from one of the first town clerks in Osprey that shows the edge of Corvus to the north as being marked off by someone named Morgan.”

“And?”

“No one with the surname Morgan has ever lived in Osprey.”

“Maybe it’s a first name?”

“Some random person by the name of Morgan marked off your land? This is what you’re saying to me?”

“What else could it be?” I shrugged. “But I agree, it seems weird.”

Her eyes narrowed as she regarded me. “I can see records of when each parcel of property came into a family, when the first deed was recorded. All of them are accessible except the one for Corvus.”

“Yes, but you know Corvus was here before the town.”

“I do know that, but the question is, how and when was Corvus deeded to your family? There’s no record before Bryan Corey in 1691, way before Osprey was even Osprey and before New York was even a state.”

“Are you wondering if I actually own Corvus?”

“No. Not at all. I know you do, because even if your family hadn’t before 1691, in 1823, I can see the deed filed with the town clerk in Westfield.”

“What’s your question, then?” Lorne asked her.

“I just wonder why, with all the land available, the Coreys only took twenty-two acres. That makes no sense to me. And why so far out of town, next to what would become a preserve.”

It was like someone knew that a preserve was coming. How crazy was that? “What is it you’re wanting to know?” I pressed her.

She huffed out a breath. “It just doesn’t make any sense. The Coreys could have been rich. The entire town could have been yours, but instead, you just took a tiny area. And it’s not a farm or an apiary. I just don’t get your ancestors at all. Land was the first great wealth—still is, for heaven’s sake—and yet your family took only so much.”

“No idea, but it worked out well for the rest of the town.”

“It certainly did,” she agreed. “Perhaps when I finally find this Morgan in the archives, the one who marked off the land, we’ll have an answer about the why.”

“Maybe. In the meantime, call me, and we’ll set a time for you to go through the journals.”

“Thank you so much, Xan. You know, I’ve been working with Dom Aoki on my thesis, and he’s been a huge help.”

“I heard, yes.”

Once Lorne and I were on the road, driving toward Parker’s Ferry, he cleared his throat.

“Yes, Chief MacBain? Do you have a question?”

“Only about a million. Tell me everything right now.”

“Everything?” I teased him. “Won’t that take longer than we have?”

“Now,” he insisted.

Taking a deep breath, I explained how my family was originally Norse, descended from one of the Vikings who’d remained behind in the New World instead of heading back home.

“Your ancestor was a deserter?”

“I think of him more as running toward his destiny and away from a life he didn’t believe in—all the raiding and the enslavement of others.”

“Okay, I get that. So you’re saying he got here with all the other guys, looked around, and said, Yep, I’m staying, then abandoned his ship and didn’t go back.”

“Correct.”

“And that’s documented?”

“How do you mean, documented? It’s a story passed down in my family, pieces of ancestral lore I’m sure you have in yours as well. We all know stories about someone in our family we never met that have been exaggerated over the years.”

“That’s true. Yours is just so much more interesting.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I mused. “When I was in college, whenever I was invited to a friend’s house and their grandparents were there, I loved sitting and listening to them. Stories of when and how their parents met or about where they immigrated from. That was my favorite way to spend an afternoon.”

He grunted. “You’re going to love meeting my mom and my grandmother, then.”

“I have no doubt.” I smiled at him.

We drove in silence, and he knew where to turn until we took a left that led us onto a road that had a sign up saying it was not maintained by the city of Osprey.

“This is a private road?”

“Yeah, this is Willow Brook Road, and then you’ll see a trail on the left, and that’s where we want to be.”

“How long has it been since you were out here?”

“A long time.”

“So you stopped coming because Taylor’s mother didn’t want you near her daughter?”

“A lot of parents didn’t want me around their kids. I lost a lot of friends that summer before high school when I came out.”

“If I were her mother, I’d have wanted the gay kid with my daughter.”

“Well, she saw me as an aberration and convinced a lot of other mothers to think the same.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. My grandmother explained how small-minded they were, and though it hurt at the time, everything happens for a reason.”

“And what was the reasoning for you to be excluded?”

“I spent my summer alone, on the land, walking back and forth from the pond, following the stream. I learned a lot about Corvus and got so I could follow the ley lines myself and never get lost.”

“Tell me who this Morgan is that Taylor talked about.”

“You have an excellent memory,” I complimented him.

“It comes with being a cop. So? Who is he?”

“She,” I corrected him.

“Okay. Who is she?”

“Well, Bryan Corey, my ancestor Taylor mentioned, he was a witch like me, and he was branded by the goddess Morrighan. I think Bryan didn’t want to answer questions about a goddess, so he designated Morrighan as Morgan to keep things simple. Or maybe it was Morgan to begin with, for all I know. There are so many different spellings and incarnations of the goddess that anything’s possible.”

“And who is she?”

“She, or one of her incarnations, is the one who originally blessed our line with our magic and who, eons later, branded Bryan Corey.”

“And her incarnations?”

“Goddesses like the Morrighan and Hekate have different pieces that make up the whole, and those pieces have individual names.”

He shook his head. “Okay, we’ll have to sit down together and go over all that, but for now, what does branded mean as far as witches go?”

“It means you bear a mark from a god or goddess, inside your body, etched on your bones, branded in your blood, and they, in turn, have bestowed special gifts upon you.”

“This sounds so crazy and out there, but I’ve seen you do things with my own eyes that shouldn’t be possible.”

“Well, I—”

“You’re a branded witch. Declan said it, so did Rulaine, so go ahead and tell me what happened to you.”

“I will,” I promised him. “But not right this second because we’re getting really close to the farm.”

“Soon, though? I want to know everything about you.”

“Absolutely,” I said, patting his thigh.

Interestingly, the farm I’d passed by a million times when I was young and walking to the river, was unchanged. It had been old and run-down twenty years ago, but neither the elements nor man had finished the job and put the buildings out of their misery. The farmhouse was roofless, there were only three walls, and nothing else remained. There used to be furniture inside, but it looked like all that had been cleaned out. It had probably been chopped into firewood ages ago.

We walked around for a while, and when Lorne jogged back to the Jeep to grab his flashlight, I realized how dark it was getting. I felt like the idiot in a horror film who inadvertently ended up searching the haunted house after dark.

When Lorne reached me and was about to walk by, I stopped him. Lifting my right hand, I called on the elements for fire to illuminate my path. It was there instantly, flames rising from my palm.

“Please allow me to see what is lost or hiding,” I said softly, realizing the wind had picked up.

Lorne’s breath caught as the flames split off in every direction with several going into the barn farthest from us and disappearing inside. With the flames in place, it looked like fairgrounds at night, illuminated and with only a few shadows.

“That’s very helpful,” Lorne complimented me, taking hold of my hand and leading me toward the barn. “The rest of this, from what I can see, is deserted. There’s nothing in this area, but the fact that it’s getting really dark and windy is creeping me out.”

Normal woods, even on a moonless night, didn’t scare me. Usually I was the scariest thing in the dark. But clearly there was a rift here, albeit a small one, so there could be things, like Rulaine and Sola, that could kill me. And I was getting really tired of having vargrs skulking around.

“We should have brought the dogs with us,” Lorne said, letting me go, walking through the doorway of the barn. “Hey, careful. There’s no floor in here, just a huge hole.”

Fortunately, he wasn’t the type to charge ahead or he would have been hurt. When I stuck my head inside, I saw there was a narrow lip around the hole, and Lorne was testing each step to see if it would support his weight. He was careful, another of many excellent qualities he possessed.

“The dogs are bound to Corvus,” I told him as he walked farther around the hole. “They can’t leave the property. They’re tethered to it as long as they stay with me.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because as spectral dogs, they might wreak havoc around town,” I said, smiling at him.

“Who do they belong to?”

“The master of the hunt.”

His scowl looked even darker in the shadows of the room. “You can’t just tell me?”

“I don’t think I should in here. We don’t know who might be listening.”

“Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Can you do the light thing again so we can see what’s down there?”

That was strange… We should’ve had more light. My small floating fireballs were all still in place outside—they would not extinguish until I closed my hand with the words to cease—so it was concerning that the ones I’d sent into the barn had gone out.

Thinking quickly, instead of an illumination spell, I used a protection one and called on the corners to grant me shelter. Ancient magic was worded strangely sometimes—shelter could mean warmth, which meant fire.

Heat surrounded me as I spoke the words, and I sent the fire downward into the hole. When Lorne and I looked down over the edge, the fire had stopped near the ground but had not reached the bottom, shimmering off a transparent barrier above what appeared to be a mass grave.

“The fireballs were absorbed,” I told Lorne. “And I think I know why.”

“Then tell me, because that down there looks horrible.”

“I need to check that I’m right first.” I picked up a small rock and tossed it into the hole. The barrier absorbed it, as I thought it would, the rock gone from sight.

Lorne was reciting the Lord’s Prayer, and I was glad he found comfort in that.

“Are you all right?” I asked him.

“No,” he said simply, barely getting out the one word.

“All right, well, I need to see if the barrier is a slip or a hoard.”

“You could get stuck in a slip,” he reminded me.

“Normally, yes. But I can see you, so I can get right back.”

“It’s not a good idea,” he cautioned me.

“I’ll be fine,” I promised him. I had to see, to get closer. I didn’t have a choice. It was imperative to know what we were dealing with. Stripping fast, I prepared to shift.

“I don’t want you down there. I forbid it,” Lorne ordered, walking back along the lip of the gutted building to reach me. “Wait. Wait.”

“It’s fine. I’m just going to fly down there and take a look,” I told him, leaping into the air above the hole and, as always, thinking fly.

I was a flock of ravens in the blink of an eye, dropping down into the chasm and immediately hitting the barrier. It felt like a membrane, stretching and stretching so very thin, and then, finally, it popped, allowing me through while it remained intact. As I was living, the barrier couldn’t absorb me, so I passed through unharmed. It was strong, far more robustly made than others I’d seen, but those had all been much smaller. The moment I breached it, I had to adjust in midair, out of my dive, and then I landed gently between bodies on the dirt floor.

As my fire could go where I went, it followed me through the barricade, and now I could see that the bodies weren’t stacked haphazardly, one atop the other. They hadn’t been thrown down into the hole; they had to have been individually lowered and placed. Each corpse was carefully positioned, one next to the other, gently, reverently, hands crossed on their chests, both men and women, and their clothes, which looked to be from the mid-1800s, were in immaculate condition. The bodies themselves all appeared to be sleeping, not dead, so much so that for a moment my brain ridiculously concluded that Lorne and I had discovered a nest of vampires.

I wasn’t in a slip, it wasn’t a trap, but rather a hoard, as I’d initially thought to be far more likely. Someone had wanted these bodies to remain here undisturbed. In theory, they had planned for them to be there only a short time, as I’d never heard of a hoard being a long-term plan. Clearly, something had gone awry.

“Come out of there right fuckin’ now!” Lorne roared.

I wanted to speak to him, to tell him I was okay and that there was nothing in the pit that could harm me. But to do that, I would need to shift back to human form. Since there was not nearly enough room for me to run and shift back into raven form if I became a human, I remained the flock I was and did as he asked. I flew up, felt the barrier catch me, hold me momentarily, and when I punched through it again, I felt it collapse. It almost pulled me down, but I flew fast, to Lorne, shifting near him before stepping into his open arms. He tucked me tight against him.

“We have to get outside,” I rushed out the warning.

He shuttled me through the door quickly and we ran back over to where his Jeep was. Once there, he passed me my clothes so I could put everything back on, just as we both heard the sound of thunder.

“You broke it, didn’t you?” Lorne asked as I sat on the ground to put on my socks and shoes.

“I did. Yes. The second time I went through.”

“Should I be driving us away?” He helped me to my feet.

“No, we should be—oh,” I gasped as the ground shook, and Lorne grabbed me. It was comforting to be clutched tight.

And then there was that sound like thunder again before the dilapidated roof was blown off the top of the barn, hurled hundreds of feet in the air, then came down on the other side, shattering into a thousand pieces.

The wind blew up every leaf on the ground, portions of fencing were hanging off posts, and all kinds of trash were lifted, forming a funnel in the air.

“It’ll dissipate in a second,” I promised Lorne, speaking into his ear.

When the debris suddenly dropped at once, out of the sky and back to the ground, it sent up a cloud of dust, even though the ground was wet from the rain the night before.

Once it was still and silent, I exhaled deeply and looked up at Lorne. I was surprised at the fear I saw there. “Are you okay?”

“No!” he roared, letting me go and walking away several feet.

This was it. I’d done it. I’d finally succeeded in scaring off the only man I’d ever wanted to keep, and I had no one but myself to—

“You could have been killed!” he yelled, returning to me and grabbing my arms, shaking me. “What if something happened to you and— We just started and— You need to be more careful and follow my fucking directions!”

It took me a second to grasp his words. No, he wasn’t leaving me, but he was thoroughly pissed I’d put myself in danger.

It was marvelous.

Not that he was mad but that he was distraught about me. For me. I’d scared him, and he was angry. I simply adored him.

“Are you listening to me?” His voice cracked, and I heard it, all the emotions surging through him, fear and pain and, most of all, more than anything, the caring. Without question, from his expression and his battle stance and how dark his beautiful eyes were, he was telling me he cared.

“Yes,” I rasped, taking his face in my hands and leaning up to kiss him hard and long so he’d know I felt exactly the same. “I hear you loud and clear.”

ELEVEN

Most people, when they heard the word hoard, thought about dragons, but really, a hoard was basically a vault where treasure was housed.

“So there’re no dragons in this scenario.” Lorne was making certain.

“No,” I said, liking the fact that he was checking on all things magical just to be on the safe side.

We were sitting in his Jeep. He’d just gotten off the phone with the state police and the FBI, and now I was explaining things to him.

“A hoard can also be a hiding place where something valuable is hidden from others to be used at a later time.”

“Which is precisely what we found.”

“Yes.”

Lorne took a breath. “The bodies are all bones now.” When we’d arrived, the bodies had been safe in the hoard, undisturbed and protected, looking like they were simply sleeping. Once I’d disturbed the hoard, broken the protections, time had caught up with the murdered people and turned them from cadavers to bones.

The state police would soon be out here with protections from the elements, tarps to keep the rain out of the pit, and floodlights. The FBI would be arriving in two hours, Lorne was told, and his attendance was required, as well as that of anyone who could help place the bodies in a historical context. Taylor had already been asked and was thrilled to lend her expertise, and of course there would be a forensic anthropologist on site to start identifying the individuals.

Lorne’s deputies, Victoria Day and Peter Rooney, were on their way to watch over the bodies while Lorne took me home. We were holding hands as I explained to him, again, that the site was safe.

“Whoever put these bodies here stored them because, as Taylor showed us, originally the rift was supposed to be here.”

“Not on your land.”

“No.”

“Okay, so somewhere, probably close,” Lorne surmised, “is a very small doorway, and that’s where Rulaine, and everyone and everything like her, crossed into Osprey.”

“Yes.”

“But what about the slip at the harvest festival?”

“That’s not a rift, it’s a trap. She created that to catch me and kill me.”

“So she just conjured that out of thin air.”

“Yes, she did. She was very powerful.”

“But not as powerful as you.”

“Different kinds of magic. Hers was glamours, enchantments, alternate realities, curses, and incantations.”

“And what’s the difference between an incantation and a spell?”

“With an incantation, you’re creating something from nothing, and it normally requires a sacrifice or offering of some kind. A spell is a prayer with added stuff.” I chuckled. “Smoke or water or something you’re blessing. It’s simple and easy and takes only your intention to manifest.”

“Like the rice bottle at the front door of the house.”

“That’s right. I put it there, I tapped the lid, told it what I needed it to do, and it’ll do it, so mote it be. The latter marks the end of the spell and releases it out into the world to do good work.”

“So everyone can cast spells?”

“Yes. It’s not only the dominion of witches. For the good of all and the detriment of none, as long as what you’re doing helps, nothing will block the magic.”

“But there’s a difference between you, who can actually fly and call on power in your hereditary line and speak to the dead—”

“I speak to ghosts,” I corrected him. “Those who wish to speak to me. And I send them on their way. But I’m not a necromancer who resurrects and forces the dead to speak to them. I don’t have that power.”

“That’s what Declan was saying that night we first spoke to him, that we’d need a necromancer to speak to the fae you killed, that guy Sola.”

“Right. The one Argos ate.”

“That’s so incredibly gross.”

I shrugged.

“Okay, you don’t wake the dead. I don’t have to worry about zombies with you.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about zombies at all,” I said authoritatively, “but for the sake of argument, no. You don’t have to concern yourself with me resurrecting anything or having dead animals follow me home.”

“That’s what happens to necromancers?”

“From what I understand, yes. It must be terrifying, especially when they’re young.”

“But if we had a necromancer here, DNA wouldn’t be necessary. They could just ask everyone individually who they were.”

“Sure, but conversely, you have to remember that the soul is gone from those people. Once they were killed, their souls continued on to one of the next stops on their path. So what’s left is like a recording of life. Those people in the hole can tell you who they were, but first, because they’ve been killed, you would have to deal with whatever trauma they went through at the end. That’s another reason necromancers are usually crazy. Imagine having people shriek and scream at you all day, every day, because they don’t know they’re dead. All they do know is the last thing that happened to them, so the fear and horror is visceral for them when they get woken up by a necromancer.”

“But what if a necromancer talks to a person who had a lovely life, who died peacefully and—oh, I see what you’re saying. Why would they be talking to that person.”

“Correct. Necromancers are usually employed by those who need to answer questions about a murder or an inheritance. They need to find a lost treasure or whatever. Necromancers don’t speak to people who left life fulfilled and happy.”

He was staring at me.

“What?”

“It’s what you said earlier… A soul’s path?”

“Too whimsical for you?”

“No,” he said, smiling. “But you believe a soul has many different paths?”

“An infinite number, yes. It doesn’t mean the love doesn’t remain, and that’s why they visit in dreams, but once the soul passes through this life, this manifestation, they go on. I think it’s beautiful, all the experiences and times and people that one soul will enjoy.”

“And if it’s not enjoyable?”

“Then hopefully something was gleaned. That’s what my grandfather always said. Whenever I had a total shitshow of a day, he’d ask if I learned something.”

“And if you said no?”

“Then he’d make me think and try and figure out what the lesson was. He wasn’t the kind of man who just accepted yes or no answers. He was a mage, after all, and all of them live to ask questions. My grandfather was no exception.”

“He sounds like a great man.”

“He was. He could be really annoying but also amazing and great. To hear Amanda tell it, the man walked on water. She dearly loved my grandfather.”

“I bet you thought he was annoying because he made you think before you acted,” Lorne said with a waggle of his eyebrows. “Am I right?”

“What? No.”

He scoffed. “I think he and I would have gotten along just fine.”

“Probably so,” I groused at him.

“You’re a bit transparent but I like you anyway,” he assured me. “And one of these days you have to tell me how you and Amanda are connected. I don’t get that at all.”

I smiled at him. “I will.”

“So.” He exhaled deeply. “What now?”

“I’m fairly certain that a hundred years ago, the cultists, followers of Threun, had thought they found the rift in Osprey, somewhere on the land we’re standing on. Subsequently, they murdered all those people in preparation for their god to cross over. But it turned out that the rift on the Phoenix Farm was too small for a god to come through.”

“What do you mean, too small?”

“Gods are very powerful, so for them to cross from their worlds to ours, the opening has to be big enough.”

“That seems crazy to me, since they’re gods or goddesses. Shouldn’t they just be able to go anywhere they want?”

“Well, it’s similar to electricity, in a way. You can’t plug a generator for a hospital into the wall socket at your house. The plug and the outlet have to match. Same idea for powerful deities crossing from their realm into ours.”

“So then the cultists who murdered those people, they were under the impression that by killing enough of them, they could make the rift expand to accept the crossing of their god from his reality to ours.”

“That’s my assumption, yes.” I liked how he took my hand in his, cranking up the Jeep’s heater to keep us both warm. “But once all those people were killed, they realized there was no change. The rift remained the same. They had failed.”

“And the bodies stayed here, in limbo, kept intact…” Lorne trailed off. “Why would they do that? Why keep them if it didn’t work?”

Sometimes you just had to be asked the right question in the right way for your brain to kick in. “Because Rulaine was the one in charge, the one who tried. And after, once she knew it didn’t work, she’s the one who created the hoard to hold the bodies in stasis so she could try again once she found the bigger rift.”

“But how did she know there’s a rift on your land?”

I sighed deeply. “Because of Mattie.”

“Who’s Mattie?”

“She’s an ancestor of mine. Dom Aoki was telling me today that he thought of Mattie as an avenging angel, stopping the cultists after they killed Spencer. He’d helped fortify our house with iron in the bricks, in the ground, to ward the fae, and he probably did it without question, just like Amanda would help me, because they weren’t just friends…”

“They were best friends,” Lorne concluded. “Spencer Phelps was her best friend, and when he was killed, she went after the cultists and wiped them all out.”

I looked at him. “As a rule, witches don’t kill for vengeance, only to protect. I think by the time Mattie got here, to the farm, they were already dead.”

“You mean the cultists.”

“Yes.”

“Oh,” Lorne said, nodding understanding. “Those aren’t random townspeople down there in the hole; those are the members of the cult. They killed Spencer, were going to kill more, never realizing that they themselves were the sacrifice, until Rulaine—oh, she was smart—who’d brought them all together in the first place, turned on them.”

“Yes. I think that’s exactly what happened.” I shivered with cold and dread. “Mattie came here to search for Spencer, and somehow, after finding him, in her pain, she tipped her hand and revealed that the real doorway was on our land.”

“She was furious, I’m sure. Screaming at the dead people, taunting them over their stupidity for trusting the wrong person, and maybe she confessed something she shouldn’t have. Or maybe Rulaine was there, and they fought, and Mattie yelled it at her, and when it was over, Rulaine slunk back to the fae realm through the rift here.”

“We’ll find Mattie’s journal when we get home,” I said, “but that sounds about right.”

“What I don’t get is, Rulaine knew she couldn’t increase the size of the rift that’s here, so why keep the bodies? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Because Corvus is warded, but everyone can come onto the land. I have to tell the land that it’s in danger, that’s why a guardian is needed.”

“Because it’s not aware of intentions.”

“That’s right. Rulaine had no trouble being on the grounds. She just couldn’t come into the cottage. And though she couldn’t kill people on my land, she could bring corpses there and stack those on my side of the rift.”

“Because your land wouldn’t perceive the bodies as murdered, just dead.”

“Exactly,” I agreed, just as we saw headlights approaching.

I sat in the car as Lorne got out to speak to his deputies and I was pleased for all of them that the rain had stopped. Being out in the cold was one thing. Being out in the cold and the rain was an entirely different matter. I waved since they were both friends of mine, and then watched as he talked to the fire department. He’d called them because they had sturdy extendable ladders to get down into the hole so the skeletons could be covered with tarps until the state police and the FBI arrived.

I was the anomaly on site, not any part of law enforcement, and I thought about everything and realized I needed to be at home, going through books, figuring out the next step.

The state police showed up, the entire area was sectioned off, and suddenly there were lights everywhere. It was far brighter than my fireballs had been.

When the FBI arrived, they had a crane with them, and they set up tents with tables and an enormous tent went over the hole, which they draped in plastic. Sandbags were stacked around the sides so no water could run into the hole. They had to be wondering how long the remains had been down there and how the bones and clothes were in such pristine condition, both without any signs of insect or animal predation. I was betting it would be concluded that it was due to the barn being enclosed with a roof for all those years. That made no sense, but from their perspective, what else could it be?

The CDC arrived next. Lorne explained that they were tasked with figuring out why the people had died. Was it a plague? A measles outbreak? What could have killed the citizens of Osprey? That was vital information to learn.

Finally, I couldn’t sit anymore and went to find Lorne. Both deputies were answering questions and directing people to areas on the property. Lorne, when I saw him, was under a tent with the special agent on site, and the two of them were surrounded by an entire crowd of people.

I waved, getting his attention, then made the motion of taking off, letting him know I was going to fly home.

He shook his head adamantly, but I nodded just as emphatically and turned to go.

I needed to be at home. It had started as a whisper of a thought, turned quickly into nagging, anxious need, but now I was basically shivering with the understanding that I had to reach my land. Something was happening, and I had to go.

I ran back to the Jeep and stripped fast, then slipped out of the passenger side, thrilled that everyone else had parked closer to the site but realizing I was still within the perimeter. I didn’t have incantations for becoming invisible or for people to look away. That wasn’t the kind of magic that lived in me. But what I did have going for me was the fact that people were moving with determination. They had a job to do, they had somewhere to be, so I waited a few moments, hugging the side of the Jeep, shivering in the wind, and as soon as I could, I seized the opportunity. I ran and leaped and was circling above them in moments. I checked on Lorne, saw him see me, clock my progress, and then I flew toward Corvus.

I flew by my cottage, saw that it looked fine, and then checked the rift and saw others there but didn’t dip down to see who. I was far too vulnerable in my current state, and if I needed to be human, standing there in nothing but my skin seemed like a bad idea.

At the back door of the cottage, I shifted, slipped inside, and was immediately confronted by a woman I’d never met before in my life. The clothes, however, were a dead giveaway.

“How are you here, Mattie?” I greeted her.

“I am only released from the veil for a short time. This was my home then, just as surely as it is yours now, so all of us, all your ancestors, may come to you in times of great need.”

Which I knew. I’d seen my grandfather speaking to many people over the years, who only he could see, who appeared when needed. Sometimes, like with my grandparents, they had appeared in a dream. But I suspected that at the moment, Mattie was the one who could offer me the most guidance.

“I need to put on clothes,” I told her. “Stay with me.”

“For as long as I am able,” she assured me.

She followed me to my bedroom, and as I pulled on clothes, she looked around. “Does it look different?” I asked her.

“No,” she answered, brows furrowed, “and that is troubling. Change what you will, Xander. You are not the caretaker here. This is your home. You need to make it your own.”

Her words surprised me. “But I shouldn’t alter what’s been here for—”

“Of course you should! It’s a home, not a museum. I suspect it wants to change for you or others. Again I say, it’s no monument to the past, but a home. Your home.”

She was right, and it hit me that I had been living in a shrine. I never wanted to do anything to disrupt the magic in the cottage, but just having Lorne there, or having Amanda and Declan visit, or her kids, just those people changed the energy. And it was a good lesson because I was guessing there was a solar-powered television set in my future. Lorne had so many things he wanted me to watch with him, and there was a football season, and baseball and basketball to consider as well. But really, it was time to modern up the joint, at least a bit. Mattie was right. I didn’t live in the eighteenth century, and there were things, like a cell phone, that I actually needed. It was time to embrace the twenty-first century—within reason. There could never be electricity on Corvus because it would disrupt the ley lines, among many other things, but change was good.

“And always remember,” Mattie said, breaking into my thoughts. “This building retains magic from many souls over the years, but the true living, breathing magic is in you.”

And she was right. It was a good reminder.

Once I was dressed, I faced my aunt many times removed. “Tell me about Threun.”

“He is a god of blood and destruction, from the mountains.”

Great. Not what I meant. “What about him getting through the rift?”

“Spencer helped make this house impenetrable to the fae,” she told me, singing his praises, I was guessing, so I’d understand the weight of her loss. “He was my friend and my love, and Libitina, Threun’s acolyte, murdered him, and everyone else in that barn.”

“Libitina?”

She nodded.

“I’m missing something,” I said out loud.

“Threun’s plan,” she explained, “attempted by his servant, Libitina, was for him to cross through the rift using the bodies as a bridge.”

“Right.”

“But, as you know, they had the wrong rift. It was too small to bring over a god.”

“Okay. That all follows, but how did Libitina find out about ours?”

She grimaced in pain. “I was…bereft. And in my anguish, I said more than I should have.”

“About our home.”

“Yes.”

“What did she do?”

“When I fled, she followed me here.”

“And then?”

“Attacked me so I was forced to kill her.” She stated and her voice was devoid of emotion.

Mattie wasn’t fooling me. I knew she wanted to kill Libitina for murdering Spencer. But her hands were clean because technically, it wasn’t revenge. She’d killed out of necessity. Mattie was defending Corvus once she was back on our land. That made sense. I had no quarrel with her over that. But other things still weren’t adding up. “I’m sorry for everything you went through, but that doesn’t answer the question about the threat I’m facing now. Because if you killed Libitina, then––”

“There was another with her whom I missed,” she confessed. “She was one with the shadows until the end when I was too weak, after fighting with Libitina, to rise and follow where she went.”

I was quiet, waiting to hear more.

“She didn’t aid the sorceress, even when she knew I was killing her, but when I was lying on the ground, she came and told me her name.”

That made no sense.

“I didn’t understand then, why not kill me? Why reveal her identity?”

“Yes,” I prodded her. “Why?”

“Because her plan, unlike Threun’s, would take time,” she replied sadly. “She wasn’t in a hurry, and she wasn’t afraid of me, not then, in my current state, and certainly, if she’d killed me, the land would have been on guard against anything and everything and that wasn’t what she wanted, or needed.”

“If she killed the guardian, the land would have closed itself off.”

“Yes. It’s only logical.”

It was. “But closed itself off to what?” I asked her.

“Threun is the death bringer,” she said flatly. “Gaeidhel, his wife, is the sower.”

“His wife?”

She nodded.

“Threun’s wife was there with you that night?”

“She was.”

“Okay, but what do you mean by sower?”

“She sows the earth, plants…that is her.”

I had to get my mind to work faster. “So she was also planning to build a bridge so Threun could cross.”

“Yes. It’s the only way an uninvited god may come through.”

It was one of those odd things. The crossing through was the issue, not being on the land afterward. Because if you were able to cross, clearly you were welcome.

“A bridge of what though?” I questioned her.

“Not bodies.”

“No,” I agreed.

“Threun’s way is to pave the way in blood and death. That only works, as you know, on unprotected, unconsecrated ground. Corvus is warded and imbued with powerful magic. All you have to do is sanctify it and there’s not enough blood in the world to taint it.”

“Yes,” I agreed.

“So the original plan, Threun’s plan, set in motion by his servant, Libitina, was over. Gaeidhel knew that. The long plan, hers, had to come into play instead.”

“Sower you said.”

“Yes,” she replied with a resigned sigh.

I understood then. “She planted something that would take time to grow. Deep into the ground, slowly, where no one noticed.”

“Yes. I didn’t know. I checked, but saw no sign that anything had been disturbed.”

She wouldn’t have. Gaeidhel had sown seeds and there was no way for Mattie to have known that. No one knew. No one suspected.

Bridge, planks, all of it made sense because it was over the ground. Gaeidhel had planted in her world and done the same here, on Corvus. “But the land would never allow something tainted to—”

“It’s a plant, nothing more, an innocent, only seeking another just like it, as is its pattern of growth. They fuse and grow together.”

Gaeidhel had planted seeds in the ground on Corvus the last time she was here, and now, there were roots, looking to join the other, from Threun’s realm, and make it a cakewalk for him to pass over.

“She planted the seeds,” I reiterated to myself, putting the puzzle pieces together. I had it all wrong before. It had not been Rulaine after all, but a new player: Gaeidhel, who was working the long game. “Because she knew she could.”

“Yes.”

“I bet she checked on them, made certain it was growing.”

Mattie nodded.

“And she could come and go because you were drowning in your grief,” I said, trying to keep the judgment out of my voice.

“Yes. Both Spencer and Hillary were…more to me.”

I was listening, but she’d failed in her duty as guardian and that hurt.

“We were all leaving Osprey, but I was abandoning Corvus as well,” she confessed. “My desire to be with them surpassed my duty to the land. We wanted to be together someplace where a half-Iroquois woman, a Black man, and a white woman could be left in peace.”

It was all making a lot more sense. Spencer was killed, Hillary killed herself, and Mattie was left alone, utterly heartbroken.

“I stayed afterward, once they were both gone, and poured all my pain and misery into the land. I hurt Corvus greatly.”

I had no doubt.

“It’s fortunate for all that my little brother, Roland, returned from the wilds of California with his new wife, Zaneta, and their children, before I took my last swim in the ocean.”

It was painful to hear. “I’m so sorry.”

She nodded. “I was weak. I should have put aside my pain and—”

“You did the best you could,” I soothed her even if I didn’t agree with what she’d done. But what would piling on guilt do now? Instead, I told her about Dominic’s song and his feelings about her.

“He sounds lovely.”

I nodded. “Thank you for coming. I was going to look for your journal.”

“I burned my journal. I regret that, and so came to you so you would know what is not written down anywhere.”

“I’m going to start journaling myself.”

“Good. It is necessary to pass information. Write down all I have imparted here.”

“I will.”

Her dark brows furrowed. “Listen. The land will not understand why you want it to kill something that has lived peacefully in the earth, undisturbed, for over a century. You must use your power to make Corvus understand.”

“I can use fire and burn it out.”

She shook her head. “You think that Gaeidhel is a minion, like Rulaine or Libitina, but she is powerful and—”

“I didn’t know Libitina, but I killed Rulaine. I purified her body and then gave her to Corvus.”

“As I did Libitina, in front of Gaeidhel, on that night so long ago now,” she whispered, smiling at me. “We are both careful creatures. How alike we are.”

We were and weren’t. She had thought to leave her birthright, to abandon Corvus. I had only ever sought to have the connection be as strong as it could.

“Again I say to you, Gaeidhel is powerful. You must sever what she has wrought or Corvus will be hers and then…his.”

“You don’t have any advice at all?” I asked, hearing how shaky and thready my voice was. I was scared, but not for me, for the land and for Lorne, whom I wanted to see again.

“Oh!” she gasped. “I feel the pull for home and see the psychopomps gathering on your windows. I wish you luck, Xander, and hope not to see you in the gloaming too soon.”

“Thank you, Mattie.”

She nodded and disappeared.

Alone, the sound of the ringer of my phone startled the hell out of me. I saw it was Lorne and answered.

“You better be in the house when I get home,” he growled at me. “How dare you leave and scare the hell out of—”

“They’re crossing, Lorne. I felt it. I’m going now. Please, when you can, come help me. I’m scared too.”

“No, no, no, don’t go. I’m coming now. Just wait for me.”

“I can’t. You know I can’t. Just walk straight out the back door and come due west. You’ll find me.”

“Please, Xan, just wait.”

“I’ll see you soon,” I murmured and hung up. I left the phone ringing on the table when I went out the back door.

TWELVE

As I tore through the forest to reach the clearing where the rift was, I saw more people there than I had when I did my flyover earlier. My heart was in my throat as I saw thick roots on my side of the rift, curving sideways and entangling with those that looked like they’d appeared out of thin air, but that I knew were from the other side. A woman was standing on my land, her hands clasped together like she was praying, her head bent. Around her, on their knees, were five other women, all scantily clad, completely unlike the nymph I’d met in Declan’s office, who’d been outfitted like a huntress, covered from head to toe. Clearly, these were handmaidens who didn’t do a lot of running.

I could see twelve men as well, all outfitted in breeches tucked into knee-high boots, long-sleeved tunics with armor over that, with fur capes and swords. They looked like every fantasy character on every book cover I’d ever seen in my life. At least six vargrs prowled near them. It was the epitome of bad, but they weren’t what scared me. What sent ice down my spine, made my stomach twist and my heart nearly stop, was the man, probably seven feet tall, who stepped through the rift, walking on the roots of the tree and then stepping down onto the soil of my land.

He was enormous, all muscle, and outfitted for war. A sword hung from each hip, there were daggers in a belt across his chest, and what looked like two bears had been used to make his cloak, as there was a head on each of his massive shoulders. His hair was dark brown, which I could see only because the moon was bright. The gold crown around his head was encrusted with rubies. He was handsome, with a long aquiline nose, chiseled features, and a square jaw. His voice, when he spoke, was low and rough.

“You have done well, my love,” he said to the beautiful woman, who practically glowed in the moonlight. This had to be Gaeidhel, his queen, which was made clear by the item he now held. A moment ago, there was nothing in his hand, but now, suddenly, there was a crown, delicately made, in sharp contrast to the thick, crudely made one he wore. “You may take your place at my side in this realm.”

One of his knights—I wasn’t sure what else to call them—spread a beautiful gold brocade blanket on the ground, and the woman knelt and received her crown. When she rose, he took her into his arms and kissed her. When he let her go, he saw me, the first one to notice me.

“No,” he said, chuckling, glancing around at his people. “Surely this cannot be the mage who has given you all so much trouble.”

I would have corrected the mage part, but it didn’t seem necessary or smart. Better to leave the lie in place than contradict an assumption that might help me. I bellowed, “You need to return to your home. Get the hell off my land!”

He laughed. Of course he did. He was huge, and I was tiny in comparison. In that moment, I knew precisely how David had felt.

“I am Threun the defiler, and you are merely a whelp.”

I was so sick of the descriptions that came with his title. “I killed Rulaine,” I said, hoping that news would give him pause. I had rushed out into the fight as I always did, and now realized I was in over my head. At the same time, what else was I supposed to do? Let them get farther than the clearing where the rift was? Let them walk the length of Corvus, poisoning it, killing it, and then head for Osprey? I was the guardian, the protector, the shield. I was the raven of the woods as Lorne had dubbed me. This was my purpose, my sacred duty, to defend the land and protect the town. “I killed your man Sola as well. Do not mistake me for anything less than the lion who guards the gate.”

His queen sneered at me. “Rulaine was a weak, conniving whore trying to claw her way out of the swamp she was born in, and Sola was nothing more than an enchantment gone wrong. If you dispatched them, they were weaker than I thought and did not use the vargrs I sent with them,” she proclaimed in a voice dripping with disdain before giving me a dismissive wave of her hand that sent all six wolves at me at once.

Dropping fast to the ground, I shoved my hands deep into the wet soil and called on the land for help.

I have to protect you, I said.

We have to protect you, the land answered.

As the vargrs rushed for me, roots erupted from the ground, and the first three were impaled, killed instantly as sharp barbs shot through their heads, while the fence the roots made shielded me from the others.

“Oh, the mage is skilled!” Threun laughed loudly. “He will make for good sport. You might even keep him for Marden, as he loves to torture beautiful boys like this one.”

Two of the knights came then, swords drawn, and the vargrs skulked around the sides of my small barricade to reach me.

The ground rose in blocks of compacted soil, lifting the knights off the ground, turning then to mud that engulfed them, drowning them, then went solid again, cracking every bone in their bodies at once, before sucking them back down into the ground, buried alive for seconds before their blood was squeezed from their bodies.

Looking at the vargrs, I used my power to freeze them where they were before my energy rose inside their bodies until, like Sola, they couldn’t breathe. It was scary, I knew it was, and when I couldn’t hold them a moment longer—they were far more powerful than the others—the second I released them I wasn’t surprised that they turned and ran, streaking by the queen and Threun, back through the rift they came from.

I was right about the handmaidens; they didn’t run, instead turning into enormous fast-moving snakes that came at me, smashing through the barrier, slapping me away from the ground, hurling me several feet into the clearing, closer to Threun and his queen. Before I could get my hands back into the ground, razor-sharp fangs were driven into my left shoulder and right thigh. I was caught in a vise of pain, being ripped apart as they pulled away from each other, trying to tear me in half as another slithered close.

I saw her head, and then it exploded in chunks of blood and bone. The other two snakes dropped me, and the head of the one on my right, who’d bitten through my thigh, shattered, the blood washing over my face and chest.

Lorne strode into the clearing, rifle in hand, reloading as he came, from the same kind of belt Threun wore across his chest. The difference was, Lorne’s was full of enormous bullets that I was guessing were iron, given that the snakes stayed dead, not turning back into women.

Two of the handmaidens went for him, the third coming for me. I crossed my arms over my face, guarding all that I could, and heard shots ring out before, again, I was splashed with hot blood.

Moving my arms, I found a dead snake beside me, looked for Lorne, and saw him charging by the others he’d killed to reach me.

The man was magnificent.

“The mage has a protector.” Gaeidhel laughed as a funnel of wind caught Lorne and flipped him around. He yelled, cursing up a storm as the rifle fell down into the dirt.

I wanted to move, but the maidens had delivered poison into my bloodstream with their bites, which had opened gaping wounds in my flesh. Blood was running out of me, and the poison was making everything blurry.

But I had to save Lorne. He was my love. He was supposed to be mine. I’d known it from the beginning, when he was in my house—my cottage—for the first time. The cottage loved him, and so did I. That needed to be confessed. And it was fast, but that didn’t make it any less true. I loved Lorne MacBain, and he needed to be told.

Lifting up, I shoved my hands into the ground, and a wall of soil shot straight up, blocking Gaeidhel’s vision of Lorne. As I suspected, her magic worked only if she could see her target. He dropped twenty feet out of the sky into the cradle of leaves that had blown together to cushion his fall. It was still a hard landing, and the wind was knocked out of him for a moment.

I couldn’t hold the barrier any longer, and it dropped back into the earth, like a retractable bridge, fitting seamlessly. Lorne leaped for his rifle, but a knight beat him to it, putting his foot on the barrel and drawing his sword, which would have sliced Lorne’s head off if he hadn’t come up off his knees fast and driven his shoulder into the knight’s chest, throwing him off his feet and down hard into the ground. With the rifle free, Lorne grabbed it, reloaded, and killed the man, his head blown into wet gore just as the snakes were.

Scrambling back, Lorne didn’t touch me, too busy reloading what I could now see was not a rifle but a shotgun with a really long barrel.

“It’s okay, you’re gonna be okay,” he promised me, lifting the gun to fire.

More vargrs had come through the rift and one hit him in the back, and the two of them went rolling away, only the barrel of the shotgun, wedged between the jaws of the wolf, keeping Lorne from having his face ripped off.

Barely able to lift myself up, I shoved my hands into the earth.

Save my love, I said.

And you, the land answered.

Like fingers lifting from the ground, both Lorne and the vargr were covered in soil and then sucked down into the earth. In seconds Lorne was pushed up, left heaving for breath, his shotgun beside him, with no sign of the vargr.

Sever the roots. They are poison, I said.

The roots will do you no harm, the land answered.

As predicted, the land saw no reason to fear that which the queen had sown so long ago. She was magic like me, had probably sung to the earth as she pressed the seeds deep inside. I couldn’t convince Corvus something was dangerous if it perceived it as benign.

Lorne fell down beside me, loading the gun, turning it on Threun, but in the next instant Gaeidhel was there, her long hands turned to talons on his throat, cutting off his air.

My head fell back as I called on my power, on all that was left.

Lorne was wrenched from her hand, she was thrown back as if punched, and he was heaving for breath.

“Oh, baby,” he moaned, moving to me, taking my face in his hands, and when his skin touched mine, I realized I was freezing. I wanted him to wrap me in his arms and hold me tight. “You have to wait for me from now on. Next time, you don’t go without me.”

Next time. I loved that. Always hopeful, Lorne. “I promise,” I whispered as he pulled me to him, hand in my hair, so gentle with me, tucking my head under his chin for a moment, both of us seeing the crumpled piece of metal the shotgun now was.

“Stay with me,” he whispered, kissing my temple. “Don’t leave me. Don’t ever leave me.”

The jolt of power was a surprise.

When he clutched me against him, I felt the warmth surround me.

Oh…I had no idea.

Much like earth magic, our joining had bound us together, was alive between us, living and breathing, and because of that, Lorne became part of me, part of the magical, sacred loop that flowed out of me and into him and then right back again. There was an unbroken circle, and because of that, now some of my power lived in him continually, a reserve I could tap into because he was something I never imagined he would be—my mate.

I lifted my hands and pushed. Through the wards, through my connection to the land, through the joining with Lorne, I shoved everything at the knights, and they were flung off their feet, high into the air, lost to sight before they were yanked down like magnets to steel and sucked into the ground. Gaeidhel was caught in a funnel of wind that smashed her against the monstrous roots of whatever she’d planted long ago. I watched as she coughed up blood.

“Enough!” Threun bellowed, and Lorne and I were thrown back, twisting and bouncing as though falling down a steep hill, rolling over, until we both hit the roots I’d lifted from the ground earlier.

I’d heard the cracking as I rolled, knew things were broken, and felt it deep inside, that I was more than simply hurt. Struggling to sit up, worried I was too damaged to fight on, I watched as more vargrs came through the rift, ten at least, more knights, and then the worst—Threun took Gaeidhel’s hand and she instantly healed, standing again, tall and strong. He lifted his sword then, high in the air.

“I claim this land in the name of Threun the blood bringer. It is mine and shall die like all else in my path.”

He was going to bury the broadsword to the hilt in the ground, and I lifted, barely, knowing I’d reached my end, but needing to protect Corvus with all that was left, all that I knew I could give. And my last would save Lorne as well because the land knew what he was to me.

My left arm was fractured, useless to me, so I shoved my right hand into the earth.

Take me, I begged.

I needed the land to use me to heal itself, to stay strong, to not fall to Threun. I was prepared to die, to be drawn down into the earth. As a guardian I always had to be ready to trade my life for the land, as so many of my line had. That was the great secret of the bond, that it was forged from the blood and bones of my ancestors.

Take us, it answered.

The land loved me as much as I loved it, and when I felt Lorne beside me, wrapping me in his arms, I burst into tears, overwhelmed with my blessings.

“This is mine,” Threun proclaimed as two more vargrs, much bigger than the others, came through the rift and strode out in front of him.

“Never,” I howled back.

“When I have claimed this land, I will strip your flesh from—”

His threat went unfinished as the vargr to his right was struck hard, flung up in the air, and then landed in a gory heap, cleaved in half.

Gwyn stalked in front of him, washed in blood, glowing in the moonlight.

I exhaled and slumped against Lorne, seeing Dar rushing the other vargrs, herding them toward Osko, who ripped off their back legs or their heads, whichever he caught in his jaws first, the massacre was thorough, like they were machines instead of dogs.

A knight faced the Cŵn Annwn, but an enormous spear came from the sky and went through the man, punching him to the ground, impaling him with enough power that a cloud of dirt and leaves rose. He twitched for only a moment before he died.

“No!” Gaeidhel shrieked as a great ax whistled through the air and struck the roots. It was both enormous and ancient.

I heard it then, hoofbeats, and saw Skokse as he never was—visible, his coat like liquid onyx, his mane like silk blowing in the breeze, his rider, Guro, a Valkyrie, resplendent in her armor, her gorgeous flaxen hair braided in a long plait, leading the wild hunt, as always.

I had my answer then to where the dogs had been. They’d gone to their master, to the god whose hunt it was, who rode across the sky with his companions, then landed and raced over Corvus as he did every year, sanctifying all, blessing it. Once, when I was ten, he saw me and got off his fire-breathing stallion, walked over and put a gentle hand on my shoulder and then my back. I thought I was going to die, burning from the inside out, the brand on my bones, in my blood, boiling me alive until…it stopped. I looked up into his eyes, as blue as the sky on a cloudless day.

“You are mine,” the god said.

“Yes,” I answered. “Always.”

He was Arawn, lord of the hunt, king of Annwn, some said of the underworld and death, but my grandmother said no. He led the hunt to find evil left behind on the earth and for demons who’d escaped hell and needed to be returned.

Guro dismounted and walked toward the ax embedded in the roots, and when two of Threun’s knights charged her, she drew an enormous broadsword, quickly, as if it were light as a feather, and beheaded both in an instant.

“Holy shit,” Lorne breathed out.

She then wiped the blade on the fur cloak of the last man to fall, sheathed it, reached for the ax, and began to chop away at the roots. More knights went to attack her, but she didn’t even lift her head as another of Arawn’s riders, Draven, put arrows that had to be over six feet long through three of them faster than I could track with my eyes.

Arawn was there then, astride his red stallion, Nudd, who waited patiently as his lord dismounted. When Arawn’s feet hit the ground, I felt it shake, and everywhere he stepped, edelweiss bloomed.

Except for Guro, who was still hacking away at the roots, everyone froze, making Threun and Gaeidhel retreat closer to the rift. Guro then called the dogs to her, and they locked their jaws on the roots and, along with her, pulled. Her action was clear. She was going to unearth the plant.

Arawn strode to the edge of the rift, looking at Threun and Gaeidhel, and when he lifted his hand, one of the knights flew through the air, was caught in his grip, and was drained of life, decaying in an instant, bone one second, dust the next. With the dust in his hand, he blew it at the queen, who screamed and was thrown back through the rift, gone from sight.

“Hear me,” he said quietly to Threun. “I am Arawn, and this land,” he said, extending his arm, hand open to include everything as far as the eye could see, “is mine.” He then pointed at me. “I ride through this rift that is kept safe by that witch, there, who was branded and belongs to me as well.”

Threun shuddered.

I had no idea a god could shudder.

“I care for this realm,” Arawn told him. “But not for all I have seen, and there are many. I bid you find another rift, step through and claim all that is there.”

Threun was silent, only staring.

“Hear me when I say that on this land, and near my servant, you are not welcome.”

“Yes, my lord Arawn,” Threun responded.

“If you step one foot on Corvus again, ever, I will come for you, wherever you are, and bathe first in the tears of your queen and then your blood.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“All those of the hunt are in my service, and as such I speak for them when I say, we will follow you to the end of all things if you test me.”

“Yes,” Threun rasped.

“Get off my land,” Arawn growled, low, in the back of his throat.

Threun ran, but Draven sent an arrow through the air and into the nothing of the rift after him anyway. We all heard the cry of pain. I knew he wasn’t dead, but the warning had been delivered loud and clear.

Instantly, the roots from the other side of the rift shriveled and turned to dust. The roots Guro and the dogs had unearthed did the same.

I watched as Arawn lifted his head, smelling the air, and then, with a smile on his face, began across the ground toward me and Lorne.

Unlike the others, clad in armor, he was in buckskin, his pants and long-sleeved tunic held by a leather belt at his waist. He was not handsome in a traditional way. Big and barrel chested, he had arms the size of tree trunks, his beard and mustache ran together, and his gray hair, shot through with silver, was long and thick, falling to the middle of his back, held by an ornate strip of hand-tooled leather. Other than his towering height, he could be anyone. But the thing that always held me captivated were his eyes. They were that kind of summer-sky blue you squinted at because it was so bright, and their center glowed gold. The laugh lines in the corners of his eyes, showing how often he smiled, I also loved.

He knelt down on one knee, and still, I had to look up into his face. “When the dogs are here with you, send them to find me. When they are not, call to them. Either will draw my attention.”

I was afraid to ask but had to. “And you’ll come?”

“If there is nothing or no one more pressing.”

I had to smile at his wording even as I fought hard not to pass out. He was a god, after all. His time was far more valuable than mine.

“I will come,” he grumbled at me in that husky, whiskey-thickened rasp of his.

“Thank you, my lord.”

“Is this your mate?” He motioned to Lorne.

“Yes, my lord.”

He nodded and put his warm hand on my cheek. It was like electricity flowing through my body, and I sat up, drained, exhausted, but well. He then put his hand on Lorne’s shoulder, and he too jolted under the healing touch of a god.

“You did well with your weapon,” he praised Lorne. “I have restored it so it may serve again. Keep the iron close, as the fae cannot be trusted.”

“Yessir,” he told Arawn, who gave him a nod before turning back to me.

“Be well until we meet again.”

“And you, my lord Arawn.”

“Return to your cottage and rest. Worry not about sanctifying the land because of the spilled blood. I will see to that.”

“My thanks.”

I watched as all the bodies, men, snakes, vargrs, turned to dust and were caught on the breeze.

Arawn rose then and walked back toward Nudd, halfway there kneeling again and pushing his hand into the ground just as I did. He spoke low, his words soft, lulling, but the land heard him and shuddered again, almost moaning in response to his power and the purification.

Normally he thundered across the land, but now he took his time, and the land must have thanked him for his communion because he was grinning as he stood up again. He continued on toward Nudd and, reaching him, climbed easily onto the saddle of his ferocious warhorse who blew a plume of fire into the air like a dragon. Arawn then waited as Guro remounted Skokse, because she always led. When Guro screamed, the sound rent the air, and they were gone in moments, riding hard.

The dogs ran over to me and Lorne, checked us, bumped up against us, and we stroked them quickly before they were gone, chasing after their master.

“Come with me,” I urged Lorne, tugging on his arm, and we ran together toward the meadow. Once there, we fell down into the thick carpet of leaves and soft grass, and I pointed up toward the moon. “Listen.”

He was quiet. “What am I listening for? All I hear are wild geese.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. That’s what they sound like as they fly by when they migrate.”

“I don’t hear geese,” I said, rolling sideways to look at him, and smiled. “I hear dogs baying, leading a hunt.”

He sat up, staring at the sky, seeing just as I did, a large band of riders galloping in front of the moon. Once they were gone from sight, he said, “I’ve never seen that before in my life.”

I sat up beside him. “And you won’t without me. I am branded by the god Arawn, and I’m the caretaker of the Cŵn Annwn, his hounds. I see through the veil of magic, that which allows you to see the wild hunt as few others ever have.”

“It’s amazing,” he whispered roughly. “I’m in awe.”

“But is that what you want?” I asked hesitantly. “Because once you—”

“Are you insane?”

I was continually amazed with his ability not to freak out and lose his mind. “I don’t under—”

“You told that seemingly very nice yet utterly terrifying god that I was your mate. Do you think walking that back is a good idea?”

“No, but I didn’t ask you before I blurted out my—”

“He never once raised his voice.” Lorne put his arm around my shoulders and tucked me into his side. “Did you notice that? Even when he was threatening Threun, he never once sounded anything but calm and cool. I need to learn to do that. To not allow other people to ever hear anything in my voice but control and power.”

I chuckled.

“Also, please note he called our home a cottage as well. Isn’t it crazy that he knew that?”

It hadn’t surprised me at all.

“Let’s go home, Xan.” He took my hand. “And then I have to talk to the mayor and coordinate the town council’s response to having a doomsday cult.”

“No, I promise you, no one will ever call the people who lived out at the Phoenix Farm that.”

“Sure,” he agreed and was quiet a moment before he cleared his throat and said, “Would you like to make a bet?”

THIRTEEN

Luckily, I was not a gambling man, or I would have bet Lorne and lost. In the next few weeks, Osprey, sadly, became known as having a doomsday cult that had culminated in a mass grave. The former inhabitants of the Phoenix Farm became the Cult of the Phoenix, and the influx of tourists to the town was unprecedented. Taylor Hernandez and Dominic Aoki became overnight celebrities, speaking to every news outlet, becoming the talk of social media, chatting on early morning and late-night talk shows, with the hype finally culminating in a wildly successful podcast. They had just announced that their book would be out the following year at Halloween. It was all too much for me.

Amanda was giddy and got them in touch with Netflix. “Cultists are way better than cannibals,” she assured me.

Quietly, after I explained everything to Lorne, he arranged to have Spencer Phelps placed beside Hillary Newcastle in the Osprey cemetery. Originally, his thought was to move Hillary away from where she was, to a quiet little corner that only she and Spencer would share. But with the rabid interest in Taylor and Dominic’s podcast, that simply wasn’t possible. Placing Spencer’s newly discovered remains next to hers, was the best he could do. There was fresh interest in Hillary and Spencer’s doomed love affair, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. No one knew about Mattie’s ties to them, except the way she championed Spencer after his death, but that was all right. The important people—Hillary, Spencer, and Mattie—knew the truth. That was enough. Interestingly, the day Spencer’s headstone went up beside Hillary’s, she didn’t appear at the bridge. I never saw her again. I was guessing she was finally at rest.

Declan was over the moon with the boom in tourism, and his bistro, along with every other eatery in town, was rolling in money. Him naming a sandwich after a cult was in really poor taste, but everyone literally ate it up.

“What? The Phoenix egg on toast? You don’t love it?” he asked.

Lorne shook his head.

Amanda thought it was brilliant.

He also started serving things from the cards I’d loaned him. Lemon cake with lavender frosting, strawberry macaroons, gingersnaps that were as big as pancakes, pastel de tres leches and semitas which were both my grandmother’s recipes. They were close to hers, but were, of course, missing her magic.

Amanda and Lorne bonded over Declan’s cinnamon rolls, over their mutual love of football, and they shopped together for the solar-powered TV, connected to a satellite, that would go in the cottage. It found a home in the living room, and though at first I found it disruptive, I quickly came around, enjoying it when we watched movies together. There were hundreds I had to see, and Lorne made popcorn and we snuggled up together. I enjoyed that part the most.

When James and Cass came for Thanksgiving, Lorne made his move to the cottage official, though his brother wanted him to keep the keys for the house they’d bought together.

“Besides,” James said, shrugging, an evil glint in his eye. “What if you guys don’t work out and Lorne needs a place to move back to?”

He was kidding. I knew he was, and Lorne even chuckled, but the cottage did not find James humorous at all, and the cold breeze that whipped through the room, smacking him in the face, chilling him to the bone, was its comment on the man’s flippant words.

“You better apologize,” Lorne told his brother. “My home loves me.”

He did, quickly, and all was well.

The day after Thanksgiving, Lorne went with me to clear Amanda’s house of any unwanted energy, and he felt the negativity and jealousy actually leave.

“It feels so much better in here,” he told her.

“It certainly does,” she agreed. “Turkey sandwich with extra mayo?”

“Oh yes, please.” He grinned at her.

Later, she agreed that yes, Chief MacBain was a very handsome man. “Have his eyes always been that lovely shade of midnight blue?”

I just sighed and smiled at her.

Lorne drove to Westfield to speak to Megan Gallagher’s parents. He explained that Rulaine Marsh, the woman who had murdered their child, had been killed herself in an accident soon after. The case was closed, which was a small comfort to her parents. Megan’s father, Lorne told me, had caught him at his car before he left and asked if Rulaine Marsh had suffered before she died.

“She was in agony, sir,” Lorne promised.

Mr. Gallagher, Lorne said, seemed quite content with his answer.

Declan started dating a journalist from Manhattan long-distance, but she quickly relocated to Osprey to live with him. His beautiful newly renovated home overlooking the river, situated directly above his bistro, turned out to be the perfect place for her to write. They were getting married in the spring.

“I thought he was gay,” Amanda said to me.

“He’s bi,” I corrected her. “Not that you should care.”

“I was just confused,” she snapped.

He had been sent to get close to me, but it turned out that it was Kimberly O’Neill he adored. I was thrilled for him.

I went back to work at the library. When Mrs. Latham stopped by to ask for my number so she could pin down a time for me to come speak to her class about Yule, I saw that she kept touching her belly.

“Are you pregnant?”

“Yes!” She beamed at me. “It’s so funny, my husband and I had been trying for so long, but after the fall festival, a week later—baby. Like magic.”

Or simply good timing. People always forgot that if you manifested happiness, it would come. And a good spell bottle was always helpful.

Argos, who had been missing for weeks, and who I was honestly glad had not gotten into Threun’s sights when he was there, turned up the second week of December, walking through the snow to the back door. Once inside, he went immediately to his usual place by the hearth and slept for three days.

Lorne came home on the second day with a police report for me to read about a little girl who had been rescued from the man who kidnapped her, she reported, by a black cat.

“You’re kidding. Argos saved a little girl?”

“Yeah, but now they can’t find the guy who took her, whom they suspect of killing four other girls,” he ranted. “And I’m here telling you this and blaming your housecat.”

“Do you feel like a crazy person?” I asked him, lifting up to kiss his cheek.

“Yes! I feel like a crazy person!”

The next day, Saturday, when Argos woke up, he jumped up on the table where I was sorting Yule ornaments and walked over to Lorne, who was helping me, and rubbed his face on the scruff Lorne was sporting on his chin.

“Can I ask him if he ate the suspected serial killer?”

“Just assume he did.”

“I do agree that it was probably worse than prison, and the little girl was saved before there was any more trauma than the kidnapping, so that’s a blessing.”

“You see,” I said, as Argos batted a felt gnome off the table, watched it fall, then looked to Lorne for praise. “He’s a good boy.”

“He’s a very good boy,” Lorne told the daemon masquerading as a housecat.

It was terrifying when Lorne’s mother and grandmother showed up for Christmas. We drove over to James’s, where they were staying, Lorne holding my hand the entire way, smiling at me whenever he glanced away from the road.

When we got there, more people had arrived than we’d anticipated—Lorne’s mother’s new boyfriend, Gerald, and his two adult children, Lacey and Mark, and their families as well. The house was noisy and warm, and I was thrilled with the energy, not to mention the fact that the front-door mat now only said Merry Christmas.

“You should get one like I have,” Gloria, Lorne’s mother, said. She was funny and kind and couldn’t seem to stop holding my hand. “It says, Come in and be merry.”

“Oh no, Gran,” Cass told her. “You don’t want to welcome everything in. Not everything is welcome.”

“What are you talking about?”

Cass explained everything, including all about Mr. Ira Kleinman, the gentleman who left that night we cleansed the house. She had gone to town hall herself and found the records and done the research. I was so proud of her. As she told the story, everyone was riveted.

“You don’t believe any of that, do you?” Mark scoffed, looking at Lorne, expecting a quick response from the man I adored.

“Why wouldn’t he?” Gloria interrupted cheerfully, beaming at everyone. “It’s magic, after all. You have to believe in that.”

Lorne only smiled in response.

“Magic is all around us,” James said, making a sweeping gesture. “And dinner is served.”

On the way home, in Lorne’s Jeep, he gave me a small box.

“What’s this?”

“Maybe you should check inside.”

Flipping open the lid, I was faced with a thick, heavy ring that had clearly been made for me. It looked ancient, rustic, almost raw, with three large diamonds set as though they’d been dropped into molten…

It hit me. “This is iron.”

He grunted. “This way, it’s functional as well as binding.”

My eyes filled quickly. “It’s the most beautiful ring I’ve ever seen.”

“You can punch a fae and hurt them until I get there to save you.”

“That sounds perfect.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“It’s a ring, Xan. I want you to marry me,” he groused, scowling as we stopped at the only traffic light in town.

“Of course I’ll marry you,” I murmured as he took the ring out and slid it onto my finger. I wasn’t surprised it fit perfectly. The man knew things. “We belong together.”

“What else?” he prodded.

I sighed deeply, knowing it was time for the words and dying to say them. “I love you, Lorne MacBain.”

“There it is,” he crowed, driving through the light and then pulling over on the side of the road. He parked, unclipped his seat belt, and reached for me.

The kiss lit me up from the inside out, and I could feel my magic singing in my veins.

“I love you too,” Lorne said, leaning back to look at me. “And we do, more than anything, belong together.”

“Forever.”

“Forever,” Lorne echoed, and slid a hand around the side of my neck to ease me close for another kiss to seal the promise between us.

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

* * *

Thank you so much for reading Woods of the Raven my small-town, witch at the edge of the forest and police chief, romance. Opposites always attract, and one needs a rock, and the other some whimsy in their life. It’s a recipe for happiness. Hopefully, Xander and Lorne have many more adventures. If you enjoyed the book, please consider leaving a review on Amazon, it’s so helpful for the book’s visibility.

Another book with some magic and mayhem is Stand In Place.

Be sure to follow me on Amazon to stay up to date on new releases and don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter here.

Please pop by my website or visit me on social media to stay in touch. I have some really cute pics of my furry ninja on Instagram. And if you like to listen to your books as well, you can find me on Audible as well.

I hope to see you soon!

ALSO BY MARY CALMES

* * *

By Mary Calmes

BREAKING TRADITION

Muscle and Bone

Mist and Marrow

HOUSE OF MAEDOC

His Consort

His Prince

L’ANGE

Old Loyalty, New Love

Fighting Instinct

Chosen Pride

Winter’s Knight

MARSHALS

All Kinds of Tied Down

Fit To Be Tied

Tied Up in Knots

Twisted and Tied

Balanced and Tied

TIMING

Timing

After The Sunset

When The Dust Settles

TORUS INTERCESSION

No Quick Fix

In A Fix

Fix It Up

The Fix Is In

The Bix Fix

THE VAULT

A Day Makes

Late In The Day

WARDERS

His Hearth (Warders #1)

Tooth & Nail (Warders #2)

Heart In Hand (Warders #3)

Sinnerman (Warders #4)

Nexus (Warders #5)

Cherish Your Name (Warders #6)

Trick Of Light (Warders #7)

Again

Any Closer

Just George

More Than Life

Scratch The Surface

Stand In Place

Steamroller

Still

Published by DREAMSPINNER PRESS

www.dreamspinnerpress.com

Acrobat

Floodgates

Frog

The Guardian

Heart of the Race

Ice Around the Edges

Judgment

Just Desserts

Kairos

Lay It Down

Mine

Romanus * Chevalier

The Servant

What Can Be

Where You Lead

You Never Know

CHANGE OF HEART

Change of Heart

Trusted Bond

Honored Vow

Crucible of Fate

Forging the Future

MANGROVE STORIES

Blue Days

Quiet Nights

Sultry Sunset

Easy Evenings

Sleeping ‘til Sunrise

A MATTER OF TIME

A Matter of Time Vol.1

A Matter of Time Vol. 2

Bulletproof

But For You

Parting Shot

Piece of Cake

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

* * *

Mary Calmes believes in romance, happily ever afters, and the faith it takes for her characters to get there. She bleeds coffee, thinks chocolate should be its own food group, and currently lives in Kentucky with a six-pound furry ninja that protects her from baby birds, spiders and the neighbor’s dogs. To stay up to date on her ponderings and pandemonium (as well as the adventures of the ninja) follow her on Twitter Facebook, Instagram and subscribe to her newsletter.

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